172. Finger on the trigger

Beckett pours her cream and milk into a saucepan and starts to peel and chop yet more garlic. The knife echoes coldly on the board.

“It’s not Hallowe’en,” Jim says, trying to break the still taut atmosphere.

“Huh?”

“You don’t need to keep the vampires away. How much garlic are we having in this meal?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Dad. You’re as bad as Castle. I’ll have to keep you two apart if you’re going to pick up his ideas and swap supernatural silliness.” She neatly dices the garlic cloves, adds them to the liquid, thinks for a second and adds ground pepper and a pinch of salt. “That can start simmering. Are you done with the potatoes?”

“Yep. Pass the apples.”

“Okay.”

It’s all very cautious, again. The conversational ice crackles and chips under the weight of their history. The chop of the sharp knife through the white flesh of each peeled apple slices each instant. Beckett lays them in a dish, sprinkles a few cloves through them, and covers it with cling film. “Keeps them from browning. Even for a few minutes, it’s worth it.”

She turns to the sauce for the potatoes, and slides the slices of tuber into the simmering mix. “Three minutes,” she says. “Tell me when time’s up.”

Jim checks his watch. “Okay. Why do I need to?”

“Because I’m grating cheese to go on the top, and I like a lot of cheese on top.” She rubs the block of Gruyere over the grater, grating it very finely with considerable attention to detail. Conversation flags, again. The pile of grated cheese rises. Jim’s mood does not.

“Time’s up,” Jim says into the silent kitchen. Beckett delicately lifts the par-boiled potato slices into another flat-bottomed dish, pours the sauce through a strainer over them, and then spreads the cheese evenly: micrometrically levelled.

“Okay, let’s get these in the oven,” she says, as levelly as the cheese is spread, and slides both potatoes and apples on to a higher shelf. She sets the spinach in a microwaveable dish, ready to be lightly wilted.

“Looks like we’re just about ready,” Jim says. “Let’s clean up. I’m washing,” he adds very quickly.

“What?”

“I told you, I hate drying.”

“I remember it was always Mom drying up, too,” Beckett says, extremely tentatively.

“Yes. She didn’t mind drying,” Jim replies, equally careful. The ice below them holds, creakily. “I wasn’t allowed to do anything complicated, like actually cooking, but I could wash up.”

“Cake mix,” Beckett says, and achieves a snicker, with some effort.

“That’s unfair, young lady,” Jim says, with massive parental dignity which achieves nothing – except to lighten the mood, which is in much need of lightening. Each sentence has the potential to smash the fragile détente and thin covering over which they are tiptoeing.

“Okay, we’re done till they arrive. The spinach will only take two minutes, and we’ve got rolls and butter to put out.”

“Hadn’t we better set the table?”

“You can do that.”

“Thanks, Katie,” Jim grumps.

“I cooked. You make the table look pretty.”

Jim does as he’s told. As he sets out cutlery and glasses, he realises that this is the first time in over ten years that he and Katie have spent the whole day together, except for their lacerating anniversary on each January 9. Even at Christmas, they don’t spend the full day together, because Katie takes a shift. Okay, so it’s been fragile at times, and they’ve both been as cautious as if they were walking on the crust over hot lava, but there hasn’t been that biting tension that there’s been at Carter Burke’s; there hasn’t been what, looking back, he now recognises as a constraint on Katie’s part, a hesitation. On balance, he thinks, he’d rather start from here. Now that he knows what the other options are, oh yes, he’d rather start from here.

He puts the last item in place, twitches a wrinkle out of the tablecloth, and hopes with the same level of intensity which he applies to staying sober that tonight will go well.

Hard upon the heels of the thought, the doorbell rings, and Castle and Alexis have arrived. Alexis is holding a bunch of flowers. Castle, rather more attuned to the Beckett preferences, has a box of chocolates.

“Rick, Alexis, come on in. Nice to see you.”

“Thank you for inviting us, Mr Beckett,” Alexis says, and sniffs hopefully. “That smells amazing. What is it?”

“I’ll let Katie tell you. She cooked it all.”

“Slow roast pork, potatoes, apples, spinach. Blueberry cheesecake for dessert,” Beckett says, emerging from the kitchen with a bright smile for Alexis and a softer smile for Castle. She doesn’t expect Castle to take three steps towards her and dust a kiss across her mouth. From the mixed look of surprise and approval on the faces of both her father and Alexis, neither did they.

