A/N: Sensitive subject matter towards the latter half of this chapter. Tread carefully, my dears.
Jane Doe
Therapy is brutal for the first couple of weeks.
It makes them stiff and awkward around one another, but that's not the worst thing. She can't tell, exactly, what the worst part about it is. Maybe the sessions they have together, when she has to sit and listen to all of his fears and insecurities and doubts. Or maybe the one evening a week when Kate comes home early and makes dinner for herself and her son while Castle is at his own appointment.
Every time he comes back to her he seems hollowed out, empty. As if it's exhausting for him to go through. And her stupid brain won't stop taunting her, imagining the kinds of things he's saying to Burke when he doesn't have to worry about protecting her feelings. They had talked with the therapist about procedural memory, the ways that Kate's body remembers Rick even where her mind does not.
Burke had suggested that they use that, work on reestablishing their relationship with the assistance of that physicality. But Rick had declined, quietly and with such gravity had said that he's in enough turmoil without the confusion of Kate's touch. So she's avoided touching him as much as she can. They still share a bed, but all of the rest of it they push down and suppress. It's been harder than she ever could have imagined.
The thing is, though, that it's working. However difficult the therapy sessions might be, however hard it is not to touch him, the two of them are getting much better at opening up and being honest about how they're feeling. She's been able to ask him more about their life together, fill in a lot more of the gaps, and in return he's offering her details about himself.
There's been a lot of talking, both of them on their backs in the bed they share with darkness shrouding them and the snuffling sounds of their little boy as he sleeps crackling through from the monitor. Kate feels like she knows him, now. Of course not as well as she must have done having had nine years to learn all of the little things. But the most important stuff, the things that really count? She's secure in them again.
Across the booth from where she sits, her father slides in and leans back against the faded maroon leather of the bench seat. It startles her from her musings and she glances up at him, untangling her hands from around the coffee mug in front of her so she can reach across and squeeze her dad's fingers.
A couple days ago when the reminder popped on her phone that she was due to have brunch with her father on Sunday, today, at their usual place, she hadn't been at all surprised. They're creatures of habit, she and her father both. Once a month, every month since her father got sober, they meet to talk and eat and nurture the small segment of a family that remains for them.
Kate had asked her husband if he joins her and he had said no, that he usually fills the time in which Kate is gone by going with Mal to meet Alexis for coffee somewhere. So even though Kate's family has grown and expanded beyond anything she's ever dared to hope for, this sacrosanct meeting remains just for her and her father.
"Katie. You look well, sweetheart." Her dad smiles across the table, nodding at the waitress who shoots him a questioning glance. They'll have their usual.
Grinning back at her father, Kate loosens the scarf from around her neck and pools it onto the bench seat beside her, on top of the coat she draped there earlier. The crispness of this October has taken them all by surprise; there is nothing more adorable in the world than Marlow bundled up in coat and scarf and hat and gloves, barrelling along next to his mom and dad.
"I feel really great. I'm sorry we had to miss last month's breakfast." Kate says, tugging her phone free from her pocket when it vibrates against her thigh.
She has a text message from her husband that, when she opens it, turns out to be a garbled string of nonsense words, most of which seem to have been birthed through autocorrect. As she stares at the message, unsure where to even begin making sense of it, another text pops up on screen below the first.
Sorry, Mal got my phone.
Kate laughs, shaking her head, and turns her cell phone around so her father can read the display. He chuckles, the low sound rich with a mirth that seems to chase all of her happiest childhood memories. "Don't worry about it. I'm just glad Marlow got over the bug quickly, and that it didn't take you or Rick out too."
"Me too." She grimaces, pushing the heels of her hands against her eyes a moment. Her poor baby boy had been utterly miserable, had spent the previous night throwing up and crying intermittently, and so Kate hadn't had to think twice about cancelling the meet with her father.
Four weeks ago, and she can hardly believe that it has already been six since the accident that stole her history from her. Across the table, her father watches her intently, his face softened with kindess. He's old now, her dad. Still fit and healthy and active, still likes to head up to the cabin for fishing and hiking and communion with nature. But there are deep crevices around his eyes and mouth, a kind of tiredness that sometimes takes over the set of his features.
It's been a long time for him to miss Kate's mother. The cluster of years spent without Johanna starting to spill over from the cup of his palms. But Kate has seen the light in her father's eyes when he's around his grandson, the way Marlow adores his papa.
