154. Find a thread to pull

“Let’s go, Beckett,” Castle bounces.

“Wait a moment.” She turns to her father. “Will you call Martha and Alexis tonight? Please?”

Castle can hear the slight air of desperation and hope behind her normal tones. He just hopes that Jim can too.

“Sure,” Jim says. “But… are you sure you want this?”

“I just want it all fixed. If this helps, great. If not, no loss.”

Castle doesn’t say anything. He really doesn’t want to bring up the ultimatum to his mother which he is worried that he will have to issue. It’s not something Jim needs to know about. Simplify. Simplify. Keep all the various issues separate. Especially, keep his mommy issues and her daddy issues separate. Conveniently, Jim leaves, apparently perfectly satisfied with his Katie needing his help.

“Can we go now?” he bounces. “I wanna get going. You promised to teach me” – he pauses wickedly – “about cooking. C’mon.” He takes her wrist and tows her to the elevator, rather faster than Beckett’s feet want to go, so that she stumbles and gives him the perfect excuse to wrap his arm around her waist. She growls. Castle smirks, and tightens his arm so that she’s firmly tucked against him. “There. That’s better. Right where you should be.” There is another growl. Castle is not convinced by it, and holds on, all the way down, and all the way to the car – his car – and until he lets go of Beckett so that she can get into the car. A few moments later they’re progressing towards the Midtown Tunnel.

“When do you think we should have this dinner?” Beckett says, out of the blue.

“Soon? Stop it hanging over us?”

“Mm.”

“I thought you wanted to hear how this weekend went?”

“You mean we won’t simply see the mushroom cloud?”

“Which one?”

“Good point.”

There is a worried pause.

“I did prime Alexis to try to keep things on topic.”

“Mm.”

Another worried pause. This one develops into a more prolonged and very thoughtful silence, which lasts some way into the Expressway.

“Er-um,” Beckett emits, “um, er, um.”

“Not very informative, Beckett. Words?”

“If Dad won’t back off could you make sure your mother wasn’t there and we could have dinner with Alexis at yours?” Beckett blurts out in one run-on breath.

Castle nearly swerves the car. “Urg?” he says, barely recovering. “What? Already? It’s barely a week since you said you couldn’t do it.”

“I don’t know if I can.” There is a long, tense pause. “But I have to keep trying. There’s so many different threads here, and if one isn’t working I need to pull another. I can’t stop trying. If I do I might never get started again.” She sniffs. “I just want not to have to. Everything just leads to another problem. I try to deal with Dad and he starts pushing and fighting with you. Your mother wants to push out my mom like she thinks that’ll fix things but she’s not helping. Dr Burke’s just a world-class pain in the ass. And I’m still so freaking jealous that Alexis gets the good dad and I don’t.”

“So why d’you want to push for dinner? Sounds like you’re not really ready, and we agreed you wouldn’t do anything you weren’t ready for. Why now? It’s up to you, but I don’t want this to crash and burn.”

“Because everything else isn’t going right. It’s the last chance to make something in this whole freaking mess go right. And if Dad’s talked to them, she’ll maybe understand it.” She sniffs again. “She shouldn’t have to understand it.”

“We don’t have to do this. We – you – don’t have to do this now.”

“I do. I was going to have a dinner with Alexis and Dad. Somewhere in Manhattan. Alexis in your loft – it’s the same stress level, and I’ve got to deal with it sometime.” Castle hears desperation. “I can’t stop going forward or I’ll fall over backwards.

“But Dr Burke said not to hurry it.”

“I’m…” She stops. “I want it fixed, Castle. I want to come to the loft. I can’t expect you to put up with all this crap for ever.”

“Stop. Just stop. I’m not going round that curve. I said it was up to you and we’d take as long as it took and I am not rerunning that argument every time you think you’ve had a setback. And I’m not pulling over here when we’re less than an hour from home and I can deal with it there.”

“Deal with it?”

