He had never in his life felt so useless.
Richard Castle was a fixer. When his mother was taken to the cleaners by another scoundrel of an ex-husband, he gave her a listening ear and a place to stay and an expense account. When Meredith broke another promise to Alexis because of an audition for a one-line role, Rick dried his daughter's tears and took her out for ice cream. When Kate's apartment blew up, Rick gave her a home.
When he found out about Kate's mother, he'd wanted so bad to fix it for her. To find her killer and save the day. He'd thought about every contact he'd made in nearly two decades of mystery writing, and found the best to consult on the case.
And it had blown up in his face.
Now Kate's cousin had died and she had lost one of the last remaining links to her family. But he couldn't do anything to fix it. It physically hurt to look at her, to see the woman he – well, to see his Kate going through this.
She was trying to be strong for the boys, and maybe to an outsider it would look like she was coping. But Kate Beckett was a book that Richard Castle could spend his whole life reading, and her pain was as obvious as a typo on the title page.
Richard Castle fixed. It was just what he did. But right now he had no idea what to do.
It was horrible. It had only been a bit over thirty hours since they had found out that Maggie had died. But those thirty hours had been filled with choosing funeral homes and coffins and flowers and churches and readings and cemeteries and gravestones or cremation and a thousand other Things To Consider, and Decisions To Be Made. And everything was important and he couldn't help but think of all the people he had callously killed off in his books, and was suddenly grateful he didn't have to write all this stuff, because he never would have even finished his first novel if he had to actually bury the guy.
Rick sighed and as he began to fill the sink to wash the pile of dishes in the kitchen. At least that was a problem he could fix. As he waiting for the sink to fill, he thought back over everything that had happened since they'd found the boys yesterday.
Jim Beckett had arrived last night and had proved to be invaluable. The twins had taken the news very differently. Elijah, the eldest of the two boys by eight minutes, had tried to run away, and then shouted at them all, striking out violently at anyone who tried to touch him. Ezekiel – affectionately called Zeke – had continued to ask when his mom was coming home, no matter how many times they explained things to him. Last night had ended with the boys slamming their bedroom door and refusing dinner.
Then there had been that awkward moment when they realised they would have to organise sleeping arrangements. The apartment only had the boys' room and Maggie's tiny closet of a room with a small twin bed, which Jim had offered to Beckett. Rick was planning to leave to check into a hotel and offered to take Jim, when Kate had calmly informed them that Jim would take Maggie's bed and she and Castle would share the fold-out sofa. Her father raised an eyebrow at that, causing Rick to swallow nervously, but the older man didn't comment as he made his way down the hall to Maggie's room.
Rick had let out a sigh of relief, until he realised he would actually have to share a bed with Detective Kate Beckett. Then his mouth was dry, and his cheeks were flamed and his heart was about to burst through his chest.
Kate had merely rolled her eyes and headed to the bathroom to change. "Don't get too excited, Writer Boy," she told him. Rick flushed further, but it was worth the embarrassment to get a smile from his muse after such a painful day.
Richard Castle spent a very restless night trying desperately to avoid rolling into the sagging middle of the foldout and waking up with his hand somewhere unmentionable and Beckett's service pistol pointed threateningly in his direction.
Needless to say, he did not get a lot of sleep. Fortunately when he did wake up, he still had all his limbs attached.
Rick noticed that Kate didn't sleep much either. He knew she had a lot on her mind, but for once he thought it was better not to push her.
Rick jumped suddenly as his hand made contact with the hot water spewing from the faucet. He'd been so caught up in his memories he'd forgotten to shut the water off. He turned off the tap, and then started on the pile of dishes, the repetitive movements of washing feeling somehow soothing.
He thought back to this morning. The poor boys, walking up for the first morning without their mother. They had cried again, when they had realised it was real and their mother was really gone, but they had allowed Kate to hold them and ate some of the breakfast that Rick prepared.
Rick had never had a father, but then, he'd never known what he was missing. He thought that that seemed better than having had a loving parent, only to have them stolen from you. His mother was far from perfect, but he couldn't imagine his life without her.
