165. Walk away

The coffee is received with absent and automatic thanks. Dr Burke pours his own tea. To his surprise, Mr Castle rouses from his thoughts. “Beckett had that tea,” he says. “I recognise the smell from earlier.” Dr Burke prevents himself choking by sheer force of will. Detective Beckett drinks delicate Chinese teas?

Mr Castle returns to his thoughts, sublimely unaware of Dr Burke’s astonishment. “That might work,” he mutters to himself, “or maybe…”. After a few moments of such murmurings, Mr Castle returns his attention to Dr Burke. “Okay,” he says definitively, “I think I can give Mother some solid comfort.   I just need to work it out with my attorney.”

“Mm?”

“I was going to buy an apartment for Mother to live in anyway,” Mr Castle discloses casually. Dr Burke reflects that a best-selling writer will necessarily earn materially more than even the most able psychiatrist, and further reflects on the succour which his treatment provides to his patients, which lasts far longer than any book may do. In any event, he prefers his elegant Westchester home to any area of Manhattan. Manhattan is not, he finds, either peaceful or harmonious, and he prefers both in his home life.

“So all I have to do is make sure that I can’t evict her – well, unless she murders someone, I suppose.”

Dr Burke smiles. “A sensible precaution,” he says dryly. Mr Castle manages to raise a small, tight smile in return.

“But I still need to tell her tonight that she’ll be moving out.”

“All you can do, until you have spoken to your attorney, is to explain and reassure.”

“Ugh,” Mr Castle emits, gloomily. It is clear that the prospect is most unwelcome. Dr Burke considers that it is also likely to be loud, histrionic, and tearful. He has every sympathy with Mr Castle. However, no matter how great his sympathy, he will certainly not be offering to treat Mrs Rodgers, and should he be asked, he will decline.

“I cannot help you further with those discussions. However, might we spend a few moments discussing Detective Beckett’s reactions to your mother’s visit?”

“Okay.” Mr Castle pauses to assemble his thoughts. “She was really upset. Distraught.   I don’t know what she expected me to say, but like I said, I’d told her I wouldn’t be mad with her no matter what.”

“Was Detective Beckett angry?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Would you have expected anger?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s not like she’s normally patient with people acting that dumb, and she’d pretty much taken Mother apart. So yes, I was expecting her still to be pretty wound up. But she wasn’t at all. She’d been crying. She was crying.”

“How did you regard this unusual reaction?”

“Er…” Mr Castle colours, “actually I was relieved.”

Dr Burke elevates an eyebrow in query.

“It meant that she – Beckett – wasn’t just brushing it off because it wasn’t important to her. It wasn’t just dealing with a stranger, like it was someone who’d never be involved in her life.” Mr Castle makes an irritated noise. “I’m not explaining this very well.”

Mr Castle is indeed not explaining this well at all. Most fortunately, he then pauses to collate his thoughts, which it is devoutly to be hoped will emerge in some better order than has been shown so far.

“She could only be upset if it mattered to her. So even if my mother was the biggest pain since decapitation – and some days I really wonder if decapitation might be a better option – it mattered that she’d upset her.”

“Hm. Is it not far more likely that Detective Beckett was upset that you would react badly to your mother’s distress?”

“Maybe?” Mr Castle sounds unconvinced. “But I’d have expected her to be mad too, if it were just that. And she wasn’t.”

“It may be worth confirming that with Detective Beckett herself. If nothing else, it will clarify how best to deal with their future interactions.”

“A foxhole and a flak jacket.”

Dr Burke is surprised into a laugh. “Let us hope not, Mr Castle. Matters are progressing very satisfactorily on many fronts, and your mother’s behaviour is merely a small and eminently manageable issue, in precisely the way that you have outlined.” Dr Burke pauses. “I am not treating you, except as pertains to Detective Beckett. However, my advice is that you should listen to your emotions as much as to logic. Your emotions and instincts have, as I have said before, served you well thus far.”

“Oh. Er – okay then.” Mr Castle stands up. “Thanks,” he says sincerely. “That helped.”

“I am glad to have been of assistance.”

Castle returns home, somewhat comforted by Dr Burke’s soothing approach, and repairs to his study to think, and to consider the leaflets. Thinking is interrupted by a diffident tap on the door, which must be Alexis.

