Material Witness-Sunday Morning Coming Down (2 x 18, Boom!): A Series of Linked Castle One-Shots
Title: Sunday Morning Coming Down
WC: ~5600
Rating: K+
Summary: "He knows it's stupid. She knows how to make them. She doesn't need this from him, but he imagines her mother more than ever now and it feels important. It feels important that there should be two people in the world who can make her eggs."
Spoilers: Mostly 2 x 18-Boom! and 5 x 10-Significant Others
A/N: The seventh story, I guess, in the series prompted by the diabolical BerkieLynn. I'm doubling up a bit here, as I covered 2 x 17 and 2 x 18 in another chapter, but this one wouldn't let go.
So, this is the seventh story in this series. 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., and the sixth. They're loosely linked one-shots that can be read independently and in any order you like.
2010
He imagines her mother sometimes. How could he not? Johanna. She's such an enormous part of what makes Beckett Beckett. Her presence. Her absence. So much of what makes her Kate. Of course he imagines her.
He imagines her today. He's fragile this morning and he crowds together the little pieces of her. The things he knows and it's such an insignificant heap that he wants more. He wants to make more, and he imagines her mother.
She's fragile this morning, too. He sees it in the way her hand sweeps across her forehead to hide her eyes. The way she slides her fingers into her hair because they tremble now and then and she doesn't want anyone to know.
He sees it, even though she's keeping busy. Hiding behind the work of making breakfast. Expunging her imagined debts whatever way she can. As soon as she can.
He wishes she knew how much he'd willingly give her. That there will never be a question of debt-of her owing him-as far as he is concerned. Never. But how could she know when he's only just finding out?
He's been up practically all night finding that out, his mood swinging wildly from fear to relief to a kind of nonsensical anger to something he's pointedly not examining. Something he's not thinking about. Not with her in his upstairs bedroom and an overwhelming need to act on that. To go to her and be sure of her. To make sure of her.
He's been up practically all night finding out all of that and here she is. Quiet and efficient at the stove. Just across the counter, she's neat and precise. Of course. Totally unlike him when he cooks. When there are staging areas and war zones and terrain and casualties. Of course she's nothing like him when she cooks.
Although. Although.
He can't help but notice that she's bypassed all the fancy things. The folding omelet pan and the skillet with the built-in thermometer and seventy-five settings he's never been patient enough to figure out. It's not surprising. Of course she'd cast those aside. He smiles to himself. Imagines the stream of unflattering thoughts as she roots through his cabinets.
It's not just that she passes those by, though. He would have expected that. But she's gone right for his battered stand-bys. The things he learned on. The things he uses every day, even though he always has to dig for them. Even though he has to dig past all the impulse buys he really never touches to reach the things he started out with. The things he always comes back to.
It's a neat little array in front of her. Off to the side, waiting in precise rows, and every single thing has been with him for years. Pans and whisks and slotted spoons that made the move with him from his first roach-infested apartment to the short-lived walk-up with Meredith to the first place he had for just him and Alexis. Things that he's brought with him to her. To this moment in Kate Beckett's sure, beautifully alive hands.
It makes him smile to see them. To see her like this. The efficient snap of her wrist as she whisks the eggs and turns the handle of the frying pan just so. He imagines her mother. Wonders if she learned this from her. How to tend half a dozen fires at once. How to feed a family.
He imagines her mother and it startles him-opens his sleepy eyes wide-when he hears the word on her tongue. Like she heard him wondering. Like she can see his imaginings, in which case he's in all kinds of trouble. More trouble by the minute.
It's not fair. The moment is over before he even realizes it's started. Before he even has a chance to see it for what it is. Deflection spinning out into truth.
She's nervous. Like she's been caught doing something she shouldn't. Like they have. The two of them. Because she's in his kitchen in borrowed clothes and it's barely light outside. It's like they've been up to something and she's babbling to cover. Like mothers-like childhood and Sunday brunch and glimpses of her self in progress-are a safe topic.
She's nervous. His mother and his daughter and the whole domestic scene make her nervous. It's more misplaced guilt than the warmth of the kitchen tinting her cheeks, and the thought crosses his mind that he'd like to give her something to feel guilty about. That he'd like to put that blush to good use. And the real moment-another kind of moment-passes without him.
It passes because there's work for her to do now, and that's how she finds her feet. She busies herself and chases memory back to the corners. There are eggs to be dished out and bacon to plated. There are things to see to, and she's done. She's done doling out information about herself. There'll be no more revelations she didn't mean to make. About her. About her mother and the way one bleeds into the other.
There's work and then there's work. Jordan Shaw is missing and it has to be Dunn. It has to be Dunn and his first thought is Thank God. Thank God it's not Kate. She dashes upstairs and leaves him with it all. Thoughts of motherless daughters. Guilt and realization and pieces of her and he just stands there. He's fixed in place.
He's rooted to the spot and he imagines her mother.
They fight when she leaves the loft. Not fight exactly. But she's there in the spare shirt from her locker, with a brand new duffle bag over her shoulder and there's hardly anything in it. It flops against her thigh and she looks small and all he can think of is all of New York on the other side of his door. Even though they caught Dunn and it's all over, it's all he can think about. All the evil in the world.
It's a Sunday morning and he imagines her mother and it's out of his mouth before he even knows he's going to say it. That it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous for her to go.
It is, but it's the wrong thing to say. Her smile goes hard and she's joking, but she's not. She's hugging his mother and laying her hand on Alexis's shoulder. She's thanking them both and waving off their insistence that she stay, at least to eat. At least for brunch.
The counter is practically groaning with food. He might've gone overboard. Waffles and overnight strata because he couldn't sleep. Fruit and bacon because it's brunch. Three kinds of scrambled eggs because he only had one mouthful of hers and he's trying to recreate them. Her eyes narrow when she sees them there. Three dishes, side by side, and it's like she knows.
