Vice
He didn't know what to do, and from the look on Kate Beckett's face, she didn't either.
Alexis was sitting back in the only comfortable looking armchair in the room, her feet kicking a tattoo against the ottoman, her body swallowed up by the massive piece of leather furniture. He found himself wondering if his daughter would ever be doing this some day - not visiting him in rehab (although, he couldn't say that he'd never, because look at Beckett's father), but one day needing help.
Needing professional help, be voluntarily sitting in someone's office and spilling her problems, hashing out her childhood to whatever doctored individual sat across from her. It'd be his fault, whatever it was, because he was the one she had. He was all she had.
They were small, but they loved.
Maybe she wouldn't need help, maybe he'd be enough.
"Dad."
He blinked and focused, held his hand out to his daughter. She shook her head, her hair catching with static against the leather.
"Are we stopping here or are we going home now?"
"Have to go home," Beckett said suddenly.
Castle shot her a surprised glance - it was nearly eleven now - but she had one hand over her heart like she couldn't keep it in her chest. "Well, we have a long drive-" he started.
"I have to be at work in the morning." She raised her head and met his eyes, and he saw she was struggling to pull herself together. "I have to be there. I - I'll drive. I didn't think. But I can't call in."
"I got it," he said quietly. She was trying to make detective. She had to be there. Fine. Alexis could - she'd probably conk out in the car, but he'd just keep her home from school tomorrow. No point in forcing her to slog through in a daze.
Alexis would be upset with him. He'd have to sneak in and unplug her alarm clock too.
"Let's go," Beckett said suddenly, breaking for the door. He startled, and she gave him a swift look over her shoulder. "Like you said. Long drive."
Castle opened the back door for Alexis, palmed her cheek when she passed by him to get in the car. "See if you can sleep, pumpkin."
His daughter snorted at him and clicked her seatbelt place, giving him that patented grown-up staredown. Yeah, that was what he'd expected - no way did she want to miss anything.
He shut the car door and glanced over the roof to Beckett. She was biting her lower lip and staring back at the rehab center, the security lamp light falling harshly across her too-sharp cheekbones. With the darkness hiding everything but her illuminated face, she looked ghostly and hollow.
She'd just left her father in rehab. No wonder.
"Kate?"
"Sorry," she said and shook her hair, tossing it like she was trying dispell a vision she didn't want. Her eyes came back to his. "I didn't think about - you know, bedtimes and stuff. I-"
"Don't worry about it. It won't kill her."
Beckett took in a long breath, and he saw her eyes drift again.
"You sure you want to drive?"
"I need to," she said quietly, and then she was gracefully sliding behind the wheel.
He stood on the black tarmac for a beat longer, the impression of her body and her grief still lingering, and then he followed.
He played Beatles music to keep a steady white noise going over the sounds of their conversation - if there was going to be any conversation to mask. Not likely, it seemed.
Beckett kept silent, and his daughter's head had grown heavy; she was slumped against the passenger door, rousing from time to time to yell out the next letter of the alphabet game when she could keep her eyes open.
It wasn't quiet, but it was still. Despite their forward movement back to the city, the sense of being held trapped, immobile, was thick around his chest, emenating from the woman driving.
She was untouchable.
He'd known that at the beginning - had been warned of it at least. But he had mistakenly thought that showing up would earn him the right to know her. Showing up. Like that could change things, like his presence alone, his attention, would combat years of solitary, independent grief.
He couldn't. He was powerless against that kind of-
"Dad?"
"Yeah, Alexis?"
He turned his head to the back seat, his vision catching on Beckett. She had both hands clenched around the wheel, back ramrod straight, defensive, prepared.
"Today at school?" Alexis always introduced her stories this way, like she needed permission to keep going, like she was asking if this was an acceptable beginning and could she continue. She was doing it now, he could see, to keep herself from falling asleep.
"Go ahead."
"Today at school my teacher started reading us a new book."
"Oh. What book?"
"Where the Red Fern Grows."
"Oh jeez," Beckett muttered, casting him a swift look. "That book is so sad."
"It's sad?" Alexis asked, leaning forward again to hang on his seat. She turned to look at him. "Is it too sad for me?"
"I haven't read it. Beckett is it too sad?"
She was chewing on her lip and slowly releasing her stranglehold on the steering wheel. "Well."
