A Biker's Tale
Chapter 11 - The Confrontation
"Hi, nice to see you too Castle! I'm the cavalry coming to the rescue!", Beckett replies noticing Castle's motorcycle with a broken bike chain.
Rick can't believe his eyes! Beckett is here. It definitely had to mean something, but he does not know what. He needs to know why she is here.
"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be back in the city with Dr. Motorcycle boy? Does he even know you're here?", Rick's tone shows his anger with her. But here she is. Kate had come after him. What was he to make of it?
Kate does not respond immediately to Rick's question. She is thinking, trying to choose the right words that will make Rick understand. She had rehearsed in her mind the speech she would give to Rick at this moment, in her attempt to get him back. But despite her numerous times of mentally practicing her talk, her mind is totally blank. There is a short pause from her.
"You didn't answer my question Beckett!", says Castle his tone still showing anger and hurt. No show of forgiveness in his voice addressing her by her surname as if to keep his distance.
So she says the one thing that might grab his attention, but does not know how he will react to it.
"There is no Josh, Castle. I broke up with him!"
Rick had been stunned seeing Kate here, but now he is in shock by her revelation about Josh. There is seemingly another pause but longer than the one before as Rick takes in what Kate just told him. Finally he finds his voice.
"Why the hell did you do that? I thought you two were an item. What happened?", his voice caustic with derision.
"He was not the one Castle! It took me all this time to come to my senses, that you're my one, you own my heart!"
Kate is telling Rick what he had wanted to hear from her in their most recent past. In fact, had she told him this months back, he would have readily accepted it. But now, with all the pain and angst that he had endured, what is he to make of her declaration?
"You have a strange way of showing me that, Beckett! First there was Demming, then Josh, so I get the leftovers! I get to be your third choice? I won't play that game, Beckett! I wanted better. You will have to convince me you are sincere on this", once again his tone angry, but not like before, due in part to her breakup revelation.
"Castle, I'm here in this remote place, that must mean something. I followed you here just to have this talk… about you, about me, about us. Yes, you should have been my very first choice. I made a terrible mistake. The worst mistake of my life. It's been you all along. I just was too scared and stupid to admit it. I mean….oh God…how do I let you see this! I had a speech all prepared just for this moment, but now I'm at a loss for words."
"You're not helping yourself at all here, Beckett. But, I will give it to you that I am stunned you are here. Though it doesn't mean anything unless you can explain yourself, Kate!", he says forcefully, but using her first name, with a softer familiar tone.
She notices. He had used Kate instead of Beckett to respond to her.
That is a sign!
It's a start!
Kate takes a moment to calm herself a bit. She knew that Castle might reject her, but still she was going to convince him otherwise, despite his resistance to her efforts.
She begins again slowly, and with deliberation, "Rick, (her turn now for more familiarity) you are this big time millionaire author. You are Bachelor number 3 on the NYC Most Eligible. You have a rep of being a Ladies' Man! That mantra is intimidating for any women, myself included. You date these 'celebutants' and could have your pick of any of a dozen interested women. There was Ellie Monroe, Natalie Rose, and then Gina for a second time around. I was afraid I would become just another notch on your bed post. So I tried to pretend I could not fall for you and you encouraged that by being with other women. I was with Demming after your fling with Ellie Monroe. Then Natalie Rose tired to seduce you. You left me for a whole summer with Gina. What's a girl to think! It seemed that you were not ever going to be more serious with me. Despite telling me 'always', it did not appear that way. The incident with Gina hurt Rick! I was suppose to be the one going to the Hamptons with you. I was suffering from that rejection, when you replaced me with her. That is why Josh happened!"
"So you're telling me it's my fault that you paraded all these other men before me? If you recall correctly, I invited you first to the Hamptons and you refused my invitation." His voice is filled with sarcasm, the vitriol and pain still evident in his tone, but not as bad as previously.
"No…it's not that…it's just that….he…Josh…he proposed to me Rick!". She let's that sink in for a moment.
"Oh so you're here to tell me that,.. to rub it in,.. to put salt in my wounds?", he is emotional and not in a good way.
She needs to calm him, "No, it's not that at alI. I turned him down. I told him 'no', Rick. I had fallen for you…. despite all I had done to deny you. It's been that way since Gina and even before her. Remember on that same Memorial Day Weekend before you left when I told you I wanted to tell you something just as Gina showed up?"
Rick had been listening intently to her talk. She'd said 'no' to a marriage proposal from Josh! That was yet another shock that Rick had not expected. Now Kate has captured his attention. He needs to see what else Kate is going to reveal. He needs to know the whole story, as he always did.
He responds to her question, "I remember, but what does that have to do with all this now?"
"I was going to tell you that I wanted to go with you to the Hamptons, that I wanted to give us a chance!"
"Oh", Rick replies as he realizes what truly had happened. "And then Gina shows up and I tell you she is coming with me to the Hamptons."
He sees Kate's reaction to his epiphany, the regret in her face, that she did not get to tell him before Gina's arrival. There is another awkward pause before Kate speaks again.
"Gina shows up and you leave with her. You had replaced me with her… and it was painful. It hurt so much, until I found Josh. But even then, I did not realize at the time, Josh was just a rebound. A rebound from you, even if we never had been a couple. Josh was a rebound Rick!"
And now Rick is aware of more of the details. Circumstances had conspired against them. He now had seen where she was going with her talk. It was an insightful explanation and a revealing discussion about them!
"I didn't know Kate", his voice apologetic.
There is but another pause. There had been quite a few leading up to this moment.
It is Rick's turn now to disclose to Kate what she had not known.
"I too was hurting. I saw you and Demming making out at the precinct and realized it had turned serious with the two of you."
