41. Livin' lies

Castle had fallen asleep without further thinking, and on waking is distracted by the need to make breakfast and listen to his redheads dissect the previous evening.

“Mr Beckett was fun, Dad. Do you think Detective Beckett would let me see him again?  I didn’t get to ask everything I wanted to.”

“I suppose so.”

“A very charming and cultured man,” Martha declares. “So nice to have someone who appreciates intelligent drama and can discuss it.  That was the most interesting conversation I’ve had in months.  Do try not to upset Katherine again, kiddo.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Castle says dryly. “What does the day hold for you?”

“Don’t try to change the subject.” Castle conceals his horror remarkably well.  “I really enjoyed seeing Katherine again.  You should make this a regular thing.  She and her father were having a simply marvellous time.”

Castle wonders whether his mother is blind, stupid, or had merely had one glass of wine too many. Beckett had not had a simply marvellous time, and her one word reply to his concern didn’t help. Jim might have had a simply marvellous time, and certainly a much better time than his daughter, but Castle’s main concern is Beckett, and he is by no means reassured this morning.

When breakfast is done and cleared away, Castle retreats to his study and taps out a text to Beckett. Coming over. See you in half an hour.  He is quite deliberately not making it a request.  Since he doesn’t phrase it to require or expect an answer, he is not worried when he doesn’t get one.

Beckett’s morning coffee is disturbed by her phone.

“Beckett,” she clips, not caffeinated enough to soften it.

“Katie, it’s me. I forgot to say yesterday, that I spoke to Ed and he thought that it would be an excellent idea if I spoke to your Julia Berowitz.  Now, how do you want to do this?  She doesn’t know me from Adam.”

Beckett pulls her thoughts into order. “I’d better introduce you,” she says decisively.  “Otherwise she won’t have a clue.”

“Okay, when? Today?  No point waiting.  We’ll both go.”  He wants to see Katie with Julia.  Of course, Ed had suggested he have someone with him too, just in case it was all more difficult than he expects.

Beckett stares at the phone. That’s a little more pushy than her dad usually is.  Still, if he’s in, he’s in.  He always used to want to get on and deal with things. No point waiting, he’d said about everything other than fishing. Get it done and have time for other things. She must have learned it from him.

“I’ll call her in a moment, then I’ll call you back.”

“Not yet.” He pauses for a beat.  “Katie, what was really wrong last night?”

“Nothing. I told you, I was tired.”

“Mm. Like you used to be ‘tired’” – she can hear the quotation marks – “whenever we went to see your grandmother?”  Oh, no.  No, no, no.  She is not going there.  “You might really be tired, but I know you and you were putting some of that on to get out.  You did just the same when you were small and something was wrong.  So what’s wrong, Katie?”

“Nothing is wrong, Dad. Stop fussing.  You’re turning into a mother hen.  I was tired and I wasn’t going to spoil the evening by falling asleep in Castle’s coffee.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded,” Jim says mischievously, and on her aggrieved squawk returns to seriousness. “You didn’t want to go in the first place, and you were a little on edge all night.  So if you’ve ‘patched things up’ with Rick, what’s the problem with his place?”

“Dad, there is nothing wrong. You’re imagining things.  Now, do you want me to call Julia or not?”

“Sure I do. And then call me back.”

“Yes, Dad,” Beckett says, in a tone that belongs to her stroppy teenaged self.

She swipes the phone off, annoyed already with the day, then notices Castle’s text and further notices that he’ll be here in about ten minutes. This does not improve her mood one iota.  She wanted peace, quiet and above all solitude to pull herself together and grow up.  She does not need parental interference, medical interference, or pseudo-psychiatric interference.   She had her therapy and she’s done Al-Anon and she has dealt with everything.  She just needs to sort her shit out.  Which does not require Castle, Lanie, her father, or anyone else.  If she wants her father off her back, though, she can best achieve it by calling Julia Berowitz right now.  She dials.

“Julia? It’s Kate Beckett.”

“Hello,” comes miserably down the line.

“Julia,” she dives straight in, “do you remember I said I’d been where you are?”

“Yes,” drips down the phone.

