She regrets her decision almost instantly, anxiety bubbling in her veins as she checks out and meets the Castles where they're standing at the end of her lane. She has no idea what she's thinking, saying yes to this.
Questionable attire and general appearance aside, she's in no place to be going out to lunch with Richard Castle and his (adorable, she'll admit) kid.
Rick offers to carry her bags to the car, and she realizes a bit dumbly that of course the famous mystery writer would have a town car for all of his shopping needs. She's almost surprised it's not something more flashy, like a Ferrari, but then figures it's more practical to go with something more low-key when he's with Alexis.
It makes sense.
They stop outside of Remy's and as Rick's paying the driver, she hears him say he'll call when they're done.
"We can leave the groceries in the car," he tells her as they step out onto the street. "Owen's going to come back once we're finished and he'll drive you over to your place."
Unsure of what else to say, she nods. "Okay, thanks."
The three of them slide into a booth—the Castles' usual spot, it appears, given the hostess's comment about how the space has missed them—and she fails to hide her surprise when after she takes a seat, sliding snuggly against the wall, Alexis climbs in beside her.
The girl just grins at her, bumping her tiny legs against hers.
"This okay?" Rick asks from his place across from them.
Kate clears her throat. "Yeah, fine."
She's unnerved, completely uncertain about how to do this, to sit here and pretend she knows what the hell's going on. To pretend every nerve-ending in her body isn't on fire. Because she doesn't and they are.
"What kind of milkshake are you going to get, Kate?"
Kate blinks. "What?" The question registers a beat later. "Oh, um, I'm a strawberry kind of girl. How about you?"
Alexis nods thoughtfully. "Strawberry is good! I like chocolate though. Daddy usually gets a twist of chocolate and vanilla but that's too much."
"I agree," she laughs, the tightness in her chest unsettling a little bit as she talks to Alexis.
It's easier to focus on the girl than the man not two feet from her.
"Hey, it's the best of both worlds," Rick chimes in. "I think you're both just being a little judgmental."
"I don't think the milkshake will be offended."
"Yeah, daddy. The milkshake won't be offended!"
Kate purses her lips to hide her smile. For the first time since they've taken a seat she looks him in the eye and finds him already staring back at her. She knew he was, could feel his gaze, but it still sends her stomach into her throat.
He huffs. "Already ganging up on me, I see."
Already?
Doesn't already insinuate the continuation of said activity? Is there going to be a continuation? No. Right? This is just him being nice because he feels bad, just taking her out to an unnecessary lunch because his kid caught her off guard and she had a ridiculous breakdown in front of him.
He's just being nice.
(In the back of her mind she recalls every Page Six story she's read of Richard Castle, the infamous playboy, the stuck up man-child, and she's having trouble reconciling that man with the one offering her soft, concerned glances, the man bantering with his little girl, the man sitting in a booth with the sad teenager he's known for thirty minutes.)
"Girls stick together," Alexis says proudly, turning to grin at Kate, who can't help but return the gesture.
When the waitress comes over they all place their orders—burgers and fries for the three of them, though Alexis gets the kids burger without onions and Kate decides against the side pickle. The young girl digs into her apron and pulls out a small pack of crayons, hands them to Alexis with a knowing wink. Kate assumes this is a normal routine for them, the interaction too natural.
"Hey." Kate lifts her head, a little startled by his voice. "Are you okay?"
Her mouth opens but no words squeak past her lips and she closes it, looks briefly to Alexis. The girl's preoccupied, tongue poking out between her teeth—or where her two front teeth would be, she supposes—as she concentrates on her drawing. A quick peek has Kate thinking it's the beginning of what will be a nice spring scene, tall grass and flowers.
"She's not listening. She gets very into her drawings."
Alexis doesn't even budge, makes no move at all to indicate she's even heard what her father's said. Nodding, Kate turns her attention to the table in front of her, suddenly fascinated with the place mat. She cracks her knuckles, wrings her hands together.
"You don't have to talk about it," Rick continues then. His voice isn't quite a whisper, but it's lower than normal. "At all. We can just not talk about it, but if you want to, I promise she's not paying any attention."
She chews on the inside of her cheek, a bad habit, and takes a breath. "I'm fine," she says, her voice rough. "I just—it's been a rough year, that's all."
It doesn't get past her that it's already been a bad year and it's only March. Still so much to go, so much to get through.
"I got arrested for stealing a police horse just a few years back. I was naked. If that makes you feel any better."
