Castle is wary to accompany them on the drive to school the next morning, tense at her side as they get into the car. Kate bites her lip as she watches him, hoping to avoid a repeat of yesterday, but he's fine in the car. Lily's consistent chattering keeps him distracted throughout the entire drive, her hand unmoving on his leg seems to help too, and minutes later, their daughter disembarks from the backseat with an 'I love you' tossed over her shoulder, just like yesterday and all without incident.
"I think we should try something else," she says while they watch Lily skip to the entrance.
He waits until their daughter has disappeared inside the building to look back at her in question.
"You're jumpy," she explains before he can ask, squeezing his knee when his eyes drop to his lap. She isn't trying to shame him, to revive leftover frustrations from yesterday, but she wants him to be okay. Not on the verge of a panic attack every time they step outside. "And if you keep doing this to yourself, you're just going to be on edge all the time, risk getting triggered again."
"I know," he sighs, dropping his head back against the seat. "But I can't just... do nothing."
Kate nods, pursing her lips and withdrawing her hand from his knee to adjust the gearshift, pull back onto the street. His fingers twitch at the loss.
"What if you just made the drive with me to drop off Lily every other day?" she suggests, dividing her attention between him and the road. "I know you want to spend time with her and she wants to spend time with you, but there are other ways to do that without overwhelming yourself."
"Other ways?" he inquires, sitting up a little straighter. He looks hopeful when she spares a glance at him from the corner of her eye, some of that disappointment disappearing from his face. But his hope is quickly replaced by confusion. "Kate, you just passed the loft."
"I know," she murmurs, keeping her gaze straight ahead until they reach the park only a few extra minutes from the loft.
She can practically feel the tension returning to his frame as she cuts the engine near the small park's entrance, unbuckles her seatbelt. Kate takes a deep breath, isn't sure this will work, if he'll be willing to try today, but she knows he will at least hear what she has to say.
"I looked up parks in the area last night," she reveals, feeling his eyes fall back to her. "All of the reviews for this place say that it's pretty quiet, never too busy, especially in the mornings. And since it's so close to the loft, I thought we could try it out, if you're feeling up to it."
He doesn't say anything and Kate traps her bottom lip between her teeth, wonders if this wasn't the best idea after all. It's too soon and after yesterday, she should have known better than to-
"You found a park for us to take walks in?" he asks softly.
When she returns her gaze to him, he's staring back at her with that lovely look of wonder shining bright and cerulean in his eyes, as if she's done something extraordinary for him.
"I just thought you needed somewhere better than a busy sidewalk." Kate shrugs, looking away before she can risk touching her lips to that awed smile. She doesn't deserve it. So she curls her fingers around the door handle instead, glances back to him with a quirk of her brow. "Want to go for a walk with me, Castle?"
He accepts her invitation for a walk, of course, pleasantly surprised when Kate twines their fingers to lead him from the sidewalk, down one of the various paths the park offers. The anxiety he experienced yesterday doesn't disappear, still fluttering through his chest and ready to take flight, but she manages to center him with her voice before it can ascend.
"Like I was saying, I was thinking that you could make the drive to drop off Lily with me every other day," she murmurs, strolling with him under an archway of trees. "Then afterwards, we can come here, just... walk and talk, help acclimate you to your surroundings."
Castle nods, rhythmically squeezing her hand. "I think that could work."
And he really does. He's on edge, tense, but the volume of the city, the people around them, isn't so overwhelming like this. With Kate holding his hand and murmuring at his side, nothing is quite as bad.
"And on the days you stay home, I thought you could plan something to do with Lily - just the two of you."
He arches an eyebrow, intrigued by the idea, touched that she's obviously put a lot of thought into this since yesterday.
"Did you have any ideas?"
Kate absentmindedly skims her thumb along his index finger, eliciting sparks of electricity beneath the surface of his skin. It helps, though, narrowing his focus to the whorls of her fingertip searing his skin while he awaits her answer.
"She's always wanted to be an artist, but since you came back... she told me the other night while I was tucking her in that she wants to write books too," she reveals, coming to a stop beside a bench.
He grins at the information, his heart fluttering for an entirely different reason at the idea of Lily wanting to be anything like him. Kate draws him down to sit beside her and he nestles in close, their tangled hands sitting atop his thigh.