“Yeah, deal with it. And with you. When are you going to start believing me?” Castle flicks a glance at the speedometer, whistles softly, and drops the speed by at least twenty miles per hour before he meets a traffic cop. The state Beckett’s in, he’ll be arrested for kidnapping.

“I do believe you. You believe you. But we can’t stay stuck here for ever and it’s just going round in useless circles and I’m tired of it.” Her voice falls. “I’m so tired of all of it and it’s always me who has to fix it.”

She turns away and stares out of the car window into the dark verges of the road. Castle doesn’t say anything more. He will deal with this nonsense when they’re safely home. Just because she’s been able to solve all the recent murders in double-quick time, she’s thinking that she should solve this faster. Oh, God. Here they go again.

Maybe not. Because two weeks or so ago they disagreed and the world didn’t end. So maybe they can have this discussion and the world won’t end then either. He checks his mirrors, sees no cops, and puts his foot back down. He spends the rest of the journey obsessively checking around him while he comprehensively destroys the speed limit. He doesn’t want a ticket, but he does want to arrive in the shortest possible time. Letting this sudden desperation fester is not going to help anyone, least of all him.

They reach the dark mass of his house, the wind rustling the grass and the waves lapping on the sand, rather sooner than they should have. Beckett hasn’t noticed the speed. Beckett hasn’t noticed that they’ve arrived. Beckett hasn’t noticed anything in the last fifty miles plus. Beckett, in fact, is completely lost in her own screwed up head. Castle rounds the car, opens the passenger door, unclicks her seatbelt, draws her out and walks her to the door.

Beckett knows she’s lost in her own head. She’s desperately trying to work out why she’s suddenly so defeated and tired, why she’s pushing herself when she knows she shouldn’t, why she has this burning need to move it all forward and fix it and just be done. When Castle draws her out of the car she barely notices, until he stops at the door.

“Traditions are important,” he murmurs as he unlocks it, and picks her up. It flips her out of the unseeing state she’s in.

“What?”

“Traditions are important,” Castle repeats patiently. “You come here, I carry you in. Tradition.”

“It’s been twice. That’s not a tradition.”

“Three times,” Castle says annoyingly, and cuddles her in to make the point that this is the third. Beckett subsides, mainly because he’s put her back on her own feet. “Now, it’s too late for you to teach me to cook, but I got Joe to leave the fridge stocked and he got that pie you liked so much.”

“And broccoli?”

“No broccoli. Broccoli is not food. Broccoli is poison.”

“That’s ridiculous. It’s full of nutrition.”

“I don’t like it. So we’re not having it,” Castle grumps, just like a toddler. Beckett rolls her eyes, just like an adult. Castle sees it with some relief, since it means that she’s come out of her head, which means that – over dinner: he is starving – they can have a discussion. “C’mon. Dinner.”

Dinner is swiftly put together. Beckett declines wine in favour of water, though Castle doesn’t. She makes a moderately good meal, though tension is griping her gut and Castle’s curiously assessing gaze isn’t doing anything for her digestion.

“Why are you so upset by today’s session?” Castle opens bluntly.

“Because it never freaking ends,” Beckett replies bitterly. “All I wanted was to be able to deal with drunks on the job and your family. What I got was a whole set of issues uncovered and not one single one of them is anywhere close to fixed. They don’t get fixed, they just multiply. My dad. Your mom. Your loft. Your daughter.”

“I don’t agree. You’re speaking to your dad again.”

“Yeah. We’re right back to exactly where we were six months ago. We don’t talk about anything important and I can’t tell him anything about the past. Only difference is that there’s been a lot of hard words and pain. And now he asks questions that I don’t wanna answer. It’s not an improvement,” she adds acidly.

“You had to say the hard truth. If you didn’t break it down you wouldn’t have any sort of base to build on. You’re trying to build a whole city before you’ve even got the foundations of the first house dug. Before, though, you never said no to him and you never had any difficult conversations and you sure never shouted at him. You’ve done all of that in the last few weeks. How’s that not progress?”