Soft drinks arrive, to no-one’s surprise or comment, and Jim is allowed to carve the meat. Only just, of course, and only because he takes possession of the carving knife before Beckett can.

“Sit down, everyone,” Jim says hospitably. “Now, tell me how much you want…”

They tuck in. For a few moments, there is no conversation at all, as the excellence of the food is properly appreciated, but that done, discussion begins. Alexis diverts Jim’s attention, and Castle is free to concentrate on Beckett.

“How long did this all take?” he asks, impressed.

“The pork took eight hours in the oven, the rest was really simple.”

Castle calculates. “So you’ve been here all day?”

“Yep. And I beat Dad at Sorry, too,” she says smugly.

“I heard that, Katie.”

“What’s Sorry?” Alexis asks. Jim immediately embarks on a long explanation.

“All day?” Castle repeats. He does not say And one of you isn’t dead, crying, or emigrating? “Two people shared a kitchen all day and you haven’t quarrelled? Wow. Whenever anyone shares a kitchen with me we disagree in seconds flat.”

“That’s because of the s’morlettes, Dad,” Alexis puts in.

“The what?” Beckett and Jim ask simultaneously.

“You know Dad’s a really good cook” – Castle preens – “but sometimes he gets a little carried away. S’morlettes is like a s’more omelette.”

“Uh… you eat this?” Jim queries, appalled by the thought.

“Oh no,” Alexis says. “I won’t touch it. It’s revolting.”

“It sounds it,” Jim says, scrunching his nose in disgust. Castle looks from Jim to Beckett and notes the resemblance of the twin nasal scrunches.

“It’s delicious,” Castle tries. Everyone else makes disbelieving noises. “It is!” His attempts to convince fall on stony ground. He humphs, and concedes defeat. “Anyway, that’s not the point. You’ve been cooking all day?”

“No, we got lunch at a pizza place and then played Sorry.”

“Oh, yeah. You said.”

Castle assesses Beckett as unobtrusively as possible, and takes the same approach to Jim. Beckett isn’t exactly tense, but she certainly isn’t relaxed either. Jim, however, is much lighter than he has previously been when around his daughter, since their previous relationship shattered.

“Detective Beckett,” Alexis asks, a short time later, “would you, like, tell me a bit about Stanford?” Tension snaps into place. Alexis doesn’t notice. “Like, how you got in, and entry requirements, and stuff?” There is an easing down. Jim’s eyes are bright with interest. Castle slides an unseen hand on to Beckett’s knee, and removes it again.

“Okay. Um…”

Castle detects with considerable interest that Beckett is thoroughly embarrassed, and with more interest that Jim is exhibiting enormous parental pride.

“Katie was a straight-A student at Stuyvesant,” Jim breaks in. “Valedictorian.”

Castle’s jaw drops. Alexis’s face is the epitome of hero-worshipping admiration. Beckett is blushing fiercely and metaphorically trying to hide under the table.

“Really?” Alexis squeaks. Castle is still trying to get his head round what he’s heard. He knew Beckett was intelligent, but that… well. Wow. “That’s amazing,” she breathes. “I’d be so proud to be valedictorian. Is that how good you have to be?”

“I’m sure it helped. Generally, I think you need to be looking at a 4.0 GPA, and aiming for a really high SAT score.” She pauses. “It’s a great university, but it’s pretty competitive. You’d need to be really sure you wanted to go there.” She smiles, without Alexis noticing the effort she makes. “I’d go visit it. Sometimes you get a gut feeling about places, even though they’re great on paper.”

“But did you enjoy it?” Alexis persists.

“Yes.”

“So why did you transfer?”

Jim turns pale. He hadn’t exactly dwelt on that subject when at Castle’s loft. Katie is clearly trying frantically to think of something to say.

“She transferred because of me,” he grits out. Rather too late for everyone’s comfort, Alexis gets it. Being only just fifteen, though, she doesn’t have the first idea of how to fix the situation she’s unwittingly provoked. She is massively uncomfortable and, in fact, close to tears at her mistake.

“I’m sorry,” she falters. “I didn’t mean… I totally didn’t…”

“Shh, pumpkin,” Castle rumbles quietly. “No-one thinks you did. Just shh now.”

