Rocket Man Chapter VIII


So on we go. Thanks for the great feedback for the last chapter. Some of you have requested some Caskett interaction
and I promise we are getting there, soon. Meaning next chapter. ;-) But I'm talking interaction not action.

The next one is giving me a hard time though. So it might take a while. I'll do my best!

Marjo's challenge: Don't mess with me, trout, scullywag, French Kiss and steamy. ;-)

As always thanks to the fabulous BBB's.

Disclaimers:

They are not mine. I'm not keeping them, just borrowing, although I wouldn't mind to keep Castle. ;-)


He stared at the ceiling, angry at himself, angry at the world. He had lost it. He had yelled at her and she had left crying. Oh, he was a great father, yeah. And it was all because he had wanted to know about his relationship with the Detective, and when his daughter wouldn't give the answers he needed to hear, the accusations had started. He had told her she was lying, that it was all in the book and there was no way she didn't know what was going on. She had confirmed it was fiction, and the entire story was not a reference to his real life. Detective Beckett was only the inspiration for Nikki Heat and the character was not really her, but he didn't buy it. The book had stirred something in him, awakened a dark emotion - betrayal. He had wanted the truth, or at least what he believed to be the truth, and he had wanted it no matter what. Oh and he had been determined to get it out of her, until she had stormed out.

He couldn't blame her, hell, the way he had behaved he didn't even expect her to return, or deserve it. And then to make things even worse, she hadn't shown up all day. He was worried the dispute with his daughter was what had kept her away. And his head was throbbing so badly he feared it would explode. Reaching for the empty vase on his nightstand, he smashed it into the wall. How was he to separate fiction from reality? He felt lost, like he was drowning at sea, waves crashing over him and it wouldn't take long before they would pull him under the surface, deeper and deeper into the dark.

Running his hands over his face in frustration he realised, he couldn't do it on his own. He needed help to channel the pressure, frustration and fear threatening to eat him up from the inside. What happened today must not happen again.


She'd expected Martha to be furious. To add to Alexis' outburst, to tell her to stay away from her granddaughter and her son, but she hadn't expected the concerned Martha she heard on the other end of the line.

"Kate, darling are you okay?" Martha's gentle voice reached her and it was even harder to take than the anger she had expected, and would have welcomed. She didn't deserve this kindness.

"I'm fine Martha," she sighed, leaning her head against the door.

"Don't you mess with me, kiddo! I can hear you're not fine!" Martha detected. "What happened?"

"Didn't Alexis tell you?" this surprised Kate.

"No, she just said she had decided to come home early and then turned right in, which made me suspicious. Did you two have a fight?" she asked hitting the nail on the head. Kate let her hand run through her hair in frustration. Fight was definitely not the right word for this mess.

"I would really prefer if Alexis' told you what happened," Kate said quietly.

"Kate," Martha's voice was warm, almost tender, "What's going on?"

Kate could feel the tears building up and she knew she couldn't stop them, "It was about the summer," she got out and Martha immediately knew what had happened. Alexis had struggled with this for a long time now. The young woman did not understand why her father had forgiven Kate so easily after he had struggled for months. It had been the topic of numerous conversations between father and daughter. And Richard had asked his daughter to trust him on this. But Martha knew Alexis had never made her peace with what happened after Kate's shooting. She was also sure her granddaughter would not have addressed it without a reason. Something must have happened.

"What brought this on?" she questioned.

"I honestly don't know," Kate tried to sound steady, but barely succeeded, "When I came home she had already packed and was about to leave."

"She was at the hospital, right?"

Kate nodded then realized that Martha couldn't see it and added a 'yes' that was not more than a whisper.

"Were you?"

"No, I finished late. We have a case I just couldn't get out of the precinct earlier. I really tried," Kate felt the need to defend herself.

Martha sensed it, "It's alright Kate, no one's judging," and she added. "Let me see what I can get out of her in the morning. I'll keep you in the loop."

"Thanks, Martha!" Kate sighed.

There was silence on both ends of the line until the elder woman spoke, "Kate, don't be mad at her."

"I'm not mad at Alexis," Kate stated quietly before she admitted, "I'm mad at myself."

"Well, don't be too hard on yourself then," Martha said sounding serious. "I'll call you tomorrow."

They disconnected, and Kate let her arm sink to her side as she stared straight ahead, still unwilling to leave her spot on the ground.