She chuckles. "It doesn't, but it does intrigue me."
"I'll tell you the story some time," he promises, and there he goes again, making insinuations that this isn't the last time they'll be seeing each other. "Trade stories."
"Horror story for what I hope is a drunken comedy doesn't exactly seem like a fair trade."
His face softens imperceptibly, eyes full of sympathy for a life story he doesn't even know (yet, her mind supplies, because dammit she's probably going to tell him).
"Horror," he murmurs.
"You write mysteries, Castle. Horror's not too outside of your wheelhouse," she says. Her mistake is blatantly obvious the second an annoying, proud grin forms on his face. "Don't."
Rick shakes his head. "Oh, no, I have to, Kate. So you're a fan."
It's not even a question, simply a statement, and she groans. Smooth.
"Of the genre," she counters nonchalantly, rolling her eyes a little at the grin that just keeps growing. She kind of wants to slap it off his face, kind of wants to kiss it off, and her breath catches in her throat because excuse me? Where exactly did that come from?
"What's your favorite—"
But his question is cut off by the return of the waitress and the arrival of their food. Saved by the burgers.
The conversation remains light all throughout lunch, Alexis no longer preoccupied by her drawing once the food arrives.
They talk about Alexis's school and Kate asks how she's enjoying the first grade, laughs along as she details why her favorite animal is the tortoise. Though she can't quite understand why anyone would want to live until they're 150, she can't fault Alexis for finding that lifespan for a tortoise fascinating.
Rick does manage to weasel the answer to his almost-question from before, of what book of his is her favorite, and she surprises him by telling him it's his debut, In a Hail of Bullets. She doesn't explain why, but he seems to know there's more to the story.
Alexis asks her what grade she's in and Kate chuckles when she has to explain that she's not in any grade anymore, technically, and she just started college the year before.
She doesn't mention that she left that college, that she transferred from Stanford to NYU in the wake of her mother's death but she still hasn't managed to make it to her classes. She's technically on a leave of absence right now, but she knows she'll have to go back eventually. Can't hide forever.
"So you're what, nineteen? Twenty?"
"Nineteen. Twenty soon enough."
"Good age," he comments. He was almost spot on about how much younger she was than him.
Kate scoffs, dipping her head. "Yeah, wonderful." There's a brief silence and she realizes she's being outwardly bitter when she shouldn't be. He doesn't know, after all. She meets him with soft eyes. "Sorry, I just..."
"No," he says. "I'm sorry."
There's something there, hovering just beneath the surface, and he wishes he could get her to open up. Not even just because he's curious, which he is, tremendously, but because whatever it is... it's clearly weighing heavily on her shoulders. Bottling that stuff up will eat you alive if you let it.
He just doesn't want that to happen to her any more than it already has.
"Daddy, can we go to the park?" Alexis asks then, fluttering her long lashes at him. "It's just across the street."
Rick laughs. "That it is," he acknowledges. "I don't know. Kate, what do you think?"
Her eyes widen. "I—what?"
"The park, what do you say? You up for a little stroll while Alexis climbs all over the jungle gym like the little monkey she is?"
"Not a monkey!"
"I—"
"We won't stay long," he promises softly. "We have to get back soon, too."
For the second time today, Kate goes against everything her brain's telling her.
"Sure."
"Stay where I can see you," Rick calls out to Alexis as she darts toward the slide a few yards away.
He takes a seat on a bench that gives him full view of the playground, Kate settling in quietly beside him. She has a small to-go bag with the half of her burger she didn't manage to finish and a few fries. He'd stolen a few glances at her toward the end of lunch, noticed how she picked at a few fries and took small bites of the burger every minute or so. She'd caught him staring, of course, and murmured something about not having much of an appetite. She's a little thing, tall and thin, and he pushes back the concern he feels about her eating habits because she's a stranger and he knows nothing about her, not really.
He's hoping to change that here, though.
"So," Rick starts, cutting through the silence. "Do you want to share what's got you so down? You don't have to tell anything you're not comfortable with, obviously, but I got the sense that you wanted to say more. Just not in the company of a child."
Kate's staring out at the kids running around on the wood chips, doesn't even seem to have heard that he's spoken. It's not until he can see from her profile the purse of her lips, the tightness of her jaw, that he gets any sign at all.
"My mom was murdered."
She says it quietly, voice full of a practiced controlled, a faux stability. His mouth falls open on a gasp, eyes wide.
Kate turns to him, a sad smile on her face. "Yeah," she says, eyes glassy.
