Post Ep 6x22
Make the Call
Jim had been sitting in his closet for quite a few hours now, and his phone has been ringing nonstop for the last twelve minutes. His day had spiraled as he found himself gawking at a picture of his daughter plastered across the evening news, and no answer from her or his soon to be son-in-law's cell phones. It had only gotten worse as the news reports slandered her with possible "rogue activities resulting in the death of a notorious drug lord" and the unending calls from his scarce family asking if she'd finally snapped. He had even had to hang up on his oldest sister, Theresa, as she ranted about how she knew that writer was no good for his Katie. His frustration with not being able to reach Kate took new heights when a team of police knocked on his door earlier that evening asking if he'd heard from his daughter. His stunned expression was clarification enough.
And now here he sat, amongst his dead wife's remaining keepsakes, sobbing over a picture of Katie when she was five and was "helping" Johanna make brownies. He clutches at the withered photograph and smiles through his shaking sobs at his little girl and her OshKosh B'Gosh overalls with her face and fingers smeared with chocolate brownie mix. Johanna is just off to the left and her smile and adoration lights up her face in one of the best pictures he has of her; his most treasured. He knows that his little girl didn't murder anyone. No matter how ruthless or despicable this Vulcan Simmons was, his little Katie-bug would never stoop to that level. He knows she wouldn't be able to live with herself.
He reluctantly, delicately, places all of the mementos back into the maple wood box that he keeps behind his winter coats at the back of his closet. It was a technique that his therapist had worked on with him: contain the emotion within the physical box, do not hide or bury the emotion but compartmentalize it and visit it when he physically takes out the box. It's almost reverent the way he touches the wood as he slides it back into its rightful place. He probably shouldn't have put so much of his emotional baggage into one physical manifestation, but he could revisit that issue later. Right now he needed to check his phone.
He doesn't bother to turn on the news for the rest of the night.
She doesn't call him until a little after midnight. Jim had been screening his calls, reporters and new agencies wanting to do an exclusive interview with the fugitive cop's alcoholic father. That was a gem to have to deal with. He was hesitant to answer at first, not recognizing the number that was calling him, but after it rings for the fourth time, he tentatively answers.
"This is Jim," his voice is raspy from having to say "no comment" so harshly into the phone and to the reporters when he had left his apartment to run to the Duane Reade around the block. There's a pause before anyone speaks, and when he finally hears his daughter's voice it's like the iron clench around his lungs is forcefully pried back allowing him to breathe deeply for the first time all day.
"Dad," it's so simple the way she says it, but his own title makes him cradle the phone to his ear as if it was a manifestation of her.
"Katie," he starts to cry again and he can hear her choke back a watery laugh as they both take a second to shake their heads about how ridiculous they're being; they've only just said hello.
"H-hey, just wanted to check in." This actually makes him laugh out loud in a slightly crazed way that probably registers a bit of panic from her, but he isn't there to read her face to be sure. It just sounds slightly maniacal in his own head. Probably because he hasn't had anything to laugh about in what now seems like so long. So very, very long.
"How—what." He's stumbling over his words, suddenly inundated with in-articulation as his brain tries to ask all of his questions, which have been festering during the hours of void response, at once.
"Daddy."
He stops blubbering and the line goes silent. She hasn't called him that since she was sixteen and begging for a motorcycle. Time seems to no longer revolve around ticking hands on a clock but rather the breaths he can hear coming from his daughter's lips on the other end of the line.
"I got him, Daddy. I solved Mom's case."
If Jim Beckett ever believed he had a soul this is the first time he consciously senses that something has shifted within him, so deep to his core, that it could have only been his purest essence. It's a paradigm realignment. Where a gorging fissure once perforated, the chasm of his being is instantly restored with a cooling balm to an otherwise festering wound. He's surprised at how easy it is to breathe but every breath he takes seems to make him lighter. It's incredibly odd, and since he's focused on these new sensations throughout his body, Jim completely misses whatever Katie is still saying into the phone.
"Dad—Dad, are you still there?" Her voice is kind of panicky, but the lightness brings serenity to his nerves and the sensation of completion spreads to the tips of his fingers.
