Once again, thank you to everyone who has followed/favorited/reviewed thus far. And also, a big thank you to Ally for giving this a once over.
"Not even a phone call, Kate."
She hangs her head in shame, knowing that he's absolutely right. And even if she spent the rest of her life apologizing and trying to make it up to him, she doesn't think it would ever be enough.
"Mom was killed, Rick." The words still hurt when she speaks them, even after all these years. Yet as much as they hurt, they still don't excuse her actions-or lack thereof-every day since.
"When?"
"The day after you left. Stabbed in the street on her way to meet us for dinner."
"Kate, I-"
"No." She stops him, her hand covering his on the table before she has a chance to think better of it. "Mom's death hit me hard, but it was no excuse to cut you out like I did, especially after I found out I was pregnant."
"When did you find out?" He doesn't retreat from her grasp, but squeezes her hand gently to let her know that he's willing to listen.
"About a month later. I took a year off while I was pregnant and to help Dad, then I transferred to NYU and changed my major to criminal justice."
"Kate, you know I would have helped, right? I would have helped in any way I could."
"I know that."
"No, I don't think you do. If you did-if you really believed I wouldn't have run-then you would have called me." He withdraws his hand from her grasp and leans back on the bench as he runs his hands through his hair.
"I was scared. I buried my mom, found out I was pregnant, and had to fight to keep my dad from finding solace in the bottle-all within a month's time. I was kind of overwhelmed."
"I get that. But for seventeen years? Kate, I've been back in the city for about thirteen of those. And never once did it occur to you to give me a call and tell me that we have a daughter?"
He has a point. She wanted to call him so many times, and especially every time Jo hit some kind of developmental milestone. Every time her little girl smiled, her blue eyes bright and mouth turned up the same way his did, she wanted to call him.
"I want to meet her."
His words shock her, more so in his timing than his intention. She knew that once he knew of Jo's existence, he would want to be involved in her life. She just didn't expect his words to be so abrupt.
"You have met her."
"No, I want you to introduce me to her as her father. Yesterday I met her as 'Richard Castle, famous mystery writer.'"
She nods immediately, not wanting him to think that she's against the idea. She's known from the start that she handled the situation poorly, and this is the only way she knows to start making up to him everything he's missed because she was too scared.
"All I ask is that you give me a couple days to tell her. She doesn't-I mean, I've never told her anything about her father."
"Anything? Now, I know that's a lie. She knows I'm your favorite author." He's smirking at her, giving her a hard time, and it lifts the weight off her heart just enough for her to smile back.
"She's going to think I'm crazy if I get home tonight and declare that you're her father. You might want to check in and make sure she didn't have me committed to an institution."
"Maybe start with something other than 'my favorite author is your father.'"
Kate opens the door to the sound of her daughter groaning loudly, followed by a few choice swear words as a pencil flies across the dining room and lands on the couch.
"Johanna Beckett, watch your temper."
Jo's head whips toward the door upon her mother's entrance, a reluctant "sorry" on her lips.
Kate walks into the dining room and sees the mess coated across it-various printed pages, pictures, and what she recognizes as a school-issued computer that sits next to Jo's own personal laptop.
"Ah, that explains it. Deadline week." She pulls up a chair next to her daughter, immediately seeing the email that has Jo running her hands through her long hair in frustration.
"We go through this every month, yet I still hold out hope that one day everyone will get their shit in on time. Hell, I think I would be satisfied if we could make it through a month when I don't get one of these last minute emails that changes the way the whole page is laid out."
Kate looks at Jo's screen and sure enough sees an apologetic email from a staff writer who won't be able to get her article in on time to make the issue. "How bad is the damage?"
She listens intently as Jo launches into an explanation of columns and headlines and other journalistic terms she only has a general understanding of, and only because her daughter launched herself into it once she started high school. Kate had been wary of it at first, but she couldn't say anything without opening the father discussion at the time.
And yet, here she was now, doing the exact thing she wanted to avoid a couple years ago.
"Mom, you're spacing out. You solved the case, right?"
"Yeah, yeah we did."
"So I guess that means you can't ogle Mr. Castle anymore, huh?" Jo laughs, getting a kick out of her mother's embarrassment earlier in the day.
"Actually, I got his number."
"You didn't!"
"I did," she replies matter-of-factly, not showing any of the excitement that would normally come with scoring her favorite author's phone number.
"Then why aren't you all giddy and gushing about how wonderful he is?"
Kate stands up and walks over to the cupboard, pulling out a wine glass and pouring herself the drink she knows she is going to need to get through this conversation. While her shaking hand pours the wine into her glass, she does her best to steady herself for the reaction that might be ahead of her.
"I've met him before, Jo. Before this case, I mean."
"Wait a second," Jo replies, turning in her seat and giving Kate her full attention. "You mean to tell me that you've met Richard Castle before but never mentioned it?"
"We went to school together."
Kate doesn't have the words to come out and say what needs to be said. She knows she's being a coward, but she's hoping that Jo will help her navigate them through this whole conversation piece by piece.
"I didn't know he went to NYU."
"He didn't," Kate says, taking a deep breath and walking back over to the table to take a seat next to her daughter. "We went to Stanford together."
Jo doesn't respond, but Kate can see her mind working and trying to decipher the big puzzle. She's told Jo about her short time at Stanford-on multiple occasions-and never once has she mentioned Rick Castle's name.