"Kate, I'm so—"
"Please, don't." She cuts him off with a shake of her head. "I mean, thank you, but I can't... I can't handle any more condolences."
Rick just nods. He places a tentative hand on her knee, rubs at the jutting bone with his thumb.
"How long?"
She swallows hard. "Three months."
"Wow," he breathes. "That's so recent."
Kate nods. "Yeah. Yeah, it—it still feels like yesterday. But then sometimes it feels like it's been an eternity."
"Grief isn't linear," Rick says softly. His hand shifts from her knee to cover her hand, the movement stopping the imperceptible tremble of her fingers where they tap against her thigh. "Time doesn't always make sense. Neither do emotions. Some days you're okay. You're able to function almost normally, go about your life and enjoy things, despite all odds. Other days you feel it like it's happened just then, like it's still raw and new, and you're..."
"Sobbing in the arms of a six year old you don't know in the middle of a supermarket's bread aisle?"
Rick laughs. "Yeah, something like that."
"Sounds like you know what you're talking about," she says, not quite meeting his eyes.
"A little, yeah. Not—not to the degree that you're experiencing, no, but grief comes in many forms. I'm not a stranger to it."
"I'm sorry," she murmurs.
He waves her off. "Don't be. My grief is many years old," he says. "That's not to say that it ever really goes away, because it doesn't, not really. But it gets easier to carry as time goes on. It becomes something that you just accept as an intrinsic part of who you are, not something that guts you every time you think about it. That'll happen for you, too, Kate."
She chuckles then, an airy thing. "Doesn't feel like it."
"Not right now," he acknowledges. "Probably not for a long while, if I'm honest. It's still fresh. But one day you'll wake up and realize you're able to think about your mom and feel joy, not sadness. You'll remember her as the person she really was; all the quirks, all the times spent together, all the things you love about her."
Kate's eyes water, her throat burning with the effort it takes not to give into the tears. Her chin trembles but she nods at his words, swallowing thickly as she steels herself.
"I hope so," she whispers, voice unsteady. "I—every time I think of her I'm sad. I don't want to be sad."
"And she wouldn't want you to be sad. What parent wants their kid to be sad, right?" Rick squeezes her hand. "But it's okay to be sad right now, Kate. Let yourself feel it for as long as you need to, and then the time will come when you'll think of her and smile."
Clearing her throat, Kate tilts her head in his direction. She searches her face, offers a sad smile. "You're really good at this," she muses, sniffling. "No wonder you're a writer."
Rick just smiles down at her. "Tell me about her?"
"My mom?" He nods. "She was, uh, she was—I was a handful, gave her such a hard time, but she was great. I mean, yeah, sometimes she'd work too much and miss dinners, or sometimes she'd go too far for a client, just toeing the line of what's probably appropriate to get what she felt was justice, but that's what made her special. She cared. About her clients, about our family. About everybody."
The look in her eyes as she trails off, thinking of her mother, is heart-wrenching. Rick can see just how much she loved her mother, how fondly she remembers her, but he can also see how painful it is to have her image in her mind right now. He wants to wash every ounce of the sadness away, but all he can do is swipe gently beneath her eyes to wipe away the tears.
"That night, she—she was supposed to meet us, me and my dad, for dinner. It was a celebratory slash going away party, because I'd aced the fall semester and I was set to fly back to California the following week for the spring semester."
"California?"
Kate nods, tongue darting out to wet her dry lips. "Yeah," she exhales. "I was pre-law at Stanford."
His eyes widen, an awed smile on his face. "I was right! Badass lawyer!" She smirks a little, a sight he beams at. "Seriously, that's amazing, Kate."
"It was. But that's neither here nor there," she shrugs. "Anyway, uh, when she didn't show we just assumed she'd gotten caught up with paperwork or a client and didn't realize the time. She did that a lot." At his silent question, her now twice having mentioned working late and clients, she continues. "Lawyer."
"Impressive runs in the family it seems."
Kate chuckles, a raw and broken thing. "Yeah, she was. And then she was stabbed in an alley and left to die like she was garbage," she mutters, low and angry. "Detectives attributed it to gang violence, a random wayward event, but I..."
"You don't think so," he finishes for her.
"No. She didn't—there was a reason she was in that alley, it wasn't random. Nothing she ever did was random. But the cops, they just—" She tips her head back, blinking away tears. "They didn't even try, they didn't even investigate further. That was—she was my mother, Rick."
Her voice breaks around mother and her jaw sets, glassy eyes meeting his, imploring.
