Feels Like Home

Chapter 14

Kate smiled as she walked in to the diner where she and her dad usually met to see Jim Beckett already seated and waiting for her.

Her dad was always early whenever they met up. Her dad was probably the most punctual person she'd ever met. (Her mom had valued punctuality too but her mom had a tendency to lose track of time if she got sucked into work, rather like Kate did, and because of that, her mom ended up running late fairly often. It was why Kate and her dad hadn't thought anything of it when her mom hadn't met them for dinner that terrible January day, had been utterly unprepared for the devastating blow that was about to fall on them.)

The first indication Kate had really had that her dad's drinking was escalating and becoming problematic had been that he'd been late to meet her for dinner one day. She'd known her dad had been drinking occasionally but she had been preoccupied and still reeling herself from her mom's death so she hadn't thought, hadn't realized that her responsible, intelligent father was sinking so fast. But then he'd started showing up late to meet her. And then one day, he hadn't shown up at all and she'd gone to his apartment, the one he'd moved into within a year of her mom's death because staying in their old home had been too painful, to find him passed out drunk on his couch.

Kate shoved aside the unbidden memories. She tried not to think about that time. At all. Wanted to forget about those years entirely, truth be told. Wished she could erase seeing her dad like that, so broken.

She'd managed to rebuild her relationship with her dad, slowly, steadily, finding the bond she'd had with her dad again, but it had taken time and she knew that there were limits in how much she told her dad about her life, her job, about the dangers of it, because still, she was afraid that something would send her dad back to the bottle. There was still a shadow of constraint that occasionally appeared when she talked to her dad, although she tried to deny it, tried not to acknowledge that it existed.

She stepped straight into her dad's hug. "Hi, Dad."

Her dad gave her a brief squeeze, kissing her forehead. "Hi, Katie. You're looking well."

She slipped into the booth across from her dad. "Thanks." She paused and then fixed a half-teasing, half-challenging look on him, "So, Dad, you met Castle?"

Her dad looked entirely composed. "I see Rick gave you his surprise then?"

Rick? Kate's mind momentarily snagged on the name. Her dad was on first-name terms with Castle now, after meeting with him once? Her dad wasn't the most formal of men but he could be reserved and had rather perfected a subtly threatening demeanor for meeting her boyfriends before.

Wait, why was she assuming her dad would react to Castle as if he was her boyfriend? He wasn't. They were just friends and partners. Her dad had been perfectly congenial the couple times he'd met Esposito and Ryan. She ignored the little voice in her head saying that that was an entirely different situation.

"Yes, he gave me the surprise." Kate heard the way her own voice had softened on answering, betraying rather more than she wanted about the warmth in her chest at the thought of the jewelry box. She saw the way her dad smiled, his eyes narrowing a little, and knew he'd noted the change in tone too. Drat it.

In an attempt at regaining some more control, she asked, "You didn't mention anything about meeting Castle when we talked two weeks ago."

Jim Beckett only gave her a rather amused look. "He told me he was planning to surprise you, Katie. Of course I didn't mention anything to you. I take it you liked the surprise."

She smiled, wide and bright and happy. She couldn't help it. "Yeah, I liked it. The box is really beautifully made."

"Mm hmm. I must say, Katie, I can't think of many men who would have thought to do something like that."

She honestly couldn't either. "Castle has his moments," she agreed.

"I was glad to finally have a chance to meet your Castle."

Kate colored. "He's not my Castle, Dad! It's not… like that with me and Castle. You know that."

Her dad only raised his eyebrows at her skeptically. "It might not be like that between you and Rick yet but that doesn't mean he's not yours." He paused and then added, quietly, "He cares about you, Katie."

"We're just friends, Dad. Really."

"Do you think I can't tell when a man is in love with my only daughter?"

