Alexis: Home for the Holidays, part 2

As Alexis walked up the stairs, she mulled over the conversation. She and Erin were really going to be family. She did a self-assessment to see how she felt about it. As it turns out, it felt good. She had only spent a short time with Erin, but they had fallen into an easy rapport of teasing and banter. But also, when she had had an allergic reaction, Erin had entrusted her care to her. Alexis had started to feel, however, more than a pang of uncertainty that Erin seemed content to confide in her whilst avoiding telling Beckett any truth which she feared might upset her. Given that her observation of Erin was that she was overly concerned about making Beckett happy – she had been more upset at the thought of ruining Beckett's birthday than her health - her recent rude behaviour towards her mother was a conundrum and this act of violence at school didn't make sense: Erin must have been provoked in some way. She was determined to get to the bottom of it.

'You're running away?' Alexis stared at the bed, her mouth slack jawed. The closet door was open, and in the middle of the room Erin was folding clothes into piles. The room was unrecognisable. In just a few weeks it had been transformed from a staid and impersonal guest room to a child's bedroom, albeit it one with a strong dedication to cats. One side of the room, the furthest from the door, had a cat jungle gym and the walls had been delicately decorated with decals of flowers and bouncing kittens. The only thing missing compared with her own room and those of her friends, was the collage of photographs of friends, and posters of favoured bands and hot guys that had adorned their walls at that age.

Erin didn't jump in surprise nor reacted in any physical way to her entering the room; she continued her actions robotically. 'No, I could never leave the kittens if I didn't have to. Just getting ready for the obvious,' she said in a monotone. She shrugged with the weight of the world as she deposited another pair of folded trousers. Appalled, Alexis rushed across the room and caught Erin's arm mid-air as she lifted another pair.

'What are you talking about?'

Erin sighed with every fibre of her being. The last time Alexis had seen Erin she had noted how much she had improved, how much healthier she looked: still thin but less malnourished, her long hair had been cut to just past her shoulders, showing off its rich chestnut brown hue and natural golden highlights, and she had developed a softness to the hard edges she had observed when they first met. Now she looked wan and defeated. 'Rick said the school has zero tolerance on violent behaviour. That's why I was suspended.' Erin shook off Alexis's hold. She mumbled: 'He said they would have to have zero tolerance at home too and he and Kate will have to talk about what to do next. I know what that means. Back to the Children's Home.'

After what her father had just told her, she couldn't believe what she was hearing. This family really needed to sit down and talk openly. Thank goodness she was home.

'No way, Erin. No way.' She grabbed the younger girl's shoulders and roughly turned her to face her. Looking her deeply in the eyes, she said: 'They would never do that. Why would you even think that?'

Erin met her stare with a look that said: Do you really know nothing?

'Seriously, do you not know how much effort they have put into making this your home? Into adjusting to this whole situation, to trying to help you settle in.' She waved her hand around the room. 'You told me that you think they're great, well they think you're great, my dad even-' she stopped herself. The imminent adoption wasn't her news to share.

'I know but…' Erin slumped on the bed, the pile of clothes bouncing at the movement.

'But what? This is serious, Erin.' Alexis couldn't help but feel despite Erin's claims to the contrary that running away was in fact on the agenda.

Erin rubbed her forehead with the palm of a hand as if trying to scrub away a headache. 'They were really mad. Rick couldn't even look at me on the way home and Kate… she just looked…I don't know, disappointed.'

Alexis let out a long breath and sat down beside her. The jury is still out on quite what Beckett is at the moment, she said to herself. Her dad's reporting of possible delayed concussion was worrying. She started to wonder, too, what effect Beckett's diminishing of the severity of her injury, and its cause, was having on Erin. As for Erin making this giant assumptive leap that they would simply give up on her, they had given no indication of such, there must be more to it.

'Sure, they're mad, what parents wouldn't be? But you're acting in such a resigned way, as if the only inevitable outcome is that they would send you away.' Alexis looked up sharply, her eyes widening in understanding, and she turned her head sharply towards her future sister. 'Because it's happened to you before, hasn't it?'

Erin tensed and looked down at her feet. Lyra, the female silver tabby, appeared from under the bed and wound her way in and out of Erin's feet, patting experimentally at the wool of her thick slipper socks.

