Chapter 9: Hiraeth
After being abducted on their wedding day, Castle is found six years later with no memory of his missing time and no knowledge of all that has happened while he's been gone, including the daughter he had with Kate. This chapter is set after the original story concludes and offers a glimpse into Castle, Beckett, and Lily's first Christmas together as a family.
He has so many questions crowding on the tip of his tongue, at the seam of his lips, but he can't afford to just let any one slip free. He doesn't want to overwhelm her with an interrogation about a time of year that was never easy to begin with.
Another stab of guilt pierces through him.
They spent their first Christmas together just a little over a year before his disappearance, their second only months prior, and then he was gone for six years. Six years of missed time with his wife - fiancée, Rick, he reminds himself yet again - six years of missed time with Alexis, with Lily, the little girl he never even knew he existed until he was found just a few months ago. Six years of missed Christmases.
Lily is about to turn seven and has never had a Christmas with him.
Kate nudges his hip and he startles, glances over to her in question.
"Sorry," she murmurs, her lips quirking sheepishly, but she's watching him with the all too familiar concern in her eyes. "You've just been staring at the same tree for the past five minutes. I was kinda worried you froze."
She pushes the thermos of hot chocolate into his gloved hands, the heat of it penetrating the fabric to warm his palms.
"Where's Lily?" he asks, taking a long sip of the cocoa. Alexis apparently taught Kate their special recipe ages ago and he hums at the mouthwatering mixture of rich chocolate and melted marshmallows.
"Skipping through the rows of trees," Kate chuckles, tilting her head to the left. Castle follows her gaze just in time to catch a glimpse of their daughter through the thick rows of branches, trotting by in her puffy blue coat.
He grins, some of the ache in his heart dissipating. Kate drifts in a little closer to him and he slips an arm around her waist, draws her snugly into his side.
"What's wrong, love?" she murmurs, brushing her cold nose to his jaw. "Scars pulling in the cold?"
"A little," he admits, trying his best to ignore the fierce tugging lancing through multiple spots across his back, the bitter December chill aggravating scars both old and new.
"Then?" she inquires, because of course she knows, just like he knows every time something's bothering her. It's a convenience and a curse.
Castle sighs and lowers his cheek to her temple, breathes in the scent of her hair beneath the overwhelming aroma of pine and sap in the air.
"Nothing's wrong, I just…" He was so excited when she suggested they pick out a tree today, surprise Lily with the trip out to the Christmas tree farm, but he wasn't prepared for the sorrow it would bring him too. He's had many things to feel guilty about since his return, regardless of whether any of it was truly his fault or not, but he didn't even consider how badly Christmas would get to him. "How have you spent the last six Christmases, Kate?"
Her breath doesn't catch, her face doesn't fall, but he can feel the instant drench of melancholy that engulfs her at the mention of the past holidays she's had to endure. He almost doesn't know if he wants the answer anymore, if it'll hurt too much for both of them to relive those kinds of memories.
"I was still pregnant during the first one," she recalls, her voice soft and her fingers curling at his side, tucking into his coat pocket. "Heavily pregnant, actually."
"Oh, right," he murmurs the realization, his gaze drifting to her stomach reflexively. Kate being pregnant isn't hard for him to imagine, it's something he sometimes allowed himself to think about before Jerry Tyson kidnapped him on their wedding day, something he allowed himself to daydream about even after, when his mind needed something good and pure to cling to in the darkness of his cell. He doesn't think he'll ever stop feeling the gut-wrenching regret of missing the daydream come true. "You were pregnant before the wedding."
She sighs and he lets go of the thermos to slip off one of his gloves, fit his bared fingers to the cool, unprotected skin between her jaw and the coverage of her scarf. Kate carries as much guilt as he does, if not more, hoarding shame and responsibility for things he would never blame her for, things beyond her control.
One of those things was how she found out she was pregnant prior to his disappearance and didn't get to tell him in time. A surprise she was saving for after the wedding.
"I'm glad I never knew," he told her months ago, not long after Lily's existence was revealed, explained. "It would have been worse and Tyson - if he would have tortured it out of me… I never would have forgiven myself."
Their little girl would have been as good as dead, of that he's certain.
Kate leans into the warmth of his palm against her skin before checking over her shoulder to keep an eye on Lily.
"I'd been on desk duty since October, but Gates refused to let me work on Christmas, told me it was pointless if I couldn't be out in the field," she explains, but her lips are curling into a smirk that he can't help but mimic as they watch Lily performing a cartwheel through the clear path of snow.
"How does she have so much energy?" he chuckles while Lily pauses to adjust the beanie on her head.
