103. Past does have its say

Castle cuddles and delicately soothes Beckett into sitting down next to him, without losing contact with her. She’s shivering: white and chilled; no fire left in her eyes and no strength in her body or hands. She’s laid the whole maggot-ridden rotting mess bare, as she should have been made to do five years ago, and the reaction is already hitting her. He knows that next door, Dr Burke will be trying to calm Jim. That’s not his problem or concern. His sole concern is right here, slow bitter tears on her cheeks, pinched white lips ready to spit out more venomous history. She needs to step back from the brink.

“Come here,” he says softly. “Stand down now. You’ve said your piece. Just stand down with me.” He stops talking, and lets his strength enfold her.

“I didn’t want to say all that. I never lose it like that in interrogation. I meant just to ask the questions and get the answers and prove it and it all went wrong and none of that was relevant at all. I just wanted this all to be over and to walk away.” She stops, and swipes violently at her eyes. “And then it all came out and I never wanted to say any of that because even though he doesn’t care at all I’m still scared to hurt him because he might get drunk again and die and it’ll all be my fault.” She can’t continue. Castle hands her a Kleenex from a handy box and keeps hold, trying to persuade her, wordlessly, to lean on him.

Instead, she leans forward, elbows on her knees, shoulders hunched under his still-encircling arm, so that he has to slide forward to stay touching her; to keep trying to force strength into her.

“Now he knows. Now we’ll never be a family again. He’ll never want to see me,” she sobs, completely contradicting everything she’s said in the last half hour and indeed in the last month. Castle does not say I thought that was what you wanted. Just as he, O’Leary and Dr Burke had thought, when it came to the point that it all broke apart Beckett did too. And now it’s up to Dr Burke and he to pick up the pieces and try to put the broken Becketts – definitely plural Becketts – back together: singularly and collectively. He wonders, idly, uselessly and certainly as a diversion from the appalling mess in the crook of his arm, what the collective noun for Becketts might be. A fight? A torture? Anything but a family.

“He’ll never believe I wanted to forgive him. I did forgive him until he said he didn’t want to be a family and then it all went wrong. He didn’t forgive me for leaving and now he won’t.” She dissolves into incoherent tears again. Castle continues to cuddle her in, bending around her to shield her from the empty room.

“I want to go away,” is all that he can hear.

Dr Burke steers Mr Beckett into another room where his sponsor is waiting. Mr Beckett is quite clearly completely devastated by his daughter’s statements and by the truth that she had withheld from him for all the time he had been sober.

Mr Beckett is persuaded into sitting down, and Dr Burke provides a glass of water and then busies himself making a pot of tea for all concerned. He does not feel that coffee will help. Tea is very soothing, he finds. While he is occupied, Mr Beckett’s sponsor is very gently calming him down, although Mr Beckett is still highly distressed and emotional, with considerable justification.

Dr Burke thinks that, highly emotional as it had been, in fact the session is proceeding very much as predicted. While Detective Beckett had opened with interrogation, as Mr Castle had predicted, she had lost control, feelings had been exposed, and the truth had been revealed. It had been intensely painful, but Dr Burke had not imposed a recess earlier in order that Detective Beckett’s entire position was laid out before calling a temporary halt to allow both Becketts to restore some small equilibrium. By allowing a continuation, Detective Beckett had had no chance to stop and think, nor to close down her outpouring of the past before everything had been uncovered.

On balance, that had not been a bad first part of the session, despite the emotion and raised voices which might leave less experienced practitioners, or non-practitioners, thinking otherwise. However, managing the second part appropriately will be complex. Dr Burke will have to rely on Mr Castle’s protective instincts and will himself need to deal with Mr Beckett before the two protagonists can be allowed to be in the same room. It would be useful to have a short conversation with Mr Castle. Mr Beckett can safely be left with his sponsor. Dr Burke wishes that he need not detach Mr Castle from Detective Beckett, but he has no option.

He knocks tentatively – he has no desire to interrupt if physical consolation is ongoing – and on hearing a rumble peers round the door. Mr Castle looks up, clearly irritated by the interruption: Detective Beckett does not, and indeed would have some difficulty in so doing given that she is completely swamped by Mr Castle’s bulk. It is really most peculiar. Dr Burke has never thought of Detective Beckett as small, and indeed even when Mr Castle had collected her she had not seemed so, but she presently appears unexpectedly delicate.

Dr Burke indicates without words that he wishes Mr Castle to come out of the room. Mr Castle murmurs something inaudible and – Dr Burke is already looking away – drops a soft kiss on Detective Beckett’s hair. He arrives outside the door at some speed and closes it very carefully.

“What is it?” he snaps.

“That went quite well,” Dr Burke opens.

“What?”

“All the truth that should have been told in the past is now on the table. Of course, it has been very painful on both parts, but, unless you are aware of any other issues, there are now no secrets poisoning the relationship between Detective Beckett and her father.”

“No. Hurry up, will you. I want to get back to Beckett before she starts running. Again,” he adds bitterly.

“Yes,” Dr Burke assents. “Mr Beckett should have an opportunity to make his points before Detective Beckett leaves.”

