May 10, 2011
Another day, another decaf. She was getting used to them, adjusting to the taste, but she still sipped slower than usual. One coffee would last her hours. She wasn't entirely sure if that was due to the taste, or the nausea, but she would power through. She was just grateful he was still showing up, she didn't expect him to go out of his way to bring her a coffee, she sure as hell wasn't going to turn it down.
"I can order you something else, if you want. I just- you haven't asked for anything else so I wasn't sure what to get you."
"No," she blurted. "This is perfect, thank you."
"Are you sure?"
She nodded, reassuring him, and took a long sip to solidify her point. "You really don't have to bring me a coffee every day, though," she said after swallowing the mouthful.
"I want to," he said, genuinely, but with an undertone of sadness.
She hated how difficult she had made this for him, hated that he was now as torn and conflicted as she had been. A part of her wanted to apologise again, for good measure. Just to remind him that she truly was sorry. But she didn't want to push her luck, not when he was still showing up.
"You look like hell," she commented, noting the bags under Castle's eyes. "I say that because I care," she added, bringing a smile from him.
"I was up most of the night with Alexis," he explained. He took a large gulp from his coffee. It was double strength, or more. She could smell the caffeine from three feet away. It stirred in her stomach, but she wouldn't say anything. He obviously needed it.
"Is she alright?" she asked, selfishly relieved that his sleepless night hadn't been caused by her.
"First heartbreak," he said as he hung his head low.
She could hear the pain in his voice, the heartbreak he felt on his daughter's behalf. She felt for him, for the both of them.
"Ashley chose Stanford?" she assumed, having already been filled in on the dilemma yesterday.
"No, he chose to stay here."
"Oh." She paused as his reply sunk in. "Isn't that a good thing?"
"Apparently not. Now Alexis is convinced it's a mistake, that he's going to grow to resent her, and so she broke up with him."
Alexis's reasoning seemed perfectly logical to her, but Castle's tone of voice made her realise he disagreed with his daughter's decision.
"Why doesn't she just tell him to go to Stanford?" she wondered out loud.
"Because, long distance. Statistics say it won't work." He sounded exhausted, he had obviously gone over all this already.
Kate was unsure of what else she could possibly say. Nothing seemed to be helpful, and so, she stayed silent.
"You agree with her?" he asked, his voice filled with disbelief. This couldn't be coming as a surprise to him, the idea of her agreeing with a logical decision.
"Well, she's right, you know? I mean, odds are it won't work out. She's just being practical," she justified.
"Relationships aren't math problems. You don't solve them by being practical." His voice grew more tense, more frustrated with each word he spoke. "I mean, what happens when she meets her soulmate, but she doesn't risk it because it's not practical?"
It didn't take a genius to read between the lines, to hear the message hidden behind his words. His frustration was because of her. His words, an indirect jab at their current situation.
He wasn't the first to think her practicality was... ill advised. Lanie had all but said that her behaviour was nonsense.
But risking your heart didn't come easy to some people. For some, like herself and Alexis, the fear of a broken heart outweighed any temporary happiness. People like them didn't see the point in delaying the inevitable, in allowing themselves more time to fall deeper in love, knowing what they were headed for.
"Maybe she just needs time to figure out that the heart can't be ruled by logic," she suggested, hoping it would offer him some kind of reassurance.
"What about Ashley? Is he supposed to just wait for her to figure that out?" he said, angrier than intended, making it clear he was no longer talking solely about his daughter's relationship problems.
She opened her mouth to say something, but shut it again when she heard Esposito's voice flow through the bullpen.
"Okay then, what about Hawaii? Earrings? Ooh. Lingerie," the detective said to their captain.
"Things you buy a woman!" Castle chimed in, the anger he had directed at her just moments ago, gone. "I used to kill in Pyramid."
"It's my 30th anniversary," Montgomery explained, offering clarification to Esposito's list of gift ideas.
