Chapter Three
Facing The Music
Alexis Castle was at wit's end. Her guilt over her own behavior the past couple months had her heart twisted in knots .
Yes, she had had a valid point at the beginning, one she had needed her dad to understand about accepting that she was growing up and respecting her choices. It was part of the rationale behind going to Costa Rica in the first place. She needed to figure out who she really was, out from under the shadow of her father's scrutiny and protection. It was still a valid point, it just got lost in translation because of the less than respectful way she went about it the past few weeks.
She had been asking herself all day, how was she supposed to expect her father to respect her choices, to respect that she was an adult, when she had so clearly not behaved like an adult, not treated him with respect, nor respected his choices in life? Now she was deeply afraid, no she was terrified, that in her anger over the engagement, she had asked herself this question far too late. That she had broken the pea pod bond and damaged the relationship between herself and her father beyond repair.
It was at this point, in the depth of her despair, that the familiar ring tone of "dad...dad...dad" went off on her iPhone.
Be at the loft 5PM Bring Pi
I need to speak to both
of you privately.
Dad.
It was likely the most terse message she had ever received from her father. The message was neither angry, nor sounded in any way conciliatory. Not that Alexis was expecting much of the latter at this point. Dad intended to speak his peace, and both she and Pi were going to listen. There was, however, no room for interpretation, this was not a request.
Up to only a day ago, she would have either ignored his message entirely, or sent an angry, outraged message of her own. Demanding to know what this was all about, and renewing her demand that he show her more respect. 'Oh, the difference a day makes' Alexis mused to herself.
Her revelations from the day before and her phone conversation had her mindset in a completely different place than she had been since returning from Costa Rica. She hadn't merely jumped a turnstile in the subway these past two months. She now realized that she had done something far worse.
She had tried to ram her independence down her dad's throat, along with her relationship with Pi. She had demanded that he recognize her choices and opinions as valid, while casting aspersions on his own choices, his right to have his own opinions and keep his own counsel in the process. For no other reason than that his were not in agreement with her own.
He was no longer behaving like the dad who let her see herself as the parent in their relationship. No longer the playmate and partner in crime she had known since as far back as she could remember. He was taking back the role of parent from her and was no longer going to brook her near constant disrespect. He'd had enough, and he was putting his foot down.
She would be there on time, with Pi in tow. She had demanded for the last two months that dad accept Pi and respect his place in her life. Only she had comported herself badly throughout the entire affair, and given her dad no valid reason to do either of those things. Nor had she given him any reason to respect her choices when she had not granted him the same courtesy. Dad had deserved better from her than the abysmal behavior that she had displayed toward him lately and now it was time to face the music.
Castle Loft5PM sharp
When the two of them arrived at the loft, if she had been expecting a warm greeting from Grams and dinner on the table, she would have been sorely disappointed. Instead, dad had met her at the door, motioned them inside and waved them over to the couch. Ever the gracious host, even as angry with her as she figured he must be, he handed her a cup of coffee, made precisely the way she took it at college. (she rarely drank coffee at "home" but she was only a little surprised that he had taken the time to find out) and him, a fruit smoothie. A true show of Noblesse oblige toward an invited guest his home. A gesture on his part that she really hadn't expected, making her own behavior lately seem even more foolish.
As they passed the couch where Pi had slept for the better part of the last two months, her dad waved her to sit as he motioned for Pi to follow him into his office. She moved to object, but her dad silenced her objection with a glance. Obviously this conversation was for Pi, and Pi alone.
Pi followed Rick into his office and sat down in the chair opposite his at his desk. Alexis had sat in that chair many times growing up and it irked him just a little for her live-in boyfriend to be sitting there. He opened the center drawer and pulled out the two packages he had had delivered to him at the precinct.
"I took advantage of your less than diligent view of house cleaning to obtain your prints and sent them to people I know in both Interpol and the Amsterdam police. I know everything there is to know about you, Pi. You aren't necessarily a bad kid, but there's enough there to have you deported back to Amsterdam if I have to. Don't make that necessary and in return I will keep that information to myself. Just that you know that I know is enough".
He opened the package from the Dutch Consulate and handed Pi a new passport.
"I also got you a new passport, with a backdated stamp for your entry into the United States. Don't lose this one, I won't do it again."
"Thanks, Mr C.! I really appreciate it!"