“Well, I’d like to introduce you to my dad,” she blurts out, and doesn’t stop for breath or objection. “I think he could really help you.  Are you free this afternoon?”  And breathe.

“Ye…es,” Julia says. “David should be home too…”  She doesn’t sound entirely convinced of that, to Beckett’s sensitised ears.  On the other hand, O’Leary clearly found him and got him collected.  A rill of relief runs through her.  “Come over about two-thirty.  Will your partner, Castle?” –

“That’s right,” Beckett agrees, and doesn’t argue with the designation –

“come too?”

“I can ask him.” This is turning into a three-ring circus, she thinks acidly, but can’t see a way out. 

“Thank you, Kate. Thank you.” Don’t thank me, Julia.  I’m not doing this because I want to. I’m doing it in the hope you stop clinging to me and just leave me alone.

“See you later.”

She cuts the call and dials her dad.

“ ‘Kay, dad. I spoke to Julia, and we’ll all go see her at half past two.  She wants Castle there as well.  That okay with you?  Let’s meet just outside her building and go in together.”  She gives her dad the address.

“Fine. See you later, Katie.”

“See you, Dad.” She swipes off, ignoring a noise that might have been her dad trying to start a different line of conversation.

She might as well put the kettle on. Castle will no doubt show up any moment, and she needs something to take the edge off the day.  She’s just filled it and switched it on when the door sounds.  She ignores the ridiculous ripple of relief that he’s here.

“Hey, Beckett,” he smiles.

“Hey.”

Castle pushes the door shut without looking at anything other than Beckett and catches her before she has taken another step. “C’mere,” he says, unnecessarily, and wraps her in.  Having caught her, he doesn’t give her time to protest before angling her head and kissing her deeply.

“What was that about?” Beckett huffs.

“Saying hello.” He kisses her again, keeping her tucked in.  “Seeing as I didn’t get a single kiss last night because you sneaked off early despite my amazing cooking skills and five-star hospitality.”  Another kiss.  “And because you want kissed just as much as I want to kiss you.  Win-win.”

“Says who?” she grumps.

“Well… you haven’t shot me, and you were kissing me back, so I guess you do. You can say you don’t want kissed if you want, though.”  There is a considerable absence of any sort of comment, so he kisses her yet again, taking his time, nibbling provocatively on her lip, exploring and possessing until she’s relaxed and responsive.  “There.  That’s better.  All caught up.”

“Huh?”

“You deprived me last night, so you need to make up for it now.”

“No, I don’t think it works like that. Unless you want a harassment suit?”  But she’s smiling at him, and wrinkling her nose, and looks a whole lot happier than five minutes ago.  Still wired up, though.  Hmm.  The slight relaxation is unlikely to last once he embarks on a dissection of last night, but he might as well start on a good note.

“I’d rather have coffee.”

“How’d you know there might be coffee?”

Castle simply gazes down at her pityingly. “Beckett, this is you I’m looking at.  There is always coffee.  The day there isn’t I’m taking you to the ER because you will be almost dead.  Besides which, I heard your kettle go off.”

“Hmph.”

Coffee arrives. Beckett arrives on the couch and Castle’s arm arrives around her before she can do anything he doesn’t want her to do, such as move away. Here we go.

“I rang Julia,” she says, and all his plans are abruptly deferred. There is no point at all precipitating a likely-to-be-shattering argument if there’s going to be a full-on emotional meeting in the very near future.  “She’ll see Dad.  She wants both of us there, too.”

“When?”

“Two thirty.”

Castle smiles lazily down at her, deciding that some relaxed fun is indicated to defuse the Beckett stress-bomb. “That gives us” – he checks his watch – “three hours.  We could have a lot of fun in three hours.  We might even get lunch.  I’m sure we’ll both be hungry.”

“Dim sum.”

“What?”

“Dim sum. For lunch.  RedFarm, on Hudson.  It opens in about half an hour.”

“Too early. And I wouldn’t get a chance to do this.”  He removes her coffee cup, gives up any plans to force the issue of last night until later, and turns to the far more pleasant pastime of turning Beckett into a melting mess of Kat-ness in his lap. 

