47. Chapter 47

Chapter 47

Martha had assured Castle that she approved of Alexis's new internship, but she was temporarily sworn to secrecy.

Alexis had insisted she was eighteen and could make her own decisions about what she wanted to do, and sign all the appropriate papers to do it; and she had begged both Martha and Lanie to give her a week to tell her father and Kate…if they didn't find out on their own before then, which was likely to happen.

It was late, well after dark, when Castle arrived at the crime scene with Beckett, complaining about things being hidden from them, and then he spotted Alexis in a police jacket with a clipboard, doing Lanie's bidding.

"This is your new internship?" he asked. They talked about it briefly before they both were both needed for their volunteer jobs. It was obvious that Alexis had taken to the work like a duck to water, and he didn't want to remove all that excitement from her eyes, but Richard Castle was not a happy man."

"Who knows, Castle. It may turn out to be a good thing," Kate soothed. "She's already said she understands why you do this now. That said, I can't believe Lanie didn't tell us, either."

"I just don't like that my worlds are colliding. It doesn't bode well."

"How bad could it be?" Kate asked as she looked around the crime scene.

"I don't know. It's just…"

"Don't be so territorial. You'll get used to the idea. I got used to you." She smiled and bumped his shoulder with hers.

"Maybe."

They coordinated with Ryan and Esposito and a few of the officers who were first on scene and went home for the night. The following morning they went to check with a woman whose name came up, and they found her dead. And by the time Lanie and Alexis got there, Castle and Beckett were gone…kidnapped by the CIA and taken to a classified location...and the body of their first victim mysteriously disappeared from the morgue. That set off a series of events triggered by the initial murder…all led by a female CIA agent Castle had shadowed when he was writing his first Derrick Storm book.

After learning about that earlier shadowing situation a piece at a time, being locked in the trunk of a car, having to escape from their car after it was rammed into the Hudson River, being hauled to the CIA site two more times in the midst of all that, and returning to find that their most recent victim's body had been seized by government agents before Lanie could examine it, Katherine Beckett Castle was not a happy woman. Her patience was running on empty, and her jealousy was reaching explosive levels.

The couple argued about the CIA's agent, Sofia Turner, before reaching the morgue to talk to Lanie about what happened, and there was already tension between them. So, when Castle asked how the agency could get a warrant so fast, Beckett snapped back, "Why don't you ask your girlfriend?"

"Girlfriend?" Lanie asked, leveling Castle with a nearly lethal glare.

Castle responded with a lack of patience of his own "Yes. Okay. I slept with her, but it was a long time ago. What's the big deal?"

At that point, there was the clearing of an eighteen year old's throat behind them, and Alexis was there, bringing Lanie what she'd asked for.

Castle and Beckett froze, and Lanie went to accept the paperwork and rubbed a comforting hand on Alexis's arm.

Beckett turned and said stiffly. "I'm sorry, Alexis. There isn't a girlfriend. I'm… I'll be waiting at the car.

"Lanie, unless you need Alexis, we're all going home now," Castle said matter of factly.

"Go," Lanie answered. "All of you get some rest. We all need it after today."

Castle had driven to the precinct to meet Beckett, so there was still a car to get them home from there. The keys in his soggy pockets had reached shore with him when he and Beckett surfaced. The remote might never work again, but the keys did; and Castle unlocked doors for the women to get in. The drive home was absolutely silent, Kate looking out the window and ignoring the others, Castle looking upset and angry, and Alexis alternately looking angry and worried. Not a word was said until the three of them walked into the loft.

Kate broke the silence with nothing more than, "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Dad, who is that woman? You didn't cheat on Kate, did you?"

"I've never cheated on a relationship in my life, and we're not having any more of this conversation. That part of my life isn't your concern."

"It is if it means we lose Kate."

"We're not losing Kate. We've had a rough couple of days, and having to be pulled out of the river didn't help. Right now, I need to be talking to her, not to you. I don't know how long this conversation will take, but I'm not going to waste time getting to it. Go to bed, Alexis. Just do what you're told this time. No questions right now. Understand?"

Castle didn't unequivocally lay down the law very often; but when he did, Alexis accepted it, whether she liked it or not.

