Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop
Just inside the coffee shop, right at his table, was Al. Except unlike the last time they had met, she wasn't smiling and laughing. She looked completely terrified, huddled as far back into the cushioned armchair as possible.
When he ran closer to the shop, determined to stop whatever or whoever had put that look of fear in the girl's eyes, he had to pause again at a second, jaw-dropping sight of the day.
When Kate heard Al's scream, she whirled around, her hand immediately going for her service weapon at her hip. Across the coffee shop, at Castle's table, sat Al, curled into her chair as a man held onto her upper arm.
He was huge, all broad shoulders and bulging biceps, towering over the five year old. Kate couldn't see around his body to know if he held a weapon so she pulled her gun out. Better safe than sorry.
"Police. Let the girl go." Her voice was steady, in cop-mode rather than panicking-mother-mode. She had to tunnel her vision toward the man, not see her daughter's frightened eyes or she'd break.
The man turned, his hands raised up to his ears. "You gonna stop me, woman?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I am." Kate took a step toward the man, her gun still level. "Step away from her." When he visibly hesitated, she pushed. "Now."
And he did, sidestepping until he was a few feet from the table and Al.
Then he ran, pushing aside businessmen and a woman holding a baby in her arms, headed for the door. Kate glanced at her daughter, shaken up but okay, and went after him, her gun still in her hand. She took the path cleared for her by the man, ducking under one suited man's arm and slipping out of the door right on the man's heels.
He collided with Castle, who had been staring at the event through the window. Castle stumbled, but managed to catch his balance in time to swing a punch at the other man's face, his fist colliding with an audible pop.
It didn't stop the Hulk. He shook his head and started back down the sidewalk.
"Mr. Castle, down!" Kate shouted, aiming the gun at the man's back.
The writer did as she said, crouching down against the front of the coffee shop, watching as Kate ordered the man to stop.
When he didn't, Kate fired. The huge man stopped then, falling onto his face with a grunt. She hadn't gone for a chest shot. Instead, the man's calf had been her target and was currently creating a red pool under his leg.
With one hand, Kate holstered her gun, flipping the safety back on, and found her phone in her jeans pocket. As she walked over, Castle heard her talking to someone named Esposito about getting a bus and a marked car down to their address.
"Should have stopped, buddy," she said, going to stand at the man's elbow to wait for the cruiser and ambulance. The man groaned in response.
Castle was still a little in shock. And his knuckles were killing him, but he was more interested in the woman even now standing by a man who she had just shot. He could see that her hands were starting to shake a bit and suspected it was not entirely the cold's fault. Research only told him so much, but he figured the adrenaline rush was starting to wear thin and her body was coming down of its short-lived high.
"Mr. Castle."
His name had him looking up, down the sidewalk. "Yeah?"
She jerked her head toward the coffee shop. "Could you go in and see how Al's doing? I can't leave him."
He nodded quickly, picking up his fallen notebook and abandoning the pencil that had skittered out of the pages when it dropped. "Yeah, sure."
Inside the coffee shop, things had calmed down. The baristas were back to serving coffee and pastries, people were talking on their phones or with friends. But he didn't see any of them. He turned just inside the door and went to the table he had unofficially claimed as his own.
Al was still in a ball in the forest green armchair, her knees pulled up to her chest and her chin resting on them. Her arms were shaking, a mirror to her mother's, as they wrapped around her shins.
Castle approached slowly, not wanting to scare her any further. "Hey, Al." He waited until her blue eyes turned on him to get closer, holding out his notebook. "You like drawing?" She nodded. Castle set the book on the table, searched his pocket for a pen, placing it next to the open page. "Here. We can draw until your mom gets back, okay?"
The girl picked up the pen and tugged the notebook closer. Then she blinked, looking at the page that just had his earlier wave doodles at the top. Castle saw her face crumble an instant before he heard "Rick…"
He was out of the other chair, scooping Al up into his lap as she start to cry. Playing it by ear, in completely foreign waters, he rubbed his hand up and down her back as Al turned her head into his shoulder, her hands grabbing onto the thick material of his jacket.
"Shhhh… It's okay, sweetie. You're okay and Mom is okay."
Al sniffled next to his ear, shifting so she could speak. "Bad man…"
"Yes, there was a bad man. But Mom took care of it. Bad man won't hurt you again."
