Notes: This chapter takes place during 2x12 "A Rose for Everafter." I'm taking advantage of the winter hiatus to put a little time between the case and the successful wedding ceremony.
Part Ten: How Much Grief
Castle was set to head out for the holidays—a time he would dedicate as usual to his family—when something new on Beckett's desk caught his eye. He picked up the small greeting card and admired its whimsical touch of abstract art. "What's this?"
Beckett leaned up from her chair to reach for it and murmured, "A thank-you for solving a case," as though the tone of her voice could make a mystery any less interesting to him.
"Looks like an invitation," said Castle, effortlessly dodging her hand.
"It is," she admitted, now that he'd gone and opened the card. "It's an invitation out of gratitude." By now, he would have seen the little note inside that said as much. She finally swiped it back and set it on her desk. "Look, Castle, I'm sorry I didn't tell you. If you don't want me to go, I under—"
He interrupted her with a question that he spoke as a definitive statement, rubbing in the fact that he knew her so well: "You haven't accepted it yet, have you."
The chance to shatter his complacency was as pleasurable as a promising poker hand: "As a matter of fact, I did. Kyra and Greg said it'd be small and low-key and they just wanted the lead detective on the case to represent the team and celebrate with them and—what?" She studied his gloating smirk, disheartened that showing her hand had apparently backfired somehow. "What's that face for?"
It was this look of serene mischief that drove her craziest. "I'll see you there," he said.
She dropped the gentleness she'd offered him just a moment ago. "Your ex invited you to her wedding? On purpose?"
He gave a shrug of a nod. "We parted amicably."
He needn't have reminded her, but she didn't bother to tell him that she'd witnessed the amicability through the glass of the conference room door.
"So," he continued when she didn't, "plans for Christmas?"
"Yep." She turned her attention to her paperwork in the hope that he'd stop asking questions.
"Good." He nodded approval that she didn't need. "Well, I'll be gone for two weeks," he said, even though he'd told her this before. Stalling.
"Don't worry, Castle. We won't call you out to a scene in the middle of the night," she promised with a teasing smile. "Not 'til you need to procrastinate again, at least." Then, lest he mistakenly believe that this conversation was meant to continue, she shuffled some files on her desk (oh, how he loathed even the suggestion of paperwork) and told him, "G'night."
He took the cue, smiling back and turning to go, but then hesitated. Sure, he couldn't meet her g'night with a tomorrow this time, but—"Hey," he said. "For the wedding—pick you up at five?"
She flashed him The Look.
"Right," he amended resiliently: "I'll just . . . meet you there."
That week, Castle decided to dedicate something besides Heat Wave and a coffeemaker to the Twelfth precinct.
He'd convinced the catering company to print a note to accompany the long table lined with heated trays, large bowls of tossed salad, and a fantastic platter of cookies: To all my friends at the Twelfth, with gratitude. R. Castle. A banquet in the bullpen for the family of cops to share on Christmas Eve.
There were a few snickers about the benevolence of the rich old Scrooge, but those were immediately quashed by those who knew that Castle's holiday spirit and general optimism made him the anti-Scrooge, no life-altering epiphany required.
Beckett was not part of that conversation, a few cops chatting at the other end of the table as they helped themselves to the entrée, but overhearing it made her smile. For one thing, it wasn't often that she caught gossip about Castle that had nothing to do with either her or the women he was tailing. And for another thing, well, to someone already familiar with his stubborn optimism, anti-Scrooge seemed a fair title.
Gossip aside, the token of edible appreciation left her with a bevy of questions. Did Castle know that she was going to be working tonight? Was she one of his friends at the Twelfth? And if he didn't know she'd be there, was he intentionally giving a collective gift to her department and nothing to her? Not that she had given anything to him—but still. Why show gratitude to all the cops who didn't put up with him day in and day out and not to the one he shadowed? And if he thought that Nikki Heat thing had been some kind of a gift to her, he had another thing coming.
But none of these questions were the sort that she could pose to Castle. The only one she even entertained the idea of asking him was whether he'd somehow known that she would be working that night, but a million times more appealing than that conversation and the vulnerable places it might lead her was simply resigning herself to not knowing.
There was plenty that she didn't understand about Castle. Why should that ever change?
Besides, this would all seem like old news by the time she saw him in two weeks, and calling him any earlier would be disrespectful of his wishes to be left alone so that he could devote the season to his family.
She certainly had no intention of doing that.
As the New Year came and went, Beckett wondered as she always did whether this might be the year that her resolution would actually bring her resolution. Eleven years cold, she'd put her mother's case behind her, and every year she promised herself anew that she would make peace with that.
Ever since she'd made detective, she found herself in the precinct on the ninth of January. The beautiful thing was that it was never by Beckett's own orchestration, like volunteering to cover holidays even when she'd otherwise be off. Thanks to some irregular shift scheduling and a perfectly timed leap-year, January ninth had fallen on a work day every single time.
Until now.
