Chapter 2

Beckett swiftly fell into a rhythm. Well. She forced herself into a pattern, a rhythm. Wake up, eat breakfast with her father, do her exercises; the PT. Every day, she could do just a tiny bit more, add one more step to the tiny distance she could walk. It frustrated the hell out of her, though: how slow and feeble she was, how much energy it took simply to raise and lower her arms a few times.

Her father watched for the first couple of days, grief scraped over his face, as if he were going to lose her all over again, and then he stopped. He took his fishing rod and went out back to the river, maybe – she didn't know – walked the mile to the pond. Somehow, it was easier to do it right without him there. Easier to stop. With her father watching her in that strange, half-frightened way, she had the urge to push herself faster and harder, just to take the expression from his face.

She barely realised her relief when he came back with a fish to clean and gut for dinner: too tired to wonder why she was even a fraction worried. They made a white sauce for it, and then shared ice-cream.

"That was great. Where did you catch it?"

"Down by the pond. I think there are several," her father said happily.

"Big ones?"

"Big enough for dinner."

"Another few weeks and I'll be able to go there too. Bet I can still out-fish you."

"You could not. I taught you to fish." His mouth pinched, exactly – she knew, she'd seen that expression in the mirror – as hers did when worried. "And you're not walking that far till I'm sure you can." She pouted. Jim smiled, suddenly, relieved. "Nope. I'm still your dad. So don't pout at me, Katie Beckett. It didn't work when you were six and it won't work now."

"Did so," she grumbled.

"Did not. Now, shall I make us coffee?"

"You're going to make decaf, aren't you?"

"Yep. One cup of real coffee, and you had it at breakfast." The tension in his shoulders was there and gone so fast that Beckett didn't notice it.

"I guess. Decaf, then," she grumped.

Her dad smiled at her, and everything was fine.

For the first week, she'd slept hard and long, not waking till well into the morning, in bed again before nine and out cold; too tired to think about anything else. After that, though, she was a little more wakeful, which left her father a little more relaxed. He wasn't talking about much, but that wasn't new for them: fish, the warm weather, their meals. All very easy and comfortable; all very fine and dandy.

Right up till she'd been there a week. It had poured overnight, but the sun had been warm and – okay, she'd been so happy to be out in the sun she'd simply forgotten to take care – she'd shuffled as fast as she could, out to enjoy every last sunbeam and do her careful exercises on the grass in front of the cabin.

She'd slipped on the still-wet steps down from the porch and crashed against the ground and fuck it had hurt so much and she'd screamed with the pain: couldn't help it and couldn't help herself, lying there curled around the agony in her chest and the wrist she'd landed on with all her weight.

Her father had come running: picked her up and rushed her to the hospital in Downsville where they X-rayed her wrist and put a plaster cast on the break, checked her wounds, tested her ribs and told her she'd maybe got a hairline crack or two – the vagueness wasn't reassuring at all – and to rest. No PT. No exercises. No movement if she could avoid it.

"And keep the sling on for three weeks minimum," the doctor said firmly. "You need to rest that arm."

"Okay," she acquiesced.

"Katie," her father fretted. "What were you doing?"

"I slipped, Dad. I just slipped coming down the steps and couldn't catch myself. I'm sorry." She winced, hurting and not willing to let the lurking moisture escape her eyelids. "Can we go home, please?"

"Sure. Yes. Let me just get the car. You stay here." She did, too shocked and in pain to move even if she'd wanted to: every time she breathed it lanced across her chest.

Her dad took a little longer than she'd hoped he would, but she assumed he'd had to park a little further away than he'd have liked: the road outside the clinic busy and with No Parking signs all over the main street. He'd ignored them to get her into the clinic, and then gone to park after she was safely in. Nothing to worry about. She ignored the nagging little niggle that she shouldn't even need to think that there was nothing to worry about. Her instincts had been off for weeks, anyway, ever since the night Montgomery had been killed. She was safe now, with her father.

When they reached the cabin, and her father helped her inside, the first thing she realised was that she was going to have some difficulty doing anything at all. The second was that she was in severe need of her industrial-strength painkillers, which led directly to the third issue: that as soon as she took them she would collapse into semi-comatose sleep.

"Dad," she queried uncertainly.

"Yes?"

"Can you" – she squirmed and blushed – "undo the clip of my bra?"

Her father was, if it were possible, even more embarrassed than she was, but he did it. She struggled up the stairs, painkillers in her sore fingers, water glass thankfully already in her room; managed to undress one-handed and perform the most cursory of washes before sliding into bed, taking the elephant sized boluses and plunging out of consciousness.

Downstairs, Jim, still shaking, still seeing the joint memory of Katie fallen and motionless with a bullet through her chest in a cemetery; at the foot of the steps – and for a moment he'd thought it had been another bullet – looked at the purchase he had made. He didn't need it. He didn't.

But he didn't tip it away, either. Instead, he put it in the outbuilding, tucked away. Out of sight, out of mind.

If only it were out of mind.

