Thanks to the lovely sparklemouse for editing this chapter, anything that makes actual sense is down to her.
Lifeboats
"Richard, darling, there's something for you in the mail. Looks fancy."
He groans, clutches his pillow tighter over his face. His mother is making an entirely unacceptable amount of noise for-
Oh.
Huh. Ten in the morning. Maybe she's forgiven.
Wait. What is his mother doing in the loft?
Rick tosses the pillow to the other side of the bed, a barren land unoccupied for so very long now. Since a long time before his diagnosis. He just hasn't felt much like being in the company of women. Of course, there's his mother and his daughter, but he's not interested in meaningless relationships right now, doesn't want his little girl exposed to women that will flit through the loft like swallows, never even stopping to land.
The sheets pool in the middle of the mattress as he slides out from underneath them, raking his hands through his hair. He pulls jeans on over the underwear he slept in, shrugs his way into a sweater.
In the living room, his feet curl up against the hardwood, cold enough to knock his breath from his chest for a moment. Below him, the city writhes with sin underneath its frost casing, but his mother is pouring coffee at the kitchen island, her smile enough that the web of ice twining through his ribs unlaces, gathers at his feet.
"Morning, Mother. What are you doing here?" He makes his way to her, sinks onto one of the bar stools and clutches a mug to his chest.
His mother watches him cradling his drink like a precious thing for a moment, her eyes hard even as her mouth eases into a soft smile. "Your kid called me."
"Alexis called you?" Rick's hands fly out to prop him up against the counter, his whole frame coming dangerously close to tipping forward.
It's not fair of her to do this to him. He just woke up and he doesn't feel good and he has fucking cancer, for God's sake. He just needs her to cut him some slack, just for a while so he can get his bearings. He's still trying to work out how to equate his life as a father and a writer with the constant and unsettling hum of his mutinous cells.
"Yes. She was supposed to be going to her friend's place today but she didn't want to wake you. So I took her, and then I came back here. What's going on, darling?"
"Mother. I'm tired. I'm tired all the time. I'm doing my best." His voice breaks and he drops his head, hands coming up to hide his face from her. He's trembling, and he knows it's pathetic but there's nothing he can do.
His whole body is insubordinate.
"Richard, it's alright to need help. No one's going to think less of you if you ask for it." His mother rounds the counter, her palm fluid over his spine as if she can't settle on the spot that will heal him most.
He drops his hands, picks up his coffee again. He probably shouldn't even be drinking it but he is exhausted all the time, a bone-deep ache that sings out for sleep every time he shifts. "Who's going to help me?"
"Oh Richard, sweetheart. I'll help you."
He shrugs, drums the fingertips of one hand against the counter, the staccato rhythm a tangible discomfort he can focus on, center all his distress around. "You're busy. The show's about to open. You can't sacrifice that."
His mother clutches at his shoulders, comes around to face him. "Don't you dare even think that. Nothing is more important to me than you. Especially not a show." Her voice is rich with indignation, hysteria rising with the tide of her despair.
"What about your husband?" Martha sucks in a breath through her teeth, her head turning so Rick only has her profile to contend with. "Mother?"
"He's gone."
"He's gone? When?" Rick reaches out for her hand, catches her fingers in his own. His mother shrugs, turns to face him with so much pain laced in the lines of her face that Rick stands, envelops her in his arms.
"He took off two weeks ago. With my life savings." She manages a wan smile, fights her way out of his grip to sink onto a stool. "No warning, nothing. Just gone."
"Two weeks? Why didn't you tell me?"
She twists in the seat to face him, knees pressed together and cresting up from the hemline of her pencil skirt. Now that he looks, now that he can see past his own misery, his mother is heavy with stress, her bones brittle and pressing up through her skin as if they could escape at the slightest brush of too-forceful fingers.
"You got your diagnosis three days before he left. You were a wreck and I didn't want to put that on you." She knots her fingers together at the knuckle and drops the tangled mass of bone to her lap, her whole frame curling in as if in self-defence.
"He took your life savings? Where have you been staying?"
