Chapter 4: 4. Whisky in the jar
She pulls Beckett back around her, shrugging into it like a comfortable coat. Back to Beckett, who can have slick, practised, perfectly enjoyable sex without ever revealing that sometimes she’d rather not be Beckett at all. Exactly as she could have predicted had she thought about it, taking the initiative ignites hot lust and very little in the way of soft cosseting. Gentle strokes, yes, but only in the context of winding each other higher and tighter and hotter and harder and wetter and yes he’s really, really good at this. So is she. As a physical connection it’s the best she’s had. She screams out her pleasure and comes hard around his own explosion and then rolls away to recover.
She’s surprised to be rolled back, and more surprised to be tucked in.
Castle is not wholly happy, despite the absolutely spectacular sex. Beckett has been exactly what he would have expected of Beckett, but he had wanted to be closer to her and all he feels is that he’s been – well, fobbed off with a treat. He doesn’t like the uncomfortable feeling that Beckett settled for this, rather than receiving what she really wanted, but not, unfortunately, being telepathic he currently has no idea what it was that she might really have wanted.
“Don’t do that,” he murmurs. “C ’mere.” He tugs gently, overcoming the slight resistance. “It’s not nice to roll over and go to sleep.”
“ ‘M tired. Lemme sleep.” She really is bone-wrenchingly tired: her eyes are closing themselves and she can’t rouse her mind to anything more. Disappointment in the day and the unpleasant feeling that she settled for second-best because she didn’t want to expose herself and her history, even if that second-best was very, very good, has left her wrung out and strained. She wants to sleep, knit up her ravelled cares, emotions and feelings and face tomorrow as she faces every other day, a burden to be shouldered.
Castle kisses the only available spot: the top of her head. “ ‘kay.” She’s apparently asleep before he can say more. He detaches himself carefully, cleans up, dresses and leaves. With his wallet, this time. Without, however, proper answers having been supplied. He’d previously thought, and then at least partly pretended, that shadowing Beckett is all about flirting to the top of his bent and hoping that the smart, sassy, whip crack Beckett will flirt back and then they could turn it into something a little more physical, in a mutually acceptable manner.
He’s not sure what happened tonight. He mulls it over all the way home, but when he gets in he’s no more informed than he’d been the moment he shut Beckett’s door behind him. It had, for sure, been excellent. But he still has the nagging feeling that in some way Beckett had settled for second best. He doesn’t like that feeling at all. He’s not used to being second best. Additionally, he’s pretty certain that being second best had nothing whatsoever to do with the physical connection. He might previously have had no idea, but now that he’s got plenty of idea he’s convinced that there’s something really pretty special there. He’s equally certain that Beckett felt the same. Physically.
He replays the second half of the evening. He’d had another chance, taken it, cuddled her in and kissed her and they’d spent some time in relatively gentle making out on her couch, during the whole of which period Beckett – no. Not Beckett, then. Possibly Kat, though he’s still trying to work out whether there really is a Kat – was perfectly happy, content, and not making any moves at all to be in charge or to lead or to be her normal driving alpha female self. And then almost without a warning she flipped back to exactly who she normally is and dragged him down with her. Not that he’d been protesting.
So. What happened to flip that switch? He hadn’t made the mistake of mentioning names, or nicknames, he hadn’t tried to push her. Oh. A-ha. He had stopped, because he’d wanted answers but hadn’t formulated the questions to which he wants the answers. And very shortly after that, Beckett-back-to-Beckett had made a swift decision and taken charge, just as he would have predicted. Maybe… maybe she’d just wanted not to take the lead? He finds that very strange, and not very Beckett-like at all.
It’s all far too difficult. Interpreting Beckett is complicated enough when she’s in the precinct and definitely Beckett. Interpreting Beckett when she isn’t Beckett is like interpreting Stalinist Russia: a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. It’s certainly too complicated for tonight.
He’ll consider it all in the morning, when his brain might work. Right now, his brain is mostly occupied with the exceedingly pleasurable memories of Beckett in his arms, under his mouth and tucked against him.
When Castle has left Beckett sleeps for a time, then, exhausted as she still is, wakes with her mind churning. She tries futilely to let her mind relax back into sleep. Disappointment, though, fuels the memories, the reasons she’s so tired of it all.
