"I once broke my ankle when I was dancing on a bar. My mother wanted to ground me for life when I came home," she says, grinning at his indignant look.
They sit in what has soon become their booth and Karen (as she has learned is the name of the waitress) has brought her a cup of tea without having to even ask her order. A window in the back is open and grants a fresh breeze to feather across her skin and for busy cadences of the New York City life to carry inside like a record of nostalgia.
"I got almost trampled to death by a cow on a rooftop," he says in response and now it's her staring at him in quiet disbelief.
"Okay, you win," she says and he chuckles lightly, coffee cup twirling in his hands.
Her eyes lower to her fingers on the checked table cloth then, watch as her nails draw symbols into the fabric, slow and deliberate wavy lines and she feels the smile fade slowly.
She wants to tell him about the almost-phone-call this morning. Almost. One more word that could have brought Atlas to his knees.
She knows his eyes are on her, she recognizes their weight now.
"It was my mother," he says and she looks up at him to find his fingers grasping his mug a little more fiercely. "She told me that I needed to get a grip on myself, that I had to pull myself together and fix my problems with alcohol. She told me that she wouldn't let Alexis come home to find me like this. That kind of had me snap out of it. I picked myself up, managed to stop drinking. She was also the one to suggest the Support Group."
She watches his lips, the low cursive lines and the shadows underneath his eyes that she keeps forgetting because of the lightness in blue.
She'd like to hear the whole story. To understand the crinkles and rough patches of his skin but she doesn't ask.
"When they told me not to come to the precinct until I could handle it, the drinking only got worse," she hears herself speaking. "It was horrible being at home, it was too loud and left too much room for my thoughts and I couldn't handle it so I drank," her voice is raspy, like it doesn't want to support her words anymore and she swallows heavily.
"My father had been an alcoholic as well and I tried not to let my own struggle show. It worked, up until that one night where he found me in the middle of my apartment, shivering, drunk and sobbing and I couldn't get up," she swallows again, feels her nails digging into the soft, already harmed flesh of her palms.
"He stayed the whole night and took care of me but in the morning he got angry. Oh god he was so angry," she releases a shuddering breath, "I had been the one to send him to recovery and now I was making the same mistakes, even chose the same poison I used to hate so much." She wonders how much torture her lips can handle before breaking for good.
"He told me to get help and I yelled at him that I didn't need it. I wasn't really sober again then and I called him a hypocrite for even judging. I'll never forget his face," she breathes on a shaky sigh.
"He looked like I might as well have slapped him and I regretted it immediately but he just got very calm and understanding in a way I hated and told me to call him once I was sober again so that we could talk. I didn't. I'm not good at accepting help. I got myself together though. Stopped drinking and started doing more for my physical health. When I wanted to sign back up for duty they told me I had to be cleared by a therapist first and so I joined the support group because it seemed easier at the time. I still haven't called my dad." She glances to the tops of the room, at rotating ventilator blades and wooden ceiling boards, anywhere but his eyes.
"He tried to call a couple times, even came over once but I couldn't open the door."
"Why not?" he's breaking protocol but somehow it's okay.
"I was still ashamed for tumbling down that path, for what I said, for who I became." She furrows her brow, "I still am." She shrugs kind of helplessly and digs her nails deeper into her skin.
"You got yourself out, you should be proud… He'd be proud," he says and she knows his hands are battling a silent war on their own, trying not to reach out for her own clasping fingers to hold them still.
"Well I'm not." Her teeth cut into her lip again, "I don't know what to say to him."
"Why don't you start with hello?"
It's all wrong. She glares at her reflection in the mirror, at all the mismatched edges, at the jacket that sits too loose and the high heels that make her too tall and sighs before reaching for the phone on the nightstand.
What do you wear when you're seeing your father again for the first time in weeks after you just had a major fight? She reconsiders her text for a second before she presses send.
