A/N: Just my take on how Kate may have reacted to the events in Veritas. I've taken a few liberties with the timing of Castle's book tour.
Edit - I've just been through and have hopefully corrected all the mistakes I missed when I proof-read initially. Apologies!
Veritas vos liberabit
Veritas vos liberabit.
The truth shall set you free.
Apparently.
It was supposed to make it stop hurting. She was supposed to heal, to accept and move on.
But none of that ensued.
If anything, she felt like she was 19 again, when everything she was knew was taken away as a result of a twisted web of deceit, with a fucking future senator at the helm. A presidential candidate.
Her father had even started drinking again. She found out a week after Bracken's arrest when her phone rang at two thirty in the morning. She was wide awake in an instant, accustomed to middle of the night calls regarding a body drop. This call was indeed from the NYPD, except it was courtesy of the 5th Precinct. Her father had been found stumbling drunk around Worth Street. He left work late that night, and instead of heading straight home, had decided he would much rather take a walk with a bottle of whisky for company.
A couple of the officers recognised her by name or by reputation. It took only a couple of days for the guys at the 12th to hear about the incident. Whispers, pitying glances… She could have really done without those on top of everything.
Her father was unresponsive to her attempts to talk it through. He refused to contact his sponsor. He was morose, cruel even. And she was back to being 19 year old Katie with a murdered mother and an alcoholic father.
Despite his refusal to talk to her, she suspected his relapse held the same reasons as hers. The long-sought for justice didn't bring about the expected closure. There was no euphoria at winning a hard-fought battle. It was just a reminder that the wife, the mother, they lost all those years ago was still not coming back.
She pretended on the phone. Whenever Castle called from whichever city he was doing a book signing, she pretended. She didn't want him to worry. She didn't want to ruin his trip. She didn't want to further poison him with the mess that was her life.
He was full of exciting tales of the things he'd seen, the people he'd met. He dropped hint of the gifts he picked for her from each city he visited: cheap tourist souvenirs; unusual pieces from markets or antique shops; or if he was pushed for time he selected a book from the shop in which he was signing.
While he regaled her with his stories, she filled him in on the latest cases in the precinct, on Ryan's and Esposito's antics, and she made sure to stay away from anything personal.
She worried. She worried that she had slipped, that she was, once again, not enough for him.
And then came the day of his return. He stopped by the precinct, eager to see her, mere hours after his arrival in New York. She raised her eyes from her paperwork, taking in the unexpected figure standing beside her desk. Tears filled her eyes upon seeing him, but she resolutely held them back.
"Hey babe," she uttered softly, and Castle broke out into a huge grin. He plopped himself down in his customary chair and snagged her hand. The urge to haul her to feet and take her in a long embrace was strong, but he'd clocked Gates' presence as he'd entered to bullpen, and so thought better of it.
She was quiet, not quite the homecoming he'd anticipated. But he decided to let it lie, thought perhaps she was wary of showing any enthusiasm in the presence of her colleagues. Kate on the other hand fought hard to converse, and thought she'd managed to speak just enough to avoid any suspicion.
"Mother says you haven't been staying here."
She froze. They were snuggled in bed in his loft, cocooned in a post-coital haze. That, at least, she didn't need to act through. It had been incredibly tender, slow and drawn-out reunion sex. Kate speculated afterwards that perhaps Castle had cottoned on to the fact her emotions were more on the frayed side, and was thus especially attentive. Whatever the reason, she appreciated it, and felt relaxed and content for the first time in weeks. That was until he spoke.
"I, um, I just haven't spent much time at my place recently. And I missed it. So since you weren't here..."
He didn't push, though she suspected he didn't entirely believe her explanation. And if he held any disbelief, he would have been correct.
The truth was that she had thought it best if she was alone. It was just too exhausting to put up a front at work, and then have to continue the charade at home. Alexis and Martha would have been able to see through to her true feelings and she'd needed to shield them. They didn't need to be tangled up anymore with her issues.