The very idea that it was the first time in a decade that the anniversary fell on a Saturday—one more small reminder of the day itself—was a detail that disturbed Beckett in a way that she hadn't expected. But the fact that she would have all 24 hours of that day unaccounted for struck her with a sense of dread.
With just two days to go, she needed to make plans. She needed to find something to occupy herself. She needed it not to feel like a Saturday of a winter vacation.
Only one man had the power to help her.
She barely waited for Captain Montgomery to invite her inside when she rapped on his office door. "Sir," she said, all-business; respectful yet assertive, "I'd like to work this weekend. I'd be happy to cover someone's shift if overtime's an issue. Do you have anyone who could use a break?"
"Yes," said Montgomery. "You." He cut her off before she could disagree: "You already covered Christmas and New Year's. You've been going hard on these last couple of cases, not to mention you've got trial prep next week. They'll need you well rested. Take your weekend, Detective."
"But, sir—"
"I know," he said firmly, a certain kindness in his eye making up for the unwavering authority of his voice. "I know what this weekend is. But Kate, you cannot hide away in this precinct forever."
He'd disarmed her with that. She didn't want to be Just Kate here; not tonight. Just Kate didn't have a badge or an assignment. Just Kate didn't know she'd enroll in the Academy. Just Kate at this time of year slipped too easily into a past that she had resolved to put in its proper place. Beckett, on the other hand, had not only armor and a service weapon but her duties to protect her.
Montgomery seemed to realize that he'd cut close to the quick, so he did what his charge needed from him while standing by his own judgment. "Detective Beckett," he addressed her, even more commanding and steadfast than before. "You are off-duty as of the end of your shift tomorrow. You will report back on Monday for trial prep as previously designated. That's an order. Is that understood?"
She met his eye, finding strength and stability in assuming this role. "Yes, sir, I understand," she replied, but what she said next caught even the detective by surprise, and once it was out, she would not take it back. "Then, with all due respect, I request tomorrow off. I'll finish the fives I'm working on by the end of today."
Something inside her screamed that more free time was the very last thing she needed to inflict on herself, but part of her countered that a Friday off would make Saturday feel that much less like Saturday. Besides, one day's work on a fresh case that she would have to leave to her team while she obeyed a mandate for rest would do her no good.
Whatever the reason, the captain didn't ask; simply stared back with an expression that told her that, even though he had no jurisdiction in her personal life, she'd better not do anything stupid while she was gone. "Request granted."
Sometimes ideas and reality were so far from each other it was ridiculous. What the hell was she going to do with a three-day weekend?
She was in no mood to read Grin, not after the man went and died a month before his fifty-second birthday and left his beloved in a paradoxical whirlwind of stoic solitude and traumatized mourning.
The reminder was inescapable: Johanna Beckett had died one month before her forty-eighth birthday. When Kate thought about what a big chunk of Minaret's book was left even now that the main character had died, it made her sick to her stomach. She had an indomitable will to live, as well as decent survival instincts, but sometimes it scared her to consider how many years of grief still lay ahead of her.
When it came down to it, it was actually easier to count how many years she'd already survived the loss. Eleven, as of tomorrow.
She knew so few people this long after their loved one had died; most of the survivors she encountered on a regular basis had much fresher wounds. She remembered that feeling, could relate seamlessly to that situation.
But how much grief were you supposed to feel after 11 years? She was coming up on this eleventh year like it was the proverbial eleventh hour.
It seemed to Kate that, even with the healing she'd done thus far, the grief itself never lessened. There was still a void in her heart where her trust belonged; trust in a world that wouldn't deny her the life and love of her mother, the wellbeing of her father.
Over the years, part of her had expected that the grief would lessen under changing circumstances: It would hurt a little less once she finished her course of therapy, it would hurt a little less when her father found sobriety, it would hurt a little less when they'd passed the ten-year mark, it would hurt less still whenever they finally collared the bastard responsible for her mother's death.
Her theory hadn't totally held true all of the other times—after her own therapy and her father's recovery and now surpassing that first decade—and that made her all the more afraid that knowing would be barely any better than not knowing.
What if she was wrong about closure all along? What if there was no such thing? What if, even in pursuit of a very real killer, she'd been chasing a mythological beast?
As though the very thought of mythology had conjured him, Castle knocked at Beckett's door.
When she opened it and found him in her hall, she was not pleased to see him here for the first time. The closest he'd ever gotten to setting foot inside her apartment was sending her that gown for their undercover venture to the charity ball last year. And even then, she'd managed to pick him up from his place.
It wasn't that Beckett didn't believe in a home-field advantage; it was just that she preferred not to invite trouble into her home.
That philosophy stuck as she offered her uninvited visitor no greeting except: "If you're here to try to cheer me up, I'm going to kick you in the teeth."
Earlier that morning, when Castle returned to the precinct a couple of days later than expected, all set to apologize and get back to work, Montgomery and Ryan and Esposito told him that Beckett had taken the day off.