Clothes? Comes his reply only seconds later and she rolls her eyes in response before the phone vibrates again.
Sorry, lame. Don't wear black and go for your trench coat instead of leather.
Thanks.
No problem and good luck, it will all be okay.
Thanks.
It will all be okay.
She ends up in a loosely fitting white blouse and a dark blue scarf and finds that she looks like she has herself pieced neatly together instead of like she is an alluvial wrack on a shore she doesn't recognize. She hopes her father doesn't do that x-ray vision thing her mother had going and she hopes to every star that he won't ask about her heart because she wouldn't know how to describe its facets anymore.
"I'm glad you called," her father says after they have settled on the living room couch.
"Yeah me too," she smiles that smile that stretches her cheeks in all the wrong ways.
"You look good."
"Thank you," she smiles tightly again and seriously, she has got to stop with that. Maybe if she practices in front of the mirror it won't feel as fake at some point.
"How are you?" he cocks his head at her and she sees the hesitance in his eyes, not sure how many questions he is allowed, not sure how much she can handle.
How is she though?
I'm good, Dad, thanks for asking. Sometimes I choke on my own breath and my knees can't carry my weight. I dream about falling a lot. Loud sounds startle me, light scares me, so does the night and sometimes I flinch away from my own shadow. I kind of want to cut out my heart most of the time so I can restart it and treat it right this time around. Sometimes my palms feel so heavy with the wreckage I pour in their cupped flesh like secrets and I don't really know what to do with all the debris. I'm having a blast you know.
"I'm good," she says instead, nodding her head in affirmation. She doesn't want him to know about the breaking, she needs him to stop looking at her like one of the porcelain swans her mother used to keep in their living room, always about to shatter into pieces.
"You said you're doing therapy?" her father asks then.
"Yeah, I'm in a support group, we meet Wednesdays and I'm seeing one of the guys on Fridays too." She pulls one of the pillows into her lap to tuck at its edges.
"Oh, who is he?"
"His name is Richard." She doesn't want to mention his last name. They'd both glance over to the vast book shelves. They'd both remember her mother telling them about his books. They'd both remember the time when she threw each one of them against the wall on January 10th. They'd both remember the way she hid in her room afterwards, with only his words as a blanket.
"What's he like?"
"Well," she's never been good at casting people into words. "He's good." He'd never speak to her again for this poor character description but she's not a writer and maybe she can start there.
"He's good with words but he didn't speak much during the sessions, which he compensates for by talking abut absolutely everything when we see each other. He loves ridiculous things like zombies and aliens and I don't even know what. He made up this game for us which he calls truth because we didn't really know what to talk about. "
"He sounds nice," her father comments, a small smile playing on his lips.
"Yeah, he's a great friend."
They get along easily and she is glad that there isn't too much air in between the two of them, and that words can travel further than the lips. She is glad that he smiles at her a lot and she is glad that his eyes are warm again when they look at her.
He doesn't ask about the precinct or her job and she doesn't mention it.
He doesn't ask about the alcohol either, just brings her a cup of tea and smiles this very, very good smile that makes her feel like she is five years old again at the top of a slide, hurling down toward him.
"And well, Richard taught me how to defend myself in case of a zombie apocalypse anyway," she doesn't really know how she ended up talking about zombies with her father but she is sure Castle is to blame for that entirely.
"You smile whenever you talk about him," her father points out and for a second her index finger finds her lips, traces the contours of her smile like a stanza in braille, spelling out a secret she doesn't know yet.
She brings her cup to her lips then to taste sweet peppermint.
He answers the phone after the first ring and the first thing she hears is a rustled crash that is immediately followed by a breathy, "hi."
"You okay there, Castle?"
"Might have fallen out of bed reaching for the phone," he replies and she smiles as she settles back into her pillows to pull the blanket up higher and around her shoulders.
"How did it go?" he asks next.
"It was fine, I think he forgave me."
"And you?"
