51. Guys talk girl talk

“So you were pals, you said.” Everest nods.  “Bet you got into a bit of trouble together.  Beckett said you ate the flowers she gave you?”

There’s a snigger. It reverberates through the wood of the table.

“I was gettin’ on her case about her diet. Never saw her eat anything but takeout or burgers.”  He looks dreamy for a moment.  “Those burgers at that Remy’s place she found, though…”  Castle didn’t think that Remy’s served up elephant burgers.  Not that he’s looked.  “She got a bit riled with me.  I bet her twenty that she couldn’t cook a decent meal.”  Remembered embarrassment flicks across his face, making him look like an oversize little boy.  “She suckered me,” he says indignantly.  “She cooked a great meal, and at the end she gave me this bunch of crystallised pink rose petals and dared me to eat them.”

Castle sniggers.

“So I did. But I got my own back.  I made her eat my chili.  My mom’s recipe.  It’s pretty fiery.   Thought her head would fall off.”  He shakes his own head wonderingly.  A small quake rattles the table.  “But she did it, an’ took another twenty off me.  It wasn’t fair.”  The Ross ice-shelf appears, in the protruding persona of his lower lip.  “Mind, she put down a bucket of soda straight after.” 

Castle is entranced by this enormous cop’s relationship with Beckett. Suddenly he sees a side of her that he’s never seen: a little frivolous, a lot humorous.  But surely even then she was dealing with her father? 

“So she was someone you could talk to?”

“Yeah. Now she mostly interrogates, but when she’s listening to you” – Castle thinks about how Beckett had listened to Julia, and to the Godleys – “it’s like you’re the only thing that matters.  But…” he stops, and looks guiltily as if he had been about to say too much.  “She never gossips.  Didn’t say squat about me.  Times were a bit different then: wouldn’t have wanted it goin’ around.” 

The oil tanker turns to a different tack, of considerably less sensitivity but still of much interest.

“So anyways, we did a bit of sparring, when she needed a real work-out – this was mostly before she got paired up with Detective Esposito when he got moved out the 54th – an’ we went out occasionally – did wonders for my street cred, that – but after a while I noticed that I told her a bit about my family, or what I was doin’ for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but she never said anything much.  Still, didn’t matter to me.  Leastways she wasn’t askin’ me to go shopping with her or anything like that.”  He pauses, and rumbles happily.  “I hate shopping.  All those tiny little aisles with fragile little bits and pieces just waitin’ to fall over and break.”

“I think they’re called ordinary size people,” Castle says with a smirk.

“I try to be careful,” O’Leary says faux-aggrievedly.  “ ‘S just without my telescope I can’t see my feet.” 

Castle roars with laughter.

“Beckett’s not much for shopping,” he says when he recovers breath.

“Naw. She might be a bit uptown, but she ain’t much for things.  ‘Cept coats and shoes.  I used to rag on her about the shoes.  Told her she was only getting them so she could reach my shoulder.   She offered to buy me a pair.”

“Can you get high heels in size fifteen?”

“ ‘Parently so. Said she thought I’d look cute in purple sparkles, with a matching vest.”  Castle’s beer exits his mouth via his nose, which he feels is probably not a flattering look.  “I didn’t think so.  So I patted her on the head” –

“You what? You patted her head and lived to tell?  You just get better and better.  You’re heading for legendary.”

“ – and told her I was sure her mom would get her a pair from the dress-up shop if that’s what she liked.” O’Leary’s face droops.  “She went a bit pale, and just walked off to the restroom.  Came back a bit later, said her mom had passed.  Gave her a hug, an’ she never mentioned it again.”

This doesn’t surprise Castle at all. Except the hug, which he would have expected to get O’Leary shot.

“Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun. Did you ever work cases together?”

“For a few months, when we were both uniforms. She made Detective faster than I did – faster than anyone did – and she’d been taken up by the Twelfth before that.  Captain Montgomery took a shine to her, an’ though there was a bit of grumbling about it, everyone who was fair knew she was just that good.  I moved from the Sixth to Central Park.  We still hung around a bit, but it got harder.  An’…” he trails off.

