Chapter 19

When Beckett awoke, the light was peeping shyly through cloud; clearly visible through the window. They hadn't thought for an instant to draw the drapes closed, and she had barely moved all night: still pillowed on Castle's wide chest; still in his arms. She stayed nestled in, and fell back asleep until a more reasonable hour.

For the first time in over two weeks, she woke again at something close to her normal time. Castle was still sound asleep, whiffling gently, but Beckett was firmly awake. She cautiously detached herself, and went to shower and clean her teeth. She examined her arm, decided that it didn't need wrapped; and more, that she could easily wash her hair too.

When she had finished, feeling almost Beckett-normal, she made herself coffee, and curled up on the couch, contentedly sipping. When she'd finished the first mug, which never took long, she made another. It occurred to her that she was, comfortably, enjoying her coffee, without feeling that she was failing to do something, or missing something…

Or guilty that she drank the coffee Castle made, or brought, her while still lying to him.

That was it. She didn't feel guilty. A weight that she hadn't known she was carrying had slipped away now that Castle knew the truth – and still loved her. However, she thought, if she hadn't had the easy, unpressured day yesterday, albeit it had taken her some time to get into the spirit of it, she wouldn't have realised.

She hummed happily as she thought of how the day had ended – not the wonderful sex, though that sure didn't hurt – but the snuggly closeness and restful togetherness of sleep. She'd felt cared for, cossetted, protected. Just like he'd said. She'd slay dragons, but he'd be there to take care of her afterwards. Plus or minus Wonder Woman Band-Aids, of course. Castle would love those. She fell to contemplating what they might do today, with a far better attitude than that with which she had begun the previous day.

She hadn't reached any conclusions when Castle ambled out, delightfully tousled and charmingly under-clothed, aiming straight for the coffee machine. He was pouting, at least until he noticed Beckett on the couch, feet tucked under her, when the pout disappeared and was replaced with a broad smile.

"Hey," he bounced. "More coffee?"

"Please." She grinned, unforced. "When do I ever not want more coffee?"

"I'd take you to the ER if you didn't," Castle noted, with an equally happy smile. "What shall we do today?"

"I don't know," Beckett humphed. "I tried to think of things, but I couldn't think of anything."

Castle concealed his total amazement that Beckett was trying to engage with Burke's prescription, and gulped his coffee. "There's no hurry," he eventually said. "We've got all day, and if what you want is to curl up with a good book, then that's fine."

"I guess," Beckett said doubtfully.

"What's the matter?"

"It doesn't seem like I'm doing anything."

"Burke said do things you enjoy. If you have a book you enjoy, that's squarely in the frame."

Beckett couldn't help feeling that it was just too easy.

"Just because it's easy, doesn't mean it's wrong," Castle said, most annoyingly reading her thoughts. "Enjoyment doesn't always mean effort."

"You mean you weren't putting effort in last night?" Beckett made a face at him.

"Mean," Castle riposted. "I would never give less than my best efforts." He batted his eyelashes. "Didn't you enjoy it? I thought you were enjoying it immensely."

Beckett blushed, and wriggled.

"You were," Castle smirked. "We could" –

"Nope."

"Awww." He didn't even try to disguise the cut-off end of his sentence. "Anyway," he returned to his point, "enjoying yourself shouldn't mean forcing yourself to do something. Just be. Live in the moment."

Beckett stared. She never lived in the moment. Ever since she'd been small, she'd planned, and then worked to achieve that plan. She always had a plan. Not having a plan left her tense and worried; and Castle saying live in the moment practically gave her hives.

"Just because you always have a plan and you're always looking three – or thirty-three – steps down the road, doesn't mean you can't kick back occasionally."

Beckett opened and closed her mouth, rather like a confused goldfish.

Castle carried on – in for a penny, in for a pound. Possibly a pound-weight of bullets, perforating his pectorals. "You don't need to plan every minute. A little bit of randomness and surprise is good."

"I don't like surprises. They're always bad."

"I was a surprise, and that wasn't bad."

"Exception that proves the rule," Beckett said, after a significant pause. "Though you can be very bad indeed."

"I know," Castle oozed. "And you enjoyed every bit of it."

"I meant your arrest record."

"Oh. The charges were dismissed."

"Still, you were drunk in charge of a police horse. Naked."

