All in the Family-Revenge, Ch. 3-A Season 1 Caskett Four-Shot
Title: All in the Family-Revenge, Ch. 3
Rating: T
Summary: "It's chaos. It's a disaster. It's the end of the f*****g world, and Castle is paralyzed. Incapable of anything but staring dumbly and internally generating thesaurus entries for apocalypse."
A/N: What? What are you looking at? The evil sown by Cora Clavia? Hmmmm?
It's chaos. It's a disaster. It's the end of the fucking world, and Castle is paralyzed. Incapable of anything but staring dumbly and internally generating thesaurus entries for apocalypse.
Beckett. He needs Beckett, like, five minutes ago. Because this was not the plan. Her dad was supposed to be an extra. Ryan and Esposito and all the looky-loos were just supposed to see him from a distance. Sixty seconds of her playing to a room already braced for the worst, and her dad none the wiser. That was the plan. And Ryan and Esposito and their pathetic, misguided efforts at avoidance or damage control or whatever it is they think they're doing were definitely not part of it.
"Coffee?" Ryan's voice is well up into boys' choir range as he babbles about the awesome machine they have now.
"Thank you." He frowns slightly as he leads to one side, looking past the highly obvious barrier Ryan and Esposito are trying to throw up between him and Beckett's desk. "But I never touch the stuff after ten."
"Decaf?" Esposito elbows Ryan hard. It's a good instinct. His partner is a millisecond away from snapping. A millisecond away from apologies and excuses and quite possibly a good, old-fashioned ugly cry. Nobody needs that. "Go. Get Mr. Beckett some decaf. Now."
Beckett's dad looks like he's about to decline the offer, but he's too slow. Ryan is already setting the squad record and his own personal best time for the straightaway from bull pen to break room.
"Jim. Like I told you the last four times, Javier. It's Jim." He turns to Castle, hand extended on the second iteration of his name. "And you must be . . ."
"Castle." It sounds wrong. Absolutely wrong. Like a lie. He's lying to her dad. "Rick," he tries, but it's no better. Nothing will be better until Beckett gets here. He should have texted her. He should have gotten the hell out of dodge and found her. That's what he should have been doing while Ryan and Esposito were losing their collective shit, but it's too late now, and his mouth is on a roll. "Richard. Rodgers, actually. At first. But Castle now. Legally. I changed . . . I'm a writer and . . ."
"Richard Castle," Jim says, weathering a far-too-persistent handshake without the faintest hint of a smile. "Yes. I know who you are."
Castle pulls his hand back at last. He can practically hear the sweat beading on Esposito's brow behind him, and it takes everything in him not to scrub his own suddenly moist palm on the thigh of his jeans.
"Of course. You would. Know who I am. From Beckett." He frowns. Dread and the vague sense that every single person but him either doesn't or absolutely cannot know something important about all this press in on him, but panic is driving the bus now. He's lost the thread, entirely. "Kate, I mean. You'd know from . . . well, you're Beckett. Mr. Beckett."
"Jim's fine."
"She's not here." Esposito tries to jump in. Tries to get Castle's attention with a what the hell set of knuckles to the kidney. "Beckett. Detective Beckett is . . . out at the moment."
"She's expecting me." He looks from Castle to Esposito, his tone implying that Beckett's absence is their fault somehow. Or maybe it's them. Maybe it's the guilt. He turns his wrist up. "I suppose I got here sooner than she'd have thought. Just got out of a meeting on this side of town."
He looks around, clearly in search of some place to sit. Castle's chair is the obvious choice. The terribly, tragically obvious choice right next to the fake newspaper.
"Break room," Esposito says under his breath.
"Break room. Definitely. The break room is much better." Castle nods vigorously. Manically. "Coffee . . . decafs all around? I can do cappuccino, latte, straight-up espresso . . ."
"Have mine. I'd like to stay close." Jim brushes past them to set his briefcase down between the chair and Beckett's desk. "Katie sounded like she had something big on her mind when she called."
"Big?"
It's the worst possible word to latch on to. Worse even than that, because it's the two of them-Castle and Esposito-in stereo, as all hope vanishes. As Jim settles into the chair, and his elbow nudges the desk just enough to send the newspaper fluttering to the ground.
Esposito makes a last ditch effort. Castle has to give him credit for the dive, but it's no use. Jim's already straightening. He's already scanning the text. Already folding one piece, then the other. Tucking both into the inside pocket of his jacket. Slowly. Carefully. Silently.
And then it gets worse. Then Jim Beckett dusts off the knees of his impeccably pressed pants and stands. He fixes Castle with a look that puts every single one of his daughter's to shame and says, in a tone that brooks exactly no argument.
"Son. I think I'd like a word with you."
Ryan and Esposito flee. Castle peeks wistfully through the blinds of the conference room, but they're gone. He can practically see their shapes in the dust they kick up, one big, one little. Both cowards. Both traitors.
"Sir. I can explain." He turns from the window, determined to face the music without the least idea how, exactly, to go about it.
Jim taps the low table in front of him. He has the newspaper smoothed out, the halves carefully fitted together. "I very much doubt that you can, Mr. Castle."
"Rick." Castle moves to sit, then can't decide between the couch to the man's left or the arm chair a table's length away.
"Rick," he repeats. He looks up and there's a hint of something that might be a smile in the vicinity of his eyes. "You've settled on that, then?"
