Beckett: Storage

Tuesday 11 December

The black leather was starting to meld to her clothes and skin. Two days of barely leaving the couch left her grimy and greasy. Usually, she bathed or showered daily but the rigmarole of having to keep the cast on her foot dry dampened her enthusiasm. Castle was vocal in his fussing, explaining in detail to Erin the lengths they had to go to as if bathing were a swashbuckling tale of daring do.

Beckett would be fine sitting by herself over the bath with her leg outside and using a showerhead to wash her hair, but she was far more tired and precarious on her feet than she cared to admit. Castle was sceptical that she didn't have a concussion and wouldn't hear of leaving her alone near water. Turning something quite simple into a drama was his thing and she was too tired to resist.

She had convinced him that he could leave her by herself long enough to take Erin to her therapy session after school. The couch was laden with pillows and a duvet, and the coffee table hosted a full fruit bowl and jug of water. Castle had wanted to leave a gigantic tub of ice cream too, but she complained that it would simply melt and make a mess. She had tried to read but had struggled to focus so had daydreamed instead as she watched day turn to night through the enormous windows.

The bang of the front door disrupted the quiet of the empty loft as Erin and Castle returned. Without looking towards the couch, Erin immediately headed upstairs.

It had been two days since the accident. After the first day, which had been taken up mostly with restless sleep, she had tried to talk to Erin about the incident, anxious to soothe. Erin had already lost two parents in an accident; it didn't take a psychologist to tell her that her injury could be triggering for her daughter. Her coldness, however, was not what she expected.

'Why would I be upset, Kate?' she had snapped after she had sat her down and tried to explain that she understood why she might be feeling destabilised. 'You're fine. It could have been worse, but it wasn't. I'm fine.'

What could she have said in response? Erin hadn't given her the chance to push her on this further, getting up and claiming homework to do. Kate had wanted to follow – she felt unsatisfied and confused leaving the conversation unfinished - but the cast, and pain, reduced her movement and speed dramatically. Erin was anything but fine.

'How was the session?'

Castle hung up his jacket and made his way to the couch. 'So, I met with Doctor Ruiz briefly beforehand to explain about the shooting.'

'Accident,' she corrected.

Doctor Ruiz was in her forties, dressed informally and looked about ten years younger. To maintain confidentiality for Erin they had barely spoken to the therapist, content with the progress Erin appeared to be making.

'But she then asked to speak to me privately afterwards.'

Kate tried to sit up. She huffed at the extra exertion required, her arms trembling annoyingly. 'What did she say?'

'That she is concerned about Erin.' As he spoke, Castle absentmindedly positioned himself at the end of the couch and helped Kate to shift into a more comfortable position with her legs up on the couch, leaning back into him, so he could hug her from behind. She let her head drop back onto his shoulder; he ran his fingers through her hair from front to back, making her scalp tingle. He didn't care in the least about her griminess. 'She said usually she doesn't speak to parents unless there is a safety concern but that given the circumstances it was worth us knowing that there is very little to share.'

'What do you mean?' She wanted to shift to face him, but he held her in just the right position that she couldn't bring herself to move. She sighed as she sunk further into him.

'I mean, that Erin does nothing more than small talk with her. And that is in many ways fine. She said it takes time to build a therapeutic relationship with a child, but she thought it would be beneficial for us to know that after several weeks, Erin is still not sharing anything with her about any of the traumas she's experienced.'

Kate's heart sank. Particularly because Erin had seemed to move past the panic attacks, she had assumed that she had been unloading herself to the therapist.

'She won't talk about the murders she witnessed, her parents, their deaths, her childhood, being in care, running away. All of it is off limits.' Castle's voice was tight and high pitched like an over-tightened violin string. 'She tried to talk about your… accident, but Erin cut her off and talked instead about the book she is reading. In her opinion, Erin is doing everything she can to present a controlled and happy persona to the adults around her.'

'As if she's pretending?' Had it all just been an act, the last few weeks?

'Not quite as literal as that. More that she's working really hard to be happy, or to keep her traumas under control – you know, fake it till you make it? Children and adults, she said, have an extraordinary capacity for both denial and masking but they can only manage it for so long. She thinks given Erin's unique story, this accident may be the last straw for her and that we should be prepared for an explosion or more panic attacks.'

A raging itch sprang up on her fractured ankle beneath the cast. She tried to breathe through the discomfort without attacking the itch. 'So, what do we do? I tried to talk to her yesterday, but she just said she was 'fine'.

