146. A word in your ear

Beckett doesn’t say anything, again. The kettle boils. Suddenly she buries her face in Castle’s shoulder.   He can see and feel the small shudders that ought to indicate tears but, from the lack of dampness, don’t. It becomes borne upon him that Beckett had been expecting, or more likely desperately hoping for, something much more profound to happen this morning than a socially brittle non-conversation. He rests against the counter and cossets her in: petting her back softly.

“I thought it would be easier,” she mutters. “I thought we’d be able to… I’d be able to talk to him. I couldn’t. I couldn’t say anything.” She drags in air. “I thought it would make things better but it didn’t make anything better at all.” Pause. “I knew it wasn’t going right. I just kept hurting him.” Her voice drops away, almost to nothing. “Maybe I should just call it quits.”

“Don’t do that. Just… don’t, okay. Just because it wasn’t a movie moment doesn’t mean it was a failure. Didn’t Dr Burke tell you it took time?” Castle pulls her face out of his shoulder and forces her to look him in the eye. “This isn’t a movie or an episode of Frasier. It takes time. There aren’t Hallmark moments, just little steps. Stop trying to hurry it.”

“Like you know so much about it?” Beckett says acidly. Castle merely looks at her. She drops her eyes.

“I might not like Dr Burke, but I listen to him.” He sets her back from him, hands on her shoulders, thumbs pushing her chin up so that she has to look at him. Her whole body is radiating miserable disappointment. “He keeps saying that it takes time. You want it all to be right straight away, because you never, ever let anything stop you. You go full speed at everything and that’s fine when you’re solving murders – and it’s very fine when it’s me – but it won’t work here.”

“I need it to work.” Beckett is slumped and unhappy as he continues to hold her a little away from him. “I need it to be right.”

“So do it right,” Castle says, exasperated. “Stop trying to force it. You can’t force feelings. Take the time you need. So it was uncomfortable today. He hit sore spots and you tried to cover it up and it hurt him too. Neither of you were happy. But Beckett, the first time at Dr Burke’s it was a total car crash. This time you didn’t even need a mediator.”

He pulls her back to tuck against him once more.

“I wanted it to go well,” she whispers, tears lurking behind her voice, “and then it didn’t and I couldn’t fix it.”

Castle simply holds her close in his embrace. He’s sure there’s more to this than simply I thought it would work out, but he’s not sure that Beckett knows what that more might be. After Dr Burke’s commentary on the timing of brilliant insights, he’s also not particularly keen on speculating aloud, lest it ruin some master plan about which he is, courtesy of Dr Burke, unaware. With considerable acerbity, he makes a mental note to contact Dr Burke in the morning. This is all tied up with the Academy and not wanting to think about that period and then not wanting to talk about it and then not letting Jim know anything. Well, Dr Burke can just put his brilliant brain to use. Castle will simply do what only he can do, and take care of his Beckett.

He flicks the kettle back on, and turns them round so that Beckett’s caught between his big body and the counter, and he can reach mugs, French press, and coffee without letting her go. It’s a little awkward, making coffee around unmoving Beckett, but he’s managing.

The French press filled, Castle realises that he has to move. However, being blessed with only two hands, he cannot move himself, Beckett and the coffee all at once. “C’mon, Beckett. Coffee,” he entices. She doesn’t move. Castle decides that moving Beckett first is the best option, and therefore walks her over to the couch without brooking any resistance, sits her down on it nestled into a corner which will hold her up, and when he returns with the coffee she hasn’t moved an inch.

He snuggles her in, which doesn’t improve anything about her but makes him happier, pours both mugs of coffee and pushes one under her nose. She inhales, wrinkles her nose and – what? He needs to call 911. She’s not taken the cup.

“Beckett? Beckett, it’s coffee.”

She turns back into his shoulder, ignoring the coffee, and presses right in. Castle curls his arm much more tightly around her, only laments his coffee briefly, and then swings her legs up and her into his lap and ignores the small noises that mean that shortly there are very likely to be mascara smudges on his previously clean shirt. (unless she’s wearing a waterproof formula. She’d said she did, but it hadn’t been very waterproof previously.) She needs to be tucked in and snuggled close and held tight and he’ll just drop little kisses on her head and – oh, perfect – he can reach his coffee too.

It takes him most of the coffee cup, and many nuzzles into her hair, to realise that she’s asleep. Sleeping, the pale skin is branded by the dark circles divided by her black lashes. Castle concludes that she didn’t sleep much last night, drains his coffee, sighs, picks her up, and takes her through to her bedroom to tuck her into bed, still fully clothed.

He goes back into the main room, scribbles a note which he then leaves firmly anchored to her nightstand, and quietly leaves. The note awaits Beckett when she rouses. Call me when you’re awake. Love, C. He had thought very hard about staying, but he is entirely unsure that he can avoid saying or doing anything precipitative if he does. He thought very hard about the extra word in the signoff, too. But he does, and he wants to say it. Write it.

