A/N: This thing took on a life of its own and here we are. Two-shot because it got too long, prompt to be posted at the end. Hope you enjoy!
Wearing jeans and an oversized black hoodie, hair in her natural curls and her skin pale and sunken in from lack of sunlight, she realizes she probably looks like just another homeless woman roaming around the aisles of this grocery store. Idly, her brain points out that she may as well be homeless; home isn't home anymore, filled with nothing but memories that hurt and her one remaining parent constantly passed out on the couch.
Kate Beckett hasn't seen much of the outdoors in the past few months, can't even remember the last time she stepped foot into a store. Their kitchen is almost completely bare, a few condiments, half a gallon of milk, and a questionable couple cans of soup a few of the only things left standing.
She's not hungry, never hungry anymore, but she needs coffee and her father needs at least a few starchy, carb-loaded food items to soak up the alcohol on the rare occasions he decides to pull his head above water. She figures she'll load up on some pasta, potatoes, and a bunch of canned and frozen foods that will last and allow her to avoid another trip for the foreseeable future.
Luckily, she hasn't run into anyone she knows thus far. She hopes it stays that way.
The last thing she needs is someone recognizing her, coming up to her with sympathy in their eyes and a pitying look on their face as they express their condolences for her mother's death. They'll offer the same pleasantries everyone before them has—Johanna was a wonderful woman, she'll be greatly missed, you made her so proud—and she'll have to take them in stride, plaster a smile on her face, and pretend their words aren't cutting through her already crumbling resolve.
Kate walks down the pasta aisle and completely walks past the entire wall of pasta, doesn't even realize she's done it until she's at the end and finds herself standing in front of a pile of tortillas. Sighing, she closes her eyes and forces herself to take a few deep breaths. Her fingers grip the handle of the shopping cart tightly, her knuckles whiting out around the cold metal.
"You're being ridiculous," she whispers under her breath.
She was never the one to do the grocery shopping. She'd pick up a few things here and there when they weren't included into the initial trip, but by and large her mother was the one doing all of the big grocery runs.
"I can't give your father that kind of responsibility, Katie. He'll come home with three gallons of ice cream, the wrong kind of bread, and enough chicken to last two winters when all I asked for was some pasta," she'd always joke.
Pasta. Right.
Kate swivels on her heels and tries to maneuver the cart around in the least awkward manner possible, nearly side-swiping a shelf in the process. But she gets the pasta, tosses it into the cart, and that's one thing she can cross off the list.
It's something.
"Daddy, can we get some ice cream?"
Rick Castle looks down at his daughter, her sweet face peering up at him with those big blue eyes and a perfected smile.
"We have ice cream at home, Pumpkin. Three different flavors."
Alexis lets out an exaggerated sigh. "We don't have cookie dough, though," she points out, swinging his hand in hers. "And cookie dough is the best."
"How can I argue with that logic?" he muses. "Tell you what, you help me pick out three vegetables you want with dinner this week and we can get some cookie dough. Deal?"
His daughter grins. She's missing her two front teeth and the sight makes him smile every time, far too adorable to resist.
"Deal," she agrees, stretching out their joined hands and shaking them purposefully.
Rick laughs, steering them down the frozen vegetable aisle. He'll pick up some fresh veggies too, of course, but the coming weeks are going to be busier—filled with book meetings at Black Pawn—and he needs to be sure there'll be options for quick veg.
The store is pretty empty for this time of day, which is something of a miracle, honestly. This is the fastest he's ever made it through his grocery list, especially with Alexis in tow. She's well-behaved, surprisingly easygoing for a six year old, but she's not immune to grabbing snacks and sneaking them into the cart or wandering off when she sees her favorite cereal in the distance, eager to grab it before they suddenly disappear. He's still not sure where she got the idea that they'll vanish in plain sight if she doesn't pick the one she wants the second she sets her sights on it.
Alexis tugs at his jeans. He glances down at her, slowing the cart.
"What is it, Pumpkin?"
She motions for him to bend down, and he does.
"Is she okay?" she asks, pointing to the other end of the aisle where a woman is standing in front of the freezers. The door is open, propped up on her right side while she stands in front of the shelves of frozen fruits.
"I'm sure she's fine," he says then. "She's looking at the frozen foods, just like us."
Alexis shrugs. "I guess."
"Let's go pick out our vegetables, huh? Then we can get that ice cream."
