A/N: Thank you so much for the lovely welcome back to fan fiction and the happy dances people did when they saw the sequel to this story. Much appreciated.
Chapter 2 – A Painful Truth
Previously…
Kate is pleased with their progress this morning. Castle looks more alert than he has since they freed him from Tyson's clutches and less restless than he has the past few days since he shot the man dead in that Elizabeth Street basement. But she is troubled by the information Lanie shared with her last night, and she knows that as much as she doesn't want to hamper the progress they've made, now has to be the time to tell him exactly what Tyson did. Full disclosure will be the only way for him to start trusting her again.
So she bites her lip, takes a deep breath and reaches across the table to touch his hand.
"Hey," she smiles, when he looks up at her with interest. "Castle, there's something I have to tell you," she confesses, watching with deep regret as the new, hopeful light dims in his eyes and the wariness returns.
She watches as he leans back in the booth, withdrawing his hand from under hers as he physically attempts to put some distance between them. It's clear in this moment that he views her as an imminent source of pain and God does that hurt to see.
"I knew it was too good to be true," he says, turning his head away to look out of the window at the street beyond.
"What was too good to be true?" asks Kate, leaning towards him to breech the distance he just opened up.
"This!" he says, angrily waving his hand between them. "Us."
"Castle," sighs Kate, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Okay, look, you haven't even heard what I'm about to say."
"I don't need to. This is you," he adds, and it stings, though she knows she has only herself and her past behavior to blame for his reaction and the uninformed assumptions he's making. "Nothing that good ever lasts for long. Nothing about this ever goes smoothly."
"I know why you would say that…I do. I can't say I'm happy about it, but I know where you're coming from. But this is different, I promise," she assures him, earnestly.
"Different how?" he asks, a little petulantly, though she can see that his interest has been piqued, probably by her near pleading tone.
"Because what I'm about to tell you isn't about us or me or letting you down again or ruining what we have. We are going on this vacation, Castle. I will drive us myself. I packed your bag for God's sake – your underwear, socks, those little brass collar stays for your dress shirts, even that lip balm you like to use in the sun…" she tells him, ducking her head so she can see his eyes, attempting to coax a smile out of him.
The list she just reeled off is designed to show him just how well she knows him, and how much she pays attention to the small things that are important to him.
"Did you remember the pillow spray?" he asks, somewhat grumpily, before slowly lifting his gaze to meet hers.
"The lavender one? Yes. I packed two of them," she smiles, when he nods.
"Dress shirts? Are we going somewhere fancy?"
"Life with you has taught me to always be prepared," she replies, giving him a hopeful smile.
Castle nods, absorbing all she's just said, and then Kate watches him take a fortifying breath.
"So…what is it you needed to tell me? You looked so serious a second ago. I thought it had to be bad news."
"This is serious," she says, frankly. "I really want to be honest with you from now on. Lies, and hiding from the hard stuff, even if it was for the right reasons sometimes…it doesn't work for us. I can see that now. So even though this is going to be difficult for you to hear, I know that you would want me to be honest with you. No sugar coating. And I need for you to trust me again, Castle," she confesses, reaching across the table for his hand.
He relents, and is just stretching his fingers out to meet hers when their server arrives at the table with the food they ordered. Castle sighs loudly and collapses back against the booth again with a jolt.
Kate thanks the young woman patiently, waits until her rubber-soled shoe barely finishes squeaking on the vinyl tile as she pivots and turns away from them before she starts to explain.
"At the bar last night, before you arrived, Lanie cornered me and—"
"Lanie?" interrupts Castle; his brow concertinaed into a frown. "What did she want?"
"Castle," sighs Kate, rubbing her own forehead with the heel of her hand, "why don't you eat your breakfast while it's hot and just hear me out? Okay? Then, when I've finished, you can ask me anything you want."
Castle nods, seeming to accept her request as he reaches for the sticky, glass pitcher of Maple syrup that's sitting next to a small container of Equal and brown and white sugar sachets.
"She completed Tyson's autopsy yesterday—"
"Wait! Please tell me the guy is definitely dead?" blurts Castle, dribbling a small puddle of syrup off the side of his plate and onto the light grey Formica tabletop he's so distracted.
"Rick!" says Kate, giving him an unamused stare, her eyebrows shooting up for emphasis.