'I think you had it spot on when she first arrived, we keep things normal and safe.'

'It had all been going so well,' she dropped her head back against his shoulder in frustration, the impact reminding her of the bump. Erin may be holding back on many things, but in her heart, Kate didn't believe that Erin's gradual ease in her presence was something she was pretending. It was inevitable that the accident was going to undermine Erin's feelings of safety.

'It's not a straight line, progress. We just have to be here if and when she loses it.'

She clenched her jaw tightly. Clearly, no one could tell her what that might look like and being on alert without knowing quite what to be prepared for, especially whilst feeling not at her best, was maddening.

'I have an idea,' he said, suddenly gripping both of her upper arms. 'How about we decorate for Christmas? Do something fun?'

'What, now? It's late,' she baulked. Although she couldn't see his face, she could feel near her ear the disappointment at her unenthusiastic reaction in his jaw. It was obvious, however, that Christmas and Castle would be a match made in heaven. Until now the holidays were not times they had spent together, and she had never asked how he celebrated. Softening her tone, she said: 'I'll bet Christmas is really important to you?'

'Isn't it to you?'

It had been once upon a time. 'I usually work,' she confessed. 'Others have families they want to spend the holidays with, and my dad usually goes to his cabin – he likes the peace and quiet. I guess it's the time we both miss Mom the most.'

'See, I don't get that. Wouldn't you want to spend it together when it's hardest for you both?'

She shrugged. 'We could have done a lot of things differently. Grief is terrible and this is how we dealt with ours. I didn't come home that first Christmas because I was hiding my pregnancy – Erin's birthday is only a few days afterwards. I guess after that we didn't know how to find our way back to each other.'

Castle started to get excited. 'Maybe this would be a good thing for us. We can make Christmas whatever we want it to be, for all of us. Maybe Erin might be able to tell us how she spent her Christmases? We can make giant gingerbread houses. Would your dad like to join us? We could go to the Hamptons, we could-'

'Woah, slow down there, Saint Nick.'

'Sorry, I just love Christmas. It's what family is all about.' She couldn't imagine how they would have spent their first Christmas together if Erin hadn't arrived, but something tells her she wouldn't have gotten away with working as usual. She twisted her shoulder to lift an arm up and sought his cheek to give him a patronising tweak and a pat.

'I know you do. I do think it's a good idea. Give us something for the three of us to focus on together, while I'm stuck here.'

'Yes, you can sit there and direct us.' Before she knew it, he had unceremoniously shoved her upright and jumped up, like a hyperactive elf.

Not long after, the loft was stuffed with colour as vibrant as Santa's workshop. Quite where he had managed to store the many boxes full of elaborate and ornate decorations, miraculously classy and tacky at once, was a mystery. There was even an intricate train set and diorama, the open-plan lay-out big enough to accommodate it between the couch and the stairs. Castle's overactive imagination was in its element with Christmas and his animated inner child was contagious. Gradually, the space was transformed into a fantasy of green, red, gold, twinkling lights and fake snow, inciting fleeting moments in her of that intangible childhood feeling of wonder that she had long forgotten. Was Erin as jaded as she towards holiday cheer? Could Castle incite the same effervescent magic in her?

Erin hadn't resisted Castle's instructions and had emptied boxes and suspiciously examined the contents whilst Kate had studied her from the couch. Erin's smile in response to Castle explaining they could be as creative as she wanted, she now questioned. Was it authentic or fake, a rictus grin to satisfy them? After hours of decorating (Castle, she noted proudly, was employing extreme self-discipline in not undoing Erin's aesthetic choices) and untangling lights (a job delegated to Kate) in a moment of inspiration Erin's eyes appeared to light up for the first time in genuine enthusiasm. Without asking permission, she ran upstairs and returned with an armful of kittens.

Part of the kitten agreement with Castle was that they would stay upstairs away from him, although he must have realised that eventually the kittens would become cats who would have their own say. The stairs were open with large gaps between the steps, and at just five-weeks old the kittens were still too small to navigate them safely. Therefore, the rule had yet to be challenged. They did not yet have a tree, so tree decorations had sorted ready for the later decorating, including tinsel. Laughing, Erin dumped them in a pile of gold and silver striped tinsel, sending the kittens into a frenzy. Kate gawped open-mouthed at Castle, braced for his objection.