Kate had tried to cover up the dark circles under her eyes, but it was evident in her face when she walked into the precinct that she hadn't slept all night. At some point she had managed to finally pull herself up, and somehow walked her aching body to the couch. She hadn't bothered to change, just collapsed on the spot, while her mind had continued spinning. Kate knew her actions had hurt him. Had known it back then, while staying at her father's cabin, fighting the urge to just pick up the phone and call him, because honestly she had thought about doing it every single day. But something had always held her back. She wasn't good at sharing, mainly because she wasn't used to it. She had learnt to handle things on her own a long time ago; and told herself that she didn't need someone to hold her hand while she tried to be okay. The past months had shown her it wasn't true. There were things she couldn't face alone, and it had been this realisation that had made her seek help in Dr. Burke. But as brave as this step might have seemed to her back then, only now had she realised it didn't mean anything, because he didn't know. Again she was trying to handle things alone, without him. Was it really so hard to let him hold her hand while she tried to get ready? Figuratively speaking. Was it so hard to let him in? Why was she denying him this, when she knew he would be more than happy to just hold her hand, for now.

She knew why, she was scared no terrified. Afraid to lose him because she wasn't good with relationships, she had always managed to mess things up. What would happen if she did something to push him away for good. What would she do then? But what if she accomplished just that by doing things the way she always did them?

"Yo Beckett!" Esposito greeted her when she sat down at her desk, his face turning into an expression of worry when he saw her face. "You okay? Something wrong with Castle?"

She knew how she looked, she had to give him something or he wouldn't stop asking, "Castle's fine. I just couldn't sleep, that's all."

Esposito nodded his head in acknowledgement, sensing there was more but knowing her well enough not to push. "A guy from the police in Flensburg has been calling. Kommissar Brandner," he handed her a note. "He asked for you to call him back." She took it and nodded; placing the paper next to her phone she got up and walked over to the break room. Coffee first. And again she realised just how much she missed him.

She returned to her desk just in time to pick up her ringing phone. After 15 minutes she hung up and walked over to the murder board updating their timeline. Lanie had been able to narrow TOD down to between midnight and 2am. She stared at the board and realized they had nothing. They were still waiting for security footage from surveillance cameras near the crime scene to come in, and maybe they would shed some light, but she wasn't hopeful. Telephone reports came up empty and no one had seen anything. It was frustrating and she was in desperate need of a wild theory to brighten her mood. Well, not just any wild theory. Only his. Sighing she remembered the German police officer waiting for her to call and hoped he had some news.

It took her 10 minutes until she finally spoke to Kommissar Brandner. After being put through to three different extension numbers, and trying to explain her business each time, she was relieved to finally speak to someone who spoke English well enough to be helpful.

"Detective Beckett, thank you for calling me back!" he greeted her.

"Sure, you have anything new for me?" she asked, all business, as she was not in the mood to exchange pleasantries.

"I might have," he said and she could hear him ruffling through some papers. "Mr. and Mrs. Leichsenring provided us with a list of American friends of their daughter she might have contacted. I'll email it to you as soon as I have typed it down. We thought it might be easier for you to check on those people than for us."

"Phone records show, she hasn't called anyone during her stay," Beckett stated.

"So I heard," Kommissar Brandner agreed, "But using a German cell phone to call your American friends is expensive. Maybe she used a payphone?"

"Possible," Beckett agreed and made a quick note.

"Nevertheless this is not the reason I'm calling," he continued and Beckett sat up curious. There was more! "Mr. and Mrs. Leichsenring stated their daughter was on a road trip for six weeks last summer, travelling the West Coast. They're both sure this trip has nothing to do with what happened but I like to do my own investigation so I talked to Claudia Rudolph and Lars Pöhler. They were with her for the whole trip."

Oh, she liked this guy. Years of being on the job had told her that friends and families often had a different view on things. She had made it a rule to check everything regardless how unimportant it might seem to be.

"I assume you found something?" she half questioned, half stated.

"I did," she could hear the smile in his voice, "both reported that they hooked up with an American named John. He joined them for about three weeks until he had to go back to work. Claudia Rudolph is pretty sure that your victim and this John hit it off. And I don't mean in the steamy kind of way but the true love kind of. Claudia is sure Maren was in love. She thinks it's possible she wanted to meet the guy in New York."

"Without telling anyone?" Beckett thought it was rather unlikely. Wasn't being in love something you just wanted to shout out loud for everyone to hear? Oh look who's talking now?

"Well apparently Maren was very cryptic about the whole thing. Sorry, I wish I could give you more." He sounded apologetic.

"I suspect you don't have a last name, do you?" she asked only slightly hopeful.

"No, I'm afraid I don't. But Claudia thinks there's a picture of him on Maren's Facebook profile. I hadven't had no time to confirm that though."