She’s always been the strong one, a support for her friends. A strong-willed child, a rebellious and strong-willed teen, and then a fully focused college student. She wanted to be Chief Justice, and all her strong will had been turned on that. But then her mother had been stabbed in a dark, dank alley on a freezing January night, and everything changed.
Then, immediately, she had to be strong for her father. She couldn’t show weakness, or be weak, or even, after the funeral, cry anywhere near him. He careened down the slope far faster than she, and by the time she’d looked downward he was already at the bottom, sinking in the quicksand.
For two years she’d tried to save him from drowning, from diving over the edge hand in hand with his new best friend Jack Daniels. Then she’d gone to Al-Anon, as suggested by her then-therapist, and learned that – devastating blow – she couldn’t save him. For three more years she’d watched from a distance – never a safe distance; there was no safety; if she had reached out to try to pull him to some mythical safety he would have pulled her under with him – as he sank. Every day, every ring of her phone, every call from another precinct, floated on the surface of a toxic slurry of fear: fear of the news that call might bring; and under that a sludgy, poisonous underlay of knowledge that if it were the worst, then that at least might bring relief. At least then she wouldn’t continue to suffer the tyranny of hope: need not grieve each day for both the parent lost and the parent remaining. Instead, one parent gone, she watched and feared as the other tried to follow, and failed.
Every day, from the day she’d had to walk away, she’d shouldered her guilt that she’d deserted her father when he needed her most. Every minute since he’d checked himself into rehab she’s been sharply, painfully aware of the fragility of his sobriety, as delicate as a spider’s web and as dependent on a complex network of connections. Should any of those break, so might well he. And she, she knows, is the mainstay of that web. He’d told her so, short weeks after their shared tragedy: already deep-drowned in soft amber whisky to nullify the hard edge of pain, undiluted liquor to better dilute his agony; slurring and tearful and desperately clinging to her: you’re so like her, you’re so strong, Katie, I couldn’t bear to lose you too. You’re the only thing I’ve got left. Don’t ever leave me. But he had already abandoned her. Alcohol was a warmer companion than his devastated, grieving daughter.
Two years after that, she had forsaken him. She had to, or drown with him. And then she joined the Academy, to salt the wound she’d dealt him. Every day, she’d taken up her burden of abandonment with the dawn and only put it down with sleep. Every day, she’d found that only pushing herself harder, faster, for longer kept her clawing, heart-ripping guilt at bay, for a while.
She’d graduated top. It hadn’t helped.
So she’d done the same, pushed herself past all limits, when she started in uniform; and consequently become the youngest female detective in NYPD history. That hadn’t helped, either; not with her father still drowning, still reaching for the next bottle, looking at her in uncomprehending and incomprehensible misery, pouring from bloodshot eyes and a slack face. She couldn’t stand to see it, and couldn’t save him. Survivor’s guilt, perhaps. A venomous resentment, that she resented herself more for being unable to put behind her, and still more for feeling at all. Didn’t she deserve some support from him? And under that, from whence neither therapy nor self-knowledge has excavated it: Didn’t you love me enough to stay away from the pit?
Finally, he saved himself: claimed it was the thought of her and gave her his old watch to prove it, to show her. But still she carries an Atlas-burden of guilt that she forsook him; and a further Sisyphean boulder that she has to be his mainstay. She sets her shoulder to that stone daily, too.
Her last – her only – serious relationship had foundered on the rocks of his never-articulated-in-sobriety, unasked but desperate, need for her to be her father’s safety-line; his belay. Sorenson had been a decent man, but he hadn’t understood – how could he, no-one who hasn’t been there could ever understand the depths of degradation of her alcoholic – say it, it’s the truth – father: the unconsciousness, the vile explosions, the tears, the vomit; and she had never talked about it – how fragile her father was, and is; how her departure would have destroyed him as casually and callously as a child destroying the spider’s webs for pleasure with one swipe of its stick. She couldn’t abandon him to the avaricious avidity of alcohol again, when he’d worked so hard to become, and stay, dry. His dryness, though, had become her arid Atacama, the desert of her life; her atonement for abandoning him. And still she pushes herself to do better every day, in order to forget for some few hours her personal burdens.