“Mmmm?” Castle pricks up his ears, and very consciously engages his own ability to create the atmosphere where the only thing that matters is the story and the person telling it.

“We pulled in a wino one night, just after I got there. Bit of a mess.  Sergeant Hardon – he was on the desk the first time you came by – booked him, shoved him in a cell, gave him a bucket, the usual.  Couldn’t understand anything he said.  Kept asking for some KT guy, an’ a bucket even though he’d got one, but he was so drunk likely he couldn’t see the bucket he’d been given.  So that didn’t mean nothin’ to anyone.”

The spare description is more evocative than a thesaurus of adjectives would have been. O’Leary’s sunny disposition has clouded over.

“Couple of hours later he got coherent enough to speak clearly. Started asking for Katie.  It didn’t click.  I sorta knew she was Kate, but we ain’t much on first names.  You know we don’t roll that way in the NYPD.  Sergeant got his name, an’ got a number off him.  Wasn’t me who called her, didn’t hear the name.  If it had been, mighta been a bit different.  I’d have recognised the number back then.  Didn’t mean nothing to the Sergeant.”

Castle is pretty sure where this is going, after he’d insisted on shadowing Beckett right into the Central Park Precinct. He doesn’t let on by so much as a twitch of an eyelash that he’s rapidly drawing conclusions.  He’s not smiling any more, either.

“So she came in, an’ like an idiot I called out to her. Thought she’d come in to see me, even though she was in uniform.  She looked round.  She – I thought she was gonna shoot me.  Or herself.  ‘Stead, she turned away.   Only talked to the Sergeant.  Sounded like she knew the drill.  Got him out.  Never looked at me, the whole time, ‘s if I wasn’t there.”  Even now, Castle can see the pain of the memory.  Beckett blocking out anything that might indicate that someone knew about her.  Even O’Leary, who was evidently a pretty close friend.  Then.  “Coupla days later we’d got a drink scheduled, an’” –

“She bailed?”

“Naw. She showed, but she never mentioned it.  Like it never happened.  I tried to work the talk around, but she wasn’t having it.”  Again, totally unsurprising.  “She got a bit busier for a while after that: didn’t see as much of her off duty for a few weeks.  She was shooting for Detective, an’ racking up the hours.”  And blocking out the pain, too, by racking up the hours.  “But he got brought in again, and she came to get him.  I think he’d maybe been brought in a couple of times in between, ‘cause Sergeant Hardon seemed to know her pretty well by then, like he was used to seeing her.  This time I pretended not to notice.  We were still pals, an’ I wasn’t gonna hurt her.  We still went for drinks, and swapped stories, and I still went out with her any time either of us needed a plus-one, you know?”

“Yeah,” Castle says softly, not wanting to break the now-confidential mood.

“And then less than a month after that he was in again. So the Sergeant called her.  She wouldn’t come.  Sergeant Hardon musta tried everything to make her come.  She just… he couldn’t do anything to change her mind.”

The mass of muscle droops miserably.   “I called her, when my shift was done.  She was in a bar down in the East Village.  I went over to join her – she didn’t ask me to, I just went.  Figured that she couldn’t push me out.”

Castle recognises the shape of that long-ago evening. Beckett alone with alcohol…

“She didn’t even try to. I guess she wanted someone to keep the barflies off, ‘cause when I got there a few guys were eyein’ her up.”  This is not at all a surprise: any red-blooded male would be eyeing up a solo Kate Beckett.  “I got the drinks in and she poured them down.  She never said why, but I knew.  So I helped her blot it out.  It was the only thing I could do for her.  When she couldn’t sit up straight I got her home – helps that she’s little” – Castle blinks: he still has some problems with anyone considering Beckett little – “put her to bed” – he scowls: O’Leary may be gay but the only person that isn’t Castle that he wants to know has put Kate Beckett to bed is Jim Beckett.  Twenty five years ago – “an’ stayed on her couch.  Man, that was uncomfortable.”  Castle believes that.  He’d be uncomfortable on Beckett’s couch, at eight inches shorter.  “Called her in sick the next morning, left her a note, Advil and a gallon of water.  She called me later, said thank you.”

Castle thinks that the next bit is going to be bitterly familiar, too.