'They wouldn't listen, they blamed me,' Erin murmured as she picked up the kitten and held it before her so she could give the animal an Eskimo kiss.

Alexis's eyes darted from side to side, trying to remember what her dad had told her about Erin's time in care.

'You were in foster care, you had foster brothers and sisters you said. The foster parents, they did something, did they send you away? You weren't there for very long?'

'I don't want to talk about it.' Erin rolled over the bed and with Lyra balanced on her shoulder like a piratical parrot she walked to the feline area and helped her to jump up to the highest platform of the play tower then tickled the cat's ears. Alexis had never heard such a loud purr. Maybe she was jumping to conclusions herself; Erin would never walk away from those cats voluntarily.

Alexis shifted on the bed as she continued to address her: 'Look, I know I have thought Beckett can be selfish over the last few years but-'

Without warning, Erin's stance changed entirely. A flash of anger darkened her features, and, turning away from Lyra, she stepped towards Alexis aggressively.

'Why have you been making life harder for her? You're so insulting to her. It's not like she's taking your father away from you,' she snapped, her lips bloodless and hard.

Alexis jumped to her feet. 'Woah, Erin, I'm not saying anything like that.' Menace filled the air. Alexis felt like she was suddenly in a room with an angry black mamba about to strike. So as not to trigger an attack, her heart hammering, she spoke slowly and carefully, keeping her body language and tone unthreatening. 'I just have some trust issues to work out with her, that's all, and actually that's kinda normal.' Alexis held both hands up, palms towards Erin, to pacify. Erin's face was crimson, and her fists clenched in and out. Erin's fury was bizarre given how rudely she herself had been behaving the last week towards Beckett. With the bed still between them and confident that Erin wouldn't actually hurt her, Alexis took one small step to the end of the bed. 'Are you okay?'

'Don't talk about her like that,' she said, her voice quiet and dangerous.

She had barely said anything negative about Beckett. Alexis quickly put two and two together.

'Did someone say something about Beck-Kate? Is that why you hit them?'

Breathing heavily only through her nose, steadily the blood retreated from Erin's cheeks. Alexis nodded at her slowly, waiting for Erin to tune into her. She held out a hand questioningly. Eventually Erin nodded in time, assuring her that she had calmed down. Finally deflated, her arms now limp by her sides, she said quietly:

'This older girl had a copy of Naked Heat and said to me: "What is it like having a mom who is a sex muse?"' Alexis gasped. Erin shook her head. 'I didn't react to that but then she said: "Was she wearing her slutty Nikki Heat heels when she was shot?" I just saw red; I don't even remember hitting her.' Erin sunk to the floor by the far side of the bed to Alexis and let her head fall back against the mattress.

'Oh Erin, that's terrible, they should never have said that.'

'And I should never have hit them. And now I've ruined everything.' The resignation was pitiful. She seemed exhausted, as if all the fight had left her.

'You need to tell them the whole story, they'll understand.'

Erin shook her head vigorously. Alexis wanted to give everyone in this household a good shake. Erin wasn't being forthcoming with her father and Beckett; Beckett was trying to seem less injured than she was, and her father wasn't being truthful with Beckett about his concerns for her. They might be grown-ups, she thought, but they still had some learning to do. She sidled around the room but kept her distance from Erin. Instead, she sat down cross-legged by the play tower and let Lyra, who had now jumped down through the platforms, sniff her fingers and then climb into her lap.

'I was going to say that whatever I think about Beckett, I know for a fact how much she wants you in her life, that you can trust her like you couldn't trust those people before.' She snuck a look at Erin to see if she reacted. She was sure that she had hit upon some truth about Erin's time in foster care - Erin had neither confirmed nor denied how accurate her guess was. Erin didn't move a muscle. 'They have every right to be angry about you punching someone – but honestly they're more concerned and confused than angry - but that doesn't mean you can't talk to them about what happened, they would understand.'

Erin lifted her head: a good sign that maybe she was getting through so Alexis kept going.