But then in the precinct there are other burdens. The burden of command: in charge of the team, standing for the dead. Always the raking claws, the scratched-bloody need to solve it better, faster; to chase down every lead and follow every trail. Always the decisions: this lead over that, this trail over that. Always knowing that failure, or error, falls on her shoulders; standing between her team and the brass, pinned by the spotlight. Tall poppies are the first to be scythed. But more than that, failure means another family with no answer, and only continuing, uncertain misery and the same tyranny of hope that she has borne; the same waiting, in dread, for the phone to ring – or not to ring. She’s still not sure which is worse.
At least she chose that burden for herself, not had it forced upon her. She supposes that she’d accepted the load willingly, hoping for it to displace that other weight; but today she would have given almost anything to lay it down for a night. If only putting it down didn’t mean explaining why. Why, just very occasionally, she wants to be Kat. If only it didn’t mean exposing her father.
It’s her birthday, and she is twenty-nine years old. Her only present has been spectacular, superficial sex with a smart-mouthed playboy, but at least that will not have repercussions. She can’t cut down her twin burdens without the hydra of her guilt growing back triple-headed. She’d never liked Kipling, the colonial attitudes and racism leaving her disgusted, but she understands the sentiment behind his poetry, however unpleasantly and appallingly expressed. Making the right choice, not the easy one, for the common good. Her father’s good; her victims’ families’ good. Her very own Birkenhead drill.
On this, as on so many nights before, she doesn’t cry herself to sleep. She has been done with crying long since.
She’s the same Beckett as ever, the next day in the bullpen. And just in time, a body drops and she can lose herself in the necessary discipline of the investigation: prowling the precinct and the crime scene and the morgue for hours until it’s done, solved. And then again, and again, and again: no respite; a spate of murders that pushes all of them to their limits for the next month. Even had she wanted to repeat, or allowed herself to care about repeating, her encounter with Castle, there’s no time. She can continue like this indefinitely, as long as she doesn’t stop. When it does, she knows, she’ll crash over the adrenaline cliff-edge. When it does, Montgomery will force her – them all – to take a break and recharge. She’ll have nothing to stop the memories, and her burdens will be no lighter.
Their next case is a young man, Peter Berowitz, dead in an alley, an apparently random drive-by shooting. It’s not their normal run of murder – it seems relatively simple. CCTV records are obtained, while Beckett goes, Castle following her, to talk to the family: their address an expensive apartment in a good area.
She recognises the signs instantly, rams down her automatic, unthinking reaction before the grieving relatives spot anything other than her calm, cool, practised sincerity for their loss. Emotion does not, she has found, assist; either in solving the case or managing grief. The interview proceeds precisely as she intends it to: Castle interjecting at intervals in his usual fashion. She’s learning to allow for that, and to accept that it has some value.
“What happened there?” Castle asks, when they’re safely back in her cruiser and on the way to the precinct to regroup and consider.
“Huh? What?”
“You spotted something, or something occurred to you. Right at the very beginning before we even sat down. What was it?” She says nothing, for a cold moment. “C’mon, Beckett, you gotta share.” She bites the bullet.
“He’s an alcoholic. A functioning one, perhaps, but still an alcoholic.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Eyes, hand tremors, the marks on the table where a glass would be, the way his wife was watching him. Breath mints, at 10am.” She doesn’t mention the other signs: the lack of clear comprehension, the slight delay in understanding what had happened, the whiskey bottle in very easy reach. She doesn’t mention the way in which she recognises the look on the wife’s face: that same look which she had seen every morning in her own mirror for five years.
“That wasn’t what I meant.” She raises her eyebrows. It’s hiding a certain degree of panic. “How do you know what an alcoholic looks like.”
“I wasn’t always a Homicide detective, you know. You have to put in the time in uniform. You see a lot there, before you ever get to murder. All the problems of the underbelly of life. Some things you don’t forget, and drunken people and the carnage they cause is one of them.”
When Beckett isn’t looking, Castle peers at her sidelong. He’s not wholly convinced by her explanation, but he has no idea why he shouldn’t be. Anyway, he thinks, while parking that point, he has another goal in mind. He certainly has not forgotten his evening with Beckett, now almost a month ago, and while it may not have been wholly satisfactory emotionally he is quite definite that its repetition would improve matters. In short, he wants to do it again. And again. And again, and each time learn a little more, move a little closer, find out and then provide whatever it is that she needs but won’t admit or ask for. Astoundingly, he doesn’t actually mean the sex, though he certainly wouldn’t be averse to more of that either. Mostly, he means his meeting with not-Beckett, who might turn out to be Kat. He concocts another plan.