She doesn't want his condolences, his apologies for how fucked up it all is, so he doesn't give them. Instead he simply wraps his arm around her shoulder, gently tugs her into his chest and waits the few seconds it takes for her to relax into the embrace. Her body jerks with the sob, though she works to make little noise.
"You're okay," Rick whispers into her hair, running a soothing hand up and down her arm.
"I'm clearly the epitome of okay," she jests, wiping beneath her eyes. She doesn't pull away though, not yet, and so he holds her just a bit tighter. "I am officially two for two, crying in the arms of the Castles."
"You're welcome to cry in my arms any day." He realizes how it sounds when she peers up at him through her damp lashes, a raised brow staring back at him. "Not that I want you to cry, I just—I'm a good listener. And a good hugger. I have it on good authority."
His gaze trails to the small redhead climbing on the monkey bars. Kate follows.
"Mm," she hums. "I hate to admit it, but she was right."
Rick smirks. "Honored to have gotten the Kate seal of approval."
"Beckett."
"Hm?"
"Beckett seal of approval. Sounds better than Kate," she says, and oh.
Kate Beckett. Has a nice ring to it, a strong ring to match its owner.
He hesitates for a moment, not wanting to upset her any more, but curious. She's only nineteen, her mother's been murdered, and he just...
"What about your dad?" he asks softly. "Is he..."
She turns her head a bit deeper into his chest and lets out a long sigh. "He's alive, mostly," she tells him. "Took my mom's death hard. Two weeks after it happened he started drinking. Hasn't stopped since."
"Oh, Kate," Rick breathes. "That's hard."
"Yeah. Kind of feels like I lost both parents that day."
Her voice is soft, the admission so quiet he's not even sure she meant to admit it out loud.
"I'm sorry." He thinks for a brief moment that his mouth got ahead of his brain and said what he's been thinking since she began, but it's Kate's voice he hears. She's pulling back a moment later, lifting from his embrace. "I don't—I don't know why I'm telling you all of this."
"I asked," he supplies, understanding shining back at her. "And I'm pretty hard to resist."
Kate rolls her eyes, the corners of her lips curling the most lovely thing.
"I don't usually do this."
"Sit on a park bench with a ruggedly handsome mystery writer and spill your guts?"
She huffs a laugh. "Yeah," she muses. "That, and spilling my guts at all. To anyone. I'm not—I'm not the most open person."
Rick's noticed that, though her willingness to open up to him doesn't go unacknowledged. Just the mere thought that she trusts him enough with this piece of her life spreads a warmth throughout his bones.
"It's not good to keep all of that bottled up. Stuff that heavy will rot you from the inside out if you aren't careful."
"Not sure there's anything left to rot," she mutters. "I'm not—I don't even know who I am anymore."
His heart clenches at the pure sadness in her voice, devoid of any and all light he's sure she lit up with prior to her mother's death.
"You're Kate Beckett," he says, confident.
She just snorts. "What does that even mean?" She shakes her head. "The Kate Beckett I've known my entire life is gone. That bright-eyed, wild child going off to Stanford with big dreams and a world ahead of her died with her mother."
Oh, so much to unpack here.
"Wild child?"
Kate shoots him a non-threatening glare. "That's what you picked up on?"
"Among other things," he says easily, teasingly. He sobers after a beat. "That Kate? She's still in there. She's a little covered by grief right now, and that's okay, but she'll come back. You'll come back."
She doesn't say anything for a long moment, eyes once again cast over to the group of children playing. Alexis is hard to miss with her fiery hair, and when the girl realizes she's being watched she shoots them a toothy grin, arms waving wildly in hello. Kate smiles, waves back.
"I guess."
"No guesses, only facts," Rick tells her. "Besides, you've got your whole life ahead of you to figure everything out. You said you were pre-law at Stanford. Are you going back?"
Kate shook her head. "No, I transferred out. NYU."
"Wow, you really are smart," he says, despite the roll of her eyes. "Still pre-law?"
She's quiet for a moment. "You know, my whole life I wanted to follow in my mom's footsteps and be a lawyer. As I got older, I decided I wanted to be the first female Chief Justice."
"You could still do that."
"No," she sighs. "After my mom, I—I switched my major to criminal justice. I'm going to join the police academy once I graduate and work my way up to detective. No one else cares enough to investigate, so I'll solve my mother's murder."
