The doorbell rings yet again, and Castle feels his heart plummet. This is going to be awkward, he thinks as he grudgingly lifts himself off the couch, surveying the otherwise happy scene in his living room.
The downward spiral had started an hour earlier – no, really, it had started before then, six hours ago, when Beckett was taking a bath and he was cooking eggs. He decided to text Gina, because he really wasn't ready for any conversation that early in the morning after he'd spent a (perfectly innocent) night in bed with another woman. Come over for lunch at 1? I will supply delicious dumplings from Dim Sum Go Go.
She responded quickly, thankfully with a text and not a phone call. Why are you awake right now? And don't you want to go out for lunch somewhere?
He recognized her second question for what it was – a kind of admission that she would rather not be at his loft with him and Beckett, which, when he really considered it, was not an appealing situation. But what if Beckett got thirsty, or needed something, and nobody was around, and she was so sore anyway, and what if she fell or was in pain and he was in some restaurant eating risotto with Gina? No, Richard Castle might have been lacking in some areas, but he was socially adept, and he could handle what a lesser man might think of as a horrifyingly awkward situation. He responded breezily. Trouble sleeping. And no, lunch here will fun – casual, and it's turning into a sweatpants kind of day anyway.
The last part was true, at least – the soft sunlight was rapidly being replaced by a rather ominous bank of storm clouds. Luckily, if inexplicably, Gina acquiesced without protesting. You are so lucky I've been craving Chinese lately. I'll see you at 1.
By the time he made his way upstairs with a tray of food, Beckett was back in her Bellevue sweats, sitting stiffly on the bed, hair still soaked, phone pressed against her ear. He had no idea how she'd managed changing and navigating the tub when she was moving so badly, but he wasn't about to risk his life and ask. "No, Dad, it's really not that bad. I feel fine," she said into the phone.
"Do not lie to your father!" he whispered at her, glaring. She waved an arm, shushing him.
"Really, Dad, I would need to check with Castle, it's his place."
"You're welcome here any time, Sir," Castle boomed in his best stage voice. Beckett looked like she wanted to lunge across the bed and strangle him.
"Okay, Dad, I know, I heard him too. Lunch today is fine."
Castle shifted uncomfortably as she rattled off his address, but he quickly realized what a fortuitous turn this was. Beckett would be with her father while he and Gina could have an uninterrupted conversation (about what, he really had no idea, but he figured he'd work through that later or just make it up as he went along – it'd worked for him with his first novel and for plenty of other uncomfortable situations with members of the opposite sex).
As he pondered, he was started by a small, black object flying directly at his face. He jumped and barely caught Beckett's phone before it hit him in the nose.
"Thanks for that, Castle," she said, glaring at him.
"I felt some compulsion toward fatherly solidarity. Obviously he wants to see you, Beckett."
She deflated a little. "I just hate to worry him. If you'd seen him when I took this job…" she trailed off, shaking her head. "I always tell him he's silly to worry."
"Well of course he's not," Castle said, chastising, as he set the tray in front of her on the bed. "Now eat your breakfast."
By the time she finished her food, she'd lost her healthy glow from her bath and had gone back to looking pale and exhausted. Before he coerced her into going back to sleep for a while (he considered it only slightly underhanded to mention how unhappy her dad would be upon seeing her look this particular extent of bedraggled), he'd gotten her to give him permission to contact Lanie.
He called the M.D. as he was certain Beckett was sleeping comfortably. "Can you use your spare key, bust into Beckett's, and bring her some clothing?" he asked by way of greeting.
"Why, Castle? Afraid if you leave her unguarded she'll escape your lair?"
"Well, that, and I'm not sure I'd be getting permission to go through her underwear drawer."
"I'll stop by on my lunch break. I've got to deal with Mrs. Albrecht before I go anywhere."
"Oh, oh, the D.A.'s wife! How is she? I mean, other than bullet-riddled."
"That's all I've got for you right now, Castle. I'll bring the clothes. You keep on taking care of her."
"I'm trying, Lanie, I really am," he said before he hung up the phone.