That gets her attention and she forgets about the woman holding two different baggies of frozen fruits in her hands, staring at them as if it's the most taxing decision she's ever had to make.
Rick follows Alexis to the freezer with the vegetables, laughs as she sticks her tongue out between her teeth and catalogues the options very seriously. Her eyes dart from one shelf to the next, sizing up the vegetables.
"Broccoli, carrots, and..." She steps back and pushes up onto her tippy toes to see the final shelf better. "Peas, please!"
Giving her a salute, he grabs the three veggies she's named. "Aye aye, captain!"
The second the bags hit the bottom of the cart Alexis is piping up.
"Ice cream?"
Chuckling, he guides her gently with a hand on her back. "Yeah, ice cream. Let's go, Cookie Dough Monster."
This is taking so much longer than she'd anticipated. She spends nearly ten minutes standing in front of a display of frozen fruit, unable to pick a bag. She doesn't even need frozen fruit; she won't eat it, has no use for the frozen strawberries she finally tosses unceremoniously into the back of her cart, and her father sure as hell isn't exactly making any smoothies these days.
Oh, smoothies.
Kate bites at her bottom lip, wills away the image of her mother in their kitchen, blending up a mess of frozen bananas and strawberries to make herself a smoothie. Sometimes she'd throw in frozen cauliflower too. Kate always wrinkled her nose at that, made a dramatic gagging noise in the back of her throat, but her mother would just laugh.
"You can't even taste it, Katie," she'd tell her, voice soft. "The cauliflower just makes it thicker and helps me eat more vegetables."
She wishes now she'd have just tried the damn thing, appeased her mother's many attempts to get her daughter to give it a taste.
Her hands are clammy where they're wrapped around the shopping cart. She still has three things on her list, has only managed to pick up a few things to begin with, and she berates herself with every passing second.
Everything in this damn store reminds her of her mother and maybe she shouldn't have come in here. Maybe she should've just paid a friend to do it for her (what friends, her mind supplies, because she knows she's pushed everyone away and would likely not have anyone to even reach out to for help). Maybe she should've put it off, dealt with their dwindling pantry and waited until it wasn't so raw and she wasn't so fragile she's thirty seconds from tearing up over a bag of strawberries.
She hates thinking of herself as fragile. She's not a piece of fine China, liable to shatter the second its dropped.
"Get it together," she murmurs to herself, swallowing hard and returning the flashes of her mother to the back of her mind. She has to get through this; just has to finish this trip and go home.
Maybe her father will be awake. Maybe he'll even be lucid. Maybe he'll call her Kate instead of looking at her with a pair of confused, bleary, alcohol-ridden eyes and calling her Johanna.
As they gather the last few things on their list, Rick and Alexis encounter the woman again. Each time he sees her she's staring blankly at something or her eyes are closed, her chest rising and falling with intention. Deep breaths, he notices.
He's doubting his earlier statement to Alexis, now wondering if the woman isn't okay after all.
Alexis sees her too.
"Daddy, there she is again," she says, pointing to the woman as she stands in the bread aisle, head moving as she gazes from left to right.
"I see, honey," Rick nods.
"She looks sad." Alexis's voice is soft, sad even, for this complete stranger. Her little head cocks to the side. "Why do you think she's sad?"
"I don't know, sweetie. Maybe she's having a bad day," he tells her, because what else can he say?
He's noticed it too, the slump of her shoulders every time they cross paths, the way she seems to be looking at the items in her hands without really seeing them, how the extra-large hoodie engulfs her, swallows her small frame. He's also hyper-aware of the fact that this is what he does, paints stories for complete strangers. Some may be close to the truth, others may be horribly off-base.
He almost feels bad for doing it to this woman, trying to figure out what's got her looking so withdrawn, so out of body, but it's an occupational hazard.
"Maybe she needs a hug," Alexis muses quietly. "I always give you a hug when you're sad and it makes you feel better."
Rick smiles. "Maybe she does, Pumpkin." She offers a toothy smile in return, and he runs a hand over the crown of her head. Her hair matches her bright red sweater, the one she'd chosen this morning because of the embroidered turkey placed proudly in the middle. When he'd pointed out that it's only March and nowhere near Thanksgiving just yet, Alexis had shrugged. The turkey's cute, she'd said, and that was that. Turkey shirt it is. "And you're right, your hugs make me feel so much better."
Alexis bounces on her toes, delighted, and he considers his next move.
"Let's go grab some bread, okay?"