She gives him a sharp look and hauls the duffel higher on her shoulder. It's empty enough to cave in against her hip, and he feels desperate. Panicky. It's ridiculous for her to go. But she's already at the door and his mother raises her voice. Makes a production of giving them their privacy, even though they're ten steps away in the front hall.
He tells her it's not an imposition. That she's welcome. That there's no rush. That she should at least eat. She says it's time and she's not hungry anyway. Dunn's behind bars and she can't stay here forever. His head snaps up at the word and even she looks startled. She takes another step toward the door, anyway, and he looks away from her toward the kitchen.
Two red heads bent toward one another and the strong scent of coffee and he sees her there, too. Like she was the other morning. Blushing and chatting and busy. Talking about her mother. His eyes travel back to her. The real her. The one who's going and he says something stupid. He doesn't even remember what, but it's dismissive and high handed and he reaches for the duffel bag. Tells her she's staying and that's final.
For a second, he thinks she might hit him. For a second, she thinks so, too. She jerks her shoulder back and there's a flare of anger-real anger-before she turns it into a smirk and something that falls short of a joke. A stiff, formal thank you for the hospitality and the door is closing behind her.
He wishes she'd hit him.
She's distant. After she leaves the loft for who knows where, she's distant. He really doesn't know. Where she's staying. How much she actually lost. What was salvageable. If she needs help. If there's anything at all he can do.
He hears the tail end of conversations. Dry cleaners and movers and service companies. He asks sometimes, but she's short with her answers. Clipped confirmations and abrupt changes of subject.
It's not just him. She's distant with everyone. She has a short-term sublet, according to Lanie. Not in the Village and that's all anyone knows. Some of her old clothes make an appearance after a while, but a lot of her favorites are missing. His favorites.
He thinks about her apartment. The one that's gone. How full it was and the way that surprised him. All the tiny objects and bold colors. Books and paintings. Geodes and figurines and chunky brass pieces. Things that shouldn't go together making up this bright, complicated whole.
Things out of place in time that must have belonged to her mother. Her parents. He remembers a story she told him once. About her dad when he was drinking. How she'd smuggle little pieces out of the house to save them from the nights when he was clumsy or angry or both. How much she'd lost by then.
He thinks about her apartment, and it's a different place in his mind than the hell he ran into that night. Flame and chaos and the everything raining down. Panic choking him, thicker than smoke.
It's a different place than the one they picked their way through later when it was safe. Safer, despite the blackened, drenched plaster and yellow tape. Her mother's ring lying there in the middle of everything like a miracle and the watch he slipped into his own pocket before she could see it. Before she could see the cracked face and its hands frozen in that awful moment.
In his mind, it's just the way he left it. They left it. Because one night wasn't nearly enough time to snoop. To run his fingers along spines and over dust jackets. To turn things over in his hands and wonder about their stories. To imagine her mother and how much of her is here. One night wasn't enough, so he builds it back up in his imagination and everything she has lives there. Intact.
It's a different place in his mind and he wants to give it back to her.
He's obsessed with the scrambled eggs, and everyone but him is sick of it. He grills them both. His mother. Alexis. About what they tasted. The contents of the fridge. The pantry. Things she might have used and not put back in quite the right place. But it's hopeless. It's Kate Beckett. She put everything back in the right place. Labels turned to their original angle within a micrometer, probably.
He experiments with liquid. Heavy cream and half and half and milk of all kinds. Chicken broth when he's desperate, and that goes terribly wrong. It's like the bastard child of egg drop soup and a frittata and he hands over his credit card wordlessly. His mother and Alexis go out for brunch without him.
Then he thinks it might be the fat, and for a week, the backs of his hands are pocked with tiny blisters. Spattered ghee and bacon fat and every kind of oil. It goes on long enough that she notices. She asks and he deflects and they go back and forth. And for a minute it's like nothing happened. It's like she's not living out of a duffel bag and a few boxes God knows where and he didn't nearly get her killed.
But it doesn't last. She closes up again and he doesn't even know what he said. He doesn't know why she's being like this.
It's stupid. He knows it's stupid. She knows how to make them. She doesn't need this from him, but he imagines her mother more than ever now and it feels important. It feels important that there should be two people in the world who can make her eggs. It's stupid, but he can't talk himself out of it.
He experiments with spices and scours recipes and eats a lot of eggs alone in the middle of the night.
He gives up on it all at once. It's actually a decent batch, but it's not right. It's no closer to what she made than anything he's tried so far and he scrapes it down the garbage disposal. He slams the plate in the sink so hard that it chips, and he startles at the sharp sound of Alexis's voice from behind him.
He opens his mouth to apologize and closes it again. She just shakes her head and asks for waffles. They make them together. Side-by-side, and he knows then that it's impossible.
Because she's sixteen and she still gets to sift the flour, but he has to pour it in the top for her and she drapes a dish towel over her arm like a curtain because it always upset her. All that careful measurement and then the minute bits of flour that would escape into the air and dust the countertop.
So she uses a towel and they decide on a number to count up to while she squeezes the handle. He whisks the towel away with a flourish and she rolls her eyes and yells "Voila!" because she's sixteen and she's humoring him and it's impossible. It's just one of a dozen rituals they have. A hundred and this-this-is really what he wants to give Kate. And it's impossible.
Because her mother is dead and she wouldn't stay. She's living alone God knows where and everything she has-however little, however much-must still smell like smoke.
He gives up on it all at once and she seems to notice. She comments on his hands. His clean cuffs and the sudden reappearance of pastries with their coffee, but he's the one who's distant now. Quiet for him, though he doesn't mean to be. He just can't get over it. That it's impossible. That he can't give her anything.
That she's stubborn and won't let him give her anything.