Kate felt her eyes flare, her heart stuttering in her chest, her face—hell, her entire body—going hot. Her dad had not just said that to her. It wasn't true—it couldn't be true. "I—he—that's not—he doesn't," she stuttered and finally managed to choke out, "He's not in love with me." He couldn't be. It was too much, too soon. They might have been working together for more than a year but they'd really only been friends since the fall when she'd forgiven him for looking into her mom's case and, until her apartment had exploded, had almost never spoken about anything aside from the precinct and work. He'd always flirted with her but it had been teasing and he'd never said, never even hinted—she couldn't believe that he… that he loved her. He was—he was Richard freaking Castle! And she was… just a cop and a cop who was guarded and defensive and prickly at that. Besides, they'd never even kissed, hardly ever touched at all—she couldn't imagine that Castle would or could feel so much, so intensely, about a woman he'd never even kissed.

"Your mother would have said the same thing about me a year after we met and look how that turned out."

Yes, Kate knew the story too, had heard all about how her parents had been work colleagues and friends for years first. She remembered the way her mom and dad had exchanged smiles when they spoke about that time.

But she remembered, too, seeing her dad, whom she'd only seen with tears in his eyes a scant handful of times while growing up, breaking down and sobbing like a child in the morgue after identifying her mother's body. She remembered herself crouching over the toilet in the cold sterile light of the morgue bathroom while retching up her dinner after that. She remembered the grief-stricken ghost her father had been in those first days afterwards. She remembered watching her father drown his sorrows in alcohol. And she felt a flare of panic inside her, the sharp reminder of that first devastating loss, and why she didn't—couldn't—let herself care too much, trust too much, rely on anyone ever.

She bit her lip, hesitating, but then finally decided to go on. This was her dad and while she wasn't really used to talking about men with him, unlike with Lanie, her dad of all people would understand why she was so afraid. "It's not that I don't… like Castle, Dad, I do," she finally admitted, having to force the words out and feeling herself blush hotly. God, had she ever admitted to liking a man to her father before? She didn't think so. She'd only mentioned Royce as her training officer to her dad, whatever other feelings she may have had for Royce. And with Will, she'd only mentioned to her dad that she was seeing someone and she thought it was getting serious before she'd introduced the two of them.

But then, surprisingly, when Kate finally managed to look up at her dad, she saw that he was… smiling, looked decidedly amused. What was so funny about this?

"Oh, Katie, I already knew that you liked your Castle."

Kate gaped at him, nonplussed in spite of herself. "You knew?" How could he—she'd barely admitted to herself that she liked Castle as of a week ago! She certainly hadn't seen her dad in that time.

"I do know you, Katie-girl, and I've been listening to you talk about Rick for more than a year now and especially, saw the way you've talked about him and his relationship with his mother and his daughter the last time we met since you've been staying with them."

Kate felt herself flush. Well, damn, so much for having a poker face. She felt as if she'd just discovered that someone had stuck a sign on her back announcing 'I have a crush on Rick Castle' in some juvenile prank. "Well, I… we've just been friends, Dad, and work colleagues. That's all. And that hasn't changed. Me and Castle—it's not going to happen, Dad. It's not." She couldn't let it happen.

Her dad gave her a curious look. "You sound awfully certain of that for someone who was just admitting how much you like the man. And having met him, I'm sure he already cares about you quite a bit."

He didn't—thank god—mention the l-word again.

"It would never work out, Dad. Castle—he's too risky and we're too different. We get along well enough as friends and colleagues but really, we have almost nothing in common. He's this multimillionaire celebrity with this huge loft and a Ferrari and a house in the Hamptons and I'm just a regular cop. Plus, he's childish and annoying and sometimes I just want to strangle him." Which was all true.

Except the wanting-to-strangle-him part had gotten muddled up with the wanting-to-rip-his-clothes-off thing but she couldn't say that to her father.

"No, dad, it's not going to happen. We'd never manage to make it work and then it would just be awkward at work and I don't want that to happen. I hate to admit it but he's actually been pretty helpful with our cases and he does make things more fun."

Her dad nodded, looking thoughtful. "All of that makes sense, Katie, but you know you sound like you're trying to convince yourself, not me."

Kate huffed. Damn it, why had she thought talking to her father about this would be helpful? Her dad was always supportive but he also knew her really well.