Beckett plastered her best attempt at a smile on her face. "Oh, sir, congratulations," she said with a feigned air of excitement.
But her mind was still on her conversation with Castle, still on the degree in which she had just screwed up... again.
The day had felt particularly... long. Like he had been staring at the walls of the precinct for entirely too much of the day, and it was starting to weigh on him, intensifying his fatigue from a sleepless night.
He had never had this issue before. He had never felt confined to the bullpen. Even when they pulled all-nighters, sifting through stacks of paperwork and evidence, he had always felt like he'd seen the outside world. But today was different.
"You need a break?" she asked, pulling him from his daze.
"Huh?"
She smiled, obviously amused by his absent-mindedness. "A break. You wanna go for a walk or something? Get some air?"
"Oh, no, I'm fine."
"You can go home if you want," she said, measuring her tone, trying to hide any nerves that he might actually leave. "Get some rest. I understand."
"Well, what if you get a juicy lead and have to follow up? You'll need me," he insisted.
She smiled, relieved that he didn't appear to be in any rush to leave her. "I'm sure Ryan and Espo can handle it."
And then it hit him, the reason why he felt more cooped up than usual: her delegation tactics. Instead of the usual divvying of tasks, relatively fairly shared between the four of them, she had been giving Ryan and Esposito more of the footwork, opting to stay behind the desk for most of the day.
"Are you purposely assigning yourself tasks that keep you at the precinct?" he blurted the thought as it formed in his mind.
She sighed. "As soon as Montgomery finds out, he's going to practically chain me to the desk. I may as well start easing into it," she explained.
"I mean, it's probably not a bad idea."
"Yeah," she agreed reluctantly. "Except you're bored of me already and it's only been half a day."
"Not bored of you. Never bored of you," he reassured, before yawning as if to reinforce her argument. "Just tired."
She smiled. "It's okay, Castle. We'll get you out of here for a little bit, I promise."
"Excuse me, Mr. Castle?" He heard from behind him. He turned, surprised to see his daughter's now ex-boyfriend standing there.
"Ashley."
He stood, still a little dumbfounded, listening to Ashley's pleading. He felt for the boy, he truly did, but he just couldn't bring himself to interfere with Alexis's decisions. She was torn up about it, already. The last thing she needed was for everyone else to have an opinion on what she should or shouldn't be doing. He knew firsthand how frustrating it was for everyone to seemingly have an opinion on your love life.
"Mr Castle, have you ever been crazy about someone who is determined to push you away?"
As if on cue, Kate walked around the corner, her voice bringing him from his internal debate. "Hey, Castle... oh, sorry guys."
"Uh... no... It's okay." Castle's voice trailed off as he stared at her. There she was, that someone who was determined to push him away, as alluring as ever. "Um... Ashley, I'm sorry. I do have to go."
"Please just think about it, okay?" the boy pleaded.
"Okay," he promised.
He watched Ashley as he left, head hung low and shoulders slumped. The boy looked as miserable as Castle felt.
"What was that about?" Kate asked, once the boy was out of earshot.
"He wants me to advocate for him," Castle explained, troubled look plastered on his face.
"Oh. That's sweet." Her voice seemed unsure, not matching the words she spoke.
"Yeah."
"And... awkward," she continued, making her tone of voice make more sense.
"Mostly awkward," Castle agreed.
They began walking back toward the bullpen with a matching casualness in their stride. After just a few steps, curiosity got the better of her.
"Are you going to do it?" she asked, breaking the momentary silence.
He considered his options. He could either stand back, mind his own business, and watch his daughter possibly give up on something great. Or, he could intervene, give Alexis completely unsolicited advice and cross the boundaries he had unknowingly set himself, but possibly help end her current state of unhappiness. And he would always want to encourage her to believe in the possibilities.
"Advice?" he asked, looking her in the eye and silently pleading. "Having been a teenaged girl once... would you have appreciated your father stepping in?"
"Oh, God no." She laughed at the thought.
