Beckett drives them home. Not because her partner can't, but because there is nothing about anything he has revealed that she can spare him from. Likewise, she cannot undo not having asked about it sooner.
Such helplessness and shame haven't dogged her with such vigor since his number one fan dotted the 'I' on his Kevlar vest with a bullet. Castle might not have taken part in that case if she hadn't pushed him to do so. He hadn't wanted to tease her with being part of the scene when she couldn't actually work it with the rest of the precinct. Oh, he'd never said as much. There was no need. At the time she had been hungry for even a taste of the purpose and fulfillment that had been denied her by the Mayor's hiring freeze. And he'd been shot as a result of that choice.
They didn't talk about it. She because it hurt, he because to even address the matter would lend more credence than it deserves. The variables did not support her guilt. Gates would have called again. She would have explained the situation over the phone and Castle wouldn't have been able to say no after that. Not with hostages at stake; certainly not when including a nine-year-old girl. That hadn't made her feel better at the time. It still didn't.
Similarly, having once possessed seemingly good reasons for not looking too closely into Castle or his past did not excuse only now learning the terrible truths hidden therein. How many crime-scenes has she approached over the years, noticing as she did so how the rest of the world seemed content to obliviously go on about its business? How many interviews had revealed peripheral individuals hoarding the truth or the ability to have possibly prevented a murder who didn't because they hadn't cared, or weren't brave enough?
Turmoil is present within her. She is driving because she needs the control it alludes to. Yet this strife does not consume her. It is not allowed.
Because, naughty girl, this is not about just you anymore.
The sun shines on, uncaring and unheeding. Earth keeps turning. Several more inhabitants of the hamlet are visible in cars or walking huddled along the sidewalks—the ordinary bustle of everyday life. It is like steel wool upon her perceptions, made all the more sensitive from a scrape with horror.
"What happened to him?" she finally asks. "To Llewellyn." Part of her needs to know. Another part just wants to hear the other's voice, further proof that he is with her amidst this somewhat surreal day.
Castle's left hand is entwined with her right upon the console between them, both their pairs of gloves forsaken. One exploring digit slides along the web of skin between her index finger and thumb. "I wasn't the definition of a reliable witness. Frank Autry, the deputy in charge of the local substation at the time, was kind of a friend of the family. I suppose a lot of people could've said the same about the man. Uh, anyway…believe it or not there was a time I was known for not making up stories. Mine was a very backwards mental development, I know." Beckett's lips purse in reply, but lack mirth. "I don't remember the conversation, but whatever I said was enough to send him and two more of his men looking for Llewellyn. They found him at the lake. He worked there during the summers as a life-guard."
Neither of them chooses to comment on the irony. It hangs in the sedan for a long, stifling moment. So does the subject preceding it: his time alone and adrift upon the ocean. Kate doesn't have it in her to push him on that issue. He asked for the space. She's relented—for better reasons this time, and only for now.
"I can almost see him," Beckett mused aloud. "I bet he acted like it was just another day."
"Yes," her partner replied quietly. Silence joined them again for another mile or so. Then he continued, "In the end he didn't deny what he'd done, never made a bid to escape justice. The court ruled he wasn't mentally fit to stand trial. He's been under state care since then. I presume that's still the case."
"Wow," Kate issued succinctly. It was a jaded expression of disappointment with the conclusion.
"I know, right? But remember: this was 1974. Hinckley hadn't even heard of Jodie Foster yet. The insanity defense wasn't unheard of, but it was even rarer than it is today. Back then the burden of proof for mental disease or defect was on the prosecution." The author moistened his lips and shifted somewhat restlessly in his seat. "I'm not sure it would have mattered either way. No one argued the decision, not even the families of the victims. Once he stopped trying to hide the truth from us it was obvious to everyone that Llewellyn was…broken."
"Broken," she scoffs quietly. "He's a fucking psychopath."
"I think they use 'sociopath' for him, though I guess that depends on who you ask. That night at the point I would've agreed with the former diagnosis. The things he said…he seemed unhinged in a way I still can't accurately describe. But it was his exceptional intelligence that set him apart, and a chilling absence of empathy which made him a monster. Transcripts from the trial read like something out of a horror story. Llewellyn always knew the consequences of his lies and the violence at the end. It just didn't matter. He never claimed to be superior—he wasn't a narcissist. He chose to hunt us because he could, first one way and then another. It wasn't wrong to his mind. No more wrong than when a cat toys with its prey before consuming it."