In a bar in Manhattan, the gang was together, carefully not talking about the lack of progress on the sniper, and even more carefully not mentioning the likelihood that the new captain of the Twelfth would be a well-known hardass and hater of stray civilians. Instead, they were enjoying a quiet beer.

"Anyone heard from Beckett?" Ryan asked.

"Not yet."

"No."

"Didn't expect to."

"Say what, Castle?"

Castle hadn't exactly meant to say that, but he'd skipped lunch – again – and the beer had hit him rather faster than usual.

"Er…"

"Spill." That was Lanie, in full interrogation mode. She was much scarier than the boys, once she got on a trail. "What's my girl said this time?" She looked as if she expected disaster, or dumbness. Castle guessed that either was a fair assumption.

"We… talked."

Three jaws hit the table. "Talked?" Lanie squeaked. "You never talk."

"Enough already. We talked, okay? She said she was going up to their cabin" –

"Cherry Ridge Wild Forest. Not too far from Downsville or Roscoe."

"If you say so," Castle gritted. "Anyway. She said she didn't know if she'd call."

"And you're not up there on the doorstep?" It wasn't – quite – an accusation.

"She asked me not to."

The others exchanged confused glances. "When's that ever stopped you?"

"This time," Castle bit off. He had no intention of getting any further into that discussion. "So likely she won't call much." He shrugged. "Her dad's up there with her."

"Like that'll keep her out of trouble."

Castle wandered home after they'd vacated the bar, not notably reassured that no-one else had heard either. At least, though, she wasn't calling everyone but him. He supposed that was a good thing, and decided that he was safe to leave for the Hamptons.

Some way into the following day, Castle's phone chirped with a text. Hey. Doing fine. Sick of fish. KB. He was immeasurably happier to see it. Great. Feel free to call anytime. I'm really good at pillow talk. He didn't expect an answer, and didn't get one, but just to have had a short message was… everything he needed. He bounced through the remainder of the day, grinning like a lovesick fool. Which was fair enough, because that was exactly what he was.

Beckett felt better for texting Castle, even if it had taken her a good ten minutes to peck out the letters and press Send. Ridiculous, that something so simple should be so hard. She hadn't exactly told the truth, either. She hurt like hell and the skin under the cast itched. Fortunately her father had gone off to fish, because his hovering care for even half a day was beginning to irritate her.

She knew her irritation was completely unwarranted, and that her father was simply looking out for her, but she couldn't cope with being fussed and fretted over, and he was perilously close to doing both. She parked herself on the porch, as far as she could walk right then, with her Kindle, which could easily be read one-handed, growled to herself when she realised that she should have brought out a glass of water, went back in to collect it, wincing with each fragile step, and finally settled herself properly and lost herself in one of Castle's books.

Some hours later, her father returned, fishless but some way more relaxed. She noted it, and was eased herself.

"I didn't even try to move," she pointed out, before he could say a word. "No bounding – or bouncing – down the steps for me." She missed her father's wince and the pain lancing through his eyes: forgetting that he was no cop and wouldn't appreciate the black humour that her colleagues would have accepted.

"I can see that. No fish today."

"Too hot, maybe?"

"Could be."

Jim wandered to the outbuilding to put his tackle away. He felt much better. More… able to cope. He had this. He absolutely, definitely, for sure had this.

A day or three later, he was still sure he had it. Katie was – very cautiously – doing gentle exercises, far fewer than the PT schedule would indicate, but then she had to contend with the weight of the cast, which, he thought, probably doubled or tripled the resistance. She could walk just a little further: it didn't seem that walking from family room to porch was exhausting her as it had on the first days. She seemed to be taking it sensibly. He'd be able to cope with that. He'd got it.

Beckett didn't think anything at all of her father's fishing trips. He'd always fished, happy to spend days in the sunshine by the pond. It was relaxing him, too. He needed to relax: a little tense every time he looked at her, every time she slept long, every time she breathed a little too deeply and winced; and every arm lift. Her shooting had been very hard on him. Still, he was coping: and maybe he'd needed this trip to the cabin as much as she had.

She didn't start to worry until she noticed the mint on his breath, a further week spent. They'd celebrated the Fourth of July with soda and steaks, barbecued on the small grill with corn cobs and fries. He'd gone to Roscoe to get it all that morning, telling her it was a surprise and if she joined him it would spoil it – and it would have, because he'd also got them a cake and some sparklers in lieu of fireworks.

But mint on his breath had old, painful associations. She pushed the thought away. He'd been dry seven full years now: no reason to change.

Then again, she had never been shot and died before.

A worm of worry wriggled into her gut. But no. She wouldn't believe it. He'd been so strong. It was just… he must have been sneaking hotdogs with onions and strong mustard, which he knew she hated. Being kind…considerate. That was all. Nothing to worry about. Not like the damn itch under the damn cast and the pain that still flashed across her ribs if she breathed too deeply; not like the pull of the scar and the fact that she couldn't yet lift her arms above shoulder height – barely above waist height, in fact. Her dad was the one thing she didn't need to worry about.