Her father would have been mortified if he had known half of the mischief she had gotten up to when she was Alexis's age. Her mother had always been her confidante, and after her mother's death her father had tried to be that person for her, but it just didn't work out that way.
"But I didn't have the same relationship with my dad that you have with Alexis," she explained, seeing Castle's internal battle splayed across his face. "It's different. He's never really been the one I go to with my problems."
"Does that mean he doesn't know about..."
"That I'm knocked up and don't know who the father is?" she smiled, another laughable idea. "No. I think I'd like to keep that fun little fact to myself, if that's okay."
"That's fair," he said quietly.
"Yo, Beckett." Ryan called out, approaching them, and they both froze, hoping he hadn't overheard. He continued with his update, so they both assumed they were in the clear. "I just got off the phone with Jeremy Keiper's mom. Turns out Jeremy moved to New York last month. Said he was going to 'make something of himself'."
"Looks like he made himself into a blackmailer and a killer," Castle quipped with a smirk.
"We're on it. Thanks, Ryan."
Ryan passed her the note with the address on it, happy that they would be doing the footwork on this one.
"Told you I'd get you outside," she said to Castle, grabbing her jacket.
"Appreciate it," he replied, following her lead.
They walked to her car in silence. There were too many people around to safely continue their conversation without being overheard. But he was determined to bring it up again as soon as he could.
Once they were out of the precinct, away from earshot of anyone who knew them, he asked the question that had been circling his consciousness for weeks now: who was helping her process this?
"If you haven't told your dad... who are you talking to about all of this?"
He already knew that Lanie knew, but he saw this as a segue, so he was going to take it. He would feign ignorance for as long as he needed, if it meant she would actually confide in him.
"What do you mean?"
Her question stumped him. What do you mean? He thought it was a fairly straightforward question.
"Well, you're pregnant, for the first time, I'm assuming. Surely you have questions, concerns, just things you want to get off your chest. You're not talking to me about it. You haven't told Josh or your dad. Maddy?"
"Lanie knows," she eventually disclosed. "We talk, I guess."
"You guess?"
"I don't really want to talk about it. What's there to say?" she snapped.
"Why are you mad at me?" he snapped back, stopping abruptly. This whole conversation had escalated quicker than expected and he didn't have patience for this right now.
She stopped two paces ahead of him, having to turn around to face him. She took a deep breath, calmed herself before continuing. "I'm sorry. I'm not... I'm not mad at you, Castle." She reached out, touched her fingers to his jacket sleeve.
"Tell me what's wrong."
"I'm-" she hesitated. She knew he needed this, needed her to let him in. "I'm just angry. At myself, I guess."
"Why?" he asked, voice pleading with her, please.
"When did you know?" she asked. "With Alexis, when did you know that you loved her? That you'd do anything for her?"
He racked his brain, tried to remember the moment he knew. Truly knew that he loved her more than anything else in this world. "Honestly, not until she was born."
For a moment, Kate felt hopeful. But then, he continued.
"I was always excited to be a dad, for all the possibilities it held. But I didn't know until I held her."
All hope faded as quickly as it had been built up, because she didn't even feel that excitement for what was possible.
She felt very little for this child. For her child.
She felt like she was lacking something that should be as easy as breathing. She felt like a failure. Ashamed, guilty, angry... not at all like how an expectant mother should feel.
"You don't have to feel it right away," he tried to reassure her. "It'll come, eventually."
She swallowed the lump forming in her throat, the emotion that was trying to rise to the surface, the fear that she would never feel the connection she so desperately wanted to feel. "What if it doesn't?"
He looked at her, helpless. He always felt so helpless.
"Forget it, Castle," she said, starting to walk toward the car again. "It doesn't matter."
"It does," he affirmed, striding to match her pace.
"I promise you, I am figuring this all out. I just- I can't talk about this right now, Castle. I have a job to do."
"Okay, let's go talk to Jeremy," he stood down, accepting that she had given all she could for right now.
