38. Can't face my life

Afterwards, though, she’s tense again, her relaxation only temporary. When Castle returns from his brief excuse-me she’s curled around a pillow, spine turned to the centre of the bed, eyes shut.   It’s perfectly plain that talking to him is not on her to-do list.  Unfortunately, talking to Beckett is on Castle’s to-do list. Proper talking, not an escalating argument.  At least, that’s the plan.

He decides to wrap himself around her where, even if she doesn’t talk, the changes in her body will provide him with some clue as to her thoughts. Maybe.  “Come here,” he murmurs.  “Lemme hold you.”  She shuffles back a little, and he spoons her gently, but in a carefully judged way which will, if required, allow him to keep her there.  “You’re all tensed up again, and after I spent all that time convincing you to relax.”  His voice has dropped into a velvety purr.  “What’s wrong?  Do I need to massage all the knots out your back?”

“That is not my back, Castle.”

“Ooops,” he says unrepentantly. “My hand must have slipped.  Now, what’s wrong?  Tell me all about it.”

“I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong except you’re stopping me sleeping.”

“Liar,” Castle says. “You’re all tense and knotty.  Like an oak tree.”

“Flattering. Not.”

He digs strong fingers into her back, and works the tense spots. After a little time she starts to hum softly, almost a purr of her own.  “What’s up?  Worried about your dad?”  All the knots instantly retie themselves.  “Yes, then.”  He goes back to untangling them, pressing firmly.  “He’s stronger than you think.”

“How would you know?  You weren’t there, you weren’t picking him out the gutter, you weren’t leaving him behind and listening to his drunken crying.”

“No. But he faced me down.”

“So? I do that all the time.”

“So, your father is pretty tough. I’d back him against my publisher, who eats live grizzlies for breakfast.  He’ll be fine.  I know you’ve spent all this time protecting him from everything you can, but he’s strong.  He doesn’t need as much protection as you want to give him.”  She jerks under his hands, instinctive negation.  “I know how you feel.”

“You don’t.”

“I do. I’m a parent, Beckett.  Don’t you think I wanted to protect Alexis from every bruise or skinned knee, every failure and heartache?  But I couldn’t.  She had to grow and experience and learn for herself.  I’ll be there for her, but I can’t smother her.”  She wrenches herself away from him on the words and is out the bed, the bathroom door locking behind her, before he has even realised she’s moving. 

He has no idea what happened there.

He rolls on to his back and stares into the dark ceiling. They really need to talk, but he has no idea what triggered that disappearance.  So he simply lies quietly, doesn’t try to think, and listens carefully for anything that might indicate what Beckett is doing.  Not that it will make a lot of difference, since she locked the door against him.  He can’t hear anything, either. 

He slips out of the bed, pads soundlessly across the room, puts his ear to the door, and waits, breathing silently. Just as he’s about to give up he detects a small rustle, which might well be a towel pressed to someone’s face.  Good for muffling noises.  (Also good for suffocation, though he hasn’t yet used that piece of knowledge in a book.  It was a little too pettily domestic for Storm.)  After another moment, there’s a slightly more accentuated breath, with a cadence that he identifies as locked-down misery.  Okay then.  He gives it a moment or two more, hears nothing else useful, and then taps on the bathroom door.

“Beckett?” he says, when there’s no answer.

“Go home.” Well, that’s not helpful.  Nor is it a comment to which he’s intending to pay any attention.

“You can’t sleep in a bathroom.”

“Go home.”

“Come out.”

“Go home.”

“Going.” As far as the next room.  He rustles his clothes in a putting-them-on fashion, picks them all up, slips his shoes on, and walks across the floor, out the bedroom, through the apartment and then opens and closes the front door.  Sneaky, and possibly doomed to failure, but it’s got to be worth a try.  Then he drops his clothes out of immediate sight, takes his shoes off very, very quietly and waits in her living room.  After a few seconds the silent air is moved by a sound which is quite definitely misery.  The noise emerges from the bathroom and, by the sounds of rustling bedclothes, sites itself in bed.  He continues to wait.  After much too long the noises drift into the slow soft breaths of near-sleep, at which point Castle silently pads back into the bedroom, notes that Beckett is curled up into a tight, defensive ball barely occupying a third of her bed – and placed nowhere near the slight dent that his weight had left – and slips back into his space to pull her firmly over his chest and tuck her into his arm.

“Stop hiding. Just tell me what’s upsetting you.  Or at least tell me you are upset, rather than running off.”

“I’m upset. Now go home.”

“No. I’m going to cuddle you till you’re not upset any more.”

“I don’t want you to. I want you all to stop trying to fix me and stop trying to make me be who you think I should be and stop pretending any of you have a single fucking clue about living with alcoholics and how you cope with it.”  She heaves in a breath.  “I’ve done my time in therapy.”  It sounds unpleasantly similar in tone and view to I served my sentence.  “I’ve dealt with all of this.  I don’t need to go through it again and I’m not going to discuss it any more.”