"Youthful frolics," Castle grinned. "I prefer more adult frolics now, especially when I'm naked."

Beckett tried really hard not to blush, and almost succeeded. "I still don't know what I want to do," she complained. "I don't see anything I want to go see. There aren't any movies or exhibitions, and the weather's awful." It was. Since they'd woken, the sleet had set in, pattering against the windows. Walking around Central Park – or anywhere else – wasn't going to happen.

"We could curl up on the couch and watch movies," Castle suggested. "Like a pyjama party."

"You wear pyjamas?" Pyjamas on Castle hadn't been much in evidence.

"I own pyjamas. Silk, naturally."

"That wasn't what I asked." Beckett produced a reasonably Beckett-standard glare: that is, one which would merely incinerate forests, rather than entire landscapes. "When do you wear pyjamas?"

"When Alexis was little," Castle admitted.

"So you don't actually have a pair of pyjamas that you could wear."

"I do so."

"Your pyjamas from seventeen years ago still fit you?" She looked him up and down, disbelievingly.

"Yep," Castle said confidently. "They do. I take great care of my physique. I wouldn't want to lose muscle tone or fitness. How would I keep it up?" He grinned wickedly. Beckett spluttered and blushed fiercely. "Shadowing you, Beckett. Why, what did you think I meant?"

She blushed some more, and declined to answer.

"Movies, pyjama party. Perfect." His grin exceeded Lucifer's in wickedness. "And may I say, Beckett, that your version of pyjamas" – he raked a searing glance over her short, silky top and briefs – "will also be perfect."

She rolled her eyes, then scrutinised him closely. "I think I'd prefer you in pyjamas," she said.

"Worried that my manly musculature will be too much for you?"

"Nope."

"Awww. It's okay if it does. I'll catch your fainting self in my strong arms."

Beckett blew a raspberry. "I don't faint."

"You have no sense of romance."

"Nope."

"Well, I do. Romance adds sparkle to life. But to satisfy your prudishness, I shall don my pyjamas." He smirked. "Unless you ask me to take them off."

"In your dreams."

"In my dreams, you'd take them off, slowly, and then – okay, shutting up now," he said rapidly, as her glare attained world-destroying proportions. "Go look for a movie you'd like." He gestured at a shelf full of DVDs, and Beckett took the suggestion as Castle dawdled off to find his pyjamas.

"It's lunchtime," Castle said, three hours and two bloodthirsty action movies later. "I'm hungry." He carefully didn't mention that Beckett had stayed comfortably curled up in the crook of his oh-so-willing arm for the total run time of both movies, head pillowed on his shoulder. It had been wonderfully adorable. When she was peaceful – that was, not chasing killers, stressed, or injured – she was really quite domesticated.

"I am not domesticated!"

Oops. He'd said that out loud. "Even St George had a home life when he wasn't slaying dragons," he tried.

"Not the point. Domesticated is for cats. I'm not a cat."

"You like being stroked." Castle said. He wasn't a believer in when in a hole, stop digging. "You purr."

"That is not the point. I am not domesticated. Or domestic."

"For sure you're not domestic. You don't cook."

"Nope. Takeout's easier. Anyway, my apartment is clean."

"Just like your desk. It wouldn't dare be untidy."

"Anyone messing with my desk will lose their fingers." She assessed Castle's mischievous expression. "Or anyone touching my chair. Or stealing my candy."

"Hmmmm. That only leaves me one option."

Beckett knew that asking was a bad idea, but her disobedient mouth did it anyway. "What?"

"Hugging you." He compounded his behaviour by demonstrating.

"Do that in the precinct and you will be dead."

"Does that mean I can do it outside the precinct? Because that suits me just fine."

"Only if it suits me."

Castle grinned boyishly. "That means I can hug you lots. You like being hugged. Among other things. Hugging suits you."

Beckett muttered. Castle belatedly decided that discretion might be the better part of valour, and decamped to make grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch.

Lunch, of which Beckett ate a reasonable quantity for an adult woman, was succeeded by more movies, since the weather remained appalling. By the end of the afternoon, to Castle's private delight, Beckett had spent pretty much the whole day snuggled up to him. Even the cut on her arm finally looked as if it was healing. Dinner passed in peaceful harmony, and more movies filled the evening. Finally, it was bedtime, at least for Beckett, whose eyelashes had been drooping to her cheekbones with ever-increasing regularity.