The little body on his lap shuddered, obviously trying to halt the tears and failing. "Scared."
Me too, Al, he thought, rubbing soothing circles on her back. His hand was starting to ache again but he ignored it. "It was scary. It's okay now."
Outside, he saw a cruiser pull up against the curb, its lights flashing into the shop. Al lifted her head enough to turn it and look out the window, resting it back on his chest. Her fists were still curled around his jacket's lapels, securing her to him. Two uniforms got out, jogging out of sight to go get the wounded man secured.
A minute later, Kate came into their line of sight, running to the door and jerking it open.
"Mom!" Al said, looking over at her from Castle's chest.
Kate picked the girl up, hugging her against her own body. Al's loose hair was swiping at Kate's tears that she finally let fall. "Oh my sweet girl," she murmured.
Castle watched as Kate sank into the other chair, Al still cradled in her arms, one hand up against the girl's neck. She was still shaking, but it was slowing and he sensed that having her daughter with her was playing a large part in that. He stood up, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"You want something to drink?" he asked, leaning over.
She nodded. "Water. Just water."
He waited in line, glancing back over at the cop and girl. Al had her head against Kate's shoulder and Kate was whispering into the girl's ear. Then, Kate looked at him and smiled. It was small, barely a lifting of the corners of her mouth, but it was a smile. He returned it, just as tentative, before getting them a couple of bottles of water, a blueberry muffin, cheese Danish, and a chocolate croissant.
When he brought the food and water over to their table, the notebook had been moved across the surface and Al was drawing stick figures silently. Her tongue was sticking out between her teeth as she concentrated on the figure she was working on.
"We've got choices," he said, setting all of the breakfast pastries on the table in a line down the center before sitting. "Whichever you two want."
Kate only reached for the bottle of water closest to her, unscrewing the cap, and taking a drink around her daughter's head. "Thanks, Mr. Castle," she said, her voice quiet as if she didn't want to startle Al. "I'll pay you back once we get up."
"No." She opened her mouth to protest but he continued. "Not this time. Next time, maybe, but not this morning. This is on me."
"Thanks." Then she ducked her head, speaking into Al's ear as she started on a stick cat. "Allie-bug, you want to eat something?"
Al nodded, not taking her eyes off the cat. Kate set the water bottle down and picked up the muffin, breaking the top off and setting it on a napkin in front of the girl. "Here, sweetie."
Castle could almost sense the change in the woman, even after seeing her all of three times. This wasn't the cop sitting across from him; it was the mother. Her voice was soft and she kept a hand on Al at all times, as if reassuring herself that the girl was here. There were nicknames coming out of her for her daughter he hadn't heard from her before.
"Why were you here?" she asked, looking up through her lashes as she took a piece of the croissant.
He sipped from the remaining bottle of water. "I needed to write. This place is calm, quiet. Sometimes I need it instead of the chaos up here," he said, gesturing to his head.
"Ahh…" She ate the bit of croissant, nodding. "Makes sense, actually."
"And today, I really just needed a break from reality for a while." When she kept nodding while holding out a piece of the muffin to Al, who took it and ate it without really looking from the page, he felt compelled to continue. "My girlfriend and I had a fight."
That had her glancing from her daughter's drawing. "Meredith LaClare?" Then he was enchanted as a pale blush spread across the top of her cheeks. "I read People."
He didn't comment on her knowledge, didn't want to make her uncomfortable. "Yes." Then he figured he might as well take the plunge and tell her everything from the past week. "My mother's husband left her with nothing. Took all of their money and ran."
"Oh…"
"She's living with me, in my guest room, which is fine. I love her and she's hurting." He took a bite from the Danish, taking the moment to think through the next steps. "Meredith doesn't like her. I don't know why, but she doesn't want Mother in the apartment. We fought and I left. And here I am."
When he looked back up from the Danish on the napkin in front of him, Kate is watching him carefully. Not like she's going to run, but just judging with those hazel eyes. "What are you going to do?"
He let his head fall into his hand, rubbing his eye with the heel. "I have no idea."
"The situation stinks all around," she said, playing with the ends of Al's hair. "In my opinion, that is."
"Why did the man leave your mom?"
