127. Share a little pain

“Detective Beckett?”

“Yes?”

“Your father is still endeavouring to process what he has heard this evening, both from you and from me. Are you content to wait a little longer for him to return?”

Detective Beckett, still held closely by Mr Castle, nods. Her face is disturbingly still and grey.

“Detective Beckett, your father is not angry, or disappointed, or upset by you. He is having some difficulty coming to terms with your reasons for not telling him the truth earlier. This is understandable and normal. At present, I believe that he simply needs a few moments more.”

Detective Beckett nods again. Dr Burke exits.

“Do you think that’s true?” she asks unhappily. “That he’s” – her mouth twists – “processing?”

Castle doesn’t say anything. He’s been surreptitiously checking his watch, and it’s been nearly a quarter of an hour since Dr Burke called a recess. Sure, they’ve only been here half an hour, but that’s halfway through the session and they haven’t exactly got very far.

“I don’t know,” he says, truthfully. “I don’t think Dr Burke would lie about that.” Castle is not entirely sure that Dr Burke always tells the whole truth, but he’s fairly sure that he wouldn’t outright lie. Unless, of course, he felt it necessary for everyone’s good. Which means that he might lie. Oh God. Surely not?

Beckett nestles further into him, pale and tense, looking, Castle thinks, for warmth and strength that she doesn’t have. She’s shivering slightly.

“It’ll be okay, Beckett,” he says, and hopes beyond all hope that he’s not lying. Surprisingly, she doesn’t argue.

“Maybe if he’s still thinking – at least he’s not walking away,” she says. “But I still don’t know if he lied when he was sober or lied when he was drunk, and it’s not like he can tell me.”

“Don’t worry about that now. Tell him the truth that you saw, back then. That’s all you can do. How he feels is his problem, not yours. You’ve got me now. It’s not him or no-one. It’s not him or me, either. You’re not on your own anymore, whatever happens. Just tell the truth, and then you can move on.”

“Yeah,” she drags out. “I guess.”

“If nothing else cheers you up, think of the chocolate dessert. Good for collywobbles.”

“We’re not back to ridiculous made-up words, are we?”

“I explained, Beckett,” Castle says very patronisingly. “It’s not made up. It’s from England.”

“It’s still a dumb word.”

The squabble is still going on a few seconds later when Dr Burke re-enters.

“Detective Beckett, your father wishes to continue. Do you wish to continue?”

“Yes.” Her voice is uncertain.

Dr Burke brings Mr Beckett back into the treatment room, and carefully observes Detective Beckett as he does so. The first expression to cross her face, as she notices her father’s white, miserable and aged look, is guilt. The second is worry. His next observation is that she has moved away from Mr Castle.

“Detective Beckett,” Dr Burke says, “you had explained to your father your actions and to some extent your emotions, prior to, and shortly after, the funeral. Please continue.”

Detective Beckett swallows, and knots her hands together. “I thought when the funeral was over that it might not be so bad. That you’d be okay – not okay. Grieving, but like normal. I called home because I needed to know that you were there, we were still family, even without Mom. But every time I called you were a little more distant, slurring – and you still wouldn’t talk about her, and every time I wanted to and tried you cried and I couldn’t stand to hear you crying. So I stopped talking about her to you. I still thought we were family, then.”

Detective Beckett swallows, and breathes harshly.

“I got really worried about you. I couldn’t talk about anything I wanted to, and you sounded drunk, so I got a cheap flight and came home to see if you were okay. I wanted us to be okay, so I’d bought you a silly little present – A Guide to Attorney-speak – because before… before it was the sort of thing that would have made you laugh. And then when I came home you were so pleased to see me when I came in that I didn’t even notice that you were absolutely wasted. But it wasn’t me. You thought I was Mom. You were so happy because it was Mom…”

Tears are falling from Detective Beckett’s eyes. Her father is not far behind.