"Just...how well did you know him?"
And there it is, the question that will bring everything to light. Jo asks the question that makes her a curious teenage girl, a good reporter, and-in different ways-just like her parents. And ultimately, it's the question that is going to test the relationship Kate has with her daughter.
"We dated pretty much the whole time I was there."
Kate doesn't hold back anymore, just says the words without preamble, and Jo walks off without a word. No yelling, swearing, or throwing of writing utensils. She just walks off, crossing the living room down the hallway and into her bedroom, the door closing with a definitive thud.
Alone in the dining room, wine glass in her hand and knees against her chest in a chair, Kate decides to wait it out and see if Jo decides she wants the whole story. She can't imagine what is going through her daughter's head right now. The worst part is that Kate hasn't even told her straight up that Rick is her father-that was a connection that Jo made for herself. Jo is right, just as Rick was when he made the same connection a yesterday, but Kate still feels the need to explain.
Determined to make things right as much as she can in one night, Kate walks to the sink and dumps the wine in her glass down the sink, putting so much force behind it that a small amount splashes over the side. She doesn't even stop to clean it up, afraid that she'll lose her resolution if she waits any longer.
When she turns around, Jo is standing in the doorway between the living room and the dining room, looking significantly calmer than before.
"Richard Castle is my father, isn't he?"
"He is, yes." She doesn't try to explain any further, deciding to let Jo ask her own questions now that the main one-the most important one-has been answered.
"Is this-Mom, are we mad at him? Because if you're mad, then I'm mad, too." Jo's voice rises as she gets riled up at the idea that Richard Castle left a pregnant Kate Beckett all alone with no support. But before Kate can speak up and set the record straight, Jo launches into a full out tirade. "How can he do that? Mom, you've done the best you could to provide for me, but I know it's always been a struggle. Grandpa was nice to have around, but damn it, Mom! Why didn't you tell me this when I was at the precinct?"
"Jo, sit down," Kate replies in the softest voice she can conjure at the moment.
"No. He can't just waltz into our lives without a word and expect us to-"
"Johanna Beckett, I said sit down." Kate points her finger toward the couch for emphasis, and Jo wastes no time following her directions. She follows suit, sitting on the edge and leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. When she speaks again, her voice is much calmer. "Don't be mad at him. I'm not."
"What are you not telling me here, Mom? Because right now I'm beyond confused. Why am I not supposed to be mad at the guy who left you to raise a child on your own?"
"He didn't know until two days ago. We can't be mad at him because he didn't know."
Kate waits for Jo to turn her ire toward her, but it doesn't happen. Her daughter, who has always seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to the hardships that came with balancing a career and being a single parent, seems to understand it all without an explanation.
"How did he take it?" Jo asks, the anger finally leaving her in exchange for curiosity.
Kate can work with this, even though she knows going down this road will mean divulging more information about her past than she's ever shared with her daughter. But if Jo is going to meet her father and get to know him, she deserves to know all the factors that were in play.
"He was angry, and rightfully so. I didn't make good decisions when it came to him. And I cheated him out of sixteen years of knowing you."
"And yet you devoured his books on a regular basis, so I know you didn't shut him out because you hated his guts."
"No," Kate says with a laugh, "that was never the issue."
Jo gets quiet again, but Kate doesn't blame her. This is a bombshell, and certainly not one she probably expected when she came home from school today. Her little girl is taking everything remarkably well, considering the circumstances, but Kate wonders how long it will be until she starts to vent her anger toward her mother for holding this information from her for this long.
"He wants to meet you," Kate finally tells Jo, her daughter's expression changing from indifference to shock upon her mother's words.
"I met him yesterday at the precinct."
"No, that was-"
"Me embarrassing you. Turns out, the joke was on me. You were embarrassed for a completely different reason." And there it is, her daughter's sharp brand of sarcasm, one she unfortunately taught her daughter by example at an early age.
"I mean, he wants to meet his daughter." Her mind flashes back to earlier today, when Rick did almost the exact same thing while having a similar conversation.
"And how do you feel about that?"
"Why are you asking me? There's obviously a reason you didn't tell him about me."
"I'm asking because…" Kate waits a beat, collecting her thoughts. "Because ultimately it's your decision. And the reason you haven't known about him until now is more about who I'm not, as opposed to who he is."
"But he's…" Jo starts, and though she doesn't say it out loud, Kate knows what she's going to say-that he's a playboy, a womanizer, a jackass, and a number of other personality traits that have been posted all over Page Six over years.
"None of the things you were about to say."
Jo regards her curiously after that comment. "You're really okay with this, aren't you?"
"As long as you are. I can have him over for dinner some night, and we can just play it by ear."
Jo nods, standing up and walking back over to the dining room table to continue working on the newspaper. Once she returns to the table, her hand on the back of the chair, she turns around and gains Kate's attention once again.
"Mom? Had it not been for this case, would you have ever told me?"
"I don't know," Kate tells her, deciding that honesty is the best way to go at this point. She's lied and evaded the truth long enough. "I'd like to be able to tell you that I would have, but it had been just the two of us for so long. Had we not caught this case, I think it's safe to say I may have just let it go."
Kate knows it's not the answer Jo wants to hear by the way she nods and turns back to the table without a comment of her own. It's not even the answer Kate wants to give, because it just means that she's still the scared person she was as a 19-year-old girl.