Chapter 13

Jim came to with a pounding headache, nausea, and considerable discomfort in his neck and back. Distracted by his ills, it took him a moment to notice that he wasn't at home. He was in a cell. Quite specifically, he was in the tank. He couldn't remember last night, after he'd gone to the bar in Roscoe.

He vomited as it all hit home. Fortunately, there was a bucket. Mostly, he'd clearly managed to hit it, not that he remembered. He threw up again, and again, thin bile and acid self-disgust.

When his gut was empty, he took inventory of himself. Dressed. Relatively clean – at least there were no embarrassing stains or smells, beyond the foul reek of stale alcohol and sweat. His mouth was furred and disgusting.

And of course, he'd been arrested. He slumped back on to the bench, and wondered how he'd got to this state.

"Officer?" he said, when one came by. "Uh, what happened last night?" He could hardly bear the shame of asking.

"You couldn't walk out of the bar. So we took you in. Called your emergency contact, but she didn't wanna know."

The blunt, flat words were the last straw. Jim sat back down again, and faced the fact that Katie had meant every word of her note. She wasn't going to come and save him. She wasn't going to answer any of his calls.

He was on his own, to sink or swim.

Castle hadn't forced Beckett to eat anything, and she duly hadn't. She was shell-shocked, he thought. He surmised that she'd thought her dad would be shocked into going to rehab, but that hadn't happened either. So now she was sitting, utterly lifeless, hands drooped and motionless, no fire in her eyes.

He cleared his own plate, recorked the wine, and came round the table to hug her. It had no discernible effect on her slumped stillness: neither cuddling in nor pulling away.

"Coffee?" he attempted. She merely nodded: no enthusiasm. "I'll bring it round." He'd bring a wrap as well: her skin was chilled; but as he rose her hand reached for his; clutched it; released so very slowly.

"Thanks," she said, but dully.

He made the coffee, added vanilla to Beckett's and left his own untouched, and took it out, the wrap over his arm. She wasn't at the table: on a hunch he walked round and found her on the couch in the shielded nook where they'd stargazed the first night, the dim outdoor lights barely illuminating her figure.

"There you are," he said.

"Thanks."

She was looking out into the clear night sky and the stars, the thin crescent moon and the gleam on the water. He swathed the wrap around her shoulders, and followed up with his arm, gently encouraging her to lean on him. She sipped her coffee, and for a long while said nothing, though she leaned against him.

"Last time," she said, her voice cracking, "last time, I tried to fix it. I can't do that again. It didn't work then and it won't work now." A harsh breath split the air. "I didn't cause it," she intoned: the mantra of those suffering beside the alcoholic. "I can't control it. I can't cure it." Another fractured breath. "So why do I feel so damn guilty?"

Castle had no answer to that question.

"It wasn't my fault that I got shot. I didn't deliberately slip on the steps and break my arm and crack my rib. But that's why he started again and if none of it had happened then he would have stayed dry." Her tone was raw, agonised. "If I'd listened to you before Montgomery..." she didn't need to finish that sentence. "If I'd listened none of this would ever have happened and Dad would be okay." She wrenched away from him, hissed in sudden pain and stood up anyway, pacing, each step taking her a little further away from him, closer to the dark night.

Castle was hit by a surge of guilt of his own: she'd hit far too close to Jim's infuriated, drunken words.

"It wasn't you. No-one could have stopped me. I wouldn't have listened to God Himself if he'd appeared. All I cared about was taking down Mom's killer, but it's destroyed Dad too."

She took another step, beyond the small puddles of artificial light. Castle wasn't reassured by her words, though his own emotions were soothed. The hairline cracks in her voice didn't give him the idea that she was coping in any way at all with her guilt.

"So it's my fault."

"No," Castle bit out into the darkness. "Listen to yourself. You can't control it. You can't change or control your dad. He bought the booze. He opened it, and he drank it. That's on him, not you. Sure he loves you and he couldn't bear to see you dead but he wasn't the only one who loves you who saw you die!"