"We could write a story together," he muses aloud, already able to envision it. Lily has proven in his short time of knowing her that she has the imagination to thrive in the literary world, the artistic skills to excel in illustration. Creating something together could prove fun for the both of them and more importantly, it would give him the chance to bond with his little girl over something familiar.
When he glances back to her, Kate's watching him with a smile lacing along her lips, the gold in her eyes more prominent now with the darkened curls framing her face. It has him wanting to kiss her, taste the tenderness curling in the corners of her mouth. She must see it in his gaze, he doubts he's hiding it well, because she beats him to it.
"I think she'd love that," Kate murmurs, drawing their clasped hands to her lips, brushing a quick kiss to his knuckles before dropping them back to his thigh.
It's tentative, almost like a fresh start he never asked for. But he'll take it if it means sitting on park benches with Kate on quiet mornings after dropping their daughter off at school, holding hands and feeling his anxiety ease with every murmur of her voice.
He'll take it if it means getting to spend each day with her and their daughter.
He has breakfast with Lily and Kate the next morning before school, sitting beside his daughter at the bar and listening to her recount her latest dream about an elephant lost in a jungle.
"Hey Peanut," Kate murmurs, approaching from the kitchen sink. She always manages to finish her breakfast first, never having much to begin with. He wants to fix that, wants to go back to making her extravagant morning meals and always having her coffee hot and ready for her before she can walk out the door.
Lily glances up from her half finished bowl of cereal.
"Your dad is going to spend the morning here," Kate tells her gently, propping her elbows on the opposite side of the bar. "So it's just going to be you and me on the ride to school today, okay?"
Lily frowns and shifts on the barstool to face him. "I thought you liked coming with Momma to drop me off."
"I do," Castle assures her quickly. He and Kate talked about this last night, attempting to determine how to explain this to Lily in a way she will understand. There's no sure way to determine how she will react, all he's certain of is that he wants his daughter to know the truth. Or at least a kid-friendly version of it. "But you know how I was gone for such a long time?"
Lily nods solemnly. "Yeah, six whole years."
"Right," he sighs, turning in his seat to to lean towards her. "Well, I'm starting to remember some of that time-"
"Really?" she gasps, her brown eyes flaring wide, looking so hopeful for him.
It has his heart twisting with grief and adoration at the same time.
"I dreamed about it actually, wrote down what I could remember in the notebook you gave me," he shares, watching the pride illuminate her features. He really doesn't want to risk dulling the shine in his daughter's eyes, scaring her with a watered down version of the truth that is still hard to swallow. But then Kate is moving in the corner of his vision, drifting closer in silent support, and he breathes past his doubts. "But one of the things I remembered was that for most of that time, I was by myself with no other people around."
Her face falls, just like he feared.
"You must have been so lonely," she says, causing his chest to tighten with a sharp ache.
"I - yes, I'm sure I was," he murmurs, forcing a quirk of his lips for his little girl. "But now that I'm back home, I'm never alone, which is great. I love being here with you and your mom and Alexis, but going out into the city... there are people everywhere."
"New York has the most people of all the cities," Lily confirms. "Momma told me that a long time ago."
"Good memory, Peanut," Kate praises, but her eyes are on him.
"That's right, so after being by myself so long, it's - kinda scary to be surrounded by so many people again," he tries to explain. "It takes some getting used to."
Lily is quiet for a moment, her lips in that same pursed line he's seen on Kate during moments of concentration.
"Does this mean you can never come out of the loft?" she asks, lifting her eyes to him with concern.
"I'm still going to come out of the loft," he assures her with a gentle chuckle, reaching forward to place a tentative hand on her arm. But Lily doesn't tense or pull away from his touch, she simply stares back at him in curiosity. "I'll still go with you and your mom to drop you off too, just not every single day."
The smile returns to her lips as if it never left. "Oh, I get it! And after you're back to normal, you can come all the time."
He hesitates, a large part of him afraid he may never find his way back to 'normal', but Kate saves him the trouble of attempting to respond to that one.
"Exactly," she chimes in, reaching across the bar to squeeze his forearm. "Your dad just needs a little time to remember what living in a city is like."
"I bet it won't take long. You're already remembering lots of stuff, right?" she chirps, her eyes bright and encouraging.