For a moment he looked like he might explode but then a grin broke out across his face, showing his teeth. Carefully, he sat down next to Kate and they both watched Erin tumble along with the manic kittens who rolled in and out as one black, silver, white and orange blur, leaping and diving, the tinsel spreading glitter all around. Without speaking, he reached across and held her hand, still looking at Erin.

'Castle,' she whispered. 'Are you okay?' He was stiff-backed and she couldn't tell now if his smile was real or not. Maybe she needed to drop her painkiller dosage. 'We didn't agree to this.'

'Kate, it's fine. Look at her. She's happy.'

Beckett couldn't quite put her finger on what was wrong. A nagging feeling that she should be disciplining her daughter tugged at her but if Castle was honestly not upset by the kittens' presence downstairs, then there presumably was no need. Come to think of it, he had complained less and less about them. And yet. They had made an agreement, a compromise as a family, and Erin was consciously flouting it. She could hear her mother's voice: 'Give an inch and they'll take a mile.' She looked at Castle, at Erin and the Christmas decorations and decided an inch was worth it to maintain the jovial atmosphere.

Delicately contorting her limbs, she slid off the couch to the floor. One of the tortoiseshell kittens that they would be rehoming tripped like a bucking horse over to her, a long strand of tinsel wrapped around its middle. Giggling, she caught it up in her hands, unwrapped it, and showed it to Castle over her shoulder. He was definitely tolerating them better: he didn't reach out to pet it but neither did he move away. In fact, she could swear that he was wearing his deceitful face. Whenever he tried to hide something from her his eyes widened and he didn't blink, as if blinking would give him away. Right now, his eyes were like saucers.

'You like them, don't you?' she gushed.

'Do not,' he resisted.

She slit her eyes at him, then twitching her lips and shaking her head, she tucked the kitten under her arm and, dragging her casted foot behind her, shifted awkwardly towards Erin, herself now adorned like a Christmas tree. Before she could reach them, Erin stood up, tinsel falling around her like snow from a roof.

'Rick, can we have dinner?'

'Oh gosh, look at the time! Time flies when you're having fun,' he joked, his smile bobbing up and down between them, Erin standing, Kate on the floor. Castle grimaced at her as Erin went to the kitchen, making no effort to look at Kate much less help her up from the floor. Furthermore, she abandoned the kittens who, now bored by the tinsel, realised they were in a new area and decided to explore, in different directions.

'Erin, the kittens!' Beckett called out. 'Can you take them back upstairs, please.'

'They're fine, the windows are shut,' Erin replied curtly as she pulled out a plate from a cupboard and started to make a cheese sandwich.

Beckett frowned and stared at Castle who had sidled over to her. She whispered: 'Is it normal to be this rude? Was I this rude when I was twelve? She hasn't been like this before.'

As he gripped her arm and helped hoist her to her feet, he said: 'She's almost a teenager and she's upset by your accident – I think we just have to ride it out. When Alexis was mad with me, she would give me the silent treatment.'

She sighed. They were already having to ride out Alexis's "difficult emotions".

'Doctor Ruiz said she might explode – if sulking and giving you the silent treatment is the worst it gets, that's really not that bad, is it?'

'I just want to make it all better.'

'I know you do, Kate, and it's killing you that right now you have to step back and can't be in control.'

xxx

The next few days were much the same. Erin was surly, obnoxious and acted as if she hadn't heard Kate's requests. So much for trying to maintain a happy persona. Erin seemed to have slipped into a state of self-sabotage. Was she trying to provoke an angry response? Invite her to reject her? Beckett wasn't going to fall into that trap.

Whilst she was at school, Kate was getting bored sitting around recuperating. Castle had given her the lawyer's contact details from Jim. Erin's rudeness and distance were painful, but she could distract herself by working behind the scenes doing something that she believed would help her daughter in the long run. As was par for the course, Erin had offered no insights into how she and her family had spent their Christmases. Kate started to become convinced that the key to combining Erin's past with her present – which at the moment seemed like two distinct universes – was to find her missing stuff.

'I'm calling for Jane Gunderson.'

'Who's calling, please?'

'Kate Beckett, daughter of Jim Beckett.'

'One, moment, please.'

The receptionist put her on hold briefly and then she was connected to the lawyer.

'I believe you know my father, Jim Beckett?'

'He called me about his granddaughter, Erin McDonnel? I presume you're her mother?'

'I am. I'm sorry, I'm not clear on your involvement here. Did you know Niamh and Daniel McDonnel?'

