Piano In the Dark
Kate Beckett woke in the middle of the night and reached across the bed for Castle, but he wasn't there. For a brief moment, her old insecurities flared, worried that it was something she did or said during their lovemaking earlier, but those traitorous thoughts soon gave way to more practical possibilities.
She dragged herself out of bed and slid one of his shirts over the camisole and boy shorts she had slipped into before falling asleep. Rick always did get a chuckle out of her not being able to sleep in the nude, but that was a thought for another time. She opened the door leading into his office, thinking he must have gotten up to write. She hoped he was, this case had been a truly dark and nasty one and he had done little of that in the last two weeks.
She saw immediately that he had tried. His laptop was sitting at an odd angle on his desk, still on. His "You really should be writing" screen saver scrolling endlessly. When she brushed the touch pad it was on a blank document. She was about to wonder how long he had sat there staring at a blank screen when she heard it. The soft, almost mournful notes of a piano. It wasn't a recording, and she couldn't recognize the tune, but it was so quiet and sad, and it was almost beautiful.
She knew about the baby grand piano that sat in the living room, but figured it was Martha's. She didn't even know Rick could play, one of many things she was learning about this complicated, sensitive man she adored. She watched him as he sat in the dark, playing this sad mournful ballad with only a single candle to guide his fingers across the keys. She could see his tears reflected in the candle's dim glow and it tore heart in two.
She wanted to rush to his side, kiss him, and brush his tears away, but she stood, transfixed as if caught in the spell of the mournful notes he was playing which tore at her heart in a way that nothing else could. So she stood there leaning on the doorway, tears falling from her own closed eyes at the as the notes from the piano washed over her.
For the past two weeks, they had been working quite likely the most heart wrenching case the two of them had ever investigated together. The type of case she always dreaded, that no homicide detective with a soul ever wanted to have cross their desk. There had been eight victims in all, young girls all between the ages of eight and twelve. Murdered and left in dumpsters.
She had tried to get him to stay home and sit this one out, but he refused. He had told her that if she was in this, then so was he. There was no question of his involvement after victim number three. Melissa Davies, age ten, was a pretty little redhead with pale blue eyes. That was all it took set him inexorably into "Daddy" mode. He wasn't going anywhere after that.
He called Alexis every night during the case, glad she wasn't interning at the morgue this semester. After her kidnapping she was taking it easy. He would drive out to her dorm to visit her, hug her fiercely and look under her bed for monsters whenever a new body dropped in the case though. She was sure he saw his baby girl in every one of their little faces and it broke her heart every time she saw him.
For two weeks, as the body count slowly rose with no new leads, she watched him die a little bit more inside at every crime scene. Gone were his wild theories and his stories to make the evidence make sense, he had even forgotten to bring her coffee once or twice. He just sat in his chair by her desk reading evidence reports and staring at the murder board, the life was slowly draining out of his soul.
When they finally caught the man responsible, Reginald Jacobs, there was no fist pumping, no outward show of victory from her normally expressive partner. The man had been caught red handed on a surveillance video camera dumping victim number eight, Veronica Miles, age eleven into the dumpster behind New Amsterdam Bank and Trust.
He confessed to all of the murders without much prompting, almost like he'd wanted to be caught and punished, he had even waived his right to counsel. As she took down his confession and gave it back to him to sign Rick had been strangely silent, like he had no heart for this anymore. When Jacobs was finished signing, and she called LT in to take charge of the prisoner for processing, Rick spoke only one word to the man.
"Why?"
To which the man answered, "They were simply too beautiful to live in this world."
To her credit, Kate had seen the rage building in Rick's eyes and body language the moment the words left Reginald Jacobs' mouth, she had LT hustle the man out of the interrogation room before Rick lost it.
He flipped the table, kicked all of the chairs over and she seriously wondered if he was going to do actual property damage before she saw his eyes land on the scattered crime scene photos of all eight girls on the floor, he dropped to his knees and inexplicably burst into tears. The first real show of emotion she had seen on his face in over a week.
He slowly, almost tenderly picked up every photo, as if committing all of their names and faces to memory, taking great care to make sure they were undamaged and right side up before slipping them back into the file folder and almost reverently giving it to her with shaking hands.
He was halfway through quietly picking up the interrogation room, when Captain Gates appeared at the door, a look bordering almost on sympathy for the man. Kate had forgotten briefly that they had that one single thing in common. They were both parents. The Captain had softened a bit toward him since Alexis' kidnapping.
"Please take Mr. Castle home, Detective Beckett. I don't want to see either of you for at least a week."
That was Thursday afternoon.
They had taken the long way back to the loft to stop at her apartment to collect the bag she always kept packed for unexpected long stays at the loft. She kept pajamas at his place and a change of work clothes, but not much in the way of casual wear...yet.
They took a longer detour to swing out to Columbia. Kate had a feeling he would want to hug his daughter now that this case was finally over. She hadn't realized how much she had needed it too, until Alexis disengaged from her father and wrapped her slender arms around her waist. She hugged Alexis tightly, not realizing she had begun to cry until Castle pulled them both in and had wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumb.
They had made love when they got back to the loft, but there was little passion in it, for either of them. More of a desperate need to feel alive after the last two weeks had nearly crushed them both. The case had trampled Castle's spirit, his anguish and pain had nearly broken hers. To feel something other than the soul crushing sadness that had enveloped them.
Which brought them back to this moment. The music had stopped. When she looked up, he was gently closing the cover over the keys and running a finger across it as he sat on the bench looking down at his hands. With the music's spell broken she crossed the short distance to the piano and sat at the bench beside him. She pulled his head to her breast and stroked his hair.
"That was beautiful, I didn't know you could play." she whispered.
"Mother began to teach me when I was four." Castle replied quietly. "When she couldn't get a part in a show, she would make ends meet by giving private piano lessons."
Kate had forgotten that the Rodgers family hadn't always been wealthy, that Martha had had to raise a son by herself in the 1970's when such things were not looked upon with as much tolerance as they are now. Though now that she thought on it, it made sense why Alexis had been encouraged to take up an instrument, to have the gift of music to fall back on when she needed it.
"One summer we actually lived on an estate in the Hamptons when mother was tutoring their daughter. It was why I bought a house there when I could afford it. I think mom wanted me to follow in her footsteps, but then I discovered writing."
"Your father." Kate whispered, remembering his story about the book he'd gotten in the mail the day he returned from Paris with Alexis.
"Yeah." Rick replied, "Though I did make some extra money in college playing in some of the upscale bars. That is until the In A Hail Of Bullets hit the bestseller list. I haven't played in years."
"Why now?" Kate couldn't help but ask.
"I tried to write, but the words just wouldn't come. I think I stared at my laptop for over an hour, before I came out here, poured myself a glass of scotch and poked at the keys, then it all came flooding out of me. I had forgotten how much it helped to do that until now."
"Come on, Rick, lets go back to bed." Kate said, tugging him off the piano bench, "We can thank your mother for the many gifts she gave you in the morning."
Rick blew out the candle on the piano and followed her back to bed. Glad that neither he, nor Kate would have to grieve for the victims alone.
They had each other.