After that, he spent a quiet morning lounging in his office, absentmindedly tapping out some Nikki Heat (well, okay, he spent half an hour writing and two hours researching nightmare cures, remedies for bruised ribs, the best way to ice broken legs that were encased in casts, and the most efficient method of sneaking calories into seemingly healthy meals) until 11:30, when the creaking of the front door alerted him to the presence of intruders.
"Darling, are you home?" Martha called. He hurtled down the stairs, finger to his lips.
"Beckett's sleeping," he said in a low voice before he looked them over. "Holy swamp creature. What are you two doing?" They were both soaked, dripping onto the hardwood.
"It only just started coming down this badly. I had to hear from my granddaughter that Detective Beckett was injured and staying here. We decided to come over for lunch, make sure she was feeling okay, make sure she hadn't killed you yet, the usual."
"Grandma made me," Alexis said, blinking innocently.
"Well come change, for the love of all things holy. You lucked out, it's Dim Sum Go Go day."
"Oh, Richard, I love you dearly, but I will never share their moo shu pork with you again," Martha said.
"I will get you your very own order, Mother, and I am very sorry that I was extra hungry just that one time."
Fifteen minutes later, a much drier Alexis and Martha were making their way down the stairs when the doorbell rang. Alexis cocked her head quizzically at her father. "That'll be Lanie. Or Beckett's dad," he said, but when he opened the door a slightly damp Ryan and Esposito were standing there, looking sheepish.
"Hey, Castle," Ryan began. Martha appeared at Castle' shoulder and started ushering the pair in before he could even respond.
"We were in the area," Ryan continued.
"Sort of," Esposito added.
"And we were going to call, but then we thought we'd just drop by, check in…"
"See how Beckett's doing," Esposito said with a shrug.
"You were worried," Alexis said with a smile. "You have to stay for Chinese takeout; it's awful outside and lunchtime anyway."
"Oh, no, we just wanted to stop by," Ryan started, but then Martha had a hand on each of their shoulders and was pushing them toward the couch.
"Don't be ridiculous, darling. Chinese food doesn't taste as good when there are fewer than five people eating it, and you wouldn't want to deprive me of a spectacular lunch experience, would you?"
"No, ma'am," Esposito responded, obediently sitting on the couch.
Lanie arrived fifteen minutes later with a duffle bag full of clothes, and Jim Beckett knocked on the door almost immediately after that. "I'll just go see how Kate's doing, Sir," Castle said, hoisting Beckett's duffle on his shoulder after the obligatory introduction.
He could hear the older man questioning Ryan and Esposito as he bounded up the stairs. "So, my daughter was characteristically unclear with me. Can you explain to me how she broke her leg?"
Beckett was sleeping soundly when he entered the guest room, her mouth slightly open, her face less pale. It was excessively difficult for him to convince himself to wake her, but finally, he walked up to the bed, put his mouth next to her ear, and whispered, "Beckett. Your adoring public is anxiously awaiting your descent."
She opened her eyes and shifted slightly to look into his face. Their noses were almost brushing.
"I have an adoring public?" she murmured sleepily.
"You surely do. Your dad is downstairs, and so are Martha and Alexis and Lanie and Ryan and Esposito."
She blinked and shifted her head back. "They're all here now? What time is it? Why didn't you wake me earlier?"
"A little after twelve, and we are all perfectly capable of entertaining ourselves." He heard the doorbell echo faintly. "That'd be Dim Sum Go Go. I kept having to call and order more food. I'm pretty sure that Mr. Yao was swearing at me in Chinese after I changed the order for the fourth time."
"You're lucky I love their egg noodles," she groaned, carefully adjusting herself into a sitting position.
"I ordered four cartons of them. I have the clothes Lanie got for you, if you want to change. Not that you're not excessively attractive in your Bellevue sweats," he said, leering.
Beckett peered wistfully at the duffle still slung over his shoulder. "Real clothes? Jeans?"
He poured the contents of the duffle on the bed and helped her root through it. "It's all sweats," she moaned. "Lanie is dead to me."
"Well maybe if your legs weren't so damn skinny I would have found some jeans that would've fit over your cast," Lanie said from the doorway.
