Chapter 17

Beckett had grumbled horribly at Castle after he'd told her she was tired, but he'd cheerfully ignored her and conducted her home, while thanking his lucky stars that she hadn't taken serious umbrage at his latest wander through her contorted thinking.

His luck didn't hold much beyond the front door closing.

"I haven't been not doing anything nice," Beckett snapped.

Castle snapped his mouth shut on Do you want some coffee, thought, and made it anyway, without answering.

"I haven't!" she insisted. "Why would I?"

Castle drew another pretty pattern in the foam, and, still without answering, brought both mugs over. Beckett fell on hers, drained it, and glared at the empty space in front of her. "I've been just as happy as usual."

Castle couldn't repress a snort of utter disbelief.

"I have!"

"Beckett," Castle said with strained patience, "when did we last go to Remy's together?"

"Recently," she snapped.

"When, exactly?"

Silence extended, and extended, and stretched out almost to snapping point.

"I can't remember. But it must have been after the summer," she added defiantly.

"Really? Because the last time I remember going to Remy's was last April. I haven't been to Remy's at all since Gates was forced to let me back, and I didn't go over the summer."

"That…that can't be right." Her voice wobbled. "We must've gone, and you've just forgotten."

"So have you, but okay, it's forgettable. Let's try something else," he said, forcing hope into his voice. "Have you had lunch anywhere but the food trucks since the summer?"

This time, Beckett didn't snap Recently. She thought. And thought. And thought. "I must have," she said blankly.

"You haven't, that I've seen," he said gently. "You've gone out, got something, come back, eaten at your desk. You haven't asked any of us to come with you. You haven't come out for a drink. You haven't come to Remy's and you haven't suggested one single one of those things. All you've done is worked and gone home." He thought. "Have you been out with Lanie?"

"Yes!"

"Let's see," he said, still gently, pulled out his phone, put it on speaker, and dialled. "Hey, Lanie. Settle an argument for me? When did you last go out with Beckett?"

"Uh…" There was a pause, such as there might be while counting back dates. "Before the summer. That girl won't come out for anything right now. You tell her I'm missing my margaritas." Another, briefer, pause. "She there?"

"Yeah."

"Kate?"

"Yes?"

"What the hell you playing at, girl? How come you didn't come see me about that cut? I'd've treated it or told you to go to the ER if it was bad."

"I didn't think it was bad. I cleaned it out. Leave it, Lanie."

"You solve murders. I do medicine" –

"On the dead," Castle interjected.

"I've still got my MD. Anyway, Kate, you don't do medicine. You come to the professionals and save your cleaning for your gun."

Beckett scowled at the phone.

"And why aren't you coming out? I must've asked you a dozen times and you blew me off every single one. You haven't got a boyfriend" – Lanie stopped, obviously rethinking – "leastways, up till a few days ago you didn't have a boyfriend, but I'm guessing you and Writer Boy there finally saw sense – but you don't ditch your friends for your boyfriend, so why won't you come drink margaritas like there's no tomorrow?"

"I don't want a hangover."

"Girl, you got the capacity of a supertanker. I don't remember the last time you had a hangover."

"I've been busy."

"Hm," Lanie emitted, carrying enough scepticism to float Nevada. "Right. Well, you're not busy now, so you can come out for drinks" – noises of diary checking – "not tomorrow, Tuesdays are always busy…this week's awful…next Wednesday. No excuses. I'll see you at Mother's Ruin on Spring Street, six-thirty. Don't be late."

She cut the call while Beckett was still trying, to Castle's eye, to formulate an excuse.

"You haven't been out with Lanie either." Castle expected an onslaught of anger and excuses.

"I didn't notice," she said desolately. "I thought I had." She dropped her head into her hands, elbows on her knees, shrunken into herself. "I've been busy," she added defensively. "I can't do everything."

Castle, who'd been planning to ram her behaviour back in her face until two seconds into her misery-laden words, found some sense, shuffled up to her and firmly wrapped her into his side. "Nope, but you never seem to let that stop you trying." He huffed theatrically. "But you shouldn't have missed out on excellent burgers and brownies at Remy's. That's silly."

"Too much fast food is bad for you," she tried.

Castle refrained from pointing out that any food would have been good for Beckett, since she clearly hadn't been eating properly. From the way she turned her shoulder, he thought she heard it. He turned her back. She resisted, but not with any force, more dumb-ox resignation.

