Title: Nightmares
Characters/pairings: Castle, Beckett, friendship or pre-ship, whichever you prefer.
Rating: K+/G (a reference to violence, but other than that it's pretty tame)
Spoilers: Post ep for Sucker Punch, so spoilers through there.
Summary: Kate Beckett stopped having nightmares when her mother died.
Author's Note: So this has been sitting around in various states of completed-ness forever. Since we're getting a continuation of Kate's mother's story next episode I decided that the time was ripe to actually post it. Big thanks to the DFTs, who helped me realize it wasn't finished, and especially to Jane who pointed out exactly what the ending needed.
Kate Beckett stopped having nightmares when her mother died.
As a child, she would wake up petrified two or three times a week. Only after she crawled into her parents' bed, shaking, and felt her mother stroking her hair could she begin to relax again towards sleep.
It was just a phase, the doctors assured them; she would grow out of it.
But she never did.
Even after she grew too old to seek comfort with her parents, the nightmares still came, and she would spend hours lying awake, staring at the ceiling, trembling with half-remembered terrors.
But after her mother's murder the dreams stopped.
For the first couple of weeks she was too numb to notice, but then she began to worry. Wouldn't a normal person start having nightmares when their mothers were murdered? What was wrong with her?
But the weeks turned into months and into years, and still the nightmares stayed gone.
She finally decided, with some help from her shrink, that it was simply this: the worst thing she could think of had already happened. There was nothing left for her sleeping mind to torment her with.
Until she shot Dick Coonan.
It had been two weeks now, and Kate had yet to have an uninterrupted night's sleep. She was beginning to show the strain, she knew, snapping at Ryan, Esposito and Castle over the never-ending piles of paperwork. (Castle should be used to her moods by now, she thought, but that didn't stop him from shooting her concerned looks when he thought she wasn't watching.) She wished IAD would clear her for active duty again, so that she'd at least have something to do, but in a way she was glad they hadn't – she was afraid her twitchiness would lead to something worse.
Unlike the half-formed specters of her childhood, these dreams were all too memorable.
There were two. In the first, she would look up, and her mother was standing in front of her. But when Kate reached for her, Johanna would back away, watching her reproachfully. She would never say a word, no matter how Kate sobbed that she was sorry, that she hadn't meant to kill their only lead, or promised that somehow, someway she would find the answer, track down the man who ordered her mother's death. But Johanna just stood there, betrayal etched in every line of her face.
In the second, she relived the stand-off in the precinct. But this time her shot missed, or came a fraction of a second too late, and it was Castle, not Coonan, who bled to death under her fruitless attempts at CPR. (And she really didn't want to think about what it meant, that her unconscious mind ranked Castle's death on the same level with her mother's censure.)
Finally, after days of fitful sleep and staring for hours into the dark, Kate found herself halfway across town, staring at the door of Castle's apartment at too far past midnight, not quite sure how she'd gotten there.
She almost turned and walked away, but finally decided that if she was here, and awake, Castle might as well be, too. She just hoped she didn't wake up Martha or Alexis.
She knocked softly, and door opened almost instantly, revealing Castle, looking rumpled, but far too chipper for this ungodly hour of the night, "Why, Detective Beckett, what a pleasant surprise. Please, come in."
She just stood there, awkwardly, in the doorway, heat rushing to her cheeks.
"Beckett? Do we – are you back on duty? Is there a case?"
"No, sorry. I just….I couldn't sleep."
He grinned at her. "I know just the thing for that! Please, come in."
A little dubiously, she followed him into the loft. "What exactly did you have in mind, Castle."
"Nothing untoward, I promise. Although…I probably have some tequila around, if you're in a Nikki Heat sort of mood."
She glared at him. "I didn't bring my gun, Castle, but that doesn't mean I can't still hurt you."
"Kidding, kidding!" He held his hands up in surrender. "I'm just going to make you some cocoa; it's what I always do for Alexis when she can't sleep. Go sit down," he said, shooing her into the living room, "it'll be just a few minutes."
"Isn't chocolate supposed to keep you awake, not help you fall asleep?" She asked, settling on the couch and glancing over to the kitchen area.
"Mmmm. I suppose," he replied, as he set the saucepan on the stove. "But the first time I tried to give Alexis warm milk she nearly spit it back in my face – not that I blame her, it never sounded that appetizing to me, either."
Kate laughed. "No, I can't say it has much appeal for me, either. My mother usually sang me lullabies when I couldn't sleep."
"Mother tried the lullaby route, but her idea of a lullaby is more like a rousing show tune, so we never had much success with that. Or offering alcohol as a nightcap. Which might well have worked, but wasn't something I ever wanted to resort with Alexis. I used to tell Alexis stories, but she would get so caught up in the action that she wouldn't want to fall asleep."
Kate closed her eyes briefly, and smiled. "I can imagine - I was always the stay up all night to finish a book type, too."
Castle grinned. "And my stories don't tend to be particularly soothing, either. So anyway, we mostly just stuck to cocoa. Made with milk, of course, and real cocoa powder – the good kind, none of that 'just add water' stuff. And we'd talk while the milk was boiling, about my latest book, or her classes, or mother's new show. I think it was more the ritual that soothed her, she usually fell asleep with her head on the counter by the time the cocoa was ready. I ended up drinking many a late-night cup by myself. Gave me the energy to carry her back up the stairs to bed, I suppose. She's getting a little big for that, though, so these days we just have cocoa nights when she's up late studying. I think the last time was before American Lit final last year. For some reason she decided she needed to reread all the books the night before, even though she'd been studying her notes for weeks. Where that girl gets her work ethic I'll never know."
He poured the cocoa neatly into a mug and carried it over to the living room. Setting the mug on the coffee table, he pulled a blanket gently over the sleeping detective. Smiling, he retrieved his cocoa and settled into the armchair to guard her rest.
"Works every time."