"Don't tell me!" Alexis shrieked in his ear. "I don't want to ruin it. No. Wait. Tell me. Tell me what happens that's so sad; I gotta know."
"No way!" he protested, reaching back to tug on her ear. "That's so wrong. What have I taught you?"
"But I can't, Dad. I can't get so in love with all the people if they die."
His heart softened but he couldn't let that go. "Let the story affect you, Alexis. Let it come. It's-"
"It's too sad for you," Beckett said suddenly. "People don't die but-"
"No one dies?" Alexis whispered breathlessly. "No one dies. Okay. I can-"
"Well," Beckett hedged. "It's been a long time, Alexis. The main kid doesn't die, and I can't say for sure about everyone else. But what made me sad - how far into it are you?"
"I don't know. We just read and read before the last bell. It's so good. Billy is working and saving up his money for coonhound puppies."
"Yes," Beckett said flatly. "Well."
That one well resounded loudly in the relative quiet of the car. Alexis gasped and lunged forward, her cheek nearly against Beckett's. "Well? Well. Oh no. Oh no."
"Alexis, pumpkin, the book should be told as it's meant to be told. Don't skip ahead-"
"Does he get his dogs and do they die? Do they die, Kate?"
Kate gave him another sharp look, challenge in it, actual spark and fire and fight to her again, and even though he wanted his daughter to be caught unawares by the way a good story could sucker punch you, make you hurt and long and love, he also wanted Kate Beckett.
He also wanted Kate Beckett.
He waved his hand in a be-my-guest gesture and she let out a long breath.
"Spoiler alert," she murmured. "The dogs die."
"Ohhh," Alexis moaned, slumping her head down on the seat. "This story is gonna kill me, Dad."
He gave her a roll of his eyes, scraped his thumb along the slender column of her neck. "Well not, anymore, pumpkin. She just told you what happens."
"But not how. Not when. I'll be on edge all the time, every chapter, wondering." Alexis shivered and sat up. "It's gonna be so good."
"It is so good," Beckett said softly. "It stuck with me all this time. I think I was twelve when I read it. And I didn't know anything about dogs or coon-hunting or any of it. But it stayed with me."
"His dogs die," Alexis whispered, and then her skinny arm came around Castle's neck, squeezing. "I want a dog, Dad, but-"
"We talked about this."
"But-" she said insistently. "But I don't want to have my dog die. If I got a dog and I loved it and took care of it and it died? That would be so awful."
He chuffed at her, stroked his fingers along her arm. "Just because something might die is no reason to not love it, to not want it. That's ridiculous. You have to risk your heart for love, Alexis."
"Not necessarily," Beckett muttered. "No point in opening yourself up to that. I mean. Don't buy a dog that's sick, don't attach yourself to something that you know won't make it."
Alexis sighed. "That make sense-"
"No, it doesn't," he interrupted, squeezing his daughter by the wrist. "Having that time to love your dog? However long you get. That's worth it. It's worth it, Alexis. Just like reading the story - or having it read to you - is worth the heartache of the dogs dying in the end."
Alexis tilted her head on the seat and watched him for a moment; she didn't seem convinced.
"Alexis, you think it was easy when your mother - you were a baby and I was by myself and didn't know what to do-"
"Oh," she said, her mouth open in surprise. Not because she hadn't thought of it before - she had, and they'd had this conversation twice so far - but because he knew she'd never thought about risking her tender little heart in the same way he had.
"Oh is right," he said softly. "You are worth it, in every way, pumpkin. I don't want you to not love something, someone, just because it might be scary or hard or sad. Because it is worth it. Love is always worth it. I love you."
And then his daughter was launching herself at him, strangled by the seat belt and laughing as it aborted her embrace. But Rick circled her neck and kissed her cheek.
"See, kiddo? It's worth it."
Even though his daughter was wriggling and happy now, falling back into her seat after kissing him and hugging on his neck, Castle couldn't help directing his last words to Kate Beckett.
"Just let the story happen. Let it unfold as it's meant to be."
The drive back was over before it began.
He knew that, but nothing he did could stop it, stop her. She was already lost to him.
When she pulled into the underground garage below his apartment building, she deftly parked the car in his assigned spot, turned off the engine with a flick of her wrist. She was silent and his daughter had fallen asleep in the backseat; he didn't want to move, break the spell.
"I should go."
He nodded and stared straight ahead. He had nothing to keep her. He'd wanted the story and he had gotten it, and now all he wanted was to never come to the end.