It's a good day until he finds the shopping bag under her desk. They're sniping over the case and she's like her old self. She lands a particularly good insult that he only half set her up for and he drops into her desk chair to retaliate. He spins and his foot knocks against something and then she's flying at him. Furious.
It's books. It's just books, but she shoves him out of the way. Crowds around them and won't let him help her gather them up. He pushes up from his knees and mumbles an apology. He heads for the break room and thinks about leaving altogether. She doesn't need anything from him. She doesn't want anything.
He dumps the coffee he only just poured and rinses out the mug. He turns and she's leaning with her back against the doorframe, at right angles to him. She doesn't apologize. It's just a few short sentences. She tells him the place she's staying has a rooftop garden and she's been laying things out to air. And then it rained. She rushed out in the morning and got stuck at the precinct late and it rained.
He says he's sorry and she shrugs. Tells him at least she knows what she lost this time. Most of it, anyway.
He asks about the books. She shakes her head and says she doesn't even want most of them. Not just to have. That it's not the books at all. It's the handwriting. Scrawled notes and doodles in the margins. Coffee stains and ticket stubs and dog-eared pages and those are gone. Fire and water and they're gone.
It's not the books at all, but she buys them anyway.
Nothing much changes after that. She's still distant a lot of the time. He can't even think about eggs. He pictures her sitting cross-legged in a rooftop garden, riffling pages and bracing for the smell of smoke. Prying back waterlogged covers and wondering what she lost. If she can ever even know that much.
He ducks into a used bookstore one day to get out of the rain. It's a cramped space, and the owner is a hundred years old and suspicious. She clomps down the narrow aisles after him with her cane, tsking any time he takes something down from the shelf.
She follows him to a dead end. The rickety shelves flare out into the slightest cul-de-sac and there's a single chair. He turns to face the old woman and drops into the chair defiantly, an oversized book clutched to his chest. She narrows her eyes and he opens the book to the first page. She stands there staring, but he's engrossed and she clomps off again. Eventually.
It's a cookbook. Something about brunch with more exclamation points than it deserves. More than either the subject or the book deserves, but he knows it from somewhere. Not one of his, though. It's too old and not his kind of thing. Not anyone's kind of thing, really. The cover is cheap and tacky. The whole thing is dated and the photos are unappetizing. It has the feel of an unwanted gift, but he knows it from somewhere.
He flips to the front, hunting for a clue, and his fingers fall on it. The top right corner of the title page: JB '77. Memory sparks and his heart hammers, even though he knows it's just a coincidence. It has to be just a coincidence. The book is hers-Kate's. Or it was. And it must have been her mother's first-'77. She wasn't even born yet, and doesn't that make him feel a million years old?
The initials are just a coincidence. It's not her copy, but that's where he knows it from. Her apartment. He pulled it off the shelf that morning and flipped through. Tried to come up with something he could throw together from the chaos of her fridge before he settled on pancakes from a mix.
He flips to the table of contents on a hunch. There's a whole section on eggs and the recipes are ridiculous. Heavy on the margarine and processed cheese food products and there's white toast everywhere.
He doesn't even feel the pen in his hand until the owner is standing over him again, thunder on her brow. He looks down and realizes he's been writing. In the margins. Across the vast plains of white toast. There's no order to it. It's sketches and lists of book titles. Things he remembers and where they were on her shelves and tables and window sills. The well-mended border of the throw from the back of her couch and how it felt under his cheek when he slept a while.
And a lot about eggs. A cautionary tale about chicken broth. A fairytale about the hard life of his favorite whisk. A story about the day he gave up and made waffles with Alexis. Other stories from when she was younger. When she filled a cast iron skillet to the brim with cinnamon because thought that's what seasoning was. Stories from when they were learning together. Soaking pans and scraping off burned edges and making notes in the margins. Even one about his mother. Some ambitious disaster with phyllo dough he hasn't thought about in years.
It's all harmless enough until he turns the page and this is about her. About her in his kitchen. How right she looked there with his favorite whisk in her hand and how she didn't have to leave so soon. How he worries about where she is and why she feels like she has to do every damned thing alone. d
About way he imagines her mother. The way he sees her taking the whisk from Kate's hand, adjusting the flame and pointing things out. Tutting and correcting her technique and slapping her hands away. Because she must have gotten it from somewhere. Kate must've gotten it from somewhere.
He looks down at the last thing he wrote: I'm sorry and a single point of ink. He lets the pen linger a moment and finishes it: I'm sorry she's gone.
He snaps the cover shut and the book store owner goes red. She opens her mouth, but he beats her to it. He smiles up at her and says he'll take it.
It's not about the book, but he'll take it.
2013
He catches her looking at him a lot lately, and it freaks them both out a little. That's not the way this works. He should be able to tease her about it, but it dies on his tongue every time.
There's something on her mind. The sheer relief of Meredith's departure dissipates and Kate still has something on her mind.
He starts to ask a dozen times. If Meredith said something. Or Alexis maybe? But he thinks they're past that. It was more him than Alexis, anyway. Typical.
He wonders if he said something. Did something they haven't been over yet. They've been over a lot. A lot about Meredith and his misplaced guilt and the fact that he's obviously a little crazy when it comes to her. Because some small part of him actually expects her to step up as a parent. Every time, he expects it. But maybe he sabotages it, too, and then he overcompensates. He's been over that, anyway.
Maybe she hasn't. But she listened. Quiet and a little amused at the way he went on and on. But he doesn't talk about that stuff. With anyone. Because his mother just waves him off and says it's Meredith's way, and Alexis gets stoic. And it's not like he knows how people do this. How normal people do this. So he went through it with her, surprised to hear his own voice going on and on, and she listened.
And they've talked, too. About the fact that he knows and she knows that it's about boundaries and not some kind of choice between her and Alexis-between his girlfriend and his kid. And neither of them thought that, but he's glad they said it anyway.