“Week later, she called me, suggested a bar. Course I went.  I’d half-wondered if I’d ever see her again.  She drank soda all night.  Talked about cases, what she needed to do to make Detective, asked about my cases.  Never mentioned her dad once.  Even then, it already wasn’t like it was.  She didn’t say anythin’, and I didn’t know how to ask.  It wasn’t like she gave me the opening.”  Memory rises in his face, a high tide of hurt.  “We stayed pals.  But she got busy, and made Detective faster ‘n anyone, and got busier.  Didn’t see her as much.  Drifted.  She told me when her dad got dry.  She was really pleased about it.  But she still never talked about any of it.  She met that Fed.  I met Pete.  I made Detective, and she bought me so much beer I nearly drowned in it.  It was just like it used to be.  So I reckoned we were good.  She even came sparring again, especially after she ditched the Fed.”

O’Leary grins mischievously. “I think she was a bit pissed at him.  She beat hell out the bag and tried to beat hell outta me.  If I was him, I wouldn’t come back to Manhattan in a hurry.  Anyways, we were good.  Then she calls up looking for this Berowitz guy, first time in a coupla months I’d heard from her, and you came in with her, and then you stopped her givin’ me the flu, an’ here we are.”

He lifts his bottle in a toast. Castle automatically responds, his busy brain processing this already-familiar story.  Seems like he’s not the only one who has been blocked out.  O’Leary, of course, didn’t want the option he, Castle, had taken.  He supposes he should be glad that Beckett had O’Leary as a friend, because it sure sounds like she’d needed one.  He really shouldn’t be jealous of their history and O’Leary’s close friendship with Beckett at all.  It’s ridiculous and stupid and he’d better get his head out his ass, because eight years ago he was married, for Christ’s sake, and he’s never cheated on anyone; and O’Leary is gay, and in a long-term relationship.  He shakes his idiot ideas out his brain, swigs his beer, and grins widely at the hugely (in so many ways) impressive O’Leary.

“So what other stories have you got?”

“Well, there was this time when I was a uniform we got a report of a wild animal in the Park, terrorising little kids… turned out to be a Newfoundland dog the size of a horse, and by the time we got there all the toddlers were bein’ given rides on its back. Some idiot who couldn’t tell the difference between a dog an’ a bear, so we gave ‘em a scare for wasting our time and told ‘em to visit the zoo till they knew what a real wild animal looked like…”

The rest of the evening passes with O’Leary, who is a man who can turn a tale, keeping Castle in stitches while Castle keeps O’Leary in beer. Castle wavers notably on exit as a result of the beer he has consumed.  O’Leary is approximately as wavery as the mountain he resembles.  They part the best of friends.

“We should do this again,” O’Leary rumbles. “Bring Beckett with you next time.”  He squirms a little, which doesn’t appear to come naturally and could probably cause a small tsunami.  “But…”

“But let’s not tell her that you told me all about how you arrested her?” Because that would go down so well.

“Yeah. Don’t think she’d like that.”

“No. I don’t think she would either.”  Castle returns to the main point.  “But yeah, let’s do it again.  With Beckett.”

“One last thing, Castle.”

“Huh?” That had sounded a touch more ominous than he’d like from a man who has eight inches and likely fifty, sixty pounds of muscle on him.

“She’s still my pal. ‘Kay?”  In other words, Castle, O’Leary will not be a happy giant bunny if Beckett gets hurt.

“Yep.” But since Castle is not a coward and not susceptible to intimidation even when it arrives in oil-tanker sized containers, he doesn’t leave it there.  “But she’s my girlfriend.  ‘Kay?”  In other words, O’Leary, Castle will not be a happy smaller bunny if O’Leary interferes in their sort-of-if-you-squint romance.

Honour is satisfied, and they bump fists and go their separate ways.

Castle consults his phone and finds no missed calls, no messages, and nothing to indicate whether Beckett is okay or not. He ponders over whether to text her for the whole of the cab ride home: neither wanting to appear to push her into talking through what she may well take as unwarranted interference, nor wanting her to think he doesn’t care.  In the end he decides not to.  Anything else would be claustrophobic, or worse, come across as vaguely parental monitoring. Not a good plan.

