Chapter Eleven

Standing in the lobby of the New Beginnings Rehabilitation Clinic, Rick Castle slid his hands down into his pockets and stood patiently off to the side as he observed the father-daughter duo a few feet away. The two hour drive to the upstate New York rehab had been tense for all of them. The in car conversation had consisted almost exclusively of driving directions. Rick knew the goodbye, if only for sixty days, would be hard on both father and daughter, so he wanted to give them their space.

The first month of the semester would have been difficult enough for anyone settling into their new classes. For Kate, her law-focused ones had only become more strenuous and required more intense study and research. For him, the task he initially thought would be easy—continuing to work on his second book for college credit—was turning more taxing than he anticipated due to his other classes requiring lengthy papers.

Coupled with the stress of coursework and re-settling into the school year were the complications brought on by Kate's father's alcoholism. Thankfully, after the night he was found passed out on the kitchen floor Jim recognized and accepted that he needed to seek help for his disease, but that was easier said than done. Rick aided Kate in the search for an appropriate facility that would not only help him on his way to recovery, but would also be covered by his insurance. After much stress and heartache, and many evenings spent crying in Rick's arms, Kate had chosen New Beginnings and her father agreed.

Once he was accepted into the rehab, Kate realized she needed a way to transport him there. She didn't want him to go by himself, but she didn't have a car or a driver's license, which complicated things. As he had a license, Rick did not hesitate to step up and offer his services. As had become her default setting, Kate turned him down until he argued and won his way. He would drive, all she needed to do was procure them a vehicle and, thanks to a kind neighbor, she had.

Rick watched as Kate embraced her father and they said their goodbyes. Per the rules of New Beginnings, their patients were not to have visitors for the first thirty days of their stay. After that, Saturday visitations were allowed, but with the distance and her school work, Kate had expressed she wasn't sure how often she could visit—if at all. Though Jim insisted it was fine and he preferred her to focus on her classwork, Rick suspected he might be able to talk her into at least one road trip—assuming they could borrow the Kunz's car again.

When Kate stepped back and brushed some tears from her cheek, she glanced over at him and Rick gave her a reassuring nod. He knew how much she was struggling and that was the other reason he wanted to accompany the Becketts that day—not just to be their means of transportation, but to be Kate's emotional support.

Kate knew that rehab was the best thing for her father and had said as much to him. On that point, they all agreed. Yet he knew she was scared. She hadn't said anything, but he could tell behind the façade she put on she worried what would happen if rehab didn't work for her father. In a way, it felt like a last resort and that was terrifying.

"Rick?"

The younger man's head turned towards the exhausted-sounding voice of Kate's father.

"A word? If you don't mind."

"Sure, of course." Rick crossed the lobby as the elder man pulled him aside for a few moments' private conversation. He was not quite sure what the man would say beyond thanking him for his driving, which could obviously be done within earshot of Kate.

"I, ah, I need to thank you for being there for my daughter when I couldn't be. For helping her through all this. For, really, everything you've done for her this year. I know this probably doesn't mean much from a screw up like me, but you're a good man."

Rick nodded, a little surprised and touched by the elder man's words. He didn't think Jim was a screw up—not at all. He had a problem and he was doing something to fix it and, in Rick's mind, that made Jim a good man too. "Thank you, sir; I appreciate that. And I want you to know that I care about Kate very much."

Jim nodded and placed his palm on Rick's shoulder. "I know you do."

"What did my dad say to you?" Kate asked as they made their way back to the car.

Rick let out a heavy exhale as he stared up at the sky. It was a gloomy October Saturday and it reminded him that all too soon the leaves would be dropping from the trees and winter would be upon them. That certainly was not something he looked forward to, but gloomy or not he was glad to be outside. The sterile environment of the rehab clinic was beginning to unnerve him.

"Oh, nothing."

"No, it was something."

"Not really."

"Rick."

He groaned reluctantly. "Fine, okay. I didn't want to tell you this but…he gave me permission to kidnap you on the drive home."

"What!?"

Rick smiled over at her when they reached the aged Toyota that had carried them northward. He winked and she scowled. "Okay, jeez sorry—I was just trying to make you smile." Clearly that had failed.

"What did he really say?"

"Nothing he just thanked me."

