Material Witness-Things That Scare Me; Little Girl Lost (1 x 09)
Title: Things That Scare Me
WC: ~5500
Rating: T
Summary: "It's the fact that she never had a Monkey Bunkey or a pink bunny, but she knows that they matter. She knows how they matter and he needs her for that."
Episode: Little Girl Lost (1 x 09).
A/N: Nothing much to say about this. A long-ago comment by BerkieLynn's inspired this series, and I figured I was done with it. I'm not sure I shouldn't be, but I'm scraping along with any writing I can manage.
This is the thirteenth story in this series. They're loosely linked one-shots that can be read independently and in any order you like. Reading the prologue will set you up for the premise.
If you are interested in the previous stories. Here's the prologue that sets up the series premise, and here's the first story and the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the the sixth, the the seventh, the eighth, the ninth, the tenth, the eleventh, and the twelfth.
"I'm a dying breed who still believes"
- Neko Case, Things That Scare Me
2009
She has her arms wrapped around her leather coat. It's not quite dawn, and she's asleep in the rocking chair, surrounded by a literal horde of fluffy, huggable things, but her fists are bunched in sober, dark green leather, and her elbows hem the neat folds of it in at her sides.
He's about to give her shit for it. It's really only the fact that there are so many things he could needle her about that stops him at first. He's working on something about how he should have suspected she'd have a leather woobie. Or maybe simple is better. A sly offer to come back later and break the case wide open when she's had her beauty sleep.
He wants to make it good, so he hesitates. Considers his options.
She shifts, then. Her head lolls against the wooden chair back. It tips into light and back into shadow. She looks older, then younger, then older again, all in the stretch of time it takes for a tight, troubled sigh to leave her. She settles back into uneasy sleep.
It stops him, toes just over the threshold.
She looks wrecked. She can't have been asleep long. The dark fabric of her shirt huddles on either side of her jaw. It turns her face into all harsh planes and hard angles, and the color doesn't do much to downplay the circles beneath her eyes or how pale she is. He thinks it's from her locker, anyway. The shirt. He thinks the last two changes of clothes he's seen her in might be from her locker, and he wonders if she's even been home since all this started.
He wonders why she's here. Why she's been here all night, apparently. There's not a lot to accomplish. Certainly not here, with the sun just barely high enough in the sky to poke through the blinds and fall in lines over one pastel corner. He wonders why she's asleep in a stiff-backed rocking chair in a little girl's bedroom.
The case is hard on her. They all are. He realized a while back that she leaves nothing at the door. That she feels them all like no one else does. Esposito. Montgomery. Even Ryan. They're all good cops, but it's the job for them.
It's more than that for her. Because of her mother. Because it's who she is. Because he doesn't know where one stops and the other starts, and he thinks she doesn't know either.
They're all hard on her. Even so, this one is worse. It's the boyfriend-the ex-and that other case.
We got the guy.
It bugs him. That she lied.
Not lied exactly. But she left it at that. She didn't tell him the story, and she let him think . . .
It bugs him that she kept it from him. He feels stupid when he realizes it. When he admits that's what rankles.
Of course she kept it from him. She keeps things from him. Practically professionally. She moonlights at keeping things from him. But he thought . . . since she'd told him about her mom, he'd thought . . .
It's the kind of thing she shouldn't leave out. That he shouldn't have had to hear from the boyfriend. The ex.
He rocks forward again. He leans on his toes, anxious to get on with it. To bug her.
He decides on a stealth attack. He'll startle her, and she'll know he saw her sleeping. She'll wonder how long he might've watched, and that'll knock her back on her heels to start with. Less pressure then. Whatever he picks to give her shit about doesn't even have to be good.
She'll hate that he caught her. She'll glare and bite the inside of her lip. He'll rile her up a little more, then make her beg to hear his hunch. He'll tell her and she'll be pissed.
She'll be pissed, but she'll get that grudging look on her face. The one where her chin wrinkles and her eyes narrow. And if he's really on a roll, her nose will twitch, because it bugs her when he's right.
He's right about this. He knows it. He takes a step into the room and stops again.
I'm not losing this one.
He hears it in his head. The way she chokes on the words. The way she cracks and fury leaks out of her. He's been hearing it all night. It's what dragged him from bed in the first place.