“I wasn’t. I can’t forget how you realised it wasn’t Mom, it was me, and you were so disappointed: you downed the whiskey and you started to cry and you told me to leave because you didn’t want me. You broke my heart, Dad. You broke me. You swore at me when I poured the booze away and put you to bed. In the morning, you didn’t remember any of it. You apologised, and said you didn’t mean to drink so much, and you didn’t remember anything, and you were pleased to see me and I thought it was just a one-time blip and you’d never do it again. But I went and got my hair cut and coloured so that you couldn’t mix us up, so maybe somewhere deep down I already knew it wasn’t just that once. I never tried to talk to you about Mom again. I couldn’t face starting you down that road.”

Detective Beckett reaches blindly for Mr Castle’s hand, which is there to take hers: his thumb rubbing over it. This discussion is, Dr Burke knows, entirely necessary, and some five years overdue. However, the depth of pain in the room is immense. Detective Beckett blows her nose.

“You got worse. So I transferred. I’d loved Stanford, but I couldn’t – thought I couldn’t – watch you drowning. I thought that if I came home then you’d stop it. I thought all you needed was to be reminded that you had a family, because when you were sober you begged me to be there for you. And then I couldn’t face being a lawyer. Too close to what Mom had been, and maybe some of it was that I wanted something more direct, and maybe some was that it would set you off again. I don’t know, now. Everything set you off. It wouldn’t have mattered what I did. It doesn’t matter. Probably I’d never have been happy as a lawyer like I am being a cop. So I changed my life. It didn’t stop you drinking. You weren’t there when I graduated from NYU and you weren’t there when I graduated from the Academy but by then I didn’t expect you to be.” Mr Beckett is weeping too, now. “Everyone else had someone. I didn’t. I was on my own, because my friends had their parents there and I didn’t. And you know what? I was relieved. Relieved you weren’t there, drunk. Because by then I was picking you up and cleaning you up more nights than I wasn’t. Most times, you fought and swore and told me to leave because I wasn’t Mom. But when you sobered up you cried and promised and said I was the only thing you had left and begged me not to go. Even though I’d moved out, I came and got you. I hated that too, but I thought I had to do it because I kept thinking you would stop and I just wanted my Dad back.”

Detective Beckett stops, and mops at her eyes.

“I was relieved that you didn’t come, and then I felt guilty about that because you’d been to everything else… before. Before it all went wrong. But the therapist had said that it was childish to expect you to be there and I should just be grown up about it. So I tried. I really tried. But I never quite managed it. Everyone else has photos with their parents – I took half of them. In my photo there’s just me. I don’t look at it. I don’t like looking at the one you have.”

Mr Castle winces.

“Eventually I couldn’t do it any more. Couldn’t stand going to Central Park Precinct and pretending it wasn’t the same as last time. Couldn’t stand the sergeant pretending it wasn’t another cop even though I was in uniform. Couldn’t stand any of it any more, and finally I worked out that you were never going to stop. I was never enough for you to stop. It didn’t matter what you said when you were sober because you hardly ever were. So I left you to it. I never blocked your number just in case one day you were sober again, but you never were. Every time my phone rang or someone knocked on my door it could have been another cop telling me you were dead. You don’t know what that feels like. I do. You feel terrified and somewhere under that you think maybe this is it, maybe I’ll never need to worry again. It’s sick and horrible but at least then it would be done.”

Dr Burke maintains professional calm. No-one else in the room is calm. Two people are weeping. One is frozen white and clearly exerting excessive control not simply to take Detective Beckett away right now.

“So I walked away and I’ve felt guilty about it ever since. Guilty about not supporting you and guilty about wishing it would all be over and guilty that even when you got dry I couldn’t just forgive you and move on and grow up and get over it. You don’t remember the Christmases you ruined. You don’t remember any of it. You got to start clean and try again and all I got was tainted memories and trying not to resent every last minute of it. I can’t bear Christmas. All those people who have happy families and happy memories. Christmas is all about forgiveness and happiness and you never forgave me for walking away from you but anyway I can’t forgive myself for doing it and I still hate that you made it happen at all.”