"Sorry. Sorry," he replies, waving her on as he makes a lock lips and throw away the key gesture.
"Thank you," she sighs, poking at the small, yellow mound of scrambled eggs on her own plate with her fork.
"So…and I should probably warn you that this is not exactly breakfast table conversation…" she interjects.
"Kate?" says Castle, frustratedly, dropping his fork onto the plate with a clatter, a mouthful of pancake still speared on it.
"Sorry," she says this time. "I'll just…"
"Get on with it," adds Castle.
"Right. So, cause of death was definitely G.S.W. to the chest. That was never in doubt. But as a routine part of the autopsy she removed and recorded the state, weight, and appearance of his internal organs as she would in any other case."
"And?"
"And…she found a sizeable mass on his pancreas."
Kate pauses to assess Castle's reaction to this news, but he just keeps on looking at her as if waiting for more.
"A tumor. Castle, she found a tumor," Kate clarifies, when he still doesn't flinch. "She also said that when she went back and re-examined his lungs she found signs that the cancer had spread."
"Tyson had cancer?"
Kate nods.
"Did he know?"
"Lanie seemed to think that there was no way he wouldn't know…couldn't have known that he was sick. But Castle, I thought there was maybe still a chance that it was just a coincidence that he was dying anyway…"
"But you know that it wasn't?" he says, with nothing but resignation in his voice.
"I got a call from Rachel this morning. They got the autopsy report and checked with local New York hospitals to see if he'd sought any medical treatment."
"They found something, didn't they?"
Kate nods.
"Yeah," she admits, looking down at her untouched plate of food and then back up at her partner's earnest face. "Turns out he attended Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Castle, Kelly saw him a few times as part of her caseload."
"Kelly? And she didn't even realize?" he asks, incredulous.
"He registered under the alias Eric Winters, the same name he used when he signed up to work for your car service. Rachel never discussed the details of the case with her at home. There was no way she could have known. According to the oncologist Kelly works with, he was given a terminal prognosis. He never came back to start his radiotherapy sessions, just cut out on his medical bills, stopped answering his phone and disappeared."
"Son of a bitch!" growls Castle, thumping his fist down on the table.
The cutlery rattles, the plates jump and their waitress stares over in alarm at the commotion. Kate gives her a reassuring smile and raises her hand in a wave to let her know that everything is fine.
"I'm so sorry, Castle."
Kate watches as he takes a breath, settles his features, squares his shoulders, picks up his discarded fork and then resumes cutting up his syrup-drenched pancakes as if the last few minutes never happened.
"So, are you still set on seeing the Fall colors in Virginia or can I tempt you with a flight somewhere warm and exotic?" he asks, as soon as he finishes the first mouthful of pancake, like he hasn't a care in the world.
"Castle, can we talk about this for a second please?"
"We are talking. I just asked for your opinion on vacation destinations," he replies, blithely.
"You know what I mean. About Tyson. About how he manipulated—"
"Kate that man has taken up enough of my time and enough of my head space," interrupts Castle, sharply, stopping her in her tracks.
"He knew that he was dying and he forced you to euthanize him, Castle. I can't imagine what that must feel like, but I think it might help you to talk about it."
"So I'll see Dr. Burke when we get home."
"I think you should talk about it now."
"Says the woman who spent years not talking about the important stuff."
Kate flinches.
"Touché!"
"I'm sorry. That was a stupid thing to say," he apologizes.
"Doesn't make it any less true," she concedes.
"Still, you're trying to help and I'm being a jackass. I'm sorry. But, Kate, that doesn't change the fact that I really don't want to talk about this. I just want to put it behind me and move on. What you just told me doesn't change who he was or the fact that I shot him dead. He's still an evil, twisted bastard, who for some reason was intent on ruining our lives. I'm not giving in to that."
Kate watches him stubbornly work his way through two cups of coffee and a short stack of pancakes without wavering.
Eventually, she sighs and resigns herself to shelving this discussion for later. She eats her own, near cold breakfast, forcing down each mouthful of eggs and bacon with a gulp of hot coffee until she can face eating no more food. Castle's reaction to this news is troubling her, but she can tell he's insistent by the firm set of his mouth. Pushing him more right now will only result in an argument she doesn't want to have. So she relents.
They knock about a few ideas for their trip, agreeing that they need a couple of days in Washington to tidy up her affairs before they can get the actual vacation underway.