"Jesus," she whispered.
"That was the comparison he used in court."
"Yeah, well…I'm a dog person and proud of it."
Castle smiles briefly, nodding in mute agreement.
Kate allowed the conversation to lull. She didn't like hearing him talk about Llewellyn. An unsettling quiescence infused his voice, a subtle yielding of its standard depths in favor of a whispered, almost imperceptible yearning. Subtle, yes, but in the way that heat from a doorknob was indicative of a raging inferno on the other side. She knows the signs because a similar conflagration exists within her. It is no small part of what has always bound them to one another: macabre fascination. They both need to know the stories—the why of it all. That bond has shifted and transformed, but always endured. It existed well before they were proposed husband and wife or even detective and consultant. Back when the connection was merely between an author and his devoted reader.
But Kate loves him now. She wants more for Rick than a lifetime spent exploring darkness. It's not that he can't handle it. It's that she doesn't want him to. She took an oath to carry the shield and protect New York City. He's poised to make a similar commitment to her, but that is not the same thing. One does not demand the other.
It's our quintessential conundrum—wanting to protect each other from ourselves.
"Have you ever visited him?" She regretted the question immediately.
Her companion winced slightly, but his tone didn't indicate any animosity towards her for asking. "No. It's never crossed my mind as anything more than a passing thought. What would be the point?"
"I…I guess I don't know. Some form of conclusion maybe, if possible."
Rick's gaze seemed to bore right through her. "You know as well as anyone: there's no sense of closure to be gleaned from a man who harbors no regrets." He looks away again, as if lending her privacy while she struggles to contain and conceal the impact of his words. "If some form of peace exists to be had, it waits to be discovered elsewhere. That being said," he added thoughtfully, "my answer would probably be different if it hadn't been for Laura. I'm not sure how to explain that better. Whatever she gave me at the time… Well, her legacy has endured long past a sadly brief lifespan."
Beckett didn't know what to say, what to offer that wouldn't come back at her in kind, and so made no reply. Once again she found herself brimming over with the impossible desire to have been there for him during that period of his life. The detective also yearned deeply for a glimpse of his former self, the carefree and life-loving Richard Rodgers. He is capable of that presently, of course, but now she knows it is not solely a viable trait of his personality. Castle also wields it as a proactive self-defense mechanism to keep people from seeing what he doesn't wish to be known.
It kinda figures though, that an author of mysteries would turn out to be shrouded in them.
"If you get any heavier," her partner warned knowingly, "you're going to fall through the floorboards." The sideways look he was giving her only reinforced the words. He rightly suspected she was questioning him again. That was actually a curiously comforting detail. The driver wanted him to know she was unsettled, but it wasn't something she would be comfortable putting into words—probably the wrong ones.
"I warned you to stop feeding me so much," she quipped, only somewhat forcing the humor.
"You have to talk to me, Kate. I understand it might not be easy, but trust me: this is not something you want to leave to my imagination." There was that look again—the one that reminded her of Royce. A sad and certain expectation of the inevitable: in this case for her to leave him the way so many other people in his life had.
Fat chance, babe.
"I'm still processing," Beckett informed him. "It's a lot to take in. Don't rush me." Hearing her commanding tone elicits a hesitant smile in her partner's stern countenance. "You know, I just realized there's a glaring omission in everything you've told me so far."
"The piano," Rick stated evenly.
Kate shifted in her seat, rattled by his intuition. Never gonna get used to that. "Yeah. That's what started all of this, but you haven't mentioned where it fits."
Castle sighed quietly, but his only answer was to face the road ahead as she turned onto his private road. It was paved, wide enough for two vehicles, and wound gently for a few hundred yards before the woods gave way to the open landscape upon which his beach house had been constructed.
"Home sweet home away from home," she breathes, which has become a ritual of sorts upon their arrival here.
"Oh good—you remembered to pack some poor grammar," he replied, which he usually did.
"I only wish it were summer." Her teeth chattered softly when she relaxed the muscles in her jaw. "You have the keys, right? 'Cause by this point my nipples could probably serve as makeshift glass cutters if we need to break in."