Every case is hard on her, but this one is worse. It's not just the ex. It's not just that she doesn't know where her mom's murder ends and she begins or how to leave it at the door. The stakes are different with this one.
What she does every day is important. Closure and justice and a world that's a little safer. All of that matters. It drives her and gives her some kind of satisfaction, but this is different.
They have a chance to bring a little girl home. To put a family back together. They still have a chance, and it's different.
He looks at the leather coat in her arms. He wants to take it from her. He wants to drape it over her or swap it out for something on hand. Some pretty pastel with unicorns or huge-eyed baby animals. He wants to tuck a pillow behind her head and something huggable under her elbow. A fox or a bear or the strange, oversized rhino thing. Something to watch over her while she gets a little sleep.
He wants to wake her, too, though. He knows he's right, and he loves that grudging look. He loves knowing it bugs her.
But he wants to know, needs her for that. Nikki. Beckett.
He's on to something with the bunny. It's important, but he doesn't know how yet. He doesn't know what good it is. She's asleep, and for now it's just a poignant detail.
He knows it matters. If he were writing this, Nikki would see it. Image after image of two things together. Two things missing. It would move her. She'd stand in the dark with the framed photo. Rook would make some smart-ass comment and it would come together. How it matters.
He doesn't have that yet. He needs her for that. But he wants to let her sleep until he knows something that might chase the shadows away. That might chase some of them away.
He drops to his knees. He fumbles the pen light out of his pocket and stifles a cough when he lifts the bedskirt and kicks up some serious dust. There's no bunny. Not under the bed or the chair or in the line up along the top of the bookshelf. It's not tucked under the pillow or tangled in the sheets of the unmade bed. It's not wedged between headboard and wall or peeking out from beneath the dresser.
It's not here and neither is Angela. Image after image of two things together. Two things missing. He knows it matters. Something about the stay-at-home father and the unusual rhythms of the Candela household.
"Castle?"
The consonants are furry with sleep. He feels a twinge of something. Regret for waking her, because she sounds as wrecked as she looks. But something else. Some kind of tight flutter at the way his name sounds coming from her when she's just waking up.
He feels stupid about that, too. Pushes it aside and writes it off to the boyfriend. The ex and some inane reflex to compete.
"Go back to sleep."
She blinks at him in the darkness. Her eyes are huge and luminous. Soft and she doesn't quite have her guard up yet. She looks young. Just young, and it's not about the ex at all.
She gathers herself. Her arms close tight around the coat just for a second. Her shoulders bunch and she stretches. Her nose wrinkles and she's not quick to come out of sleep.
He has to kneel up. To press his palms to his thighs and catch his breath. He has to swallow down that tight flutter-that ripple of anticipation and want. It's not about the ex.
She asks him what he's doing, and it all rushes out of him. Anticipation and want. A twinge of something and a tight flutter. It rushes out in words. Alexis and Monkey Bunkey. The story of how he was lost and couldn't be replaced.
She's not following.
She never had a Monkey Bunkey. He knows that all of a sudden. It's not just that she's waking up. She doesn't follow, because she never had a woobie or a lovey or whatever her family might have called it. He knows that, and it draws him around to her side of the bed.
He sits with his knees practically brushing hers and almost tells her that. She's barely awake, and he almost leans in to take the coat from her arms. He almost bends his head toward hers to whisper it to her. Something he knows. Something she would have kept from him.
He holds up the photo of Angela Candela and her bunny instead. He keeps talking. In the background he wonders if she even knows how tightly she's holding on to the coat. He wonders if she knows how young she looks. How perfect and wrecked and young.
He shouldn't be wondering anything like that. It's weird. It's not why he came here and it has to be the boyfriend's fault. He and his stupid jaw are messing with things, and none of this is how he thought things would go.
It's weird, so he talks. He keeps talking, and thank God she's running with it now. Thank God, she's pushing up and past him. Striding into the living room, and thank God even for the boyfriend.
He stands at her shoulder. He tries to drum up some kind of satisfaction in the way Sorenson's ridiculous jaw twitches when he realizes they have something. He's trying to drum up an insult. A smirk. Anything.
But it's not about Sorenson and what does or doesn't bug him.
It's about them and the fact that he found her sleeping in the darkness between streetlight and sunrise. That he can't shake the image of her waking up. Saying his name like she expected to find him there.