“Yes?”

“Dad?”

“C’mere, pumpkin.”

Alexis enters, uncertainly. “I’m sorry about shouting at Grams,” she forces out.

“Don’t you think you should tell her that, not me?” Castle says gently.

“Did that.”

Of course she did, Castle thinks. Alexis always – almost always – behaves well.

“But Dad, what’s going to happen now?” Castle hugs her. “Well,” he starts, when Alexis’s eye falls on the leaflets.

“Oh.   You really meant it.”

“I did.”

There’s a slight silence. “Good.” And then, “But…”

“I will buy Grams an apartment, and make sure that she’s safe in it. The only thing that will change is that she won’t be here all the time.   Everything else will still be just as it was.”

“I knew you wouldn’t let her fend for herself,” Alexis says indignantly, “but Grams has been going on about being sent to the poorhouse and left destitute on the street and – you know how she gets. She’s being stupid and over-reacting. She’s so totally dumb about this.”

“It’s okay. I’ll deal with her.”

“Um…” Alexis peeps up at Castle even more uncertainly. “um, is Detective Beckett okay?”

“Yeah. She was a bit upset, but it’s okay now.” Castle thinks of something sure to cheer Alexis up. “We thought that it might be nice for all four of us to have dinner at Mr Beckett’s, next Saturday. Did you have any other plans?”

“No, just hanging out with Paige and the gang. Detective Beckett wants another dinner with us? Awesome!” Alexis bounces, restored to complete happiness.

“Let’s see how we go,” Castle cautions. “It’s still all rather fragile, but it would be another big step for Beckett.”

“Because it’s at her dad’s?” Alexis asks, perceptively.

“Yeah.” Castle leaves it at that. No point dragging up the difficulties, or mentioning that the suggestion of dinner at her dad’s was what broke Beckett from her dad in the first place. They’re not Alexis’s problem, or business.

“Okay.” Alexis has recovered all her normal joie de vivre. “Thanks, Dad.” She bestows a hug upon him, and departs.

Castle breathes a sigh of intense relief that at least one of his family is behaving sensibly, shuffles his leaflets into a neat pile, and braces himself for the incoming missile otherwise known as his mother. He’s pretty certain it’s already locked on and armed.

“Mother,” he says with resigned calm as the explosion arrives in his study.

“I am perfectly prepared to leave immediately. I won’t stay where I’m not wanted,” Martha declaims.

Castle declines the bait. “Sit down, and listen to me.”

“While you pronounce my fate?”

“Stop with the theatrics. This isn’t a stage and there’s no adoring audience.”

“I am well aware that love is lacking.”

“Mother, sit down and shut up,” Castle orders with considerable force and controlled fury.  

“Don’t you take that tone with me, Richard.”

“Sit down.”

She does.

“Now, I don’t want to know what you thought you were doing earlier, but I told you that if you interfered again then that would be the end of it. So listen very carefully. I will buy you an apartment in Manhattan – here are some specs – and you will live there.”

“You’ll pay anything to get me out of here!”

“No, I’ll pay anything so that you have absolute security from eviction.” Martha is stopped in her histrionic tracks. “Despite your extremely insulting views on being left penniless and homeless, that was never going to happen. You will have exactly the same deal as you did here, except you’ll be living somewhere else.”

He looks straight at her. She’s shocked into silence.

“I don’t expect you to apologise because you never do. I do expect you to visit each of these apartments, decide which one you want to live in, and tell me, so I can instruct the attorney. If you don’t like any, then you have till the end of the week to find one you do like. If you try delaying, I’ll pick one for you. This situation is not continuing.”

He takes a harsh breath.

“I never wanted this to happen. I didn’t want to split us all up. But you obviously cared more about doing whatever you wanted and trying to prove you were right than about our family staying together.”

“But Richard” –

“Let me know which apartment you want by the end of the week. I expect I can make sure that it’s all completed by the end of the month.”

Castle stands up and walks out of his own room, picks up his jacket and leaves the loft. His mother doesn’t make a single sound as he goes, sitting slack-faced and staring at his back. The closing door thuds heavily in the silence.