“Have you done your Christmas shopping, Beckett?” He bounces happily at the thought of Christmas. Castle loves Christmas, in all its infinite varieties. He’s not put off by the commercial aspects, because little makes him happier than giving his family presents – proper, well thought through ones, and silly ones; stocking presents and under-the-tree presents. Any sort of presents, really. He just likes giving. He likes the food and drink, as many decorations as one can fit on a very large, and always real, tree, and all the Christmas films. Most of all, he likes the possibilities of magic and redemption inherent in the whole festival.
“No.”
“No? When will you do it? There’s only a week or so to go.”
“Christmas Eve,” says Beckett, casually. It’s not as if she has many people to buy for. Small gifts for Lanie, maybe Ryan and Esposito; something for her father. It’s more difficult when you can’t give liquor. That’s it. Then she’ll spend Christmas Day at work, and when her shift is over go to her father’s place for a dinner in which they won’t talk about Banquo’s ghost, there at the table with them; won’t mention anything about their shared family history or indeed anything about family at all, and will toast each other and the coming year in Coca-Cola. Afterwards, she’ll go home to her apartment and eventually go to bed and not cry herself to sleep.
“What! You can’t do that!”
“Why not? Corpses don’t wait for me to do my Christmas shopping.”
“No. That’s not how you do it. You plan, and then you take one evening and do everything. It’s fun: you have wine and get all wrapped up against the cold and enjoy yourselves.”
“So you’ve done all yours?” She’s trying to head off the light she can see coming through the tunnel: to wit, Castle inviting her to join him for a happy evening of shopping.
“Of course. Well, apart from stocking presents, and maybe something silly for Alexis, and something to annoy my mother – wrinkle cream, maybe – or if I see something that would be just perfect for one of them that I haven’t already got…”
“Okay, I get it. You are – despite all appearances to the contrary – Mr Organised.” Castle evidently has a thought.
“Should I get presents for people in the precinct?”
“If you want. It’s not compulsory, but we can always use more doughnuts.” Castle looks a little dejected.
“Really? Doughnuts? That’s all?”
“Unless you want to be known as the rich boy trying to bribe us to be friends. Stick to doughnuts, Castle. It’s traditional.”
“What sort of doughnuts do you like, Beckett?”
“Sprinkles.” Wow. A piece of information. Still, that’s fairly minor in the context.
“I don’t know what the rest of the bullpen likes, though.” He widens his eyes enormously and looks pleadingly at her. “You need to come and help me choose. I wouldn’t want to get something everyone hated.” He smiles, very like a small boy who’s thought of something that he’s sure his mother will like, such as a pet frog, or a snake. “And then I can help you with your Christmas shopping. It’ll be fun.”
“I don’t think I need any help, thank you,” Beckett raps out briskly. “In, buy, out. All done.” Castle looks at her pathetically.
“Beckett, that’s not how it works. It’s supposed to be fun. Sociable. C’mon. You should do it properly.” He keeps talking, but Beckett simply lets it wash over her and ignores it. She might, if pressed, help him select doughnuts, but that’s it. She pulls the cruiser into a parking slot and switches off the engine. “Okay, so that’s settled.” Hang on, what’s settled? “You come to mine tomorrow evening after work, we’ll have a drink and some snacks and then you and I will go and do your Christmas shopping.” He hops out the car while she’s still spluttering.
“I didn’t agree to that,” she says. But she knows she’s already lost the argument. And truthfully, it sounds like a pleasant, easy way of spending the early part of an evening. Down time. His daughter and mother are probably perfectly nice, even if his mother is supposed to be hopelessly theatrical, and anyway, they’re not coming shopping. She doesn’t have to spend much time with them. It’s okay. She can deal with the short time.
“Please, Beckett?” Oh, God. Big blue puppy dog eyes. Saying no would be like kicking a kitten. She just can’t do it.
“Okay. Just this once.” His grin lights up the dingy garage.
“It’ll be great. You’ll see.”
What has she done?
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone