"She would've been six yesterday," she says quietly, her eyes closed at the gentle touch of his hands on hers, dabbing Neosporin onto her cuts. "I wanted to forget, just for a little while, but I drank all day and still couldn't get away from the pain. I don't remember why I ended up at my dad's… I think I wanted to make sure he wasn't drinking, too. I think that was a bad idea."
"I think you're entitled to a bad decision or two," he soothes, wrapping her hand in gauze and kissing the spot where it ends, laying it down in her lap gently. "Especially right now."
"I'm not entitled to anything," she grumbles quietly, rolling her eyes. "Nothing but misery and guilt."
"This isn't your fault, Kate," he tries to convince her. "You couldn't have known it would happen, any of it. This isn't on you."
She shrugs it off, unwilling to listen. Her eyes dart to the ballerina photo, relishing in the healthy little girl smiling back at her. "She would've loved school," she thinks out loud. "She'd be starting first grade soon, reading and writing…"
Castle can't take the crushed tone of her voice anymore and stands abruptly, the stool flying backwards. "Kate," he sighs, pacing back and forth between the living room and kitchen, "you can't spend the rest of your life mourning over what she would have been."
"The hell I can't," she cries in outrage. "You don't know what it's like, Castle! Your daughter is brilliant, and beautiful, and alive. You don't have to power through everyday, putting your regrets and your worries and your emotions into a steel box at the bottom of your brain because a single thought of your daughter isn't going to send you spiraling into a mental breakdown!
"You don't have to mourn over what she would have been because you know! You know, Castle! You can see her going full steam ahead into a wonderful future! Alexis is going to do something amazing with her life; she's going to make a difference. You know.
"Me? I can only imagine. Maybe Rory would be a doctor or a lawyer. But maybe she would have hated school, dropped out and started a band. Maybe she would have been famous, or maybe she would have been a missionary. The point is: I don't know, and I never will!
"Your daughter is here, Castle," she emphasizes. "You can see her for all that she is. Mine's not." She turns around, attacking the tears on her cheeks with her sleeve and a vengeance, already so damn sick of letting him see her cry.
He sidles up behind her, pulling her hands away from her face as he molds his chest into her back. "You don't have to hide from me, Kate," he murmurs, his mouth right next to her ear, his warm breath sending shivers down her spine. "You misunderstood," he corrects her, laying his chin down on her shoulder. "I'm not saying to forget about her, but speculation won't bring you anything besides this heartache. Remember her for what she was, not for what she could have been. Because you're right; you don't know. But you do know what you got to experience, and what you got to experience is far greater than anything else you ever will."
"But she could've been so much," she chokes, blinded by her grief as she clutches his hands in front of her, digging her nails into his skin as she pulls them tighter around her waist. "She would've been so wonderful."
"I know," he says uselessly, squeezing her tightly. "She would've been just like you," he muses, picture mother and daughter next to each other. "Brilliant… frustrating… extraordinary… and tall. Just like you."
She snorts in spite of her self, smacking him lightly on his upper arm. "Yeah," she agrees wistfully, imagining her daughter learning to ride a bike, getting it on the first go without training wheels, learning how to drive, walking across the stage at her high school graduation… "Yeah."
They stand there together for minutes, hours, days, before a thought occurs to Castle. "Y'know, I googled you once. After you brought me in for questioning on Allison Tisdale. I never found anything… nothing even hinted…"
"I kept out of the public eye," she shrugs sadly. "Maybe if I hadn't, they would have brought her back, though something tells me they wouldn't have. We issued an amber alert, of course," she assures him. "Sent her picture out to stations and hospitals all around New England and, eventually, further, I just never made any public pleas or anything." He's silent, taking in all of this new information.
"I failed her, didn't I?" she interprets his silent as judgment. "You can say it; it's nothing new to me."
"No, Kate," Castle breathes, hugging her tightly once more. "You loved her. That's all anybody could ever ask of you."
"Love isn't always enough, Castle; what did it ever get me? My daughter in the ground and a broken heart? Love is horseshit."