Castle sleeps a lot over the next couple of days – rising late and turning in early. He's distant when she can tell he doesn't mean to be. It's as if thoughts he can't yet share with her are occupying his mind, filling it up and squeezing out everything else around him.
Kate calls Dr. Burke early one morning while she's out buying a few things for breakfast just to get a little advice. The therapist reassures her that this is perfectly normal behavior given the trauma Castle has just been through. His body is adjusting, 'resetting' he calls it, and the increased hours of sleep are helping his mind to heal. But he also tells her to call again if Castle exhibits any further signs of depression or anxiety. He thinks that a vacation is an excellent idea, and recommends that they come in to see him together when they get back to the city. He wishes Kate luck; luck that she hopes she won't need.
While Castle sleeps late, Kate packs up her things. He insisted on hiring movers and Kate agreed on the condition that she packed the boxes herself. The men will simply come in when she's done and ship her boxes back to New York. Since she no longer has her own apartment in the city, and they have yet to get to the point of discussing their future together, Kate arranges for the boxes to be sent to her dad's place until she can get back to town and sort out her affairs. Castle either doesn't hear her talking on the phone to the moving company or he doesn't have an opinion on her living arrangements. Either way, he doesn't contradict her instructions. She hopes that it is the former, since she can deal with almost anything at this point but his indifference.
The breakthrough Kate has been hoping for comes mid-afternoon on day three. Castle appears from the bedroom after an afternoon nap, his hair sleep rumpled, eyes puffy and face creased, to tell her that he has made reservations for dinner tonight at a quiet little Italian near Dupont Circle.
Kate stops what she's doing, straightening up from her spot kneeling on the floor to look up at him. His eyes are softer, more engaged, and there's a glimmer of something apologetic in them.
"Help me with these?" she asks, casually, indicating the stack of jewel CD cases she had been packing.
"And get a chance to mock your music collection?" he teases, eagerly dropping to the floor beside her. "Try and stop me."
His enthusiasm and humor is reassuringly familiar and so utterly welcome after the long silences and pensive, far off staring.
"Eh…I have two words for you, Mr. Castle," responds Kate, shoving him over with a hand to his shoulder so that he unbalances and falls to one side on the rug. "Taylor Swift!" she says, triumphantly.
"I told you that CD belonged to Alexis," he protests, laughing with her all the same.
"Come on! Did you really think I wouldn't check? Your daughter is not a liar, Castle. She denied all knowledge. And that CD was in your car."
"Okay," he says, holding up both hands in a sign of surrender. "But you have your fair share of doozies. What about this?" he asks, picking a random CD out of the pile and holding it up. "Dead Boys? Really, Beckett? How apt," he adds, dryly.
"They're a punk band, Castle. Not that you would know anything about that."
"Careful, Kate. Your cool is showing."
"Shut up!" she laughs, lunging for the CD case which he holds high above his head.
Kate stretches for it, and it's easy, since he's still sitting on the floor and all she has to do it stand up a little. But when he throws his arm backward out of her reach she catches her foot beneath his knee and topples over, onto him. He drops the CD case just in time to catch her, and the force of her momentum sends them both collapsing backwards onto the floor.
"Throwing yourself at me?" quips Castle, his hands spanning her waist as she basically lies on top of him.
"Thought you'd never notice," counters Kate, quietly, as they stare at each other, chests rising and falling in time with one another, the tension between them palpable.
Kate places a hand on his shoulder and bravely leans forward to kiss him just as Castle turns his head away to the side, bracing one hand on the floor to begin helping her up. She closes her eyes and shakes her head once they are both back on their feet, the intimate potential of the moment lost in a flash, and she balls her fist in frustration at her side.
"Think I'll just…go take a shower," says Castle, backing away out of the room clearing his throat, indicating that the awkwardness of the last thirty seconds isn't lost on him either.
"Right," nods Kate, dropping to her knees again when he makes no playful suggestion that she join him in the shower, as he would have done in the past. "I'll just finish up out here."
"Reservation's at eight o'clock," he tells her, and she can hear the guilt and regret in his voice. "Take your time."
She doesn't know how to bridge this physical and emotional gulf that has built up between them since they slept together just once at his loft after he was released from Tyson's living hell. But she's determined to make them face it, and this dinner tonight seems like it might offer the perfect opportunity.
Thoughts?