Castle – for once – does not lose his temper at Beckett’s stubborn refusal to accept that there is the slightest problem. He wants to.  He wants to pick her up and shake her and then drive her to the nearest therapist and have her committed until she recognises that there is an issue and she does need to deal with it.  He’s sure Lanie would help him. 

Instead, he says placidly, “Okay then. We won’t talk about it.  I’ll still cuddle you, though.  Cuddles are good.  Hugs make everything better.”  Whatever she’s just said, she hasn’t actually tried to move.  If she had, he would have let go.  If she tries now, he’ll let go: not that he’ll like it, but he will.  Besides which, sitting waiting for her to emerge from the bathroom, he’s evolved a plan, which depends on Beckett still being prepared to speak to him at ten a.m. tomorrow morning, or at the very least not having shot him.  So instead he maintains amiability, kisses her hair softly, and drops into sleep still hugging her.

He wakes up far too early for a Saturday morning: the harsh buzz of what must be Beckett’s alarm scraping his ears raw. There’s a muttered curse from the far side of the bed, and the buzz is switched off.  Some time during the night Beckett has detached herself from him and stayed detached.  He’s not impressed.  He’s less impressed when she vacates the bed and occupies the bathroom.  Door locked, again.  He could have improved her shower enormously, given the chance.

Castle is still here. This is not at all helpful.  He’d been far too ready to drop the conversation last night despite all his suggestions about how far he would push it, (and she really does not want to call his bluff about Montgomery knowing) and consequently Beckett is still thoroughly suspicious of his motives for staying over.  Her nice hot shower doesn’t wholly help.  Setting her hair and make-up and general demeanour to Detective-Beckett-normal, however, and then ignoring Castle’s hopefully lecherous leer as she dresses in her assertively tailored shirt and dress pants, does.  Camouflage is not only for the military.

“Bathroom’s there, if you want to wash. Spare toothbrush in the cabinet.  I’ll put coffee on.”  She’s entirely brisk, precinct-normal Beckett.  And why does she have a spare toothbrush?  She shouldn’t need to have a spare toothbrush.

The toothbrush is still in its wrapping. Being a curious soul, he looks at it as he unwraps.  It looks like it was bought about two years ago.  He feels happier immediately, which is entirely ridiculous because he only met Beckett six months ago.  He showers and brushes his teeth, hunts around for a few moments and, slightly guiltily, borrows a handy and very feminine razor (he is not meeting Jim looking like a panhandler) and shaves rather uncomfortably.  He just wishes he didn’t have to get dressed in yesterday’s clothes.  There isn’t quite time to get home and change, and it makes him feel indefinably dirty.

Or maybe that’s just how his plan makes him feel. Soiled, tarnished, and grubby.  But this cannot go on.  It really cannot go on.  He’d rather feel smudged and dirty now than watch Beckett continue as she has been.  He can’t fix her.  Therefore, he needs to push her towards a situation where someone else will help her fix herself.  He’s going to use her guilt about her father to make that happen, and it makes him feel smirched and dishonest, but it’s the only way.

Beckett inhales her first coffee as she does every day, scalding, strong and barely touching the sides as it goes down. She’s refilling her mug as Castle appears, and diverts to fill his too.  Her look as he approaches is her normal professional, civil demeanour.  She’s going to treat this as just another way of dealing with a witness.  As long as she hangs on to that concept, this will pass off perfectly well.  Nothing to worry about.  But the coffee hasn’t eased the sick nervousness in her gut.  She can’t call her dad: that would prove to him that she doesn’t trust him and she absolutely can’t do that.  She sips her coffee and lets it salve – but not cure – her fears: coating herself in the cool shell of command and the confidence she has at work.

Castle is inching closer to her, presumably hoping she either won’t notice or won’t object. She doesn’t know why he bothers sneaking, when he’s so very bad at it.  He’s about as inconspicuous as an elephant, and makes the same amount of noise.  She’s expecting the arm to arrive around her, and is not surprised at all when it does.  She is rather surprised at how comforting it feels.  She’d been rather surprised by how familiar it had felt to wake up next to Castle, too.  Untangling herself had been a necessity, though.  Snuggling in would only have led to trouble.  Trouble, in this case, meaning being late for her dad.

Her dad is quite suspicious enough – and far too busy trying to match-make them as a consequence. When it all goes wrong, he’ll be upset if he thinks he’s contributed to the failure.  He’d made it fairly clear that he thought she should have some fun with Castle, and now he’s trying to make that happen.  More assumptions about who she should be and how she should behave.   And when this all goes wrong, her father will expect her to be upset, no matter how she hides it, then try to shoulder some of a blame that isn’t his, and she’ll be watching to make sure he doesn’t try to drown it: all the time knowing that the blame is hers.

