Somewhere No One Knows My Name
Chapter 9
"It's the processing fee sometimes paid in addition to shipping when purchasing a mail-order item?" asked Jeopardy host, Alex Trebek.
"What is Handling," mouthed Castle, his voice just loud enough for the entire room to pick up. It was a small room.
"That's a full house by my reckoning," Aunt Libby helpfully pointed out, to Kate's annoyance, since she knew that her aunt's praise would only cause a round of faux-modesty on Castle's part and possibly contribute to him lingering even longer.
She felt on edge. They were sitting in Aunt Libby's formal living room; a chi chi parlor full of clashing floral prints in muted tones, flowers that climbed, crept, bloomed and flourished across curtains, walls and on carpets and rugs. It was a space that she reserved only for special occasions, like the holidays, or for visiting mystery authors, should the occasion arise, apparently.
Dinner had gone by civilly enough. Kate had dutifully passed serving dishes full of carrots and green beans garnished with flaked almonds and glistening dabs of butter (a dietary indulgence Aunt Libby usually only succumbed to on Thanksgiving). She smiled, she engaged in polite conversation and generally behaved as she knew her aunt would expect her to behave in front of a guest. But she felt Castle's eyes upon her the whole time and struggled not to stare back at him herself. Having him here in such close proximity, within a family setting she considered hers alone, felt raw and intimate, considering her reasons for leaving home. It was hard not to feel ambushed by the very man she'd come up to Maine to escape and to attempt to forget.
She had rallied of course, done her best. But now they were near the end of Jeopardy and fast heading towards Wheel of Fortune, and there was only so much faux-bonhomie Kate could take after a day spent on her feet, serving the public at Milo's Fish Camp. Besides, she needed time alone to ponder her partner - to mull his reasons for being here, his eagerness to talk to her all of a sudden, crossing all the lines they'd carefully established to protect themselves from disappointment over their years of working together. Not to mention coming to terms with this whole new method he was using to ease his way back into her life: via her beloved Aunt Libby.
She begin to watch him, surreptitiously, while he sipped ice tea from a dainty glass that looked more like a thimble in his large, meaty hands than the lemon-wedge decorated highball that it actually was. He was chatting to Libby about the folklore surrounding Maine fogs: "fogs so thick you can drive a nail into them and hang your hat on them", Libby thrilled to tell him. Castle was engrossed, genuinely giving Libby his full attention, and to see him like that, minus the smug, uncaring bluster he'd been dishing out when Kate had last been around him at the precinct, was compelling and confusing and it threw her right off her game to see the man she knew so well reemerge like a big, cuddly brown bear after weeks of self-enforced hibernation.
She missed this Castle, was the truth of the matter. She missed the man she had worked hand-in-hand with, cuffed together in a dark basement to escape the jaws of a tiger. The man who had tenderly touched her bare skin when they'd been injected, drugged and shackled. The man who'd apologized when he thought he couldn't save her from certain death. She missed the man whose face had appeared like a mirage from the cloud of dust in that bank vault, after her heart had nearly stopped with the force of an explosion she feared had stolen him from her forever. This sweetness, attentive care, his genuine interest in her aunt: this was the man she knew and loved best. And she wondered, for the umpteenth time, where he'd gone in the last few weeks. The stark changes in him enough to rob her of her faith in the possibility of a future "them" when he'd taken up with Jacinda. She could have borne the loss of anticipated intimacy, just, hard though that would have been. But to lose him as her partner had been a heartbreak too far. So she ran to protect her heart, and as she sneaked glances at him now, that whole nasty, confusing interlude seemed like nothing more than a bad dream.
"Katie?" she vaguely heard her aunt say, as she stared off into space, recalling with a sense of unreality how cold her partner had been around the time he had abandoned her for a racier, seat-of-the-pants, crime-fighting experience with Ethan Slaughter.
