A/N: Ficlet prompt from Anon on Tumblr: She will not cry in front of him, even though he's breaking her heart.
I remember reading a ficlet a while ago, I think it was from the hugs and cuddles meme, when I thought of this, the first thing I thought of was how similar events happened in both, this one and theirs, but I can't for the life of me remember who wrote it. It was about how Martha didn't tell them she was sick and Kate said something like "Your mom was a great actor, she only let us see what she wanted." I wish I could properly credit them for this idea but I can't :(
Set 15ish years in the future.
It was almost 7:00 by the time Kate started getting ready to leave. She heard a knock on her office door and looked up to find Alexis standing there with her 12 year old son and 10 year old daughter. "Hey guys, what are you doing here?" She smiled at them. "I was just getting ready to come home." She walked over to them and her daughter wrapped her arms around Kate's waist, giving her a hug. She could see remnants of tears in her puffy eyes.
"Dad was being mean."
Kate looked up at Alexis and saw the pain and sadness in her eyes. Kate smiled down at her two youngest. "Okay why don't you guys go find Esposito or Ryan? They haven't seen you guys in a while."
They left the room and Alexis sat down in one of the chairs opposite of her desk. Kate closed the door and sat next to her. "What's going on and why do you have them?"
"Liam called me an hour ago, he said dad was angry and he kept yelling at them." Kate just waited for her to continue. "I get there and Emma's in her room crying and dad's yelling about how they need to clean their rooms and the loft is a mess and he was just going at them, Liam was just sitting on the couch taking it all. I've never seen dad like that, I don't think I remember him ever yelling at me."
Kate looked out the window to Liam and Emma who were laughing at something Esposito said or did then she sighed and looked back at Alexis. "I hate to break it to you but that's been a normal occurrence lately."
Alexis furrowed her brow, concerned for her step mother and brother and sister. "You guys are having problems?"
"He's beating himself up about what happened with Martha." At the mention of her now dead grandmother, Alexis looked down in her lap. "He feels guilty for not knowing she was sick and it's weighing on him."
She looked back up, tears now evident in her eyes. "But there's nothing he could've done."
"I know and I think deep down he knows but he's more hung on the fact that she told us she was on a cruise and really she was lying in a hospital bed all alone."
"But that's-"
Kate held up a hand, "I know it's not his fault and he should be angry with her but she's not here anymore so he's taking it out on us."
"Why haven't you told me this was going on?"
"Alexis, even though you're married and have your own kids, you'll always be his little girl and I couldn't tell you he was hurting because you shouldn't be burdened with this. You shouldn't have to worry about him, about us." Alexis just shook her head and looked down again, trying to hide the tears. "He's going to be fine. Once he finally sees what he's been doing and how it's hurting the kids so much, he will be fine." Alexis looked back up at her step mother and let out a small smile. "In the meantime, could you watch the kids for a few hours? I will go home and knock some sense into him and pick them up in a couple hours?"
"Yeah, that's fine."
(…)
She cautiously unlocked the loft door and went in, not knowing what she was going to walk into. The loft was nowhere near as messy as she thought it was going to be based on Alexis' description of Castle's yelling and ranting. All the lights were on, probably the way the kids left them when Alexis picked them up, but Castle was nowhere in sight. She dropped her bag by the door and put her keys on the hook and made her way to his office where he had been spending most of his time as of late. When she walked through the door, he was sitting at his desk with a glass of scotch in his hand, staring at the new cover art for his latest book. After a few seconds he looked up at her. "Alexis took the kids for a while."
"I know." She walked in and sat in one of the chairs. "They stopped by the precinct." She saw a flicker of guilt in his eyes, knowing she was going to plow into him how much he hurt the kids. "What the hell happened today?"
"Nothing."
"You were screaming at the kids about how messy the loft is and it's no messier than it usually is. Emma and Liam are completely confused as to what they did to get you so mad." He didn't respond just took a sip of his scotch. "I get that you miss your mom and you feel guilty and you're angry at her but you can't yell at her so you yell at us. I get that. But if you keep going with this, our kids are going to grow to hate you, their drunken, screaming father."
"You don't get it!" He stood up and started pacing in front of his desk. "When your mom was killed there wasn't a damn thing you could've done or she could've done about it!" He turned to face her. "For me there was!"