"I'm glad you're both okay. You scared me again." She wrapped her arms around his middle, and he held her for a long moment and kissed her forehead. "Get something to eat if you want, but do it right now. Honey, I love you. There are things I can't tell you, and things I won't tell you; but we'll get to whatever is left tomorrow." Alexis pulled away and went upstairs saying she wasn't hungry.

Castle walked through his study, closing the door behind him, and stopped at his bedroom door at the sight of Kate holding a staring match…or from Kate's side, more of a glaring match…with Sophia Turner, who was perched nonchalantly at the end of their bed as if she thought she belonged there.

"Sophia?" he asked in surprise, anger showing as well.

Never taking her eyes off Sophia, Kate asked Castle, "Is Alexis upstairs?"

"Yes."

"Is the study door closed?"

"Yes."

"Get off our bed. Now!" she ordered harshly.

Sophia took her time standing, but she did. Rick still stood at the door.

"You need to leave my home. Don't make me say it twice." Castle told her.

"What are you going to do if I don't, shoot me with the gun I found in your safe?"

"And what else have you illegally tampered with besides my safe? Have you planted bugs, gone through our papers? What else, Sophia? How else do you intend to invade our lives?"

"No bugs. I did check your desk, though. The next Nikki Heat is good. I just came to talk, and I had to entertain myself while I waited."

"I don't think you need to talk to either of us anymore today," Kate told her firmly. "You can send your friends to throw some bags over our heads and kidnap us again at a more acceptable hour tomorrow."

"Rick…" Sofia started with a little flirtation in her tone.

"You heard my wife. You're not welcome, and we're not interested. Go home."

"Listen to me for one minute and I promise you I'll go."

"Fine. I'm timing you," Kate answered, watching the clock on the dresser. "Start."

Although she had ordered them off the case that afternoon, the CIA agent was now asking them to keep working on it, this time spinning it as being for the good of the country and playing on their penchant for digging until they had all the answers.

"Time's up," Kate stated.

"Is that it?" Castle asked.

"That's it."

"We listened. Now leave. That was the agreement. You had your minute."

"This isn't over," she said as she stormed out.

"Sophia," Kate called, walking toward the door before the other woman was out of the study.

"What?" she answered, none too patiently.

"Alexis is already upset, and she has nothing to do with any of this. Leave quietly if you want any hope of our cooperation." Then she pointedly opened the study door, and a glaring Sophia Turner walked through and let herself out the front door…quietly .

Kate watched her leave, and checked the locks on the front door. Then she returned, closed the study door behind her, stalked angrily back to the bedroom, closed that door and let out a low-pitched half growl, half scream the likes of which Castle had never heard from her. "She broke into our home, she was in our room, on our bed, had no apologies… I hate everything about her. I hate everything about you and her. I…"

"Kate, explain to me why you're so upset that I slept with somebody before I even knew you existed. When I was shadowing Sophia, you were still in high school."

"It isn't because you slept with her. You shadowed her. It's because you let me be blindsided with that," she answered angrily. "In all the time you were following me, didn't it ever occur to you to mention you'd done this before…for a year…with another woman you wanted to sleep with? Is there anybody else you should tell me about?"

"No. I've followed several men for short times, but she's the only woman. Kate, Sweetheart…"

The fight was out of her at that point and Castle could see that what was left was hurt and sadness, maybe deep seated disappointment.

"If there's anybody else even vaguely like her, I need you to tell me right now. I know I sound crazy, but she was your muse then, Castle. As much as I've always hated the word, I've loved the feeling; but I didn't know there had been another…muse…someone else…that you had feelings for." She turned away from him and said softly, "I…I thought that belonged to just the two of us, and it doesn't anymore…and it hurts. And it wasn't eased away from me. It was ripped away with no warning. All those times I read the early Derrick Storm books and felt the connection to my mother, that's different now, too. I can't read them with any pleasure because I can't think of Clara Strike again without remembering being blindsided with Sophia. If I'd known beforehand that there was somebody else…somebody who, judging from what I've seen of her, probably hurt you, I could have started out being angry on your behalf…by being behind you all the way. This way I had to see you being happy to see her, remembering your time with her, being willing to jump right into her investigation without even asking me…listening to her talk about it. And, especially at first, I had to wonder what the hell was going on…because you didn't just come right out and explain it to me. You let her do it. I had to pick up little bits of your history with her a piece at a time, and every piece of it cut a little deeper. Instead of being angry on your behalf, I was just angry." She took a deep breath and resignedly admitted, "I feel like I've lost a big part what made us…us. A part I didn't think I'd ever have to share."

