Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop
The case had spilled over from the previous day. What had started as a simple guy shot boy-toy over girl had turned into a tangled web of money and love affairs. The board was crowded with photos of the crime scene overlapping three different handwritings. Everyone was running on coffee fumes and the unspoken prayer that eventually they'd find the end of the web sooner rather than later.
"What if… What if she was in the Mafia and just hired her boyfriend to complete the hit on her side-lover?"
Castle blinked over at Kate, her head resting on her crossed arms, mumbling into the hollow created on top of her desk. She really must be tired to be rattling off ideas like that, ones that any other time she would have shot down at the word "Mafia." She hadn't gone home for almost forty-eight hours, neither of them had seen Al in that time, and both sleep and food had been missing in the days.
"Hey." He looked down at her as she turned her head so her cheek was pressed against the back of her hand. "Any insight?"
"To the Mafia angle?" he asked, a brow arched. "Seriously?"
Kate's eyes kept opening, then closing down slowly before she opened them again. "Mhm," she hummed. "Come on, Mr. World-Famous-Mystery-Writer. Spin a tale to explain this case so we can all go home."
What he wanted to bring her home and cook dinner for her and her daughter. He wanted to tuck her into bed and let her body finally catch up on all of the lost hours of sleep while he played more board games with Al or made forts of pillows and sheets or watched movies he hadn't seen since he had been a kid.
But she'd never agree to that. Not even in her current state, running on less than empty.
"Give me a few minutes," he said, getting up. "You want coffee?"
She shook her head, still on her arms, but he still picked up her mug and went to the break room. Instead of getting the both of them espresso from the machine he had donated to the division after one too many cups of cringe-worthy coffee, he pulled out his phone and dialed a number he had memorized.
"Mom!"
Kate's head snapped up when she heard Al's voice. The first thought that passed through her mind was the curious idea that maybe she was so tired, so hungry that she was hearing things. But when the little body bumped against the arm of the chair, her head pressing against her arm, Kate figured she was in the real universe.
"Tired?" Al asked, her fingers tracing her mother's hand, looking up through her dark curtain of curls.
Kate turned in the chair, scooping Al up onto her lap and setting her cheek against the curls. "Yeah, kid. Very tired." She scanned the bullpen until she found her father, talking to Castle near the door to the break room. "Hey, Dad."
He walked over, ran a hand through her tangled hair. "Hey, Katie."
"You brought Al."
"Rick said you might need a pick-me-up. Plus," Jim said, tweaking Kate's nose through Al's hair, "she missed you. Spend some time with her then get back to work. Take a half hour." He kissed both of their cheeks then went back toward the break room.
"So, Al, what'd you do at school these past couple of days?" Kate asked, moving her bowl of Skittles closer to them both, handing the girl a few of the candies.
He was watching out the break room window as the presence of her daughter lifted most of the exhaustion and frustration out of Kate's face. It felt good, helping her even if she didn't think she needed it.
"I haven't seen her that tired since Al was a newborn."
Jim was leaning against the doorframe, smiling. "Those first months, I don't think she slept more than twenty hours a week. She wanted to get everything right and it wore her down. I can't count the number of breakdowns I saw her go through before I convinced her to slow down."
They had met twice before, just dinner when Kate went to pick Al up from Jim's apartment with Castle in tow on the way to drop him off. Jim had teased Castle relentlessly and Castle had sensed that Kate had a hand in arranging the miniature hazing. He had seen the little smiles she had been trying to hide over dinner as her father raked Castle over the coals. But the two men got along, bonding over Kate and Al as well as a mutual love of literature and practical jokes.
"It was the right decision, Rick. Calling me and Al." He gave Castle a reassuring smile, moving to take down one of the extra mugs and pour himself coffee. "She needed that."
"I wasn't sure if I was overstepping," Castle said, turning away from the window, his back against the counter. "But she was talking about a Mafia hit as a theory for the case and something had to be done."
Jim laughed, taking a sip of the coffee. "I can see how that would be concerning. Listen, there's something I've wanted to talk to you about for a while."