There's a moment of silence, saved from awkwardness when the waitress brings their food and refills each of their coffee mugs. Kate can see the questions that crowd her father's tongue, the lawyer in him wanting to probe her for information, but his fatherly instincts win out and he lets her eat in silence for ten minutes or so.
Once they've had their fill, plates pushed aside so they can rest hands and elbows against the table, her father starts. "So, Katie. . .it's been six weeks. I know you've settled into motherhood; I've seen you with Marlow. But what about Rick?"
"We've been going to therapy. We have a session together once a week, and then we each have an individual session as well." Kate explains. She wants to start cutting down soon, certainly on her individual sessions. She feels good, strong.
The feeling of temporariness has worn off now, and Kate has accepted that this is really her life. She really is married to Richard Castle; they really do have a child together. And, most surprising of all, she likes it. She's happy.
Sure, things with Rick are still tentative a lot of the time, but it no longer feels so cataclysmic. With Burke's help, they're actually managing to work towards the idea of nurturing their relationship again. That someday maybe, even if Kate doesn't get her memories back, her marriage can be as strong and as wonderful as it once was.
"Is the therapy helping?"
"Yes, actually. I feel a lot better about everything. I feel like. . .he's my husband. I married him for a reason. I just have to learn what that reason was, and the therapy is really helping. Plus just living with him, you know? Sharing a life."
It's more of an outpouring than her father was expecting, clearly; he lifts an eyebrow at her and takes a long sip of his coffee, lets Kate's words stew and then settle between them. Sometimes she forgets that she's not the only one who is well versed in interrogation technique.
"And how is Rick dealing with it?" Her father asks, his tone light and conversational. But Kate knows. A couple of weeks ago, her father came over to the loft along with Martha and Alexis, for a family dinner. And neither Kate nor her husband missed the way Jim scrutinised Rick from across the table.
Shrugging, Kate taps her fingernails against the screen of her phone where it rests next to her thigh on the bench seat. "He seems to be doing better. Opening up to me more. And I think he's really starting to believe that I won't run."
That last part, she knows for a fact. It had come up in their session with Doctor Burke earlier this week. Rick is no longer worried that Kate will run away from the responsibilities of this life; in fact, it's quite the opposite. Her husband is worried that Kate is staying because of a sense of duty. That she doesn't love him, never will, and she's only sticking around for their son.
It's not true, and she had almost blurted that out right there in front of Burke. She thinks she might be getting there, but she wants to be careful and sure. Doesn't dare put a name to it, even inside of her own head. There's just no way that she's going to bring it up with Rick until she's absolutely certain.
"I'm glad to hear it, Katie. And for what it's worth, I"m proud of you. I watched you struggle for so long before you and Rick managed to figure it out and build a life together. I would have hated to see you walk away from that."
Oh, she knows. Castle has filled in a lot of the gaps in their story for her. A lot of the framework she learned when he told her about her mother's case; it seems like Johanna Beckett's murder was a catalyst for much of their relationship.
But there are other things, other experiences that nudged them ever closer until they gave up fighting it. Night after night, Kate has lain with her head on her own pillow, safely away from the temptation to rest it on his chest, and listened to him weave stories for her.
He told her about bullets, tigers, bombs, freezers. The kinds of crazy things that she can't remember ever having happened to her, that weren't a part of her life before Rick. They've laughed about it, together in their bed, but Kate hasn't missed the sharp cut to his voice sometimes. The ghost of past hurts that won't seem to leave him alone.
Obviously, there are smaller details that Rick hasn't been able to share with her, things that have escaped his own memory. The irony makes him laugh, puts that look on his face that makes her think maybe he's going to kiss her.
He never does, but she doesn't feel quite so desolate about it anymore. That day too will come.
"I'm not going anywhere, Dad. And trust me, I know how lucky I am to have him. He's been so patient." Kate feels her face unravelling into silly tenderness, and she doesn't bother to reel it in. Not here, not with her father.
Her dad reaches across the table for her and takes her hand, squeezes. "Katie? I love you."
"I love you, too." She smiles, and then by mutual agreement the two of them are sliding out of their booth and wrapping themselves back up in all of their winter layers. Her father opens his arms to her and Kate accepts the embrace, her head settling in the crook of his neck.
