Treading Water


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47 Seconds 4x19 Part Two

"You two are a walking fairy tale."

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"Maybe it's Alexis. I don't think she likes me, and for good reason," Kate muses, running her fingertips over the wooden stick figure in her therapist's office. She glances up, a faint spark. "That's got to be it, right? And I mean, I get it. I'm a walking bull's eye—target on my back. Never know when the other shoe will drop and the shooter comes back for me. Why'd he even disappear in the first place—"

"Kate, let me stop you there," Dr. Burke rumbles. His voice is like coffee; deceptively smooth, packs a punch, wakes her up. "Before you spiral. What I hear you saying is that there's only one good reason for Rick Castle to pull away from you and that's to protect his own family. From you."

She flinches, drops her eyes to the wooden figurine. It's posable. She's seen them in museum shops and down in tourist traps; she wonders what the significance is. What it means. Why it's here.

"Do you know his real reason?" Dr Burke asks quietly. "Did he tell you why he's decided to cool things off?"

She sets her jaw. "He said... he didn't want to railroad me. He said we told each other we'd wait but we haven't been waiting." A sigh escapes her, with the truth. "He's technically only doing as I asked."

"To wait for you."

"Yeah... but before we were... I don't know. Waiting together?" She winces and scrubs a hand through her hair. Friday night and she's at her therapist's office. Lame. "That's so pathetic."

"It's not pathetic," he murmurs gently. "It sounds like an accurate assessment of the state of your relationship."

She blows out a breath. "Yeah, but not anymore. Now it's just—I text him and he texts back with a pointed delay, like he wants to be sure I know he's not available. Or after work? After work now, he's leaving before I can even pretend to start paperwork. He used to wheedle me into getting dinner or a drink—I mean sometimes it was only from the food trucks downstairs, but at least..."

"Together."

She tilts her head back, pretends she was only popping her neck, keeps tears at bay (barely). "We're not together anymore," she tries out. She was going for nonchalant but it came out ridiculously broken.

Broken up.

"It's like we broke up but we were never together in the first place."

Dr. Burke clears his throat. "And didn't you... ask for that? Didn't you say you couldn't be in a relationship."

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Castle shifts on the couch, clears his throat. "No, well, see."

Cynthia is an astute therapist who, despite insisting he call her by her first name, has never let Castle pull one over on himself. She points a finger at him in silent rebuke—he's not allowed to justify himself or his actions—and he snaps his mouth shut.

Broods.

Finally admits, "I haven't told her this one big thing, which I haven't told you either, and it's really what's in the middle of us. What keeps us in this holding pattern."

"Other than her mother's unsolved case?" Cynthia narrows her eyes at him (okay that's probably his guilt talking) and settles back firmly in her chair. "And what is it that you haven't told her. Or me. Or, it seems, really admitted to yourself yet either."

"I made a deal to save her life."

Dr. Cynthia's jaw drops. "You did what?"

His shoulders round in.

"Sit up straight," she says. "Don't shame-posture. Own it."

He jerks upright in reflex, but she's right—it does something to him. Pushing his shoulders back makes him take it on the chin, own his mistakes and behaviors and emotions. No more excuses, no more fancy words to hide behind, no more prevaricating.

Own it.

"After she was shot, when she wasn't talking to me—"

"Excuses," Doc Cynthia chides, far more gently than he deserves.

"Yes, no, you're right," he says, frowns. Rewinds. "After Kate was shot and we didn't have the shooter—it was an open case with no leads—a man came to me, said he'd been a friend of her late captain." Castle halts, reconsiders. He's sitting the the police shrink's offices.

"Whatever you say is in confidence," Doc Cynthia reiterates. "And I am only required to warn the police if you are in immediate danger or you are endangering others. Or, you know, child abuse." She wriggles her fingers. "Go on."

He likes a therapist who wants to dish. He's clicked so well with Doc Cynthia; he's come so far. He's been able to spot his immature reactionary behaviors from a mile away (or at least immediately after indulging in them) and he knows, without a doubt, therapy has been vital to his well-being.

And to his relationship with Beckett.

But faced with telling someone (who is not his mother) about the deal made to save her life, he is far less certain it was the right choice to make. It's jumbled now, the reasons, as if it's not clear that Beckett's life really is in danger.

But of course it is.

But—

"Rick."