Castle spent the time he was with her observing. He noted the grey beneath her eyes in the morning before she skilfully hid her pallor beneath make up. He noticed her forced smiles, her long silences and her preoccupation. But most of all he noticed the disturbed look in her eyes.
He was gentle. Gentle questions. No pushing. But it pained him. It hurt that she was closed off and distant; so much like she used to be.
It happened on his fourth night home. The ringing of a cell phone broke through the silence and the lighted screen penetrated the darkness. Rick groaned and tightened his heavy arm around Kate's waist, while the detective, already alert, reached across to retrieve the device and silence the ringing.
"Dispatch?" he murmured into her soft curls once she ended the call. "Kate?" he questioned when she didn't respond, his concern forcing him into a more awake state. He leant up on one elbow and leaned over her in an attempt to discern her expression, despite the dim light.
"Not dispatch." She curled in a protective ball, curled away from him. "My dad."
"What about him?" Gentle fingers brushed across his girlfriend's cheek. "What's happened, Kate?"
There was a beat of silence, as if she was considering whether or not to tell him. "That was the 5th. He's been picked up again."
"Picked up? I don't understand."
"Disorderly conduct… He's started drinking again."
Rick's heart went out to the woman before him. Gently, he pushed her onto her back, then pulled her around to face him so he gather her up in his arms and cradle her against him.
"He started after we arrested Bracken." She stiffened at this, expecting a rebuke.
Anger was indeed his knee-jerk response, but he caught himself before he verbalised his thoughts. However, he failed to control the slight withdrawal of his body from hers, though he immediately attempted to sooth this by drawing her tighter back to him. He began tracing comforting circles on the exposed skin above the material of her vest top at her back.
The information helped in explaining the haunted look in her eyes. She wasn't being open, but she had regressed with her pain.
The bright lights of the foreign precinct were stark in comparison to the darkness of the night time outside. He could see the weariness on Kate's features, see the sadness in her eyes. Her father was not like the gentle Jim Beckett he knew. He was rude, abrasive, and perhaps worse was when he broke down and sobbed.
Kate was patient, guiding him through the unfamiliar precinct and into the back of Castle's car. She sat with him through the ride, talking calming to him, even as he stopped crying and started acting morose, with the occasional criticism thrown in.
She returned from leading Jim into his bedroom, and she sank onto her father's couch, head hung low. She rubbed her eyes wearily, smudging the little mascara she'd missed when removing her makeup before bed.
"Why did he start drinking again?" He eased closer to her and took her hand.
"He doesn't talk about it, but pain, I guess," she shrugged. "Arresting Bracken was meant to fix everything. But it didn't. She's still dead. Finding justice didn't change that. Nothing is going to change it."
"And is this how you feel too?"
She focussed on her lap and was still for a long moment. She nodded. "Sometimes I wonder if this crusade for justice was worth it."
It had gotten to the point where she was practically lying on top of him. He thought about her, Kate, 19 years old, devastated by her mother's murder and then having to deal with it alone whilst looking after an alcoholic father… He tightened his arms around her at the image, wishing he could somehow protect the younger version of his Beckett, just like he hoped he was protecting her now. She hummed in response to his grip, raising her head and looking at him in an enquiry he couldn't refuse to satisfy.
"I just… I just wish I could have been there for you when you were 19…"
"You were Castle," she breathed, continuing at his confused expression. "Your books provided me with an escape, a reprieve. You helped me then, and you're helping me now."
At her words, he held her closer still. "I have never been more thankful that I'm a writer, than at this very moment." Silence reigned for a while before he asked, he had to ask. "You really regret arresting Bracken?"
"Just because it didn't take away the hurt, you know. And seeing Dad like this… But then I think of mom and how much she fought for the truth." She looked him earnestly in the eye. "The truth might not heal, if Bracken is prevented from hurting more people like he hurt Dad and me, then it was worth it."
He gazed upon her for a few seconds, before tenderly tucking her hair behind her ear and pulling her down for an emotion-filled kiss.
Veritas vos liberabit.
Yeah, truth wasn't a miracle cure-all. But maintaining truth and openness between her and Castle… That was something worth preserving.
Fin