Pi brightened as he looked at the brand new passport, unsure where Alexis' father had gotten the photo of him for it, but he was certain he didn't want to know. Castle waved him off before he could start to gush.
"I didn't do it for you, Pi, I did it for my daughter." Castle began, as stern as when he started, the look in his eye silencing Pi where he sat, mildly intimidated.
'Good,' he thought to himself, 'Alexis let him know I'm not fooling around here.'
"Whatever it was Alexis did to get you here," Rick continued, "was likely highly illegal, and if you actually care about her, you should not have allowed her to do that on your behalf. If, as she wants to believe, you actually care about her as much as she does for you, you need to start putting her first, like I have for her entire life."
The second thing he pulled out was from the parcel he had gotten from INS, an official "green card."
"As much as I am sure you enjoy your job counting bees, without one of these I am sure you had to get said job under the table. If you are going to pull your own weight in the living arrangement you currently share with my daughter. I suggest you get a more reliable, better paying one, at least on the side."
Pi was perceptive enough to know that this rather one sided conversation was drawing to a close. He wasn't a complete fool. But, as he rose from the chair and turned for the door, Rick cleared his throat, stilling the younger man's movement toward the door, as he moved in close enough for his cold blue eyes to bore straight into Pi's.
"As Alexis may have told you, I do a lot of research for my books to keep them accurate. To that end, I have cultivated a rogues gallery of very well connected friends in a lot of unusual places. Not all of these friends are particularly law abiding, some of them don't officially exist, and some of them quite honestly scare the shit out of even me."
He saw that Pi was beginning to wilt under his direct, unwavering scrutiny, which meant the point he was trying to make was not lost upon him. "Good, he isn't a complete fool." Rick mused to himself. He usually played this conversation for laughs, but this time he wasn't kidding.
"Let me make one thing perfectly clear." Rick continued, "If you ever hurt Alexis, or break her heart any more than it already has been, you will, quite simply, not be around to do so again. Take that however you need to to sleep at night."
When Alexis saw Pi walk out of her dad's office, his skin two shades paler that when he went in, she knew her father had had "the talk" with him and he had not been kidding around. Pi was clearly intimidated.
Now it was her turn, and she clearly was not looking forward to it. She was about to rise to Pi's defense, her "What did you do?" expression clearly in place. But he didn't rise to the bait, only indicated the leather sofa in the office, offering to refill her coffee, which she politely declined. Once the pleasantries were observed, he took her hand in both of his and began to speak.
"Alexis, I know that I haven't had the easiest time letting go since you graduated from high school and went off to college. That I haven't had the easiest time seeing you as an adult and that I need let you make your own way and your own mistakes. It hasn't been easy for me. I look at you and still see that little redheaded pink bundle the doctor placed in my hands twenty years ago, or the three year old I used to take to the park. Kate has been trying for years to help me see that. Even before we got together. With very mixed success."
"But Pumpkin, if you want me to start seeing you as the adult you are becoming, if you want me to accept and respect the choices you make, then you need to start presenting them in such a way that reflects that. You need to start behaving like the responsible adult I know you are and can be."
Rick paused for a moment, choosing his words with great care. He wanted to get his point across without insulting or alienating her, but he also knew he needed to make that point completely clear.
"You were right the other night. I don't accept Pi. I neither respect him as a man nor the way he comports himself. I'm sorry, but I honestly don't see in him what you do, and I probably never will. My offer to try to learn to accept him was not sincere and I should not have made it. I have never lied to you Alexis, not in your entire life. It would be wrong of me to start now."
Alexis nodded, noting what he said and left unsaid. She was hurt and disappointed that he couldn't make that leap she wanted him to, but she understood she had not exactly done a great job of trying to impress upon him what she saw in Pi either.
"You told me the other night that you didn't want to expose Pi to my disapproval and lack of acceptance, Alexis, but it was your actions that virtually guaranteed that from the beginning. I might have been willing to meet you halfway there, had you presented him to me properly and treated me with more respect, but you didn't do that."
Alexis broke eye contact, trying to hide her shame at her behavior. She had come to much the same conclusion not that long ago herself. It bothered her more than a little that she could have gotten what she really wanted, had she handled things the right way, the way she should have from the beginning.
She couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes as he continued.
