FULL CIRCLE
A/N:
Written for the prompt "young Caskett fall in love but Jim doesn't approve" over on castlefanficprompts on tumblr.
Jim Beckett long ago resigned to the fact that he would never be able to control his daughter.
She was around the age of three, determined to jump from the kitchen counter to the couch six feet away. He threatened her with all kinds of punishments for disobeying his order to climb down into his arms, but his Katie took one look at him, pressed her lips together stubbornly, and jumped anyway.
Four stiches later and he was the one who learned a lesson.
Katherine Beckett will not change her mind about anything, unless you clearly explain a logical counter argument, while simultaneously avoiding the insinuation that she's wrong.
Somewhere around the tattooed "boyfriend" with the motorcycle, he thinks, was when he realised that there was no way teenage Katie would ever listen to his advice, even if he provided sound explanations for his rules and restrictions.
Since then, he's been flying blind, hoping desperately that his daughter's rebellious teenage phase will soon be over.
He is in no way prepared for the boy that greets him when he opens the door to meet Katie's date.
The kid at the door can barely be classified a boy; he has a five o'clock shadow and a confident smirk on his face that is all too knowing.
This man who is supposedly dating his eighteen-year-old daughter is at least twenty-five, and Jim swallows, trying his best to hide his reaction.
He knows that showing his anger will only further Katie's interest.
His wife has told him numerous times now that anger isn't a solution to their daughter's acts of rebellion, that forbidding her from doing something is only going to make it more appealing, and it had made sense, then.
It doesn't now, faced with a man who is looking at him with absolutely no fear in his eyes, just this twinkle that makes his heart rate skyrocket.
No, this isn't happening.
"I'm here to pick up Kate?" he says by way of introduction, and Jim realises just how long he has been standing with the door open, silently plotting the murder of this idiot that thinks he's going to go out with his daughter.
"You could have let him in."
He hears Katie's voice before he turns to see her barrelling down the hallway, somehow managing to put her shoes on while she's still in motion.
She's wearing heels that make her tower over him, and he wonders when she bought them, momentarily, as she brushes past him.
"Bye, dad," she says, but he snaps back into focus just in time, snagging her elbow before she escapes out the door with this man who is far too old for her.
"Where are you going?" He presses out, careful not to let loose the part of him that wants to order her to go to her room and stay there, because she isn't a child – she's moving across the country in the fall – and he's reminded by a voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like his wife that he can't do that anymore.
Katie looks to her date, and Jim finds himself surprised.
His daughter doesn't let anyone else make plans. His Katie likes to be in control, likes to know exactly what to expect.
"There's this new Italian restaurant a few blocks from here that I thought we'd try," he says, and Jim meets this kid's eye, trying his best to stare him down.
"Be home by eleven," he says, and the guy is nodding while Katie looks to him, annoyed.
"It's Friday," she says tersely, and he knows she wouldn't let that slide by – her curfew on weekends is midnight.
"Fine. Midnight."
She nods, ready to leave, when he catches the kid's attention.
"What's your name?"
"Rick," he says, with one last grin, before slipping his arm around Katie in a way that is so comfortable that it makes Jim's blood boil as he watches them walk towards the elevator.
He closes the front door, leaning back against it with a sigh.
He really wishes someone had warned him ahead of time what exactly it meant to parent a teenage girl. He just chuckles at the thought.
He wouldn't have been able to adequately prepare himself anyway.
He moves through the kitchen with practiced ease, preparing dinner as something niggles at him.
It stays dormant for a while – everything is in the oven cooking when it finally hits him.
Rick…
He grasps the book on his wife's nightstand with clammy fingers, doubting his suspicions, because there is no way…
Richard Castle currently lives in Manhattan with his daughter, who infuses his life with humour and inspiration.
There he is, that same self-confident smirk on his face in the picture that Jim witnessed not half an hour ago in person.
How the hell did Katie end up on a date with Richard Castle?