He nods, fighting to keep the smile on his lips. "Right."
Kate's thumb brushes the knob of his wrist bone before her fingers are slipping away and she's straightening from the bar.
"It's almost seven-thirty, Lil. I'm going to get your backpack."
"Yes, Momma," Lily sighs, plucking a strawberry from the bowl of fruit next to her soggy cereal and popping it into her mouth.
"And to make up for the days I'm not able to go with you to school, I was thinking we could do something special together here afterwards," Castle picks up, standing from the barstool and withdrawing his hand from Lily's arm.
But she hops down after him a moment later, reclaims his fingers with hers.
"Like what?"
He pretends to ponder it while he walks with her to the door where Kate is waiting. "We could read, watch a movie, maybe even write a book."
"We could do that?" Lily breathes, bouncing on her toes beside him.
"Of course," he answers automatically, relishing in the excited squeeze of Lily's small fingers around his. "With your imagination and artistic talent, you'll have more best-sellers than me in no time."
Lily's cheeks blush a soft shade of pink and she hugs his waist before she steps away to accept her backpack from Kate.
"You just made her day," Kate murmurs in the doorway and he breathes a sigh of relief at that.
"Couldn't have done it without you."
Her lips quirk and she pauses before she follows Lily out into the hall, hesitating for only a moment before pressing a quick kiss to his cheek while their daughter isn't looking. "See you when I get back."
He feels his cheeks turn pink like Lily's. Not necessarily the kind of kiss from her he's used to, but close enough for now.
"And I'll see you after school," Lily adds, taking Kate's hand in the hallway but waiting for his response.
She's able to leave him now, but not without his confirmation first.
"Promise."
By the middle of the week, after a handful of evenings spent together in his office crafting stories with both words and crayons, Lily asks him to join her mom in tucking her in at night. He's held back from imposing on any nighttime routines while Kate and Lily have been staying at the loft, not wanting to upset the balance of their well-practiced patterns. But Kate welcomes him into the process of preparing Lily for bed and reading her a story.
She actually volunteers him for that last part, pressing the book into his hands.
"Come on, you're a best-selling author," she teases from the opposite side of Lily's bed.
She's curled up next to their daughter, grinning at him over Lily's head. He hesitates, glancing down to the book and back to the girl looking up at him expectantly.
Lily insists he read to her every night after that, praising his skill of voicing each character appropriately, making him laugh when she placates Kate with the assurance that she does just as good of a job.
"He's just got more practice because he writes books, Momma," Lily explains from between them a few nights later. "He can read me stories, you can read me Russian."
Castle's brow quirks. "Russian?"
"Helps when she can't sleep," Kate murmurs, the corner of her mouth curling at the intrigue she must spy in his gaze. Not that he's trying to hide it. "And that sounds good, Peanut. I like listening to your dad read too."
This week has him feeling like his life is regaining purpose. No matter what happens, he always has the task of reading to his little girl - along with Kate - at night to look forward to.
But he doesn't look forward to what comes afterwards.
He's grown to dread retiring to his bedroom alone, fighting to stay awake, staving off the nightmares. Not that it's any use. They always come now, blurs of memories, usually centered around the torture he endured.
He wakes nearly every night drenched in sweat, his back on fire with scars that thrive with pain that is no longer there, his wrists aching from being tied up. Because he remembers that part now. He remembers the sensation of his arms above his head, keeping him upright even as his knees buckled under the crack of rope - or maybe it was a cord, he still isn't positive of anything other than the pain it evoked. He remembers how it caused the fracture in his wrist, the healed bone singing with irritation each time he wakes.
More often than not, Kate is there when his eyes startle open. Sometimes she's the only thing to wake him. She draws him out of the dreams with soft words and fleeting touches, promises that he's safe.
He always tries his best to pull it together, to protect her from seeing the worst of it, but tonight is different. Tonight, he wakes to the sensation of suffocating, the noose around his neck nearly closing off his airway, and he swears he caught a glimpse of the man choking him to death with no intention of killing him yet.
Tonight, Kate doesn't find him until he's huddled in the bathroom, propped up against the wall next to the toilet because his head is spinning, his stomach churning, and he fears he could vomit at any moment.
