A/N: Hello, everyone! I can't remember if I had issues with the last chapter I posted, but, because this fandom is what it is, I'm gonna assume something happened to some capacity, and I'm just gonna reiterate: no hate, please. Please. Honestly, if you want to have a discussion about Beckett's sexuality, fine - just not on my fic where Kate is bisexual and has a girlfriend, okay? This is the land of people who believe she is, because canon has never offered us any insight into her sexuality other than she's not a lesbian. Okay? Okay. Good. I don't wanna have to repeat myself for, what, the millionth time? I'm sorry, it's just getting tiring. To everyone enjoying this story - I'm blowing you kisses via the internet. (That means you, Amy). ((I love you)).
Disclaimer: Kate and Jim Beckett aren't mine - Savannah, however, is.
Weeks later and sweat-slicked, Kate smiles against the skin of Savvy's neck, fingers tripping down the ladder of her ribs.
"I want you to meet my Dad," Kate whispers, heart pounding with trepidation.
This thing between them, new and raw and real, still scares her. But it's… what she wants. She knows that. The sting of Castle has been soothed, and Savvy is so much more than a rebound. She always was.
"Yeah?" Savvy murmurs, her own fingers reaching out to quest against Kate's skin.
Kate nods, dropping a kiss to Savannah's shoulder. Darts a tongue out to taste her skin. Feels her satiated body respond with a light shudder, feels the anticipating tremor rattling through her bones beneath her curious fingertips.
"So this is…"
Kate purses her lips and props herself up on her right elbow, her left hand reaching out to card through Savannah's soft sun-like hair.
She is so very beautiful.
Kate dips down and kisses her, lips ripe against her own. Softly and tenderly, the way she deserved to be loved.
The word makes her heart trip in her chest. One day.
"Do you want to meet him?" She asks in a whisper, holding Savvy's gaze.
The other woman smiles, voice hush and delicate. "I do."
Her hands explore Savvy's skin again, and again, communicating all the words she wants to say, but continues to hold them in the cage of her chest.
For now.
Kate proposes the idea to her father a few nights after she and Savvy discuss it. I wanna introduce you to someone, Dad, she says over the phone, with a false sense of serenity.
Savvy, unlike Jim Beckett, does not know that this is a major step for Kate. A sign; she can count on one hand the amount of men her father has met. Yet alone a woman. Savvy had never met her Dad – she'd never had the chance. But she had been so important. Even then.
Answering the door whilst she shrugs on her jacket, Savannah seems every inch the picturesque idyll of tranquillity that Kate wishes she could be too. Savvy grins at her, and Kate darks forwards, steals a kiss from her lips before they set off to meet her father at a local diner for lunch.
"So this is a big thing you then, hm?"
Kate glances away from the road to catch Savannah's eye. She's smiling at her, understanding.
"What's my tell?"
Savvy smiles, reaching out to tuck a lock of hair behind Kate's ear.
"That. And you bite your lips when you're nervous," Savannah says. "What's up?"
She shrugs, stopping at a red light.
"I don't know. It's just… My Dad hasn't met many important people in my life, that's all."
They pull up outside the diner, and Savannah reaches out to rest her hand over Kate's on the steering wheel. Kate smiles despite her fears, flipping her hand over so that their fingers can twine with one another's.
"Important, huh?"
Kate rolls her eyes, laughing. "Don't let it go to your head."
They've arrived before Jim, so they sit close beside one another in the booth, sipping at coffee and staring out of the window at the people milling past. Beckett feels Savvy card her fingers through her hair, leans into her touch with ease and feels their thighs brush. Natural.
"Katie?"
She jumps up, blushing. Her father is casting them a curious look, eyes roving over Savannah confusedly. So she reaches out to hug him, to delay this moment, her heart tripping over the scatter of her ribs in her chest.
"Hey, Dad."
When they both slide back into the booth, she looks to Savvy for reassurance, for comfort. Instead of giving her a comforting smile, Savvy takes the lead, turning to Jim and thrusts her hand out to shake it. Every inch of her brave, as always.
"Savannah Grant, sir. Nice to finally meet you."
Jim accepts the handshake and Savannah's unwavering words. His eyes dart over to his daughter with mild confusion lurking behind their calm, neutral hues. The words are skating along the tip of her tongue, but refuse to come out.
"Nice to meet you, Savannah."
Savannah grins, hands finally finding Beckett's beneath the table. Reassurance.
Finally, Beckett takes a deep breath and speaks the words that have been burning a hole in her tongue.
"Dad, Savannah is my girlfriend."
Jim grins, comforting and friendly.
"Ah, from Katie's work?"
Savvy glances over at Kate, amusement revealed through the subtle quirk of her lips.
"Uh, not really."
Jim frowns, and Kate gathers her courage again.
"Uh, Dad. I don't mean – A girl who is a friend. I mean a girlfriend. My girlfriend."
Beside her, Kate feels Savvy's body tremble in a miniscule amount as she refrains to laugh at the sudden tint of rose to Jim Beckett's cheeks. His mouth opens and closes a few times and then Savvy buries her face in Kate's hair, and she can hear the whisper of a snicker escaping her girlfriend's lips and her father's blushing like nothing she's ever seen before and now she's laughing too, freely and without fear.
Once they've calmed down – or, at least, Kate and Savvy have – Jim Beckett takes a large sip from his coffee, blinking a couple times as his face returns to its normal colouring.