“Hi, Dad,” Alexis chirps, looking as if she’s about to go out. “Everything okay?”

“Yes. It’s all fine. Where’s Grams?”

“Oh, she went out.”

Good, Castle thinks. “Okay.”

“I’m going to a movie with Loretta.”

“Okay, but be back for dinner, yeah?”

“Sure, Dad. See you later.”

Alexis bounces off. Castle gets himself a cold drink and wanders into his study to think. Mostly what he’s thinking is that he needs to call Jim, but that is emphatically not a fun thought. Unfortunately, it’s the one that’s nagging at his conscience. He’d cut Jim off pretty hard with no explanation, and that’s not the way to get on with your girlfriend’s father. He puts it off for a few more minutes, until he really can’t stand his own procrastinating any more.

“Jim? It’s Rick Castle.”

“Rick? Is Katie okay?”

“Yes,” Castle says – which he would have said even if she’d not been fine. “She’s fine. I – er – wanted to talk to you about shutting you down about seeing my family. I’m sorry about that, but I didn’t have much time to explain before Beckett got back.”

“Mm?” Jim says, not sounding particularly happy or receptive. “Don’t you think I know how to deal with my daughter?” The strong implication is I know best. “I don’t need you to tell me.”

“Don’t you?” Castle asks, already annoyed. Jim hasn’t exactly managed it well since Castle’s met him. “Because if you don’t why were you forcing her into a corner? That was never going to end well. I thought you wanted this fixed?”

“I do. More than you do. Just because you’re dating her doesn’t give you any rights.”

“That’s up to her. Not you. I’m not having that fight with you because it’s not your fight to have. Now do you want to know what was going on or are you going to keep trying to butt heads over something that isn’t your call?”

“I just want to look after her,” Jim says, after a significant and rather hostile pause. “She’s still my daughter and whatever you think about it I’m the one who brought her up.” Castle very badly wants to say and you’re also the one who screwed her up, so shut up and listen to me. He doesn’t. Just. He’ll add this to the list of matters to discuss with Dr Burke, though. He really does not need a fight with Jim.

“Look, Beckett invited you to brunch to try to start patching things up, okay? But you didn’t know that asking her about the Academy would hit a sore spot, and after that you were going to try to force her to meet my family again. She’d have said no, and more importantly she’d have been even less keen to patch things up than she was a month ago because she’d think you weren’t getting where she’s at. Which you aren’t,” Castle adds irritatedly, “because you don’t know the half of it.”

“And you do?” Jim says, equally irked.

“Seeing as it’s me she’s actually talking to every time it’s too much, yeah, sure I do. I didn’t see much talking this morning, and I’m trying to help that. Not that you seem to want helped.”

There is another significant, and only marginally less hostile, pause. As previously, Castle pushing back very hard has stopped Jim’s aggressively parental stance in its verbal tracks. Shame it doesn’t seem to have stopped the mental tracks. It belatedly occurs to Castle that Jim is at least as unkeen as Beckett on being reminded of his, Jim’s, failures; and every time that Castle stands up for Beckett it’s hurting Jim. Jim, in fact, is not only suffering his little girl being all grown up, he’s being reminded every minute that he missed it all and, since Jim is not stupid, he’s realising that he’s missed his chance to be Beckett’s dad; that he’s not going to be the one she turns to. It’s another shock to an already over-shocked system. Even so, Castle isn’t really inclined to soften the blow. He is not prepared to be treated like an over-sexed, callow high-school senior, when he isn’t.

“I could really get to dislike you, Rick,” Jim eventually grits out. “But whatever you’re about to say, I guess I need to hear.”

“I was at the Academy with Be-Kate when she needed to interview the instructor about the guy they were using for training. They’ve got an awards cabinet there. Must go back to the day they built the place. You name it, she’s won it. She graduated top by miles.”

“Really?” There is a very so-what’s that got to do with this conversation? flavour to the word. “Top?” But that’s pure parental pride.

“Yeah. And she hustled me past it so I wouldn’t see. She doesn’t have a photo of the passing-out ceremony anywhere. She’s never mentioned any of it. Everything I know about her career someone else told me. I don’t know how you got your photo of her?” –

“She gave me it after I’d been dry a year or so.”

Castle suddenly suspects that the photo Jim has might be the only one in existence. Beckett’s wording had been rather ambiguous about which graduation photo she didn’t look at. She certainly doesn’t have either on display at hers.

“ – okay, well, anyway. She has never, ever mentioned anything about the Academy or her career to me. She won’t go back there and talk to the classes, though they want her to. She just doesn’t want to think about anything that coincides with the five years before you got dry. And now you want to hear about it. You want to know how successful she was, but all she thinks is that she failed you by walking away – and I know what you’re trying to say,” he says over Jim, “that she didn’t. But she doesn’t believe that.”

“But… but… So you say.” Translation: I don’t believe you, Rick.