"Kate-"
"I should've paid more attention," she laments, her throat constricting. "I should've noticed."
"You couldn't have. I think you're lucky the tumor caused the seizure when it did. Well," he rushes on, "maybe lucky isn't right, exactly. But if it was that small when you brought it in, there probably wouldn't have been any other symptoms to notice. Imagine if she hadn't seized for another month or two; it could've been three times the size it was. She probably wouldn't have had a chance."
"Does it really seem like she had a chance anyway to you?"
"Look," he goes to defend himself.
"No," she stops him. "You're right. You're trying to show me a little bit of light here; you're trying to help and I'm just tearing it all down. I'm sorry."
"You don't have to be. I do know that you're going through something terrible, and nonsensical, and pointless, but I just want you to see that there can be a brighter side to it all. That's all. I…" he trails off, not wanting to overstep. As if he hasn't already.
"What?" she encourages, leaning her head back to look up at him.
"I know you lost yourself in your mother's murder," he treads carefully, "and I think that this is significantly worse than that. I just don't want to see you fall so far that you can't stand up again. I don't want you to lose yourself."
"Sometimes I wish I could," she admits. "Just escape from it all, let all of this pain be over. Sometimes."
"Please don't," he begs. "I'm right here, Kate. Please call me when you feel like that. I'll be right here."
"I know you will," she smiles. "Thank you." She steps forward, out of his embrace, and moves to the refrigerator to get a bottle of water. She needs distance and something to cool off her burning face. "Do you want anything?" she offers, pressing the plastic to her forehead.
"I'm good, thanks," he declines. "Are you all right?"
"I will be," she grimaces, moving the bottle to her cheek. "Eventually."
He's not exactly convinced, but takes what he can get. A year ago he wouldn't even be here, let alone breaking through her thick skull, holding her while she cries, witnessing her at her worst. He believes that if she's not okay, she'll let him know.
"Do you have to work today?"
"Nah," she sighs gratefully. "I have the weekend off."
"Why don't you come back to the Hamptons with me? Get out of the city, get some fresh air. no responsibilities. Just a couple of days to clear your head and be free."
She shouldn't say yes and she knows it. It's not her place to go on a vacation, no matter how small; she doesn't have to right to get away and clear her head. But she's selfish, and a weekend away from it all sounds so damn good.
"Okay," she agrees. "But I'm not skinny-dipping with you."
"Aw," he pouts, giving her the puppy-dog look as she laughs, leaving him to go back a small bag.
"You'll get over it!" she tosses over her shoulder.
"Wanna bet?"
xxx
"Wow Castle, you rich or something?" Beckett wonders out loud, scrutinizing his property in awe.
"Well, I'm no James Patterson, but I do all right," he smirks, slinging her overnight bag over one shoulder and wrapping his other arm around her waist, tugging her towards the front door.
"I'll say." She doesn't think she's ever seen a house so big, let alone spent the weekend in one. The front lawn is rolling with bright green grass, wildflowers adorn a beautiful garden lining the front porch, and she can't even see the ocean from where she stands, the house, mansion!, blocking her view.
She can hear it, though, and she can smell it, so strong that she's sure she can already taste the salt in the air and on her lips. He gives her a tour of the house, leaving her to her own devices while he goes to come up with a solution for dinner.
He comes looking for her a couple of hours later, a reservation made at a decent touristy restaurant. It's nothing too fancy but it's no hole in the wall, either, and he thinks she'll like it.
When he doesn't find her in her room he thinks nothing of it; there's still the office, library, and lounge. When she's not there either he starts to get worried, rushing outside to check the pool when he spots her lonely little figure down the beach.
"Beckett?" she hears him call, still a ways away as she leans forward to look at the garden of sand and stones just beyond the water's edge.
"Not so close, Rory!" Kate yells as her daughter stumbles down to where the beach meets the Atlantic, scrunching her nose as the sand sticks between her toes.