“I said that. But she says she wants to go now.”

“Has she explicitly asked you to take her out of Manhattan?”

“Not quite, if you want to chop logic here.”

“Has Detective Beckett said anything else?”

“Oh, only that she never meant to say all that, and now they’ll never be family.”

“Good. We have a chance to set this on the right footing, Mr Castle.” Dr Burke smiles, a little tiredly. “Please keep Detective Beckett with you. It will take me a little time to calm Mr Beckett. If you feel the need to go out for a short walk with her, that may not be unhelpful. Please try to bring her back, but not at the expense of her becoming upset with you. I expect that I shall need at least a further quarter of an hour, and it will not hurt if you should be a little delayed beyond that.”

Dr Burke returns to Mr Beckett.

Castle returns to his Beckett. She doesn’t appear to have shifted position in the slightest since he went out and came back. He sits back down and hugs her.

“Beckett,” he murmurs, “let’s go for a walk. We can go and come back, and Dr Burke even suggested it. I need a coffee, and you always need coffee, and I think some fresh air would be good.” He surveys her closely. “But you might want to go to the restroom first and tidy up. Your mascara’s run, and you’d hate to go out like that.”

“Run?” She looks pathetically at him. “Run?”

“Yep. Black smudges, here.” He runs a very gentle finger just below her eyes.

“I pay $20 a tube and it’s supposed to be waterproof,” she wails. It would be funny that she’s focusing on the totally trivial, if she weren’t so very upset by everything. It’s just one thing too many for her.

“You can go fix it, and then let’s go get coffee.” He stands up, and pulls her with him, catching her in and holding her tightly against him. “C’mon, Beckett. You’ll feel better with coffee.” He keeps an arm around her and steers her out of the door and towards the restroom. When she reappears, looking less like a raccoon but no less miserable, Castle puts his arm round her shoulders, tucks her in neatly, and takes the shortest possible route to the building exit and the nearest coffee bar.

Fortunately a coffee bar is readily found, this being Manhattan, and equally fortunately the short walk and biting March wind has stung colour into Beckett’s white face, so that it doesn’t look as if she’s about to collapse. Of course that doesn’t mean that she isn’t about to collapse, but anything is an improvement at this point. He installs her in a quiet corner and orders the usual precinct concoctions. Something normal. Something that says Detective Kate Beckett, even if he’d rather say sweetheart. Or my love.

For a while, they simply sit. Castle keeps a warm, undemandingly affectionate arm around Beckett, says nothing, and sips his coffee without any hurry at all. Gradually Beckett eases very slightly under his quietly peaceful contact, and the high tension air around her loosens. When she finally moves very slightly to be closer to him, Castle breathes a soundless sigh of relief and tightens his arm round her. Now that they’re out of Dr Burke’s rooms, some of the claustrophobia and worry which had been plaguing him has dissipated, and in addition Beckett’s shattering outflow of emotion had, as the excessively clever Dr Burke had noted, at least laid everything on the table.

By the time both coffees are finished, Castle is half-propping Beckett up. Catharsis is exhausting, but she’s not done yet: it’s her father’s turn.

“C’mon, Beckett. Time to go.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Nor do I,” Castle says with complete honesty, “but don’t you think you should just get it over with and then we’ll go away and not have it hanging over you?” He squeezes her gently against him. “I’d rather be in the Hamptons right now, with you. Let’s do this, and go. Just us, for the rest of the weekend. I even told Joe to leave me an extra-large bag of marshmallows, for the hot chocolate.”

Beckett leans her head on his shoulder. “I just want to go,” she says, “and never come back here again.”

“One last thing, Beckett. Then we’ll go.”

She stands, reluctantly, but consents to have her hand taken and be led out of the café, too broken on her own pain to argue or protest. Even Castle’s firm arm around her back fails to impart any life into her dead eyes and slumped body.

“Why didn’t she tell me? I thought we’d dealt with everything and now I find that I never knew most of what I did.”

“Jim, your daughter thought she was protecting you. She thought that she had” – Dr Burke’s tone hardens – “grown up and got over it because that is what her earlier therapist told her she had to do. She also wished to ensure that you had no reason to return to alcohol. That decision had several roots: the guilt that she felt, and feels, about walking away from you; a strong inclination to protect, currently funnelled into her work as a detective; and most importantly her desperate need to be loved and forgiven by you.”

“Forgiven? What do I have to forgive?”

“In your mind, nothing. In hers – everything. I do not think you understand just how difficult it was for her to stop enabling you. Just as she is the last memory of your wife for you, you represent the last link with her mother for your daughter.” Dr Burke pauses. “Has your daughter ever mentioned your wife to you, since you became sober?”

Mr Beckett thinks for a long, painful time. “No,” he says eventually. “I don’t remember it. But she wouldn’t look at the family photos, when I showed them to Rick.”

“Why do you now think that is?”

“I… but she could have spoken to me about Johanna.”

“She did not know that. Your commentary when drunk had affected her behaviour to such an extent that she was thoroughly conditioned to avoid that subject. Either you had declared that she should leave because she was not your wife, or mourned, wept, and sought solace in alcohol. Jim, it is absolutely unsurprising that she did not try. Had she been properly treated the first time, she would have been told that she had to disclose the full truth, and we would not be here. However, she was led to believe that her grief was less important than others, and so she has subjugated it for years.”