So he's talked and they've talked, and there's still something on her mind. He starts to ask and stops again and again.
Alexis gets better and goes back to school. Kate spends the night at the loft now and then, but she'd rather be at her place, it seems. He's fine with it. If he's going to sleep, he can sleep anywhere. If he's not, he likes to snoop and she's filled this place up just like she did the last one and it still surprises him.
He likes her place and he doesn't mind, but he worries that they're connected. The loft and whatever's bothering her. Whatever has her sizing him up and keeping quiet.
It's a Saturday night and they're on the phone. He's writing. He's supposed to be writing, but they're on the phone and she's laying out her Sunday. Laundry and bills and practical things.
"Don't," he says and surprises them both with how urgent it sounds. "Come over. Sleep in and then come over and I'll make brunch."
She laughs it off. Says he'll do anything to get out of writing. That she really has things to do and he can find some other way to procrastinate.
"Kate," he says, like he hasn't heard a word. "Come over. I want to feed you. Like your mother did."
He sucks in a breath. He didn't mean to say it. Didn't know he was going to until it was out, and now she's quiet. So quiet, and he's half a second away from apologizing for who knows what. But her soft ok comes down the line first and he thinks maybe he'll ask her. He thinks maybe tomorrow, he'll just ask her what's on her mind.
He goes to take her coat and runs into the duffel bag. The same one. The same one. He wonders what kind of sign that is.
"Laundry," she says as she dumps it on the floor and gives him a look that says she knows this is going to be a production and she, at least, really has things to do. A look that says she knows him.
She does. He smiles and decides it's a good sign. Today, the duffel bag is a good sign.
She follows him into the kitchen. Crowds into him on the inside of the counter and says she wants to help. That she always helped her mom.
He stops, then. Dithers with the whisk in his hand, because he's back in that moment. That first moment with her in his kitchen in borrowed clothes talking about her mother.
But the counter is set. Two places with real napkins and a bright red bowl of strawberries. A recreation of the scene she set that morning, except for the book next to her plate. He tells her maybe later and shoos her around to the other side.
The wrapping paper catches her eye. She gives him a look as she hefts it. Like she's going to wait. Like she'll try to guess what it is, but her fingernail is already finding the seam.
Kate Beckett loves presents. It's one of his favorite secrets, recently unearthed. She loves the mystery and the ritual and it's absolutely one of his favorite things.
The paper comes away and she folds it neatly. Sets it aside and laughs when she sees the exclamation points. The tacky cover. "I lost this one. I didn't remember."
He just nods and busies himself at the stove. He wrapped it last night. Pulled it out from between shoeboxes and summer things. He supposes he meant to add to it-always assumed he'd add to it-but he never did. Just rushed out into the rain with it tucked inside his jacket and put it up on the shelf as soon as he got home.
She starts at the beginning-at JB '77 and they share a look.
"Weird, right?" he says and she echoes him. Weird.
She keeps him company while he works at first. Flips through and reads out some of the more ridiculous advice on how to be a good hostess. Orange wedges and drinks chilled with frozen melon chunks, mostly. Frilly toothpick essentials.
"This is so bad," she laughs and stops short. She looks up at him like she's wondering something, but he's preoccupied. The eggs are just coming together and he's coaxing the fluffy mass to the center of the pan.
"Your heat's too high," she says absently. Her nose is back in the book and she's not going page-by-page any more. She's on to him.
She balances it on her forearms and lets it fall open and there it is. His handwriting. He lowers the heat on the pan and tries not to look. He didn't look last night. Slapped the first piece of tape to the cover right away. Folded a sharp crease in the wrapping paper and buried the urge, but now he's nervous. He thinks it's innocent enough. Things he knew. Things he wanted to tell her. Things he wished she'd tell him. Innocent enough, but he's nervous anyway.
He comes around the counter with the eggs and nudges her elbow. She shoots him an annoyed look, but eases the book on to her lap and picks up her fork. Steady bites travel from her plate, and she doesn't notice when he slips another piece of bacon on to her plate. Refills her coffee and shovels a few more strawberries into the little glass dish to her right.
Her hair falls around her face and her hands are busy on the page. She swaps her fork from one hand to the other and lets her fingers land on the sketch of her old living room, clumsy but a passable likeness in its pale toast frame. Her shoulders rise and fall and she sweeps her hair behind her ears and sits up when she remembers something. When something comes back to her and it's good. Something she was glad to have for a while, and not just another thing she's lost.
He sneaks another spoonful of eggs from his own plate to hers and she catches him this time. She grabs his wrist and he freezes. She's laughing, though. She's laughing and tapping the page with her pinky. The chicken broth. He laughs, too, and she scoops up a forkful of eggs and feeds it to him. Follows it up with a kiss and a whisper. "Butter. More butter at the last minute and toss them in the pan."
He feels his face light up and he knows it's silly, but it's like an itch he's been waiting to scratch for three years. He wants to make another batch. To do it right, but she tells him no.
"Another Sunday," she says and goes back to the book.
Another Sunday. That sounds good. Whatever's on her mind, there'll be other Sundays and he'll do the eggs right. For now, he putters around. Cleans up and moves things from here to there and tries not to read over her shoulder.
It's strange. Good but strange, he thinks, the way she snorts and rolls her eyes at some things. The way she softens at others. But he holds his breath when she turns the page. The last two have him holding his breath.
He doesn't remember much. Half-formed thoughts and questions. Kate and and her mother and the two of them together and what did he know? Then or now, what does he really know about her mother and the way she was? He holds his breath and plays at being busy.
She doesn't spend much time there. Her fingers trail up and down the margins. Across the page and linger at the end. She shuts the book long before she can have read much of it. She shuts it for now. He thinks it's just for now.
"I'm sorry she's gone, too." She says it quietly. After a while. "With everything, I forget that sometimes. That I'd still be sorry no matter how she died."