He remembers. Not everything, not even close, but he remembers the beatings, the conversations, the psychological warfare Jerry Tyson inflicted upon him. He remembers being locked up in that damn room every day, being starved to the point of having to beg for the eggs he could hardly stomach. He remembers receiving 'updates' on Kate, on Alexis, suffering from the knowledge that a psychopath was watching the women he loved, threatening to break into their homes and make an "exception" for his love of blondes by strangling either one of them to death the second Castle misbehaved.
He remembers the mocking - how everyone he loved was moving on, forgetting about him, the newspaper article Tyson slid under the door of his cell.
NYPD detectives, Kate Beckett and Tom Demming, tie the knot.
"Women, huh?" Tyson sighed into the intercom, that red, blinking light Rick kept catching glimpses of in the dreams. "Only as loyal as their options. Sorry you missed the ceremony. Again."
"Castle," she breathes, not having to ask, rushing into the room in her leggings and an oversized t-shirt that was once his, squatting down in front of him. But he can't stop crying, weeping silently into his hands. "Rick, baby, talk to me."
"Doesn't make sense," he chokes out, shaking his head. "Not his M.O, not like him to-"
"Castle, who?" Kate presses, dropping to her knees in front of him and curling her hands at his bent ones. "Are you - did you see who took you?"
He nods, jerkily, almost afraid to tell her, what it might evoke her to do. The last thing he needs is Kate going rogue on him.
"I - I remember pieces of it all, not everything, but actual pieces not just flashes," he confesses, trying to get his breathing under control, trying to stop the stupid tears from trekking down his cheeks. It's over, he's free, Kate is here, there's no reason to cry. "I heard his voice, saw his face."
She's waiting with bated breath, but doesn't rush him, her hands remaining firmly curled atop his knees.
"It was Tyson," he exhales, lowering his hands. He drops his head back against the wall, glaring up at the ceiling. "Every day, it was him."
Kate has gone still in front of him, barely breathing from the sounds of it. He swallows hard, forces his eyes to descend from the ceiling to find her.
"Why?" she whispers, staring back at him with so much horror, that same look on her face from the night they went home after their first encounter with Kelly Nieman, played the USB drive on his laptop and heard that haunting song.
We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when.
It's been playing on a loop in his brain lately, a soundtrack to his subconscious mind that must have been played during his time in captivity. He hates that song.
"I don't know, I don't - it was just memories of moments," he tries to explain. "Pieces of conversations, the beatings, updates-"
"Updates?" she repeats, her voice an unsteady croak.
"On you, Alexis, Mother - Mother was already gone. Couldn't get to her in London. But he - if I disobeyed he would hurt you," he confesses on a rush, surging towards her at the memory, sitting up and clutching at one of her hips. "Weekly updates, pictures in a manilla envelope. Alexis's college graduation, your wedding day-"
"No," she rasps, raising a hand to her eyes, her mouth crumpling with disgust.
"Torturing me," he recalls quietly, stabbing his elbow into his thigh and pressing his forehead into his palm. "In every way."
"I'll get a team-"
"Kate." He catches her by the wrist before she can rise and call the boys at three in the morning, have them digging up everything they have on 3XK. "It can wait-"
"No, it can't," she snaps, yanking her wrist, but he holds tight, drags her forward with a quivering arm. "Castle-"
"You can talk to the boys, to Gates, to the FBI agents already on the case, tomorrow," he insists, but she's trembling against him, frantic and angry and on the verge of falling apart in front of him for the first time since he's returned.
"No, no, I can't just - I spent six years having no idea where you were, just wanting you to be alive. But you were gone and I was - god, Castle, I started to think I'd never see you again," she gets out raggedly, her red-rimmed eyes quickly sweeping over his face as if to dispel the idea right there. "He beat you, he destroyed your back and got you shot and broke bones. Probably strangled you, didn't he?"
The bile in his throat threatens to rise and Kate chokes on an apology. She moves to get away from him, leave him alone, but he doesn't want her to go, doesn't want to let her go.