He starts with the hard, forceful kisses that she likes more every time he provides them, and uses the cover of invading her mouth to bring her closer in where he can slide a hand up under her soft v-neck sweater and find – oohhh – warm skin and not a lot else.  Her skin is so infinitely strokable, and he’s never been able to resist temptation, and since – how did that happen? – it appears that his button-down is not, in fact, buttoned down or indeed up, it would be ungenerous not to do the same.  Her sweater is shortly decorating the cushions, and Beckett’s beautiful body is decorating his, skin sliding against skin, his shirt being slipped from his broad shoulders and her hands gripping as he leaves her mouth and wanders down her neck, past her clavicles, to turn and lay her back and tease her through the pretty, lacy cotton bra. 

If only they didn’t have to go anywhere, Castle thinks, they could spend a delightful afternoon in a combination of leisurely exploration and very satisfying conquest. Still, he can certainly make Beckett turn into a very happily purring Kat.  He loves her firm breasts, so perfectly sized for him to play with, whether with hands or mouth.  Right now, it’s mouth.  He’s got other plans, for which his hands will be required.  Although he is perfectly capable of undoing zips (and indeed buttons) with his teeth, he doesn’t actually like the metallic taste it leaves, though that will swiftly be forgotten in the delicious taste below. 

Anyway, he’s having far too much fun tantalising Beckett-now-just-about-Kat, who is half-purring, half-growling a commentary that seems to include a substantial number of naughty words and who is lax and responsive below him. He teases more, and takes the opportunity to open her jeans and insinuate a questing finger into the damp heat within.   She writhes against him and whimpers a little, trying to bring her own hands down from where they’re clasped around his neck to undo his belt and pants, but he won’t let her.  He doesn’t want this to be fast and hot and over: a quickie before lunch, he wants to take it more slowly and leave her wholly relaxed and eased.  Stood down.  This is so much nicer than having the talk.

He catches her wicked hands and repatriates them to above her head where they can’t interfere with his plan to leave her breathless, then looms up over her and begins to slide her cotton panties back and forth until she’s moving with the friction, murmuring in her ear and telling her what he’s doing, what he’s going to do, how hot and wet and just plain gorgeous she is when she’s like this, how later on he’ll have more time and he’ll touch her and taste her and tease her and take her and all the time his growling, dangerous baritone keeps driving her up, leaving her desperate until his large fingers dip beneath the cotton and delve into the slick heat and tight flesh and rub over the hard knot of nerves and she is not purring but there are definitely claws digging into his hand. He lets go so that he can lean down and take her mouth hard and thrust with his tongue as he does with his fingers and now she’s clawing at his back to drag him down closer, heavy on her and he worries that he’s too heavy but she doesn’t seem to care as she moans once and comes around his hand.

He snuggles her in and wraps around her, turning so she’s atop him and pillowing her head on his shoulder. If they had more time, he’d simply pick her up and carry her – very macho – to her bed and then make love to her all afternoon.  Unfortunately, they don’t.  Still, there’s always later.  If they aren’t in the middle of a blazing row, which is quite likely, especially since he’s still intending to have the talk.  Last night has not removed his conviction that Beckett needs an intervention.  Rather the reverse.

He lies there, holding her close, keeping her warm and softly petting her back in long slow strokes, till she’s humming contentedly, comforted, soothed and relaxed. Sprawled across him, she’s soft and satisfied in almost the way she has only been once before: way back when, almost at the beginning, when she’d been able to be Kat with him because he knew nothing.  She’s still not quite wholly Kat: he still hasn’t seen that soft side of her outside his arms, though he’s sure it must exist simply from the décor of her apartment and the way she has sometimes curved into him: as then, as now, as she will again.

“I’m hungry,” she says prosaically.

“So’m I,” Castle discovers. “Dim sum?”

“Yeah…” Beckett drawls, and wriggles over him to – he thinks – stand up. Then she smiles evilly.  “In a moment.  You seem a little…uncomfortable.  We’ll sort that out first,” she murmurs, slips off the couch on to her knees, and…well, that’s not dim sum she’s eating.   He’s gone in no time at all.  She’s really very good at that.  He just wishes he didn’t have the slight feeling that she’s distracting him.  He doesn’t like that feeling.  He doesn’t like it at all.  It’s too close to the feeling of being second best that he’d had straight after Christmas.