"You're doing it again," he said.

"Doing what?" she dragged.

"Not doing something you'd like to do because you think you don't deserve it. In this case, taking advantage of my excellent hugs and manly physique."

She shrugged. She didn't even snark. Her head had dropped again.

"Look, just be hugged and enjoy it."

She shrugged once more. Castle, who could put up with anything but this resigned indifference, stopped trying to play nice, hauled her on to his lap, and wriggled so that her head hit his shoulder. He then locked his arms around her, leant his cheek on her head, and settled comfortably into a position of Beckett-coddling that he could maintain for hours.

"You're staying there. You want to nestle in, but you won't ask, because you think you don't deserve it – and I bet somewhere at the end of the walk you were thinking that I should've walked away because pretty much everyone else has whenever your life went pear-shaped – so you're going to sit nicely and be cuddled because I want to cuddle you and you deserve to be coddled. You can be a Beckett-egg for a while."

"Broken?" she said bitterly.

"Nope, though your brain sure is scrambled."

"It is not."

"Is so," Castle riposted. "You've forgotten I love you, you've forgotten you love me, and you've forgotten that Burke's helping you fix yourself. See, scrambled."

Beckett slumped.

"Oh. You haven't forgotten, you just don't believe two out of the three of it. Well, you can make your own call on Burke, but you don't get to decide what I feel. I do. I. Love. You."

Beckett didn't say a word. Castle, about to explode, suddenly realised that she was struggling not to cry.

"How can you?" she sniffled. "How can you when I lied to you and ran away and didn't call?" She tried to escape his embrace. Castle failed to release her, instead nuzzling into her hair.

"We – you – talked about this with Burke," he murmured. "You needed space. Yes, I was angry – then. Yes, I was angry with you when I found out you'd lied. But I get why you needed space. And…" he winced… "Like I said at Burke's – I wouldn't have been able to leave you up there all on your own. I just wouldn't."

"But then I lied about remembering."

"You remembered everything, you said. All the pain and the agony – and one tiny candle in the dark of it all."

"I couldn't deal with any of it," she wept. "Not the shooting and not your feelings and not anything. I told you: how could I deal with them if I didn't know if I'd ever really recover?"

"But I can deal with you not knowing," Castle pointed out. "As long as you're here, we can solve it together. When you find out, or when it matters, then we'll deal with it. Together." He stroked her hair. "And you are mostly recovered – physically, that is – or you wouldn't have been able to go back out on cases."

"And if I can't have children?"

Castle opened his mouth, stopped, and shut it again. After a few seconds of frantic thought he began. "It's up to you. If you can't, and you don't want to anyway – it's not like you've ever cooed over babies in strollers: the closest you came was that child kidnapping two years ago – then it doesn't matter to me. I have a daughter already. If you can't, and you want to, we'll find another way. If you can, then all options are open." He breathed out. "Me loving you doesn't depend on whether we could have children or not, and anyway that's a long way down the road." He cossetted. "We need to find out who we are together, first. It's not like we've done any of this the usual way. I don't think that death defying deeds of derring-do are dating, and there hasn't been nearly enough kissing, making out, heavy petting..."

"What do you call Friday night if you're saying it didn't include all of those?" Beckett managed a small amount of snark.

"Heavenly," Castle oozed. "But I take issue with your comment. It did include all of those. I said there hadn't been nearly enough of them." He dropped the flirting. "The point is, we should actually try to have a relationship rather than just save each other's lives once a month."

Beckett tried to bury her face in his shirt. Castle removed her, tipped her chin up, and gazed directly into her eyes. "I want to try. Don't you?"

She managed a soggy nod. He kissed her, lightly, on the lips. "Let's get some more coffee," he said. "Do you want lunch?" That was greeted with a soggy shake. "Okay," he allowed. "I'll put lunch out, and if you want some when you've drunk your coffee it'll be there."

The remains of Sunday passed quietly. Beckett barely ate lunch, drank industrially-toxic quantities of coffee, and complained that the cut in her arm itched. She did make a relatively reasonable dinner. Castle thought that it might have fed a couple of cats, rather than one anorexic mouse. The only small spark of hopefulness was that when she trailed off to bed, far earlier than usual (when at work, she left late, went to bed late, and rose early), she didn't hesitate before entering his bedroom. Politely, he left her to it, and then wrote – or procrastinated, more accurately – until his own bedtime.