"Yes." He lets out a breath. Half a laugh and settles for the arm chair. Eye contact or some other half-baked justification in the back of his head. "I'm sorry," he begins and finds that's pretty much all he has. He starts again anyway. "You're right. I'm sure there's no way I could explain" - he gestures to the stupid newspaper like it's something that's been dead awhile - "that to anyone's satisfaction, but . . ."
"But I wasn't supposed to see it, was I?" Castle shakes his head miserably. "Some kind of prank, then." Jim folds his hands. He gives away nothing at all regarding where he falls on the spectrum from boys will be boys to swift, decisive action when it comes to pranks.
"A prank. Yes . . ." Castle hedges. Tries to gather his thoughts, but Jim cuts in.
"And there's no truth to it?" Another terse question. Another unflinching stare that says he's not a fan of hedging.
"No!" His eyes fly wide. The syllable hits the windows and bounces back. He's a mess. Misery at the truth of it. Worry that it's an insult, to be so emphatic like that, but the denials keep on coming. "None. Sir. None. Beckett-Kate-and I . . . we're . . . it's just professional."
He gives Castle a look that says he very much doubts that, too. As well he might, given the evidence before him. "You have a daughter."
There's no rising inflection. No question mark at all, but Castle blurts out an answer anyway, scrambling for common ground. Scrambling for any kind of ground and trying to remind himself he's not, in fact, sixteen, sweating in a rented tux and waiting for his prom date to make an appearance.
"A daughter. Yes. Alexis."
Jim nods. It seems less like agreement and more like letting the silence work, though Castle has no idea to what end. His mind races, his mood swinging wildly from a quiet, unexpected kind of elation that she talks to her dad about him-talks about his kid at least-to comprehensive shame when he remembers the stupid blurb.
"And what is she going to be when she grows up?"
Castle startles. His mouth opens, then snaps shut. The question abrupt. A non-sequitur, and he's too lost in his own thoughts to keep up.
Jim clarifies, "Your daughter."
"Oh . . . you know. She's fifteen." He smiles. He can't help it when he thinks about the endless possibilities she's blown through already. The research she gathers endlessly. Notebooks and binders, row after row in her bedroom. All the mornings she's burst in, bouncing on the bed to wake him with the latest grand plan for the rest of her life. "A paleontologist last week. Concert violinist this week."
"That's how Katie was." Jim smiles, too. Just as helpless against the same kind of memory. "Rock star, though. And deep sea biochemist, I think."
Castle grins at the image. Beckett singing into her hairbrush. Beckett sliding on her mother's reading glasses and pinning her hair up in a bun. Scrawling things on a clip board. He grins, but the moment is short lived.
There's a commotion in the hallway. They both turn just in time to see a uniform crashing back, setting the wire mesh to ringing. Her partner wrestles their hard case to the ground. It's over in two seconds. Over before the half a dozen others who've come running can even lend a hand, but the damage is done.
"This was never on the radar." Jim hangs his head, the smile that memory brought well and truly gone now. "This."
"I can't imagine," Castle says, even though he can. Even though he suddenly can imagine what it would be like to have Alexis choose work like this. He's all too able, and he reaches for comfort. For some kind of reassurance for them both. "They're careful. Everyone here. I know . . . what you saw . . . this . . ." - he reaches forward to cover up the paper with one broad palm - "I know what it must look like. That it's not exactly . . . confidence inspiring. But Ryan and Esposito . . . there isn't a better team in all the NYPD."
"You believe that?"
"I see it every day." He nods, eager to give the man something. Something. "I stake my life on it."
"And the life of your little girl's father."
Castle doesn't have an answer for that. It's not that he hasn't thought about it. For how it must be for his mother. For Alexis. But he doesn't have an answer. Jim doesn't look like he expected him to.
"She's good at it, isn't she?" he asks. It's quiet. Resigned, as if he already knows the answer and doesn't much like it.
"She's the best of them all." Castle says it without hesitation. "And not just that . . ." - he gestures to the hallway. To the long-gone hard case, and the long-stilled fence around the bullpen - "not just the scary parts. It's the way she has with families. Her empathy, her tenacity . . . she's amazing."
"She talks about you. Quite a bit."
"She does?" He sits up straighter. It's a strange follow-up. It comes with a strange, penetrating look that leaves him inclined to squirm. Defensive and stupidly glib. "All of it flattering, I'm sure."
"Flattering. No, not the word I'd use." Castle feels like he should apologize. Like he should try to explain the unexplainable. Him and her and how they are. He feels like he should say something, but there's a hint of a smile surfacing again on Jim Beckett's face. "You get under her skin."
"A gift, I guess." He tries to smile back, though it's a pretty miserable assessment. It seems to be, but Jim surprises him.
"It is a gift, Rick." There's fire in the quiet words. Sudden urgency and more feeling by far than Castle's seen in the man in the last agonizing half hour or so. "It's a gift that someone still can get under her skin."
Jim pushes himself up from the chair, then. Castle rises, too. Instinctive manners, though he's struck dumb and brimming with questions all at once. But Jim is shaking his hand. He's saying nice to meet you things and calling him Son again.
He's going, and Castle belatedly registers the tap of heels on tile. Fast, then slow. Urgent, then uncertain. Annoyed. Panicked. He turns.
Beckett
Her name never makes it out of his mouth. Their eyes meet for half a second, but there's no time. Her dad has her by the shoulders and time for the two of them to compare notes is clearly not part of his plan. He's marching her to elevator, and the doors are closing. She's gone, and there's no time for anything.
No time to even wink.
A/N: Epilogue to go. Or there would be, if there were anything to which one might append an epilogue.