“I want lunch,” Beckett says, smirking evilly as she tugs on her sweater. “Let’s go.”

Castle doesn’t want to go anywhere except to Beckett’s bed, where he can undress her slowly and return the favour with interest, and turn his slight discomfort into something better and more honest.  However, he’ll need to pull himself together so they can have some lunch before seeing Mrs (and maybe Mr?) Berowitz.

RedFarm produces delicious dim sum and a couple of noodle courses of which Beckett steals far more than her fair share. It reminds Castle of her approach to doughnuts.  He’s surprised she hasn’t rapped his fingers with her chopsticks.  However, time to go comes round all too quickly, and as he refuses to let Beckett contribute and pays, she’s already retreated into her precinct persona.

“We’ll meet Dad there,” she says briskly, and leads Castle out of the restaurant.

The Berowitzes’ apartment is perfectly clean, when Julia lets them in. Perfectly clean, with that tinge of lemon cleaner and slightly antiseptic smell that indicates very recent cleaning.  A swift glance at Julia’s hands indicates tiny chips in her nail polish, a slight redness which Beckett recognises as the result of a scrubbing pad.  She mentions none of that to the others, and notes that there is still a sheen of dampness across the kitchen floor.  She would bet that the same sheen is present in the bathroom.  Keeping up appearances, or putting on a brave face, it’s all the same.

“Julia, this is my father, Jim. He…”

“I’m an alcoholic,” Jim says, as if it were an AA meeting. He doesn’t flinch, and his voice is quietly confident.  Julia does flinch.  Reality is not what she’d wanted, clearly, but here it is in her living room.  “I’ve been dry for five years now.”

“Oh.” Julia turns to something that she can deal with.  “Would you all like coffee?”

“Yes please,” comes from all three of them.

“I’ll just get it started. David will be here in a moment.  He…”  Beckett sees the moment she realises that was working late isn’t going to cut it on a Sunday afternoon.  “…didn’t sleep well, so he went out for a walk to clear his head.”

Jim looks at Beckett as Julia disappears into the kitchen, and raises his eyebrows. Beckett shrugs, indicating that it’s up to Jim.  Castle stands up and follows Julia, from where Beckett can hear him offering help and comparing the relative merits of types of coffee and flavours of creamer.  It occurs to both Becketts simultaneously that Castle is applying his particular brand of charm and domesticity to reduce Julia’s tension and nervousness, and when he re-emerges carrying the tray for her and expounding on the excellence of a particular type of Brazilian coffee of which even Beckett has never heard, Julia is much less frightened.

“Julia,” Beckett says softly, “we’ve talked a lot about what’s going on. I’ve tried to help, but I think you need more than I can give.  I don’t know if you’ve gone to any of the groups I suggested yet?”  Castle can see Beckett’s white knuckles pressing down hard on the cushions of the elegantly old-fashioned couch.  Their harshly knotted tension is not reflected in her calm voice.

“I don’t need to. David’s not… that.  He’s just a bit stressed.  He’ll be fine.”

“I used to say that,” Jim points out. “So did Katie here.  It wasn’t true.  Every time I said it I really meant it – at that moment.  But then… then I would need a little help, and then a little more, and then I needed to block out the past.”

“The past?”

“Didn’t Katie say? My wife – her mother – was murdered.”

“She didn’t say. You didn’t tell me that,” Julia accuses, looking for a reason not to listen.

“No,” Beckett says. “I didn’t.”  Something in her voice catches on Julia’s confected annoyance.  Castle throws a quick glance at her, and returns his attention to Julia.  Unobtrusively, his finger sweeps over Beckett’s tight knuckles.  It makes no difference at all.

“It might all be okay now, Julia. But you’ve been calling Katie because you need some support, so you know it isn’t really okay.  When she asked you, you said you would talk to me.  I’ve not done this before” – he smiles nervously – “so I don’t really know what happens now.  Why don’t I tell you about how it was for me?”

Julia nods. Beckett’s fingers bite into the couch.  Castle wishes that Beckett were absolutely not here, because this is going to be hard.  Jim takes a breath, and a mouthful of coffee, and begins.