Her relationship with him is pretty different to how she remembers it. Partly due to the missing ten years, she imagines, but also the empathy that Kate has for her father now that she has her own child. Being a parent is not at all easy.
And, well, she's starting to understand why he drowned in the bottle after they lost Johanna. From the looks of things, the relationship she one day hopes to regain having with Rick. . .she has no idea how she'd cope if that was taken from her.
"Let's do family dinner sometime soon." Kate says when she steps back from her father's hug. "I'll call?"
For that, she earns herself a grin that creases up around her father's eyes. "You do that."
Her dad leaves enough money on the table to cover their bill and a generous tip and they walk out of the diner together, shoulders brushing. Out front, they share another hug and then they part ways. Kate's father catches a cab, his apartment on the other side of town, but the walk back to the loft is not far at all. In spite of the cold and the sky that rapidly grows into a threatening swirl of steel and ink, she finds herself smiling.
Joy bubbles up inside of her at the prospect of seeing her boys, and it's barely been a couple hours since she said goodbye to them. Kate presses a hand to her mouth so her smile doesn't completely baffle the people passing by her on the sidewalk.
Oh goodness. Yes, it's undeniable. Kate Beckett is smitten.
When Kate came home from brunch with her father on Sunday she was almost giddy, swinging their son up high before she snuggled him close and stretching up on tiptoe when Rick came near, dropping a smacking kiss against his cheek. But now it is Thursday.
It is Thursday, and Rick has only seen his wife for a handful of minutes this week. It is Thursday, and Kate has been a ghost in the loft, only making it home to crash in their bed for a sparse cluster of hours each night.
Rick is waiting up on the couch for her, laptop balanced on his thighs and his fingers make a slow but steady process across the keys. Tonight is not a night when the words crowd at his fingertips and his hands work the keys so quickly, so deftly that an ache starts out in his palms and travels all the way down the pathways of his wrists to nestle and throb in his elbows.
No. Tonight his words are sparse but, he thinks, powerful. He's being careful, choosing only the ones that are needed. And yes, he's more than a little distracted.
A little while ago, Kate sent him a text to say that they've caught their killer and she'll be home soon. It's a relief, that the case is over, but he knows how hard it's been on her. The whole situation has strengthened his resolve to get Marlow into preschool, and soon.
He loves his son, adores getting to be a stay at home father and delight in the new world that Mal opens out for him. But a couple days a week, he needs to be back at the precinct. He needs to be his wife's partner again.
The door to the loft pushes open and Rick closes the lid of his laptop, sets it beside him on the couch and stands up to meet her. He left on a light in the kitchen and a lamp in the living room; the loft is thick with shadow but there's enough to see the slick places at Kate's cheeks where she hasn't been able to hold back the tears.
"Rick-" She chokes out, and he has her in his arms before she even draws breath.
His biceps are big, he's always been aware of that, and once - a long time ago - Kate told him there's no place in the world she feels safest than with the crush of his body around hers. He can't be sure that that is still true, but he has to hope. "Oh Kate. Sweetheart, shh, I got you. Don't cry."
"They were just so tiny." She whispers, and then she's sobbing against his shoulder. It's loud enough that concern flares in his gut, the worry that Kate will wake their son. Mal hates seeing Kate upset, especially when he can't understand why.
Going slowly, Rick guides them towards their bedroom and over the threshold. He hesitates for barely a moment and then he slides his palms inside of her jacket and guides it down her shoulders and off, letting it pool on the floor at her feet.
She's wearing a white button down, a shirt he's come to associate with disaster after more than one heartbreak with her wearing it. Even so, he takes his time, freeing each button from the material one by one until it gapes. He eases the shirt all the way off and leaves her for just a moment, long enough to reach into a drawer in the dresser and find one of his own t-shirts.
It's soft, worn thin and cozy and Rick tugs it over her head, feeds her arms through the sleeves. He reaches up underneath the material to unclasp her bra and tugs that free as well, kneeling down to take off her pants. When he straightens up again, Kate in only her underwear and his too big shirt, he sees that she's trembling. Her eyes are glazed over, blank, but when he takes her hand she does at least come back to him.
He brings her with him over to their bed and turns down the sheets, nudges her to climb in and follows like a shadow behind her. Tugging the sheets up over them, he wraps both arms around her and gathers her up until she's draped half on top of him, nose pressed close against his neck.