Richard Castle, who is not only an arrogant best-selling author who is probably closer to thirty than twenty-five, but who has a daughter himself.
This is not happening.
Of course, it is happening, right now in fact, and there's nothing he can do to stop it, because Richard Castle didn't give him a specific location of where he was taking his eighteen-year-old daughter out to dinner.
Jim takes a deep breath, on the verge of losing it completely when his wife gets home. He can barely get the whole story out, and when he does, Johanna just stares at him.
"You mean this Rick she has been seeing is Richard Castle," she verifies, and he nods stupidly, realising that not only has Katie confided in her mother, but that she doesn't actually know who he is.
Johanna seems to find it amusing.
"Serves her right for being too cool for my popular fiction," she says, moving to the kitchen to see what he has cooking.
"It won't last, Jim, don't worry," she tells him assuredly, but he can tell that despite her calm demeanour, she isn't exactly pleased with this revelation either.
"It won't last," he echoes, hopeful.
It can't last.
They're home by eleven thirty.
He'd like to think it was because of his stare, or because he made his distain for the guy perfectly clear, but a part of him wonders whether Richard Castle has to get home to his daughter.
Johanna went to bed at eleven, assuming that Katie – as usual – would push her curfew to the very last minute.
So he's the only one up, watching at his daughter as she enters the apartment with a love-struck grin on her face.
"How was your date?" He asks, trying to sound casual.
"Good," she responds, and he recognises that she wants to sound unaffected too, and he can't do this any longer.
"He's far too old for you, Katie," he tells her, stern, and she just laughs.
"He's young at heart," she says, that grin reappearing, and he sighs.
"He has a daughter. Did you know that?" he wonders, instantly annoyed at himself for letting it slip.
"Yes, I did. But how do you?" She demands, fiery, and he sees so much of Johanna in her in that moment that it knocks him off balance.
He pushes the novel across the coffee table, and she leans down to pick it up, her breath catching.
She's shocked, but then she's smiling to herself, grabbing the phone and running off to her bedroom, and he lets out a frustrated sigh.
This cannot go on.
It does.
Johanna persuades him to let it go, with her usual logic.
She argues that it's the best way to limit the length of the relationship, because his method of forbidding Katie from doing things hasn't exactly been successful in the past.
The boy with the motorcycle comes to mind and he agrees with his wife, unable to come up with a better plan that doesn't involve locking his daughter in her room, or other actions that are considered parental neglect.
It's not as if it can last long.
The man is a best selling author with a child – surely he knows that a relationship with a high school senior isn't practical. Surely he will realise that it isn't going to last.
When three weeks pass without Katie recognising the inevitable, he gives up on pretending and tries to reason with her.
He's going to break your heart, Katie. Haven't you seen the articles in the paper? He wants nothing more than a good time. You're leaving for Stanford in a few months – surely it's better that you end it now?
But his daughter is stubborn, coming back with arguments as tried and true as he isn't like that, dad, it's just an act to sell more books, and we can make the long distance thing work – we can.
Johanna just takes his hand and tells him that fate will run its course.
It isn't meant to last; you don't need to make her hate you in the meantime.
He takes a deep breath and tries his best to believe her.
It lasts far longer than they expect.
Four months pass, and while he still doesn't like the guy – doesn't like that this twenty six year old is interested in his teenage daughter – he has learned to tolerate him, for Katie.
Because Katie seems to be in love, and even though he knows without a doubt that this is going to break her heart, he can't prevent it, apparently.
His reluctant acceptance doesn't stop him from coming home earlier from work to make sure she isn't alone in the apartment with him, even if the logical side of his brain wants to remind him that Richard Castle has his own apartment.
Rick is sitting on the couch with Katie, flipping through stations on the television while they chat mindlessly, and Jim is loitering in the kitchen taking far longer than necessary to make a sandwich.
He only picks up parts of the conversation, it all fairly harmless, until Katie mentions their plans for Friday night.
"I can't, Black Pawn is throwing a book launch party," Rick responds, throwing the words out carelessly, but Jim know his daughter, knows that her silence speaks volumes.