Detective Beckett runs out of words and dissolves into hopeless tears. Mr Beckett stares at her, white and old and appalled.

“I can’t… Why did you never tell me, Katie – Kate? You should have told me this long ago. I thought we were fixed. When you came to rehab… it meant everything.”

“That was why I never said. How could I? Because when you got dry I thought I had my Dad back. Family. I thought you loved me and I couldn’t bear it if you started drinking again and what would you have done if I’d said all this? I needed us to be family again and I couldn’t bear if you were disappointed with me.” She breathes, scratching in the silence. “But then you liked Castle’s family better and you said so and I realised it was all wasted. It wasn’t me who did it. You did it all for yourself. I didn’t matter. You found a family who didn’t have the history and hadn’t abandoned you and didn’t have any complications. A family who you didn’t have to hide your feelings from. You never really managed to forgive me for leaving and I didn’t forgive you either. I should just call it quits. I can’t grow up and get over it” –

“Enough,” Dr Burke says firmly. “Detective Beckett, you are already aware that the previous therapist was utterly wrong. You have told your father the truth about how you felt. Now you must let him answer.”

Mr Castle finally moves to place his arm round Detective Beckett. Dr Burke approves of the timing. Detective Beckett needs to know that Mr Castle will let her stand on her own and fight her own battles, but will be there for her when she has finished. She also needs to know that he will support her through adversity without fuss or fanfare. He is murmuring into her ear, too softly for Mr Beckett to hear through his high-stoked emotions. Dr Burke, however, can hear. He has no compunction about listening very closely.

“Stand down, Beckett. Just let him speak now. You said you wanted the truth, so let him tell his. If he’s lying, you’ll know, or Dr Burke will. If he’s not, you need to know. Let’s move this forward. I’ll still be here. I’ll always be here.” Mr Castle’s arm tightens, not quite imperceptibly. “We’ve got this.”

In this short interlude, Mr Beckett has succeeded in drying his eyes, though his face is lined and drained, the corners of his mouth sagging.

“I… I can’t say what would have happened if you’d said all this five years ago. How can I? But whatever might have happened, I wish you had told me then. I could have told you that I never blamed you for walking away. You didn’t abandon me.” He draws in air. “I’d abandoned you long before that for whiskey. It took you going for me to realise it. If you hadn’t, I’d have drunk myself to death anyway. I let you down. I never thought you were wrong to go. You’ve never disappointed me. Never. I never thought you’d come when I got dry. I’d missed so much… but you came and it was as if the lights went back on.”

Detective Beckett is still. The phrase shell-shocked flits into Dr Burke’s mind, and is despatched as unwontedly frivolous. He is no writer.

“But you came,” Mr Beckett repeats. “I couldn’t bear the thought that you might go, because I had the chance to be family again and you had come. You believed in me. I thought you believed in me.”

“I did!” Detective Beckett cries. “That’s why I couldn’t mess it up for you.”

“It wasn’t you who would mess it up, Katie! It was down to me. Only me, never you. No-one but me could control it. You never could, till I fixed myself.”

Detective Beckett is crying, again.

“You have to believe me, Katie: I never thought it was your fault. The only one who could stop me was me. I wish you’d told me” –

“See, you are disappointed in me. I knew that would happen but Dr Burke here said I had to tell the truth and when I thought about it, it seemed worth it but” –

“But no, Katie.” Dr Burke notices that Mr Beckett has, in high emotion, reverted to calling his daughter Katie. “I’m not disappointed in you. But you can’t keep hiding everything that’s wrong in case anything upsets me. That’s life. If I can’t deal with life what’s the point? I get why you did it, but you can’t keep doing it. I can cope, and if I couldn’t that’s not down to you.”