He folds the towel in his hand and comes around to sit next to her. The book is heavy on her knees and he just wants it out of the way. He reaches for it, but she tugs back. He looks up at her, startled, and she's looking at him again.
"Thank you," she says and lets it go.
"Welcome." He sets it aside and waits. She's still looking at him and he thinks he won't have to ask. If he can keep quiet a while, he won't have to ask. If.
He doesn't have to ask. She waits for him to settle. For his hands to go as still as they ever are. She waits a long while and he nods, finally. She nods back.
"Are you sorry?"
"About?" It's not what he expects. It's the kind of thing that probably should have him worried. Have him running through what he did or didn't do, but he's just curious. She's hesitant. She won't back out of this now that she's made her start, but she's hesitant. And he really doesn't know what it's about.
"About your father. About not having one." Her cheeks go a little red. She looks away, then back toward him like she wants to know it's ok.
He's still now. Truly still and not just for him.
He wants to tell her it's ok. He wants to smile or kiss the top of her head or offer some kind of gesture. But it's a howling blank for him. Just a howling blank, like it always is. He's not sorry. He's not angry. He's not anything in particular about it and he doesn't have an answer.
He doesn't know if it's ok. If he's ok. Because that's for someone else to say. Alexis and his mother. Her and the people who depend on him. It's for all of them to say or at least he's always thought so.
He's never had an answer for this, but she's looking at him and he thinks he should. For the first time, he thinks he should, so he starts. He makes a beginning with her.
"I don't know. I've never known."
WC: ~5600
Rating: K+
Summary: "He knows it's stupid. She knows how to make them. She doesn't need this from him, but he imagines her mother more than ever now and it feels important. It feels important that there should be two people in the world who can make her eggs."
Spoilers: Mostly 2 x 18-Boom! and 5 x 10-Significant Others
A/N: The seventh story, I guess, in the series prompted by the diabolical BerkieLynn. I'm doubling up a bit here, as I covered 2 x 17 and 2 x 18 in another chapter, but this one wouldn't let go.
So, this is the seventh story in this series. 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., and the sixth. They're loosely linked one-shots that can be read independently and in any order you like.
2010
He imagines her mother sometimes. How could he not? Johanna. She's such an enormous part of what makes Beckett Beckett. Her presence. Her absence. So much of what makes her Kate. Of course he imagines her.
He imagines her today. He's fragile this morning and he crowds together the little pieces of her. The things he knows and it's such an insignificant heap that he wants more. He wants to make more, and he imagines her mother.
She's fragile this morning, too. He sees it in the way her hand sweeps across her forehead to hide her eyes. The way she slides her fingers into her hair because they tremble now and then and she doesn't want anyone to know.
He sees it, even though she's keeping busy. Hiding behind the work of making breakfast. Expunging her imagined debts whatever way she can. As soon as she can.
He wishes she knew how much he'd willingly give her. That there will never be a question of debt-of her owing him-as far as he is concerned. Never. But how could she know when he's only just finding out?
He's been up practically all night finding that out, his mood swinging wildly from fear to relief to a kind of nonsensical anger to something he's pointedly not examining. Something he's not thinking about. Not with her in his upstairs bedroom and an overwhelming need to act on that. To go to her and be sure of her. To make sure of her.
He's been up practically all night finding out all of that and here she is. Quiet and efficient at the stove. Just across the counter, she's neat and precise. Of course. Totally unlike him when he cooks. When there are staging areas and war zones and terrain and casualties. Of course she's nothing like him when she cooks.
Although. Although.
He can't help but notice that she's bypassed all the fancy things. The folding omelet pan and the skillet with the built-in thermometer and seventy-five settings he's never been patient enough to figure out. It's not surprising. Of course she'd cast those aside. He smiles to himself. Imagines the stream of unflattering thoughts as she roots through his cabinets.
It's not just that she passes those by, though. He would have expected that. But she's gone right for his battered stand-bys. The things he learned on. The things he uses every day, even though he always has to dig for them. Even though he has to dig past all the impulse buys he really never touches to reach the things he started out with. The things he always comes back to.
It's a neat little array in front of her. Off to the side, waiting in precise rows, and every single thing has been with him for years. Pans and whisks and slotted spoons that made the move with him from his first roach-infested apartment to the short-lived walk-up with Meredith to the first place he had for just him and Alexis. Things that he's brought with him to her. To this moment in Kate Beckett's sure, beautifully alive hands.
It makes him smile to see them. To see her like this. The efficient snap of her wrist as she whisks the eggs and turns the handle of the frying pan just so. He imagines her mother. Wonders if she learned this from her. How to tend half a dozen fires at once. How to feed a family.
He imagines her mother and it startles him-opens his sleepy eyes wide-when he hears the word on her tongue. Like she heard him wondering. Like she can see his imaginings, in which case he's in all kinds of trouble. More trouble by the minute.
It's not fair. The moment is over before he even realizes it's started. Before he even has a chance to see it for what it is. Deflection spinning out into truth.
She's nervous. Like she's been caught doing something she shouldn't. Like they have. The two of them. Because she's in his kitchen in borrowed clothes and it's barely light outside. It's like they've been up to something and she's babbling to cover. Like mothers-like childhood and Sunday brunch and glimpses of her self in progress-are a safe topic.
She's nervous. His mother and his daughter and the whole domestic scene make her nervous. It's more misplaced guilt than the warmth of the kitchen tinting her cheeks, and the thought crosses his mind that he'd like to give her something to feel guilty about. That he'd like to put that blush to good use. And the real moment-another kind of moment-passes without him.
It passes because there's work for her to do now, and that's how she finds her feet. She busies herself and chases memory back to the corners. There are eggs to be dished out and bacon to plated. There are things to see to, and she's done. She's done doling out information about herself. There'll be no more revelations she didn't mean to make. About her. About her mother and the way one bleeds into the other.