Alexis could not disguise her distain for and dislike of Kate since she'd watched her father put himself in harm's way to protect her when she got shot. The girl had also borne witness to the emotional damage Kate's self-imposed exile during her recovery had done to her dad – how brittle and cold he'd been when Kate had turned up at his book signing - not at all the kind, forgiving man she knew. So for Alexis to have had to watch these last few weeks as he dropped her for the even greater peril of partnering up with "The Widowmaker," must have been incredibly hard.
On so many levels Kate understood that she brought more harm than good into Richard Castle's life. And yet there were days - days when she was being kinder to herself - when she could see the good that she had given him too. The reinvigorated writing career and all that went along with that from a financial and self-esteem point of view. The pleasure he got from helping to solve cases, being part of a team, the camaraderie with the boys, a new set of friends. For a man who could be so confident, so charming, interesting and affable, and despite his wealth and popularity, he seemed to have few close friends when she met him. In fact, when she looked back on that time closely, he actually seemed lonely. While working as her partner he had grown up, seen sides to life that brought out his kindness and compassion and that challenged his intellect. He'd learned at least a little more patience, and if his desperate, panicked words to her had been more than a spur of the moment reaction to her rapidly fading pulse, he had learned to love again, after a series of short, failed relationships and even shallower dalliances.
"Beckett? Earth to Beckett? Hey, Kate? You okay?" Castle asked, finally getting her attention by reaching across her aunt's chair to touch her knee.
She jumped at the warmth and weight of his fingers curling around her bare kneecap. "What…oh, I'm fine." She blushed furiously while Castle watched her with wary eyes. Her confusion over him swam on the surface, as visible as oil on water. "Just…you know. A little pooped after a day on my feet." She fought to regain her sangfroid, failing miserably when Castle continued to stare.
She heard him struggle to his feet from the depths of the soft-cushioned armchair. "Well, I should really get going. Let you ladies turn in for the night," he offered politely, as he finally freed himself from the clutches of Aunt Libby's busily patterned accent chair; suddenly popping upright like a cork out of a bottle.
Aunt Libby made a clucking sound and glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. She raised her eyebrows at Kate and pursed her lips in disapproval. When Kate failed to respond to this gestural prod, the older woman tipped her head to one side, bobbing it in the direction of the front door a couple of times, the movement so pointed Kate was worried her aunt might cause herself an injury. This signal, accompanied by a sharp glare, was supposed to be an encouragement (or an instruction, really) for Kate to walk Castle to the front door, or down the path, or if she stared any longer and any harder, her aunt might actually be suggesting, via this physical semaphore alone, that Kate walk her partner all the way home to his bed and breakfast.
"I can see myself out," Castle offered when Kate stubbornly remained rooted to her own chair, still caught out by old images of him, and him with her, that confused the hell out of her heart and weakened her resolve to just get over him and move on.
"You'll do no such thing," Libby protested. "Katie dearest," she said in a tone that none of them could misconstrue, "please walk our guest to the gate and bid him goodnight."
'What is this, the 1920's?' Kate wanted to ask. Because the thought of being alone with him again, in a pretty English country-style garden, where lanterns like fireflies hung from the trees, surrounded by the romance of flowers, the scent of which was overwhelming at this time of night. It scared her.
Wisely, she kept her mouth shut, merely stood with a grunt over her own stiff limbs and made her way around Castle to the front door, while he lingered to kiss her aunt on the cheek, the pair of them making a charming production of ending their lovely, pie-making day together.
"Quite finished?" Kate asked dryly when Castle finally appeared in the hallway. She had her shoulder defiantly propped against the doorjamb to make her seem more casual than she felt, her head tipped down to stare at the rug, where roses and thorns entwined themselves around the trunk of a tree, and where she could avoid looking at her partner.
He sighed. "Don't worry, Beckett. I get the message. After tonight, I'm done. I'll pack up and go. I said what I came here to say and I failed. I'm not too big of a jerk to flog this dead horse any longer. I'll be out of your hair by tomorrow night and then you can make all the stupid, selfish mistakes you want."
The challenge in his words and its naked criticism piqued her in-built indignation at being told what to do by anyone. She stood up straight, her body going rigid. "How dare you!"
