Chapter 9

There was a long, bitter silence. Castle considered his options, and decided rapidly that truth – since Beckett had actually talked about something – was the right one.

"Your father rang me," he admitted.

"He what?"

"Rang me. A few times. I didn't recognise his number and he didn't leave a message, but last night I picked up the call."

"Why only last night?" she queried sharply.

"Um… I left my phone where I couldn't hear it. I…" he swallowed. "I wasn't going to keep watching it."

She didn't say anything at all in reply to that, but her shoulders shrank.

"Hey, you're here. It's okay."

He stopped and regrouped. "Anyway, your dad rang me. He - well, before that I'd worked out that you were stressed 'cause you thought he was drinking even though you thought he wasn't" – she made a strangulated noise in her throat – "I've seen plenty of it, even if you're the one who had to live with it – and you wouldn't tell me anything even though I'd promised not to arrive." He found his thread again. Beckett was gravestone still and silent under his encircling arm. "Anyway. I guessed he was drinking. And then you went back to Manhattan and Lanie called me" –

"That Quisling traitor!" Beckett screeched. "She had no right."

"It didn't matter since you called anyway," Castle said impatiently. "I think she was planning to interfere, but so what? You're here now." He wrapped her in a little more definitively. "So I picked up the phone and it was your dad and he laid into me about you getting shot and how it was all my fault he was drinking."

Beckett gasped.

"No, I know it's not," Castle continued. "So I told him to go to rehab and put the phone down on him."

"Oh." She thought it over. "Good."

"Uh?" He'd not expected that.

"He has to do it himself. It's…um…not helpful if he clings to someone."

Castle interpreted that, with considerable accuracy which he didn't let escape his lips, as meaning that Jim had previously clung to Beckett, and that she didn't want it to happen again. A second's further thought told him that she hadn't walked away soon enough, that time.

The next thought told him that, unemotional voice or not, Beckett was very tense and very unhappy. Castle only ever had one reaction to unhappiness. He swung her sideways into him, legs draped over his lap, and cuddled her into his wide shoulder, stroking soothingly over her back.

He might as well have cut the strings on a puppet. She collapsed against him: no strength, no lithe muscle keeping her upright. She was as lax and heavy as a corpse.

"I wish he hadn't…" she whispered into his chest; and it wasn't clear if she meant hadn't started drinking again, or hadn't called you, or hadn't been there in the hospital, or hadn't picked her up when she'd fallen down the steps.

"Mmmm," Castle hummed. "Just stay here. Look at the stars with me. No need to worry about it right now." He rearranged her more comfortably to place her head tidily on his shoulder, leaned back and stared up at the stars. After a moment, Beckett's head turned to look up as well. More time passed.

After a further while, Beckett realised that she was falling asleep, eased and rested by Castle's bulk, warmth and completely undemanding presence. For a man who never stopped talking in the precinct, he was quite different out here, on his own turf: completely at peace. She knew she ought to go inside, prepare for bed and then sleep, but she was comfortable where she was.

Her eyes drifted back to the night sky: clear with a waning moon. The vast expanse above her absorbed everything, gave back nothing: huge and impersonal, unconcerned by her petty problems. It was beautiful, but it was a cold, inhuman beauty. She shivered, chilled. The starry sky couldn't care whether her father lived or died, drank or stayed dry, just as the hot sunlight hadn't cared when she died, nor yet when she returned to life.

"I think it's time we went inside," Castle murmured. "It's long after ten, and I'm cold too."

"'Kay." She stood up, and stretched cautiously. Castle picked up the coffee tray and led her in. On the table, neglected, lay both their phones. Both proved to have a number of missed calls.

"Lanie, Lanie, Dad, Espo, O'Leary."

"Your dad, Lanie, a different number I don't recognise."

Beckett was already listening to the messages, and then tapped out a quick pair of texts. "That'll keep Lanie and Espo quiet. O'Leary can wait."

"Who's O'Leary?" Castle asked, listening to his collection of calls. His eyes flew wide. "And why is he calling me?"

"You what now? O'Leary? Calling you? I will shoot him!"

"Don't shoot him: it sounds like he's a fan," he smirked. "I can't afford for the fans to be shot. Lowers my royalties." He became more serious. "So who is he, and why is he telling me to treat you well or he'll arrest me?" He pouted. "I always treat you well, and if you'd let me, I'd treat you even better. If I get arrested by this O'Leary person, it's going to be your fault." He humphed, unconvincingly.

"Give me your phone," Beckett demanded. "I wanna talk to O'Leary."

"Nope," Castle denied her. "I'm going to talk to him. Who is he? Or I can just ask him, so if you want to get your retaliation in first, better start talking."

"We worked together for a bit. Then I went to the Twelfth and he went to Central Park. He's a homicide detective too."

"That doesn't tell me much. What does he look like? Where's he from? Is he senior to you? C'mon. Describe him."

"I've got a better idea."

"Yeah?"