He thought she probably didn't want him to touch her as she spoke, and the quavery sound of her voice, as well as the pain he could hear in her explanation was ripping him apart; but when she brought one hand to her face and swiped quickly at her cheeks as if she were trying to hide that she was crying, he couldn't stand it any longer. He moved closer to her and took her in his arms, saying repeatedly, "I'm sorry," interspersed with kisses to her head, her temple, her cheeks; and then he pulled her in close and let her cry, still periodically whispering his mantra. She curled into his embrace, her hands on his chest between them. This was a side of her no one else was allowed to see, and as much they both hurt in that moment, he valued that she still trusted him enough to allow it.

"When we started together at the twelfth, the relationship we had then…Sophia didn't seem like something that would matter. I didn't expect to ever see her again, certainly not to work with her again. I didn't really think about it."

"There are places I go…phrases I hear that always remind me of Royce. Not that I dwell on it, but he flits through my mind. Can you honestly tell me that any time you see the name Clara Strike, any time you saw the preliminary work for the Derrick Storm graphic novels, she didn't cross your mind? I think you had a lot of opportunities to say to me, 'Oh, by the way, there was this woman…' But you didn't. Why?"

"I don't know. Maybe because I knew you wouldn't like it and I had no reason to think she would ever cross our paths. But I never looked at it the way you just framed it. In hindsight, I should have. Not too perceptive of me. I would never have hurt you that way intentionally. If I could go back in time and fix it, I would."

"It can't be fixed. We just have to get past it. But it was a lie, Castle. We promised not to do that anymore. You knew it was something I wouldn't like, so you made a conscious decision to withhold it. That's a lie of omission that made a huge difference in dealing with this."

"I know that now, and I can't tell you how much I wish I hadn't done it. I'm so sorry." He ran his fingers through her hair to cup the back of her head and hold her a little closer, as if he were trying to protect her from the pain she was feeling, the hurt he caused. "Kate, we've had a long, awful day. Can we take a shower and get some sleep? Talk about this in the morning? I know you're exhausted on top of everything else."

She nodded against his chest and looked up at him, finding tears welling in his eyes, too. After wiping away the threatening tears with her thumbs, she kissed his cheek and pulled away from him. "Go ahead. I need to get something to sleep in."

When it became obvious that she wasn't going to join him, Castle sighed deeply and dried off, wrapping a towel around his waist before leaving the bathroom to give his wife the time and space she apparently needed to regroup. She stroked his bare shoulder as she passed him and closed the door, and he was relieved that she was still reaching in his direction.

After they were both in bed, he spooned behind her, feeling the need to hold her and keep her close. As he began to move his hands the way he often did to arouse her, she said, "Not tonight." She turned toward him, resting her head on his chest and one arm across his waist. "But not to punish you. Only because I don't want to make love to you when my whole heart isn't in it. Tonight it's…too distracted, I guess. Just let me hold you?"

"I love you," he said, stroking her back and the arm she had stretched across him.

"I love you, too."

Castle expected that they would both have difficulty sleeping, but it seemed that the combination of physical and emotional exhaustion worked as well as a sleeping pill. They both drifted off to sleep in no time.

xxxxx

When he woke the next morning, Kate's side of the bed was empty, and he could smell coffee. Wondering what responses to expect from his wife and daughter, he went to see how many of them were in the kitchen. Relieved to find only Kate, he wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and nuzzled her neck. "Are we okay?" he asked.

"We're okay. I love you too much for us not to be okay. But I'm still not okay with the whole Sophia situation. That may take a while." She hesitated and said, "Have…" Then she stopped.

"What? That sounded like it was going to be a question. I'll tell you anything you want to know. The whole truth, whether I think you'll like it or not."

"Have…" She stopped again, then just parted with the words. "Have you ever said 'Always' to another woman?"