'Not well and only in a professional context. When they went to England, they needed my services. They didn't have any family here – I think there were some distant relatives in Ireland – and they wanted their wills set up in place for their daughter.'

'My dad says there is a trust set up?'

'Yes. Their entire estate was left to Miss McDonnel. They were leasing an apartment at the time of their deaths, so their estates were quite simple to consolidate – life insurance, pensions etcetera. But the nature of the trust is that she can't access it until she is 18.'

'Was there no provision in place for her care, a relative or friends who could have taken her in?' That her child had been left in the care of the state continued to rankle her.

'I'm sorry, no. To be frank, Ms Beckett, they did well to have anything in place at all. A lot of my work deals with untangling inheritance when there is no will at all. You would be surprised by how many people don't want to think of the practicalities of the worst-case scenario.' Beckett had to concede rather shamefacedly that she and Castle had not had a conversation about what would happen to Erin if anything happened to them, something they perhaps should have discussed given the recent incident.

'Sure.' She could hardly be angry with them. 'When Erin went into Child Services, as far as I can tell, she took very few items with her. I'm trying to track down her stuff. What would have happened to everything in their apartment?'

'Part of the trust includes a retaining stipend for my firm, and as everything from the estate was left to Miss McDonnel, technically everything in the house belongs to her so it has been kept in storage.'

This was more than she could have imagined. 'Everything?'

'Well, we had to sell some furniture and the proceeds went into the trust, but any other items – clothes, jewellery, were packed up. Even kitchen utensils. They belong to Miss McDonnel. We did inform Child Services that she can access the storage any time she likes but we've never been contacted.'

She remembered when they first went shopping how Erin had reacted when she asked where her things were. Had she known all along and chosen not to access them? Or had Child Services failed to tell her, and she had assumed it all lost? Questions for Erin for another day.

Friday 14 December

They had quickly acquired a Christmas tree, the largest and most impressive that Castle could find; he had tipped the delivery guys extra handsomely to deal with the pine needle fall out through the building which had sent the concierge into a spin. The kittens had a field day clambering along the trunk. Castle said he no longer minded the kittens being downstairs, an admirable though surprising admission and one she didn't entirely believe.

They had agreed not to confront Erin about her rude behaviour towards her, to give it a few more days but it was unpleasant receiving the cold shoulder. Given Erin's efforts so far to refuse to divulge information that she didn't want to, she suspected that Erin could maintain a sulk for an extended period. She was beginning to question, however, how long they should reasonably suffer it. Her parents had always been solid in their boundaries however hard she had pushed against them. It had infuriated her no end in her youth but now as she looked back, she realised how secure their rules had made her feel.

Captain Gates had visited and much to Beckett's disgust had told her she should stay at home for another week although if she wanted to support her colleagues with paperwork at home, she was welcome to. So, with Erin at school and Castle deep into a Nikki Heat chapter, she used his Car Service to visit the storage facility containing Erin's childhood. Castle had offered to go with her, but she had insisted she needed to go alone.

Her heart pounded as she balanced on crutches outside the blue garage-like door, indistinguishable from the other hundreds along a maze of corridors in a hanger-sized facility. Erin had given her tiny glimpses into her past from which she had built a broad picture but behind this door would be the evidence. She shivered with anticipation.

Once inside she found the light switch which turned on a lone dim lightbulb. Stacked floor to ceiling along the three walls were packing cardboard boxes each marked in hurried black marker with a room name: 'main bedroom'; 'bathroom'; main room'; 'child's room.' Even those packing up hadn't known to whom the home belonged. Shadows flickered as she ran her fingers over a box marked 'child's room.'

Slowly she lifted one down that wasn't too heavy. Sinking to the concrete floor she manoeuvred the box between her outstretched legs. Eventually, she slid her fingers along the cardboard and lifted the lid, the leaves opening like a flower. Everything had been wrapped in bubble wrap, at least. Through the mesh of clear plastic, she could just about discern that the first item on top was an image. Feeling like she was in someone else's house when they're not there, she lifted the package and painstakingly unwrapped the black wooden framed photograph.

She remembered seeing Daniel and Niamh at the hospital. She hadn't wanted to meet them in person before the birth. Once Erin had been born, she had held her baby, wrapped tightly by a midwife in a white blanket the McDonnels had provided. For several minutes she had gazed hypnotised memorising every feature and inhaling her scent. At the door had stood a couple, the desperation to cross the threshold coming off them in waves. She had met the woman's eyes. Nodding almost imperceptibly, she had handed Erin over to the midwife and watched as the McDonnels cradled their baby.