He can't forget she never had a Monkey Bunkey.
He needs to get some sleep. It seems like days, not hours, since he crawled into Angela Candela's room. Backward and longer than that since the horrible scene unfolded in the Candelas' dining room.
Granted, it's been a lot of hours. He doesn't usually stay around for this.
They had the confession or as good as back at the apartment. The day has been mostly back-pedaling and ass-covering. It's been meetings with caseworkers and phone calls to family court, because the law doesn't much care how yourkid gotabducted from the next room, only that she did, and someone needs to do something about that after the fact. It's blank, hollow-eyed stares turning furious at last.
It's been a lot of hanging around because he is. The ex. It's about Sorenson, and it's not about him at all.
It's about the things she keeps from him and the things he can't help seeing. It's about finding her fast asleep and knowing that she's never held something tight hard enough and long enough that she wore it to shreds and still loved it anyway.
It's the way the shadows lifted from her face-the way she smiled-when she reached down to take the little girl in her arms. The brisk detour to the bench to snatch up the pink bunny and they way she tucked it into the crook of Angela's elbow before the Agent carried her out of earshot.
It's the fact that she never had a Monkey Bunkey or a pink bunny, but she knows that they matter. She knows how they matter and he needs her for that.
It's not about Sorenson at all, but he waits him out. He hangs back and grits his teeth at the casual drift of fingers over her shoulder. He waits for the shaky sigh to drag all the way out of her. He makes enough noise sliding into the chair-his chair-that she has time to pull herself together.
It's not about Sorenson, but he shoots his mouth off anyway. It doesn't rile her. She's not buying his argument about pandas and harmony.
She doesn't hear him saying that he needs her. That he wants her to need him and he thinks she might. He thinks they might need each other-him to see what matters and her to see how. They need each other for the whole story. To make a difference.
He doesn't mean to ask her out. He's not really asking her out, anyway. A drink to celebrate, that's all.
But she has a date. She says she has a date, but he's not sure he buys it. It's not with Sorenson. He'd lay money on it after that conversation.
But she could have a date. She should. It aggravates him, but it's true. It's ridiculous when he thinks about it. A woman like her, and he's never seen her with anyone? She's never mentioned anyone, and it aggravates him that she might be serious. That most of her is a private life. Most of her is things she keeps from him.
The thought aggravates him, but he's still not sure he buys it. He thinks it's an excuse. Something she's been keeping in her back pocket because she thinks it was inevitable. Him asking her out. Not that he was.
Not really.
He feels like playing. Like eating too much ice cream and buying things he doesn't need. Essential things no one needs. He feels like making up stories about people on the street. Whispering too loudly. Laughing and going stone faced when they turn to see what the fuss is about.
He calls Alexis but she won't meet him. It's a school night, and he'll never know what he did in a past life to deserve a kid who says things like that. It dampens his spirits, because it's not just that it's a school night. It's that she's growing up. She was on another call the whole time and she hardly let him wheedle at all.
He thinks about getting a drink. Heading somewhere bright and loud where he'll never notice the darkness between streetlight and sunrise. She might have a date, but he can celebrate anyway. He can celebrate without her. That depresses him, too.
He wanders. He's not heading home or anywhere in particular. The streets are busy even though it's a little cold for May. A little damp. He waits for his mood to lift. To get caught up in the buzz of the Village, but he's alone. Apart from it all in a way that's unusual for him.
He's tense with it. Out of sorts and rethinking the whole celebration thing. He's working himself up into a mood to forget about the day. To forget about her and need and how awful people can be to one another. To forget about his practically grown-up kid who won't go out on a school night.
He stops, though. A bright store window catches his eye and brings his feet to a halt. He looks up. Squints up and tries to read the tumbling letters of the sign swinging in the breeze.
Dinosaur Hill.
It's a toy store. He thinks he might have been here a million years ago. The sign rings a bell, but the space is unfamiliar. Still, he feels like knows it somehow.
A frizzy haired woman looks up from her work at the counter. She greets him, but it's obvious that she's in the middle of something. He nods and signals that he's fine wandering on his own.
He is for a while. The store is packed. Precarious shelves and aisles crammed with wagons lurking at shin height. He plucks down picture books and wanders. He runs his hands absently over elephants and pandas. He plucks strings and a gangling marionette dances. He bumps into things and laughs.