"That's all you, babe," Kate grins, using the hook of her fingers in his coat to lead him away from the cluster of trees they've been huddled against for the past few minutes.
They walk for a handful of moments, comfortable silence between them and her warmth at his side, before she lets out a soft breath, expelling in a cloud of white from her lips.
"I felt so lost, because going back to my tradition, keeping watch over the city, was safe for me, something I could rely on," she murmurs, flexing her fingers to twine through his when he slips his hand into his pocket to join hers. "Lanie offered for me to spend Christmas with her family, Esposito did too, and of course Ryan and Jenny, but I - if I couldn't spend Christmas with you, I didn't want to spend it with anyone."
His heart snags in its beating, catching on the jagged bone of a rib and tearing a fresh hole in the already wounded muscle. The picture of it all is too clear - Kate, pregnant and broken, still searching for him, but left to spend Christmas alone.
"It was Alexis who came to get me," she reveals with an affectionate twitch of her lips, a smile he's noticed is reserved solely for his oldest daughter. "She was so hyper vigilant about my health during the pregnancy, but she also just... she really wanted me to be happy. I think it helped her, you know? Trying to help me, trying to ease her pain and mine at the same time. It's why she's so good at her job."
He tries to swallow past the wet lump of emotion in his throat, but this is just the first Christmas of many that she will likely break his heart in telling.
"She forced me out of my apartment," Kate laughs quietly, squeezing the hand tangled with hers. "Dragged me over to the loft, going on and on about how I needed a proper meal and a positive environment, how you would never want me to be alone on Christmas and would never forgive either of us if I spent it holed up in my dull apartment-"
"Shit," he rasps, attempting to swipe at his eyes without tipping the thermos still sloshing with hot chocolate.
Kate slows their pace a little, Lily still in sight, and drops her cheek to his shoulder.
"So I rode back in the town car Alexis took to my place and I had Christmas dinner with her and your mom, stayed in our old bed for a couple of nights. It helped," she whispers, turning her head to press her lips to his shoulder even though he can't feel her touch through the thick fabric of his pea coat. "I had Lily just a little over a month later."
He sighs, imagining Kate curled up in their bed without him, her stomach swollen with a baby on the verge of arriving. A baby who came only a few weeks after the anniversary of her mother's death. It must have been so hard for her, a brutal toll taken on her emotional state. If he would have been there, he could have helped, made it at least a little easier-
"You'll be around for the next one, Rick."
He blinks and looks over to find her watching him, chin on his shoulder and gaze soft, golden against the night sky and bright beams of the lights strung overhead, illuminating the tree farm.
They haven't discussed having more kids, but she already knows he isn't opposed to the idea. It's too soon now, far too soon, but one day…
"Damn right I will," he murmurs, craning his neck to kiss her forehead.
"Guys! Guys, I want this one!" Lily calls, racing towards them and leaving disheveled tracks of snow in her wake. "It's perfect. It's big and extrav-extrava-gant," she sounds out. "Just like Lexi said you love, Daddy. But not too big so it'll still fit in the loft."
Kate smiles and reaches out to adjust the scarf around Lily's neck. "Sounds perfect, Peanut. Show us."
Lily beams up at her mother, but hesitates when her gaze shifts to Castle, her brow falling into a gentle crease.
"What's wrong, Daddy?" she asks, her excitement put on hold in favor of shuffling through the snow to stand in front of him, curling her hands in the edges of his coat. "Is it too much? We can take a break or - or even come back tomorrow?"
God, after his wife - fiancée - just ripped him apart with memories of her first Christmas without him, his daughter offering to put their Christmas tree shopping on hold just to make sure he's okay is going to be his undoing.
"No, sweetheart," he promises, easing his hand from Kate's to hoist their daughter up into his arms. "I'm picking out a Christmas tree for the first time with you and Mommy. How could I not be okay?"
Lily examines him for a moment, brushing her fingers to the subtle scar that lies below his cheekbone, a healed wound from his second showdown with Tyson a few months ago.
"I just don't want you to be sad. Not on Christmas."
"I'm not sad," he assures her, squeezing her tiny hipbone through the jeans and underlying pair of leggings Kate dressed her in to stay warm. "I'm happy. So happy to be here with both of you. And to see the tree you picked out."
She must deem his words to hold enough truth, because she relaxes in his arms, hooking one around his neck and extending the other to point straight ahead.
"It's that way."
By the time they return back to the loft, Christmas tree in tow, it's past Lily's bedtime. Their little girl falls asleep in the backseat during the drive home and Castle carries her up to her room, leaving Kate in the parking garage while he quickly tucks her in.