"I'm not," she insisted. She wasn't trying to convince herself. "It's just… I'm not about to risk losing my friendship with Castle for a relationship that has no chance of lasting." She thought but couldn't quite bring herself to say aloud that she didn't want to care about him because then it would hurt too much when he inevitably left, decided he'd done enough research for Nikki Heat and would just concentrate on his writing and go back to his nice, safe, luxurious life. (She knew, although she wouldn't admit it to him, exactly how many books he'd published in how many years. Now, knowing about Alexis and, more specifically, the kind of mother Meredith was, she could guess at the two-and-a-half-year hiatus between books almost 15 years ago as being right around when Alexis was born and he was preoccupied with his new baby girl. And she knew, too, from pre-ordering all his books, another thing she had no intention of telling him about, that at the height of the Derrick Storm series, he'd had two books a year published, not the much slower publication schedule for Nikki Heat.)

Her dad sighed a little. "Oh Katie…"

He sat back and studied her for a moment.

Kate waited. She knew the look on her father's face, knew he was gathering his thoughts. It occurred to her suddenly how… odd… this was, to be talking about relationships, her personal life, with her father. For just a moment, talking about her feelings for a man, it almost seemed like one of the talks she'd had with her mom about boys before. And Kate felt a fierce surge of longing for her mom. Oh, she wanted to talk to her mother about this. She wanted to talk to her mom about all of this, her confusion over Castle, her fears over getting too close to him, her affection for Alexis. She wanted her mom to meet Castle, wondered what her mom would have thought of Castle—no, that wasn't entirely true. Kate knew what her mom would have thought of Castle. Johanna Beckett had liked Castle's books and would have enjoyed Castle's humor. She would have liked the way Castle could make Kate laugh and appreciated his kindness and his generosity. Yes, her mom would have liked Castle. And would probably have made Kate blush and inwardly writhe as she asked not-so-subtle questions about why Kate and Castle weren't together yet.

Talking with Alexis over things like clothes and schoolwork and boys as she had been was wonderful and Kate treasured it but she couldn't deny that sometimes, it was also exquisitely painful, reminding her of conversations Kate herself had had with her mother growing up. And reminding her too of all the conversations with her mom she would never be able to have again.

Her dad sighed and gave her a small, somewhat wobbly smile. "I keep thinking that your mom would be so much better at this sort of conversation than I am."

Kate managed a faint smile but she felt the sting of tears at the back of her eyes. "You're not doing so badly, Dad."

He reached across the table, taking one of her hands in both of his. "Look, Katie-girl, it's your life and your decision and if you honestly don't want a closer relationship with Rick, that's fine. I'll support you. I liked the man but you're my daughter and all I ever want is for you to be happy. That's the most important thing to me, always."

"I know, Dad, and I appreciate it."

"I just want to be sure that whatever you decide, it's because it's what you honestly want and not only because you're afraid of what might happen. Katie, I only met Rick once so I can hardly claim to know the man very well but I have seen the way you smile when you talk about him and I know that he makes you smile and laugh in a way I haven't seen in years."

Oh. Kate felt something inside her tighten. Because Castle did make her laugh. And that mattered too. Because looking back, Kate knew that she hadn't had much reason to laugh, not really, before he'd come along. She'd always been so focused on her job, on finding justice for the victims, on being the best cop she could be—and as a young, attractive female cop, she'd known she would need to work twice as hard and be twice as good as the other male cops in order to be taken seriously. It had paid off; she'd risen in the ranks, been made Detective, moved to the Homicide division which had always been her goal, and was the senior detective and de facto leader of her team.

But with all that, she was realizing, with the advent of Castle and more recently, staying at the loft and seeing the sort of family life he had, the welcoming, home-like warmth of the loft, just how… lonely and quiet her life had been before. She'd always thought she wanted the quiet, self-contained, organized life she'd led but she was discovering in these past few weeks that after all, maybe she'd been wrong. Because she liked talking over the day with Castle and Alexis and Martha over dinner, she liked listening to Alexis's stories and Martha's dramatics, she even liked the friendly bickering with Castle over whether and how much she could help out with making dinner or cleaning up afterwards. She liked being able to return to the loft and set aside for a time thoughts about murders and death in favor of listening to stories about, well, life—the life of a teenager and Martha's exuberant, spirited stories.