Silence fell.

"He wasn't the only one," Castle repeated into the stone-still night. "And I'm not drowning myself in booze."

Abruptly, horribly, he couldn't see Beckett. A second later, he heard her, dragging in ripped breaths with a ghastly edge of agony. He whipped over to find her hunched and kneeling on the grass, hauled her into his embrace, sat with her on the grass while she wept acid tears and her pain scraped her raw. He rocked her as if she were a child, though no child should ever suffer as she was suffering. All he could do was sit with her, hold her, and wait.

Long after the waning moon had set, leaving only the cold, dim starlight falling on the cold, dark sea, her weeping ceased. She stayed, exhausted in body, mind and soul, in Castle's arms, slipping in and out of consciousness and restless, nightmarish half-sleep, clinging to the one firm point on which she could rely.

"Kate, we have to go in now. It's too late to be out here."

She made a small, piteous noise.

"C'mon."

He stood and pulled her up, wrapped her in again and stood for a moment with her cosseted against him, then loosened his grip without letting go and walked her around the house and inside, where he hesitated slightly, then steered her into her room.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," he reassured, "so do whatever you do before bedtime." She wouldn't be sleeping in that room. She'd be sleeping in his room, where he could keep her close. He slipped out, prepared himself for bed, donned a robe, and forced himself to wait for another few minutes before he knocked on her door.

There was no answer, so he went in anyway. She was huddled under the covers, back to the door, just as she had been on the first night, and when he came round to her face there were the same thin trails of tears.

"Come on," he said, conscious of his repetitive vocabulary. "You're not staying alone tonight. He hoisted her up, receiving no protest but not much help either, and steered her out and into his room, pulled back the cover and installed her within. "Do you want me to stay now, or join you later?"

"Stay, please." It was barely audible, but it was what he'd been hoping for. He hopped into bed, wriggled down and then turned over to spoon her in and hold her tense body until – he prayed – it relaxed into sleep.

Castle woke, stealthy pre-dawn light creeping through the drapes, and sluggishly realised that he was alone. It was less than five hours since they'd slept, and he didn't want to be awake. His eyes closed again. When they reopened, it was full daylight, and the clock told him it was notably after eight. Beckett wasn't there.

Beckett wasn't in the kitchen, either. Nor was she at the table. Nor, when he went round, increasingly concerned, was she sitting on the couch, nor at the pool. Finally he spotted her, as far from the house as she could be, out on the dewy grass. When he reached her, she was huddled in his old robe, curled into a tight foetal position, and asleep. None of that could be defined as sensible. He surmised that she had sneaked out to think, and fallen asleep.

He knelt down beside her, saw with resignation and some irritation that there were, yet again, tear stains on her face, and gently shook her shoulder. A mutter of discontent arose, and then her eyes creaked open. She groaned, and creaked some more to be sitting up.

"Urrgh?"

"I found you out here," Castle said, a little edgily.

"Oh."

It was pretty clear that she wasn't yet focusing.

"Coffee?" he asked. When she was caffeinated, they were going to have a discussion. She could have – should have – woken him. She should have talked to him, not sneaked off into the night to cry alone. He stalked back to the house without waiting for an answer, or for Beckett.

Beckett stretched, still seated, and found, unsurprisingly, that she was sore, chilled and cramped, and that sleeping on the ground, even accidentally, was as uncomfortable as ever. She hadn't meant to fall asleep, but she'd been awake, tossing and turning, and she hadn't wanted to disturb Castle when it was clear to her that she wasn't going to find any sort of rest: guilt squirming in her stomach and thoughts roiling in her mind. So she'd slipped out without disturbing him, and then she'd thought that she'd be better outside, under the cold stars and the slow creep of the grey half-light before dawn. The vast expanse of sky and sea might have helped.

