97. I tried to touch

When Beckett wakes she’s sprawled out across the bed, not across Castle. For a second she thinks she dreamt it, but then there’s a whiffle tickling her neck and a large hand swamping hers and since she doesn’t think there’s been a Bigfoot coming out her closets she guesses that it really is Castle. Still here, still keeping her safe, and still very, very sexy: all tousled and sleepy and… and suddenly very much exuding just fell into bed-ness. Sleepy turns into sleepy-eyed and lazy, predatory smile; the hand over hers has become the hand sliding under her neck, propping him up to gaze down at her; his other hand spreading over her stomach.

“This is nice,” he purrs, and extends his fingers to flirt at the bottom of her ribcage. “I like you all warm and tousled and in bed with me.” His hand slides upward, slowly and intently. Beckett’s hand slides over his flank. “All soft and snuggly” – his head descends – “and right here” – and his mouth meets hers: sure and slow and searchingly seductive. Beckett opens for him and lets him take and explore as he chooses, softly receptive and perfectly content that Castle should take the lead right now.

And so he does. Firm hands skate over her side, glide across her breast, slither back downwards to her hip and then grip and turn her into him, so that she can feel his hard need pressing into her. She curls her leg up around his middle and gasps as he instantly accepts the open invitation, slipping a hand over her ass to cup her and stroke, shifting the light cotton panties she’s still wearing to rub them over slick skin. Her own hands bite into the span of his back to hold him to her.

“Mmmm,” Castle rumbles. “I know what you want.” She can feel him smiling against her lips. “Me. Let’s do some things that you want me to do.”

He unfurls her and pushes her on to her back on the bed, dark hair spilling across the pillows and dark eyes hazy. His mouth explores her jaw, her throat, round to a place by her ear that makes her gasp and wriggle and grip hard; and then he shifts down again and nibbles delicately along each collarbone; morning stubble scraping gently. Beckett reaches for him, and finds her hands replaced around Castle’s neck. “Uh-uh. We don’t have that much time.” Huh? Oh. Work. Ugh. “I got this.” He kisses lower. “I got you.” His mouth closes on her breast and the stubble scrapes and she stops thinking about anything in favour of pulling his head closer. He spends less time than she’d like there, but since the next movement is also downward, with a wicked twirl of tongue to bid farewell to her breasts and hello to her navel, she forgets to complain. Then she forgets everything including her name as he slips her panties away and opens her up and kisses the inner face of her thighs once, twice, and then begins to work her up with firm tongue and wicked fingers and the friction from the stubble and oh Castle more there please there Castle and she’s almost there, so close it would only take a touch and instead he rises over her and then thrusts in fully in one hard movement and his hand flickers between them and she’s gone.

A fortunate three minutes later her alarm goes off. Castle, previously lying peacefully playing with her hair, is electric-shocked into sitting up. Beckett groans, reaches out without looking and slaps it off.

“Why do you have a nuclear attack warning level alarm?”

“It puts me to sleep,” Beckett says flippantly.

“Ow. My ears are ringing.”

“Time to get going,” she says, and struggles out of bed.

“Don’t you like mornings?”

“Ugh.”

“But Beckett, how can you not like mornings? All the promise and potential of a beautiful day” –

“It’s raining.”

“Still, a lovely new day.”

“It’ll still be a lovely new day later. Except I have to go to work, you know, the thing that pays me, so the only promise and potential I’ve got is clapping killers in clink.”

“Have I told you how hot you are when you alliterate? Especially with non-standard terms?”

Beckett smiles. “No, but I’m sure you’ll be thinking about it.” The smile drains from her face. “Work.” She turns to the bathroom.

“I could help you shower,” Castle says with an equal mix of mischief and seductiveness.

“I have a start time,” Beckett points out tartly.

Castle pouts, insincerely.

“You don’t like the optimism of a new day and you don’t like me helping you shower. You fall asleep on me when I come round.” he grumps. “You’ve had your wicked way with me and now you’re casting me aside until you need me to come to your session on Friday. How unkind you are.” He smirks at her back, and awaits a smart reply.

The bathroom door clicks shut in lieu of an answer.