He's not trying to invade her privacy, honest. They really do need a loaf of bread. And if it also gets him a closer look at the young woman who's been meandering around like she's on a glitched-out autopilot then... well, so be it.
Kate's exhausted, which is absolutely insane considering she's hardly done anything substantial. All she's done is walk around this store like a ghost, barely able to get through the things on her list without thinking of her dead mother.
Ridiculous.
She's finally down to the last item though, a loaf of bread that she's, once again, not entirely sure they even need. She's not confident it'll get used before it goes bad, but at this point she'd rather have it just in case. She does not want to do this again, and if she has to live on daily peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to make sure it doesn't go moldy, she's willing to make the sacrifice.
There are dozens of brands lining the shelved walls and she suddenly can't remember the kind they usually buy. It's some wheat kind, she's pretty sure. Or maybe it's whole grain. Multi-grain?
She'd recognize the packaging if she saw it but she doesn't really want to spend another ten minutes walking up and down this wall, reading each and every brand until she finds the one she needs. There's no guarantee she even will.
After a few more minutes showing no signs of luck, she sighs. Fuck it, she thinks, it doesn't even matter. None of the food in her basket matters, the brands don't matter, nothing matters because her mother is dead and she's fussing over bread.
Crouching down a bit, she narrows in on one shelf. She's about to reach out and grab a loaf—no longer caring what kind it is as long as it's bread—and throw it into her cart so she can get the hell out of here, out of this hoodie that's making her overheat and into a pair of sweatpants she'll continue to wear for the next four days, when something collides with her. It nearly knocks her off balance and she maneuvers quickly to steady herself, knees striking the flooring rather painfully.
It catches her so off guard she doesn't even register the shocked "Alexis!" of a man's voice over the loud gasp that escapes from her throat.
There's a flash of red and she realizes slowly that it's not a something, it's a someone. A small someone. There's a small child attached to her, skinny arms wrapped around her chest from the side.
"You look sad," the little girl says, murmurs it quietly into her ear as if it's a secret, and she only just manages to stop herself from choking out a watery laugh.
She's a deer in the headlights, wide eyes flying to what she believes to be a shadow beside them and what turns out to be a man. She realizes with half-shock and half-horror that it's not just any man, though, no.
No, she's somehow staring right at Richard fucking Castle.
"Alexis," he says, a little out of breath. "Alexis, sweetheart, you can't just—"
"She looked sad, Daddy," the girl—Alexis, apparently—replies, turning her head a little to look at her father before pulling back just enough to look directly at Kate. "You look sad," she repeats.
Kate says nothing. She remains frozen, one hand bracing herself on the tiled floor and the other still extended toward the bread she hasn't touched.
"When he's sad, I give daddy a hug. It always makes him feel better," she says, so confident, so matter-of-fact it breaks Kate's heart. The girl tightens her grip a little. "It'll make you not be sad anymore."
A strangled noise escapes and her outstretched hand moves to cover her mouth. Her throat burns as she tries to hold back a cry and her eyes water, her miserable attempt at some furious blinking to keep them at bay failing.
God, she doesn't even know the last time she's had a hug. Sometime in the week after her mom died, probably, the last few days her father was still her father instead of a hollow shell of himself.
She doesn't realize she does it, but she settles back onto her haunches and curls the girl into her tighter, returns the hug. Her chest hurts, suppressed grief licking up her spine, and she lasts mere seconds before she's can no longer bite back the hiccup of a cry that's been lodged beneath her sternum the entire trip.
She doesn't mean to, not even remotely, but Kate cries. She hates herself as she's doing it, nearly sobbing on the floor of the bread aisle with a stranger's daughter latched onto her like a small sea urchin.
(But he doesn't feel like a stranger, not really, not when she's fallen asleep with his words echoing in her mind, the photo on his book jacket draped across her heart as the closest connection she has to her mother these days.)
After a few moments she sniffles a bit and pulls away, swiping quickly at her teary eyes.
"I'm sorry." It's Alexis, the girl now staring at her with wide eyes. "I meant to make you better, not sadder! Daddy, I didn't mean to make her sadder."
"No," Kate rasps.
It's the first time she's spoken this entire time.
"I'm sorry." It's Richard Castle this time, peering down at her with soft eyes and a pained expression on his face.
"It's not—she didn't—" Sighing, she struggles to her feet. She's careful not to shove Alexis, instead gently holding her shoulders as she meets her gaze. "You didn't make me sadder."
