Ephemeris, Ch. 5-A post-For Better or Worse (6 x 23) Caskett multi-chap WIP
Title: Ephemeris, Ch. 5
WC: ~2200 this chapter, 10,000 total so far
Summary: "She falters, there's a single instant when she wonders if this is right. If what she can't live without might not kill them all. If she has any right to burden them with this."
Alexis throws the door wide as Kate jerks the car to a stop. Martha is close behind, still tying a robe tight at her waist. The two of them descend on her.
"Kate!" Alexis is trying not to scold, but there's lingering anxiety in the bruising force of her fingers on Kate's arm. "Gram made me promise to wake her when you got here."
"Katherine, that is it. You are taking years off my life, making that drive at all hours." Martha tempers the words with a smile, but she's unhappy-fear gone to anger simmering underneath. It's familiar. It wraps unexpectedly around Kate's heart. A visceral thing, how much a mother to her Martha has become.
"I'm sorry." They both stop at something in her voice. They fall silent and share a look. "We . . . let's get inside . . ." She's paranoid all of a sudden. About who's watching and how, but they can't huddle in the driveway all night. And if it's him, he won't learn anything he didn't know when she threw him out.
They nod in tandem. Alert and serious. They're quick to comply and ready for anything. She loves them both for it.
They head for the kitchen. The brightest, warmest place in the house, and what feels like the safest, even if it's an illusion. Alexis puts on coffee. Martha tugs the cork from a half-gone bottle of wine.
Another look passes between them when Kate walks over to switch on music. When she makes a circuit of the windows, drawing blinds and flipping light switches. It's pointless-if anyone with any resources at all has the house under surveillance, it's pointless-but she feels better for it.
"So here we are," Martha says with a wry smile when Kate finally joins them at the counter. She nods at the knot of mugs and wine glasses standing ready. "Armed for bear. Let's have it, kiddo."
Kate takes a breath. She closes her eyes and reaches for the connection that's always strongest here. The certainty that he's not gone.
"I had company." She opens her eyes. Turns a smile on each of them in turn to show she's ok. "I stopped for coffee. A diner off Sunrise Highway." She weighs her words. Realizes she needs something to call him after all. "When I got back to my car . . ."
"It was him, wasn't it?" Martha holds a hand up toward Alexis, her attention focused solely on Kate. "Richard's . . . It was that man, wasn't it?"
Kate nods, her voice gone. Lost in a wave of gratitude-relief-that Martha knows. That she was expecting it, too, somehow. That it makes some kind of sense, even if they're miles from putting the pieces together yet.
"Alexis," Kate turns to the girl with a last glance a look at Martha. She really has no idea how much he might have told Alexis about Ted Rollins' murder. Whether Castle would have tried to leave the hero intact. The grandfather who saved her. She wonders whether Castle felt any loyalty to the man in the end. "In Paris, the man who . . ."
"Dad's father?" Alexis's eyes are wide. "This is him again? His fault?"
"We don't . . . I don't know much." It hits Kate between the eyes. In the chest. Frustration. Blinding anger that she didn't get more from him. That she didn't beat him bloody and bring Castle home. Here. Now. "But he told me . . ."
She falters, there's a single instant when she wonders if this is right. If what she can't live without might not kill them all. If she has any right to burden them with this.
Her head sinks, and Martha places a hand on her shoulder. "Kate. Whatever it is-whatever-we're with you."
Alexis reaches across the counter. It's what decides her. Pale fingers. Elegant now, but she pictures them as they were in a moment he told her about. A moment he'd brought to life in her mind's eye the way only he can. Tiny, waving. Curling over the edge of a pink receiving blanket to reach for his.
Like I'd been struck by lightning.
When she speaks, her voice is strong. Steady. "He said the threat to all of us is over if the world believes Castle is dead."
It feels instant. The eruption of sound. Joy. There must be a moment before they can process it. But it feels immediate. The way they're knotted together, the three of them caught in an embrace that feels impenetrable.
"But that means . . ."
"My God, Katherine. You believe him . . .?"
Kate is the first to pull back. Reluctant and sober. She has to be clear. They all have to be clear on the decision they're making.
"He didn't . . . He didn't say as much. But he didn't deny it. He said we had to leave this alone to keep Castle safe. To keep us all safe."
"Well, that's nonsense."
The words are Martha's, but Kate's attention is on Alexis. There's a flash of anger in her. Fury, actually, and she needs to be sure. She says the girl's name softly.
"He can't be serious." Alexis looks up, calm. Angry still, but determined. Focused. Her father's daughter. "He can't seriously think we'd let him go."
Kate smiles. Fierce. Proud. Relieved. "That's pretty much what I said."
Alexis smiles back. She shows her teeth. "So what do we do?"
Kate nods. Down to business.
"I need you to tell me everything about Paris."
It's beyond late when they're done. When they've reached the end of what they can do tonight, with just the three of them. It's drawn out enough as it is. Every detail worked over again and again. Paris and his stay at the loft.
Alexis is quiet for that. Anger and sorrow and something more complicated that probably even she won't understand for a while. But it's clear from her still hands and Martha's restless gaze that the girl didn't know. He hadn't told her, and Kate sick at heart, taking this from her, too. The promise of family. Another person in the world she's tied to by blood and history.
Martha and Alexis won't leave things until morning. Kate tries again and again, but they're both adamant they won't sleep. That they couldn't possibly.
Alexis finally bends when Martha rises to fill a water glass and ends up gripping the counter hard, swaying with weariness. Kate takes the bad cop role. She marches Martha to the door of her bedroom.
Martha snags the doorframe with one well-manicured hand. "Are you going to lock it from the outside, Detective?"