"Am I not invited?" She asks after a few moments and Rick's lack of explanation.
That's when Rick turns to her, trying to control the damage.
Jim just smirks; he knows the fire in her eyes. Good luck, kid.
"Kate, you know I'd love for you to be my date, but-"
"What? I'm not good enough for your fancy party?" She demands, and Rick shakes his head, resigned to the reality and apparently unable to lie.
"It doesn't look good, Kate," he says softly. "You're still in high school, it's not exactly great for publicity," he explains, and Kate stands, furious.
"What, so I can date you, so long as no one knows? God forbid I tarnish your stellar reputation," she says sarcastically, about to disappear into her room when he grabs her hand.
"Kate, please," he begs softly. "You know I love you," he murmurs, and Jim averts his eyes at the confession, embarrassed to witness such an intimate moment.
"Fuck you," she spits, turning on her heel and storming to her room, slamming the door loudly.
He's left standing in the kitchen, Rick glancing at him from the couch, standing.
"I think I should go," he mumbles, and Jim nods dumbly, as Rick holds his hand up in a slight wave, before moving slowly to the door.
He doesn't expect that to be it.
Not after hearing them bicker constantly, watching them fight over tiny little things and then make up moments later.
But apparently his daughter has made up her mind.
He knew it wouldn't last, but this isn't the way he thought it would end.
The kid tries to contact Katie, and he fields multiple phone calls from the author that Katie refuses to take. When he questions her about it she just sighs and says "it was never going to last, dad," as if she hadn't refuted that same conclusion only a few months prior.
Katie goes to Stanford, and Richard Castle becomes nothing more than a memory for the Beckett family.
When Johanna dies, the world becomes a different place.
He spends years struggling to keep from drowning in his grief, in the vices that came with that kind of all-encompassing pain.
It's when Katie goes to Kiev, gets on a plane following a tearful I can't live like this anymore, dad that it truly hits him.
He can't lose them both.
The six months without his daughter checking on him, looking out for him, are hell, and he knows then that he can't continue like this any longer.
He can't live like this anymore, either.
He digs his way out of the hole with the help of his daughter, and without the haze of the alcohol he can see clearly the strong, brilliant woman she became while he was busy letting her down.
He's three months sober, and she's grinning at him across their usual booth at the diner.
It hits him that he hasn't seen her smile since before their world shifted irrevocably, and it gives him comfort to learn that happiness isn't unattainable, even after all that they've suffered.
He's revelling in the pure joy on her face when she reaches across the table for his hand.
"I've been seeing someone, dad," she says, and he smiles back at her, recognising that her willingness to share news about her life with him is progress.
They've been learning how to be father and daughter again without Johanna, and this is a milestone of the process, so he just nods at her encouragingly.
"He's been great," she starts, her eyes misting over with joy instead of the usual grief, and he's overcome by the sight of her so happy.
She almost looks like his Katie again. The eight year old who would ride her bike as fast as she possibly could, hurtling down hills with a grin and absolutely no fear.
"I ran into him a few weeks after I got back, and…"
"Wait," he says, her word choice tripping him up. "Ran into him?"
"It's Rick, dad," she whispers, apprehensive. "Rick Castle."
Some days he isn't exactly sure how, but he manages to survive parenting Katherine Beckett.
He learns to make peace with the choices she makes, even if he doesn't always agree, even if it takes him some time to see it her way, and she grows into a woman he couldn't be more proud of.
But thirty odd years pass before he can truly laugh about all that he endured parenting such an independent, strong-minded daughter.
"I'm standing there, telling her she isn't allowed to go, and she just turns to me, smirks, and walks right out the door. You should have seen this guy, dad. Tattoos, piercings, I'm telling you; I've seen more impressive prisoners. God, that girl is all Castle, I swear…"
He chuckles, teasing.
"You never know, Katie, she might end up marrying the guy."
A/N:
Feedback is always appreciated :)