"I'm, uh, sorry, I shouldn't have assumed – "
"Dad, it's fine," Kate says, reaching over to rest a hand on her dad's arm. "I should've explained properly."
Jim nods a few times, chuckling. "I should've known."
Kate shrugs, and then the waitress approaches them. Jim and Kate order with ease, and she catches the fluster to her dad's mannerisms when she rests her cheek on Savvy's shoulder while she figures out what to order. It's quite endearing, really, she thinks. And she has to quell the smile that threatens to reveal itself because damn, she's so happy. She's here with two of the most important people in her life and she's happy.
Her father is shy and cautious while talking to Savvy. Uncertain. When he's met past boyfriends, he's grilled them about their intentions – nothing serious, just his humour. She supposes he has no idea how to behave in this situation.
Eventually, they manage to worm that humour out of him.
He grins at something Savvy's just said, something Kate had forgotten to pay attention to because she's just so captivated by this moment, here and now.
And then Jim says, "Well, Katie hardly ever lets me meet partners of hers. I'm an outcast, right, Katie?"
Beckett rolls her eyes while Savannah laughs. "We're not throwing you a pity party, Dad."
"See what I have to deal with?" Jim says, scowling at her when she swipes a fry from his plate. "I'm sure she'll be the polite Katiebug she pretends to be to strangers when she meets your parents, Savannah."
Instantly, Savvy sobers, her hand slightly slack in Kate's. Kate frowns, noticing the taut stretch of her neck, the strain behind her eyes when she forces the next words out, low and rough.
"My mom and I, uh, we don't really talk much, so," she says, shrugging it off.
Kate settles a hand at the bottom of her girlfriend's back, palm splayed, warm and comforting. Savvy leans into the touch, so she slips her hand beneath her jacket and bypasses her shirt, finds her skin. Even if it's a small touch, it's enough. This is how they communicate – in touches, in looks, no need for words. It's how they always were.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed – "
"It's fine, sir, really – "
Jim smiles, lopsided. "You can call me Jim, Savannah."
Kate watches as Savvy latches onto the change of subject immediately, relief easing the tension in her spine.
"And you can call me Savvy."
After lunch, Savvy steals Kate to the side, hands tangled and hips pressing against hers, stealing a fierce, fervent kiss, that makes Kate's cheeks burn red as she feels warmth in her stomach, at the same time hyper aware of her father waiting on them.
"What was that for? Not that I'm complaining," she asks breathlessly.
Savvy shrugs, cupping one of Kate's cheeks. "For letting me meet your dad. I'm… important to you."
Kate clears her throat, tests the words in her head before she says them aloud. "Of course you are. Always were."
Anything more than that would be superfluous, so they smile at one another, following Jim out onto the busy Manhattan street.
"It was nice to meet you, Jim," Savvy says, kissing the older man on the cheek. "Hopefully I'll see you again soon."
To her father's credit, he doesn't blush this time.
"You too, Savvy."
Kate's surprised, then, when Savvy reaches for her, kisses her goodbye. "Call you later?"
She frowns, confused. "You don't wanna come round?"
Savannah's eyes flick to Jim, then back to Kate. Huh. She's missing something here.
Jim jumps in, then. "Actually, Katie, would you like to take a walk with me?"
She nods, watching Savannah smile at her gently, eyes flicking between Jim and herself with something that could've been jealousy, but seemed more like yearning. Still, she's confident and magnetic and beautiful even when she simply walks away and hails a cab, tossing another call me later over her shoulder.
Kate follows her father to a park, and they walk through the serene park silently, easily. She and her father have always been this way, she supposes. Sure, there was a breakdown of - of everything, really, between them when her mother died, but they're fixed now. This is them.
This is enough.
The transition between summer and autumn is beginning to take place now. She notices the slight discolour of the trees as they rustle in the breeze, the extra layer parents force their kids into as they run and giggle along the grass.
"So," Jim begins their conversation, "when did you meet her?"
"When I was in college, actually," Kate replies, ducking her head and hiding behind her hair. "We were… a thing, then."
"Oh."
"I was gonna tell you, but – "
"You don't have to explain yourself to me, Katie," Jim replies easily.
She nods, shoving her hands into her jeans as they walk. "She works for the FBI now. Her team worked with us on a murder a few weeks ago, and… She was everything I remembered. And more."
Jim smiles. "Good. That's good."
"Yeah?"
He looks ahead, avoiding her eyes. "I was worried that it might be because of, you know, Richard Castle leaving your team. I know you denied there was anything there, but you were pretty down when he left for the summer. But I should've known you were better than that."
It doesn't hurt to think about Castle anymore.
She has so much more than that now. Yes, there was something between Kate and Castle. She knew that. But nothing happened. And she's happy with Savannah. More than, really. And maybe – Savannah had known a frightened, vulnerable Kate that she'd refused to let anyone else see. They loved different versions of each other back then.
"Savvy's not a rebound," Kate says vehemently. "She's more than that."
She always has been. In the blur of men and women she's had in life, all of her thoughts go back to Savannah.
"Okay then," Jim says, bumping his arm against his daughter's. "Then I approve."
"You do?"
"I was – shocked, to say the least. But, of course, Katie. Of course I do."
Kate reaches forward, hugs her father and whispers in his ear: "Good. Because I loved her once. And I think I still do."
A/N: I'm personally not a fan of repeated words, and I know 'important' is used a lot, but - I couldn't bear to get rid of (most of) them. They're completely necessary.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! :)
- Ellie