"Wow. That's uncanny," Castle muttered.
"I came up to see if you needed help changing. Castle, stop hovering over the poor woman, she's not going anywhere."
Banished, Castle went downstairs to an array of white cartons spread over the coffee table. His guests were in various states of repose on the couch and chairs. "Don't worry, Dad," Alexis said cheerily from her position sprawled across the floor. "I found your wallet and gave a big tip."
Castle smiled, curled up next to his daughter, and started eating. Beckett appeared minutes later and made her way steadily down the stairs, flanked by Lanie and her somewhat distressed father, who had dashed upstairs the instant he'd heard the thump of crutches echo through the loft.
Castle was just settling back down after standing to make sure Beckett didn't trip and break her neck on her way to the couch (her two escorts both seemed hyper-aware of her balance, but he still couldn't stop the anxious flutter in his chest when she clunked forward) when the doorbell rang.
Yes, this is definitely awkward. Maybe I should have warned people that Gina was on her way, he thinks to himself as she steps into the loft and the room pauses in surprised silence. Beckett's the first one to turn away, leaning over to mention something to her father, who seems to shrug off the atmosphere of discomfiture quickly. Lanie is staring at Castle, shaking her head oh-so-slowly at him. His mother, his daughter, Ryan, and Esposito are looking at him with various levels of confusion mixed with disgust.
"I didn't realize this was a lunch party, Rick," Gina hisses through gritted teeth, still standing just inside the doorway.
"It snuck up on me a little," he murmurs.
Gina is staring at him and the scene in the living room with disbelief. "How are you this goddamn stupid?" she hisses.
"How about we eat in private?" he asks, because the one thing he is suddenly sure of is that asking Gina to sit down with everyone would be disastrous. He doesn't wait for her response or for anyone to speak; he just darts to the table, grabs a carton of dumplings and some orange chicken and a couple pairs of chopsticks, and then quickly leads Gina to his office, where he flips on the lights and puts the food on the desk.
"I'm sorry," he says as he sits down.
Gina sits down across from him, clutching a pair of chopsticks and looking seriously annoyed. "You should be. Do you so look guilty because you're practically having a party at what I thought would be a private lunch, or did you sleep with her?"
"God, Gina, I –" he pauses, tripping over his words, suddenly realizing that a denial would not be entirely truthful.
She puts down her chopsticks and stares at him. "Jesus Christ, Rick, I was kidding."
"I –"
"The woman just got out of the hospital! You're the one who said she was hopped up on morphine –"
"Hey! I didn't –"
"And I honestly hoped you would at least do me the common courtesy of breaking up with me instead of cheating. Good Lord, Rick, I know you're infatuated with her, but I thought I knew you better than that."
"I didn't have sex with her!" he snaps, and then softens as he looks at her face, at her eyes shining with anger and tears, at her flushed cheeks. "I swear, Gina."
She regards him critically. "Then what the hell is with the sudden stutter?"
"I might have slept in the same bed with her."
"Are you serious?"
"And I carried her up the stairs. And I flirted a little. Oh and when I woke up my foot was on her calf. And our faces were kind of close a couple times. And once our foreheads touched. But that was all." The words spill out of him in one great rush, like verbal vomit.
Gina's silent for a while, leaning back in her chair and looking at him appraisingly, before she speaks, a little too calmly. "I'm not stupid, you know. Of course I knew you were a little obsessed with her I agreed to go to the Hamptons with you in the first place, but I figured what the hell, if it'd get you writing again I'd do just about anything. And when we were there you were so sweet, and it almost like we were before we killed it all by getting married, except the sex was even better."
"It was," Castle says, eyes crinkling with a sad smile.
"So now I'm going around in circles, wondering how I could have overlooked how stupidly, ridiculously smitten you are with that woman, but I might have to forgive myself a little, because I think that sometime over the summer, you started overlooking it, too."
"I'm not –"
"Please, Rick. You were a big enough asshole to start dating me when you were in love with somebody else, and then you were a big enough asshole to not go ahead and fall out of love with her even after we'd been dating for months, so the least you can do is suck it up and be honest now."