They'd slipped him a few subtle hints about what she might be going through, so now Castle was prepared for her to hide behind a brusque exterior. His tactic was to start off light and vaguely self-deprecating. "Help me procrastinate," he began, sparing her the dirtier than I meant it.
She didn't bite. "Castle, I left you alone over the holidays." Clearly as far as she was concerned, it was his turn to back off now.
Instead, he was distracted. What a multifaceted word—holidays. Castle had taken time to celebrate the traditional festivities of Christmas and New Year's and his daughter's freedom from school; for Beckett, the ninth of January was a personal holy day.
That realization changed the course of his response, made him more honest about what he was really doing here.
"Look," he said, still not sure what he wanted her to see because now he was making up the words as he went along: "I want to do something for you. Even if it's just keeping you company so you don't have to do this alone."
But she was still guarding her post at the door, refusing him access with every fiber of her being. "I don't want you to do anything," she insisted fiercely. "Do nothing, Castle. Can you do that?"
"I—I don't know." A wiseass comment about the impossibility of literally doing nothing was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't get it out, distracted as he was with the fire in her eye and the weight of his heart. And did she mean do nothing in companionable silence with me or did she mean do nothing and leave me alone?
"Then go figure it out somewhere else," she said, and she shut the front door without another word.
As private and enigmatic as Kate Beckett could be, she certainly had a knack for answering questions that he didn't ask, especially those he was not-asking very loudly.
She woke alone, she traveled alone, she arrived alone, and she felt alone all the while she was there.
Going to the grave didn't necessarily make her feel closer to her mom; not when Kate kept her close to her heart with the heirloom ring on its chain. But being there and meditating on the Latin epigraph—VINCIT OMNIA VERITAS—was a way to honor Johanna's life and values the way that she did each time she wore the badge she hadn't planned to earn.
So Kate didn't make a ritual out of visiting the grave the way that she'd taken on the necklace and the watch as her daily talismans; she simply went whenever she felt drawn to go, whenever honor was due or a quiet space for reflection was needed.
January ninths tended to fall under that category, anyway, but it was strange not to visit early in the morning or later in the evening, before or after work. The mid-morning sun peaked over a different skyline, casting different shadows, and despite the heaviness of her grief, Kate felt oddly light without her gun and badge, like she could get swept up in a breeze and float away. She realized it was the bad sort of floating feeling; gravity kept her grounded, and so did her work.
She wished she could reach out and link arms with someone who could keep her on solid ground, but she was on her own, so Kate stared at the engraved letters until her mind drifted into the clouds and the stones in the cemetery became no clearer to her than freckles on a distant face.
He agreed to meet her. She was surprised.
But not there—he wanted her to come to him. The place steeped in memories that she wouldn't be able to shut out. But today, she didn't want to. Today she went.
Jim Beckett opened the door before she had the chance to knock, and she remembered what it was like to come home to someone who couldn't wait to see her.
For hours they chatted and noshed, hungry but in no frame of mind to prepare a proper meal or go to a restaurant. They set out all the sorts of snacks and appetizers that Johanna Beckett pretended she didn't love to eat—mozzarella sticks, pigs-in-a-blanket, egg rolls, tortillas and salsa.
A savvy uptown lawyer with a penchant for finger-foods; if he knew, Castle would probably like the image almost as much as teenaged Kate had.
By no means did they avoid talking about Johanna, but there was one thought that was ever in the back of Kate's mind. "I read something recently, Dad," she finally told him, catching him mid-bite and smiling as he tried not to make a mess of himself. "A book I've been reading, actually. It said—an epigraph is like a dedication . . ." to the dead. The rest of the line went unspoken; got stuck in her throat.
Dusting the crumbs from his hands with a napkin, Jim smiled gently. "And I think we chose the right one."
But that wasn't the problem. She looked up at him, aching to find a tone of voice befitting a sincere desire to understand, not one of accusation. "You haven't gone since—"
"Since I got sober. I know." He took his daughter's hand across the table, brushed his thumb along her fingers, and for a moment she wondered if he'd take her to task for her hypocrisy since it was so seldom now that she visited him at home. But his face showed only mercy and the hope that she'd reciprocate it. "Grief, like love, looks a little different for everyone. You know that."
"I do. I understand. I just—"
"Could you do something for me, Katie?" he asked, as though he really wasn't sure. That edge of uncertainty nearly broke her.
"Anything," she said.
"Could you give me a copy of that poem you wrote about your mother?"
The memory, let alone the request, caught her off-guard. "Uh—sure. Yeah. I can do that." She paused, and then, tentatively: "You remember that?"
It was really nothing special, that poem; she barely still knew all the words herself. But what Kate remembered more vividly was the day, several years ago now, that she shared it with her father. He was so hung-over that the sheer sound of her voice must have been a burden to him, and he groaned for her to go away. She wondered now how much of that was the hangover and how much was the grief that her words evoked, that he wasn't able to confront just yet.
Jim was silent for a moment as he sorted something out inside himself. "To me," he began slowly, "your words are even more of a dedication to your mother than that old epigraph."