It hadn't helped. All it had done was remind her how small she was, how petty, how much she owed her father for carrying her through the first weeks of her recovery. And she was repaying him in the bitter coin of rejection because he wasn't strong enough to resist his addiction and she wasn't strong enough to watch it.

Her thoughts had meandered further. She had wanted to be strong enough for Castle, but she hadn't managed that yet. He could say the words again, and she couldn't force them from her torn lungs even once. Maybe, she'd thought, under the sullen pre-dawn light, maybe she just wasn't capable of loving anyone the way they deserved; maybe she'd lost that ability years ago, when she first fell down the rabbit hole in which she'd had one leg trapped ever since; maybe, never given, her heart was wizened and shut fast.

She wanted to be able to say it. She wanted to be strong enough. But at every turn she met only failure.

Maybe she'd lost her chance to be able to love.

And on that dismal thought, she'd feebly cried herself to sleep, devoid of strength, to be awoken by Castle, who was clearly unimpressed to find her out there. Another failure, in the long litany of how she couldn't even begin a relationship properly, let alone sustain it. His bitter words of a week or so ago rang in her mind. That's the whole problem right there. You won't let me in. You don't want support. I just want you to behave like you actually want a relationship.

Yet again, she couldn't. What if she never could?

She sat on the ground, aching from sleeping on the ground, and stared into space, forgetting that Castle was making coffee, forgetting everything Al-Anon and ACOA had taught her, and forgetting that, full of tubes and wires in a hospital room, she'd found herself strong enough to tell him that she wanted to be strong enough to give it back.

Castle made two coffees, expecting Beckett to be sitting at the table when he'd finished. She wasn't. That was even more irritating than her not being there when he woke and sneaking out to deal with everything all on her own and not leaning on him like she should do. Castle, in fact, had forgotten in his turn the key point that Beckett had made: you have to let me do it myself. As he sipped his coffee, he became more irritated the longer she didn't appear. Well, he wasn't chasing after her. She could come get her coffee – which she had agreed to – or not. It wasn't his problem.

His irritation was enhanced by a loud knocking at his front door exactly simultaneous with Beckett dragging round the corner looking entirely unhappy to be anywhere near him.

"Your coffee's there," he snipped, "though it's probably cold."

He stood without ceremony and went to find out what new annoyance was disturbing his peace. When he flung the door open, though, annoyance was drowned out by astonishment. He hadn't been aware that Bigfeet lived in the Hamptons.

He looked up. And up. And up some more.

"Hey," rumbled the monster. "I guess you're Beckett's Castle. I'm O'Leary. Nice to meetcha." He extended an equally monstrous paw, which Castle, utterly stunned, automatically shook. The sight in front of him was certainly mind-blowing. The O'Leary cop was an easy six-ten, massively muscled with a huge chest and biceps that would have served as any ordinary man's thighs – twice over – with a buzz cut, homely smiling face and limpid blue eyes.

No wonder he'd called Beckett small. Castle felt small.

"Guess she din't warn you."

"No," Castle managed. "Er... come in." Social graces kicked in. "Coffee? I've got some pastries. Beckett's outside." He didn't quite manage to stop the edge of irritation on the last sentence.

"That'd be nice," the Bigfoot pronounced, with a rather knowing look indicating that he'd noticed the edge.

Castle would have sworn that the bass was resonating through his polished wood floors, and hoped that they would survive the weight about to be placed on them without being dented.

Being followed through his house by the massive bulk of O'Leary – and regardless of his general irritation towards Beckett, he was deeply offended that she'd never introduced him, knowing how much he enjoyed the downright weird aspects of humanity – resembled being stalked by an adult grizzly bear. Unnerving wasn't the word. The hairs on the back of Castle's neck were fully risen. The O'Leary monster might have seemed harmless on the phone, but it was very obvious that if he took against Castle for some reason there would be only one possible ending – also known as unhappy.

"Cute place you got here," rumbled past him.