Jim is tight-faced, staring down at the remains of his dinner. Castle puts his broad palm back over Beckett’s knee, not quite gripping; looks at her set face, and despairs.

“One of the things I did wrong,” Jim says to Alexis, “was made my daughter think she had to transfer back here to look after me. It should never have been her job to take care of me. But she did. I… wasn’t grateful enough, then. It wasn’t until recently that I realised…”

Castle finishes that sentence with how much she sacrificed, and tries not to show his wince.

“She saved me,” Jim divulges, speaking only to Alexis, as if he were unaware of any others; striving to explain to her. “If she hadn’t… but then I had to save myself, too. You can only ever save yourself. No-one else can do it for you, or make you do it. In the end, it’s your choice to sink or swim. It’s up to you, and then you have to keep doing it for yourself, every day of your life: you have to make the choice all over again. And then…” he pauses, and pain radiates from him as he turns his gaze to his plate, “you have to hope that you can be forgiven for all the hurt you caused.”

“Or,” says Beckett in a voice like cracked glass, “you have to try to forgive yourself for walking away even if it’s the only thing you can do to save yourself.” She doesn’t touch her liquid eyes. “Sometimes, you have to choose to let someone drown, if they would take you down with them. Sometimes, you even survive the choice.”

Jim raises his eyes from his plate and meets his daughter’s gaze. Absolute silence envelops the table: the suffocating weight of emotion smothering any words that might be said. All Castle can think is she hasn’t run yet, she hasn’t run yet. The last time there had been such raw emotion around her had been at Julia Berowitz’s apartment.

“Let’s have dessert,” she says. “Dad, you clear the plates.”

Castle has seen, and indeed heard, more expression from a Victorian porcelain doll. He wants, more than almost anything, to take Alexis home and get out of the claustrophobic atmosphere. He can’t. He won’t let Beckett down like that. Either Beckett.

His Beckett walks into the kitchen. Jim Beckett collects up plates, knives and forks. His face is wrinkled and sagging.

“Mr Beckett, I’m really sorry,” Alexis manages.

“It’s not you. It was a perfectly reasonable question. You couldn’t have known.” He forces an upward quirk of lips. “Don’t blame yourself for things that aren’t your fault.” He follows Beckett’s path to the kitchen. The door shuts behind him. Alexis gives Castle a white-faced, miserable look. “Dad, can’t we…”

“No. That would make everything much worse. It wasn’t you, pumpkin. But now we have to see it through.”

“I don’t like being an adult if it’s like this,” Alexis says pathetically. Castle hugs her. Now isn’t exactly a great time to tell her that being an adult means dealing with situations like this.

Behind the shut door, Beckett is mechanically taking out dessert plates for the cheesecake and trying to hold on to her composure. She is failing.

“Katie?” Her father puts down the dishes he’s carrying. “Bug, it wasn’t on you,” and despite her height and self-contained adulthood, he hugs her as if she were still his little girl, tears in his eyes as her shoulders quiver. “It was never on you. You did the right thing. You know that, Bug. You just have to believe it.” He holds her for a second more, steels himself. “Do you want Rick to come through?”

“Not yet,” she whispers, “Dad.”

Jim clasps her tighter, remembering when she was small and leant on him in the same way, and lets his tears pool, unblotted. For the first time in years he’s consoling and supporting her. He pats her shoulder, and keeps his mouth very firmly shut.

A very short while after that, Beckett straightens up, wipes her eyes, passes her father a sheet of kitchen towel without commenting on either set of stained cheeks, smiles rather damply but without constraint, and then passes him the plates.

“We’d better take them the dessert. Who knows what they’ll do if they don’t get their sugar fix?”

Jim frowns thoughtfully. “Hm. Let’s not find out.” He exits with his pile of plates, on top of which Beckett has placed a large knife, which is wobbling dangerously.

Castle looks at Jim’s imminent danger, and plucks the wobbling knife off the top of the wobbling plates. He sweeps his glance across Jim’s face, detects the remnants of very strong emotion not quite covered by enormous relief, and looks across the room in time to note (and hide his reaction to noting) Beckett’s lack of eyeliner and artificially calm visage.

“Dessert?”

“Oooohhh yes please,” Alexis says, sounding very like her father.