The mood lifts. Bright colors and soft things chase the shadows away. The street and the terrible string of days. His grown-up kid and the things she keeps from him lift away and he finds himself back at the counter.
The woman is friendly enough. Happy to talk, particularly if it means her hands can stay busy. It's intricate work. Cut-out pieces of plush and a small hand-cranked sewing machine for thick stitches she lays down in a spiral pattern, then in a zig-zagging line.
There's a wispy pile of batting. She occasionally grabs a handful and stuffs it into the various tubes and pouches she has prepped and standing by. He asks about them. What she's making and she nods to a display a few feet from her.
He wanders over to it. Something happens, then. A car rushes past outside. Its headlights swing over the window in some particular way and he's hit by the memory of her-Beckett-in the rocking chair. Her with her own coat clutched in her lap, looking older, then younger, then older again.
He leans down. His gaze sweeps over the strange, motley army and land on one thing. Soft, irregular blue and bright orange. He loops the tag over his finger. He reads the story and laughs out loud. The woman's frizzy head raises and she tries to tell him about the others. That it's a whole series and she's working on new ones.
He waves her off. He hands over the money and won't even take a bag. He settles the odd shape in the inside pocket of his jacket, and it seems right.
He heads back out to the street. He's a part of things now, even though he's a million miles away. He's thinking about a story. One he wants to write for her, even though this odd little thing already has his own. But he wants to write another just for her.
He walks and smiles at passersby. He laughs out loud as the story takes shape in his head. Goes stone faced when someone's head whips around to see what the fuss is about.
He hunches at the empty end of a subway car. He peers into his inside pocket and the smiling blue thing peers back up at him.
He writes a story for her-one about the care and feeding of Monkey Bunkeys and pink bunnies and woobies of all kinds. Because she never had one, but she knows how they matter.
2013
There's a lumpy, irregular package on the breakfast tray when he brings it. It's big enough to hide the neatly folded paper entirely. The wrapping job is terrible. That's unusual.
She thinks it's unusual?
It's only been such a little while since they've been doing this.
Oh, he's given her a hundred presents in the last seven months, but he's getting away with it. He doesn't wrap them, because he knows he has to get away with it. So they show up on her shelves or in her coat pockets. They appear in her desk drawers or he hands them over, matter of fact, in front of the boys or his family, so she can't make a big deal out of it. She can't or he will. He'll announce it with a flourish. That he gives her presents and she pretends that she doesn't love it.
There's only been her birthday present, really. The Christmas present he didn't really get her, and what she's seen of gifts he's given to others. To Martha and Alexis and Gates, of all people.
But that's all it took to notice: He's fastidious about wrapping. Downright compulsive about ribbons. So this-this lumpy, crinkled thing-is unusual.
She plants the heels of her hands and shimmies up the headboard. He pauses a few feet from the bed to admire the view. To leer, really, but he's not quite pulling it off. She wonders about that.
"Hey," she says. She's not quite stifling a yawn, and it brings him a step closer.
"Hey." He sinks on to the blankets next to her. He puts the tray on the far side of the night table, where she'll have to lean across him to grab her coffee.
She scowls at him, confused and cross. She's too tired for a mystery and she wants her coffee. She pitches forward. The sudden motion makes her dizzy, even though she's sitting down, and she sways.
He catches her. A bear hug around the shoulders that gathers her in, and it's too much. It's too early. She just got in a handful of hours ago and she hasn't brushed her teeth and she just wants her coffee.
"Castle!" She shoves away from him and he lets her go. He shows her his palms briefly and she sees his face before he means her to. Before he has it back to its careful, neutral arrangement.
"Castle," she says again, more gently this time, and she doesn't have to ask. She doesn't have to admonish. He apologizes. He confesses.
"I just . . ." He moves back a little more. Reaches to hand her coffee over and hesitates. Draws back again. "You don't think you can sleep a little longer?" he asks.
"I'm up." She looks at the clock. It's later than she thought, though not late late, given how long she and the boys burned the midnight oil. Given the fact that there won't be any movement for a while yet on warrants and the other stuff they're waiting for. She scoots down the bed toward him. Slips her arms around his waist and whispers against his neck. "I'm up."