"With a friend. But that can't last forever. I don't know what I'm going to do." Her head bows, the kiss of grief fleeting across her temples and settling in the dip of her mouth.
Rick rests a palm at her knee, tries to weave comfort into the lattice of her muscles with the sweep of his thumb over the apex of her flesh. "You'll stay here."
"Oh no, I couldn't ask that of you, darling." His mother's head snaps up so she can meet his eyes, her own like the inside of a January midnight, storms roiling there.
"You're not asking. Mother, you have nowhere to go. And I need help." He chokes on that, his mother's hands already coming up to cradle his face even as his words trip over the crag of his teeth.
"Okay. If you're sure. Not forever, darling. Just until we're both back on our feet."
"Yeah. This will be good for Alexis, Mother. And for me." Rick stands, can't face her after the spill of his heart all over the tile.
He's halfway to the pantry before his stupid, still-sleeping brain catches up with itself, has him rocking back on his heels and then turning to face his mother. "What were you saying about the mail?"
"Oh, yes, this came for you." She pushes an envelope across the counter towards him, gold embossed and thick with starch. "An invitation I think, darling?"
Rick cards both hands through his hair, too long and curling onto his forehead. His mother shoots him a look and yes, okay, he knows he should cut it. He just-
He's not ready to say goodbye yet.
"No."
"Richard. Come on." His mother sits up straight again, strength rushing through her like she's yanked open a floodgate and unleashed the power to scold him. "You need to get out of the apartment."
"I don't want to get out of the apartment." It's a battle, but he doesn't stamp his foot, reigns in the jut of his lower lip.
His mother gets up and circles the counter, the envelope somehow in her grasp by the time she makes it to him so she can press it to his chest, both her palms flat against him. "I know you don't, but this isn't healthy, this caging yourself away."
"I'm not healthy, Mother. In case you haven't noticed."
"Oh darling, I know, but you don't have to wallow. Just open it." She circles his wrist; slender fingers bringing his hand up to have him hold the damn card himself.
"Fine." He tears, some primal satisfaction rushing through him at the jagged edge of the paper. The actual card is even more intimidating, pressed flowers slipping out to gather at his feet as he opens it. "Oh. Really?"
"What is it?"
"Carter Wallace."
His mother laughs at that, mirth slipping back under skin and limning her. "Who?"
"Guy in my eighth grade class. He's getting married next weekend." Rick shrugs, scans the invitation again.
"Why does he want you there?" His mother takes the card from him, runs her thumb over the embellishment as she reads.
"I don't know Mother, maybe he saw me on a book jacket."
She glances up at him, sighs softly. It's an argument they've had again and again. She wants him to trust, and he can't see past people's desperate hunger for a slice of his fame and his wealth.
"Please, Richard. Please go to the wedding."
"Okay. Okay, fine. I'll go."
His mother steps back in startled delight, her face already cracking into a grin. But he's not doing it to please her.
The only reason, the only reason-
Carter Wallace is not the only person he remembers from his eighth grade class.
"Shit."
Rick grits his teeth, his stupid, too fat fingers crushing together around the button at his throat. He yanks at the collar again, the material warping under his attack, rolling hills carved by the angry press of his fingertips.
His mother appears around the door, Alexis half tucked against her side. His little girl strains towards him, the sharp wings of her shoulder blades shifting underneath her shirt as she turns to face her grandmother. "Gram, let go."
"Alexis-" Martha clutches at her granddaughter, palms coming up around the girl's shoulders. Rick reaches a hand out for his baby, shoots his mother a look over the top of Alexis' head as she comes in to him.
"Daddy?"
He cradles the back of his girl's head, flicks his thumb against her earlobe to bring that cracking smile to her serious little face. "Yeah baby?"
"What's wrong?" Alexis fists her hands in the back of his shirt and he stiffens, shifts a little.
His mother slides her palms along the outside of Alexis' arms and draws the girl into herself, eases her back from her father. "Daddy's just trying to get ready, darling."
"I can help. Can I pick out a tie?"