'You know, when you first arrived, you're right, I didn't behave very well towards Beckett and my dad was angry with me. I was worried about him because of her past behaviour, and he told me off but we're over it, we move on. You can trust them – yeah, that girl shouldn't have said what she said, and you shouldn't have hit her. You know you did wrong; they will listen to you.'

Erin pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them tightly. 'What if they find out?' she whispered so quietly that Alexis could barely hear.

'Find out what?'

'Who I really am and realise they've made a terrible mistake.' Gone was the confident and articulate girl she had met when they went to Washington Park, who had confronted Alexis and been unafraid to ask, 'can I trust you?' Here was just a terrified child. Alexis crawled across the floor, Lyra skipping away as Alexis shifted her legs, and sat beside her, close this time. More than at any time since Erin's arrival, Alexis understood what part she had to play in this chapter of their lives.

'You know who I think you are?' she whispered. 'I think you're a kid who lost their parents in an accident and it was the worst thing that could happen to anyone.' Erin rested her cheek on a knee, facing away from Alexis. 'You had to deal with that horror all on your own, and then somehow, against all the odds you've found your biological mother and you're terrified about losing it all again.' She remembered the turmoil of guilt, grief and joy Erin had described at finding Beckett, and wondered how much Beckett and Castle were aware of her emotional conflict. She had promised Erin that she wouldn't share anything she told her, but she had assumed that eventually Erin would impart some of what she had confided to Castle and Beckett herself, or that the two of them would work it out, Beckett was a detective after all. Her father also regularly claimed to be an astute observer of human behaviour.

'I don't know all the ins and outs of what happened to you, but I see someone who thinks they're responsible for everything; and you know who thinks like that? Good people.' Erin's shoulders trembled. 'If someone behaves badly to you, that's not your fault. You're just a kid, they're not going to turn you away because you reacted to a bully. You are a good person, Erin, and that's what they see. It's what I see.'

Erin's shoulders stopped shaking and she slowly lifted her cheek so the other could rest on her knee, her red-rimmed eyed facing Alexis.

Alexis wanted to delve further into Erin's behaviour towards Beckett since the accident, particularly when it contrasted so dramatically with her passionately defensive stance of her. Was it simply fear of losing Beckett that had fuelled it – reject her first before she can be rejected? She seemed so devastated at having lost control and hitting someone that Alexis suspected there was more to it; given the fragility of Erin's emotional state, it seemed too simple an answer.

A thought occurred to her. If she hadn't been sharing with Beckett and her father, she did have another adult she could speak to. 'Erin, how has the therapy been going?'

Erin shrugged.

So, she hadn't been using that resource either; she really had been putting on a front and trying to deal with everything on her own. Alexis recalled that Erin had said she would go to therapy to keep Beckett happy, and it turns out she had been true to her word. Alexis kicked herself that she had not been more attuned to this earlier.

'Please, let's go and talk to them together. I think things are gonna be better than you think.'

Erin sniffed. 'Maybe later. Thanks Alexis.' She looked as if she going to say something else but checked herself. 'I'll hang this all back,' she swept an arm over the bed, 'and maybe I'll come down later.'

So, I appreciate this is coming out very slowly and is another short chapter. It is part 2 of a 3-scene chapter so doesn't have a proper end point.

I never intended to write a multi fic over months and months and as I write I tend to think of how it will read as a completed work which one might read in one sitting over a few hours, which means that I have not been so good at referencing things from earlier chapters that it is quite reasonable that readers will have forgotten! This has been, very kindly, pointed out to me and I will endeavour to both avoid repetition but keep the reader up to speed without having to think back to a chapter read months ago! Apologies if I fail in this! Given the complexities of the relationships and differing perspectives of the characters, I can appreciate it's not an easy story to pick up on again with such long breaks between chapters, sorry! Thank you for your patience!

I can't promise, however, that I will be speeding up - Christmas is coming, and I have quite a lot of parental responsibilities coming my way in the coming months that may monopolise my time.

FYI, if you are on my follow/favourite list and didn't receive an email notification for this chapter, you may not be aware (as I wasn't and needed someone to tell me) that you have to go to your account settings now and opt in for email notifications otherwise they have automatically been turned off.

Thanks as ever for all reviews.

To guest Minf: gracias por leer mi historia, me alegro de que te guste.