Beckett hadn’t had to wait for long before seeing the therapist, which was perhaps fortunate. Even in the short period of delay, she could feel the weight of her history burdening her shoulders.   

The session had hurt, even though she’d barely got past the basics. My father is an alcoholic. When?  How long?  Have you had therapy before?  The shrink had taken a history.  It had all been very sympathetic.  Very gentle.  A short introductory session.  He’d been calm, and formal: a little pedantic in his speech.  He hadn’t gone near any sensitive areas.  And even though they hadn’t even begun to start on the real story, it had sent her right back to being that scared nineteen year-old, watching her father collapse and drown in the bottle.  She’d only just held back her tears, but she’s sure the therapist, Dr Burke, had seen the strain.  A half-hour later, the whole dreadful timeline established, she re-emerges and returns home as quickly as is possible.  That… had not been fun.  And she will have to do it all again, twice weekly for now, till she’s fixed.  It’s not the way she’d planned to spend this Friday night, that’s for sure.

Only you can save yourself.  But why does it have to hurt so?

She preserves her countenance until she’s inside her door, and then, white and exhausted, stands under the hottest shower she can bear until she thinks that she might finally be warm again. She can’t be bothered to eat, or watch TV.  She’s utterly drained.  She huddles into her bed with an undemanding book, her thick towelling robe swathed around her shoulders but still not keeping her wholly warm, and is obscurely comforted by the faint remaining scent of Castle’s cologne on the pillows. 

When she tries to sleep, it’s with the most clearly scented pillow under her cheek, and another clutched in her grasp. It’s not precisely effective, but it’s more comforting than anything else she might do.  She hadn’t even said anything… difficult.  Hadn’t been asked anything difficult.  And therefore it is utterly ridiculous that she’s still on the verge of tears three hours later and chilled to her core despite the scalding shower, thick robe, and thick comforter.  She can’t bear to see anyone, or talk to anyone: not even Castle.  She’s glad that she hadn’t mentioned this, because the thought of having to explain or talk or do anything, even sit with him and be hugged, is one thing too many in her overstressed state.  She can’t even cope with that non-burden, let alone any hint of a silent expectation that she might talk. 

She packs the pillows more closely around her and finally finds a fractured, unrefreshing sleep from which she wakes too early, pursued by the nightmare vision of her father perching parasitically on her shoulder, hearing every word of her therapy sessions, swigging from a bottle as he does.

It takes another scalding shower to chase that horror away, and all the way through her morning routine she has the uncomfortable, nagging sense that she ought to call her father. She doesn’t want to.  But… it would reassure him.  She could tell him that Castle came to dinner, which would make him happy.

She tries not to think the phrase keep him off my back.

Beckett can’t call her father at this hour. Far too early.  She’ll simply go to work, collect some nice coffee and a pastry on the way, and get started on the day.  Especially as Esposito’s insisting on a gym workout at lunchtime.  Actually, that’s likely not such a bad idea.  Punch her frustrations and tension out on the bag, and then do a bruising round or three of sparring with Espo, where she won’t need to hold back.  Violence may not be the answer to most things, but it’s looking like a damn good answer to her stress.

As she leaves her building, Beckett notices that the sidewalks are largely clear of any snow. It occurs to her that she could start running again, without risking breaking a leg.  That would help, too.  That would help a lot.  She chides herself mildly for failing to realise yesterday about the improvement in the weather, and then thinks with less mild chiding that she could have soothed herself somewhat by indulging in an hour’s worth of complex yoga forms last night, followed by a hot bath containing relaxing lotions and potions. 

Right. That’s her plan for tonight.  Running or yoga, followed by a lovely long, hot bath.  She nods firmly and strides to her cruiser.  Shortly, she is at the precinct with coffee and pastry in hand.

Straighten up and fly right, Kate. You can get through this, too.  And she doesn’t mean the cold case file that she’s pulling towards her in the grey early light skulking through the grimy bullpen windows.  She can get through this.  She can, and she need never, ever, mention it to her father ever at all.  Never, ever mention any of it.  She buries her head in the file and buries her nightmares under the case.