Her voice is firm, leaving no room for argument. She means what she's saying and despite the obvious dangers associated with her long-term plan, he believes her. He believes that one day, when she's made detective and she's running her own small team (because there's no way she won't with that brilliance, that determination), she'll be the one to slap the handcuffs onto the person who took her mother's life.
"You'll make her proud no matter what you do, you know. Whether you solve her case or not," he tells her. She looks at him. "But, I think you'd make a great detective. And if what I've gathered about you from today alone is true, which I'm pretty confident it is, you're smart enough to figure it out."
Kate offers the softest of smiles. "Thank you." She runs her free hand, the one not still trapped by his, along her jeans. "I know you asked for this, but I know it's a lot to dump on someone. I don't... I don't really have anyone to talk to about this," she admits. Oh, Kate. "It's just me and my dad and he's—he barely remembers who I am most days."
"If you ever need a nonjudgmental ear, I'm here," he says, so much sincerity dripping from the words her eyes flit up to his. "I mean it. If you ever need to talk, about this or about anything else, you can call me."
She doesn't have time to tell him she doesn't even have his phone number before he's reaching into his jacket pocket and whipping out a pen and small pad. When she eyes him curiously, he just shrugs on a small laugh.
"I'm a writer. Always have to be prepared."
The decline is on the tip of her tongue, a comment about how that's sweet of him but she's already taken up enough of his time with her sob story, but it doesn't come. She doesn't want to decline; despite her earlier feelings, she doesn't want this to be the last time she talks to him. Or sees him, if she's honest.
So, instead, she exhales on a shaky breath, takes the paper when he extends it toward her, and offers an appreciative twist of her mouth.
"Thank you," she whispers, again. "I—thank you."
Rick shakes his head. "No thank you necessary," he repeats. Gently, he lifts a finger to her chin and tips her head until she's looking directly at him. "Promise me, if you need a friendly ear, or anything else, you'll call. Any time."
Her bottom lip is pinned uncertainly between her teeth, eyes falling closed. But then she nods.
"Yeah," she promises. "I'll call."
She even thinks she means it.
"Great. And you can use the first call to tell me what days work best for you."
Her brows furrow. "Days?"
"For lunch of course," he says. Her mouth opens into a surprised o. "You didn't think you'd be getting rid of me—us—that easily, did you? Alexis won't take no for an answer, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy your company."
She laughs then, a loud, shocked noise. "My company? My miserable, woe-is-me company?"
"You don't give yourself enough credit, Kate," he tells her, seriously. "Besides, you already said you don't have someone to talk to, which means you could use a friend. I'm a pretty good friend, if I do say so myself, and Alexis is one hell of a bandaid."
Well, she can't refute that logic, can she?
Biting the inside of her cheek, she's quiet for a few seconds. Then she looks up at him, her eyes shining a little but no longer with tears, and a smile pulls at the corners of her mouth.
"A friend sounds nice."
He grins, pulls their joined hands off of her thigh and squeezes her fingers in his. "Good."
Rick notices Alexis's approach before she does. He leans over, his closeness catching her off guard, and whispers a quick incoming into her ear. This gives her just enough time to discreetly wipe at her cheeks, just to make sure there are no lingering tear stains the girl might notice.
"It was my mom." He turns to her, one brow arched. "She was the fan. First," she admits, pink coloring her cheeks. "She was the fan first."
The grin that stretches across his face can only be described as one of pure reserved joy.
"She had wonderful taste."
Kate laughs.
Yeah, she really did.
Prompt: "With her mom dead and her dad drinking Kate is in a very bad place in life. She stops in a grocery store for some items. While in her funk she barely has time to react when a small redhead child jumps out of her cart and flings herself at Kate. Shocked Kate doesn't know what to do as the child hugs her around the neck. Then there's a gap toothed smile as the girl says 'You looked sad. So I decided to hug you!'"
A/N: And there we have it, folks! I hope you enjoyed this short little ride. It took on such a mind of its own, kind of far from the prompt itself, but once I got started it just kind of came out. As someone who's also gone through the loss of a parent, I'm a bit too acquainted with the grief felt here, and it was actually cathartic to write.
I have some more things planned that I'm hoping to get up soon, so I hope you'll stick around xx
If anyone feels so inclined and wants to say hi, yell at me, etc. etc., you can find me here:
Twitter: faithsette
Tumblr: acoldcomfort
A/N 2: Thank you to the kind guest review who pointed out that Rick didn't introduce himself in the first chapter. I have no idea how I missed that (totally thought he did), but I've added that little detail now! Hope that's better.