"Hey, I told you to wait," he huffs, jogging back into the garage to find Beckett already halfway to the elevator with the massive evergreen in her arms.
"It's not that heavy," she reasons, craning her neck around a branch to smile at him. In those two Christmases spent with her, he's never seen his wife - fianc... oh, just forget it - this happy, her joy usually tinted with her mourning of the holidays with her mother. "Just help me get it in the elevator."
Castle takes the opposite side of the tree, pine needles poking his face, digging deeper into his skin each time his cheeks rise with a laugh. It isn't easy, maneuvering a tree so tall and thick across the lot, into the elevator that barely fits the three of them, but Kate's breathless huffs of laughter continue to elicit his own.
She's having fun, trying to get this behemoth of a tree that will likely just barely fit in his loft up to their home, and he's having fun with her. He doesn't want to ruin that with any more inquiries about Christmases without him, but the writer in him, that insatiable part of him that will never be content, especially when it comes to her, yearns to know regardless.
Once they finally haul the evergreen through the front door, though, trying to be as quiet as possible to avoid waking Lily, Kate begins to quench his curiosity without him having to ask.
They prop the tree up against the living room wall, taking a break before wrestling it onto the tree stand.
"My dad spent the holidays with me during Lily's first Christmas," she reveals, leaning against the arm of the couch, the curls of her hair disheveled and her coat askew. Her cheeks are rosy from exertion, from smiling, and Castle crosses the room, abandoning the tree to be closer. "It was the first time we spent Christmas together since… well, since my mom died."
"He usually goes up to his cabin," Castle recalls and she nods.
"Yeah, I mean, since you and I were getting married, starting our own life and traditions together, we had talked about him maybe spending Christmas Eve with us at some point," she murmurs, glancing down to the open box of lights on the couch. Kate went by the storage on her way back from work, grabbed a few boxes of Christmas decorations Alexis directed her to, surprising not only Lily, but him as well. Somehow she managed to pick out all of his favorites. "Once Lily was born, though, I think the holidays became important again for him, for both of us."
She purses her lips and Castle takes a seat on the edge of the coffee table, staring up at her, waiting for the rest of the story.
"She was only a few months old, doesn't remember any of it, but my dad showed up with this little tree for us and some old decorations that he didn't… that we still had." Her throat works with a swallow, but he knows why. He knows the holiday season was never easy for her, nor for Jim, but while Kate channeled her grief into her work, her dad drowned in his. Kate clears her throat and runs a hand through her hair, fingers catching in the tangled strands. "Of course, Alexis invited us over for Christmas morning, all three of us-"
"My mother was already gone to London?" he asks, remembering Alexis explaining how Martha ran away to another country a year after his disappearance, found new and unhealthy ways to cope. Stumbling down the same path Jim Beckett once took.
"Yeah, but she came back that year," Kate informs him, curling her fingers around the buttons of her coat and shrugging it from her shoulders.
"Was that the only year?"
Her eyes remain trained on the fabric of her pea coat. His mother is doing better, so much better, and he's proud of her, but Kate knows her drinking is still a sore spot for him, a topic they tend to tread lightly upon.
"Yeah." She sighs, but lifts her eyes to him, offers a sad quirk of her lips. "Christmas was your favorite holiday to celebrate, Rick. I think it was hard for her in the same way it was for me and my dad without my mom."
Castle bows his head, the idea of his mother suffering from the kind of pain he's witnessed Kate experience widening the hole in his chest.
"But she called every year to Skype with Alexis and Lily, sent presents too. It meant a lot to them."
"Did you, your dad, and Alexis continue spending Christmases together?" he inquires, hope bidding in his chest, attempting to soothe along the ragged edges of his grief.
"Essentially," she confirms, but her eyes are falling away from his again. Her arms wrap around the coat in her hands, holding it to her sternum. He knows what she's about to say before the words leave her mouth, what has to come next in the timeline, so he beats her to them.
"When did Tom start spending Christmas with you?"
Her eyes reluctantly rise to meet his, remaining locked as she sucks in a subtle breath. "Last Christmas was the first time. We went to visit Tom's family on Christmas Eve."
He looks away, skin heating with irrational jealousy while his stomach burns with ice. They've been over this, plenty of times, and he holds no malice towards her for pursuing a relationship with Tom Demming, he has no malice for the man himself. Tom was a good step-dad to Lily, he still is - often taking Lily out to hockey games in the winter, soccer in the spring - and he was a good man to Kate. He was there for them, took care of them for a little while, and as sharp as it stings, Rick can never resent him for that.