"I forgave him a long time ago," she answers, slight irritation laced into her voice.
"No, I meant, do you forgive yourself?" he asks then and the words kind of knock her out.
"Castle," it's a warning and a beg at once and please, please, please don't go there.
"No, Kate, do you forgive yourself?" her fingers grasp at the blanket, pulling it even closer as if that would somehow shield her away from this.
"Yes." Her voice is too loud, too stark against the small device in her hand.
"Truth?" he asks, voice almost painfully quiet.
"No," she hopes it's silent enough to get caught on air and just drift away but of course it isn't. Silent words always seem to be the loudest with them.
"I hope in time you will," his sincerity weaves through the microphone and she feels the familiar sad smile on her lips and the weight of it in her eyes.
"I hope so too," she whispers.
"So what are you doing," he says, the gravel leaving his voice and she can practically see him leaning back, shoulders relaxing as he steers them into lighter conversations.
"Speaking to you," she says.
"And other than that?"
"Lying in bed."
"Is that supposed to be a booty call?" his voice is light and kind of bouncy enough to make her smile for real and she feels herself leaning back again as well.
"In what universe?" she raises her eyebrows and somehow she knows that he can read that action from her tone alone.
"Don't get me started on universes," he laughs.
"Really please don't," she says quickly.
"I'm watching Temptation Lane re-runs," he says then and her heart clenches for a second.
"Oh-"
"Yeah it's kind of calming in its ridiculousness," he laughs.
"My mom and I used to watch it."
"Oh you wanna watch while we speak?"
"Yeah let me just get to the living room, what episode are they airing?" she asks, untangling herself from the bed sheets.
"I don't know I just tuned in, a brunette is yelling."
"You just narrowed it down to every episode ever," she replies, bare feet tiptoeing across the cold floor.
"Well please contribute your insider info then."
"Found it," she exclaims, remote still in her hands as she reaches for the purple blanket at the foot of her couch to cover her cool feet once she settles down.
"So?"
"Season 7, Episode 10."
"You got that from one scene."
"Are you impressed?" she laughs, legs crossing and falling back against her cushions.
"Yes and also kind of worried," she can imagine his dramatically wide eyes and the earnest nod accompanying his words and finds herself smiling at the image.
"Why?"
"Temptation Lane, Nebula 9, your taste…" he sighs a little and she shakes her head, phone still pressed to her ear.
"Says the man sleeping in pajamas with little aliens on them."
"Mulder would be proud," he retorts.
"Who is Mulder?" she grins at his shocked gasp.
"Your words hurt."
"I'm kidding of course I know the X-files."
"You never know," he replies.
"Oh this scene is good," she redirects their focus to the show currently playing on the TV. She remembers watching this exact episode a couple years ago when she was still in training and a suspect had thrown her over a car and she was left tending her wounds at home.
Alone.
"Are they together?" Castle asks in reference to the arguing couple on the screen.
"They had an affair," she explains.
"Oh."
"Yeah he kind of reminds me of an old boyfriend of mine though," she says, cocking her head at the man in scrubs.
"Do tell," he sounds a little too excited and she finds herself rolling her eyes at his voice from the phone once again.
"His name was Josh, he was a Doctor, never really there, though, it was also kind of what I needed."
"Being able to say you're not alone when in reality you were?" he defines it a little too easily and once again she is left to wonder why in silence.
"Yeah."
"Yeah," he echoes.
"He looks like he is a Dementor, trying to suck her soul out with that kiss," she points at the TV even though she knows he can't see her.
"A Harry Potter reference I am so proud."
"You're not the only one able to come up with references you know."
"Oh I didn't mean that. I meant that you also know something that requires good taste."
She'd slap him if he were here.
But for now she just smiles and tucks the blanket around herself a little tighter.
AN: Thank you for reading and to those that have left me words of encouragement and kindness. I hope you know that your lovely words are always appreciated and that I thank each one of you sweet people for making me smile.