Chapter 12

"Time to go, Beckett," Castle carolled happily from the kitchen. "Let's go see if you can go swimming and show me your flukes."

"For the last time, I am not a mermaid."

"Awww. No fun." He made big blue eyes at her as she arrived clutching a small purse. "I guess we'll have proof later."

"Let's go," she replied repressively, rolling her eyes.

Not long later, during which drive Beckett had eyed up every inch of the dashboard, gearshift, and steering wheel of the Ferrari so covetously that Castle was amazed she hadn't gone green from head to toe, they pulled up outside the doctor's establishment.

"Okay. You go do your thing, and I'll meet you in the Golden Pear Cafe – I'll send you the address."

"'Kay."

She slipped out of the car, and Castle pulled away to find some well patrolled parking. That done, he ambled along the streets for a little while, before making his way to the cafe, sending Beckett the address, and sitting down in the sunshine with excellent latte and a cinnamon bun for good measure. He found his small notebook and scribbled happily until a familiar cherry scent tickled his nose and he looked up to find a two-armed Beckett in front of him.

"It's off," he said, and then grinned. "You need plenty of sun on that arm." It was true, there was a very distinct line where the cast had been. Beckett rolled her eyes, half-heartedly.

"I'm just glad it's gone."

She looked around for a server.

"More coffee, Castle?"

"Please. And the cinnamon buns are really good and you didn't have much breakfast" –

"Compared to what? A starving lion? I had lots of breakfast."

"The pastries are delicious."

"Okay," she said resignedly. "Two lattes, please, a cinnamon bun and a raisin scone."

The raisin scone was delicious. So was Castle's cinnamon bun, of which half disappeared into Beckett's apparently ravenous maw before he managed either to protest or order her another one of her own.

"I thought you said you had lots of breakfast," he said plaintively. "Why are you stealing my pastry?"

"Guess I'm hungry."

"We could get some to go for tomorrow..."

"O'Leary's coming."

"Even better. We can share them."

"Better get two dozen, then."

"Uh?"

"O'Leary has a sweet tooth."

"He can't eat two dozen cinnamon buns on his own. That's just crazy. You're messing with me."

Beckett lifted an eyebrow, and declined to comment further. If Castle lost his cinnamon buns, that was his problem. She was going to keep hers well out of O'Leary's way.

"Do you need anything else?"

"No," she said after a moment's thought.

"Let's go home, then."

The casual statement punched through her gut. Home? Not her home. Castle's home.

"Okay."

"Are you going to do your exercises?" Castle asked after lunchtime.

"Did them this morning."

"Good. It's a lovely afternoon, we're totally alone, so it must be time to join me in the pool so you can admire my ruggedly handsome face and body." He smirked. "And you can put on that teeny-weeny bikini – hey, that rhymes! Aren't you impressed?"

"No. Doggerel is not impressive."

"Mean. You can make it up to me by putting sun lotion on my back. I'm always worried I'll miss bits, and sunburn is so uncool." Beckett sighed. "And then I'll do you." She glared. "I'll do your back. Really, Beckett, you have the dirtiest mind."

She stomped off to her room and defiantly put on the green bikini again, twisted her hair up and by the time Castle reappeared in his abbreviated swim shorts had applied her sun cream to everywhere except her back. She resolutely did not think the phrase cutting off her nose to spite her face.

Castle, whose lack of shyness and indeed modesty ought to have been legendary, bounced out and up to Beckett's lounger, where she was toasting herself. Bounce terminated on an unconcealed wince at the sight of the damage, and restarted when he spotted the lotion.

"Shall I do your back?" he chirped happily.

"Please," she said, and turned over to present it.

Castle's large hands touching her back (again, with a sharp memory of yesterday to provide anticipation) had some very strange effects on Beckett's common sense (vanishing) and physical state (heating up, rapidly). It wasn't even that he was doing anything inappropriate, because he wasn't.

He didn't need to.

Beckett sank into the gentle strength of Castle's massaging hands and dissolved into a warm puddle of woman-shaped liquid. Her eyes closed in bliss, her whole form relaxed, and in the heat of his fingers working out another series of knots she was eased and comforted.

Of course it couldn't last. Her happy sensual haze was rousingly interrupted by Castle wanting his back covered in lotion, which might be fair but wasn't fun when she didn't want to move from her happy puddle-ness.

She heaved herself up, and took the sun lotion from him. He was grinning evilly.

"Now, Beckett, try to control yourself around my sculpted body. You're not up to full strength yet."

She wasn't going to put up with that. She pushed back her sunglasses, and very slowly looked him up and down, touching her tongue lewdly to her lips as she did so. He couldn't control his reaction.

"Seems like it's not me who can't control myself," she noted coolly. "Are you sure you can cope with my hands all...over...your...body?"

Castle took a very deep breath, which flexed his pecs in a particularly enticing way, and didn't noticeably...um... soften.

"Sure I can. I am not susceptible to your wiles."

Challenge accepted. All thoughts of happy puddling were forgotten as Beckett's not insignificant competitive streak came to the fore.