"How—?" He turned on her with equal fury blazing in his eyes. "Because if you care about someone you want what's best for them."
He took a step back and watched her swallow hard, saw her head shoot up, her eyes widen in panic and her skin flush.
"And sometimes that means doing things or…or saying things that make you unpopular. But I do care and so I came up here and I tried to make you see sense. But clearly you're not ready or interested in listening, so—"
"So?" Kate shrugged, fury and fear burning in her eyes. "You're giving up?"
She could see her own emotional flip-flopping a mile off shore in the dark, so it was no surprise that Castle was alive to her confusing behavior too. He had seen sides to her over the last few days that he'd never been exposed to before – stubborn and selfish, yes, but this was a whole new level of self-destruction and inner conflict.
"What exactly do you want from me?"
She groaned loudly, dropping her head into her hands, and he watched as all the air left her lungs when she folded in on herself. "I don't know," she admitted with a whine, as the fight drained out of her.
"Kate, you know me. I am a patient man. But without some kind of steer, some idea of where your head is at…"
"Give me one more day?" she asked, glancing back towards the lounge with a guilty, hunted look on her face. "I…I need time to think and I don't want to upset my aunt. She really likes you," she explained with a wan smile.
Castle tried to smile back but his effort was strained. "You have to do this for you. Whatever you decide. Not for Aunt Libby or your dad. Not for Captain Gates or the boys or Lanie. Not even…" He shook his head sadly and looked down at his steepled fingers, and then he cleared his throat. "Not even for me, Beckett," he added quietly, finally mustering a watery, self-depreciating smile. "Irresistible as I am."
Kate laughed, the sound emitted as half-sob, half-chuckle. "Can I call you in the morning? I'll see if Dan will give me the day off…"
"Weren't you already on suspension?" Castle pointed out, one eyebrow raised.
"Well, yeah. Technically. But…"
"So you think you need permission to take a day, sort yourself out?"
Kate snorted and toed the rug. "Anyone sorts me out in a day, they deserve a freaking medal."
"Sign me up for the campaign, Beckett. I might just surprise you."
"Oh, you constantly surprise me. Don't worry about that." She crossed her arms over her chest and a calmer silence settled between them.
"So…how about we meet in town? There's a real old fashioned diner on Marginal Way," Castle suggested.
"Yeah, I know the one. Miss Portland. It's kind of a landmark."
"Then it's settled. I'll buy you breakfast, we can talk, and then you can bid me farewell. Sound like a deal?"
"Real maple syrup? Not the fake, flavored stuff that comes in those tiny plastic tubs?"
Castle gasped, clutching his chest. "Is there any other kind?"
Kate grinned at his theatrics, at this carefree, optimistic Castle she knew so well. "You'd be surprised how stingy some of these old Yankees can be."
"Well, I think you're worth the real deal," he said, the warmest he'd been all evening. Though in truth his coldness was completely her own fault, and Kate knew it. Deep down, quickly rising to the surface, she knew it.
"I appreciate the sentiment." Kate smoothed imaginary wrinkles out of her dress and then looked at the ground, running her bare arch back and forth over the edge of the top step. "So…I'll see you at Miss Portland at nine then? If that's good for you?"
"Perfect."
Castle hovered at the bottom of the porch steps, one foot on the brick path, the other resting on an antique brass boot scraper shaped like an elongated Dachshund. He was like a teenager, lingering because he didn't want his first date to end. Kate watched him, her amusement held inside lest he think she was making fun of him. "It is beautiful out here at night." He looked up at the night sky, and Kate held her breath to see if he'd say anymore.
As the crickets chirped their incessant muzak, and the splintering crack of a dog's bark broke the salty, sweet weight of the evening, Castle grew serious. "You know...you will figure this out, Beckett. Whatever changes you want to make to your life. It's…it's all just a matter of deciding what you want and then going for it," he tried to assure her. "I'll see you tomorrow." And with that promise he bid her goodnight.
If only life was that simple, Kate thought to herself, as she closed her aunt's front door and extinguished the porch lights.