And she liked that even after a hard day at the precinct, Castle always found a way to make her laugh. She had realized that he acted sillier, more childish, after the days that were longer or harder and she knew it was meant to make her laugh and forget about it. The scary part was how often he was right about when a day had been hard—sometimes, it was obvious if a case was bad—but he seemed to sense it even when a day was hard for reasons other than a bad case. She never said anything about a day being hard, obviously, and she'd always thought she was good at hiding it but more often than not, he seemed to sense it somehow.

And that scared her too. Because she didn't want it to change, didn't want to lose the friendship that made her life easier. And she still couldn't imagine a real, romantic relationship with Castle lasting in the long run; neither his track record with romantic relationships nor hers inspired much confidence in that regard and she did still think that they were too different to make it work. She could be his friend—she wanted to be his friend—and she didn't want to risk losing that friendship, even for what she was sure would be some great sex. (And oh god, she had not just thought that while sitting right across the table from her father.)

Kate fought back the urge to blush and was, gratefully, distracted when her dad asked, "Do you remember what happened when you first told your mom and me that you wanted to use your savings to buy a motorcycle?"

Kate had to laugh. "As if I could forget!"

Her dad laughed as well. "Right, of course."

It had not been a forgettable episode. Her normally soft-spoken, calm father had blown his stack—a fitting expression because it had been the first and only time Kate could remember of thinking that she might actually be able to see smoke coming from her father's ears as in the old cartoons. He had paced and gesticulated wildly and shouted, as he threatened to lock her up in her room for months, and Kate, in her teenage willfulness had made sharp remarks back until the argument had shown every sign of deteriorating into a battle royale.

It had been Kate's mom, normally the more voluble one of her parents, who'd been left to mediate, sending Kate to her room and talking to Jim alone for almost two hours, Kate remembered, before her parents had come to her room with a compromise of sorts. Kate had been allowed to buy the motorcycle with her savings but had solemnly promised always to wear a helmet and preferably other protective gear, had agreed to take twice the required number of hours of motorcycle safety lessons before getting her motorcycle license, and had promised only to ride the motorcycle during the daylight hours and never in bad weather and never on holidays where there would be a higher likelihood of drivers who may have had something to drink, even if not legally over the limit. And obviously, Kate had promised never to so much as touch her motorcycle if she'd had so much as a sip of alcohol herself.

Kate inwardly smiled a little, rather sad smile. To this day, she still followed those strictures when she rode her motorcycle, which admittedly wasn't often nowadays. It had been one of the last promises Kate had made to her mother and after everything, she couldn't imagine going back on her word to her mom.

Her dad's expression softened, became reminiscent and tinged with sadness, as usually happened when he thought about the past when her mom had been alive. "I was pacing and going on and on to your mom about how dangerous it was and how you didn't have the sense to know what you were doing. And your mom just listened for a while and then she said, 'you know something, Jim, I admit I wasn't glad when Katie said she wanted to get a motorcycle but the more I think about it, as worried as I am, I'm proud of her too.'"

Kate made a small sound of surprise. "Mom said she was proud of me for wanting to buy a motorcycle?" Her mother had never said anything of the sort to her! When she'd presented the compromise to Katie, her mom had been all that was serious and resigned, the worried parent who still, reluctantly, decided to let their child spread their wings and leave the nest.

"I stared at her too and flatly told your mother that she had lost her mind," Jim said with a rueful little laugh. "But Johanna just looked at me and said in that way of hers, 'I'm more sane than you are right now, Jim Beckett, so don't give me that.'"

Kate laughed. "That does sound like mom." She could picture the expression on her mother's face as she said that.

"That made me stop and stare at your mom and finally sit down and listen to her. And you know what she said? She told me, 'our Katie has a good head on her shoulders and more sense than she's sometimes shown in these past few years. But she'll get over the teenage foolishness. What I'm proud of and what I don't want to change is that our Katie doesn't let fear hold her back from going after something she wants.'"

Kate let out a shaky breath. Oh, Mom… "That was… a long time ago, Dad. Things are different now. I'm different now," she said quietly. She understood what her father was telling her but it had been a long time ago, had been another lifetime ago, Kate felt, before her mom had been murdered. Before, when Kate had still allowed herself to dream and hope and had believed in things like happy endings.

"It may have been a long time ago, Katie," her dad responded mildly, "but you're still the same person you used to be, grown up, but still our Katie-bug. And your mom knew you pretty well."