Following more toxic quantities of coffee but, crucially, enough breakfast that Castle couldn't consider force-feeding her like a Christmas goose, Beckett trudged to Castle's car so that he could convey them to the next stage of torture. He had no great expectations of being allowed to stay, and indeed, Beckett scurried in.

"I'll call if you need to be there," she said. Castle flicked a concerned glance over her, but was forestalled by Burke emerging from his lair.

"Come in, Kate. Rick, would you wait for a moment, please?"

Castle stood irresolutely in the reception until Burke reappeared.

"Come through." Burke led him into another room. "Before I talk to Kate, would you brief me on the weekend?"

Castle did. Burke frowned at his furniture. "I see. Thank you." He paused. "I understand from Kate that she does not wish you to attend. I presume that she may contact you if that changes?"

"Sure."

"Good. Thank you. I will ensure that she contacts you so that you may collect her at the end of the session, if you are not present earlier."

"See you." Castle bade farewell, feeling somewhat rejected and shut out.

Dr Burke watched Mr Castle leave, regretting that he could not reassure him without breaching professional ethics and Detective Beckett's trust. Her trust had been so hard-won, that he would not even contemplate suggesting that she change her position on Mr Castle's attendance. He surmised, which would be a point to be explored in this session, that her reluctance to include him was another manifestation of her self-punishment. He tutted, to relieve his own feelings, and then returned to the room in which Detective Beckett awaited him.

"Did you have a pleasant weekend?" he asked.

"It was okay," Detective Beckett shrugged.

"I see. What did you do?"

"Went to my apartment to get some more stuff. Went for a walk in Central Park."

"Mm," Dr Burke hummed. "Do I take it that you are still staying with Rick?"

"Yes."

"Mm. Why?"

"What do you mean?"

"I have no ulterior motive. I wish to understand your reasoning for staying with him." He steepled his fingers, and waited.

Eventually, "I wanted to," Detective Beckett muttered.

"That seems entirely reasonable to me. Why are you so reluctant to admit that you wanted to stay with Rick?"

"He shouldn't have had to clean up."

"Please explain?" Dr Burke did not understand that comment at all.

"Castle made me go stay with him. You know that." Dr Burke nodded. "I didn't realise he'd cleaned up my apartment before we went. He shouldn't have had to."

"What did he clean up?"

"The glass I'd dropped. The one I got cut by." She squirmed. "I hadn't…"

"You were in pain," Dr Burke said soothingly. "It is hardly surprising that clearing up was not your first priority."

"I'm always neat." She stared out of the window. "I never let my apartment get messy." She sucked in air. "It's always clean. But it was dirty. It stank of stale alcohol where I dropped the glass and there were still shards on the floor. I hadn't picked up my washing and put it in the hamper." Dr Burke did not make a single sound that would break Detective Beckett's flow of revealing words. "It was a mess. Just like me. And I didn't want him to see that. I didn't want him to be clearing up the mess in my apartment just like I didn't want him to be dealing with the mess in my head. He shouldn't have to."

"What does Rick think about that?" Dr Burke asked, once he was certain that Detective Beckett was not going to say anything further.

"What?"

"Cleaning your apartment."

"He said he didn't clean it, he just cleared up the glass. He said he hadn't washed the floor or scrubbed the sink, just the glass."

"Hm." Dr Burke considered his next move with extreme care. "So he had merely taken the minimum steps possible to ensure his, and your, safety. That does not seem to me to be a substantial action. Why do you think he should not have done that, or, indeed, more? He has stated quite clearly in this room that he wishes to look after you."

"He shouldn't have had to do it at all. He shouldn't have to clean up my mess."

"But he was keeping you safe at a time when, owing to the infection in your arm, you would have been unable to take the necessary actions."

"He doesn't keep me safe, I keep him safe. I'm the cop. That's what I'm supposed to do."

"Mm," Dr Burke hummed. "Why do you not think that he should be allowed to take care of you – as he has repeatedly stated that he wishes to do, from both your and his accounts as well as to me, here?"

There was an unpleasantly prolonged pause, while Detective Beckett stared at the floor. Once again, Dr Burke reluctantly recognised that he would have to force the issue.