His expression sagged briefly in surprise, but quickly lit with barely contained amusement. "I don't believe you," he simpered. "Show me."
"No way," Beckett grumbles, sheltering her breasts with her hands, arms crossed defensively. "You know me," she accuses mildly. "I don't draw my weapons unless I'm prepared to use 'em."
They rose from the car as their repartee continued, which was quickly becoming less about distracting one another from their woes and gaining genuine humor and affection. Maybe she should be pressing him more aggressively for answers—certainly she had learned her lesson there. But it was so goddamn good to see him relinquish the burdens of the past and simply exist with her in a lighter present. Time seemed to be on their side for once. They had the whole weekend ahead. It was true what he'd said earlier: somehow she was able to unwittingly pull him away from all of that. Her fears about how he's different are not unfounded. But look how wonderfully you remain the same. This is no façade—no wall by which he keeps her at a distance. This is him lured out from behind those barriers by the desire to come play with her.
It is a deeply humbling thought, not an unpleasant ache and weight upon her heart.
"What's mine is yours, and yours mine," Castle reminded her, circling a finger in the air to indicate her chest.
"Oh yes," Beckett encouraged throatily with a dramatized version of an ecstatic eye-roll, "seduce me with your bastardizations of common law."
"No," he chided mildly. "I'm merely stating a happy truth. It's called sharing."
"Sharing," she repeated slowly, as if the word were utterly alien.
Blue eyes seemed to glimmer with unspoken laughter. "All the cool kids are doing it."
Kate set her features to broadcast consideration of his reply as they came together before the hood of his car. "Alas," she chirped at length, "I'm sworn to give myself only to someone who can defeat me in battle."
"Like Red Sonja," he gasped and leaned to one side as if likely to swoon. "God she was hot."
"Castle…" she began warningly.
"The way she handled that sword," he groaned blissfully. "So blatantly, yet splendidly phallic."
Beckett just glared.
"And her ultimate objective?" the author continued unabated. "To be the bearer of the Creator's glowing orb? I mean really. Damn." He slowed his speech to fully punctuate the words, "They have her…pursuing…balls. Well, just one really, but still. That's soooo shameless. Better still, her driving goal is to destroy it! She's literally a scantily clad, sword-waving, ball-buster. As a fellow writer, I'm horribly drawn to admiration for such bald contempt even as I despise it for a complete lack of subtlety." Despite the critique her fiancé was giddy with approval. "Whoever wrote that story clearly experienced a deeply conflicting relationship."
"One can only imagine what that feels like," Beckett jabbed with a subtle lift of her eyebrows.
"Which part?" he parried with his trademark smirk. "So far the parallels are downright staggering."
Hazel eyes enlivened by the sun dipped pointedly between their bodies. Her hands lifted to his waist, playing at the edges of his unfastened coat. "Are you asking to see my sword play, Rick?"
He sniffed, lifted his chin. "I'm willing to settle for a glimpse of your glass-cutters. I'm a gentleman."
"Wow," she blurted. "I…I can't think of a reply that doesn't involve farting noises."
Castle tipped his head back some, laughing aloud. "Oh goodness," he breathed at length, still quivering lightly. "You are such a lady."
"Fuck yeah. I got class comin' outta my ass."
"You're a poet who doesn't know it," he added, less humored, more affectionate. By his expression and body-language she could tell her lover was only then realizing that they were having fun together. Today of all days. "My own walking, talking stick-woman," he declared as his smile slowly faded. The author reeled her in by her coat until the lines of their lower halves merged sublimely.
"Callin' me skinny?" she teased, but moistened her lips in mute invitation to his.
Attentive audience the man was; he needed no further prompting. The subtle shadow imposed by his height eclipses the sun as they ease in. An undercurrent of pleased anticipation quivers in her blood to feel the warmth of his breath, to be suffused by familiar scents and foreknowledge of the intimate texture of the oncoming kiss. All the details stood out to her at that moment, raw and affecting. They wound into her senses and straight down through her body to coil in her middle, destined to become an aroused blend of warmth and moisture.
Yet a jarring interruption ground them to a halt with a scant centimeter to spare between their mouths, a third voice which arose from close by. "Well, I see Valentine's Day weekend is off to a fine start here."
They turn in surprised unison to see Martha Rodgers standing in the opened doorway.