"How was it?" he manages, tearing his eyes away from the spot of his knee that they dropped to. But when he returns his gaze to Kate, she looks as if she just confessed one of her greatest sins, and he hates himself a little more.
"Kate-"
"It was different," she shrugs, reaching absently for the chain around her neck. She still wears his ring there, not yet ready to part with the piece of him that remained with her even when he couldn't. "They were nice, a good family. Lily liked them and they adored her, but I - I don't think they liked me."
"What?" he huffs, affronted and rising from the coffee table.
"Tom's father's a firefighter, his mom stayed home to raise him and his brother, who's also a cop. They're a good family," she muses, but her jaw is squaring in that way she often does to keep her emotions steady. "Protective. I think they knew I was never right for him, that I never… loved him the right way. That I couldn't."
"They didn't even know you," he argues, realizing how ridiculous it is, defending her against a family who was only looking out for their son by the sounds of it. But the idea of anyone making his wife feel unwelcome unsettles him, elicits the flaring need to stand up for in any way he can. "They should have been thrilled. Tom could never do better than you."
Her eyes flicker up to him, threatening to shine with moisture in the soft light of the loft.
"No one's better than you, Kate."
"Rick," she whispers, shaking her head, but he's already clearing the few steps of distance between them, wrapping his arms around her.
Her coat falls from her arms, her limbs banding around him instead.
"I'm sorry," she rasps, fisting her fingers in the shirt at his back, knuckles pressing to his scars.
"No, love," he breathes, burying his nose in her hair, lips at her temple. "It wasn't supposed to be a guilt trip. You didn't do anything wrong."
She scoffs and he tightens his arms around her.
"Kate, you didn't. I'm just jealous," he admits, smoothing his hand down her spine. "I'm always going to be jealous. But not angry. Well, not at you. Maybe slightly at the Demming family for making you feel unwelcome."
"They just didn't want their son to get his heart broken and I think it was pretty clear how that was inevitable with me," she confesses quietly, her cheek at his shoulder. "I felt so guilty - being with him, not being over you - I had to step out, call Alexis."
"You called Alexis?" he asks, his voice level but the surprise alive in his chest as she nods.
"I told Tom he should stay with his family for the night, for Christmas. He knew I spent Christmas day with your family and we never even talked about it, but having him come… it just wasn't an option."
He feels himself relax a little at that, feels like an asshole for it, but he can't help appreciating that there were certain parts of his life, his life with Kate, that went untouched by another man.
"It wasn't fair, to just shut him out like that," she sighs, but her arms are tightening around his torso. "He understood, though. He stayed with his family and instead of driving back home, I drove here. Lily didn't mind, knew Santa brought presents to both the loft and our apartment," she chuckles, but it's watery, empty, and breaking his heart. "I just needed to be here."
"That's why you called Alexis," he murmurs and Kate nods again.
"Lily made Christmases beautiful, brought the joy back into them, but I just - god, I hated them without my mom, but I hated them even more without you," she gets out, one of her hands releasing his shirt to snake between them, swipe at her eyes. "It's why this year is so important. It's the first year I'm actually looking forward to it and feel like I can finally give her the Christmas she deserves-"
"Kate," he breathes, easing back to see her face. Mascara is smudging the corners of her eyes, her nose tinted red, so much guilt running through every line of her features. "You've made every Christmas special for her."
Her brow instantly furrows. "Rick, you can't know-"
"Yes, I can." He skims his knuckles along the slash of her cheekbone, sweeping his thumb to a trace of moisture. He hates when she cries more than anything, every tear that slips free chipping away at his heart. "Kate, I look at that little girl and I can see the amazing job you did raising her. The last six years… they've been hell for us both, but you never let any of that affect our daughter. She's been gushing about Christmas since Thanksgiving ended, not because it's something she doesn't get to experience or because it's her first Christmas with me. It's because you've made Christmas into something for her to look forward to regardless of how you feel about it. You put our kid first every time and that's why you're such an extraordinary mother."
She arches on her toes to kiss him, gratitude and desperation that she keeps at bay on her lips. Rick cradles her cheek, lets himself get lost in the ardency of her mouth over his, the way she sighs with content, whimpers softly with need. He wants to eradicate the sadness he can taste on her tongue, the desolation those last six years left, but it's built up, clinging to her.
He vows to rid her of it little by little, to let her and Lily strip away what's left of his own.
A fresh tear streaks down her cheek, pooling against his hand. It has him pulling away with concern, but her lips attempt a fleeting smile against his.