He lets out a noise that makes her smile. A laugh and a groan together, but he straightens his arms and places her farther from him than she'd like. He looks down at her, a little nervous, a little defiant. "You just got in a while ago. And you're not sleeping great."
She hates him a little. She hates him for his brushed teeth and for catching her out like this when she's tired. She hates him for not jumping at the chance to come back to bed or at least giving her coffee. She hates him for knowing that she's not really sleeping much. For making her wonder if she's been keeping him up.
"I'm fine." She flops back against the headboard and he doesn't quite tamp down a sigh.
He grabs one of the mugs and hands it over silently. There's a design in the foam. A moon and stars and a few wispy clouds. She sips at it. Brings it to her lips and lets her eyes cross as she watches the surface ripple and break.
She shifts her eyes toward the tray. He's ignoring it. Pointedly ignoring the lumpy, wrapped thing, and she knows he'll break if she keeps quiet. He wants to tell her about it. He wants to watch her open it and tell her the story. He wants to tell her when it comes from and where.
What made him find it and keep it for her all this time. They've only been doing this such a little while, but she knows he loves that part.
She could make him wait. Deny him. Break him. But she feels bad and she hates him a little for that, too.
"What's that for?" It's sullen. Ridiculous and childish.
"Being a brat," he shoots back. There's a brief flash of panic, but he bristles, too. He stands his ground and she snorts. She flattens a palm along his thigh in apology and it's ok.
"Anniversary," he says more softly.
She thinks about it a second, then narrows her eyes. She takes another sip of coffee. "What anniversary?"
"Ten days since you let me give you presents." He grins.
"You can't give presents for the anniversary of giving presents!" She pinches him. "And ten days is a totally fake anniversary."
"It's a decimal anniversary. Logical and orderly." He laughs and grabs her wrist, forestalling another pinch. "I thought you'd love it, but I guess not."
He's up so fast that she misses him entirely when she lurches forward. She leans out to snag the hem of his shirt and only narrowly avoids sloshing coffee all over the bed. "Where are you going?"
"To put away your totally fake anniversary present," he says over his shoulder.
"Castle!" She drums her feet under the covers. She doesn't know exactly how he turned the tables on her. She doesn't care. She wants her present.
"What?" He turns to face her. Hides the package behind his back and backs toward the closet.
"Don't." She pouts. She's pouting and she hates him a little.
"Don't put your present away?" He rustles the paper, but keeps the package tucked out of sight.
She hates him more than a little.
"Don't put my present away," she says through her teeth.
He rushes back to the bed and flops on his belly. "Ok."
She glares as the bounce of the mattress puts her coffee at risk again, and he has the decency to look sheepish. She takes a long swallow and sets the cup down. She holds her hands out and he presents the package with a flourish.
The wrapping is clumsy. Clumsy is an understatement. There's too much tape by half and paper bunches up in ugly overlaps. The ribbon is wound around and around until it's gathered up in the uneven loops of a sloppy bow.
She looks to him, but his chin is propped on his forearm, and he's looking up at her expectantly. He's giving away nothing more than the nervous fizz that she already knows is typical. He wants her to like them. The things he's found and kept for her all this time.
She starts with the ribbon. She tugs and the knot comes loose more easily than usual. She unwinds and unwinds, twirling the slack around her fingers. She takes it slow. She knows it drives him crazy, and she still hates him a little this morning, whether it's fair or not.
He squirms. Rolls his shoulders and flexes his fingers, but stays put. He's stubborn. He might hate her a little right now, too. The thought makes her smile. She sets to work on the paper. Snatches it away to the far side of the bed when he grabs for it. When he curses and says her name under his breath.
The paper comes away in a long tear and he gives her a smug smile. It falls away in silver sheets and she's holding . . .
She's not exactly sure what she's holding.
Some kind of blue plush . . . flame? It has half a dozen stringy legs and a lopsided black mask with a thin white slash of a grin embroidered underneath and an orange cape flaring out behind.
She holds it up to him and she must look confused. She must look ungrateful because his bright face dims and she feels terrible. Terrible.
"It's a woobie," he says. It's brave and cheerful. Excited and rambling, but she knows enough to hear the waver underneath. "Like Monkey Bunkey. Only not Monkey Bunkey exactly, because . . . not a monkey. But it's a woobie or a lovey. Maybe a stuffy. It's up to you. He doesn't have a name. Well. Superhero."