“How’s not being able to go to my own father’s apartment or invite him to mine fixing it?”

“That’s not what I asked. You’re evading. You’re upset and miserable so everything looks worse than it is. C’mere.” He doesn’t wait for her to move, simply wraps himself around her. “Didn’t you say you were allowed to be upset?”

“I’m tired of it. I’m sick of having to fix it. Only you can save yourself,” she spits. “Sometimes it would be easier to drown.”

Castle contemplates Beckett very carefully. That had sounded very defeatist in a very non-Beckett way. He had thought that today’s session had gone quite well, and none of this had been apparent earlier.

“Why didn’t you say any of this to Dr Burke?”

“Didn’t think of it. It’s all hanging off Dad talking to your family and there are so many ways that could go wrong and I hate that they’re going to know about it because they’ll just think that it’s stupid and juvenile and pathetic and petty and selfish.”

Castle translates that to mean they won’t like me, and suddenly understands. With a remarkable influx of thought before mouth opening, he doesn’t say anything immediately. Instead, he takes a different track.

“You know we’re a bit of an unconventional family,” he opens. Beckett’s miserably insecure state does not prevent her noise of vehement agreement. “When I was small, Mother was a single mom when it wasn’t exactly acceptable anywhere, and we were trailing round every small town in the country so she could work. It… often wasn’t pretty. She got a lot of flak. Had to lie down under a lot of comments. I’m pretty sure she had to do some things she’d rather not have done. I’m dead certain I saw a lot of things a small child shouldn’t. Theatre’s really not a nice place, offstage.”

“Mm,” Beckett says, uninvitingly.

“My point is, that you do what you have to do to survive. You make your choices – Mother didn’t have to have me – and then you do the best you can in the situation. And if someone else judges that – well, they weren’t there, and they aren’t you, and anyway you never know what you would do till you’re actually there. There’s no point in maybes and might-have-beens and what-ifs, because – you said it – the past’s past. You don’t get do-overs. It’s nobody’s business but yours and once you’re cool with what you’ve done everyone else’s opinion – even mine – is just noise.”

Castle stops for breath. Beckett is simply stopped. If any of that has struck home, he’ll be happy. He thinks of one more thing.

“We’ve all got skeletons in my family. Well, maybe not Alexis. Yet. But Mother could restock a cemetery and… well, I’m not exactly squeaky clean myself.” Then he forcibly clamps his mouth shut and stops. To avoid saying anything more, he nibbles some more of the pie. Beckett appears to be thinking. He shouldn’t do anything to spoil that. She’s munching on another slice of game pie too. He stays around her, and stays quiet.

After a while, she stops munching. “Is there dessert?” she asks, in lieu of any more serious matters.

“Ice-cream.”

“Could I get some, please?”

“Sure.”

Ice-cream appears, and is consumed. Serious talking does not appear. Serious thinking does appear, and continues. In default of conversation, coffee appears, and shortly disappears. Beckett stays wrapped into Castle, now on the couch, and doesn’t move away.

“You okay?” he eventually asks.

“Maybe.”

That is not a terribly useful answer. On the other hand, it’s truthful, which is a good start. They haven’t had a fight, which is better, and she’s eaten, which is even better than that. He snuggles her in rather more comprehensively, and realises it’s after ten.

“Bedtime. Sleep on it. Or preferably sleep on me.”

Beckett looks up and rolls her eyes. “I prefer pillows.”

“Really? You spend a lot of time sleeping with your head on my chest. I think you like me much better than your pillows.” He smiles very smugly. “C’mon. My ruggedly muscular chest is at your disposal. As is my” –

“Shut up, Castle.”

“But my rugged mascu” –

“Shut up.”

Castle pouts, calculates the angles, and relieves the pout by kissing Beckett. He lifts off. “That sort of shutting up?” He kisses her again. “Or that sort?”

“Not shutting me – ohhh.”