"Wanna see fishies!" she insists, leaning forward to peer into the water, not even an inch deep, lapping at her toes. She screeches as a wave takes her out, tossing her onto her butt a couple of feet from where she started. "No fishies," she complains as Kate runs over, grasping her under the arms and lifting her easily, just as another wave crashes onto the beach.
"Not this close to the beach," Kate tells her. "They don't like to be tossed around in the waves."
"Me either."
"No fishies," she mutters absentmindedly, crouching to dip her fingers in.
"Look, Mommy! Look!" Rory comes running towards their towel, a fist pressed against her chest and the other arm waving wildly at her side.
"What'd you find?" Kate asks, closing her book and sitting up straight.
"I dunno!" Rory opens her hand, thrusting her prize towards her mother. "It tickles."
"That's because it's a snail," Kate explains, picking it up by the shell. "See? It kind of sticks itself to your hand while it moves."
"Oh," she answers, disinterested, as she takes it back. "Keep it?"
"No, baby. This kind of snail likes the water – we can't bring it back home with us."
Kate finds a tiny snail stuck on a rock, slowly progressing from one end to the other. She picks it up just as Castle reaches her, holding it in front of her face to watch the snail up close.
"Hey," he puffs, leaning against his knees. "What're you doing?"
"Diggin'."
"Why?"
"So my snail can't get away."
"Oh, Rory, you need to let the snail go home."
"Want to play tomorrow," she disagrees, setting the creature at the bottom of her hole.
"If you don't let the snail go home he might die, Rory. He needs to go home so he can have dinner and go to sleep, much like you."
"But I miss him," her voice wavers, lower lip sticking out at her mother.
"I know you will, but how would you feel if a bigger kid decided they were going to put you in a hole so that you couldn't go home? Please go put him back?"
"Okay," she sniffles, taking it out of the hole and bringing it back to the waters edge. "Bye bye, snail," she sings, waving her hand as she trudges back to her mother.
...
You need to let it go. "Just looking."
"You hungry?"
"I could eat," she nods, putting the snail and his rock back where she got them. "What'd you have in mind?"
"We've got a reservation at seven in town. Nice little place, could probably get just about anything."
"Sounds good, Castle. Thank you."
xxx
She's just finishing the last of her lobster ravioli when a new thought occurs to him and, of course, he's unable to tuck it away to bring up later. "Sleeping Beauty?"
"I'm sorry?" she's stunned, fork halfway to her mouth and one eyebrow raised at him.
"Aurora," he clarifies. "Sleeping Beauty?"
"Oh," she mouths, realization dawning. "Ah, no. No…. aurora borealis." She sets her fork down, wiping her hands on the napkin in her lap and reaching for her wine. "The northern lights. She, ah… She was born about five years after my mom died, but I was still pretty down and she just… she made the whole bright again," she shrugs, taking a sip. "She cleared my vision, made me realize that there was more to my life than my mom's death. She was beauty and light in the dead of night."
"Five years," he latches on, "….so-"
She rolls her eyes, huffing. "Yeah, it's what you're thinking."
"We worked with him for how long? And he never said a thing." He's enraged; how could anybody pretend that something like this had never happened, especially when face to face with the woman you'd gone through it all with? But then again, here was Beckett, keeping it inside for years.
"He never knew, Castle. I found out I was pregnant a couple of weeks before he told me he was going to Boston. I had it confirmed with the doctor the day before. I was going to tell him when we went to dinner, but he beat me to it."
"You just let him go?"
"I wasn't going to be the reason he didn't pursue his dreams, even though I think you and I both know he wouldn't have stayed; he would have demanded I go with him, and that sure as hell wasn't happening.
"Looking back, I know I should have told him; he had the right to decide whether or not he wanted to be a part of our lives. But I don't regret not doing so… we got on just fine without him. I may not have been there for dinner every night, might have missed bedtime every now and then, but she was a happy little girl all the same."
"He's one of the best in the field," Castle ponders, tilting his head to the side. "How was he not involved with the case?"
"I don't know," she shrugs, re-spearing the last ravioli on her fork. "I definitely didn't request him, but I didn't specifically ask for someone else, either. That's just how it all worked out, I guess."