Behind the closed door, Beckett draws a pained breath. Surely Castle had meant that as humorous? He must have done. She stands under the heat of the shower and tries to let it soak the hornet sting of biting truth away. Surely he doesn’t think she’s unkind or ungrateful? Or… or does he? After all, it’s not like she’s been kind to her father, is it? But it’s Castle, who’s been unfailingly supportive. He’s had to put up with everything, including her father. And it’s she who has dragged him into all this mess. He didn’t have to get involved. He certainly doesn’t have to go on Friday, or pull her out if she needs it, or listen to all that history. All it’ll prove is that she’s a screwed up mess. He doesn’t need to see any more of the worst of her, and she’s been unreasonable to ask him to sit through it. Ungrateful, asking him to do ever more to support her. All it’s done is put him in unpleasant situations.

She has an agonising memory of her mother telling her never to be ungrateful, when she’d been complaining about some perceived unfairness. She knows how bruised and furious she is that her father had conned her into doing everything for him, out of guilt; and it’s Castle who triggered this whole change and mess – and he knows it, and likely he feels guilty about that, and now she’s doing just what her father did and she can’t stand it. She deals with the remainder of her morning routine as quickly as she can and exits the bathroom.

“Castle?”

“Mhm?” He takes a step towards her. Beckett steps back. She’ll never be able to give him an out if he touches her. He’s just too much. He means too much. She needs him too much – and that thought pushes her into it.

“Castle… I... You don’t have to come on Friday. I… Just come to the precinct instead.”

“What?”

“It’s not your family. You shouldn’t be involved. It’s not fair to put you through it.”

“What?”

She inadvertently steps back again from the force of his word.

“You shouldn’t be put between me and my Dad. That’s Burke’s job. Not yours. You shouldn’t be dragged into a family fight that’s nothing to do with you.”

“You don’t want me there?”

“I… You’re only going because I pushed you into it and it’s clear you think I’m just leaning on you without giving you anything back. You don’t need to be there. It’s the precinct you want to be in, for inspiration. You don’t have to wait till Friday for that.”

He stands silent, staring at her. Beckett can’t meet his eyes. She had asked too much. Otherwise he’d be arguing.

“Can…” she stops. Castle still hasn’t said a word more. “I have to get to work,” she hurries out. “I can’t be late.”

“No.”

Beckett collects a jacket from the closet, not incidentally hiding her face. She’s doing the right thing. Not Castle’s circus, not his clowns. He’d have done it for her, but he shouldn’t have to and she should never have asked. “Okay,” she says without a hint of her misery escaping. “Will I see you later at the precinct?”

“No.”

“Okay,” she repeats, and makes sure she’s still hiding her face.

“No, I will not be missing on Friday. No, you are not pulling that piece of stupidity on me. I said I’d tell you if I wouldn’t or couldn’t do something and you don’t get to make that decision for me.” Beckett finds herself being hauled out of her space, flipped round, and shaken by Castle’s hard grip on her shoulders. “No, you are not going in there on your own. What do you think I’ll see that I don’t know already? Huh? I know it’s going to be a mess – for you. The only thing I care about is getting you back out of there in one piece and taking you out of Manhattan. You can’t show me anything I don’t know already.” He shakes her shoulders again. “I’m not flattered that you think I can be bullied by you. I can’t. I’m really not happy that you’re hiding again. Stop it. Look at me and tell me you don’t want me there.” She can’t. “See? You do want me there, you just don’t want to ask for it. Or you don’t want me to see it. Well, newsflash, Beckett, I’m going to be there and I’m going to see through whatever happens. Whatever you try.” She finds her shoulders shaken, for a third time, and then her chin is grasped and tipped up and she is ruthlessly kissed and pressed in until she doesn’t know which way is up. “You are not wriggling out of this by making stupid statements.” He crashes down on her mouth again, brooking no resistance.

“Now you have to be at work.” Castle pushes her towards the door with rather more force than she expects.

“But…but…”

“But I’m going to wash up and go home and then I’m going to see you in the precinct later – I’ll have to, because you’ll need to leave me your key to lock up behind me. You can come out to lunch with me, when we are going to discuss this piece of idiocy properly – and if you try to come up with any excuse to wriggle out of lunch that isn’t a verified new corpse I’ll perp-walk you out of the bullpen myself.”

“Uh? Lunch?”

“Yep, lunch. And discussion, before you come up with another dumb idea like this one,” Castle says with considerable irritation.

“Uh?” Beckett finds further words forestalled by the sharp click of the bathroom door in her face. “Key on the nightstand,” she calls through the door. It’s easier than arguing, and doesn’t make her late. She’s cutting it fine as it is.

