A bit of a change of pace with this piece. It's a six-parter and it focuses primarily on Beckett and the watch her father gave her. Although she's listed as the major character, Jim Beckett, Castle, Sorenson and Royce also feature. This was released on LJ a while ago and is completed, so I'll post a chapter a day. Happy 407. : D

Part 1: Life Lost

It was Italian, of course, her very favourite.

The familiarity of red and white checkered tablecloths, the yeasty tones of crust, cheese and celebration, as ingrained in the upholstery as the chianti stains on the bench tops. She spotted her dad as soon as she entered the restaurant. Kate didn't expect a huge Jim Beckett smile or his typical standing bear hug. Her father had his nose out of joint about the speeds she was (allegedly) clocking on her Harley, and Jesus, Dad, I AM riding at the right speed …

'I've seen you fly up the street. Don't think that I haven't.'

'Yeah? Well I'm in control, okay. I'm old enough to know, and it's really none of your business.'

She'd stomped out of the house a couple of days ago. He'd been working, she'd been at college and they hadn't had cause to butt heads in the meantime — not that they were always at each other like some of her friends and their parents, but they were father and daughter, strong-willed and pigheaded. Turbulence was as inevitable as him ordering the pepperoni pizza at this particular restaurant.

'Hey, Dad,' she said, putting her leather jacket and helmet on the fourth seat. She was disappointed that her mom hadn't arrived already, it would have been nice to see Johanna's friendly face. Her dad had his grim mouth on, and his lips thinned to nothing when he noticed the dent in the side of her helmet.

Not again.He didn't even need to speak for Kate to read the chapter on Fatherly Lectures.

'What?'

She sounded like a petulant 13-year old, something that Jim could evoke by simply being her dad and having the nerve to make judgement calls about what a 19-aged old woman might do. Or not. How dare he?

'I'm not going to remind you — again — about replacing your helmet, but you arelate. Tonight of all nights.'

Kate bit back a reply about being purposely late so her mom would already be here, sitting next to Judge Jim, soothing the tension between husband and daughter. She opted to continue the argument to prove she was right. On both counts. She did notspeed, she was on time. College Kate time.

'I'm not that late, Dad.'

'You are according to me, Kate.'

His tone was softer, although he emphasized 'Kate' with the same serve of snide as she'd coloured her 'Dad'. His face started to crease along his handsome smile lines but Jim stopped himself short. He obviously wanted to make a point. She watched him chug at the sleeve of his out-to-dinner shirt, hoisting his hand so that the cuff fell away from his watch.

The black band of the timepiece was a slash of consistency. If Jim Beckett was awake, on the job, being her dad, Kate could always depend that he'd be wearing this single dash of jewelry. He was a practical man. His watch reminded her of a time when he seemed as tall as the tree in the neighbour's yard, and as princely as the man she'd grow up to marry.

In her twentieth year, she was a shade taller than him, her heels boosting her up to the realization that her father wasn't tree height, wasn't a prince by title, and would probably disapprove of anyone she wanted to marry at this particular moment. But his watch was a constant. Manly, set into the architecture of his wrist, never overridden on occasions such as these.

'Twenty minutes, Katie. It's okay now, seeing as your mom is too, but I would've liked you to make the effort.'

'Did you ever think that I might be late coz I didn't want to speed in traffic?'

This drew a smile from his lips. He had a contagious grin, but it coincided with a click of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and Kate knew he was annoyed with himself for not stifling his admiration at a typical smart-ass comment. She couldn't always beat him this way. He wasn't a pushover as far as his moods were concerned, but they were now at the point in their lives where he had to admit that he couldn't make her do anything. She could vote, she could drive, he was her dad, but he wasn't Daddy.

He placed his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers together beneath his chin. Kate's gaze focused on the slip of his shirt cuffs, the exposure of his watch that lay quartzing against the regular crank of his radial pulse; the blood tributary from his heart. Steady, firm, predictable. The man. The sameness and reliability between heartbeat and personality. Her father.

'Do you wanna order something to drink?' he asked, his eyes squinting the way they did whenever he was attempting to understand the sway of his daughter's mind. Kate had noticed that they never, ever narrowed his gaze when he spoke to her mother, as though he trusted the communication to be open, to be untainted by teenaged emotion and willfulness. Another distinct difference in the way he interacted with his wife and his daughter.

'Sure.'

They didn't talk for a while, content enough to consult the waiter, glance over to the entrance in anticipation of Johanna's arrival, sip on something cold while the atmosphere between them warmed up. Kate finished her drink with a final tug on the straw. It was only when her father flicked at his cuff in agitation and wriggled the face of his watch towards his own, did she realize that her mom was getting too late. Even for a busy legal lady.

'Have you called her?'

Kate asked the question but knew the standard response. Her mom wasn't a cellphone advocate, wouldn't answer if she was in the middle of something important, probably hadn't looked at the time if there was a new soul to save. Kate's eyes glazed over a little. She was tired after an all-night study group turned into a garage jam with a couple of the guys who were forming a band, someone had brought out some weed, some booze …

'She's probably lost track of the time, Dad. We could go home? Meet up with her there?'

She watched a range of emotions hassle his eyes. Annoyance, indecision, concern. Jim made to say something, thought better of it, and gave more attention to his timepiece. It was as though the tick of the second hand would manifest her mother. She'd come scurrying in between the big hand and the date, swept away by an apology that she was trapped in the moment, had forgotten about the hour.

They sat. Kate made daughter-talk stretch into 30 minutes, focusing on studies and the price of fuel and 'how are those damn Yankees goin'?' while her dad muttered about stats, work, the strength of the dollar, the problems in Kosovo. They ordered. It was half-hearted and another form of Jim Beckett procrastination.

'Your mother would want you to be eating.'

It was Italian. Her mother's favourite. Of course she'd want Kate to be eating.

And when they ran out of things to say, of excuses to give Johanna, of morsels to consume, Jim's procrastination morphed into resignation. He stole a final look at his watch and sighed. Weird how this single freeze-frame of her father and his watch imprinted itself on Kate's memory forevermore. It was the final time he spoke Johanna's name while believing that she was still walking among them. It was that significant. But not.

'I guess she'll meet us at home, then.'

It was only when Raglan's words were shed, strangling the crap out of the air, stabbing the sense from her world, that Kate understood. Consistency, regularity, sameness?As gone from her life as the beauty of her mother's smile, the present thrill of a mother's love. The routine was gone from her life … until such time she chose to reclaim it.

As she curled to the floor, fetal-like and smashed, deathly silent in her shock and gutter-grief, Jim's hands cradled her from his sitting position on the couch. In his movement forward, his arms sought her from above. He gulped at her, as though trying to envelope her in a fatherly 'FRAGILE' label, like one that might be found on a precious FedEx package. Somehow, someway, the face of his watch lined up against her cheek, grazing it uncomfortably, sending her spinning back to the restaurant, him checking his watch, and the thought that Johanna Beckett was just around the corner. Late, but just around the corner. She's on her way, just around the corner ...

The only noise Kate heard that night, once Raglan had 'head on out', was the ticking of a once-predictable life draining away as readily as her mother's blood. Gone. Until such time she chose to reclaim it.