The conversation ended shortly after Kommissar Brandner's promise to email the names of the American friends within the next twenty minutes. She would give the list to Ryan and Esposito while she logged onto the victim's Facebook profile again. It took her longer to get to the site she wanted, without Alexis to help her. Kate found it all quite confusing. Alexis, Kate thought, she had to make this right.


"Richard Castle!" announced the red-headed woman storming into his room while he was confidently following the dialog between the cute blond and the funny guy in a movie called French Kiss. He looked up and into a set of glaring blue eyes that were quite familiar. "What have you been thinking?" The woman, now pointing a finger at him, demanded to know. She just had to be his mother. Only a mother could look at you like this.

"Mother?" he asked, mainly to buy time.

"Oh, don't you mother me!" she snapped back. "Are you out of your mind?"

He gave her a 'duh?' look, adding, "Well sort of."

This seemed to calm her down a bit, letting her hand with the pointing finger sink down to her side, "Still, no excuse for treating your daughter this way!"

He sighed. He felt bad enough for his outburst, the last thing he needed was his mother to give him a lecture. "Look I'm really sorry!" He surely looked miserable and it was her undoing, pulling a chair to his side she reached for his hand, pulling it close.

"Richard, Richard," she shook her head and brushed some strands of hair out of his forehead. "Can I never leave the city without you getting yourself into trouble?"

He shrugged, "I don't know? Has something like this happened before?"

"Remember the trout?" she asked but then quickly tipped her head with her finger, rolling her eyes, "Of course you don't. Never mind."

They set in silence for awhile, lost in their own thoughts before he softly spoke, "How is she?"

"Oh you raised a tough young woman, she'll be fine. But she's not used to you acting like a moron. Like a scallywag - yes! A moron - no!"

"I didn't want to scare or hurt her. I just wanted - ," he didn't finish his thought.

"You wanted to know. I understand kiddo," she was still holding his hand, looking down on it, he raised one eyebrow.

"Kiddo?"

"That's what I call you, when we are on good terms," she smirked. "Do I hear you complaining?"

He shook his head, "No," he liked it.

She could see that he was struggling with something, seeing the worry in his eyes, "Spit it out!"

He avoided her eyes, staring ahead at the still running TV, "Am I a good father?"

Martha's heart ached, hearing the devastated tone in her son's voice, she squeezed his hand, "Richard, look at me." He did as told, still weary, "I know you don't remember, but don't you ever doubt you're the best father I have ever seen. Alexis loves you. Always will, no matter what. And she will get over this the minute you tell her you're sorry. That's the way you two are."

He sighed, "Everything is just so messed up in here." He tapped his head.

"I know, but it's going to be alright. You just have to give it some time." She reassured him.

"What about her?" he suddenly asked and Martha wasn't sure whom he was talking about.

"Beckett?" she questioned.

"Yes, she wasn't here yesterday. I figured she's mad at me too." She would have laughed at his pout if she hadn't heard the disappointment and uncertainty in his voice.

"No, she just had to work late," she said, having no intention to tell him about the nasty argument Alexis and Detective Beckett had, since it would only raise more questions no one could or wanted to answer. "So what brought on this whole shouting yesterday?"

He freed his hand from hers and reached for something on the nightstand, handing it to her, "This."

"That much I figured," Martha nodded looking at the copy of Heat Wave in her hand. She waited for him to continue, knowing he would.

"This Nikki Heat and the journalist, they sound a lot like Detective Beckett and me," she nodded. "I just figured – I don't know."

"You thought you and Detective Beckett have the same kind of relationship in real life," she stated. Castle just shrugged.

"There's just something in the way she looks at me," he almost whispered.

"You are partners, she cares for you," Martha explained, knowing it was only part of the truth, "But you are not Jameson Rook and she's not Nikki Heat!"

"I know. But yesterday I just couldn't believe it. It all felt so real, almost like a memory and when Alexis said it wasn't, I lost it. It felt as if she wanted to pull it away from me again. It's stupid. I'm sorry," he said again and added. "I talked to a psychiatrist this morning."

"You did?" This news surprised Martha, after he had previously declined it so immensely. "Did it help?"

He nodded. He hadn't expected it, but talking to someone who had no personal interest had been refreshing. He didn't feel the need to search for hidden meanings or intentions. He didn't feel the pressure he felt when talking to his daughter to remember something. He could just be. It had been soothing, relaxing. "He said we could try hypnosis in a couple of days. It might be able to bring some memories back."

She smiled, that sounded good. "And until then?"

He shrugged, "I guess I'll stay here."

"Is that what you want?" she frowned, not being used to the calm Richard in front of her.

He looked at her and something happened. He didn't know what, but a feeling spread through him, warm and welcoming. "No, I want to go home."