Therefore, she makes no attempt to move closer or snuggle into Castle’s embrace. Instead, she projects calm confidence and nothing more.  She can’t afford not to.  She has to get through this morning by herself.

“More coffee?” she asks. “We’ll need to go soon.”

“No thanks.” He wants to say stop pretending, stop acting, lean on me; because you need something or someone.  Instead he forces himself to stick to neutrality and his plan.  “Any breakfast?”  He looks plaintive.  “Breakfast is a very important meal, Beckett.”

“Dad’ll have something,” she says. “He usually does.”   She gives a social smile.  “He thinks I should eat more.  I’m sure he’ll have catered for you too.”

“Okay,” he pouts. “But it’s very unfair of you not to have any breakfast.”

“Stop pouting, Castle. You’re supposed to be an adult.”

“Nah. Acting like a nine-year old is much more fun.”  Beckett rolls her eyes and sighs.  Castle leers.  “Except in certain circumstances, of course.”  She sighs again.

“Time to go.”

Castle grins happily. “We’ll go in my car.  I get to drive.”

“Huh?”

“Well, I drove you home last night. So my car is here.  So we might as well use it.”  Beckett just knows she’s looking fairly nonplussed.   Castle improves the moment.  “Come on.  Time I did some chauffeuring and paid for the gas.  You always drive.  My turn.”  She opens her mouth to argue and then realises that they really do have to get going.

“Okay.” The stunned look on Castle’s face is almost enough to remove the worry from her gut.  Almost.  Maybe it’s as well he’s driving.  Her concentration is a little shot right now, and it’s not only because of her father.  How did Castle stay all night?  How did she not realise – and why has she taken two cups of coffee and almost an hour to work it out?  Where the hell is her brain?  She needs to pull herself together and get on top of the day, stat.  She can’t afford to make slip-ups with her dad – and what with Castle staying the night (seriously?  How?) there are a whole new set of danger points to be negotiated.

Traffic is light, and they’re pulling up outside her dad’s at the right time. Castle is a remarkably smooth driver, but when she distracts herself by asking about it, he mutters something embarrassed about how it put a constantly-crying baby Alexis to sleep and changes the subject hurriedly to the excellence of the milkshakes at Remy’s.  Beckett has never seen Castle drink or order a milkshake, at Remy’s or anywhere else.  However, she does appreciate the change of subject.  She really does not need to know about parental interactions.  Her worry returns full-force, and by the time they’re knocking on the door she’s close to chewing her fingernails off.  Mentally, of course.  To the uninitiated eye she’s bright and cheerful.

Castle is waiting for disaster to ensue. He just isn’t quite sure what sort of disaster to prepare for, on what sort of scale.  This could be anything from the relatively mild issue of knocking over the milk, through an alien invasion, right up to the ultimate disaster of drinking Beckett’s coffee.  He recognises his frivolity as a cover for his nervousness that Jim has fallen back down his alcoholic rabbit-hole, and – since Beckett hasn’t – knocks on Jim’s door.

Beckett notes with thoroughgoing relief, which she only just manages to hide, that her father is bright, bouncy and stone-cold sober. One problem down.  In fact, he is sporting a very mischievous expression that she last saw over the Christmas dinner table when he informed Beckett that he, her father, ought to meet Castle.  It very belatedly occurs to Beckett that her dad has achieved this on more than one occasion.  Hard upon that thought she wonders if her dad is messing with her deliberately.  Surely not?  Now she’s really losing it.

“Breakfast, Katie?”

“Sure, Dad.”

“Please,” Castle adds. He can feel his stomach shrinking by the second.  Doesn’t Beckett eat?  She must eat.  He ought to pay more attention.  He’s sure he’d notice if she was much thinner, though.  After all, certain areas would be smaller – he had better stop that line of thought in her father’s house.  It’s unlikely to be good for his health.

Jim produces enough breakfast to feed a pride of hungry lions. Castle makes substantial inroads, Jim puts away at least twice what Castle would expect, and Beckett has one waffle with fruit and four more cups of coffee.

“Katie, you should eat more,” Jim says.

Beckett winces. “Dad, it’s lovely but I’ve had all I want.  If I have any more maple syrup I’ll grow leaves.”

“Okay. If you’re finished, then” – he looks at Castle, who unconcernedly acquires another mouthful of bacon, grinning as he swallows – “you can explain this idea that you’ve cooked up.”

“He cooked up.” 

Castle’s grin turns to a seraphic smile.

“You said you wanted me to talk to some woman you collected on a case because her husband is drinking too much.” Castle notes with some amusement that Jim is winding his daughter up, and Beckett hasn’t yet realised it. 

“Yeah…” she drags out.

“You don’t sound too convinced.”

“I… didn’t think you’d want to get involved.”

