A/N: I meant to put a note on the last chapter acknowledging that the "Jim Beckett asking Castle to autograph a book for a friend" idea has been done before, specifically in my memory in the excellent story, The Talk, by wp1fan.

Also, I've taken some more liberties with Kate's backstory with her mom. If you see any blatant discrepancies from the show, let me know.

And of course, I love getting reviews!


Chapter 11: Strawberry Comfort

The cab ride to the cemetery took longer than Kate remembered, but of course, she had never traveled there from Castle's loft before. The scenery was different, as was the company. For the first time, she was taking someone to see her mother's grave, and it both terrified and elated her.

Sitting next to her, his fingers holding hers tightly, Castle stared out the window of the cab. He knew where they were going, had even dressed in a suit and tie for the occasion and insisted on stopping at his usual place to pick up flowers. Kate smiled at his thoughtfulness, but he shrugged it off without even a trace of his typical Castle arrogance. In fact, he seemed almost as nervous going with her to the cemetery as he had the night before attending dinner with her father.

The last time she had visited her mother's grave was during that last investigation, shortly after Kate's argument with Castle at her apartment. She had wondered then if she was doing the right thing, if seeking vengeance was as important as keeping him in her life. At the time, Kate had convinced herself that her mother would want justice. Johanna Beckett had dedicated her career to finding it for other people, after all, so why should it be denied to her?

But this time, as Kate walked along the gravestones, traveling the path she knew by heart, her thoughts were lighter and her step a bit easier. Castle followed a couple of paces behind her, clearly still a little uncertain of his presence. But she had asked him to come, wanted him there with her.

"Are you sure? We've only been dating for less than two months," he pointed out to her that morning when she told him of her morning's plans and asked him to go with her.

"Yes, but we've been friends and partners for four years," she countered.

And she loved him, Kate mentally added.

When they reached her mother's grave, Kate stopped and took a moment to again read over the words printed there, the words she tried to live her life by.

Vincit Omnia Veritas

Truth conquers all things.

Castle stood next to her, silent but supportive, his own eyes taking in the engraving as he stooped to place the flowers he had brought on the grave.

"She liked you," she said quietly, glancing over him. He raised a questioning eyebrow, and Kate added, "Your books. She thought you were a good author."

He nodded at her statement, taking in the detail about the woman he had never met, had only known through police reports, photographs, and Kate's stories.

"What else did she like?" he asked.

Kate found herself grinning as her mind took her back to a hundred memories of her childhood.

"She loved baking. Every Christmas she would make these amazing sugar cookies from scratch, and she would let me decorate them with sprinkles and colored sugar. She liked to read - mystery novels, classic fiction, even romance novels. She didn't watch much television, but aside from Temptation Lane, her one guilty pleasure was watching medical shows. It was something about the fast-paced nature of hospitals and emergency rooms, I think."

"She didn't watch legal dramas?" Castle asked.

Shaking her head, Kate said, "No, she always complained about how they didn't get things right, how they made it seem so easy and straight-forward. That's one of the things she liked about your books, actually. You took the time to get the details right."

Reflecting back over her years with her mother, she said thoughtfully, "She loved coffee. I refused to touch the stuff until I started at the academy so I was never able to tell her how right she was. She also really liked dogs. We never had a place big enough for one, but she'd love to pet any friendly dogs we saw at the park."

Laughing, Kate continued, "There was this one time, a puppy followed us home and the two of us really wanted to keep him. We even had a name all picked out. But my dad insisted on calling the local vet to see if someone had reported him missing. Later that night his owner came to pick him up. My mom and I were devastated."

Picking up on the details of her story, Castle asked, "What name did you pick?"

"Pongo." He let out a bark of laughter at the name. "What? I was a big fan of Disney growing up. My mom and I saw all the movies together when I was a kid."

"I never knew that."

Kate shrugged. "Haven't really made it a point to see any since..."

She turned back to look at her mother's gravestone. The woman had been such a force in Kate's life, both an inspiration and a guide. Losing her had felt like losing both her rudder and her sail, left adrift in a world which had demonstrated just how terrifying and unjust life could be.

"You know, she and I have some rough times before I went to college," Kate said. The statement sent chills down her spine despite the warm summer temperature. This admission was one she had told no one else except the therapist she saw shortly after her mother's death. "When I was a teenager, I sort of rebelled... a lot."

She had spent years doling out advice to Castle about his teenage daughter, advice she felt she had the right to give considering her own experience from the other side.