There's work and then there's work. Jordan Shaw is missing and it has to be Dunn. It has to be Dunn and his first thought is Thank God. Thank God it's not Kate. She dashes upstairs and leaves him with it all. Thoughts of motherless daughters. Guilt and realization and pieces of her and he just stands there. He's fixed in place.
He's rooted to the spot and he imagines her mother.
They fight when she leaves the loft. Not fight exactly. But she's there in the spare shirt from her locker, with a brand new duffle bag over her shoulder and there's hardly anything in it. It flops against her thigh and she looks small and all he can think of is all of New York on the other side of his door. Even though they caught Dunn and it's all over, it's all he can think about. All the evil in the world.
It's a Sunday morning and he imagines her mother and it's out of his mouth before he even knows he's going to say it. That it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous for her to go.
It is, but it's the wrong thing to say. Her smile goes hard and she's joking, but she's not. She's hugging his mother and laying her hand on Alexis's shoulder. She's thanking them both and waving off their insistence that she stay, at least to eat. At least for brunch.
The counter is practically groaning with food. He might've gone overboard. Waffles and overnight strata because he couldn't sleep. Fruit and bacon because it's brunch. Three kinds of scrambled eggs because he only had one mouthful of hers and he's trying to recreate them. Her eyes narrow when she sees them there. Three dishes, side by side, and it's like she knows.
She gives him a sharp look and hauls the duffel higher on her shoulder. It's empty enough to cave in against her hip, and he feels desperate. Panicky. It's ridiculous for her to go. But she's already at the door and his mother raises her voice. Makes a production of giving them their privacy, even though they're ten steps away in the front hall.
He tells her it's not an imposition. That she's welcome. That there's no rush. That she should at least eat. She says it's time and she's not hungry anyway. Dunn's behind bars and she can't stay here forever. His head snaps up at the word and even she looks startled. She takes another step toward the door, anyway, and he looks away from her toward the kitchen.
Two red heads bent toward one another and the strong scent of coffee and he sees her there, too. Like she was the other morning. Blushing and chatting and busy. Talking about her mother. His eyes travel back to her. The real her. The one who's going and he says something stupid. He doesn't even remember what, but it's dismissive and high handed and he reaches for the duffel bag. Tells her she's staying and that's final.
For a second, he thinks she might hit him. For a second, she thinks so, too. She jerks her shoulder back and there's a flare of anger-real anger-before she turns it into a smirk and something that falls short of a joke. A stiff, formal thank you for the hospitality and the door is closing behind her.
He wishes she'd hit him.
She's distant. After she leaves the loft for who knows where, she's distant. He really doesn't know. Where she's staying. How much she actually lost. What was salvageable. If she needs help. If there's anything at all he can do.
He hears the tail end of conversations. Dry cleaners and movers and service companies. He asks sometimes, but she's short with her answers. Clipped confirmations and abrupt changes of subject.
It's not just him. She's distant with everyone. She has a short-term sublet, according to Lanie. Not in the Village and that's all anyone knows. Some of her old clothes make an appearance after a while, but a lot of her favorites are missing. His favorites.
He thinks about her apartment. The one that's gone. How full it was and the way that surprised him. All the tiny objects and bold colors. Books and paintings. Geodes and figurines and chunky brass pieces. Things that shouldn't go together making up this bright, complicated whole.
Things out of place in time that must have belonged to her mother. Her parents. He remembers a story she told him once. About her dad when he was drinking. How she'd smuggle little pieces out of the house to save them from the nights when he was clumsy or angry or both. How much she'd lost by then.
He thinks about her apartment, and it's a different place in his mind than the hell he ran into that night. Flame and chaos and the everything raining down. Panic choking him, thicker than smoke.
It's a different place than the one they picked their way through later when it was safe. Safer, despite the blackened, drenched plaster and yellow tape. Her mother's ring lying there in the middle of everything like a miracle and the watch he slipped into his own pocket before she could see it. Before she could see the cracked face and its hands frozen in that awful moment.
In his mind, it's just the way he left it. They left it. Because one night wasn't nearly enough time to snoop. To run his fingers along spines and over dust jackets. To turn things over in his hands and wonder about their stories. To imagine her mother and how much of her is here. One night wasn't enough, so he builds it back up in his imagination and everything she has lives there. Intact.
It's a different place in his mind and he wants to give it back to her.
He's obsessed with the scrambled eggs, and everyone but him is sick of it. He grills them both. His mother. Alexis. About what they tasted. The contents of the fridge. The pantry. Things she might have used and not put back in quite the right place. But it's hopeless. It's Kate Beckett. She put everything back in the right place. Labels turned to their original angle within a micrometer, probably.
He experiments with liquid. Heavy cream and half and half and milk of all kinds. Chicken broth when he's desperate, and that goes terribly wrong. It's like the bastard child of egg drop soup and a frittata and he hands over his credit card wordlessly. His mother and Alexis go out for brunch without him.
Then he thinks it might be the fat, and for a week, the backs of his hands are pocked with tiny blisters. Spattered ghee and bacon fat and every kind of oil. It goes on long enough that she notices. She asks and he deflects and they go back and forth. And for a minute it's like nothing happened. It's like she's not living out of a duffel bag and a few boxes God knows where and he didn't nearly get her killed.
But it doesn't last. She closes up again and he doesn't even know what he said. He doesn't know why she's being like this.
It's stupid. He knows it's stupid. She knows how to make them. She doesn't need this from him, but he imagines her mother more than ever now and it feels important. It feels important that there should be two people in the world who can make her eggs. It's stupid, but he can't talk himself out of it.
He experiments with spices and scours recipes and eats a lot of eggs alone in the middle of the night.