"I'm glad she loves it as much as you," she whispers, lifting her fingers to caress his cheek. "She's so much like you, Rick. She has so much joy and enthusiasm, such a good heart-"
"That's not-"
"Yes, it is," she presses, cradling his jaw in her palm. "Every day I look at her, I see you." Her smile grows, allowing him a glimpse of her teeth and lighting a flicker of gold in her eyes. "I love our daughter more than anything and I may have raised her for the last six years, but I'm not the only one responsible for who she is. She's part of you too, Castle. That inherent good in her, the light she carries, that's always been you."
"Both of us," he settles for, leaning in to seal his lips to her forehead. "You and me both, Kate."
She tilts her head, nose bumping his as their lips brush. Electricity sparks through everything else - the guilt and grief they share, the sadness, the heartbreak, the acceptance - and Castle lifts his other hand to curve at her nape, drag her impossibly closer.
"We can finish putting up the tree later," she murmurs, kissing the corner of his mouth and coiling her fingers along the lapels of his unbuttoned coat.
"Good plan, since I'm cold and we both smell like tree sap," he chuckles, combing his fingers through her hair. "And my scars are pretty tight."
Her hands slip beneath his sweater at the admission of aching he's been trying to ignore all night, scaling her palms along the rough terrain of his back. Her touch is hot and soothing to the Jackson Pollock of scars spattered across his skin, some of the tightness unfurling beneath her fingertips. She presses against the worst one, the thick diagonal strip of raised flesh that spans from the edge of his shoulder to the top of his waist, just shy of his hip. The whorls of her fingertips brand the dead tissue, infuse it with heat that momentarily stops the pulsing irritation.
His chest expands against hers, releases with a deep breath.
"Come on," she murmurs, dusting her lips to his jaw and guiding him backwards, through his office and into his bedroom. "Warm up with me in the shower."
Kate is curled at his back, her hair still damp from the shower and seeping through his t-shirt, but he doesn't dare move. The loft is warm, toasty with the heat emanating from the electric fireplace in the dining room, and his wife is tucked into the corner of the sofa with him, her body draped in his clothes and burrowed against his spine.
She nuzzles her cheek at his shoulder blade, the smooth plane of her skin resting upon strips of uneven and scarred flesh that Tyson ripped open with a whip, a knife.
"Do you remember any of your Christmases these past six years?" Kate asks softly.
Castle pauses with the tangle of Christmas lights in his hands; he's supposed to be unraveling them so the tree can be interweaved with lights before they go to bed, all ready for Lily to start decorating in the morning.
He flexes his fingers within the unintentional cat's cradle of cords and tiny light bulbs. "I had a hard time keeping track of the days, could only tell by the weather what season it was. But Christmas… I never knew when it came and went. Which I'm kinda glad for."
She shifts a little, turning her head to dust her lips at the back of his neck, grazing the tip of the highest scar stretching to his nape.
"Tit for that?" he muses at her calling for his reminiscence of pain after she bared six years of her own, but Kate shakes her head.
"No, I just… I hoped they didn't ruin Christmas for you too," she murmurs, pressing a kiss to his shoulder before moving to rise from the sofa.
Castle catches her wrist, though, dropping the nest of light to the ground between his knees, coaxing Kate into his lap instead.
"I think the most Tyson ever did was throw a candy cane into my cell," he recalls, lacing his arms around her waist when she takes a seat across his thighs. "I remember Nieman bringing me a newspaper article about your success rate around the same time. I didn't think of it as a Christmas gift, since they'd only ever used you as another way to torture me." Kate shifts closer to him, her arms around his neck and her heartbeat sealing against his as her body curls into his once more. "But it wasn't even a photo, just an entry praising the Twelfth, your closure rate. It was gone the next day, but - I guess that was Nieman's way of showing some mercy for Christmas."
"Not mercy," she growls quietly, brushing her lips to the edge of his brow.
"It doesn't matter anymore," he murmurs, squeezing the sharp bone of her hip, meaning it. "I'm here with you for Christmas again, Kate. I get to spend Christmas with my daughters, with Lily for the first time. Every other year, every other Christmas is irrelevant."
Kate sighs, a sound of acceptance this time, agreement, and drops her forehead back to his. Her skin still smells of pine, blending with the intoxicating scent of cherries, her body warm and clean, alight with energy from the time they spent in the shower.
They still have weeks to go, but his Christmas is already off to a wonderful start.
"It'll be our best one yet," she promises. "It'll be special."
He grins and brushes a kiss to her lips, feels a little more of that holiday sorrow melting away beneath his mouth. "It already is."