Beckett opens her door to find a highly stressed Castle on the other side. She sums up the situation in one well-practised investigative glance, pulls him inside and into her arms, and kicks the door shut so she needn’t let go of him. Then she tows him to the couch, gently pushes him into sitting down, and keeps him within her arms until he should be ready to speak.

Gradually he eases very slightly, leans into her, and then, quite suddenly, hoists her firmly into his lap, puts her head on his shoulder, and buries his face in her hair; holding her tightly against him. Beckett gives him his own way without any protest, recognising that Castle simply needs someone who can be there only for him.   Her turn to step up to the plate. She strokes his shoulder consolingly, curls in more definitively, and waits.

Much as she loves both Castle and being cuddled up with Castle, she does not love him being miserable. It’s not his natural state, and sitting with a miserable Castle is much like sitting in a raincloud. She strokes a little more, and essays a soothing murmur. That doesn’t exactly come naturally, either. She returns to simply hugging him, and doesn’t move at all.

Finally, he raises his head from hers. “Sorry, Beckett.”

“No need,” she says, rather than the disingenuous what for. “Come here.” She hugs him again, and plants a swift kiss on his lips. “Rough?”

“Ghastly. Mother at her most Grande Dame and theatrical. She’s still not sorry at all. So…”

“Mmm?”

“I handed her a bunch of apartment specs and told her to visit them all by the end of the week, or find another one she liked.” Beckett blinks. “I didn’t tell her I’d be taking her keys away when she moves out, either. I’ll always be happy to see her, but I don’t want her dropping in at – er – inconvenient moments.” She blinks again. Castle sure has laid down the law. “She’ll be in her own place as soon as I can manage it. I’ll go see my attorney on Monday.”

Beckett hugs him some more. However controlled his voice, his face and body tell a very different story. He’s massively tense: shoulders tight and knotted, face heavy and somehow older. All his usual bounce and cheer is missing, and his normally sparkling eyes are dull.

“ ‘S okay. Just stay here for a bit, with me.” She pets him a little, soothingly. “It’s fine. We’ll work it out.” Castle merely shrugs, his big body slumping.

“I guess,” he mutters. “I never wanted this to happen. She’s my family. She cared more about having her own way than staying as a family, though.”

Beckett hears the hitch and catch in his voice, and reaches for the Kleenex. It’s clear that however annoyed he was with Martha, actually having to take the step of asking her to leave has rocked his foundations. She doesn’t think he’d ever expected to have to do it. She knows this story, bone-deep: she knows how it feels to do the right thing and break your heart on it.

“I never wanted to walk away, but I had to. Sometimes, doing the right thing for all of you hurts worst.” He shrugs again. “You’re not abandoning her. You’re still supporting her, you’re still taking care of her. You weren’t enabling her. But it still hurts like a bitch because you’re a good man, Castle.” She stops. “And if you ever tell anyone that I said that you will hurt like a bitch.”

Castle manages a small snicker, though it doesn’t last.

“Anyway,” Beckett says awkwardly, “just stay here for a bit. We can get dinner later.”

Castle buries his face in her hair again, worryingly frantically. Beckett returns to the slightly unpractised petting that seems to soothe him, and mentally curses Martha to the Nine Circles of Hell, to be visited in order and for an extensive period. Seeing Castle like this, she rather wishes that she’d laid into Martha with a lot more venom: that she’d told her how badly she was hurting her son, the son that she claimed she’d do anything for. Anything except what would make him happy, it seems.

Anyway. Shooting Martha, while temporarily pleasing, is not a good plan. Cuddling Castle back into some semblance of serenity – happiness is too much to ask for, tonight – is a good plan, so that’s what she’ll do, at least until she needs to get them food, drink, or indeed requires a bathroom break. She snuggles in more closely, wraps herself round Castle so he’s sure she’s there, and closes her eyes peacefully.

She is being slowly suffocated, or possibly broiled. Beckett cudgels her baked brain into life, or at least a state of undeadness that might lead to life later, and discovers that Castle is draped over her and is still asleep. Ah. Much becomes clear. They fell asleep, on her couch, and have rearranged themselves into positions not tremendously dissimilar from those that they might each adopt in bed. Where, however, there would be sufficient space that she would not be squashed.