"Yes, Katie, I'm here." His voice is steady, held firm at an even whisper. He's afraid that if he talks too loud something will break this incredible feeling that is surging through his veins; pumping new life into all of the dark places of himself that he had abandoned once he had lost his dear Johanna.
"Did you hear me? I said that I—that we finally did it." We, oh, that makes his body feel even more weightless. His daughter wasn't alone in this. She had Rick with her to face down whatever horrors she had endured over the last twenty-four hours. He makes a mental note to let him borrow the cufflinks he wore during his own wedding. Rick seems like the type of guy to appreciate the sentimentality of the gesture.
"Yes, sweetheart, I heard you."
There's silence again for a bit while Jim tries to gather himself. It's not every day that your possible-fugitive daughter calls to tell you she caught her mother's murderer.
"Are you alright, bug?" The pet name trips off his tongue before he can catch it and he hears the smile in her harsh exhale over the phone.
"I tell you I finally solved Mom's case and you ask if I'm okay?" She's about to cry again, and he honestly didn't mean to upset her. "Don't you want to know, Dad? I don't—" she lets out a light cough, "I don't understand. I can tell you everything now. I can look you in the eye and finally give you the answers we've been looking for for years. I got the resolution and the justice Mom deserved. . .and you ask about me." Oh, Katie. How can she not get it?
Jim closes his eyes and tries to gather his thoughts before he continues. Oh, his precious daughter. How naive she still seems to be.
"Katie, your mother is already gone and I have been riddled with reporters, police investigators, news bulletins, and pesky neighbors asking about you and where you'd disappeared to." There is dead silence on the other end of the call. He can't even hear her breathing anymore. He's personally hoping she's moved him onto speaker so Rick can hear him too; he wouldn't be too far away from his daughter to listen in after whatever ordeal brought about the closing of Jo's case.
"I called you so many times. I called Rick, Martha, the boys. But no one knew where you were, and if they did they didn't answer my calls. I had to sit and listen to the television smear your beautiful face all over the five o'clock news and endure the onslaught of assumptions that you were guilty for the murder of that Simmons man." He can feel the tears welling in his eyes as he spills all of his pent up anxiety about her recent activities. He doesn't mean to blame her, but he can't help but feel slightly hurt that he wasn't given any indication from anyone on their side about her developing escapades.
"And finally, after a day and a half, I get a call from you from a number I don't recognize.
Katie, I know how much you needed justice for you Mom, but I just need you. You're all I have left and without you—without you this whole mess means nothing."
His voice petered out at the end and he chokes on that last syllable as he brings his hand up to his mouth to stop his lips from trembling. He wishes he was where she is. This would be so much more comforting if he could hold her.
"I know, Dad. I'm sorry." His daughter sounds so exhausted, so he accepts her apology with a grain of salt. She would have never stopped hunting for the truth about her mom, and he's come to terms with that. He just wishes that she could have done this in a safer manner.
He wishes a lot of things.
"Uhm, Castle and I have to go give our statements, but uhm, can I see you—soon?"
"Of course, bug. I'll be right here waiting." He can hear Rick in the background talking with a sterner voice than what Jim's used to hearing. Something about keeping the cameras back away from Kate.
"Alright, Dad." Her voice is slightly drowned out by the sudden surge of noise from her end of the line. He presses his phone closer to his ear to try and hear every last consonant that parts from his daughter's lips. "I'll see you real soon, okay?"
"I love you, Katie."
It's all he has left to give her; a parting reminder.
"I love you too, Dad, so much." She's so faint now.
"And—and Katie?" He raises his voice, hoping she hasn't hung up yet.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. Thank you so much. I knew you could do it."
He can hear nothing but the roar of sound from what must be a mob of reporters blaring through his small phone's speaker. If his daughter responded it's lost in the cacophony.
Jim slowing presses his thumb down on his phone's screen to end the call and slumps back into his chair letting out a heavy sigh. His mind is gloriously blank in his exhaustion and shock. and he takes the time to finally exist in a world where his wife's murderer is no longer a free man but is gloriously shackled, ready to pay for his sins.
It is in this moment that Jim Beckett finally puts his wife's murder to rest.
It is in this moment that he misses Jo the most.
And it is in this moment that he finally finds peace.