Niamh's and Daniel's bright eyes bored into her now. In between them cocooned in a pink puffer jacket and squashed into a large round swing was Erin, aged maybe eight-years old. With shaking cold fingers, she traced their faces. Niamh's long yellow coat and pink, blue and purple striped thickly-knitted scarf flapped freely, the camera capturing the motion as the playground feature reached the apex of its swing, holding forever the family in perfect joyful union. Dark-haired Daniel held Erin's gloved hand high above her, the thrilling feeling of free-fall evident in their wide eyes and laughing open mouths.

A hot tear stung her eye. She turned the photograph over, unable to breathe. For a second she could hear the echo of their screaming laughter, the running chatter of giggling excitement; she could feel the bite of winter cold on their cheeks, and then there was only silence.

She should leave. It wasn't right that she was here. Erin had told her she wasn't ready to reveal the past yet here she was, drawn like a magnet to the next box. This time she opened one marked 'main bedroom'. Inside were children's clothes. She unbundled them piece by piece, laying out a collage of baby onesies, toddler pyjamas, a faded purple long-sleeved shirt with a green dinosaur, the label read 'Aged 4-5'. Why had they kept these? Is this what parents did, keep selected clothes of their children as they grew? Was it a sentimental decision or had they been planning on passing them on to their grandchildren? She would never know the answers.

She picked up a couple of baby rompers and stuffed her face into them, searching for that smell that she had never forgotten but had never smelt again. But they only had that intense scent of detergent unique to every household.

Soon she found herself surrounded by a handful of open boxes with items strewn across the floor. Photo albums, make-up bags, a selection of men's ties. Like a junkie on a binge unable to stop, she opened another box: Christmas decorations. She snapped it shut. This was too far. She pushed herself away and shook her head vigorously to snap herself out of it. Swiping her face with the back of a hand, she carefully packed everything away. She held onto a small teddy bear that she had found in one of the 'child's room' boxes but begrudgingly she packed it neatly away too. Everything was here when Erin was ready to face it.

Shaken as if she had been on a multi-looped roller coaster, she scrambled thankfully into the back of the chauffeured car. She checked her phone. The Faraday's cage of the storage facility meant she had had no reception for the last hour or so. There were three missed calls from Castle and a voice message.

'Beckett, call me when you get this. I am at the school collecting Erin. She's been suspended for punching another child.'

A/N I don't like apologising for delays as I'm just a person writing as and when I can, however, I appreciate the enthusiasm with which readers are receiving this story. To guest helensorrento, thank you for your enthusiasm and desire to read! I can't say how long this story will be nor when it will reach its climax. I know the last scene to which we are heading and some of the route but it could be 30k, 50k words more -or less - before we get there, and that could be months or longer!

I would love to be able to write all day, every day! Real life, and my own children, do sometimes dictate that there is either no time to write or that I simply don't have the mental capacity to think and be creative.

I have ADHD and what that means for me - everyone's ADHD is different - is that I am capable of extreme hyperfocus but also unable to multitask and get easily overwhelmed with regular demands (so imagine 3 children who have differing needs..!). I can think quickly but I process slowly. From a writing perspective this is the first time I've had a multi fic on the go for an extended period of time. The pattern I'm seeing is that I can write and write for 2-3 weeks but then I need to step back. I find when I do that, my brain slowly untangles characters' povs, plot evolves and I can come to the writing and it flow quite easily. This chapter, for example, took 4-5 days to write but I last posted nearly a month ago. But I needed that 'non-thinking' time to be able to write freely.

I've also been editing the first 12 chapters. To be clear, that is not rewriting, it's purely tidying up the prose (although I did have to edit mistakes on one chapter because I stupidly posted at 4am and really should have known better!). To me, editing is an essential process of improving a writer's craft. I feel that I am an improving writer for having scrutinized my own writing weeks or months later. An example addressing overwriting is this from chapter four:

First published:

She was stiff and twisted slightly in his hold, but he didn't let go and slowly she relaxed into him, her breathing returning to normal whilst he ran circles along her spine with his fingers. 35 words

Edit:

She was stiff, but he didn't let go and slowly she relaxed into him, her breathing calming down as his fingers peppered circles along her spine. 26 words

Same meaning, fewer words and hopefully more vivid.

As ever, thank you for your review, follows and favourites. I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, let me know!