"You brought him into my home without my consent when you knew I was away. Gave him full run of the house, allowed him to violate Kate's privacy and mine with absolutely no regard or respect for my feelings one way or the other. Then to add insult to injury you looked me in the eye and demanded that I accept him and respect your choices after spending nearly two months disrespecting me and mine in my own home. How you handled this whole affair was not fair to me and to be honest not necessarily fair to Pi either."
Alexis looked up in shock at that, she hadn't expected her father to point out any form of unfairness to Pi, given his already stated disdain for him. That it was partially her own actions that had cost Pi her father's respect sat heavily upon her heart, as a single tear coursed down her cheek.
"I honestly thought I had raised you better than that. Taught you more about respect for others than that. Obviously, I failed you as a father somewhere along the line and I am honestly, sincerely sorry for that, Pumpkin."
That admission caused her even more shame than any other part of this situation. That, at the heart of it all, he blamed himself for the way she'd acted. That they honestly caused him to believe that he had failed her as a father. It broke her heart to know that he gave himself so little credit as a father. She would not have traded her life with him for anything and could not contemplate what that life might have been like had her mother decided to raise her, instead.
"I can't promise you that I will ever be able to fully accept Pi at this point. You can't force that, and it was wrong of you to try. It will be up to him to prove to my satisfaction that he is worthy of you, because I honestly don't believe he is. It is just something that you are going to have to get used to."
"I love you Alexis, with all of my heart. I have from the day you were born. No matter what choices you make and whether I agree with them or not, you will always come first in my heart and will always, always have a home here. For your sake, and yours alone, I will tolerate Pi. If he wants more than that from me, if he wants my acceptance and respect, then he is going to have to put forth the effort to earn them. You can't demand that from me for him, it doesn't work that way."
Rick pulled a small key ring with a single key on it out of his pocket and placed it in the palm of her hand, gently curling her slender fingers around it.
"Here's the key to the storage unit. The old furniture from the last remodel and a few accent pieces from the Hamptons house that might fit the theme the two of you are going for are in there, as well as the couch I offered you before. Not to mention a few things from the place I had before I met your mother that even Pi might appreciate. You and Pi are welcome to go through the storage unit to your heart's content and take whatever you need. I trust you to know which boxes to stay out of."
Alexis looked down at the storage unit key in her hands and could not believe that after everything she had said and done to her father, that he was still willing to make this gesture. That he hadn't written her off as a lost cause. She had allowed herself to forget that nearly everything he did, began and ended with his love for her. Love that had never wavered in the entire twenty years of her life. Not even her mother had ever shown her such devotion.
"I'm sorry daddy, for being such a bitch since I came home. For not respecting your wishes or your privacy and for using Kate to hurt your feelings. I was angry, and I didn't mean what I said about her that night. She really is the best thing that ever happened to you. I hope you can forgive me."
Alexis sprang forward and threw herself into her father's arms, hugging him fiercely with tears spilling out of her eyes, as her father whispered in her ear.
"I wasn't exactly being a very good guest in your home, either, pumpkin, there was nothing to forgive. Though that apology really should be directed at Kate. She is very sensitive about your approval. She's only held off from moving in, because she doesn't want you to think you're being replaced."
"I know, dad, I spoke to Kate earlier and apologized to her as well."
"That's good, pumpkin, because I hope to keep her around for a long time, so that she can give you all of that advice she's been giving me over the years about you in person. There is just some "girl stuff" that a father really doesn't need to know about."
As Richard Castle finally saw Alexis and Pi out, he hoped he had done the right thing. That he hadn't been too harsh, but everything seemed to be working out.
After putting the two of them in a cab, he hurried back up to his floor. Kate had called with a change in plans. She was coming over to the loft to help cheer him up. She told him she would be wearing the outfit she'd had on when they had been cuffed together two years ago...and bringing her handcuffs.
"This time we do it without the tiger." she had said.
He liked the sound of that. The only tiger he needed in his bedroom was Kate Beckett.
Let the games begin.
**Author's note** And there you have it. The end of my little tale. I think that 6x07 was a much better epilogue for this business than I could write, so I just decided to end it here and write myself out of the corner I left myself in. If you were expecting Rick to punish Alexis I guess you needed to think again. Alexis punishes herself more thoroughly than anyone else ever will.
Now I feel the inexorable pull to work on some of my other fic. Until tomorrow everybody.