"He called himself Mr Smith—he said he had been given a file which he could use to blackmail the man who'd had her shot. Which would keep her safe. Because. Uh. The man who hired the hit on her—" He's trying not to drag her mother's murder case into this but— "Well, the hired killer came after her because she was investigating her mother's murder, and this guy, in this file, he's the one behind it all. I don't know who that is, Smith wouldn't tell me, but he did say he's struck a deal for her life. She doesn't investigate, and he won't kill her, which, you know, that's a good deal, right? But the crux of it—I'm the one who keeps her in check. I'm the obstacle to her reaching closure with her mom's murder—so I'm the one blocking my own way. Blocking her way."

He doesn't say cock-blocking. But he knows they're all thinking it.

Cynthia leans back, crosses her arms over her chest.

He rubs his damp palms on his thighs.

Cynthia nods. "So. It's like that."

"Yeah, yes," he says, nodding back. "It's like that." Not sure what it is, in fact, like.

"Rick, when you met this man, and he said he could blackmail someone to keep her safe, which is illegal, you do realize? Larceny by extortion."

He freezes.

"You said... okay?"

"No, I—"

She doesn't even have to raise an eyebrow; he already hears himself giving excuses. Wheedling.

"Yes. I said okay," he admits. "I thought I could go behind his back somehow, figure it out myself or do some investigating into him and keep her out of it."

Doc Cynthia ruminates. "Didn't you tell me that your first offense, which got you Beckett's classic shut-out, was because you investigated her mother's case behind her back? When she told you not to?"

"But I'd already started and so when—" He stops again, lets the instinctive need to defend himself settle out. Own it. "Yes, that's exactly right. She was, I think, proprietary over her mother's murder case. She didn't want anyone but herself looking into it. But she did forgive me, seeing the information I had."

"Is that right."

Oh.

Oh shit.

"No, that's not right," he breathes. "She wasn't hoarding the case. She was afraid of drowning in it. But I brought it all back and there she was, drowning in it, she got shot because I brought her right back and I'm... I don't want her to drown. What am I supposed to do?" He covers his eyes with his hands, breathing fast. "I have to tell her. I can't keep it from her. It's not my choice to make. It's her mother. Her life. It's not my choice to make."

"There we go," Cynthia beams. "That's right. That's it exactly."

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"Come with me."

Kate jerks her head back, looks at her phone's ID. But it is, in fact, Rick Castle. It doesn't sound like him. "Castle?" She haunts her apartment, wandering from the bedroom to the living room, as she has done since arriving home from therapy. "Are you okay?" She is not okay.

"I'm coming by your place. Pack an overnight bag. Come with me."

She halts before the windows. "Wait. What?"

"For the weekend." Her noise makes him cry, "No! Not like that."

She grunts. Not sure if that's better or worse.

"You said to wait for you, okay, yes. But we need to talk. We have to talk."

"We're talking now," she murmurs. But they aren't, not really. (They haven't been.) "Why Vegas?" Bewildered is a bad look on her; she can't gather her thoughts; she can't think.

"Just to get the hell out of this city. We need to get out of here, Kate."

Her heart is beating wild. Her hands shake. The way his voice sounds— "Why."

"Please."

"But I thought you wanted to..."

"I know what I said. And what you said. Which is the point, isn't it? We need to break out of our old habits of talking/not talking to each other. Those old patterns. So. Come to Vegas with me."

"Vegas," she echoes.

"Yeah, why not? I've been wanting to go since Atlantic City—there are a number of good show residencies, Shania Twain, Guns N' Roses, Celine Dion—"

"Castle," she tries.

"I need you to come with me."

She remembers watching him walk out of her precinct on Gina's arm, missing her moment. What happens if she doesn't go? What happens if she takes too long pushing through all of her reservations, her hesitations, her damn issues?

He leaves without her and comes back on someone else's arm. That's what happens.

(She also remembers opening her door to him in a Vegas hotel, hoping he would be waiting on the other side.)

"Kate, please—"

"Yes," she says quickly. What is she saying yes to? She doesn't even care. "What time are you picking me up?"

"Can you be ready in thirty minutes?"

"Yes."

"You can?" he squeaks.

"Less time to think about this, the better," she growls. "And if you were bluffing—"

"No bluff," he says. "I'm already at your building. I've been circling the block for ten minutes."

"Then—when I've forgotten everything—you'll be buying me all new shit in Vegas, won't you?"

He laughs, sobers quickly. "Yes. Yes, I will. Anything, Kate."

She doesn't even look at what she throws in a bag.

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