"Do I need to?" Kate arches an eyebrow.
Martha relents instantly. Any irritation immediately a thing of the past. "Katherine. Thank you."
She takes both Kate's hands, and her silence as she chafes them in her own speaks more than her usual demonstrative displays. Kate's head bows with it. The weight of uncertainty and fear returning.
"I'm not sure you should thank . . ." She trails off. "Martha, what if this is the wrong thing. What if Castle . . ."
"Don't." Martha grabs her by the chin, all her weariness gone. Her voice is iron. "Don't you think for one second that Richard would not choose the path that leads him back here. To Alexis and you . . ."
". . . and you," she finishes.
Martha smiles and kisses both her cheeks and says a quiet goodnight. She turns obediently into her room.
Kate makes her way back downstairs. She hasn't heard Alexis come up to her room, and she wants to do another circuit anyway, checking locks and drawing shades. Pointless, she tells herself again, but the anxiety is boiling beneath her skin. Fierce protective instinct. His family. Hers. She has to do something.
She passes by the study on her way to the kitchen, annoyed that she's left the music playing. That she can't hear Alexis moving around or anyone else for that matter. A fraction of a second too late she registers that the study's French doors are cracked open. She's frantic. Moving at speed through the room with her heart in her throat.
But it's Alexis. Just Alexis out on the small covered deck with its steps down to the lawn at the side of the house. She's at the railing, shoulders stooped as she leans heavily on her hands.
Kate's fingers snag on the doorframe. Her heart is still slamming into her ribs and she feels like she's choking on a mouth full of angry, fearful warnings. She has to be careful. They all have to be careful. Stay safe. Bring him home. They have to.
But Alexis turns then, a worried kind of half smile flickering over her face in the moonlight and it hits Kate with full force. How much she has to guard. The smile she wants to bring him back to.
She steps up to the railing. Alexis bumps her shoulder. "I probably . . . shouldn't be outside alone?"
"Probably not." It comes out on a shaky, grateful laugh. "Just . . . be careful. Try to be alert."
Alexis nods. A promise in the press of her fingers. They fall quiet. It's late and this has all been more than enough. She's just about to insist on sleep-that they both at least try-when Alexis speaks.
"Do you think . . ." She trails off. There's something raw in the words, though. Some sliver of the fury Kate saw in her earlier. It's something she thinks neither of them should close their eyes against right now.
"Do I think what?" Kate nudges her shoulder.
"This is . . . the fact that it's him. . . ." She breaks off again. Definitely angry now. "I don't even know what to call him."
"Anderson Cross," Kate says softly. It's pathetic, but she wants to give her something. She wants to draw her out, here and now, even though it's beyond late. Whatever this is, she thinks it might be easier just between the two of them. "That's what he called himself when he was in New York."
"Jackson Hunt in Paris." Alexis rolls her eyes. "Even Dad wouldn't have used those."
"I know, right?" Kate grins. "Too cheesy even for Castle."
They share quiet laughter, but it goes too soon. The easy moment dwindles to nothing, and Kate waits, helpless.
"I hate him." Alexis tilts her head back and swallows hard. "I hate him for showing up and being . . . this." She swipes at her eyes. "Dad always said it didn't bother him. That he couldn't miss what he didn't have and not knowing meant he could imagine his dad was all these amazing things."
Kate holds her breath. Presses down on the part of her that's greedy to know. The part of her that Meredith got to, once upon a time. She knows the story of after Paris. The things he'd come to understand, anyway. But she doesn't know this. What it was like for him-for the three of them-to have this empty place in their lives.
"After Paris, he'd say how cool it was to have a spy for a dad. But it was like he wanted me to believe it. And it's . . . it's stupid." Alexis shakes her head, angry with herself in the midst of all it and Kate's heart breaks a little more. "With everything . . . I know it's stupid. We have to stay safe and we have to find my dad and then . . . whatever comes after that. And I know we have to focus . . . But I just can't help thinking how much it will hurt. My dad, I mean. When this is all over. Knowing that his . . ." Her fingers curl in a helpless, angry gesture. "What kind of a father is he?"
"He isn't." It's unthinking. Immediate, but Kate sets her teeth and straightens her shoulders. She doesn't quite wish she hadn't said it. "Alexis, I'm sorry, I know he's . . ."
"He's not my grandfather." Her voice is low, warning. "Don't even say it."
"He's not." Kate nods. "You deserve better. You deserve to have a real grandfather. Castle deserves . . . but I think you should know that Cross or Hunt or whoever he wants to be today . . . " She stops herself. Frustrated again, because she doesn't actually know much of anything. "He's not the one who did this. The accident . . . He didn't plan that, I don't think. He . . . intervened. He saved him . . ."
"And kept him from us." Alexis is implacable. Stony. "He wants to keep him from us forever. He'd have let us going on thinking he was dead."
Something flares in Kate's mind. Some question. He would have. So why now? Why did he show up now?
I was hoping this wouldn't be necessary.
She brushes it aside, though. Just for now. It's late, and this is about Alexis. About family and the the broken heart she doesn't want Castle to come home to.
"You're right. But we know now. And as far as your dad . . . I don't think you have to worry." She hears herself. Shakes her head. It's ridiculous. Alexis smiles a little. "About that part, anyway. Your dad . . . he's made his peace with it." She slips an arm around her shoulders and turns her toward the house. "Last time. He told me . . . he said it was a mistake to think of him as family."
"It is." She says it quietly as they make their way back into the study. "I don't." The words come a little easier. "I don't need a grandfather. I have all the family I need."
She pulls the door shut tight behind them.
A/N: Thanks for reading and for the encouragement.