"Sit down," she purred. Castle looked suspicious, worried, and just a little aroused – beyond the obvious, that was. He sat tentatively on the end of the lounger. Beckett wriggled on to her knees behind him and prepared to prove that he had far less control than he boasted.

It really didn't take long at all. Castle may have had wicked hands, but Beckett wasn't exactly inexperienced either, and kneeling up meant that she didn't have to raise her arms. Even so, she started with his shoulders, smoothing soft lotion in, kneading the hard muscles, stroking in any unsightly blobs or smears, every movement controlled, slow, and sensual.

Unlike Beckett, Castle didn't feel relaxed in the slightest. In fact, he was rigid, and as her hands slipped lower he became more and more tense. His breathing was heavier, and he appeared to have lost the power of speech, which was an interesting change.

"You're a little tense," she husked. "It's not too hard, is it?"

Castle choked. "No," he forced out in a strangulated rasp. "It's just fine – Beckett!"

She had to make sure that the sun lotion covered all of his back, which meant, naturally, that her fingers sneaked below the waist of the shorts.

He turned round, somewhat suffused about the face, which was a tad surprising since Beckett could plainly see that most of his blood was rather lower. She smirked.

"You wanna play that game?" he grated out. "Game on." And he pulled her into his lap and kissed her hard.

That was simply unfair. He was cheating. Kissing her like that sent her head into freefall, and he was not allowed to wander his fingers under the top edge of her bikini bottoms to pet her ass. Not unless he planned to do something a lot more significant than petting, anyway. Which he wasn't, because he'd stopped.

"Now who's tense?" he gritted out, pulled away, and disappeared into the pool.

"Huh?"

She stood up, padded carefully to the pool so she didn't slip – no more broken arms, thank you – and sat down very cautiously on the edge, dabbling her toes in the warm water, letting it climb her calves. It felt fabulous. On the other side, Castle was determinedly freestyling up and down. She dropped gently into the pool, and found it to be rather deeper than she expected; almost having to stand on tiptoes. Castle didn't cease his laps, which was rather disappointing. She floated into range of his next length, forcing him to stop.

"Why'd you stop like that?" Castle's eyes skittered away from her, back, away again. "Castle?" interrogated very-definitely-Detective Beckett.

"Er..." Which was not an acceptable answer in any way at all. She elevated her eyebrows, which even in a tiny green bikini in a pool managed to be intimidating. Castle took a step back – most unfairly, he appeared to be able to stand without drowning. Beckett followed him. He went back again. Beckett followed him.

After a couple more steps, Castle hit the side of the pool and had nowhere to escape. Beckett half-floated in front of him.

"Why are you running away from me?" She floated against him, and stabilised herself by way of holding his chest, not being able to stretch up to his shoulders. Oh. Castle was...um...tense. As she looked properly at his face, he was clearly exerting considerable self-control.

"You're still healing," he bit out. "I" – he tried to turn away – "said. I'm not going to do anything that hurts you." He breathed in, slowly. "So stop provoking me because it's not fair." He moved her aside, and started ploughing through the water again.

Beckett deflated, and let go to float a safe distance away, dejected. Ridiculously, she also felt rejected. She'd wanted to show how much she appreciated him. She couldn't even take out her frustration by swimming, which wasn't her favourite form of exercise anyway, because she couldn't use her arms properly for the stroke. She paddled to the edge, tried to clamber out, and couldn't do that either, which just put the tin lid on the last fifteen minutes. She sniffed, and blinked.

All she'd wanted was that Castle would make her feel loved. God knows, he was the only one that could. Her father couldn't, and most likely wouldn't. Castle could and did, but he wouldn't. She blinked harder. She couldn't even get out of the damn pool on her own, and her upset was tiring her. Likely she'd pushed her exercises a little too far, still straining to recover sooner, better, faster. The blinks gave up any attempt to hold back her emotion.

She fought her errant emotions to a standstill, forcibly steadied her voice, and turned round.

"Castle?" she called. "Could you" – she swallowed – "help me get out?" He stopped ploughing through the lengths, and swam up to her. "I can't lift myself out."

"Okay." An instant later, she was sitting on the side.

"Thanks."

She heaved herself up, found her towel to dry off, and flopped down face first on the lounger, miserable. In the background, she could hear Castle's splashing. Knowing that he was as frustrated as she didn't help one iota, since all the frustration was down to the simple fact that she'd been shot and she'd then slipped and added a broken arm. She knew she was sulking like a disappointed child, but right at that point, it seemed like absolutely everything was broken. Her, her family, and her not-even-begun-yet relationship with Castle. After a few moments, she slipped away inside.

Castle, having swum himself to exhaustion but yet not managed to cure his huge frustration that he couldn't just take Beckett to bed and treat her as she so very clearly wanted, hauled himself out of the pool without taking any satisfaction at all from his post on the moral high ground. He dried off, and only then realised that Beckett was absent. He expected that she'd gone to the bathroom or to get a drink, and would return at any moment.

