Family Conversation
Chapter One
Division
Not five minutes went by after closing the door on her father, before Alexis began to feel guilty. She began to wonder if maybe she had taken the tangent of passive aggressive behavior she had been unleashing on him since learning of his engagement to Detective Beckett just a bit too far.
Dad had come back, his hat in his hand and his heart on his sleeve to apologize for his behavior at dinner the other night and she had shut him down. Probably a little harder than she needed to really, but she was still angry over his attitude at her housewarming dinner and had lashed out the only way she could.
His promise to try to learn to accept that Pi was part of her life may not have been sincere, but his apology for the rude and condescending behavior he had exhibited at dinner had been. She could see it all over his face. Her dad had never been able to lie to her...had never really tried to that she was aware of. Concealed things, yes, omitted things, certainly, but he has always told her the truth.
His offer to sit down with her over ice cream and try to sort out their differences had been as heartfelt as his apology, even if it was premature and poorly timed. It was the way they had always worked things out in the past and she knew that, but she shut that down too. Closed off all of his avenues of communication with her, just like she had the first time she broke up with Ashley. For no other valid reason than she was powerfully angry and that she could.
Unlike Ashley, dad had no one to call upon who could effectively intercede on his behalf. He would not be foolish enough to involve Kate in this directly and Grams had obviously sided with her. If not, it would not have been dad darkening their door, but Grams. She would have shown up here, bearing housewarming gifts, smiling sweetly, and wielding guilt upon her like a heavy hammer, like only she knew how. Alexis knew, however she could only realistically expect so much support from Grams in this matter. Dad was still her son, and Grams would stand against him only so far and no farther. Not even for her.
The cutting remark about his engagement to Kate and whether she and her dad were right for each other had been petty and cruel. She had known it as soon as the words came out of her mouth. Known it was wrong, and that she had only said it to hurt him. It was petty and beneath her and she knew it. She, of all people short of Grams, knew how hard dad had worked. How much he had suffered and endured for his relationship with Kate to get where it was now. He had put in more work than she had ever seen him put into a relationship before and he had earned what he had with her now.
His utterly crestfallen expression just before she closed the door on him nearly broke her resolve to be angry and had certainly broken her heart. She watched through the peep hole as he slumped his shoulders, turned and walked away. When she finally turned back from the door toward the living room to where Pi was meditating, she felt like she had kicked a puppy and clubbed a baby seal.
She resolved to apologize for that much anyway. As soon as she had a chance to cool off. She was still too angry with him to see things clearly. Too angry that he couldn't be more supportive of her relationship with Pi. That he couldn't simply trust that she knew her own heart. That she was right and he was wrong.
This wasn't really about Kate Beckett. Or about her father moving forward with his life without her.
Wasn't it?
Richard Castle had walked down the stairs from the third floor walk-up (could it really be called a walk-up if the elevator didn't work?) Alexis shared with Pi feeling like a chastised schoolboy instead of her father. He called a taxi, but had gotten out after giving the driver a generous tip for the unscheduled stop, as soon as they reached midtown (he knew better than to be walking around Washington Heights at this hour of the evening) and elected to walk the remaining four blocks to the loft.
By the time he reached the park where he used to take Alexis to play his melancholy and hurt feelings that she had not accepted his apology (he was genuinely sorry he had behaved so badly that night) and had shut him out had begun to fade. In their place, he found himself beginning to feel...anger. With every step closer to the loft he took, the angrier he got. By the time he walked in the door and threw his coat in the closet, he was furious. More angry than he had been at his daughter in her entire life.
"Accept Pi?" He thought to himself. "How could she possibly expect me to simply accept him after the way she introduced me to him?
"She brought him into my house while I was on a book tour!"
"Didn't even have the common decency to do it to my face!"
"Let him have the run of the place...including my bedroom, it seems, and not, even compel him to comport himself like a proper house guest!
"And now she expects, no actually demands, that I accept him?"
He knew he was really really angry and blowing the whole thing a little out of proportion, he was sure. But on the other hand Alexis was expecting far too much from him at this point. She just could not, would not see that.
The time was coming when he would have to explain the facts of life to his daughter...and have a one on one "father to boyfriend" chat with Pi. The one Alexis had managed to talk him out of having with both Owen and Ashley. But not tonight, in fact not for a few days even.
He was far too angry with her to handle this matter properly. Not without completely alienating Alexis in the process, which was not what he wanted. And he was sure it wasn't what she wanted either. He was not too angry, however to make a few discrete phone calls to a few of those "guys" he had everywhere. Arrange a few things.
It was long since time he stopped being Alexis' buddy, playmate, and confidante and started being her father. He thought he had done a much better job of teaching her about respect. About how it went both ways. If she wanted him to accept her choice then she should have presented it in a way that was acceptable.
Now he needed to find a way to explain that to her without making the whole situation worse.