"Kate," he breathed sorrowfully, finally realizing how much it cost her to find out about Sophia, especially the way it happened. Holding her tighter, he assured her, "Only Mother and Alexis. Mother has said that to me all my life. It was something special between us, and I've said it to Alexis the same way. I almost said it to Meredith once…in the hospital when she was holding Alexis right after she was born. Then Meredith looked up at me; and I think even then, when I still wanted to believe in her, I knew she'd never understand the importance. So, I didn't. You're the only one I've ever thought would…"

She turned and threw her arms around his neck, and the tears were falling again. "That word has been something I treasure. I was so afraid that might not be just ours anymore, either."

"It's ours. Always ours…our family's."

"I'm okay with family."

"He paused to kiss her temple and then said a little more lightly, "But you should know that little Castle baby we might have one day is going to share it, too."

He heard a watery little laugh, and she answered, "Yeah. I could live with that."

He held her and rubbed her back soothingly until she stopped crying, and he was glad that this time it was tears of relief. Once she settled down, he lifted her chin and kissed her softly several times, then the kisses grew in intensity and his arms went around her tightly, holding her as close as he could.

Alexis saw them when she reached the top of the stairs. She waited until they broke from the kiss before she moved down the steps and said, "Well, that looks more promising than last night."

Castle pulled Kate's head to his shoulder and didn't let her go. He could feel the occasional hitch in her breathing that told him she was still recovering from the crying.

"It feels more promising than last night, too," he answered, kissing the top of Kate's head.

"Does it feel that way to you, too, Kate?" Alexis asked, sounding cautious.

"Yeah, it does." Her voice was a bit muffled by Castle's arm and shoulder. "Yesterday took a toll on both of us, in a lot of ways."

"I know you fell in the river somehow. What else happened? I saw how Dad looked at that woman…like nothing good was going to happen. And then you both just got in the SUV and left without a word other than, "We'll be back later."

Castle was back in his not to be questioned, authoritative dad mode. "We can't tell you about the case. It's woven into some other things we're barred from discussing. We're not going to tell you what we argued about because it's between us. What you do get to know is that I didn't tell Kate about something in the past that I should have mentioned to her, and I was wrong to do that. But nobody is leaving anybody. Our marriage is stronger than that."

"Kate?" Alexis asked.

"Marriage needs a lot of give and take, Honey. Before we were together, I did things that hurt your dad; but he didn't give up on me."

"And I did some things that made her afraid to try to trust me in a relationship, but we obviously worked that out."

"We're going to have rough spots now and then, but you don't need to worry about anybody giving up on anybody, or anybody leaving," Kate assured her.

"Okay."

Castle continued his confessions to his daughter. "And you'll find out sooner or later that we didn't just fall into the river. Kate's car was rammed from behind several times, and it's at the bottom of the Hudson, unless they've pulled it up already. We had to get to the surface from there. Lanie agreed to keep that from you when she sent you to bring us dry clothes. We thought you'd been through enough lately and we could let you get through the night without knowing about another close call. You can ask whatever you want, but you may not get all the answers."

"Your car was rammed into the river? With you in it?" Castle nodded. "And you didn't think I needed to know that?"

"I just told you. You didn't have to not know it for long. And we've all barely slept. I don't want to argue about it. Which internship is today?"

"This is the day off, but I'm going to deliver resignation letters to both of them this morning and then come home and sleep. I'm going intern full time with Dr. Parish, and she has the night shift this week."

"If you're going to keep working with Lanie, that's the sensible thing to do."

"Dad, I know I'm sort of getting into your space, but Dr. Parish is a great mentor, and she says she's impressed with how fast I'm learning. And I love it. It's just the right balance between never knowing what you'll find and then going after it analytically, and it's…"

"Fascinating?" He smiled fondly at his daughter over Kate's head. "Pumpkin, if medicine is where you decide you want to go, this is a phenomenal opportunity for you. I guess we may all just have to try to avoid awkward moments from now on."

"You were really trapped in a car in the river?" Castle nodded at his daughter. "Is there room for one more in that hug?" Alexis asked, and Kate and Castle both held out an arm to welcome her.

xxxxx

Their last murder victim told them he'd found a linchpin that would trigger a series of massive, world-changing consequences, and it turned out that Sophia had used Castle and Beckett to get her hands on it. She had framed her partner, Agent Danberg, to deflect from her own machinations, and she intended to kill the writer and the detective after she sent her other rogue agent to set the dominoes falling. After some taunting, she had her gun poised at Castle's head and was about to pull the trigger when Danberg caught up with them and shot her instead.