"A woobie," she repeats. "Superhero."
"They're . . . kids draw a monster and write a story and . . ." He falters. "I just liked him best. Superhero. Like you."
"Not a superhero, Castle," she mumbles. She clutches the thing tight in her fingers. She blinks hard.
"You are," he says. It's sincere. It's uncertain, but he goes on. He grabs at the crush of paper and fishes out a tiny envelope she hadn't seen. "His story is on the tag, and . . . I wrote you one, too."
She takes it from him. The envelope. She takes it and puts it aside. His face dims a little more and she reaches out. She tucks the little blue flame into her body and sinks the fingers of her free hand into a fistful of his shirt. "You wrote me a story."
He nods and tries to smile. "I've written you lots of stories."
She's killing this. Sucking the life out of the moment, and she doesn't mean to. It's too big, that's all. It's too big for right now.
She hasn't been sleeping great, and he knows. She's trying to be here. Since Christmas, when they both decided it was time to try new traditions, she's trying to be here. She's hanging on. She brought the big overnight bag to the loft a few days ago and she hasn't let herself go back to her apartment.
She's here and she's gone. Withdrawing and making the two of them beat a careful retreat because it's January and she's trying. Be he knows she's not sleeping great and she wants to run.
He looks up at her like he's going to say something. Like he thinks better of it and twists his chin down to kiss her fingers instead. It breaks something loose.
It's hard. A silly little present that isn't. It's January and everything is hard, but not as bad as it was a second ago. Before that instant of silence and the brush of his lips.
"A woobie," she says finally. "I never had one.
"No?" He keeps his voice careful, but he's interested. He already knows, but he's interested anyway.
He wants her to tell him. For himself and for her, too. He thinks it'd be easier if she opened up. She knows he thinks that, but they're different. If she opens up, she'll leave a mess.
She shakes her head. Blinks hard again and gives up on saying anything. It's too hard right now.
"I did," he says after a while. "A weird, leathery dog thing."
She laughs at that. Tries to picture it and can't.
"I think it was a prop. One of my mother's shows." He frowns. "Probably not really meant as a toy. God knows what it might have been stuffed with."
"You . . ." She sets her coffee aside. She slides down the headboard and sidles closer to him. He lifts his arm and tucks her underneath. She brings the blue flame up between them. Curls it under her chin and smooths out the orange flutter of cape. "You slept with him?"
"Slept. Ate. Fought." He reaches over and runs a finger over the plush outline. "We had a complicated relationship."
She laughs. Catches his fingers and curls those under her chin, too. A warm, comforting knot there. Solid and weighty. Keeping her here. "Complicated," she repeats.
He nods. "I think I wanted a brother then." His brow wrinkles. "Or maybe a cowboy. His name was Gaucho."
"Your imaginary brother?" She gives him an innocent blink and he knocks his head against hers. He gives her a wide smile. Back to center and taking the moment up so easily. She loves him for that. She loves him for a lot of things.
"My weird, leathery dog woobie." He nuzzles her forehead with his nose. Brushes back the hair and finds bare skin to kiss. "You look tired, Kate."
"I am." She bites it back a second too late, then wonders why she wants to. She's not sleeping great. They both know it.
"I could read it to you." He flicks his eyes to the nightstand. To the tiny envelope she set aside. "I could read you a bedtime story and tuck you in with your woobie."
It's wheedling. It's a little anxious and it bothers her. She's tired and this is too big, but but she fights the urge to run. She clings tighter to the fistful of plush. She clings tighter to his fingers and presses up against him. She opens her mouth under his jaw. She scrapes the skin with her teeth and lets it leave her that way. The urge to run and the fact that she hates him a little.
She rushes up and catches the gasp before it leaves his mouth.
"Maybe later." She tastes him. Rolls herself so she's on top of him and the little blue monster is pinned between them, just peeking up over her own shoulder.
"Later?" He grins. A hot, confused thing as his mouth chases after hers and he reaches to set the monster aside. A place of honor on the pillow they don't need right now.
"Maybe later you can tuck us in."
A/N: My supercute nephew's woobie inspired the gift. His monster is a different member of the line. I bought it for him long before he was born and Woobster is now mission critical for all day-to-day operations.