"She would tell me not to go to a party, and I would go. She would tell me not to blow off a test, and I did it anyway. She told me not to date a certain boy, and I dated him, just to spite her, just to prove her wrong."

"And was she wrong?" Castle asked.

Laughing at the question, Kate said, "No, she wasn't wrong. She was always right. I got drunk at that party and she still came and picked me up when I called her, getting sick as I tried to stumble home. The test I blew off... I flunked the class and ended up having to re-take it in summer school. It really messed up my GPA, almost kept me out of Stanford."

"And the boy?"

Snorting, she said, "He dumped me. I guess it didn't take a genius to figure out he wasn't exactly looking for true love in the eleventh grade, but my mom tried to warn me. Afterwards, she sat up with me all night eating ice cream and watching Disney movies."

"Not Temptation Lane?" Castle teased.

Smiling, Kate shook her head. "No, all the back-stabbing relationship stuff kind of hit too close, you know? So we just watched Cinderella and Snow White and Sleeping Beauty for hours. I think I needed a little bit of 'happily ever after.' But she never said she told me so, not about any of it. She just let me make my own mistakes and then helped me learn from them."

Kate smiled at Castle as he took in her admissions, the stories she had never told him before. And suddenly she realized that her mother would have really sympathized with him as a single father of a teenage girl, struggling to avoid the pitfalls of raising a hormonal juvenile.

"I really wish you'd been able to meet her," she said.

"Me too."

As if on cue, he wrapped his arms around her just as the tears began to flood Kate's eyes. How did he always know when she needed him? He held her tightly as the tears escaped her eyes, not a flood, but just a few stray splashes of liquid as she regained control of her emotions.

"Kate," he said quietly, his mouth at her ear. "I know I didn't know her but... I know your mother would have been proud of you. Of the woman you've become."

Glad that she did not have to meet his gaze, she asked, "Even though I couldn't find her killer?"

"Oh, Kate," he sighed, and then he was pulling away from her, wanting to see her face.

She knew it wasn't a fair question, especially not one to ask him. Their history with her mother's case was frought with landmines and arguments, and despite the guilt she felt over letting her mother down, Kate knew she had made the right decision in letting it go.

"She would want you to be happy," Castle said, looking her in the eyes. He politely did not include the 'and alive' part of his statement, but Kate knew it was there. "And she would have been proud of you for all the people whose murders you have solved - the victims who had no one to speak for them, the families you were able to give justice, the lives you have saved."

She nodded, acknowledging his words and the sentiments behind them as she wiped away the stray tears from her face. She had done good work in her career helping people in situations very like her own. And those were accomplishments of which she could be proud.

"Thank you for coming with me today," Kate told him with all earnestness.

Leaning forward to place a kiss on her lips, Castle responded, "Thank you for sharing her with me."

Kate said a private goodbye to her mother before Castle took her hand and walked with her out of the cemetery. Once they reached the street, he turned to her and said, "What do you say we go get some ice cream and pack up all Alexis' Disney movies to take with us back to the Hamptons?"

True to his word, he took her to an ice cream shop and despite her protests, ordered her a cone with two scoops of strawberry flavor - her favorite. He teased her as she licked away the frozen convection slowly rather than in ravenous bites like he took of his rocky road fudge swirl. Consequently, he endured her reciprocal teasing when he complained of the resulting ice cream headache, or 'brain freeze' as he called it, when he'd finished his.

By the time she was down to her bottom scoop, her spirits had been lifted despite the funk she usually experienced after visiting her mother's grave. Before she could focus too much on it again, Castle drug her out of the ice cream parlor and back out to the street. In one hand she held the rest of her ice cream cone while he kept hold of her other hand, and the two of them just walked down the city street together. The simplicity of the moment provided a fun counterpoint to the seriousness of their morning.

"How's your ice cream?" he asked, looking longingly at the melting pink cream she tried desperately to keep from leaking out of the cone.

"Mmm... 's good," Kate responded, taking a lick of the remains of the strawberry dessert.

"Can I taste?"

Obligingly, she held the cone out to him, but he quickly bypassed it to capture her lips instead. She grinned against his mouth as he deepened the kiss. It occurred to Kate that they were kissing openly in the middle of a city sidewalk, oblivious to everything around them, and for once, she simply did not care. Instead, she luxuriated in the feel of Castle's arms around her, the feel of his chest pressed to hers, and the delicious scent of him.

When they pulled apart, she flashed him another smile as he commented, "I think I found my new favorite flavor."

They strolled another few blocks, letting Kate finish her ice cream, before hailing a cab and heading back to the loft.