While Danberg was taking the second rogue agent into custody and arranging for the covert removal of Sophia's body, Kate returned to take Castle to the twelfth, or back home if that was what he wanted. He opted to return to the precinct with her, where he and Beckett went to speak to Captain Gates.

"The other case is closed, Sir," Beckett reported. "I'm sorry we can't be more forthcoming than that, but it was a worthwhile collaboration."

"I can't say I'm happy about being out of the loop while Mr. Castle wasn't, but I do understand. And I'm glad to hear it was successful. They did seem to know that you would be a valuable asset, Detective."

Taking advantage of another opportunity to boost her husband's image, Beckett answered, "Actually, it was Castle they wanted. The two of us work well together, so they pulled me in, too. He had worked with someone early in his career, someone who knew how good an investigator he can be…and knew that the two of us would dig our way into parts of their case. They decided having him on their side would be more productive for them. And we both pulled our weight well. I believe we left a good impression of the NYPD behind us."

As Gates raised eyebrows at that piece of information, Castle pointed out, "But the case took its toll. Beckett should take tomorrow morning off to see her doctor. She lost part of a lung not that long ago, and I don't want to take any chances. We were spirited away before I could convince her to follow the EMTs' suggestions to go once she was recovering from being in the river."

"He makes a good point, Detective Beckett. It looks like they had the two of you working day and night for most of the week. Go home and get some rest, see the doctor in the morning, and I'll look for you tomorrow afternoon. Come to see me then and we'll decide how to handle the paperwork."

"Yes, Sir." She shot Castle a glare as they were leaving the office.

"Glare at me all you want. I'm not the least bit sorry."

When they returned to Beckett's desk, Agent Danberg was waiting. He apologized and briefly told them their new assumptions about Sophia. Then he handed an elated Beckett the keys to her cruiser, saying it should be better than new now.

"Can I interest you in a drink, Agent Danberg? My treat," Castle asked.

"I think we could all use one," he answered. "But I should go and pay your captain my respects before I leave."

"The Old Haunt. Meet you there?"

Beckett jotted down the address for him and picked up her things. "See you there," she said as he left.

As Beckett drove them to the bar in her better than new cruiser, Castle phoned the doctor's office and they squeezed in an appointment for Beckett early the next morning. After a drink and an easy conversation with Agent Danberg, they went home for some well-earned rest.

Once they were home where no one had to worry about driving, Castle chose a good wine and invited Kate for a long, hot soak in the tub, saying he couldn't care less if he smelled like a girl again. He took care of the wine, and she took care of the bath and the bubbles.

They sat in silence for a while, spooned together in the water, sipping their wine and caressing each other's bare skin with fingertips and sharing a chaste kiss now and then. Nothing particularly sexual, just pleasantly sensual and relaxing.

"Do you think she really knew anything about my father?" Castle asked, breaking the silence. "Danberg didn't know anything…or said he didn't."

"I don't know, Castle." She smoothed her hand down his thigh and back up again in sympathy.

"What about the linchpin? Do you think we really saved the word from disaster?"

"Maybe. We'll probably never know, but it looked pretty convincing." She turned to straddle his lap and kiss him. "I think Sofia told a lot of lies. What we can be sure of, though, is that we saved that little girl's life. That's a pretty good feeling."

"Yeah, it is."

"I'll despise her forever. But, for you, I'm sorry she was such a disappointment, especially after you based Clara Strike on her. I know how it feels to find out you've been used and betrayed by somebody you cared for...someone you thought you could trust."

"Clara started out like Sophia, but she ended up more like you, you know," Castle answered. Smart, fierce...kind. There are a lot of things that could have been admired about Sophia then, but before I was halfway through writing the book, I knew that one of them wasn't that she was kind."

"She called us in because she knew how good you are, took all the information we had put together, and then berated you in front of the others. She used you, and she taunted you right up to the end, tried to kill you…and turned out to be a traitor to boot. I thought we were both going to die. It's just now catching up to me how close we came again. This has been a rough year."

He pulled her in for a kiss, his hand splayed across her bare back, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. "Is this you being angry on my behalf?" he asked lovingly.

She leaned forward to rest her head on his shoulder, planted a little kiss on his chest as she snuggled against him, sighed contentedly, and whispered, "Always."