She stood up. "No there wasn't. She was sick and she loved you, loved us, so she didn't want us to remember her that way. What she did wasn't right, it wasn't the way things should've gone but it's done and she's gone and there's nothing we can do about it now-"
"God dammit Kate! Will you stop saying that-"
"No." She took a few steps toward him. "I will never stop telling you that until you believe it. I know what you're going through. I know how this feels because I went through it 30 years ago. I will never stop trying to make you believe there was nothing anyone could've done, not you, not me, not the doctors, no one could have saved her."
He ran a hand down his face where tears were streaming down. She reached out to rub a hand down his arm but as soon as he felt her touch he pulled away and turned around, taking a few steps. "Castle…Tell me what I can do to help you."
"Since you can't bring her back and you can't magically make it so we had known she was sick, there's nothing you can do."
"There has to be something."
After a few seconds he turned back to her. "I think I'm gonna go out to the Hamptons for a few days."
"I have the weekend off so yeah, that would be nice, get away from the city, the kids are gonna be excited."
"I'm going by myself."
"No."
"No?"
"I'm not gonna let you drink yourself into a stupor and feel sorry for yourself and wallow alone. That's what happened to my dad and I will not let that happen to you. Maybe Alexis and Tyler can watch the kids and it'll be just us?"
He shook his head, still avoiding her gaze. "If I don't do this, we will be divorced within the year and the kids will hate me."
"Castle, you're being ridiculous. We're not getting divorced. This will not cause a divorce and the kids will not hate you."
"But isn't that what you just said?"
She realized she had said just that a minute earlier. "Okay, I meant, you need to keep them out of whatever is going on with you. Scream at me all you want, I can take it but those kids, they lost their grandmother too and they're hurting just like you, they don't deserve for you to beat down on them all day, every day. They need a dad not a grieving son."
"Like I said, I need to do this alone."
"You can wallow here. You can lock yourself in here for as long as you want, but you can't shut me out, you can't go to another city and sit in a giant house by yourself. It'll just make it worse, you'll just miss her more."
After thinking about it for a moment, "I am going and I don't care what you say." He walked into their bedroom.
She thinks to herself, she will not cry in front of him, even though he's breaking her heart. It's completely tearing her apart how badly he's taking this but she needs to be his rock, she needs to be there for him and ride out the storm.
(…)
Half an hour later, Alexis drops the kids back off, her reasoning being Emma wanted to come home. Castle's still in the bedroom and Liam went upstairs to take a shower. Kate and Emma were sitting on the couch in the living room, Emma cuddling into Kate's side.
"Why is dad so mad at me?"
"Oh sweetie, he's not mad at you."
"If he's not mad at me, why was he yelling at me all day?"
Kate sighed, hating how hurt her husband hurt their daughter. "Sometimes when someone we love dies, you get angry about why it happened."
"Like you were angry that someone killed your mom?"
"Yeah…but your dad, he's angry because Gram never told us she was sick but he can't be angry at her because she's not here. It's not okay what he's doing but he still loves you and Liam and Alexis more than anything."
"And you?"
After their fight she's beginning to realize that their marriage is suffering. "Yeah."
They were pulled from their conversation when Castle came out of the office, a suitcase trailing behind him. "Where are you going?"
Seeing his daughter and how upset she looked, he walked over to them, sitting next to Emma and rubbing a hand down her back. "I'm just going out to the Hamptons for a few days but I'll be back by Monday."
"You promise?"
"I promise." He kissed her head then went back to his suitcase and left.
Kate was surprised and a little heartbroken he didn't say goodbye to her or even acknowledge she was there at all but she wouldn't cry and show her daughter how heartbroken she was, instead she just ran her fingers through Emma's hair, soothing herself and her daughter.
After a minute, Kate started hearing soft sobs coming from her daughter. She shifted herself so Emma would look at her and sure enough, there were tears streaming down her face. "What's wrong?"
She took a deep breath, trying to steady her voice enough to speak. "Are you and…and daddy gonna get divorced?"
"No, no we're not."
"You promise?"
How do you promise something like that to your kid? "Do you remember the story of how we fell in love?" She nodded, remembering being told about shootings and bombs and lies and waiting. "One fight will not make us get divorced. We love you and we love each other, there's just a lot going on right now and dad's a little sad."
A/N: I feel like I kind of ignored Liam but I am too tired to go back and delete that character...