Dr Burke hears an interesting note in Mr Beckett’s voice. It sounds like resolve.

“You need to start living your life for you, not trying to forgive yourself for something you were never to blame for. This all began because I couldn’t stay away from the bottle and that had nothing to do with you. Nothing. I’ve owned up to my mistakes. You need to own up to yours – you should have told me the truth long ago, and I should have spotted what you were doing and made you.” Mr Beckett takes a very deep breath. “I don’t need you to protect me, Katie. I just want us to be a normal family.” Another deep breath. “I don’t want Rick’s family instead of ours. I want to be” – his voice hitches – “friends with them as well.”

“And when you said you didn’t want me, you wanted Mom, and told me to leave?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember saying it, but I guess I did.”

“Over and over,” Detective Beckett says bitterly.

“I don’t know, Katie. I don’t know. If you’d said that to me I’d still be angry now too. Maybe I just hurt so much I wanted everyone around me to hurt too. I don’t know.” He breathes again, and stands up. “I think… I think I should go now.” Mr Beckett’s tired misery becomes apparent. “I wish I’d known. I’d have told you then that it was never your fault.   There’s nothing to forgive you for.” His voice breaks. “Maybe you can forgive me? You’re my daughter. You’re all I have left.”

Mr Beckett leaves precipitately, before Detective Beckett can speak, and Dr Burke perforce must follow, to ensure that he goes to his sponsor.

Left behind, Beckett stares piteously at the space where her father had been. Castle’s arm around her lies unnoticed. Suddenly she turns into his shoulder and burrows in, desperately. She doesn’t say anything.

She continues not to say anything until Dr Burke returns.

“That went as well as could be expected,” Dr Burke says. Detective Beckett regards him with scowling unhappiness, and appears to be about to argue. “You have achieved both of your initial objectives: to tell your father what he said when he was drinking, and to express and thereby acknowledge your own feelings to him. You had wished him to understand that he was not there for you to lean on. You have managed all of these statements without losing your temper or emotions running unmanageably highly. That is not to say that it has not been very difficult for you, or for your father. You have his statements to consider: first among them, I suggest, that you have nothing, in his view, for which to forgive yourself, and that he considers that you have done nothing for which you need forgiven. He must likewise consider yours.”

Dr Burke smiles, studiedly paternally. “I suggest, Detective Beckett, that we do not continue further tonight, and that you likewise do not think over this evening’s session for a short while. You need to relax and refresh yourself before so doing. Remember that forgiveness takes time, and effort. It is not, regardless of the impression given by television or magazines, quick or easy. It is normal, natural and expected to take time to consider the situation. Do not rush to judgement.”

“Excuse me,” Detective Beckett says. She does not appear nauseous. Dr Burke therefore does not enquire.

Dr Burke looks at Mr Castle. Mr Castle looks straight back at him.

“I infer,” Dr Burke says dryly, “that you are intending that Detective Beckett will benefit from some comforting gestures.”

“Do you?” Castle responds equally dryly. “How fortunate that your inferences won’t make a blind bit of difference to my intentions.”

“There is no need to become irritated. We have the same wish: that Detective Beckett is eased and healed.”

Mr Castle initially scowls, fading into a sardonic smile. “With the crucial difference that you’ll never see her again at the end of it.”

“I should be most disappointed if my treatment were not successful. After that, it is for Detective Beckett to decide who, or why, she might see anyone. However, if there were to be a homicide in my vicinity, I should certainly wish that she were in charge of the case.”

It is apparent to Dr Burke that Mr Castle is repressing a strong desire to suggest that he, Dr Burke, is most likely to be the victim of such an event. Before he can act on that desire, Detective Beckett returns.

“Let’s go,” she says. “Good night, Dr Burke.”

“Good night,” Mr Castle follows.

“Good evening. I shall see you, unless you wish otherwise, on Tuesday.”