Sleepless in Manhattan – Chapter 8
Alexis was sitting patiently in the little office of the morgue, awaiting Lanie's return from the freezers. Though Lanie had been reluctant initially, she'd finally caved when Alexis convinced her that her father and Kate needed each other more than ever. Fortunately she had been listening to the show, and so it hadn't been too hard to sway her. She agreed.
The phone had begun to ring and though she had ignored it at first, the incessant loud ringing in the otherwise quiet morgue was grating on her nerves. Justifying to herself that it might be Lanie calling to explain her delay, or someone trying to leave an important message; she finally picked up the phone.
She could only gape in disbelief as Kate's voice came through the line. Not only that, but the usually reserved detective was spilling her guts, almost breathless with it. She had come here to solve the very issue of Kate being incommunicado. So to hear her voice so unexpectedly was a shock to the system. A thousand thoughts and emotions raced through the teen's mind. Her feelings were jumbled, making it difficult to decide whether she felt angry or relieved. There were questions flooding her mind but the one that came to the fore, when Kate had stopped to wait for a reply, was the most obvious. The one she had come here to resolve in the first place. "So you are StormRise?"
She was met with silence, though she could understand that Kate must have been thoroughly surprised to hear her voice, too. Why, after all, would Alexis be at the morgue? All of it felt serendipitous. Maybe even a little ridiculous. She would have laughed if she weren't trying to sort out the sudden overwhelming number of simultaneous emotions.
"Kate?" she prompted.
"Alexis?" came the strangled, disbelieving whisper.
"Yeah. I – sorry, I guess you meant to talk to Lanie, but she's gone to the freezers."
"Oh. Uh…" Kate stuttered, seemingly at a loss for words. It seemed particularly funny after the initial verbal onslaught. But it gave Alexis some courage. If the usually articulate and put together detective was unraveling, she wasn't the only one nervous about this unintentional telephonic confrontation.
"Look, I'm sorry I heard what I was clearly not meant to be hearing; but I'm also not sorry that I heard it. You are StormRise after all?"
"I – yeah. Yes, Alexis," came the resigned reply.
"Is dad the only person you're not talking to?" Alexis asked in a small voice, unable to mask the hurt.
"No," Kate breathed. "No. I haven't spoken to anyone at home, except my father, since last month," she explained, her voice gaining strength with every word. "I only called Lanie after I heard Castle on the radio. It's complicated."
"Why?"
"I've never been good with relationships. I've never been so invested in them. I needed advice, and she's my best friend."
That was frank. Alexis hadn't been expecting it. Kate sounded honest, and she'd had basically admitted to theirs being a relationship. "No, I meant, why is it complicated? Why isolate yourself?"
A deep breath was followed by heavy words. "I take it your father has told you about my mom? About her case?"
"Yeah."
Kate steeled herself for what was a difficult but overdue conversation. Caste knew a lot, though not all, of it. He was surprisingly insightful when it came to these things, so he may have guessed a lot of it too. It had been a while since she spoke about her past when it wasn't forced out of her by a shrink. But it was time. Little Castle was more mature than Kate had realized. She found it
"I was different before her death. More free, more naïve. Innocent. I was much like you, but far more rebellious. I had great ambitions. Did you know I wanted to be a lawyer?"
"Your parents were lawyers," Alexis quietly stated what she knew. What she knew was that Kate was having a difficult time opening up. Anyone would. So she let her take her time, and tell it in her own way. It was funny though, how Kate was discussing her life as a story, much like her father would have done.
"Yes, and I wanted to become the first Chief Justice of America. But after she died, it wasn't so much about what I wanted as it was about what I needed. I needed to get justice – but not as a lawyer. I needed to find the person responsible for ripping my family apart."
"I'm sorry."
"I'd fallen into the rabbit hole then. My father had fallen into the depths of the bottle. It was all I could do to save him from drowning. Montgomery helped me when I was just a rookie – showed me that there was a right and wrong way of doing things. I poured myself into the job and promised myself that I wouldn't turn into the cop who ruled my mother's murder a random mugging. I think, maybe, if your father hadn't turned up in my life the way he did, I would have eventually fallen on that promise."
It sounded horrible to Alexis. If it were her, she would have been devastated. She'd known most of this, of course, but hearing it from the stoic detective added a meaning it was previously missing.
"You know about the fallout I had with Castle when he opened my mom's file again." Kate stated, "I told him then that I didn't want to fall back into the rabbit hole. I'm not blaming him. He had no idea how I got. My mom's death, and everything that happened after – it changed me. I worked hard towards closing myself off from others. I stopped trusting people. It started off initially as a coping mechanism to deal with everything. But it turned into a habit."