Kate had to smile. "Yeah, she did."

"Look, Katie, there's just one more thing I want to say and then we can change the subject and not talk about Rick again. You say that you don't think a relationship with you and Rick would work out, that you're too different. You may be right but the thing is that you don't know that for sure. Relationships aren't a math problem; there's no logical formula that guarantees that a relationship will last while another doesn't. There's no way of knowing whether a relationship will work unless you try. And whatever else, every relationship will have its challenges, that's unavoidable. I just don't want you to close yourself off to the possibility of a relationship that might make you happy because you're too afraid of an unknown future to take the risk. Rick cares about you, Katie, and he's a good man, if I'm any judge of character. Now, that doesn't mean you have to pursue a real relationship with him; it's always up to you to decide. I just want you to do it based on what you want, not just what you're afraid of."

She wanted to have sex with Castle, an errant voice in her mind interjected, before Kate could shut it up. It was most certainly not what her father meant by the word but damned if at least part of her brain hadn't reverted to being a hormonal teenager when it came to Castle. It was really annoying.

"I'll think about it, Dad," she promised.

Her dad smiled. "That's all I ask, Katie-girl."

And though she'd had every intention of changing the subject away from Castle, Kate found herself blurting out, "You liked Castle, Dad?" Because she'd been wondering about it since she'd first found out that Castle had met her father.

Her dad laughed a little. "I did. I recognized him right away from the picture on his book jackets, of course, but in person, he surprised me a little."

"Surprised you how?"

"Well, for one thing, he was clearly nervous. I didn't expect that a man who's so personable and so used to meeting people would be so ill at ease but I suppose the circumstances were somewhat unusual."

Kate suppressed a smile. Castle had been nervous, hmm? That was… kind of endearing. And a nervous Castle tended to look… younger, adorable. (Oh, get a grip, Kate.)

Wait. Kate fixed a sharp gaze on her dad. "Dad, what did—you didn't tell Castle anything about me, did you?"

Her dad gave her a look of spurious innocence. "What, you mean like show him the pictures from your short-lived modeling career or tell him about the school play you were in when you were 7 or show him pictures of the time you tried on your mom's entire makeup collection when you were 8? I didn't think you would mind if he knew."

"Dad!"

Her (evil) father laughed. "Relax, Katie. I didn't tell him about any of those things. After the way you reamed me out for giving Javier and Kevin those pictures from your modeling career, I learned my lesson so I didn't tell stories about you, I promise, even though he did ask what you were like as a teenager."

Oh, he had, had he? Kate made a mental note to twist Castle's ear when she got back to the loft. Meeting with her father in secret to try to surprise her was one thing; using that meeting to do more "research" on Nikki Heat was another.

"Good," she said crisply.

Although come to think of it, she could have guessed that her dad wouldn't have mentioned the modeling thing because if he had, she knew that, surprise or no surprise, there was no way that Castle would have been able to resist making a remark about it. He might have tried to keep it in, in order to keep his secret, but she knew him; it would have come out sooner or later, most likely sooner. He could never have let such an opportunity for teasing her go.

She hesitated and then had to ask, "And what did Castle say about me?" (She inwardly cringed. She was so not winning any subtlety points right now. She was acting like a teenager with a crush asking a mutual friend if the object of said crush had ever mentioned her. Great, this was just great, she thought sarcastically. Castle acted like a 12-year-old half the time, she sometimes thought, and now she'd been reduced to acting like a 13-year-old girl because of him.)

Her dad smiled in a way that on just about anyone else would probably have been considered a smirk except Kate couldn't imagine her dad ever smirking, not really. "He said that you were a good friend. And that he thinks you're extraordinary." Her dad paused and then added, "But then, of course, you already knew that from the dedication of the Nikki Heat book, didn't you?"

Kate felt herself flushing, her heart fluttering in spite of herself. Castle had told her father that he thought she was extraordinary? She didn't know why that somehow seemed even more significant than his telling her to her face that she was extraordinary but at that moment, it did.

"What else did you talk about?"

"Oh, nothing in particular. He talked about some of his experiences in the publishing industry, the legal side of things, and he talked about his daughter."