He gives up on it all at once. It's actually a decent batch, but it's not right. It's no closer to what she made than anything he's tried so far and he scrapes it down the garbage disposal. He slams the plate in the sink so hard that it chips, and he startles at the sharp sound of Alexis's voice from behind him.
He opens his mouth to apologize and closes it again. She just shakes her head and asks for waffles. They make them together. Side-by-side, and he knows then that it's impossible.
Because she's sixteen and she still gets to sift the flour, but he has to pour it in the top for her and she drapes a dish towel over her arm like a curtain because it always upset her. All that careful measurement and then the minute bits of flour that would escape into the air and dust the countertop.
So she uses a towel and they decide on a number to count up to while she squeezes the handle. He whisks the towel away with a flourish and she rolls her eyes and yells "Voila!" because she's sixteen and she's humoring him and it's impossible. It's just one of a dozen rituals they have. A hundred and this-this-is really what he wants to give Kate. And it's impossible.
Because her mother is dead and she wouldn't stay. She's living alone God knows where and everything she has-however little, however much-must still smell like smoke.
He gives up on it all at once and she seems to notice. She comments on his hands. His clean cuffs and the sudden reappearance of pastries with their coffee, but he's the one who's distant now. Quiet for him, though he doesn't mean to be. He just can't get over it. That it's impossible. That he can't give her anything.
That she's stubborn and won't let him give her anything.
It's a good day until he finds the shopping bag under her desk. They're sniping over the case and she's like her old self. She lands a particularly good insult that he only half set her up for and he drops into her desk chair to retaliate. He spins and his foot knocks against something and then she's flying at him. Furious.
It's books. It's just books, but she shoves him out of the way. Crowds around them and won't let him help her gather them up. He pushes up from his knees and mumbles an apology. He heads for the break room and thinks about leaving altogether. She doesn't need anything from him. She doesn't want anything.
He dumps the coffee he only just poured and rinses out the mug. He turns and she's leaning with her back against the doorframe, at right angles to him. She doesn't apologize. It's just a few short sentences. She tells him the place she's staying has a rooftop garden and she's been laying things out to air. And then it rained. She rushed out in the morning and got stuck at the precinct late and it rained.
He says he's sorry and she shrugs. Tells him at least she knows what she lost this time. Most of it, anyway.
He asks about the books. She shakes her head and says she doesn't even want most of them. Not just to have. That it's not the books at all. It's the handwriting. Scrawled notes and doodles in the margins. Coffee stains and ticket stubs and dog-eared pages and those are gone. Fire and water and they're gone.
It's not the books at all, but she buys them anyway.
Nothing much changes after that. She's still distant a lot of the time. He can't even think about eggs. He pictures her sitting cross-legged in a rooftop garden, riffling pages and bracing for the smell of smoke. Prying back waterlogged covers and wondering what she lost. If she can ever even know that much.
He ducks into a used bookstore one day to get out of the rain. It's a cramped space, and the owner is a hundred years old and suspicious. She clomps down the narrow aisles after him with her cane, tsking any time he takes something down from the shelf.
She follows him to a dead end. The rickety shelves flare out into the slightest cul-de-sac and there's a single chair. He turns to face the old woman and drops into the chair defiantly, an oversized book clutched to his chest. She narrows her eyes and he opens the book to the first page. She stands there staring, but he's engrossed and she clomps off again. Eventually.
It's a cookbook. Something about brunch with more exclamation points than it deserves. More than either the subject or the book deserves, but he knows it from somewhere. Not one of his, though. It's too old and not his kind of thing. Not anyone's kind of thing, really. The cover is cheap and tacky. The whole thing is dated and the photos are unappetizing. It has the feel of an unwanted gift, but he knows it from somewhere.
He flips to the front, hunting for a clue, and his fingers fall on it. The top right corner of the title page: JB '77. Memory sparks and his heart hammers, even though he knows it's just a coincidence. It has to be just a coincidence. The book is hers-Kate's. Or it was. And it must have been her mother's first-'77. She wasn't even born yet, and doesn't that make him feel a million years old?
The initials are just a coincidence. It's not her copy, but that's where he knows it from. Her apartment. He pulled it off the shelf that morning and flipped through. Tried to come up with something he could throw together from the chaos of her fridge before he settled on pancakes from a mix.
He flips to the table of contents on a hunch. There's a whole section on eggs and the recipes are ridiculous. Heavy on the margarine and processed cheese food products and there's white toast everywhere.
He doesn't even feel the pen in his hand until the owner is standing over him again, thunder on her brow. He looks down and realizes he's been writing. In the margins. Across the vast plains of white toast. There's no order to it. It's sketches and lists of book titles. Things he remembers and where they were on her shelves and tables and window sills. The well-mended border of the throw from the back of her couch and how it felt under his cheek when he slept a while.
And a lot about eggs. A cautionary tale about chicken broth. A fairytale about the hard life of his favorite whisk. A story about the day he gave up and made waffles with Alexis. Other stories from when she was younger. When she filled a cast iron skillet to the brim with cinnamon because thought that's what seasoning was. Stories from when they were learning together. Soaking pans and scraping off burned edges and making notes in the margins. Even one about his mother. Some ambitious disaster with phyllo dough he hasn't thought about in years.
It's all harmless enough until he turns the page and this is about her. About her in his kitchen. How right she looked there with his favorite whisk in her hand and how she didn't have to leave so soon. How he worries about where she is and why she feels like she has to do every damned thing alone. d
About way he imagines her mother. The way he sees her taking the whisk from Kate's hand, adjusting the flame and pointing things out. Tutting and correcting her technique and slapping her hands away. Because she must have gotten it from somewhere. Kate must've gotten it from somewhere.
He looks down at the last thing he wrote: I'm sorry and a single point of ink. He lets the pen linger a moment and finishes it: I'm sorry she's gone.