"It was a nice day," she yawned.

"Yep. Off you go to bed." He smiled. "I'll be there in a bit."

She lurched to her feet and towards his bedroom without a thought or hesitation. He thought he heard good, but he couldn't be sure.

Beckett managed to perform her night-time routine without actually falling asleep into the sink, and stumbled into Castle's huge bed, eyes already shutting in the comfort of his scent surrounding her. It didn't occur to her that she hadn't worried once in the whole day about the following morning's appointment with Burke.

Castle, left alone, tidied up in mere moments, then meditatively made and sipped a coffee to aid his consideration of that and the previous day. Beckett, he concluded as he drained the cup, had been almost back to pre-summer normal by lunchtime, with the added joy that she'd been snuggly and cuddlesome. He really liked snuggly, cuddlesome Beckett. He'd patch her up after dragon-slaying for the rest of their lives if he got snuggly Beckett when she took a break.

He might, he thought less happily, have to patch her up after the next day's shrink session. On which thought, he decided he should go to bed too. On his way to his own bedtime routine, he noted that Beckett was buried in the covers, halfway to his usual side, nose in his pillows. Routine completed, he slipped into his side without touching her, then settled himself and put an arm over her waist. She gave a sleepy, happy noise, wriggled a fraction, and whiffled as she fell back into deep slumber.

At just before eleven on Wednesday morning, Beckett arrived at Burke's office. Castle wasn't with her, at her request. He'd pouted, but complied, on the promise of lunch afterwards at a good dim sum place.

"Good morning, Kate," Dr Burke opened.

"Hey."

"Tell me what you have done since Monday's session."

"Went for lunch. Walked. Had dinner. Watched movies."

Dr Burke despaired. "Describe your lunch, including how you felt."

"We went to Remy's." Detective Beckett absorbed Dr Burke's unspoken query. "It's a diner, near the precinct."

"Is this a restaurant that you enjoy eating at?"

"Yes."

"How did you choose it? Presumably you enjoy eating at a number of different establishments?"

Detective Beckett said nothing; her mouth pinching. Dr Burke waited.

Finally… "Castle chose it," she bit off.

Dr Burke waited for an explanation. When none was forthcoming after a moment or two, he spoke. "I had thought that you would choose the restaurant," he said mildly.

"Well, I didn't."

Dr Burke decided on another approach in the face of Detective Beckett's obduracy. He would return to the point later. "What have you enjoyed in the last two days?"

"Hot chocolate," she admitted. "The movies." She paused. "The walk. I didn't want to go to the Met."

"Where did you walk?" asked Dr Burke, thinking that if he had wished to spend time pulling teeth he would have trained as a dentist.

"Central Park."

"Ah. This was on Monday, when the weather was pleasant for the time of year?"

"Yes. It was nice."

"What in particular made your walk nice? Were you alone, or was Rick with you?"

"Rick was there."

"Mm." Dr Burke did not comment, as he wished to see whether Detective Beckett would expand on her bald sentence. He smiled avuncularly, instead.

"It was nice," she repeated, and stopped, with a quality to the pause that left Dr Burke certain that there was more to her words. After a minute, she began again. "I enjoyed" – there was a bite on the word that made Dr Burke internally wince – "the walk with Castle." She swallowed. "I used to enjoy spending time with him. Before I got shot. Then I didn't."

"Why do you think that was?" Dr Burke knew why, but he wanted Detective Beckett to state her reasons.

"I'd lied to him, so I felt guilty."

"And now he knows the truth, so you need not feel guilty." Dr Burke smiled. "You may enjoy his company without any feelings of duplicity or dishonesty."

Detective Beckett winced in her turn.

"Now, tell me why Rick chose Remy's for your lunch on Monday? Did he ask you where you would like to go?"

"Yes."

"And you chose this Remy's?"

Detective Beckett squirmed. "Not exactly."

"What transpired?"

"Castle asked where I wanted to go, and I said home or the loft. Then he got angry and said we were going to Remy's 'cause I hadn't been since before the summer and I was punishing myself and he marched me there whether I liked it or not."

Dr Burke reflected that Mr Castle had not been wrong. "Did you order for yourself?"

"Yes. And before you ask, yes, I enjoyed my food. I even had some dessert."

"And, presumably, you repaired relations with Rick after his actions."