After they had breakfast, Jim had taken Eli and Zeke to the park to distract them. Rick wasn't sure how successful it had been, but at least it meant the house was quiet so Beckett could make her thousand phone calls to the aforementioned funeral homes and priests and caterers. He was glad the boys didn't have to overhear their aunt making funeral arrangements for her mother. Rick had a hard enough time listening and he'd never even met Maggie.
It was so hard to stand by and listen to the pain in Kate's voice as she planned the service and the wake. Rick would have given anything to help, but he couldn't think of what to do that wasn't overstepping his place. So he just stood and felt useless. Then he tried to be useful by making dinner out of what he could find in the cupboard and fridge and when he looked up Beckett was looking at him from her position at the counter, bitting her lip, her pen poised over her list of jobs, and he suddenly wondered if it was ok to use the food. Should he have asked, before opening the cupboards?
It know it's Maggie's stuff, he thought, but it's not like she needs it anymore.
And wow he was really glad he hadn't said that out loud. He hadn't meant it to be that callous. But he couldn't seem to find the right thing to say. This was Beckett. She was more important to him than almost anyone else on Earth, and he just couldn't fix it. He couldn't even say the right thing. He just hovered around, and did the wrong thing and was utterly, completely, useless. Superfluous. Redundant. Unnecessary. Gratuitous. Purposeless.
Spare.
So now he was standing here, doing the dishes from the dinner he made that no one had really eaten (useless) and mentally berating himself.
Beckett came into the kitchen as he was washing out the empty sink. "Thank you, for today," Beckett said. His head snapped up from his contemplation of the swirling bubbles.
"Sorry?" he asked, because that made completely no sense.
"I know you don't think you helped, but you did. I –you – it just helped, having you here. I could keep it together. With you here." Now Beckett was the one staring at the sudsy remains in the bottom of the sink. Her cheeks were flushed. Rick wanted to kiss her.
That was happening a lot lately.
But her cousin had died thirty hours ago, and now didn't seem like the time.
"I'm a fixer," he told her instead. "And I can't…"he spread his arms wide "fix," he finished weakly, his arms falling limply to his sides in frustrated powerlessness.
"Sometimes you don't have to," Kate replied. "Sometimes just being here is…"she trailed off.
"Enough?" Rick supplied hopefully.
"More than enough," she corrected. "It's everything."
After dinner, and wrestling the boys into a bath, which somehow resulted in Rick ending up wetter than the twins, they put the boys to bed. Just as they were leaving the room, Zeke spoke up.
"Will mom be here when we wake up?" he asked in a small voice.
Before Rick could react, Eli shouted from the other bed. "She's dead, stupid! She's never coming back." Eli punctuated his statement by banging the wall with his fist and then rolled over so that his back was to them.
"Hey! We don't punch walls, and we don't speak to other people like that." Kate stated firmly.
Eli's only reply had been an aggressive snort. Zeke sobbed quietly.
"Who's going to live with us then? And take us to school and make dinner?" Zeke asked through his tears.
"We're going to sort that out," Kate replied hesitantly. Rick knew she didn't want to make promises to the boys she couldn't keep, but Rick had been wondering the same thing over the last twenty-four hours.
The doctor at the hospital had called Child Services, who had given the ok for the boys to stay with Kate and Jim for now, since they seemed to be their only remaining family. Rick thought Kate being a police officer had probably helped. Still, they were only allowed to keep the boys while they made funeral plans, after which time a more permanent arrangement would have to be made. Rick didn't know what would happen then.
He and Kate finally settled the boys in bed, and went out to the lounge. Jim had just made coffee, and the three of them sat down at the small table with a weary sigh.
Jim asked how the funeral planning had gone while he had taken the boys to the park and Kate took him through the decisions she had made with the pastor. Rick half-listened, his mind still on Zeke's questions. He tried to bring up care of the boys earlier, but Kate had deftly changed the subject. Now he wondered why she was avoiding the issue. He wanted to know what she was thinking, but he knew from past (and painful) experience that pushing her would not get him anywhere. He knew that whatever he decided, he was with her one hundred per cent, and that was enough for him.