Castle's breath caught in his throat. Something that began like that, from the father of the woman you might be dating but aren't really dating yet, didn't bode well. "Uh, okay."
"Not to sound incredibly old-fashioned, but what exactly are your intentions toward my girls?"
If there ever was a moment to get the words exactly right, this was that time. Did "I want to marry Kate and give Al a father" sound too forward? There was always "She's my soul mate," though that sounded like a line from a cheesy romantic-comedy.
He settled on "I want to be in their lives, no matter what role that implies." Castle watched Jim's expression for a hint of something. Anything. "It's up to them."
Jim kept his face blank, a professional poker face as he spun the coffee mug in his hands. "And if neither Kate nor Al want you around?"
The thought hit him in the stomach. What if they didn't want him around? Hard to imagine being the case since they had kept him around for the past four months. Why would they have done that if they were just going to toss him away? But Jim was studying him, waiting for an answer, so Castle took a deep breath and met the older man's stormy blue-grey eyes.
"Then I'll leave. It'll hurt, but I'd do it." He still felt the need to plead his case, so he continued. "I've gotten to know both of them. More than that, they've give me something that I had been missing." He resisted the urge to turn, to look out the wide window at the desk he had spent the past two days at with one of the women in question. The single word was caught in his throat but he forced it out. "Love."
The other man tilted his head, narrowed his eyes. "Does Katie know that you're tossing around the L-word?"
"No." Castle glanced out the window now, unable to stop himself, in time to see Kate toss a red Skittle into the air and catch it in her mouth to a round of applause from Al and a few uniforms that had observed the trick. "I'm following her lead with that."
"Good," Jim said, nodding. "Good. And Rick?" He stepped forward, clapped Castle on the shoulder. "She likes control, has clung to that since she was nineteen and my wife died. But don't let her hold you at arm's length forever. You might need to push a little. You'll know when."
Jim passed Ryan, Esposito, and Montgomery as he headed back out to his daughter and granddaughter. Esposito grabbed Castle's arm as he moved to follow Jim, pulling him back into the break room.
"We're gonna talk for a bit," Ryan said as Montgomery closed the break room door behind the trio.
"'Cept Marcus kept pushin' people," Al said, waving her hands, narrowly avoiding hitting Kate in the face.
She was sitting on Kate's lap, her legs swinging between Kate's. Bright pink shoes against the black fabric of her mother's pants. Kate was holding a handful of Skittles in her hand, letting Al pick colors out of the bunch and eat them between words of the story she was telling.
"Not very nice of Marcus," Kate said, smiling up at Jim as he walked over, leaning against the corner of her desk. "Did Miss Amanda do anything to stop him?"
Al nodded, taking a green candy piece and handing it to Jim. "She had him do time out."
"That was the right thing to do. We don't push people, not even when we're playing a game, right?"
"Right." Then she turned her smile up, waving so vigorously that Kate had to plant her feet on the ground to stop the chair for swiveling back and forth. "Grandpa! Eat the Skittle!"
He popped it into his mouth, grinning. "Thanks, Allie-bug."
Kate had her head settled in the crook of Al's shoulder, their hair blending into one mass of brown curls. Jim could already see a hint of a genuine smile peeking through the cloud of sadness that had been hanging over her when they had stepped off the elevator. And suddenly, he felt that Castle had made the right decision in calling him and Al to stop by. Both Kate and Al needed the time together.
"You talked to Castle," Kate said, eating an orange candy, arm reaching around her daughter. "What about?"
He waved it off, "Man stuff." Jim sat in the visitor's chair, the one that Castle had claimed when Al wasn't around to kick him out.
"Rick called Grandpa," Al whispered into Kate's ear, her hands holding onto Kate's wrist as she pushed Skittles around in her palm. "And we came to visit you." Her hands moved up to her mother's face, her little fingers pressing into the skin around Kate's eyes. "You sad and tired, Mom."
"I was. Not so much anymore," she said, kissing Al's cheek. "Now, tell me what type of trouble Grandpa has been letting you get into at his house."
"What's up?" Castle asked, backing up into the counter again.
"You know, just a friendly conversation," said Ryan with a shrug.