"Please," he rasps and she doesn't put up a fight, collapses against him, both of them a tangled mess on his bathroom floor, and he curls around her as she weeps quietly into his chest. "Kate, it's okay-"
"I really thought I lost you this time," she rasps, her words and her barely suppressed sobs muffled by the skin of his throat. "They all said you were dead and I let myself believe - that you could be because I couldn't find you, I just couldn't find you-"
"It's over, it's over, it's over," he whispers into her hair like a mantra, rocking them back and forth, letting her cry, letting his own tears leak silently onto the shoulder of her t-shirt. "I don't care if you have to chain me to your side, Beckett. You're not losing me again, I promise."
Kate crawls into bed with him once they're both finally able to rise from the bathroom floor, reclaiming her side as if she hasn't been sleeping elsewhere for years now. Two nights ago, Alexis confessed to him that Kate remained in the loft, in their bed, for months after his disappearance, before it just became too much. Until his scent was apparently too faded from the sheets.
The knowledge of that, experiencing her crumble to pieces in his lap on the bathroom floor, assures him that the nausea consuming his insides isn't going anywhere any time soon. The way he has broken her, whether it was his beyond his control or not, has been harrowing to witness. He almost hates himself for it, hates himself for being another person to abandon her, break her heart.
"I never knew how much she really loved you until I saw her fall apart when you were gone," his daughter admitted with a sad smile, the two of them sitting up with hot chocolate in the middle of the night even though Alexis had work in the morning. "When she started dating Tom nearly four years after… she was just so guilt-ridden, she even thought Gram and I would hate her for it." Alexis shook her head and cradled her cup in her hands, talking almost as if he wasn't there, the daze of the last six years blurring her eyes. "I told her she was family, that we would always be family, and I think that's the only reason she allowed it to go further than a friendship."
He didn't like hearing about Kate and Tom, about Kate with anyone but him. But he also didn't like the idea of Kate being so overridden with guilt for trying to move on after so long, to have a life that wasn't so heavily focused on the grief of losing him; he didn't like the look of shared guilt in his daughter's eyes for encouraging it either.
"She told me she loved me the other day," he blurted in response. The pleasantly surprised expression that swept over his daughter's face reminded him of when they were both younger, when Kate Beckett was still so out of reach that just a smile from her would have him gushing to his teenage daughter every night after he returned home from the precinct.
"Of course she does," Alexis grinned around the rim of her cup. "I had a bet with Lanie that it might be a while before she said it to your face again, but…"
Castle huffed, tossed a balled up napkin at her.
"But seriously," Alexis continued on a chuckle. "Come on, Dad. You're the love of her life, her always. It's not an 'if' with you two anymore like it was when I was a kid, it's a 'when'. Even Lily knows that."
He nearly choked on his cocoa.
"What?"
"She's a six year old who believes in magic and just witnessed her father, whom her mother has made no secret of still being in love with over the last six years, return from the supposed dead," Alexis summarized with an amused quirk of her brow. Wow, she really has been spending a lot of time with Kate over the last few years. "That's enough to make anyone believe in fairytales."
He remained at the kitchen table with Alexis for a while longer that night before his not so little girl turned agent was yawning into her mug, letting him confiscate it from her fingers and walk with her up to her room.
He tucked her into bed, kissed her forehead like he used to.
"Love you, Pumpkin," he whispered, not wanting to make her cry, he never wanted to make her cry. But Alexis shifted up onto her elbow and hooked her other arm around his neck, buried the tears in his shoulder.
"I love you too, Daddy," she breathed and he stayed with her until she fell asleep, until beams of sunlight began to spill through her window.
Much like they'll soon be spilling through his since he managed to remain slumped on the floor with Kate for over an hour, subjecting her to the worst of his breakdown and holding her through hers.
"Lily," he murmurs while Kate adjusts her pillow next to his. She descends onto her side and curls her knees up, bumping into his beneath the sheets.
"I'll be up before it's time to wake her for school," she assures him, watching him with swollen, bloodshot eyes in the moonlit darkness. The glow of the city seeps in to splay across her body, the pale hollow of her cheek. "Just try to sleep, I'll wake you if you start having a nightmare."
"You gotta sleep too," he protests, already fighting the drag of slumber, so enticing now when she's right next to him.
"I will. I'm just a light sleeper, part of being a mom," she explains, her voice a caress through the quiet. "Always listening for her. But you already know how that goes."
"I love that you're a mom now," he sighs, coaxing the pink line of her lips to bloom into a delicate smile, small but stunning. "You're so good at it too, but I always knew you would be."