She hummed and climbed into the passenger seat. Once he was behind the wheel he asked, "You wanna get some lunch? I bet we can find a place nearby…"

"No, I'm not hungry. If you want to stop somewhere you can go ahead."

He shook his head, not wanting to eat without her even if his stomach was feeling a bit empty. "Nah, we'll just get driving."

Almost an hour into their drive back to the city, Rick looked to his right and saw stress and tension etched into his companion's face; his heart broke for her. Oddly, she seemed to look progressively more upset the further they drove from the rehab clinic when he would have expected the opposite. Her father was in a place that was going to help him—that was a good thing in his mind. Yet, the tension pouring off her was almost palpable.

He wanted to make her feel better, but honestly wasn't sure what more he could say. He'd already reassured her that they had done the right thing several times, but each occurrence was met with silence. He considered suggesting they stop for food or a drink, but with her peaked expression he doubted she had much appetite, so he continued to drive until, suddenly, she blurted out, "Can we stop?"

"What?"

"Can we stop? Can you just pull over? Please?"

With the sudden and almost frantic nature of her tone, Rick felt himself flush as he looked for an appropriate exit on the highway. "What's wrong? Are you going to be sick?"

"No. No I just need air. Please."

"Okay, hold on." He took the next exit and, a quarter mile off the bypass, he found a strip mall with a large parking lot to pull into. He parked their car in a relatively empty section just a few hundred feet from a Taco Bell and Kate bolted from the car almost the second the vehicle had come to a complete stop. Rick put the car in park and shut off the engine more casually before joining her.

Kate charged her way across the parking lot driving lanes towards the nearby restaurant, where a vacant wooden bench waited by the sidewalk. She plopped herself down and leaned over so that her forearms rested on her thighs and her head dangled down to the space between her knees. Despite her saying she was fine, Rick still half wondered if she was going to be sick. He sat down beside her, but didn't touch her just in case she was feeling ill.

For the better part of five minutes neither moved from their position until finally, Kate sat up and pulled her knees up, resting the heels of her sneakers against the weathered wooden bench surface and looping her long arms around her shins. She rested her chin against her right patella and sighed out, "We had a fight that day."

Rick rotated his body so that he could face her and scanned her expression curiously. He had been prepared to ask to whom she was referring when she said "we" but he didn't need to. It was etched all over her face. Her mother; she was talking about her mother.

"It was a Wednesday. Before school in the morning I told her I wanted to go to a poetry slam that Friday night in The Village, but she said no. It didn't start until ten and she wasn't comfortable with me out that late by myself. I told her I was sixteen and I would be fine. I'd only been sixteen for six weeks, so obviously I knew everything." She let out a mirthless laugh and shook her head, leaning back a little and hugging her knees tighter.

"We argued. I told her I hated her, that she was running my life. I grabbed my bag, slammed the door on my way out and that was it. I never saw her again."

Rick could hardly believe what he was hearing yet somehow it made the missing puzzle pieces of the mystery that was Kate Beckett fall a little more in to place. Not only had she lost her mother at a young age—something that would have been difficult for anyone—but the loss was sudden and took place shortly after a fight when their last words had been those of anger and frustration, not of love. He could hardly imagine coming to terms and accepting that as a teenager. Hell, as a twenty-one year old he couldn't imagine handling it then.

"Oh, Kate; I'm so sorry."

She skimmed her fingertips beneath her nose as she sniffed. "She was killed. She died alone in an alley and the last thing her only child ever said to her was that she hated her."

"She knew that you loved her." Rick promised. There was no doubt in his mind. Terrible as the situation was, a parent never would have questioned that.

Weakly, she nodded. "I know. Rationally, I know that. Still, I can never take it back. I can never change it."

Rick skimmed his hand under his chin and considered this. In a literal sense, she was correct. With her mother's death went any chance for a face-to-face reconciliation, but on a broader scale Rick didn't agree. Kate loved her mother, and honored her every day by her actions. Choosing a profession in law, taking care of her father—those things showed more love than three words ever could.

"When…when I got home from school that day I was still mad at her and ready to have it out—argue to get my way—but she wasn't home so I went to my room and listened to music. It was almost eight before I realized the time and I went out to the kitchen to get something to eat and I saw that my dad looked worried. He asked if I'd heard from her and I just…I had this feeling."