"But you're crying."
Oh so innocent. Kate doesn't want to taint it with her troubles.
Kate nods. "But not because of you," she promises, an unexplainable need to assure this child that she has nothing to do with the sadness in her chest. She doesn't want to tell her the truth, doesn't know how to explain that in child-friendly terms, so she settles on, "I just didn't realize how much I needed a hug."
It's the most honest thing she's said out loud in months and she's saying it to a six, maybe seven, year old.
Alexis gives her a tentative smile then. "Okay." She looks up to her father and oh, right, Kate nearly managed to forget the man standing right beside her. "You said she probably needed a hug, Daddy. You were right."
Kate's brows furrow as she realizes a second late that she's the she in the statement the girl just made, that they—that Richard Castle—entertained the idea that she needed a hug. Her, Kate, a random person in the grocery store. Sometime earlier, before this jarring moment.
It's a little weird, but no weirder than having a stranger cry in your daughter's arms, so she figures they're even.
Now he's the one looking a little panicked and a nervous chuckle leaves his throat. "I did, I said that," he starts. He alternates staring at her and then down to his daughter. "But it was a statement, Alexis, I didn't mean for you to give her a hug."
"But what if she didn't have anyone else to do it?" she asks seriously, bright blue eyes shining with a genuine concern. "She's sad now, what if she couldn't get a hug until later? Then she'd have to be sad longer."
Kate pushes back the fresh wave of tears threatening to spill over, her heart swelling as Alexis speaks. The sheer compassion laced in the little girl's words catches her off guard, stuns her. She can tell the man in question doesn't know what to say (this surprises her a little, figures a writer would always have the words) and so she speaks first.
"Thank you." It's not exactly what she plans to say but it's what crawls out. It's probably what she meant to say from the start. "You're very sweet, Alexis. That hug was just what I needed."
It's the truth and now she's racked up two honest statements in the span of five minutes. This is a new record.
"Are you still sad?" the girl asks, ignoring the gentle guidance of her father's hand as he tries to pull her back.
Kate worries her bottom lip between her teeth, eyes downcast. She takes a steadying breath. "I'm okay."
It's not the truth, but it keeps her from answering her question with a direct lie. She doesn't want to say she's sad because the girl doesn't need to have that baggage on her tiny shoulders, but she doesn't want to say she isn't sad either, because that's a straightforward lie and even though she's been lying to herself for months it feels wrong to lie to this sweet kid.
So she goes with a half-truth; she's alive, she's functioning (mostly), and so she can definitively say that she's probably okay. Whether she truly feels it is another story and totally unimportant right now.
She even offers a small smile, the best she can muster to sell her response and Alexis revels in it. She buys it.
Richard Castle does not.
The fact makes her heart quicken in her chest. He observes her, no judgement in the stunning blue of his irises, not a trace, but there's concern. Yeah, there's a mountain of concern pooling there, she can see it.
It makes her a little nauseous.
"Pumpkin, why don't you go find our bread, okay? And you can pick out one of the swirly breads, too."
She perks up at that. "Okay!"
A second later she's off, running down the other end of the aisle. She's still visible in their line of sight but no longer within earshot. Kate focuses on the redhead, doesn't know what else to do when she's forced with the fact that she's now standing alone with Richard Castle.
Does she bolt? She could bolt. She wants to bolt, to take off running the same way Alexis did but in the opposite direction, keep going until she's far away from here and her legs physically give out.
Her body doesn't seem to agree with her brain, though, because she's still here. Her feet remain rooted to the tile, a heaviness stalling their movement as if there are invisible anchors weighing her down. She chances a quick glance in his direction; he's studying her and she shrinks ever so slightly under his gaze. She should say something, right? Anything, but what?
What do you say when you just cried in the arms of your dead mother's favorite author's child in the middle of a grocery store?
"I'm sorry about that," he speaks first, blessedly. "I promise I didn't tell her to do that." He pauses, pulls his lips together guiltily. "Or maybe I did, a little, inadvertently, but I didn't mean to."
Kate gives a small nod. "It's okay," she says quietly. She doesn't completely trust her voice just yet. "Really. I didn't mean to make a scene."
He gives her an incredulous look. "You didn't make a scene..." He trails off and realizes he doesn't know her name. Not that he has any reason to, of course, he has no claim to this woman. Though now, close up, he thinks he was wrong. She looks younger, probably eight or nine years his junior if he had to guess. "My daughter practically accosted you while you were trying to buy groceries, I promise you—you did not make a scene."