“You were saying?” But he kisses her some more, before she can reply, and pulls her up, and doesn’t let go of her till he plops her down on his bed.

“I’ll get your bag.”

“I could do that.”

“You could, but I want to and I’m nearer the door. Just let me. You don’t really want to get up, do you?”

She doesn’t. Settled on the bed, she really doesn’t want to move. Maybe… she should just let him steer her. Sleep on it, as he’s suggested. Not demanded, or ordered, or even asserted. Just… suggested. Up to her. Always, always up to her. She shakes her head.

As Castle goes to pick the bags up, he can hear her kicking off her shoes, sliding out her pants, lying back on the pillows. Well, he’s here, and she’s here, and they have all weekend, and since Beckett’s going to be Kat who likes cooking and will show him how to cook all that lovely delicious Georgian food, they won’t need to go out if they don’t want to, which means that they don’t even need to get dressed if they don’t want to. Despite Beckett’s defeatism, his spirits rise. They rise even further, in tandem with more corporeal areas, as he remembers that tonight nobody has to go anywhere and when he wakes up Beckett will still be right there.

He bounces back into the bedroom bedizened with bags to find Beckett propped up on the pillows with her eyes barely open, and wearing barely anything. (well, a shirt, panties, and presumably a bra, but none of those are much of a hindrance and her glorious legs are elegantly on display)

“Bedtime, Beckett. Here’s your stuff.” He bends over to open her small case and starts to ruffle through it. “Ow!” A pillow has just hit his backside.

“Stop peeping, Tom.”

“You’re not unpacking it, so I can.”

“You didn’t wait for me to unpack. You didn’t even wait for me to say thanks, in fact. Stop peeking.”

“But I wanna know,” Castle whines.

“Don’t you want a surprise?” Beckett purrs.

“Oooohhhh.” Castle smirks. “But are you sure you’ll be awake to surprise me? You’re practically asleep. I told you, I don’t do narcophilia. It wouldn’t be any fun.” He leers.

Beckett heaves herself off the bed and staggers to her bag. Movement is not actually what she wants to do right now, but she needs to cleanse her makeup and brush her teeth. Brushing her hair would also be desirable but she’s almost too tired to do it. Castle, still leering happily, somehow manages to be in the right place to take her bag and steer her subtly to the bathroom, after which he tactfully withdraws.

Beckett emerges wrapped in her kimono. This is unfair to Castle. He pouts hopefully, and receives only a yawn. He aims for the bathroom in his turn, knowing that when he returns she’ll be buried under the covers and possibly asleep. Emotion, not for the first time, may well have tired her out.

When he returns her long lashes are indeed pillowed on her pale cheeks. She is not, however, buried under the covers though she does seem to be asleep. Since she is not buried under the covers, Castle has a perfect view of a very minimalist midnight blue babydoll and matching panties, which do nothing at all to conceal her beautiful legs, excellent curves, and gorgeous body.   Of course, he would much rather that the minimal nightwear were spread across the floor, rather like her kimono, and he would certainly prefer that she were cuddling him, not a pillow, but he’s pretty sure that if he spoons round her she’ll snuggle up perfectly, asleep or not.

He indulges in a very thorough examination of his beautiful Beckett, beautifully in his bed, and then a very careful examination of how he might manoeuvre her under the covers without waking her. She’ll be cold if she sleeps on top of them, and he’ll be cold if he sleeps on top of them to cuddle in and keep her warm. He considers, and then folds back the cover on his side of their bed – yes, their bed, he thinks – as far as he can manage without it covering Beckett; slides on to the bed himself, runs his arms round Beckett without quite ripping off the flimsy babydoll fabric, and when she sleepily murmurs something and snuggles into him, he’s managed to roll her on to him and then under the cover even with those astonishingly long legs getting in the way. Perfect.

He nestles his nose into her neck, drops a rather wistful little peck-kiss on the top of her shoulder, tucks her tightly in so he can hold her close, and falls into sleep as fast as Beckett had.