"Hasn't dad earned your trust?" Alexis asked. She tried her best to understand what Kate was going through, and she did, too an extent. But didn't Kate understand what her father was going through? Was she even trying to understand him?
"He has," Kate responded quickly with a surety that surprised her, "I'm not saying I don't trust anyone ever, but I do take time to trust people, and to open up to them. And the more they mean to me, the more reluctant I am to trust them."
"What? Why?"
"Because when they leave, it hurts more."
"My dad would never leave you."
"My mom died. Royce left. Will left. Now even Montgomery – " Kate choked on his name. "They all leave."
God, she hadn't realized just how damaged Kate was. She wasn't some comic book hero, or untouchable superwoman that Castle had projected her. She was human. She was fallible and fragile in ways that were – real. Kate Beckett wasn't Nikki Heat, she was real. She was real, and she had just survived a gunshot to the heart. Alexis felt a shiver go down her spine.
"Kate – "
"I've been listening to the show, and yes, I'm StormRise. I tried to justify that what I was doing was right, and that I was doing it to protect Castle. That it was better this way. But I realized that he's right. I realized that I've been selfish, and I'm doing what I do best. I fell back on my habit of closing myself off, of running away to what's safe and hiding behind my walls."
"Give him a chance. Let him in. He just wants to be there for you. He needs to be there for you. He saw you die, Kate. We all did. And then you just left."
"I know. I'm sorry, Alexis. I'm sorry I hurt Castle. I hurt you. I shouldn't have run away. I took the bullet, but I was wrong to think that it only affected my life."
"I understand. At least, I do now. You need to say all this to dad. You were wrong earlier, Kate. It's not too late with him. You've listened to the show; you've heard him."
"I don't know how." Kate said, sounding genuinely distraught.
"Tell him, just like you told me. Show him. More than anything else, he needs to see that you're okay."
"Well, I can't just show up, after a month of silence."
"Not complete silence. You've already spoken to him as StormRise."
"That's different."
"You found courage in the face of anonymity. I get it. But Kate, he chose your letter. Of all the letters, he chose yours to answer on the air. Do you think it was a coincidence? He thought it was you. Stupidly, eagerly hoped it was you. His hope was so contagious that it even got me thinking. That's why I'm here at the morgue in the first place. I needed to know if it was you, even while I was discouraging him from believing it."
Alexis waited for a reply. When none came, she spoke in a quieter voice.
"Look, I heard you. You clearly care about him, too. So do something about it."
"It isn't that easy."
"I didn't say it would be. But it would be right, and you know it."
She waited patiently, allowing Kate a moment to absorb it. It wasn't easy but it was certainly important. This would be a defining moment that would change more than one life. For better or for worse.
"Okay."
Alexis felt a sudden surge of hope flow through her, her free hand coming up over her forehead in palpable relief. "Okay?"
"I'm still not quite sure what to do." Kate said honestly. "It's easier said than done. What if it doesn't work out?"
"What if it does?" Alexis insisted. "Look, we'll end up going in circles about this all night. I'll take care of the rest of it. Dad will be waiting on the Empire State building observation deck at one a.m. on Monday."
Kate had to squelch the irrational and absurd urge to laugh at the cliché that they were turning into. Still, she'd take rom-com over tragedy any day. "How will –"
"Leave it to me. All you have to do is show up. Just show up, Kate," Alexis said with an air of finality as she ended the call. She got up with a resolve and with the conversation and plans whirring through her head, only to be brought up short by the sight of a seemingly impressed looking Lanie. "Oh. Dr. Parish – Oh God, I'm really sorry about –" she stopped abruptly when Lanie gestured as much. She had no idea how long Lanie had been standing there listening to her side of the conversation. This was kind of mortifying.
"Alexis Castle, you have more balls than Kate and that ruggedly handsome father of yours combined. Call me Lanie. We should have coffee sometime," she told a justifiably bewildered Alexis, "but not now. Now, you have plans to make. People to set up. Off you go," she said, essentially shooing Alexis out of the morgue.
Kate stared at her phone in disbelief. Did she just get schooled by a teenager? She had to hand it to Alexis. The young, but smart beyond her years, girl had made it sound easy. Then why did it feel like the most difficult thing in the world?
Just show up, Kate.
AN: Sorry it took a bit to get this out! Hope you like it. Thank you guys for sharing in the enthusiasm for the last chapter.
My gratitude goes out again to Fembot for helping me so much. This thing would've had a lot of bumps without her.