Finally, they headed to bed, Jim heading down the hall to Maggie's little room, and Rick and Kate settling into the foldout. Rick lay still for a long time, staring at the fuzzy ceiling above him, wondering what Kate was thinking. He heard a noise in the hall at one stage and thought maybe the boys had woken up, but the lounge stayed empty of all but the writer and the detective, lying in silence and trying desperately not to touch on the tiny sofa. Kate's body was tense beside his, and he longed to find some way to lift the heavy burdens off her shoulders.
He looked over at her fuzzy outline in the darkness.
"Kate," he whispered. "Are you awake?"
"No," she replied.
"Ok."
There was silence for a long moment, broken only by the sound of a car passing on the street outside. Rick watched the soft movement of Kate's shoulders as she breathed.
"Oh, fine," Kate said, a hint of annoyance in her tone. "I can hear you staring at me. Spit it out already."
The darkness made him bold. He thought of Zeke. "Who is going to live with the boys? And take them to school and make dinner?"
There was silence for a long moment. Rick had just decided that she wasn't going to answer, when Kate's voice emerged in the darkness. "I want them, Castle. So badly it hurts. But Child Services isn't going to give me those boys. They might have ok'd the emergency form so that I can take care of them for the next couple of day, but they aren't going to see me as a long term solution, Castle, you know that." Her tone with angry and defensive. He hoped it wasn't directed at him.
"Do you want them to?" he asked.
He felt a gush of wind on his cheek as she sighed. "Yes," she whispered. "I don't know if that's the right thing. And I don't know that I can be a mom. But everything in me wants those boys." She paused. "But it's not going to happen," she finished, the anger creeping back into her tone.
"Why not?" he whispered back.
"Tell me why Child Services would give me the boys," she snapped back. "I'm homeless. I'm broke. I'm single, and my only support is my dad who lives hours away. I work huge hours in a job so dangerous I can't even guarantee I'll come home at all, let alone in time to tuck them into bed. I have no idea how to raise a child."
He took a risk. "Ok, if that's the story you want to tell them," he replied.
"You're the writer. Show me the story of how anyone in their right mind would let me have these children." Her words were harsh, but he could hear the longing in her voice. He could hear what she was really saying. Show me how to make this right.
He hesitated, wanting so desperately to do the right thing, and being terrified that he didn't even know what the right thing was. This was his chance.
Richard Castle was a fixer.
And he had just found a way to make this right.
It was a big step. If he said this, admitted what he so desperately wanted out aloud, it would make it real. She would know. History had shown him if you put yourself out there, put that great big bubble of your hopes and dreams out there, it could burst.
But if he didn't…
Rick didn't always want to wonder what if.
"Why would someone give you those kids? Because you love those boys desperately. You've never been in trouble with the law, you're in top physical and emotional health and you have a good support network of friends and family. Yes, the job you have is dangerous, but you take every precaution to reduce those risks. And maybe you don't have experience raising young children, but I've seen the way you are with Alexis, and you are going to be an amazing mom someday. And that could be today."
Even through the darkness he could see that she was looking down, not making eye contact. It wasn't enough. But he was her favourite writer for a reason. He had to spin her a story. It was time to put his cards on the table.
He took a deep breath and put it all on the line.
"Ok then. Here's the story: you moved in with your partner six months ago. It's a secure building, in a safe neighbourhood with plenty of room. He's got more money than he knows what to do with, and is just looking for an excuse to spoil you and the boys. What's more, he has flexible hours and the ability to work from home, so he can pick the kids up from school or look after them when you can't. You're already raising his daughter together, and he's a hundred per cent committed to the partnership."
The silence that greeted that pronouncement was so loud he could hear his heart pounding in his chest. (And it didn't sound too healthy. Perhaps he should lay off the bear claws.)
Just when he thought he'd blown it, a quiet word emerged from the detective at his side.
"Why?" she whispered.
He suddenly felt like the most inadequate writer on the planet, as he struggled to come up with a way to express what she meant to him, what he would do for her. "Because you're my partner. Because you're my best friend. Because on Saturday mornings you practice French with Alexis. Because those boys just went through hell and even though I only just met them, I think I love them already. Because-" he trailed off and his hands went wide as he shrugged, and he knew that she would understand that he was trying to say there were a million more reasons he could even put into words.