"I saw Mal in every one of them. All of those little faces." She murmurs. In all of the years he's known her, he can't recall Kate ever sounding this brittle, this haunted. "Rick, if he. . .I wouldn't survive it."
Carding a hand through her hair over and over, Rick splays his other palm at the dip between the wings of her shoulder blades and presses her close, his mouth forming a kiss against her forehead. "I know. But he's okay, Kate. He's right upstairs, safe asleep in his bed. Do you want to see him?"
"No. I'd only disturb him. And I'm afraid if I look at him right now I'll just see them. I can't take that."
"Okay. Alright, Kate. You'll see him in the morning." He does his best to soothe her, hoping the closeness of his body underneath the sheets will do for her what his words just can't. There've been difficult cases before, obviously. Even some that have involved children.
But none since their own son was born. Earlier this evening, Esposito was texting Rick, keeping him updated as Ryan and Kate interrogated a suspect.
The guy turned out to be their killer. And, well, both Kate and Kevin have been transposing the faces of their own children over those of the victims all week. A tiny slither of Rick almost feels a little sorry for the guy; Beckett and Ryan, according to Sito at least, rained hell.
"I'm so proud of you, Kate." He murmurs to his wife, shifting a little to get comfortable underneath her. "You got justice for the families. I know you know how much that means."
"But I can't bring their babies back." She says, so quietly he almost misses it.
And she's right. He remembers so clearly the all-consuming panic when Alexis was kidnapped, the terrible dread. He can't even begin to imagine the pain if he had lost her for good, doesn't even want to think about it. And Marlow, their sweet, beautiful son.
They both would give their own lives to keep him safe. The thought of losing him has nausea rolling in Rick's guts and he swallows hard, draws in a lungful of Kate's familiar scent that does at least seem to settle him. "You did everything you possibly could have done. You're extraordinary."
For that, he feels a smile against the tender skin of his neck. Over the course of several days, Kate read all of the Nikki Heat books. And each time, he got to watch her pause on the dedication pages. She got to read them over again for the first time and this time, he got to see her reaction.
Granted, he did get to see the nebulous mix of embarrassment and delight that swarmed her face when he first called her extraordinary all those years ago. But this time he got a wide grin, a murmur of thanks.
She'd been mournful when she saw the words he had offered in memory of their fallen captain. Had blushed when she read that he wishes for their dance to never end. And then she'd tracked their relationship through these intensely private, public words he has shared with her. The dedication he had already written for Raging Heat, that called her his wife even though their wedding didn't go entirely to plan. The handful of words he picked to show how proud and grateful he was to be her husband every day for the book that he pushed to be released on their first anniversary.
The dedication he'd poured over for days, trying to find the exact right words for the enormity of his gratitude to her, and his unfathomable joy and adoration for the life being nurtured in her belly. And then after that - for my wife. Thank you for our son. The simplest, but the one that makes even his knees turn liquid when he thinks of it.
If Kate has needed proof of all that they've weathered, the books he's come to think of as theirs are it. "Kate? I love you."
It's the first time he's allowed himself to say the words exactly like that since the hospital. Frank and honest and stripped raw. Kate goes very still, and his heart kicks violently, but then she draws an arm around his waist and her fingers burrow up underneath his shirt, seeking bare skin.
It makes need flare sharply in his stomach but he dampens it viciously, absolutely won't give in. Likewise, he won't push her away from him. Rick tightens the grip of his arms and holds her until she stops crying. His skin feels a little stiff with her tears, brittle even, but when Kate sighs out a breath and her whole body goes limp he finds that it ceases to matter.
"My job is often hard, but it hasn't ever been like this. And I don't remember what it's like to have you at the precinct, but I kept finding myself wishing you were there anyway. To make me laugh, make it easier." She confesses, and his heart soars.
Kate wants him with her at work. Not because she's seen the evidence for herself of how great a crime solving team they make, but because everything she's learned of him in living together has convinced her of it anyway. "You called it pulling your pigtails, once. Said you'd gotten used to it."
"That's exactly it." She huffs a laugh, shaking her head against his shoulder. "Pulling my pigtails. Yeah. Can you miss something you don't remember ever having?"
"I think so, Kate." He murmurs back to her. And even if she is still a little shaky from her crying jag, for the first time in such a very long time Rick feels the seeds of hope burrow close to his heart and take root, preparing to sprout and grow as long as Kate continues to nurture them.