“She doesn’t. And trying to make her won’t help. Trying to push her faster than she’ll go won’t work. She’ll stop dead and none of Dr Burke, you or me will be able to make it change, because she won’t listen. She’s asked you – you – to do something for her, and she really struggled to ask you anything because” – he stops, one word too late.

“Because I let her down so many times?” Jim bites. “Who d’you think you are saying that?”

“Because she’s spent five years protecting you from every breath of wind and keeping you away from anything to do with her that might upset you!” Castle snaps back, infuriated. “She never wanted to ask you to talk to Julia because she thought it would upset you. She forced herself to ask you to talk to my interfering mother because she hoped it would help fix it, but she didn’t want to because she thought it would be too much. She doesn’t want to hear it again because every time you tell it, it rips her apart to remember that she walked away. And you were about to tell her that you’d only do it if she were there, weren’t you? You were going to insist she sat through it even though you know how she was with Julia. So I stopped you, and now you’re getting pissed at me because I stopped it becoming a complete disaster and the pair of you yelling at each other again?”

He stops, and brings his rising voice under control. “I really don’t know why I’m bothering trying to stop you screwing it up. You think you know what you’re doing, so go right ahead and do it your way. You’re so hung up on treating me like I’m her first ever boyfriend that you’re not listening. Well, it’s up to Beckett who she wants to date. But I’ve had enough of trying to help you when it’s pretty obvious that you have a problem with me. I’ve got enough to deal with thanks to my own mother. So make your own mistakes. I’m out.”

Castle swipes the phone off in a fine temper and ignores it (after checking that it isn’t his Beckett) when it starts to ring again. He’s fed up of mediating and he is totally sick of Jim picking a fight with him. He doesn’t owe Jim anything at all and he’s got enough to deal with at home. Jim can just stew. He’s done with trying to fix it for Jim. Jim can fix it for himself.

Castle’s bad temper carries him through the next two hours, three ignored calls from Jim, another soda and two full chapters of anger fuelled and excellent writing. About that point, he realises that he hasn’t heard from Beckett, either, which does not improve his mood one whit. If she’s still sleeping, then she’s been upset and not sleeping and she should have said to him. If she’s not and she hasn’t rung then that’s just not on. He goes back to anger fuelled writing and is halfway down the next chapter when his phone rings again. This time it’s his Beckett, which stops his bad temper cold.

“Hey, Castle.”

Beckett had woken, considerably confused by being fully dressed and in bed. Castle’s note doesn’t make anything clearer. Call when she’s awake? What happened? She pulls her scattered thoughts together, peels her eyes open and works out that her disturbed night had caught up with her. Oh. This is moderately pathetic. Right. Pull yourself together, Kate.

She goes to take a shower and change. Sleeping in clothes is not a good idea, and the skirt will need dry cleaned. Once she’s done that, she calls Castle.

“Beckett. You’re awake.”

“Yep. Just woke up. Thanks for the note. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

“Always happy for you to sleep with me,” Castle purrs.

“Narcophilia?” Beckett snarks.

“It’s so hot that you know that. But actually I prefer you awake and participating.”

Beckett is very glad that this is not a video call. She can feel the heat in her cheeks. She also prefers to be awake to participate.

“You wanted me to call when I woke up?”

“Yeah. You… well, you were a bit upset and I just wanted to know that you were okay.”

“Thanks,” Beckett says, with considerable feeling. “I think I need to work through this morning. Think over what you said. Maybe I’ll go for a run. That usually helps.”

“I could come back?”

“It’s three o’clock already. Won’t you have to turn round and go home again?”

“Oh. Yeah. Didn’t realise what time it was.”

Beckett hears a hint of constraint in Castle’s voice.

“Is something wrong?” she asks curiously.

“I was writing.”

“Okay, and?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something you aren’t telling me. Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Mm,” Beckett says, sceptically, and then, “okay. See you in the precinct, unless a body drops?”

“Sure. Till tomorrow, Beckett.”

“See you.”

Beckett is convinced something is wrong, but can’t think what. If it’s his family, he’ll get round to talking about it when he’s ready. Not interrogating had been the right decision last time, and it’ll be right this time. To assuage her burning curiosity, she goes out for her run, which leaves her more relaxed, very sweaty, and some way soothed. With her muscles stretched, she can see that maybe expecting it all to go right straight away was far too much. It’s just that she’d hoped, child-like, that it would be enough: that overcoming her resentment to try to do something nice, normal and usual would break the mould of careful, brittle conversation about nothing important at all.

But it hadn’t been enough, just like she hadn’t been enough, just like she isn’t enough. She hasn’t been enough for her father for ten years.

She’s enough for Castle, though. She clings to that thought. She’s always enough for Castle. He’s enough for her too, and he’s why she started doing this, and why she’s still doing it, and why she will do it right. If she can’t manage her father after she’s really thought and therapized (is that a word? she wonders) and tried, then he’ll be okay with that. More importantly, she’ll be okay with that.

Sometimes, there are no good options. All you can do is make the best of the options you’ve got. So she’ll try.