She wriggles out from under Castle, who remains out cold as she does, and finds that it is now after eight, she is hungry and thirsty, and there is no food. She orders pizza, and ice cream, thinks about her empty fridge and adds soda. When the delivery boy raps on the door, Castle still hasn’t roused. She puts the pizza in the oven, the ice cream in the freezer, and the sodas in the fridge; and still he doesn’t wake. Unlike Castle’s trick with her, however, there is no way she can lift him off the couch and into bed. He’s going to have a really, really sore back when he does wake.

She regards him carefully, and decides, rather regretfully, that she’ll have to wake him up. First, she tries a mild wobble of his shoulder. That has no effect at all. Then she tries a considerably harder wobble. Still no results. She peers down at him, and suddenly smirks. It’s a bit cheesy, but… and if it works, it will definitely appeal to Castle’s fantastical mind. She kneels down by the couch, and kisses him firmly on the lips.

That works. In the sense that Castle instinctively wraps arms round her, mutters something that with a little translation becomes not time to get up, love, kiss me again, and doesn’t wait for her to obey before he kisses her instead. Conscious thought does not appear to have figured in any of those actions. However, in view of the appalling afternoon he’s had, and the considerable over-stress he’s suffered, Beckett is not inclined to deny him whatever he wants. (Within reason. She is not buying him a pony.)

The kiss is long, slow and very satisfyingly possessive. When it finally ends, Castle opens sleepy blue eyes, half-smiles, and then appears to realise that they are not in bed. Disappointment runs over his face, swiftly followed by unhappy memory.

“I fell asleep,” he says unnecessarily. “Ow,” as he stretches.

“Me too. I ordered dinner, if you want some.”

“I’d rather just have you,” he says, but the rumble of his stomach gives him the lie.

“After dinner. You can stay, if you want.”   Her eyes say you can always stay, or possibly you can stay always.

He stretches again, and winces. “Not on that couch. Ow, my back.” Another slow stretch. “I’d better call Alexis first.”

Beckett retires to the kitchen to give him some privacy for the call, and busies herself with plates and glasses. She can hear a generally contented rumbling of Castle’s baritone in the background, and forcibly doesn’t listen at all. The general flavour is happier. After a few moments he wanders back to her, sniffs happily at the smell of pizza, and smiles.

“All okay. I can stay here tonight.”

“Got your permission slip, have you?” Beckett teases.

“Yep.”

He still, under the happier smile, looks tired, and stressed, and heavy-burdened. Beckett rapidly puts out pizza and soda, and then reaches for his hand and steers him back to the couch, where she can tuck him in. Try to tuck him in, anyway. He’s really too broad and tall to tuck into her, which is why she ends up tucked into him so often. Like now. Castle doesn’t seem to want to be tucked, he wants to do the tucking-in.

“You fit better there,” he says. “It’s comfy.” Whatever he wants, today. She wriggles a little to be perfectly aligned, and munches on her pizza. Castle’s pizza disappears in very short order, and then he fidgets impatiently until Beckett has finished hers. She shuffles the plates together, intending to tidy up, and finds that her standing up doesn’t seem to be on Castle’s to-do list today.

“Don’t,” he says. “Just stay there.” Beckett does. She hears, unspoken but very loud, I need you there. Here. I need to know you’re on my side. “I never wanted this,” he says again. “I wanted her to listen. But she thought she knew best when she didn’t know anything at all and it didn’t matter how much I told her, or anyone told her, she just wouldn’t see that she’s the one who’s broken it all up.”

Beckett emits an unformed, comforting, assenting noise.

“I don’t get how she didn’t see that.” His tone is dull; leaden. “She was making such a fuss about you coming to the loft; and she still pushes the point till it all blows up?”

Beckett has a sudden, truly horrible, thought. What if Martha had thought that – regardless of what Castle had said to her – when the chips were down Castle would choose family over her? What if she’d been counting on that? She clamps her lips firmly together and doesn’t allow a single hint of her thought to escape. She’ll keep that one for Dr Burke. Strictly for Dr Burke. Especially as it doesn’t quite feel right, unlike the insecurity idea.

Castle appears to have run down, temporarily.

“C’mon. Let’s tidy this up and I’ll make some coffee.”

“Okay.”