“Later, Beckett.”

Beckett attains the precinct and her desk at her normal time. The first cup of coffee doesn’t touch the sides. Nor does the second. Nor the third. After the third, she stops. None of it is really dealing with the cold ache in her middle or the worry that she’s truly mis-stepped with Castle. He’d been really annoyed with her, and now he wants to talk. She can’t face another lacerating row fuelled on her own insecurity and misconceptions and issues. She buries her head in the first file she finds and barely raises it to greet Ryan and Espo when they arrive, a short time later. Fortunately, they respect the Keep Off signs.

By late morning Beckett still hasn’t worked out what to say to Castle, and into the bargain she is now too worried and tense to be hungry anyway. She can’t go to the gym because Espo won’t spar with her this week after the damage of last week; and she can’t wreak havoc on a homicide because yet again there are no murders on her rota. In short, she has nothing to focus her thoughts upon, and as a direct result they are roiling around her head.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she says generally, and escapes from the claustrophobic clutch of unproductive thoughts, aiming out of the precinct and over to Tompkins Square Park, where the trees are just beginning to put out leaves and indicate spring is probably here. It’s stopped raining, though the grey sky is pregnant with the possibility of further drizzle and unpleasantness. Spring is sprung, Beckett thinks miserably, but unlike the grass, her hopes are not rising. She plops down on a handy bench, and stares at the green grass, completely unable to put two thoughts together sensibly. Nothing makes sense at all.

After a while, which achieves nothing in the way of conclusions and less in the way of relieving her worry and stress, she gets up and starts to pace through the park. It doesn’t help her thinking, but it keeps her in motion, which has always helped. Till now. She’s stressed by the thought of Friday. She’s stressed by Castle’s infuriated reaction to being given an out from the whole damn mess. She’s stressed by the thought of the weekend, now: she’d intended it to allow her a space to say what she felt, but she’s been rocked by her own failure to deal with a flippant statement that had nevertheless stung hard enough to contain a very unpleasant truth, after Dr Burke had ripped the scabs off her wounds. Suddenly, she just wants to stop: to run far, far away, where there are no people and no problems and no need to deal with anything or anyone. She could, in fact, just go home and pack a bag and leave. Right now. The logistics of leaving roll through her mind. Credit card, passport, washbag, clothes until she could hit a cheap store. Car, or plane ticket? Car. Cash. Disappear without a trace.

But then she wouldn’t have Castle. Who, for some completely inconceivable reason, still seems to want to have her. Maybe she could take him too.

Or maybe not. He, after all, has a family, with whom he has to, and more importantly wants to, stay. That’s where this whole mess began, and ends. Her inability to deal with anyone’s family. Castle’s or her own. Castle doesn’t come without his family, however much she needs and wants and – say it – loves him: if she can’t deal with his family she won’t have him. Then again, if she can’t be grateful for what he does she won’t have him either.

Well, after tomorrow evening she’ll be finally shot of her millstone father and able to move on without caring that he doesn’t care; without trying to make him love her when he hasn’t since the moment her mother was buried. In vino, veritas. All the rest was simply a lie. Actually, who cares if he abused her or not? Why’s she worrying about his exoneration? They’re all right: he did abuse her. If she’s going to get shot of him, it simply doesn’t matter, just like absolutely everyone’s been telling her. So she needn’t bother with it. Anyway. After tomorrow her father won’t be a problem any more. Not her problem, anyway.

She slumps back down on a different bench, heedless that she should have returned to work long since. It’s not as if there’s a new murder, just the endless list of cold cases. She ought to work them: those victims deserve justice too. But for the first time ever she can’t find solace in the thought of doing her job. In fact, she doesn’t want to go back to the bullpen. She doesn’t want to do anything. Her hands fall still between her knees. Shortly, it begins to drizzle. She doesn’t notice, and doesn’t care, and the time passes imperceptibly and inexorably.

Castle had picked up Beckett’s key following a swift clean up, and, still more than somewhat irritated by Beckett’s mistaken assumptions, taken himself home where, he hopes, he can soothe himself into serenity with a hot shower, smooth shave and clean, fresh clothes. He lets himself into his own home, only to be greeted by his mother. This is exactly not what he needs in his irritated state.

“Well, darling?”