Both of them were surprised to hear Al's voice, a whisper in the silence at the table.
"We don't know, Al," Castle responded, twirling the water bottle in his hands.
"That's sad."
Kate pressed a kiss to Al's head. "Yes. It is. Eat, sweetie."
Al reached out and took another piece of the muffin, nibbling it. Kate did the same thing, breaking off some of the croissant.
"Talk to your girlfriend, Mr. Castle," Kate said, taking another sip of the water. "See why she doesn't want your mother in the same place as her. See if you can resolve the differences. That might help."
Kate felt the need to take a step back. Was she really sitting across from him, giving him relationship advice? Was she even qualified to give relationship advice in the first place? Her track record wasn't exactly a shining example to follow.
But she did know what it felt like to be abandoned. Sure, her abandonment had been her own fault, her own drunk, stupid ass self's fault. But still, it stung a little raising Al mostly alone.
And his mother must be feeling some of that sting right now. She was lucky to have a son that seemed so torn about what to do with the situation at his feet.
"You're right." He nodded firmly, eating another bite of the nearly-consumed Danish. "I'll do that. Talk to them, that is."
Kate smiled. "Good plan, if I don't say so myself."
He laughed and she had to appreciate that for the first time since she had walked in after the shooting, he looked okay. "That's because you came up with it."
"Then it must be golden. Us women know what we're doing, right, Al?" she asked, leaning down again to talk into the girl's ear.
Al lifted her free hand, the not still holding the pen as she drew what looked like flowers, and patted Kate's cheek. "Duh, Mom."
They finished the breakfast, exchanging comments about the weather which was finally warming up for the March 'in like a lion, out like a lamb' superstition and the news about budget cuts in the city. As Kate gathered up Al, setting the girl on her feet so that Kate's own legs could wake up from the sleep they were in, the girl handed Castle back the notebook.
He went to open it and she shook her head. "Wait." Then she cupped her mouth to whisper something to him. He leaned down so she could place her pinky finger of her cupped hand against his hair. "Secret."
"Okay," he whispered back, straightening just as Kate flipped her braid out from the collar of her jacket. "Thank you both."
Kate tilted her head to the side, her eyes squinting as she smiled. "Why?"
"For calming me down. For talking." He shrugged. "It's what I needed."
It was Al that answered for both of them with a pat of her hand on his thigh. "Welcome, Rick."
The three of them walked from the coffee shop together, Al holding Kate's hand the entire time. Still shaken, Kate decided. Might be okay to spend the rest of the day in pajamas while cuddling on the couch.
"Can we share a cab somewhere?" he asked.
The woman in Kate wanted to say yes, to spend more time with the man that she was finding to be different from the writer she knew. The cop in her said no, that taking the cab with him would mean him finding her address, something she fiercely protected.
He seemed to sense her hesitation. "I can get dropped off first, if that bothers you. I don't mind you knowing where I live."
"Okay."
Castle hailed a cab, let Kate get in first before Al did. Kate was buckling Al's seatbelt before doing her own when Castle gave his address. She knew it was in SoHo from the street it was located at.
The building the cab stopped in front of was like any of the surrounding ones. Nothing proclaimed that Richard Castle, New York Times Bestseller, lived there. And still, Kate liked it. It was unassuming, not as flashy as she would have thought for him.
Kate didn't object this time when he said he'd pay for their ride to her apartment, telling the cabbie to keep whatever change was left over. Then, a hand braced on the roof of the sedan, he leaned back into the interior.
"Again, thank you."
She shrugged, smiling. "Good luck, Rick."
He was blinking in mild astonishment at the use of his first name, something she hadn't done since meeting him, when he pushed back from the taxi. He waved and was happy to see Al return the gesture.
On the elevator ride to his floor, he opened the notebook to the first page where Al had been drawing. The paper had three stick figures, one tall, one short, the other in a height between the first two. The tall one had short, spiky hair, roughly drawn shirt and pants. The other wore a dress with squiggly hair hitting her shoulders. Then there was the third, wearing pants and a shirt as well, but with the same hair as the short one. There was also a cat, some flowers around them, a sun in the sky.
Under it, in slanted letters, was "Thank you Rick."
Castle was able to excuse the missing comma this one time.