“But… but she sounded as if she hated me,” Mr Beckett whispers, close to weeping again. “How will she ever believe me? She… I don’t know how to make it better. How do I make it better?”

“Jim,” his sponsor says, “you know how to make it better. Go back to basics. You’ve listened, and it’s really hurt. Now you have to try to make amends. Katie thinks you don’t care about her, and that’s going to take time to cure, but you can start now. You did it before, all the way. You can do it again now. If she didn’t care, she wouldn’t have spilt out all that rage and pain. Start with that.”

Dr Burke stays quiet. Mr Beckett’s sponsor may not be a psychiatrist, but his prescription is accurate. Later, he and the sponsor will have to have a conversation about Mr Beckett receiving more formal counselling, but for now it is sufficient.

“You think she still cares?”

“I do,” Dr Burke says with authority. “She may have tried to hide it from you and from herself, but Mr Castle and I both believe that she does. As you have just been told, if she did not care, she would not have lost control. That is an extremely sound foundation on which to build.”

Mr Beckett sniffs, and blows his nose, and drinks his tea. There is a short space of quiet, in which Mr Beckett slowly recovers some composure, though he is still badly shocked and clearly very unhappy. No-one tries to hurry him. Dr Burke had heard Mr Castle and Detective Beckett go out, and he is quite certain that the elevator bell has not rung to indicate that they have returned. He is not yet worried by that. He has faith in Mr Castle.

Mr Beckett is slowly recovering more colour, though there is a tremor in his hands, and his face is creased and old. In the background, Dr Burke hears the quiet noise of the elevator, and footsteps, and concludes that Mr Castle and Detective Beckett have returned.

“Would you like to begin again?” he asks neutrally. “It is up to you.”

“I have to start somewhere,” Mr Beckett says wearily. “Might as well be now.”

“Allow me to have a short conversation with your daughter first, then,” Dr Burke says. “You have listened to her. She must now listen to you. I will return in a few moments.”

Dr Burke leaves Mr Beckett to his sponsor and, safely outside the closed doors of both rooms, refreshes himself and considers. Mr Beckett had listened and largely not reacted. Detective Beckett might well be considerably less compliant. This would be normal. She is the one who has suffered most, and while it is not wholly Mr Beckett’s fault, that is where it all began.

“Detective Beckett?”

She is sitting close to Mr Castle, who is once again cradling her protectively. Unsurprisingly, she is still pale and tired-looking.   The formidable woman with whom the session had opened is not in evidence.

“Yeah?”

“If you wish to continue, your father is ready to do so. If we are to continue, then I counsel that you should listen to your father without interruption.” She looks ready to protest. “Listening does not imply acceptance. It merely means that he should be able to speak his piece.” Detective Beckett’s hand closes on Mr Castle’s, tightly enough that her knuckles whiten. Mr Castle lays his other hand over it, and, though it must surely hurt, shows nothing.

“Up to you, Beckett,” he says. There is a short silence.

“Okay,” she says resignedly. As Dr Burke goes to fetch Mr Beckett he thinks he hears her say I want to go.

Everyone is sitting down again. Castle has Beckett close to him, a slightly defiant arm around her; Dr Burke is a little removed from the group; Jim is on a chair facing his daughter: tense, and drawn, and terrifyingly fragile. It seems to Castle that none of the main characters know quite where to start, but it’s not his place to interfere.

“Katie” – Jim winces – “Kate” – Castle winces – “I…I don’t know what to say to you. I don’t even know what to call you, now. I’m so sorry. I…” His speech falls into dead air. Beckett hasn’t looked at him since he came in. “Can’t we start again?” he tries hopelessly.

“I don’t know.” Jim looks as if he’s been stabbed. “You’re the one who wanted someone different.” Beckett doesn’t sound accusatory or condemnatory, only exhausted: flat words lying lifelessly between them.

“I don’t know what I said,” Jim says. “I don’t remember any of it. I don’t remember anything once the whisky hit my throat and that’s down to me. I loved her so much,” he says brokenly, “and she was gone, and I couldn’t cope with that. So I drank till I couldn’t remember anything. You were the only reminder. We wanted you so badly and it was so difficult” – Castle draws in breath: he hadn’t realised that Beckett wasn’t an only child through her parents’ choice – “and then you were her all over again and it hurt so much that I didn’t have both of you…” Jim has started to weep. Beckett is, Castle thinks, too exhausted to react. “I couldn’t bear her to be gone. That’s why I clung on to you when I was sober, but then you looked like her and you sounded like her and you behaved like her and it all got too much and I had to forget.”

Castle’s hand hurts. Beckett’s nails are digging in and her grip is vice-like, but there’s no emotion coming off her at all. He’s not actually sure that she’s taking any of this in.

“I don’t know why I would tell you to leave. I don’t remember it. I can’t believe that I did and I don’t know why it happened. You were all I had: the only thing left to love.”

Beckett makes a strangled, agonised sound in her throat.