From the semi-predatory looks the officers were giving him, Castle was fairly certain that this was not going to be a "friendly conversation" in any manner. Montgomery was sidled up next to him against the counter while the other two paced in front of them.
"So, you've got her father on speed-dial," started Esposito.
"And you've spent time with Al," added Ryan, leaning back against the table in the room, crossing his legs in front of him. Casual. A direct contrast to the tone of their comments.
Unsure if they were waiting for a response, Castle just said "Yes."
"With this new book, any chance that Beckett is being your muse in any other capacity?" Figures it would be Montgomery, the father-figure of the precinct, asking about whether he was taking advantage of Kate outside of work.
"Listen, guys," he started, meeting each pair of eyes in what he hoped was a confident manner. "I like Kate. A lot. I like Al a lot, too." What was today? Annual Torture the Potential Boyfriend Day? It could not be coincidence that both Jim and her family from the Twelfth had decided to corner him in the break room on the same day. It didn't matter; Castle would fight for her. "Anything beyond following her for the book and hanging out with her and Al outside of the precinct is up to her."
Montgomery and the boys exchanged glances, obviously gauging his honesty. Castle wasn't sure if the whole deal of gaining their approval was endearing or a little creepy. He decided that it was an interesting mixture of both, touched at the familial nature of the Homicide division. If he needed the green light from the captain and Kate's team members, he'd let the other men crowd him against the counter and interrogate him.
"Okay."
Suddenly, the barrier of the men of the Twelfth was gone. Castle let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding when Ryan spoke.
"Really?" he asked, itching to fist-pump or dance or give each of them a handshake.
Esposito shrugged. "You haven't left yet. That's something the others did, usually when Al makes her appearance."
"And they both like you." Ryan shoved Castle's arm, getting him to move out of the way so he could make a cup of espresso.
"From this point on, if you screw up, it's your fault," Montgomery said. "But know, Castle," he paused, stopping at the doorway, hand on the knob, "that we'll be watching. You hurt our friend, we'll hurt you."
Once Ryan and Esposito had their coffee, they followed the path of Montgomery back into the bullpen. Castle took down a mug, running his finger over the rim as he watched the three Becketts at her desk. He could see her laughing, not as freely as he would like, but it was an improvement. The exhaustion was still lingering. His next goal was to erase that from her face.
So instead of pouring the coffee he had planned on, he pushed the mug back against the wall with its twins and went to Kate's desk. Al was telling a story about Sadie running into a book shelf and knocking down all of the items on the shelves. The girl told it as a comedy, giggling in between words, while Jim seemed to view it as a horror story.
He tapped Kate's shoulder, leaned down so his mouth was next to her ear. "Let's go home, Kate."
"But the case-"
"Will be here after a full eight hours of sleep. And it'll make more sense after those eight hours." Castle pulled her coat from behind her back, holding it out.
Al turned her head, resting it against Kate's chest. "We goin' home, Mom?"
Kate sighed, then got up, putting Al into the desk chair so Castle could help her into the jacket. "Yeah, Al. We're going to go home now."
Jim broke away from them in the lobby, insisting that he take a separate cab to his place uptown, that it was silly for them to go to the Upper West Side just to drive back down to SoHo and TriBeCa. He hugged the women, pressed a kiss to Kate's cheek, then nodded to Castle before going to find his own taxi.
Castle hailed a taxi outside of the precinct and let Kate slid in first with Al between them. On the ride from the precinct to his loft, he watched as Kate's head went from upright to leaned against the window of the cab, fast asleep.
"Rick," Al whispered, pulling on his coat sleeve and sitting up straight to talk to him as softly as possible. "Mom is sleeping."
"She's been working hard. We'll just let her take a nap in the apartment while we play some games. That sound like fun?"
Al nodded, already looking back at Kate. "Mom's okay, though?"
He gave the girl's knee a squeeze, smiling at the bright pink shoes again. "Yeah. Mom's fine. Just tired."
"Okay." Al rested her head against Castle's arm, wrapping her arms around his wrist. "What games are we gonna play?"