"I just – I don't know, Gina. I'm - I don't not love you," he says sadly, trying to be truthful, but he hears how ridiculous and patronizing the words sound the second they leave his mouth. "For the record, that sounded less awful in my head."
She tilts her head, staring at him for a minute, her cheeks still flushed, her jaw still clenched. "It's been fun, Rick," is all she says when she finally speaks.
"Gina…" He wishes she would just scream at him or hit him or at least call him some truly awful names. "Want to slap me?"
"Get your own catharsis. I have a cardboard standee of you in the basement that I'll take my frustrations out on."
"I really didn't mean for this to happen," he says, feeling like the worst kind of scumbag.
"Oh, Rick, sweetie. Get your damn head out of your ass," she says as she turns and walks out of the office.
He stays sitting in his chair. Through the door, he can hear the muffled sound of Gina saying goodbye a little too breezily to the group – "I have a meeting, I was just stopping in to say hello."
He buries his head in his hands, feeling emotionally gutted. He should get up, he thinks, but he can't face Beckett and her dad, he can't face Lanie or Ryan or Esposito, he can't even face his own family right now. He doesn't know how long he sits in his office, cupping his forehead in his palms and listening to the talking and laughter from the living room, but eventually he hears the tapping of shoes on hardwood, the creak of the door, the sound of people saying goodbye. He stays sitting in the office, exhausted, unmoving. Thunder cracks outside, and he thinks, gratefully, that at least the weather matches his dismal mood.
Some time later, he hears a light rapping on the door. "Come in," he calls, head still cradled in his hands.
"Oh, Dad," Alexis says, and he peers between his fingers to see her shaking her head with a sad smile, "What on earth happened?"
"Gina and I broke up," he says, because of everything that's making him feel like he's been plowed over by a bus, that is the easiest to vocalize.
Alexis wrinkles her forehead in sympathy, walks over, and wraps her arms around his slumped shoulders. She's quiet for a long time, and he's thankful, yet again, that is daughter is somehow not only incredibly brilliant but also instinctually compassionate.
"Doctor Parish and Detectives Esposito and Ryan and Mr. Beckett all left a little bit ago," she says when he finally lifts his head from his hands. "They all told me to say thanks for lunch. Grandma's out there entertaining Detective Beckett right now, so you should probably be a little frightened."
"Thanks for holding down the fort, pumpkin."
"Detective Beckett seemed not herself," she mentions, a little too casually, "after Gina came. Apart from being tired and bruised, I mean."
He blinks, shakes his head, decides not to respond directly. "I'm going to try and have her stay here until she gets on her feet, so to speak," he says. "You have you use your considerable charms to help convince her. You're much more adorable than me."
"I'm not sure Detective Beckett thinks so," Alexis says quietly, but he's not really paying attention.
"She's been having pretty bad nightmares. Last night…" he breaks off, sighing, still not able to think about it rationally. "I don't want you to be scared or worried."
"Of course I'm worried, Dad. I'm worried about both of you. She's been sitting in the living room looking like she's about to have a physical and mental breakdown, and by the way I think everyone in that room who's surname isn't Beckett was pretty actively plotting your murder, including your own mother, and you're sitting in here looking more upset than when you broke up with Gina the first time, and that was a divorce."
"It's not just the breakup, pumpkin."
She sighs and rolls her eyes at him, reminding him of a somewhat kinder version of Beckett in her exasperated mood. "I know, Dad. Now will you please stop sitting in here, alone, with your head in your hands? I didn't say earlier because I wasn't sure we had enough, but I'm pretty sure there's some Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra in the freezer, and if anything is a cure-all for your myriad woes, it's Karamel Sutra."
He starts to protest, but his daughter firmly grabs his hand and tugs him up, pulling him toward the living room, toward Beckett.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Wow, so that was longer than I'd planned. Hopefully it was not too oddly confusing, even with half of it being a mini flashback. Thanks again to everyone who's reviewed - you're still making me smile, and I get all hyped on the positivity and then I write well into the night rather than, say, working or sleeping or generally doing productive things.