Detective Beckett blushed, but nodded.

"Was it easy to take actions which you enjoyed?"

She shook her head. "Not on Monday. It was easier yesterday."

"As it should be." Dr Burke regarded Detective Beckett carefully. "If I were to suggest that you were to continue to undertake actions that you enjoy, would you feel easier about doing so?"

"Maybe. Probably."

"Then it has been a good foundation." He considered his next sentence carefully before speaking. "Have you thought further on your tendency to punish yourself?"

"No." Detective Beckett's mouth snapped shut on the single syllable.

"I suggest that you do so now, after which we may discuss it further, following your realisations on Monday morning." Dr Burke was perfectly well aware that Detective Beckett would prefer not to think about her remaining issue. However, both her reasons for lying to Mr Castle and her failure to trust her team had been resolved, so he was, therefore, anxious that she should continue to deal with the one outstanding matter. Resolution might not be rapid, but it should not be delayed unnecessarily.

Beckett didn't want to think about whether she had been punishing herself. She wanted to receive her clearance and get back to work. Her arm was healing nicely, she felt fine, and there was no reason at all not to go back to solving murders.

"I cannot, in good conscience, provide psychological clearance for you to return to active duty as an NYPD detective, until this issue is resolved. Your tendency to self-punish materially increases your risk of serious injury," Dr Burke noted. He could see Detective Beckett meditating a request to receive clearance in order to return to her profession, and wished to, as it were, 'head it off at the pass'. She scowled, but then relapsed into thought. Dr Burke was, he confessed to himself, relieved that he did not have to argue the point.

Some moments later, during which Dr Burke had occupied himself by mental review of a most interesting paper on paranoia as linked to agoraphobia, Detective Beckett looked up. "Okay. I've thought about it," she snipped.

"What have you concluded?"

Her mouth twisted. "It wasn't deliberate," she said defensively.

"I have not suggested otherwise," Dr Burke pointed out. "I would have been extremely surprised if it had been. I have not seen anything in your presentation to suggest that you would deliberately harm yourself." He paused. "However, you have, as we have discovered, inadvertently allowed yourself to be hurt. We agree that those actions were not deliberate. You have pointed out that you undertook basic care – you washed your arm and knees – but that was insufficient to deal with the damage, although you thought that it had been. We have discussed your behaviour in searching for your mother's killer. That was also not deliberate." He paused. "However," he repeated, with emphasis, "the results of your actions are in all cases the same. You have caused yourself to suffer, physically or mentally, because subconsciously you think that you should be punished." He paused again. Detective Beckett remained utterly silent and motionless. "In the earlier case, you bore no responsibility for your mother's murder nor for your father's descent into alcohol abuse. Yet you punished yourself for failing to solve that case and for failing to save your father. In the instant case, you bore no responsibility for your shooting, although you do bear some – not total: there are significant mitigating circumstances – responsibility for failing to tell Rick the truth. Yet you have punished yourself for, in your view, your weakness while recovering from that life-threatening event, and for lying to Rick." He steepled his fingers, and watched Detective Beckett keenly. "Is that a fair summary of the position?"

Detective Beckett scowled blackly, squirmed, and scowled again. Finally, "I guess so," she grudged. "But it wasn't deliberate."

"That is true, but it does not change the fact that it occurred. Before I can clear you, you must understand why you did so, and how you will recognise and avoid repetition of the issue in future. Failure to do so will result in another episode, which may not be so easily cured."

Beckett thought that several stitches and nasty antibiotics didn't qualify as an easy cure. Then the import of Burke's words hit her brain.

"What? You won't clear me now?"

Dr Burke regarded Detective Beckett blandly. "No. You have not finished resolving this issue, and until you have done so, I shall not clear you. In any event, your arm is not fully healed, and so you would not receive medical clearance as yet."

"But…but I'm perfectly capable of working!" Detective Beckett surged up from her chair and paced Dr Burke's treatment room, heels thudding irritably on the floor. "Sure, I might have to be on desk duty for a week more, but I can work."

"That, Kate, is simply another manifestation of your desire to punish yourself. This time, I regard it as having arisen from guilt at failing to treat yourself. You have, in the vernacular, doubled down. Therefore I shall not provide clearance."

Detective Beckett's face darkened with rage. Dr Burke sat calmly, and waited for her to calm herself.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.

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