Fifteen minutes later, she hadn't returned. It was also beginning to cool down as evening drew in, and Castle's damp swimming shorts weren't keeping him warm. He went inside, and noted with concern that Beckett's bedroom door was firmly shut. He'd knock after he was changed, he decided. Going in with only shorts on wasn't going to improve anything, and he couldn't hear sobbing.

Fully clothed, Castle re-emerged from his own bedroom (in which Beckett really ought to be installed if only either of them had been capable of exerting any self-control and not giving in to the blaze waiting to erupt between them) and tapped lightly on her door.

"Yeah?" he heard.

"I'm going to get a drink. Do you want one? Soda, beer, wine?"

"Yeah, thanks. Whatever you're getting. I'll be out in a moment." The tone was almost normal. Castle jumped to the conclusion that Beckett was not normal purely because she hadn't expressed a preference, thought for a bare second, and went for a rather nice bottle of white wine which had been chilling in the fridge.

Just as he'd opened it, Beckett appeared, dressed in a light tee and shorts.

"That looks good," she said.

"Hope so. I saved it from my mother's clutches."

Neither of them mentioned Beckett's withdrawal. Instead, they sipped their wine and looked out over the ocean for a while.

Castle was about to ask Beckett what she wanted for dinner when her phone rang.

"Beckett," she answered, just as if it were Dispatch, making a sorry sort of gesture to Castle. She stood up and started to wander out of earshot. "What?" Pause. "No. No, I'm on Long Island. I can't get there." Pause. Her face was iron-hard. "No. I won't come tomorrow. He's not my responsibility." Pause. Icy fury crept over her whole posture. "I said no. He can go home or go to rehab or go to hell for all I care. I did this for three years and I learned that it does not solve anything. So don't you try to guilt trip me, Officer. Do whatever you like with him, but don't contact me again."

She cut the call and dashed past Castle, who heard her door slam shut behind her. Well, that didn't take much interpreting. The local cops had clearly picked up her father, drunk. Fuck. Whatever she'd said on the phone to them, she was devastated. She knew she couldn't do anything, she knew she couldn't get sucked back into his downward spiral, and it was killing her already.

And he, Castle, absolutely could not get involved in any way at all without Beckett asking him for help. Fuck, fuck, fuck. There was nothing he could do. He couldn't call the cops: they wouldn't talk to him. He couldn't – and wouldn't – call Jim directly, because Jim had basically tried to put all the blame on him for Beckett's shooting (when it had taken him four detailed sessions with a good and very discreet therapist to get past that straight after it had happened, and he still wasn't sure he'd really got there) and that wouldn't start any discussion off well. He could, he supposed, answer if Jim called him, but Beckett might well see that as taking sides, and there was only one side Castle was on and it wasn't Jim Beckett's. All he could do was hug Kate Beckett, his Beckett, but first he had to hope that at some point she would come out of her room and accept hugs.

He stared out at the empty sea, flat calm under the evening light, and waited. After a short while, he went to tap on Beckett's door, heard sobbing – muted, he thought, by a pillow – didn't bother with the tap and went straight in. She was standing by the window with her face buried in something that looked like her sleep tee, tears on her cheeks and misery in every lineament. All thoughts of waiting left his head: he simply strode across the room, came up behind her, turned her and wrapped her in.

As she had at the station two days earlier, she simply collapsed into him, strings cut. He held her up, and smoothed the dark hair on his shoulder. He couldn't say anything: master of the written word he might be, but in that situation there was nothing to be said, until she herself said something.

Her sobs ceased, to be replaced by shivering: there were goosebumps on her arms. Castle nestled her closer, and pulled the sleep tee from between them to drape around her. It wasn't much, but it was a whole lot better than nothing.

Finally she spoke. Spoke, Castle thought, was not the right word. Speech emerged from her lips with the same drenched quality as a monsoon.

"The Roscoe cops picked him up from a bar. Apparently he'd come into it a little happy. Got morose, knocked them back, couldn't walk out. Just as well. He'd never have remembered not to drive." She made an agonised noise. "If he killed himself... it would be awful. But if he killed someone else... there would be no coming back from that. Never." She stopped. "So I guess I should be glad they picked him up."

Castle thought that that might be the definition of extreme-Pollyanna-ism. Not that Beckett had managed to sound in any way cheerful about it. He stroked some more, and consciously tried to exude comforting strength, for as long as she needed. Her momentary flow of words had been damned, which Castle entirely understood. When the choice was a cell, Jim's death, or the death of innocents... there were no words; there were no good answers. Maybe a cell was the best answer, in the circumstances. At least that way, nobody died.

He held on. It was all he could do.

Their melancholy intimacy was broken by the grumble of Castle's stomach. She didn't even raise a flicker of a hint of a smile.

"Do you want some dinner?"

She shook her head. "Don't want anything." It sounded just as pathetic as the same statement coming from a small child. Castle, in one of his occasional fits of brilliant empathetic insight, realised that the similarity was because it was exactly that: a child mourning the loss of a parent.

All over again.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.