Life Goes On
Chapter 13
"What the hell is this?" Corlin Dickenson demanded.
"This," Kate replied succinctly, as Esposito snapped the cuffs on the indignant aide, is you being arrested for the murder of your old pal Captain Nicholson. I don't go out much on arrests anymore, but I wanted to wrap this one up myself."
"You're not wrapping anything up!" Dickenson retorted in a nasal tone, as a drop flew from his nose.
Esposito took a step back in disgust. "No man gettin' his snot on me." He handed Dickenson over to two uniformed officers, who kept their distance as much as they could, while escorting him out of his uptown apartment.
"I want a lawyer and I want my rep!" Dickenson yelled over his shoulder at Kate, his voice breaking on the mucus in this throat.
"Yes, I'm sure you do," Kate replied.
Kate returned to the loft with her arms full of Remy's cheeseburgers and extra large fries. A surprise lunch!" Castle exclaimed. "Are we celebrating the successful closure of a case?"
"Not yet," Kate responded. "We arrested Dickenson, but he lawyered up. The boys are searching his place now. If they can find the gun and match the bullet, we'll have it clinched. It won't matter what his lawyer tries to do. We'll have enough leverage to get everything out of him. I was going to have lunch anyway. I just thought it would be fun to have it with you."
"Not only is it wonderful to see your beautiful captainly face, but I welcome the break," Castle confessed.
"Brain freeze on your next Nikki Heat," Kate inquired, "or is Derrick Storm raining on your parade?"
"That's good, Kate," Castle acknowledged. "But neither one. I was working on my other book. I was trying to put down the first time my character's mother goes off and leaves him for an extended period of time and how he struggles to understand it. Then I realized that like him, I'm still struggling to understand. It was like I jumped back into my younger self, and it hurt -a lot. I realized that in many ways, Derrick Storm and then Jameson Rook were a way of distancing myself from that pain, projecting it on someone who had an easier time handling it. But at this point, this character doesn't have an easier time handling his hurt, because he doesn't handle it. He's too bewildered by what's going on, so he just sort of shoves it away somewhere and pretends everything is fine."
"Sounds like you're doing therapy, Castle." Kate observed.
"Yeah well I tried therapy, I mean before Dr. Burke helped me remember about Thailand, but I never went here. This is harder, Kate. A lot harder," Castle confessed. "I've always hated being introspective and this is why. It makes me feel things I don't want to feel."
Kate took his hand. "Like you're really pissed off at Martha and you don't want to be."
"Where'd you get that from?" Castle puzzled.
"Castle, let's sit down and eat together, and I'll tell you," Kate proposed.
"Okay," Castle agreed, heading to the kitchen for plates and napkins while Kate began to unpack her two increasingly grease stained paper bags. "Oh good, you got drinks."
"Enough people were asking, so they officially just started listing these on the menu," Kate explained. "Arnold Palmers, half lemonade, half iced tea. You get your sugar rush and a spike of caffeine at the same time."
"Very efficient," Castle commented, plunking down plates. He sank into his chair while Kate slid into hers. "So tell me about the source of your well of insight."
"Well you know I was seeing Doctor Burke after I got shot - the first time," Kate began.
"Well I didn't know until you let it drop when I was about ready to walk away from you for lying to me about not hearing me tell you I loved you," Castle admitted. "But yeah. I remember my shock when you finally spilled it, being well covered under zombie make-up."
Kate blanched as she froze with a french fry halfway to her mouth."Castle I never knew you were about to walk away, I just knew things suddenly became really strained between us and then things seemed better again, at least until Maddox showed up."
Castle reached across the table to take her hand. "Doesn't matter anymore. Whatever happened, we found our way back to each other, but what about Dr. Burke?"
"Well, he helped me realize that my obsession with finding my mother's killer wasn't just about finding justice, although that certainly was a lot of it. I was angry, Castle. I was angry at her for leaving me, for leaving my father to drown in a bottle, for destroying the dreams I'd always had for my life. And I couldn't bear to admit to myself how angry I was with her, so I just put up the emotional walls I told you about. I didn't want to acknowledge I had anger or any other kind of weakness. So I was super detective, right up until Maddox kicked my ass and threw me off a building. Then I realized I was about to lose everything, including you, and if I did survive, I was going to have to resolve that anger somehow."
"And did you?" Castle questioned, "or did you just bury it again when you came to me out of the storm?"
Kate bit down on her straw. "A good question, Castle. I really thought I had. But just now, at this moment I'm talking to you, I realized that I didn't resolve it or bury it, I just changed the target of it. I wasn't mad at my mother anymore, I was mad at myself for letting her death rule my life like that; for making the inquiry that got my A.G. team get killed; for wasting all the time I could have been with you. That's why I pushed you away to go after LokSat myself. I was punishing myself, Castle. And in doing that, I didn't mean to, and I'm so sorry, but I punished you. And I almost lost you."
"And I almost lost you," Castle pointed out. "No punishment could have been worse than that. Well maybe when I was so eager to step in front of bullets with you, I was doing the same thing somehow. I didn't want to be mad at mother so I convinced myself I'd done something to drive her away, that I was unworthy somehow. And my other marriages just fed into that. I was sure I wasn't good enough for you to love me either, and that's why you lied. We are a pair, aren't we? It would have been easier and less painful to get one of those whips the crazy monks use for self flagellation. Wow! I think I just got more insight into the two of us, trying to write a chapter of a book that wasn't supposed to be about the two of us, than I did writing the whole stack of Nikki Heats that was."
The corners of Kate's mouth twitched. "Well there's the irony you love so much, Castle."
"Yeah Kate, I've always bragged about being a best selling author."
Kate rolled her eyes. "No kidding."
"But," Castle continued, "I was constantly procrastinating, because I never really, in my heart of hearts, felt like I was a real writer. But now I do, and it's like the whole world has shifted in an instant."
Kate rotated her thumb over the knuckles of the hand that still clung tightly to her own. "So is that cause for celebration?"
"For now let's just celebrate your arrest, and excellent cheeseburgers." Castle proposed. "We can celebrate the rest when I finish the book."
"Damn!" Kate exclaimed as her cell dinged a text alert. She pulled it out of her pocket and stared at the screen. "We may be down to just celebrating cheeseburgers, Castle. The gun at Dickenson's apartment was the wrong caliber. He may not be our shooter."