Until the following evening. She'd come down to collect her painkillers, which she'd left on the kitchen counter, and he hadn't been in the family room. Nor, looking round, had there been a light in the bathroom. She'd padded back upstairs, still having to be so horribly careful, as any incautious step jabbed through her chest, and as she'd reached her room the outside door had opened, and shut, and her dad's footsteps had tapped across the wooden floor to the rug.

She didn't go back down, and in the morning, she didn't ask about it.

"I'm going to sit out this morning," she said the next day. "Get some colour. I might even take a walk – very short," she added quickly as his face drained ashen. "Promise I won't go more than a hundred yards." He smiled, weakly. "I won't. I know I can't go far."

"Okay. Now, since you broke your wrist specifically to get out of doing any washing up," he grinned, though it was still weak, "I guess you'd better go and enjoy the sunshine while I slave away at the sink."

Beckett wanted to race down the steps and take a long hike into the woods. In deference to her father's worries and her own common sense, she took the stairs with extreme care and at a speed which a half-dead snail would have had no difficulty in exceeding, at which pace she continued into the woods. One hundred yards in, she stopped in a clearing, cautiously sat down without putting weight on her damaged wrist, and simply enjoyed the woods: the sounds of small birds; a woodpecker knocking on the trunk of a tree; and the rippling of the stream in the background. Time passed without her noticing or caring.

A sudden crack startled her, and she jumped. When she settled again, she told herself that it was foolish to be startled by a snapping branch, since there were plenty of those in the forest. She eased herself up, creaking slightly, and made her way back to the cabin. Even that short walk was still tiring.

Her father had left her a brief note. Gone fishin', it said, and she grinned at the lack of grammar. She made herself a coffee – decaf, ugh – and sat in the comfortable swing seat on the porch till it had been drunk and she wasn't so physically tired.

And then she went to the outbuilding and searched through it until she was completely satisfied that there was not a single drop of alcohol there. She went back to the porch, and breathed out her guilt at her suspicions; trying to remove the niggle from her mind. There was nothing there.

At the pool, rod planted firmly in the soft soil and fly trailing enticingly across the water from the hook, Jim sat and stared into the middle distance. He couldn't stop seeing his daughter's bloodstained body on a gurney, the medical staff frantically working on her to save her leaking life. His hands twisted together, and his eyes flicked from rod to rippling water to his pack. He'd have been okay if she hadn't slipped and fallen; if her shriek hadn't mirrored Rick Castle's agonised cries; if he hadn't, taking her to the clinic here, been so violently reminded of the screeching ambulance and his frantic efforts to get to that hospital.

He couldn't forget either. He couldn't sleep. He simply needed a little help to sleep. Just for the moment. He could stop any time, and he would. But here and now, he needed a little… extra.

Shortly, he eased, the terrible visions receded, and he sat back, dreamily contemplating the pond and the wavering rod. See, he told himself, it's fine. I'm in control. His eyes slipped shut, he lay back in the sunshine, his battered fishing hat tipped down over his face, and shortly he was sound asleep.

Hours later, he woke, roused by the cooling air of early evening. He sucked hard on a breath mint as he packed up, horrified that he'd slept so long. But it was fine. He'd often spent long days at the pond, fishing. Katie wouldn't be worried. His enticing fly was still on the hook, so he could truthfully say that not a fish had bitten. He didn't want to lie to Katie, but he didn't want to worry her with his troubles either. He'd just manage alone. It was only temporary, after all. She'd never need to know.

He plodded back to the cabin.

"Dad, where were you? You've been out for hours."

Jim conjured up an embarrassed half-smile. "I guess I'm getting old," he said. "I fell asleep in the sunshine."

Katie examined him. "You're a bit burned," she agreed. "If you're going to do that, better take some sunscreen tomorrow."

He didn't notice her assessing glance as he turned to put the tackle away, nor her worried frown. By the time he turned back, she'd smoothed them both away.

Beckett, unusually, didn't know what to do. She could hardly take a twilight stroll – not without shredding her father's nerves – and she certainly couldn't explain. However, she was very, very worried. Her father wasn't that old – he wasn't even sixty, for heaven's sake – and he certainly hadn't used to fall asleep in the sunshine. But. But it was hot out, and he had been pretty stressed out, understandably, and maybe he hadn't been sleeping well for the last few weeks. Her sleep had largely been induced by knockout painkillers, but her dad hadn't had those.

So she left it, and set the table for dinner one-handedly and awkwardly, and tried to ignore her feelings. She must have succeeded, because her father didn't seem to notice a thing. Paradoxically, that made her more worried.

Suddenly, she had an idea. She could talk to Castle. His penchant for ridiculous theories would give her lots of reasons for her equally ridiculous paranoia. Besides which, now she thought of it, she wanted to talk to him. She didn't need to mention the extra injuries, of course. That would only worry him. In fact, she needn't mention any of her worries. She could just have a comfortable, friendly conversation.

She considered her idea for a while, and found it good, and then, a tiny tad nervous – it had been almost a month since she'd actually talked to him, or seen him, though she had texted – picked up her phone and dialled his number.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.

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