"Invite him up for a day. If you're going to ask him ten thousand questions, you should give him lunch and a beer or two."

Castle shrugged, suspecting mischief from Beckett's expression. "You sure? Your recuperation, I guess. Okay." He thought for a moment or two. "But not yet." Her eyebrows rose. "Let's get you settled in first." He waggled his own eyebrows villainously. "I wouldn't want to share my first sight of a real mermaid."

"I am not a mermaid, Castle," Beckett sighed, and rolled her eyes. The effect was rather spoilt by the yawn that invaded her face.

"I think it's your bedtime."

"Yeah," she yawned again. "Which way? I think" – another yawn – "I've forgotten."

Castle gave in to his urges, wrapped an arm around her waist, and steered her through the house. "This one," he said. "If… well, if anything's wrong, mine's just opposite."

"'Kay."

She stumbled into the room, made her preparations for sleep through a series of gaping yawns and the judicious use of matchsticks for holding her eyes open, and fell into bed.

Castle congratulated himself for quite some time for not steering Beckett into his bedroom, and then looked at his phone, wondering whether to call her O'Leary-cop. In the end, he didn't, reckoning that it would be better to do so the next day. He couldn't imagine that any call starting at eleven p.m. – or that didn't have the option for Beckett to take part in it – would go well. And why had he never met him? That seemed deeply odd.

But… Beckett was there, in the Hamptons, in his house, with him. Not with some mysterious O'Leary-cop. So whatever O'Leary might be to her, he was not a rival to Castle. Hmm. That was…intriguing.

He took his intrigued self to his own bedroom, stared longingly at Beckett's door, firmly told himself to leave well alone – especially since there would be weeks more of summer in which to move forward – and disposed himself to sleep.

Deep in the summer night, something woke him. He listened carefully, but heard only the whispering of the soft night breeze, the ripples of the sea. He turned over to bury his face in the pillow, and heard it again. It was Beckett, and it sounded like she was crying.

He fell out of bed, found a robe, and padded to the door of her room to listen. After a few seconds, he started to turn back, when the unmistakable noise of a half-sob came again. He tapped on the door, received no response, and pushed it gently open, ghosting inside so that if she were asleep, he wouldn't disturb her.

She didn't turn to see who had entered. The covers were half over her head, only the dark crown faintly visible: she hadn't closed the curtain and the moonlight painted pallid gleams across the wooden floor. He slipped round to find her eyes open, staring blindly into the room.

"Hey," he murmured, "are you okay?" He already knew that she wasn't: the dim light was still sufficient to show the shine against her cheek. He settled down on the rug at the side of the bed, reached up and laid a hand on her shoulder, careful not to overstep. Her hand emerged and met his, and he turned to her and simply held it: his fingers loosely wrapped around hers, providing only the lightest of support through his touch.

"I ran away," she bit out, acid etching each syllable on the silent night. "It's what I do. Run away."

Castle waited, and said nothing.

"I was going to run away from the hospital. Just go. Not tell anyone, just leave." The sound of a swallowed sob. "Disappear without a word. Come back when I was healed. It's what I do," she said again. His fingers clenched around hers.

"If you hadn't pushed." He could hear the dammed up tears in her voice. "I would never have said. Not then. Not now." She pulled her hand away. "Not ever."

Castle stood up and promptly sat down on the bed, turning her back to him and tugging her into his arms. "Why not?" he asked, softly enquiring, no accusation in his tone.

"It's too much. It… you really meant it but – you fix things. You always make the broken things better and I didn't want to be just another broken thing for you to fix."

The tears finally escaped. "Sometimes you just can't fix things."

Castle gave in to his desire and wrapped her in so tightly that she couldn't have moved if she'd tried. Beckett didn't even notice. He became aware that the top of his robe was damp, and becoming damper.

"I can't fix Dad so I just ran away. I couldn't fix us so I was going to run away from that too." Her shoulders heaved within his clasp. "I could only fix me. And I'm not fixed." Her voice fell away almost to nothing. "Here you are trying to make it better and I shouldn't be leaning on you but…" She stopped. "I said I wouldn't."

"You aren't," Castle pointed out. "I'm not doing anything for you that I wouldn't do for any visitor. You even carried dishes, which I normally wouldn't ask a guest to do."

Beckett's head didn't lift. "You invited me here, though."

"Yes." She shuddered. "I want to see you in a bikini. You've been having naughty conversations with me for nearly three weeks and provoking me and now, Detective Beckett, it's time to make good on the promises." He petted her. "I want to see a mermaid," he said childishly. "You said you'd been flipping your flukes and I want to see a real mermaid."

"I am not a mermaid," she said soggily.

"Awww. No fair." He paused. Heated flirtation had worked every time for the last three weeks, but… then he hadn't been cuddling her with both of them in some very skimpy nightwear and basically in bed…. This was a bad idea – but he was going to do it anyway.

"If that's not true," he growled gently, "what else that you told me wasn't true? You told me that you would buy strawberry lip balm. Did you?"