“Good morning, Mother.”

Castle attempts to move past her.

“Hang on, kiddo. Where were you last night?”

“Out.”

“Out?” Martha repeats, with heavy disbelief. “Was that another murder that wasn’t on the news?”

“Mother, this is none of your business.   Stop interfering.”

“Ah, so you were with Katherine.”

“Mother…” Castle says, annoyance tinging his tone.

“Now, darling, there’s nothing wrong with spending time with your girlfriend. But I do think you should bring her home occasionally.”

“Mother, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Well, it doesn’t say much for either of you if you won’t even bring her home.”

“Thank you for that extremely flattering comment. Has it occurred to you that insulting Beckett and me isn’t exactly going to encourage me to ask her over?”

“Well, why won’t she come here then? Surely you’ve asked her over already?”

“No,” Castle says baldly.

“What? Richard, have you no manners?”

“I have quite enough manners not to inflict you on Beckett.”

“Richard, that was uncalled for.”

“No, Mother, it was quite justified. Butt out of our business. You were meddling on Sunday and you’re trying to meddle now. Don’t. I’m certainly not asking Beckett over for you to interrogate her.”

“But Richard” –

“Mother, listen very carefully. Don’t do anything at all that interferes in any way between me and Beckett.” He smiles, not at all filially.

“Don’t give me that look. You’re still my child.”

“Right now, I’m your landlord.”

“You wouldn’t,” Martha says, horrified.

“Care to take the chance? You don’t know what’s going on so don’t meddle.”

“There’s an easy answer, kiddo. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Not your business. Just for once, stay out of it.” He glares at his mother. “Now, I’d like to have a shower. Without any of your maternal machinations.” He stalks off, annoyance in every sinew, and only just stops himself slamming the door. His shower, shave and clean, fresh clothes don’t improve his mood one iota, and when he’s ready to leave for the precinct, quite some time later since cold cases continue to bore him stupid, he’s still not calmed down.

When he gets in, he initially thinks Beckett must have stepped out for a moment. He drops his umbrella by her desk and wanders over to exchange compliments with the boys.

“Hey, guys.”

“Castle, what’cha doin’ here?”

“Came to see you all.”

Esposito makes a disbelieving noise. “Yeah, right, bro. That’s why you’re looking at Beckett’s desk. She ain’t here.”

“Huh?”

“Went out” – he looks at his watch – “Huh. Over an hour ago.”

“Thought she’d gone out to get a coffee,” Ryan pipes up. Castle casts a quick scan over the Beckett desk and observes two used mugs and, poking out of the trash can, a familiarly logoed go-cup. She would have been in by eight; it’s now almost noon. Hm. Three cups in three hours – if she went out at eleven, which is what Espo seems to be saying – is very plausible, as is going for a vanilla latte if she’s in need of the flavour hit. That’s normal. Taking an hour about it is not, and she knew that he was coming in to take her for lunch.

“For an hour? Not likely,” Esposito says derisively. “Ten minutes to get a Danish, yeah.”

“Maybe she went to the morgue,” Ryan suggests, very doubtfully.

And maybe she’s avoiding me, Castle thinks. The thought does not please him. “I said I’d buy her lunch,” he actually says. “How could anyone skip out on that?”

Esposito and Ryan look cynically at each other.

“Guess she forgot.”

“Or got a better offer.”

“Movin’ up the scale from writers to movie stars.”

“Yeah. Prob’ly we’ll see a pap shot on page six of her and Keanu Reeves. Hear he’s in town.”

“Ha. Ha,” Castle says flatly. “Where is she?”

“No idea.”

“And that doesn’t worry you? Beckett went out for a short break more than an hour ago and hasn’t come back? Can’t you track her phone or something?”

“What? She’s a grown woman. She’s got a gun. Call her. Don’t you think you’re totally over-reacting?”

Castle finds himself in a very nasty dilemma. He’s let his mouth run away with his worries instead of simply calling Beckett, and now he can’t explain to the boys without explaining considerably more than he wants to about Beckett’s issues and, more importantly, this morning’s… um… exchange, which he feels has triggered a completely disproportionate reaction with which he will nevertheless need to deal. He isn’t dealing with it very well so far.

In the two seconds of thought he’s taken, Esposito is already regarding him with a grim glare that promises pain and suffering.

“Why d’you think we should be worried, Castle?”

Oh, shit.