Kate lifted her hands from her shins and brought them tight to her chest. She shook her hands slowly as her fingertips grasped at the neckline of her t-shirt. "I just knew something was wrong. And then, around nine, Detective Raglan showed up…"

When after a few moments she did not continue, he prompted her with, "What happened?"

She looked over at him, tears threatening to fall from her eyes, but her gaze was steady, voice controlled. "She was mugged. Stabbed. She bled to death."

Horrorstruck, Rick leaned back. He'd known her mother was murdered since the prior spring when Kate had unintentionally confessed that to him when they were working on their assignment at the Air and Sea Museum, still hearing it described in such a clinical yet horrifying way made him sick. How terrible for anyone to hear: the gory details of how their loved one met their end. It was unthinkable. Yet, there Kate sat and he realized in that moment she was a hundred times stronger and more incredible than he'd ever imagined.

"I-I'm sorry." Kate spoke quickly, sniffing back more tears. "This isn't something…you shouldn't have to deal with this—me. You're twenty-one years old and…you…you shouldn't…"

"What?" he questioned, but she shook her head without responding. He didn't want to press the issue and upset her further, but he needed to make it clear her apologies were unnecessary. "Our age doesn't define us, Kate; our experiences do. You're a twenty-year-old woman who has had to endure more than some people twice your age and that's what makes you who you are."

"Still," she rasped out, "I'm over-complicating your life."

"I don't see it that way." He needed her to know—he needed to lay it out. He didn't want her feeling that she was burdening him. If he thought that even for a second, he wouldn't have continually volunteered to help her. He wanted to help her; he wanted to be in her life. Helping her with her father and other things seemed natural; he never even thought twice about them, because that's what you did when you loved someone.

"You're an extraordinary person. You're strong and brave. You've had to deal with these terrible, unfortunate things that no one our age should have to, but you've dealt with them and come out the other side and that's what makes you amazing. I consider it a privilege to be your friend and if I can do anything at all to make things a little easier for you, I will. Anything. Because I…I care about you very much."

Kate heard it—the hitch in his final statement. Her heart took flight and she was sure—convinced—he was going to tell her that he loved her, but he hadn't. She wanted it. In that moment she wanted him and those three words more than she ever had in her entire life, but being disappointed he hadn't said them was wrong and unfair. The words he said were so kind and heartfelt, but they did not speak as many volumes as his actions.

Sitting on that bench with Rick in the middle of a strip mall parking lot Kate decided that maybe it was time to start letting go. She had bottled up all of the emotions regarding her mother's murder and her father's struggles for so long she had not realized how much they were hurting her, how much they stopped her from living her life. Sure, they came out in bursts now and then, but she kept so much of them inside, fearful of what letting them out—what letting go—would really mean.

She didn't have to be alone—that was the lesson Rick and all his kindness had taught her. She could let someone in, trust them and lean on them, as long as that person had demonstrated loyalty and a willingness to understand and be patient with her many faults. No man she had ever met had done that as well as Rick.

He praised her more than she thought she deserved, but really it was him that earned all the adoration. Without ever being asked he had gone far above and beyond the call of friendship, being with her through every step, always offering his support, and never once complaining or asking for anything in return. For that last part, she felt no small amount of guilt, but hoped in time she would be able to make it up to him. First, she needed to work on letting go.

Kate studied the cerulean eyes of the man seated beside her and her heart seized with emotion. In that moment, she had no doubt that she loved him, but she could not utter the words aloud—not yet. She needed time before she fully opened her heart to him.

Still, she didn't want the moment to be wasted, so she scooted closer to him and rested her head against his shoulder, deciding on another truth to reveal. "You're my best friend, Rick."

He was quiet for a moment before asking a little bit hesitantly, "I thought Maddy was your best friend?"

Kate almost laughed. Maddy accompanying her to her father's rehab? Maddy helping her carry her passed out, vomit-covered father to bed in the middle of the night? Maddy could absolutely be a good person, but those duties were way out of the league of a regular friend. "She's the friend I've known the longest, but you're my best friend."

His head came to rest against hers as he sighed out, "You're my best friend, too."