"It appears to me," he said judicially, "that your discomfort at allowing Rick to take care of you, despite his clear desire to do so, is another manifestation of your subconscious wish to punish yourself for your behaviour towards him. It is perfectly pellucid that he has forgiven you, so I would like you to explain whether you believe this to be self-punishment or whether you have a different reason to rebuff him."

Detective Beckett abruptly stood, stalked to the window, and stared out of it. Dr Burke waited patiently. Thought should not be interrupted, as it frequently allowed his patients, even Detective Beckett, to progress.

"Castle said," she dragged out, not turning back from the window, "that I hadn't done anything that made me happy since I came back." Another long silence. "He proved it." More silence. Dr Burke noted with some concern that she still had not turned around. "He said that was me punishing myself too. And not being hugged. And…and just about everything." The pause was so long that, had she not still been standing, Dr Burke would have wondered if Detective Beckett had lost consciousness.

"He might be right. You might be right."

Dr Burke knew that he was right, as was Mr Castle.

"I believe," he said after a moment, "that you have come to a significant realisation, and therefore this may be a good moment to end the session. Before you leave, I prescribe that you take actions that will give you pleasure, even if you feel that you do not deserve it. Please make your next appointment for Wednesday, when we shall discuss what you have done." He smiled avuncularly. "Your first action should be to call Rick to collect you, and I suggest that you go to a restaurant that you enjoy for your lunch, with him."

Detective Beckett whipped around and stared at him. "Say what?"

"Until our next session, which you should attend on Wednesday," Dr Burke reiterated, "you are to take actions that will give you pleasure, perhaps starting by calling Rick, then visiting a restaurant and having lunch there with him."

Detective Beckett emitted a peculiar noise, reminiscent of an unhappy feline, and exited precipitately, without farewell.

"When's your next appointment?" Castle enquired.

"Wednesday." She paused. "He said I was to do things that give me pleasure till then."

Castle bit his tongue in half not to say let's go straight to bed then. "That sounds good," he managed, temperately. "Where do you want to start?"

"Lunch," Beckett said bitterly. "I've to visit a restaurant and have lunch with you."

Castle gaped. "Uh…where would you like to go?"

"Home. Or the loft. But that doesn't seem to be an option."

"He can't order you to do anything. He's not Gates. But…"

"But?" Beckett snipped.

"But why don't you want to go out to lunch?" He produced a puppy-dog look that should have tugged straight on her heartstrings. It did, but she wasn't paying that any attention. "I thought you liked lunching with me?" He drooped at her. "Don't you love me any more? I'm heartbroken."

"That's not the point."

"So what is the point? You've been told to do something you'd enjoy and you're balking? I thought you said you were dealing with your issues, not exacerbating them by deliberately going against what you really want and your shrink's advice. Don't you trust him?" Castle had stopped moving, which meant that, since his arm had been firmly around Beckett, she did too. "Well, if you won't decide where to go, I will. We're going to Remy's. I know you like it, but you haven't been for months so that's where we'll start. Over lunch, we'll decide what to do next." He marched in the direction of Remy's, without giving Beckett a choice or indeed much of a chance to speak.

Once they were seated in Remy's, Castle produced a glare, directed firmly at Beckett's own glare. Oxygen molecules incinerated where the two glares met.

"Are you going to order?" Castle rapped, "or shall I just order for you?"

"I can do it."

"Good!"

The approaching server looked between them, and decided not to bother with the customary pleasantries and chit-chat.

"Plain burger, fries, strawberry milkshake. Please," Beckett cracked out.

"Cheeseburger, fries, Coke, please," Castle followed.

"Thank you," the server said quickly, and fled before the looming fight could involve her.

"At least you've ordered," Castle rasped. "You need to keep eating properly."

"I don't need a nanny," Beckett snapped straight back.

"So listen to your shrink. He's trying to help you."

"Give me some space to do it, damn it! I can't think with you fussing and fretting all the time so just stop!" She pulled her rising voice back down. "Be quiet."

Castle was about to snap back even harder that in that case he'd have his to go and she could have the solitude she wanted without him – how could she think he was fussing - when he remembered what she'd said about being in hospital and stopped hard. To avoid, um, complications, he went to the restroom, and didn't hurry when washing his hands, so that he stopped charging down the fatal road of telling her what to do. He really had to get a grip on that, before she shot him – or left. He had fallen straight back into his own bad habits. He winced, and waited a little longer, calming down and repeating don't push, don't push until he could manage not to push. He had to let her do it in her own time.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.