"Your daughter isn't the one who had a breakdown over a loaf of bread," she mutters. Her eyes widen after the words leave her mouth, as if she's surprised she spoke.
"We all cry sometimes," he shrugs. Her expression tells him she was expecting just about anything else in response. Rick considers her. "Are you okay?"
An uneven nod. "Mhm. I'm good."
It is a lie now. She knows it and he knows it, too; she can tell by the way he regards her. It's a little unnerving, the way it feels like this man somehow just knows.
It's too much.
"Got the cinnamon bread!" Alexis announces as she returns, hauling one loaf of cinnamon raisin swirl bread and one of whole wheat.
Rick smiles. "Thank you, sweetheart."
There's silence for a few moments and, surprisingly, it's not awkward. Loaded, maybe, a little charged.
Rick thinks on his feet, tries to map out his next move. She's more than a bit unnerved and he can't blame her, but he also doesn't want to let her go so quickly. She's very obviously not okay and he just... wants to make sure she's okay. More okay, he supposes, before they part ways.
Maybe it's ridiculous, but he just...
"Hey," he says, keeping his voice light. "Me and Alexis here are heading over to Remy's after we check out. It's this place with the amazing burgers—"
"And the shakes."
Rick nods happily. "Yeah, yeah, so you know it?"
"I used to go there with my—" She stops abruptly, clears her throat. "Yeah, I've been there."
"Great! Like I was saying, Alexis and I are stopping off for lunch after we get out of here. You should join us."
Her eyes widen out of shock (and mild panic) as Alexis's widen out of joy.
"Yeah!" The girl squeals just as Kate's shaking her head, murmuring a quiet little, "no, I couldn't."
"Sure you could," Rick says easily. He lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. "I'm not trying to overstep here, but you seem like you could use a break. I know you don't know us, but I think you can tell by now that this one," he ruffles Alexis's hair, "has a knack for cheering people up."
He's not wrong. As embarrassed as she is by the whole ordeal, she can't deny that his daughter did manage to put the tiniest of smiles on her face. There's something about the innocence and compassion of a child that does wonders to make the chest tighten with love instead of grief.
Even so...
"You don't even know my name," she manages, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. "I could be crazy. I could be a psycho killer. I probably look like one."
That gets a chuckle from him. "I don't get psycho killer vibes from you," he muses. "Badass lawyer vibes, maybe, but not psycho killer."
Lawyer shakes her core but Kate can't help the tiny upturn of her lips. "Badass lawyer?"
"I mean that in the most positive way possible," he clarifies, hands held up in surrender. "You look a little down right now, but I can see it. The badass, the depth."
Her throat feels something like sandpaper. "And lawyer?"
"I don't know. It's just a feeling." Nodding, she fights to stop the flipping of her stomach. Again, it's like he just... knows. "But seriously, I can usually get a good read on people. And this one over here has an impeccable judge of character. She wouldn't hug a psychopath."
"It's true," Alexis pipes up, and the two adults laugh a little. Kate's not sure the girl even knows what she's agreeing with.
"I don't..."
"Please?" Alexis asks, and Kate's insides burn. Her hands are sweaty and she tries to rub them discreetly along the inside of her hoodie's sleeve. "Daddy always lets me get a milkshake when I'm sad and then I'm not as sad anymore. Maybe he'll let you get a milkshake too and then you'll feel better!"
Kate's a little speechless. How does she say no and risk putting a frown on that sweet face? It makes her want to cry all over again; she's barely had any true, non-funeral related human interaction in months and she doesn't understand why she's on the receiving end of such kindness from two strangers.
A part of her wants to accept. The other part of her wants to run out right now and not look back.
This is ridiculous, she thinks. She still has to get back to her father (who's more than likely still passed out) and she has to get this food back home. Looking down at her cart— pitiful for the amount of time she's been in this store, really—she realizes there aren't any immediate perishables. Just some canned goods, jarred spreads, coffee, potatoes, that damn pasta, and some frozen fruits and veggies she doesn't think would have any horrible reactions to thawing a bit before they get back to her freezer.
She can't believe she's doing this.
Sighing, she meets his eyes. "Kate."
"Sorry?"
"My name. It's Kate."
Richard Castle takes a second, catches up, and allows the curl of a smile to bloom at the corners of his mouth.
"I'm Rick, and you already met Alexis. So, is that a yes?"