"No…" she faltered, confused.

"You said you liked me kissing you, too," he husked. "Wasn't that true?"

"Huh?"

"You said you liked me kissing you." He smiled wolfishly into her hair. "Come and let me do something you definitely like."

"What?"

He didn't answer in words. He simply tipped up her face and planted a kiss on her forehead. She squeaked in surprise, but he could see her eyes welling up and leaking over. "Hey, stop that. You'll upset me. I only kissed you 'cause you said you liked it. Now you're crying and Espo will shoot me."

She shook her head.

"You did like it?"

There was a damp nod.

"Good. Because I really liked it, and I wanna do it again."

And upon the word, his lips descended to hers, his arms rearranged themselves so that she was appropriately aligned and his fingers could creep into her hair, and he kissed her properly.

She wasn't wearing any lip balm, but she tasted of heaven when she opened to him and flowed against him and explored just as he did: none of the adrenaline or terror or desperation of that first, only, kiss in an alley. Only them, and the still peace of the moonlit night.

His mouth moved over hers, asking for more but never demanding it, teasing but not taking. He could feel the wet skin from her tears against his cheek, and didn't push or press. Love was the key, here, not passion. There would be time enough for passion, if only they could establish love. But then she stopped, drew back, folded against him with her head down once more. He only petted, soothing her until she should speak again, or kiss him, and nuzzled his nose deep into her hair; the familiar cherry scent of Beckett: injured, cast on, miserable or not she was still his Beckett.

"I can't fix it," she whispered hopelessly. "So why do I feel so guilty?"

"Because you're human," he answered. "Only human, and you want to fix things just as much as I do. It's why you do what you do. Always looking for the answers, for justice. It's a way of fixing things."

"The dead don't need to be fixed," she said bitterly.

"Don't be dumb. You help their relatives. The ones left behind. That's fixing." He didn't want to start an argument there and then. "It's late. Sleep now, argue in the morning." He gathered himself together, and tucked her back under the covers.

She reached out, awkwardly with her left hand, and gripped his wrist. "Don't…" but then she didn't seem to know what to say next, though the grip didn't change.

"Don't what?"

"Stay," she mumbled, and immediately released him to hide herself.

Castle untangled the total disconnect of don't stay but hanging on to him to mean don't go, please stay, which made rather more sense.

"I can stay," he reassured her. "But my bed is a lot bigger, so could we go there?"

An indeterminate noise floated out from the lump hiding in the bed.

"I'm taking that as a yes," Castle decided, swiped the covers out the way, picked Beckett up and winced at the lack of weight, and conveyed her, ignoring the indignant squawking, to his own room. He placed her carefully on the bed, ensuring there wasn't the slightest bump that might jar her wounds or wrist.

"Snuggle in."

"Uh?"

He pulled back the cover on the opposite side to his. "Snuggle in. Plenty of room for both of us." Beckett sat there with as much evident intelligence as a stump. "You wanted me to stay, there isn't room in that bed for both of us:" (there was, but he ignored that: he liked his own bed better) "therefore you are here, where there is room." He dropped his robe on a chair and took his own advice, wriggling down and settling himself comfortably.

Abruptly, awkwardly, she also wriggled down, pulling the cover over herself. After an uncomfortable moment, her hand crept across the expanse of bed between them, sought out his fingers, and entwined with them. It would do, for the present. Castle twined back, and didn't pull her into his arms.

Shortly, her fingers were lax and heavy, and her breathing had deepened and slowed into sleep. Castle, however, was nowhere near sleep. He was a night owl anyway, by preference, and though it was the small hours, he suspected that Beckett was unlikely to wake early. He lay in the dark, thinking.

Mostly, he thought that Beckett needed to take a long rest without any stress at all. Partly, he thought that she needed to be sure that she was doing the right thing about her father. He tapped out a search on his phone, which didn't help him. The nearest ACOA wasn't hard to find, but she'd need to want to go there first.

And partly, he thought that she needed to be cuddled and cosseted and tucked into him. Held up, without being smothered. Left to fix herself at her own pace. He could be strong enough to let her be strong enough. To wait, and let her take, not force his giving upon her. No risk that she would take too much: she'd never taken anything.

Except his heart. She'd taken that without even realising, five weeks after he'd met her. But then, it seemed that he had taken hers.

His eyelids grew heavy, his breathing slowed, and he drifted closer to slumber. Through the hazy half-doze, he became aware that Beckett was moving, still breathing in the deep, even cadence of her own sleep, turning over. Turning into him, curling closer, the cast landing on his stomach (he oofed, but she didn't twitch); he slipped an arm under her neck, and was rewarded by an unconscious snuggle inward and a happy-sounding murmur. The cast wasn't exactly comfortable, but discomfort was easily outweighed by the sheer delight of a snuggly, sleeping Beckett wrapped around him.

He followed her into peaceful sleep, himself relaxed and soothed of soul by her unconscious trust and the revelation inherent in her actions.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.