“Hm.   Why ever not?”  He fixes Beckett with a beady eye.  “I think it might be interesting.”  Her jaw drops.  “My sponsor’s been telling me I ought to do a little more for others.  Part of the program.  This might be a good way to start.  Tell me a bit more.”

Beckett outlines some of the details. Castle observes a series of carefully concealed omissions from the history, starting with lunches with Julia and definitely including going chasing round Manhattan looking for David Berowitz – come to think of which, they haven’t heard from O’Leary about that.  To the best of his knowledge, Beckett hasn’t checked her phone either.  He is definitely not reminding her about it.  She doesn’t need dragged into that and the whole point of being here is that she starts getting dragged out of that.  Oh yeah – he’d told O’Leary not to call Beckett, but Julia.

Jim smiles. Castle’s instincts all go on full alert.  Something’s up here.  He doesn’t know what, but as a sneaky father himself, he’s sure that something is up.  At that point he remembers that he had a plan too.

“Okay,” Jim says. “Let me think about it for a few minutes.  We can talk about something else.  Rick and I can discuss daughters – didn’t you say you had a teen, Rick?  If she’s anything like Katie was, you’ll have your hands full.”  Beckett squawks.

“Alexis is pretty sensible,” Castle says, ignoring Beckett’s disgruntled mutters. “I don’t know quite what I did to deserve that.”

“Good luck,” Jim says with feeling. “You got a picture?”  And now Castle is absolutely sure that something is going on here, because Jim has inadvertently – or is it inadvertent? He looks oddly satisfied – just played into his plan.  He extricates a relatively recent photo which he has on his phone and passes the device over.  “She’s pretty,” Jim says.  “Doesn’t look much like you, except around the eyes.”

“Just as well,” Beckett mutters blackly.

“She hated her hair when she was a pre-teen, but now she’s really proud of it.”

Jim looks at the picture again. “I’ve got some photos of Katie as a child,” he starts.

“Dad!”

“I’d love to see them,” Castle says simultaneously.

Jim looks at Beckett, who appears to Castle to be close to explosion. And then she looks back at her father and pulls it all into herself and simply says, “Fine,” with a cheery smile.

Photos? He still has photos?  She’d thought they had all been… lost.  Her father is bustling around to some purpose, and rapidly produces several albums.  Castle is full of bright-eyed enthusiasm.  She is not.  She doesn’t need reminded how it used to be.  She hardens her shell.  She can get through this.  She wonders what her dad is doing, though.  It’s not like he and Castle are best buddies.  At least he hasn’t been freaked out by the suggestion of talking to Julia Berowitz.

She slips into a detached reverie of her own, not paying any real attention to what’s going on, until the sound of chortling Castle breaks through. “She did?”

“Did what?” she snaps, coming to full attention.

“Walked out of ballet class and refused to go back because the teacher was picking on someone.”

“Dad, how about we leave my past misdeeds out of this? I don’t need them revisited.”

“I didn’t think that was a misdeed, Katie. Your mother was very proud of you.”

Beckett flashes back to that day. Now, she merely wonders if that action hadn’t simply been pre-teen manipulation under the guise of helping someone.  She’d been looking for a way out of ballet in any event.  This way she had been able to claim a principled reason.  Bit like her reasoning for not collecting David Berowitz, really.  Or her reasoning for abandoning her dad.  She curls into herself a little more, and loses herself in her dark thoughts.

“Katie,” her dad is saying. “Wake up.”

“I’m not asleep. Have you finished with the ancient history?”

“Yeah,” bounces Castle, eyes sparkling. “You’re looking really good for your advanced age.”  Beckett growls.

“Rick was very impressed,” her dad says, grinning mischievously. “He’s offered to show me all his photos in return.”

“He’ll need a truck to bring them here, I should think,” Beckett responds absently – and suddenly wakes up. Unfortunately it’s too late.

“Oh no. He invited us over to see them.”

“What?”

“Rick’s invited us over for dinner tonight.”

Beckett glances once at Castle, and then back to her father. Both of them, after a slightly flummoxed expression on Castle’s face, now look oddly and similarly determined that this should happen.  This is clearly the other shoe that didn’t drop last night.  Catch-22.  She can do what she wants to do, which is say No, and then have to explain to her father why; or she can sit it out and try to get through it without giving anything away.  Or, of course, she could shoot both Castle and her father.  The last would solve more problems than it caused, though on the downside she’d have plenty of time to contemplate her problem-free life in Bedford Hills Correctional.  Or maybe she could make it to a non-extradition territory in time.  She could go straight from here to JFK and leave for …Guatemala, say.

“Really?” she says calmly. “How nice.”  She doesn’t notice her father’s sharp glance at her tone, since she’s regarding Castle’s bland expression.  It says more clearly than words ever could Who’s calling whose bluff now, Beckett?