"Beckett-"
"Your keys," she murmured, holding them out by the keychain over his closed palm.
For a moment, he had the immature thought that if he just didn't open his fingers, if he just didn't let her give his keys back, then she'd have to stay.
But he took the keys with a sharp nod. "Yeah. I've got to get Alexis upstairs and into bed."
"It's late," she sighed. "I - she'll be okay for school?"
"No. I'll keep her home. Have to tie her to the bed to do it, but she should sleep."
"She'll miss the book," Kate murmured, and he could hear her turning her head to look at him. But he couldn't look back. Not for the last time.
"She'll be okay. We'll figure something out." Maybe they'd go check it out from the library and read the next chapter together. He'd spend the time concentrating on his daughter to keep from thinking about the woman seated next to him who would never be his.
Damn. How long had it taken this time? A car ride? He was an idiot; he was bad for his kid's mental health and he needed to stop falling in love with mysterious women. At least Sophia Turner had never met Alexis, at least she had disappeared before he could make another wound on his kid's psyche.
Castle rubbed his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose. He'd been successfully distracting himself with Kate Beckett - so successfully he'd just replaced one with the other. Great.
He was an ass. And she deserved - needed - better than a stand-in for a CIA agent who wanted nothing to do with him, nothing real anyway.
Castle slumped his shoulders and opened his eyes, stared at the concrete blocks of the garage, measured his breathing to keep the frustration from spilling over. Before he could turn to Beckett and beg for - something, anything, he didn't know what - he pushed open the passenger door and got out.
She came after him, on the other side, and the awkwardness was ridiculous. Too bad. Too late. At least she wouldn't have to deal with him ever again.
Castle glanced at the back where his daughter's adorable face was mashed against the glass. He laughed softly at the sight and then stood there, trying to find the will to move.
Beckett was crawling into the back seat.
Why was Beckett crawling into the back seat?
He watched in astonishment as she gently cupped his daughter's shoulder, lifting her from the window, and then gestured at him to get a move on it. He hurriedly opened the back door and sank down on his haunches to wake her up.
Alexis stirred, came spilling into his arms with a sigh and her eyes pressed into his shoulder. But he could feel her becoming slowly aware even as Beckett got out of the car and shut the door.
"Alexis, wake up. You're too big to carry."
"What time's it?" she muttered, dragging her legs out of the car and putting them on the concrete. He stood back up and gripped her by the arm, helping her.
"Late," he laughed, holding her against his side and shutting the back door.
Beckett was by the trunk, waiting on them, still here. She hesitated and he indicated the elevator. She glanced that way with apprehension written all over her face.
"It'll take you back up to the lobby," he explained.
She nodded and followed him towards the elevators.
And just like that, she was free.
Kate Beckett walked out of his building and down the street and realized-
her subway line didn't run this late.
She pulled her cell phone out and called a cab company; within minutes she was being picked up and headed for her own little apartment, whisked away from the crazy tilt-a-whirl ride that had been this evening.
When she got inside her place, the remnants of her command post were still scattered over the coffee table. She ignored it and toed off her shoes, then shrugged out of her coat, let it flop over the back of her couch on her way to her bedroom. The wooden floors creaked under her feet as she shed her clothes, the cold seeping into her skin.
Beckett grabbed pajamas from the dresser, put her father's watch on top, and headed for the bathroom, closing the door behind her and letting her shoulders slump.
Long, damn day.
She ran the water as hot as it would go, sank on top of the toilet seat as she waited for it to fill the tub. She couldn't even be bothered with bubbles; she just wanted to sink down into that floating nothing.
Alexis was going to miss school tomorrow. Because of her. Because of Kate. Because she'd been too self-absorbed to think about anyone other than herself.
Oh, and the book. Her class was reading a book and Alexis really liked it and she'd miss a whole chapter or maybe even two, and all because of Kate.
The water hadn't even filled the bottom of the tub, but she didn't care. She stepped into the heat and sank down gratefully, forced her back to the cold porcelain as punishment for today.
It was easier like this, alone in the darkness of her bathroom, no one around. It was easier and healthier because she'd spent the last five years struggling out of a dark hole, and she knew the measure of herself, knew what she was capable of.
She wasn't capable of Richard Castle right now.
But she owed him. Big time.
And that was the thought that wouldn't let her rest.