Kate smiled. "Of course. He loves to talk about Alexis."

"Yes, he's obviously very proud of his daughter." Her dad paused and then added, casually, "I can relate."

"Thanks, Dad. And Alexis is worth being proud of. Castle's done a good job with her."

"She sounds like quite the girl." He sobered a little. "I did wonder, a little, about the situation with her mother. You don't have to tell me anything," he hurriedly added, "It's not really any of my business since I've only met the man once, but I was curious. It's just that he rather spoke about his daughter as if she was a gift delivered to him by a stork and no one else had ever been involved in her existence. I've spoken to a lot of parents and even the divorced ones tend to mention their ex-es in the context of talking about their children, whether it's resentfully or positively."

Kate hesitated, wondering just how much she could say without it being a breach of Castle's trust and his privacy. It might just be her father but as her dad had acknowledged, he had after all only met Castle once and had never met Alexis at all, even if he had heard quite a bit about her. "Alexis's mom has not been… an involved parent so it really has been just Castle and Alexis for the most part."

"That must have been difficult, for both Rick and Alexis. It's commendable that Rick has succeeded so well with Alexis then."

"He is really good with her," Kate agreed. "But then he always says that he lucked out with Alexis and there's some truth to that because she's a really great kid." Kate paused, smiling at the thought of Alexis, as usual. And found herself admitting, "I offered to take Alexis out for Mother's Day."

Her dad's eyes widened. He knew, of course, that Kate usually spent Mother's Day quietly and alone, going up to leave flowers on her mom's grave but otherwise not doing much, unless it happened to be a weekend she was on shift, in which case she spent it at the precinct.

"That's nice of you, Katie." Her dad paused, hesitated, and then went on, a little cautiously, "I can see that you care about Alexis too and I know this probably isn't necessary but I want to remind you that whatever you decide about your relationship with Rick, it won't only affect the two of you. It will affect Alexis too, maybe more than it would in another family simply because of how close Rick and Alexis are."

"I know, Dad," Kate said quietly. She did know it. She didn't know what to do about it exactly but she did know it. And she also knew that in one sense, her thinking about how Alexis might be affected wouldn't matter much because Castle would definitely put Alexis first. She hadn't known him for so long without realizing that. No matter what, Castle would always put Alexis first.

And it abruptly occurred to her, a stirring of warmth in her chest, just how much Castle trusted her, as he clearly did, in letting her spend so much time with Alexis. She remembered what Alexis had said, about how Castle never brought his dates home, and she should have guessed as much, really. Castle would always protect Alexis. And Castle trusted her. It was one thing for him to trust her with the combination of his safe; it was another thing entirely to trust her with his daughter because Alexis was the most precious thing in the world to Castle.

She remembered what her father had said, do you think I can't tell when a man is in love with my only daughter?

She didn't—she couldn't—believe that Castle really loved her, not like that, not yet. She didn't know if he could love her. (Why would he love her? He could be with anyone he wanted.)

But he trusted her with his daughter.

He cares about you, Katie.

And she abruptly, belatedly, realized that whatever Castle felt for her—and she couldn't believe that it was love, not really, not yet—it was serious. He wanted a real, serious relationship. He had to. He would never have let her get so close to Alexis if he didn't. She might doubt everything else but she knew that. Castle's love for Alexis was as much a fact of life as the sun rising in the east. It was, oddly enough, possibly the thing she liked best about Castle, his unswerving, unconditional devotion to his daughter.

She suddenly remembered what she'd thought when Alexis had returned from her camping trip last week—that the woman lucky enough to be truly loved by Rick Castle, loved the way he loved Alexis and his mother, would be able to trust him to stand with her, support her, in everything.

And for the first time, it occurred to her to think, with equal parts terror and hope, that she wanted to be the woman Castle loved like that.

She sucked in a shaky breath, feeling as if everything inside her might be trembling. She had the odd sense that she was standing near the edge of a cliff, so close, just a couple steps away from falling.

It was terrifying.

But if she could believe that Castle might—that he could—really love her like that, then she might be able to take the steps forward and fall. Fall, trusting that his love would give her wings.

~To be continued…~

A/N: As always, thank you, everyone, for reading.