"Thanks," Castle managed, still in shock, as they attained the kitchen without incident. (Castle's considerably over-active imagination persisted in presenting visions of O'Leary's transformation to a grizzly bear, Bigfoot, or Grendel and ripping his, Castle's, head off to suck out and eat the brains.)

"Coffee? How'd you take it?"

"Cream an' sugar, please. Nuthin' special, not like our girl out there."

O'Leary's immensity leaned on the counter and watched quietly as Castle made his coffee, one for himself.

"Not makin' Beckett one?"

"She's got one," Castle said brusquely.

A squirrel-tail masquerading as an eyebrow rose. "Never usually stops her."

"Yeah, well," Castle said in a closing-off fashion, and didn't make a third coffee. The second squirrel-tail joined the first, but O'Leary didn't comment.

The two men went out with their respective coffees, to find that Beckett was still at the table, staring into her barely-tasted drink.

O'Leary put his mug down, took two strides around to Beckett, plucked her up and enveloped her in a massive bear-hug, during which, without her feet touching the ground, he conveyed her another few seven-league strides away from the table. Castle's temper flared. She wouldn't let him help her but she let this monster pick her up and hug her? The fact that nothing short of a Mack truck would be able to prevent the O'Leary mass doing anything it liked entirely bypassed his consciousness. He emitted a hostile growl, of which O'Leary took no notice at all. Beckett hadn't indicated in any way whatsoever that she'd noticed either of them, which considering O'Leary's actions was quite astonishing. He took a few steps towards them.

"What the hell is up with you, Beckett?" Castle heard O'Leary say. "You ain't drinkin' the coffee, you look like a bus ran you over, an' you an' your boy there are already on the outs. Even for you that's goin' some in three days."

Castle's incipient fury put itself on hold. That did not sound like O'Leary was muscling in to pick up a relationship of his own. That sounded like a big brother might. He didn't go any closer, being perfectly able to hear every word from where he stood.

"This about your Dad? Or is there somethin' else up you ain't sharin'?"

"Let me go," she said dully. "There's nothing else. Dad got arrested."

"Mm?" O'Leary hummed, the world's largest bumblebee.

"Cops called me to get him. Wouldn't go."

She stood straight, though everything about her screamed slumped, not accepting any comfort from O'Leary. Castle watched, confused. O'Leary had said – no, Beckett had said I don't care how long you've known me; O'Leary had said she was a rookie when she met me; and he sounded like her big brother. And Castle knew that Jim Beckett had been a drunk when Beckett had started as a cop...as a rookie...

His story instincts were hollering in his head. There was more to this relationship than he knew or had imagined – but most importantly right at that moment, Beckett wasn't talking to O'Leary either, despite the clear fact that he'd gone straight to the correct conclusion and must – surely? – have known about the first time round.

Oh, shit. Lanie had said it. Lanie had told him. If she doesn't wanna talk, don't push her. Lanie had heavily implied that when she – Beckett's closest friend, he had thought, though he was rapidly revising that conclusion – had pushed, it had gone very badly indeed. Just like it had been about to go very badly indeed when O'Leary knocked.

Castle continued to watch and listen.

"You wouldn't go?" O'Leary queried.

"No," she flared. "I did that for years and it never solved anything. I'm not going down that road again." She stepped back. O'Leary put his huge hands on her shoulders.

"Leastways you're doin' somethin' right," he drawled. "You can't fix him. Don't matter what you think 'bout why he's doin' it, you can't fix him. You gotta leave him to it. Just like last time."

So O'Leary had been there the first time round.

"He'll come out of it, or he won't. Ain't nothin' you can do."

"Abandon him, just like last time. That's what I can do," Beckett bit out. "You think I don't know that? Hearing it from you doesn't make it better or easier." She pulled away from O'Leary, and marched – stiff backed, and a wince at every step – as far away from him as she could manage. O'Leary shrugged, causing a small breeze to spring up, and ambled back towards Castle.

"Guess that coffee'll still be warm," he said.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers. Much appreciated.