"Because of Benny?" she inquires with a grin and he almost startles himself back into full wakefulness with the bark of his laughter.
"You remember that?"
"Of course," she shrugs, the memory of them playing house with an abandoned baby for a night still so fresh for him, but years old for her. "Not because of Benny then?"
"No," he chuckles, enjoying the lovely expression on her face, how comfortable she looks back in his bed, how her eyes mirror the adoration he can feel overflowing in his. "I just always knew."
"You're a good dad," she returns, inching her hand into the space between them. He hastily withdraws his from beneath his pillow, lets her have it. "I always knew because of Alexis, but watching you with Lily just this past week alone… you're so good with her and she adores you, Rick. Not something she does lightly."
He wonders how long it took his youngest daughter to accept Tom and quickly blinks the thought away. This moment with Kate is too special, too pure, for him to mar it with bitterness.
"I'm grateful," he murmurs honestly. "When you told me, in the hospital, I was afraid she wouldn't want anything to do with me."
"No." He watches Kate trace her fingertips along the inside of his wrist, over his hand, following heartlines and ridges of bone, the sensation soft and drugging. "Never."
He curls his fingers, trapping hers, but she doesn't try to break the hold. Kate draws their tangled hands to her chest, allows him to feel the lullaby of her heartbeat against his knuckles.
"Thank you," he slurs, not even sure which part he's thanking her for. All of it, probably. "Night, love you."
He hears her hum, swears he feels her lips brush the back of his hand, before he can sink below the surface of a dreamless sleep.
"Until tomorrow, Castle."
Kate has made more connections within the FBI during Castle's time away and she waits until he is well and truly under in sleep before she slips from his bed.
She is silent in her ascent up the stairs to retrieve her phone from Martha's room, hesitating at the near 5 a.m. timestamp on her screen, but she unlocks the device, opens up her contacts anyway. Jerry Tyson is still out there, so is Kelly Nieman. She would bet that Nieman was the brains behind this abduction, the parts of Tyson's M.O that didn't make sense to Castle.
Kate closes her eyes against the look of utter horror that consumed every inch of his face, the sheer lack of understanding as he confessed his memories of Tyson to her.
She's never seen him so afraid, so lost and scared, not like this; she jabs her thumb to the contact pulled up on her screen.
"Agent Stephens, Detective Kate Beckett," she addresses, quiet but clipped the moment Mark answers. "I apologize for disturbing you so late, but I have vital information on Rick Castle's suspected kidnappers."
Kate tells Stephens that she can't talk long, too anxious to be away from Castle for long. She runs through all of the facts they have so far, what little information Rick was able to give her, listening to the scribbling of a pen on paper as she speaks. Stephens promises to do a search on Tyson and Nieman as soon as he arrives at the office and despite how badly it irks her to leave this in the hands of someone else, she accepts it.
For now.
She offers one more apology for waking him before hanging up and then she's returning downstairs on the tips of her toes within fifteen minutes of leaving Castle's bed. He hasn't moved, but he grunts when the mattress shifts under her as she slides back beneath the sheets, settling beside him.
"Kate?" he mumbles, his eyes fighting to open, and she reaches for his hair without thinking, combs her fingers through the locks like she used to. He hums, tilts into her touch. Kate scoots in a little closer, careful not to jostle him, to touch any of his injuries, healed or not. "Time to take Lily to school?"
A surprised smile flickers across her mouth and she smoothes her fingers along the shell of his ear, the softness of his lobe.
"No, still got a couple of hours," she whispers, not quite able to stop touching him, stroking his jaw, running her fingers through the unshaven hair of the light beard that's been driving him crazy. His sunburn has finally faded, his skin tanned but back to its natural color. She makes a note to remind him to shave tomorrow, eager to see him how she remembered. Even if the facial hair is kind of hot.
"Good, go to sleep," he rumbles, practically purring beneath the ministrations of her fingers.
"I will," she promises, but she doesn't, she can't. She remains awake, her hand never leaving Castle until it's time to go wake Lily.
A night of grazing his face with gentle fingers, caressing the vulnerable skin of his neck and trailing along his arm, is almost enough to convince her that it's real. It's almost enough to make her believe that she doesn't need the reminders anymore, that she never had a reason to question it in the first place.