Jim doles out dessert, to vocal approval, and dinner progresses with no new awkwardnesses. However, the evening is not prolonged. To be fair, it is not, as Castle reflects, cut untimely short either; however, though since he can’t take Beckett home (and her cruiser is out front anyway) he’ll be calling her later on, and if he’s not happy with how she sounds, he’ll be over there. Which is rather too overprotective and smothering, but he can’t help it. Not right now. But that’s his problem to solve, not Beckett’s.

“Can we help tidy up?” he asks.

“No, it’s good. Everything goes in my dishwasher,” Jim says, “and it’s mostly in there already. It’ll only take me five minutes to finish up.”

“All my things are packed up: I only need to take them down.”

“I’ll carry them,” Castle says chivalrously.

Beckett glances at Castle and then back to her father. “Do you need anything, Dad?”

“Not tonight,” and somehow Castle thinks there’s more to the words than the obvious.

“Okay. Guess it’s my bedtime too.” She steps forward and hugs her father, lingering for just an instant longer than good familial manners would indicate. Castle shakes Jim’s hand, and Alexis follows suit.

No doubt in deference to Alexis’s presence, Castle doesn’t sling an arm round Beckett. Given that he’d picked up her bags in one hand, she has no doubt that winding arms around her had been his first thought. They attain the sidewalk without incident: Castle lifts her cooking equipment into the trunk for her, and then, after Alexis has slightly awkwardly shaken Beckett’s hand (it had looked like she was going to hug her, and then Alexis had clearly thought that hugs might be the wrong thing, or too familiar, or just plain awkward. Beckett is grateful that she had stepped back. Hugs from Alexis are…too much, tonight), provides a brief embrace and another dusted kiss, equivalent to the one at the start of the evening.

“I’ll call you later,” he says. Beckett flicks up her eyebrows but doesn’t say anything. His voice drops to exclude Alexis, already four steps away. “Please?”

“Sure,” she says, a little questioning.

“Okay then.” He dusts another kiss across her mouth, and follows Alexis to a cab-heavy corner. Beckett starts her cruiser and is shortly gone.

She’s been home for about half an hour when Castle calls: time to wash, to change into sleep tee and a warm robe, and to make herself a well-doctored coffee with plenty of spices and creamer. Now that she’s alone, she’s slipping down the stress waterfall: a little shaky, a little upset, a little chilled. The coffee helps, but her emotions are raw and bleeding still. Rather too much truth laid out over the dinner table, for her father and her to feed from.

“Beckett.”

“Hey,” Castle says bouncily. “I said I’d call. Make sure you didn’t get kidnapped by a crazed cheesecake addict.”

Beckett snorts. “From my official unit? With automatically locking doors?” she humphs at him. “And anyway, I left Dad the remains of the cheesecake. There wasn’t much left.”

“It was great,” Castle says, distracted. “Share the recipe?”

“Okay.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Beckett can hear the sceptical silence on the line. “I am. It just got a bit heavy. It’s okay.”   Scepticism increases. “We didn’t fight.” And decreases again.

“Want me to come round?”

“Not now. Maybe tomorrow. I’ll call you, okay?”

“Okay. But if you don’t, I’ll set O’Leary on you again.” Beckett detects Castle being deliberately provocative, and growls. “What? He’s got the body armour. I don’t.”

“Stop subverting my friend.”

“But you won’t let me come over and subvert you, Beckett,” Castle says plaintively. “I’ve got to get my fun somehow.”

She growls again. “You can come tomorrow – don’t say anything.”

“Aww, you are no fun at all” –

“for coffee. About eleven. And I am not inviting O’Leary just so you can mess with him.”

“Aww,” Castle emits again.

“No,” she says very definitely. There is a disgruntled mumf noise. “Sulking is childish.”

“I’m not sulking,” Castle fibs. Beckett makes a disgusted noise at him. “I’m not. I am expressing disappointment in a mature and adult manner.” She snickers loudly. “Now you’re fine,” he says to her with satisfaction. “Till tomorrow.”

“Night.”

She does feel better. Warmer, both inside and out, and cheered to know that Castle has her back as unobtrusively as ever. She finishes her coffee, doesn’t dwell on the emotional outpourings of the evening, has a lovely hot bath with lots of lovely scented bubbles, and goes to bed relatively content. She’ll think about everything that happened in the morning.