Kate is a bit put off by this information. She and Tom had tried to be so careful, to avoid PDAs, but their emotions had over-ruled, despite. They thought they'd been discrete, but apparently not! Kate had not wanted to be the gossip of the precinct. But seemingly the people of the 12th had known more about her and Demming than the couple had wanted. So despite their efforts to keep the affair private, it seems more were aware of their hookup than they had intended.
Rick continues his story noticing Kate's surprise to his remarks, "You had all but shut me out on our current case. Arguing case theories with Demming, like we used to do. Allowing him to interrogate only with you, leaving me and the boys to watch from the observation room. You shared rides to the crime scenes with him, so I had to hitch a ride with the boys. One time I was even left at the scene when the boys thought I had a ride back with you."
Castle does an intentional halt to his talk for emphasis. He wanted this all to sink in on Kate's thoughts.
After a brief moment, Rick continues once more, "I took a taxi back to the 12th and you never knew about it. You were too busy with your new boy toy to notice. Too busy playing house with him so as to be totally clueless of your inappropriate behavior. It felt like you had rejected me for the robbery detective. I had been completely shut out! I was sinking into a depression about it until Gina threw me a life line, Kate!"
Now it's Kate's turn to hear the full story from Castle and she knows now that the emotional pain she had inflicted on him had driven him to Gina.
Still, there is yet one last disclosure she has to make to him.
Closing her eyes, like she is struggling to control her emotions, Kate says, "I'm so sorry Rick for all of this… for Demming … for Josh. But you should know Rick that I never slept with Demming when I ended it with him. I broke up with him just before Gina appeared."
A light turns on in Castle's mind, and connecting the dots, he has a flash of clear deduction, "You wanted to accept my invitation to the Hamptons but had to settle it first with Demming, just in case we worked out. You wanted no additional baggage should we have happened. GOD, I was so clueless!"
Rick realizes then that his actions played a large part for Kate's seeing other men, driven by her fears of being just another one of his conquests. Her fearful actions in turn continued to fuel his bad choices. It had been a vicious cycle, one that had to end. So Rick had finally seen where Kate had been all the while. She had pleaded her side well.
"If only we had talked like this back then. We could have avoided all this drama!", Kate says.
Rick nods his head 'yes'. Then another seemingly long pause.
Castle speaks after some time had passed, his voice timid, but conciliatory, "The issue presently is where do we go from here?".
Again an awkward pause as each takes in all that had just been revealed between them. They both had not held back but spoke plainly and truthfully.
Kate ends the silence by asking softly, "Can I have a 'Do Over', Rick?"; her tone, her look, sincere, apologetic, with a hint of hopefulness.
Another long moment passes as Castle considers Kate's 'Do Over' request.
This hurtful cycle of taunting each other with meaningless relationships had to end.
Then he tells her in earnest, "Kate, I'll make it up to you for what happened with Gina and all those other women…. come with me to Alaska!"
Kate answers quickly, "Only if you will forgive me for my past mistakes."
"I too should ask forgiveness for being such an inconsiderate jerk, but most especially with Gina. So let's clear the slate for both of us!"
Kate face lightens up with Rick's response. Her look tells it all. For the first time since Rick left her, they both are on the same page.
"The answer then is 'yes', Richard Edgar Alexander Castle. I will go with you on your trip to Alaska."
Rick enters Kate's personal space and locks her in a tight embrace with a passionate kiss. Kate returns the kiss with equal passion. Both are intoxicated with their makeup kiss. This kiss was far better than their first kiss, the one that made Kate realize that she had wanted Rick far more than she had denied, even to herself. This kiss now was so much more and signaled a new committed path to a rekindled, but different, relationship. One now to be built on trust and honesty with open and sincere talks with one another.
Assessing Rick's Damaged Bike
"You're lucky the chain break did not cause significant damage to your bike Rick. It might have been better if you had stayed with your old chain. This sure gives meaning to that often quoted adage, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
"Well it seemed like a good idea at the time", he is holding his mobile phone up above his head and moving around trying to get a cell signal, "You getting anything on yours?"
"I got two bars, let's see if I can find a garage at the next town up ahead."
Kate gets a garage from the next town to send a tow truck, but it will take two hours before it gets to them.
They have two hours to kill. So Rick begins another discussion.
"So how did Josh take the breakup?"
"He didn't. For weeks he kept trying to make up with me. Josh even promised to give up his DWB missions if I married him. He was persistent till I finally let him know in so many words that we were done. He had suspected that I cared for you far more than I had let on, and when I confirmed that for him, it took the fight out of him. He left me alone after that revelation."
"Well I will be sure then to leave a wide path should I by chance meet up with him in the near future."
"Probably wise, as I don't want to handle your homicide case, it would be so too 'Temptation Lane-nish ' for me", Kate says in humor, for a comic relief from the moment.
Rick recalls how much of a fan she was with the series and gets an agonizing boost to his ego with her remark. He then realized that Josh had all the reason to hate him. Rick had made Kate the one who got away from Josh. Rick had won her heart to the exclusion of one Dr. Motorcycle boy.
"So you took leave to follow me here?"
"I took all of my accumulated leave, including my excess carry-over leave, Rick. About forty seven days."
"So Roy had no problems with that."
"At first he did, but not after I told him what it was for and since there was excess leave included in the request, leave that was use or lose, Roy had no choice. By regulations, he had to grant it all to me."
"Well, thank God you are a work-aholic and seldom take vacations. It works to our advantage, gives us enough time to complete this trip."
So now Rick knew it all. This trip will be their "do over" and each appreciated being together with a new resolve.
"Well, look what's here!"
Kate sees the tow truck up ahead. It will get to them in minutes.