Rick manages a laugh for her and tugs uselessly at his collar again. "I don't think I'm going to wear one, pumpkin. I can't fasten my button."
"Oh. Because of your super lump?" Alexis shrugs her way out of her grandmother's grip and stretches onto tiptoe to peer at him.
He holds his collar out of the way, lets her look. She presses two fingers to the swell of disease at his neck, pats him as if he's done good.
Oh, if only.
"Super lump?" His mother's mouth stitches into a seam, her blazer sharp and too angular over her frame.
Rick grins, cards a hand through his little girl's hair as she beams back up at him. "The lump is where my super powers are growing, right baby?"
"Yeah. You're going to be Writer Man." Alexis plants a hand at her hip, her elbow sharp as her other arm surges upwards, her fingers curled into a fist.
"Writer Man, I like it." Rick grins, taps his knuckles against his daughter's in salute. His mother sighs, shaking her head at them both as she starts to retreat. "Mother, wait. Do you think I can just not wear a tie?"
"No darling. You're going to the actual ceremony, you can't be unbuttoned. Look, I think I have some kind of fastener upstairs. I'll help you."
She goes, his daughter flopping onto the bed and drawing up his attention before he can even begin to argue. "Why can't I go?"
"There won't be anyone else there that you know, sweetheart. You'd be bored and lonely."
Alexis frowns at that and rolls over to prop her chin against her fists, her knees bending so her feet come up over her head, the sheets like a rippling lake of ashen grey silk around her. "Won't you be bored and lonely, Daddy?"
"I won't stay long. I'll just say hello to Carter, maybe chat to some other people from our old class if they're there."
"Richard." His mother sweeps back in, turns him to face her and busies herself at his collar, somehow managing to fasten it. Alexis passes his tie to her grandmother and she loops it around his neck, smoothes her palm down the placket of the shirt once she's done. "There. You look lovely, darling."
He turns to face the mirror and rakes his hands through his hair again, deep pressure at his scalp. His daughter catches his eye in the reflection and he winks at her, pulls a face that has her dissolving into laughter, face buried in his sheets.
"Goodbye, ladies. I'll text you when I leave, Mother." He kisses her cheek, scoops his daughter up off the bed and clutches her to his chest, scattering kisses across her cheeks. "Love you both."
He drops Alexis back onto the mattress, his palm following her movement so she doesn't bounce too violently, and then he goes, blowing kisses at them both.
The hotel is further away than Rick thought; he's wrenched from a shadowy half-sleep by the jerking glance of his head against the car window and then the door opening, his driver standing to attention. He slides out of the car, tries not to groan at the clattering protest of his muscles.
He tips the driver, straightens his tie and shrugs his shoulders inside his jacket, arranges himself in fortification. The hotel is nestled between two much smaller buildings so that it seems to loom over him, hold him captive in its shadow.
The door is already open, an usher hands him a program and directs him towards the vestibule and then he's swallowing hard, doing his best to look like he belongs here with the magnificent stain glass window at his back.
A couple brushes past him, overflowing with joy so he has to take a step back, knocking his elbow into a candelabra as he goes. He turns to steady the thing, finds himself drawn in by the flower arrangement beneath. He is just so not ready to go inside and sit alone in a pew, watching everyone else hum with excitement and love.
He doesn't exactly have fond memories of weddings at the best of times and now he's alone and aching with it, his shirt collar choking him and his tie too somber. He closes his eyes against it, a backwash of emotion that has him burning to flee, turn around and get back in the car and go home to his mother and his baby girl.
God damn it, no. He's better than this. Rick shakes his head, moves as if to enter the ballroom, and then someone calls his name.
Not his first name. His last name.
His head snaps up to find whoever here knows him, but there's no-
"Castle? What are you doing here?"
She gapes at him, this gorgeous, sensuous woman who seems to know him, coming down the steps like some sort of ethereal being and she's-
Oh. Wow. She's smiling at him, her face breaking open with a light that washes over her whole body, slips over the fluid line of her like gossamer. And he sees now. He knows.
It's Katie.
And shit. Shit. She's so beautiful.