There was a long silence from the detective, and he began to worry that he'd just laid his heart on the line and she wasn't going to respond. Maybe she didn't want his help. He knew she thought he was a good father. But that didn't mean that she wanted to raise kids with him. Maybe she wanted to do it alone, and he'd over stepped the mark by trying to fix everything again.
Oh, God. Maybe this was her mother's case all over again. But she wouldn't be so cruel as to stop speaking to him again, right?
He was so caught up in his fears, it took him a moment to realise that she was speaking again.
"Maggie was my idol, you know," Beckett whispered. "She was probably what you'd politely call the wild child of the family when we were growing up. She had her belly button pierced and a boyfriend and a fake ID, and when I was fifteen I wanted to be her so badly."
In the darkness, Rick thought he could make out a smile on the detective's face. "I remember one time when we were at the lake for the summer, Mags taking this tablet one morning, and then I realised she was on the Pill. She said, "shit, better not forget that," and winked at me. She seemed so, sophisticated, you know? Taking the Pill, sleeping with boys, riding on motorbikes. And even though I was two years younger than her she never treated me like a kid, when everyone else did."
Rick tried to picture a younger Beckett, wide-eyed, in awe of her cool cousin. But he'd spent so long being in awe of Beckett, that the idea of her being intimidated by anyone seemed ridiculous.
"But then she got a little too wild, I guess. She went to college, but she got into drugs and a bad crowd and dropped out. She did time for possession, and you know, once you have that record…" she trailed off.
Rick thought of all the times Beckett had given someone a second chance. All the times he had come to her with a crazy theory and she had listened. Like she wanted to believe the best in people. He wondered if Maggie had given her that.
"I tried to help her, but I was so lost in losing Mom. I couldn't even take care of myself back then." She paused and looked at the ceiling for a long moment. Rick found his hand moving automatically to run soothingly through her hair. He realised what he was doing a second later and his hand froze, his whole body tensing as he waited for her reaction.
She didn't say anything, but she seemed to melt further into his side, her head turning to rest on the top of his chest. His hand continued its slow strokes over her hair. He wondered how many times he had dreamed of this, Kate cuddled into his side in bed. There was nothing sexual about the moment, yet somehow it surpassed every daydream he had ever had about the two of them.
"I miss her so much," she whispered.
"I know," he whispered back, his hand still stroking through her hair.
"Will you always be there?" she asked, her voice thready and vulnerable in the darkness.
"As long as it is in my power," he replied. "Always."
"We could do this together?"
"I'd be honoured," he answered.
She didn't speak again, but he continued his slow movements, waiting for the feeling of her body relaxing, her breathing evening out.
"You get all that?" he asked.
There was a moment of silence, and then Jim Beckett emerged sheepishly from the doorway. "You knew I was there?"
"Kate didn't get her stealth from you, I'm afraid," Rick replied.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to – it's just – I wasn't there for her last time. When Jo… No one was there for her. When I – after – when I got sober, I vowed that would never happen again." From the dim light that came in around the edge of the curtains at the window, Rick could see Jim nod slightly, but he couldn't make out the older man's facial expression. "Now I know it won't."
Rick tried to work out what he meant, but Jim continued before he could ask. "She's got you this time," Jim said. "And I reckon you're not going anywhere." With that, the older man withdrew through the doorway and returned to Maggie's room.
There was a chuckle from the mass of blankets snuggled up against his chest. Of course, Super!Ninja detectives didn't sleep through midnight conversations right next to them. Not to mention the fact that this particular detective had an in-built radar for anything in a 100 mile radius that might be potentially embarrassing to her plucky author sidekick.
"Reckon you've got me huh?" he asked the soft brown hair peeking out from the blankets.
"Yep," came the reply, popping on the 'p' sound, and Rick could hear the smile in her voice. A hand emerged from the blankets and pulled him down from his half sitting position to lie fully on the bed. "Now go to sleep. You're on pancake duty in the morning, and those boys wake up early."