He snaps the cover shut and the book store owner goes red. She opens her mouth, but he beats her to it. He smiles up at her and says he'll take it.
It's not about the book, but he'll take it.
2013
He catches her looking at him a lot lately, and it freaks them both out a little. That's not the way this works. He should be able to tease her about it, but it dies on his tongue every time.
There's something on her mind. The sheer relief of Meredith's departure dissipates and Kate still has something on her mind.
He starts to ask a dozen times. If Meredith said something. Or Alexis maybe? But he thinks they're past that. It was more him than Alexis, anyway. Typical.
He wonders if he said something. Did something they haven't been over yet. They've been over a lot. A lot about Meredith and his misplaced guilt and the fact that he's obviously a little crazy when it comes to her. Because some small part of him actually expects her to step up as a parent. Every time, he expects it. But maybe he sabotages it, too, and then he overcompensates. He's been over that, anyway.
Maybe she hasn't. But she listened. Quiet and a little amused at the way he went on and on. But he doesn't talk about that stuff. With anyone. Because his mother just waves him off and says it's Meredith's way, and Alexis gets stoic. And it's not like he knows how people do this. How normal people do this. So he went through it with her, surprised to hear his own voice going on and on, and she listened.
And they've talked, too. About the fact that he knows and she knows that it's about boundaries and not some kind of choice between her and Alexis-between his girlfriend and his kid. And neither of them thought that, but he's glad they said it anyway.
So he's talked and they've talked, and there's still something on her mind. He starts to ask and stops again and again.
Alexis gets better and goes back to school. Kate spends the night at the loft now and then, but she'd rather be at her place, it seems. He's fine with it. If he's going to sleep, he can sleep anywhere. If he's not, he likes to snoop and she's filled this place up just like she did the last one and it still surprises him.
He likes her place and he doesn't mind, but he worries that they're connected. The loft and whatever's bothering her. Whatever has her sizing him up and keeping quiet.
It's a Saturday night and they're on the phone. He's writing. He's supposed to be writing, but they're on the phone and she's laying out her Sunday. Laundry and bills and practical things.
"Don't," he says and surprises them both with how urgent it sounds. "Come over. Sleep in and then come over and I'll make brunch."
She laughs it off. Says he'll do anything to get out of writing. That she really has things to do and he can find some other way to procrastinate.
"Kate," he says, like he hasn't heard a word. "Come over. I want to feed you. Like your mother did."
He sucks in a breath. He didn't mean to say it. Didn't know he was going to until it was out, and now she's quiet. So quiet, and he's half a second away from apologizing for who knows what. But her soft ok comes down the line first and he thinks maybe he'll ask her. He thinks maybe tomorrow, he'll just ask her what's on her mind.
He goes to take her coat and runs into the duffel bag. The same one. The same one. He wonders what kind of sign that is.
"Laundry," she says as she dumps it on the floor and gives him a look that says she knows this is going to be a production and she, at least, really has things to do. A look that says she knows him.
She does. He smiles and decides it's a good sign. Today, the duffel bag is a good sign.
She follows him into the kitchen. Crowds into him on the inside of the counter and says she wants to help. That she always helped her mom.
He stops, then. Dithers with the whisk in his hand, because he's back in that moment. That first moment with her in his kitchen in borrowed clothes talking about her mother.
But the counter is set. Two places with real napkins and a bright red bowl of strawberries. A recreation of the scene she set that morning, except for the book next to her plate. He tells her maybe later and shoos her around to the other side.
The wrapping paper catches her eye. She gives him a look as she hefts it. Like she's going to wait. Like she'll try to guess what it is, but her fingernail is already finding the seam.
Kate Beckett loves presents. It's one of his favorite secrets, recently unearthed. She loves the mystery and the ritual and it's absolutely one of his favorite things.
The paper comes away and she folds it neatly. Sets it aside and laughs when she sees the exclamation points. The tacky cover. "I lost this one. I didn't remember."
He just nods and busies himself at the stove. He wrapped it last night. Pulled it out from between shoeboxes and summer things. He supposes he meant to add to it-always assumed he'd add to it-but he never did. Just rushed out into the rain with it tucked inside his jacket and put it up on the shelf as soon as he got home.
She starts at the beginning-at JB '77 and they share a look.
"Weird, right?" he says and she echoes him. Weird.
She keeps him company while he works at first. Flips through and reads out some of the more ridiculous advice on how to be a good hostess. Orange wedges and drinks chilled with frozen melon chunks, mostly. Frilly toothpick essentials.
"This is so bad," she laughs and stops short. She looks up at him like she's wondering something, but he's preoccupied. The eggs are just coming together and he's coaxing the fluffy mass to the center of the pan.
"Your heat's too high," she says absently. Her nose is back in the book and she's not going page-by-page any more. She's on to him.
She balances it on her forearms and lets it fall open and there it is. His handwriting. He lowers the heat on the pan and tries not to look. He didn't look last night. Slapped the first piece of tape to the cover right away. Folded a sharp crease in the wrapping paper and buried the urge, but now he's nervous. He thinks it's innocent enough. Things he knew. Things he wanted to tell her. Things he wished she'd tell him. Innocent enough, but he's nervous anyway.
He comes around the counter with the eggs and nudges her elbow. She shoots him an annoyed look, but eases the book on to her lap and picks up her fork. Steady bites travel from her plate, and she doesn't notice when he slips another piece of bacon on to her plate. Refills her coffee and shovels a few more strawberries into the little glass dish to her right.
Her hair falls around her face and her hands are busy on the page. She swaps her fork from one hand to the other and lets her fingers land on the sketch of her old living room, clumsy but a passable likeness in its pale toast frame. Her shoulders rise and fall and she sweeps her hair behind her ears and sits up when she remembers something. When something comes back to her and it's good. Something she was glad to have for a while, and not just another thing she's lost.
He sneaks another spoonful of eggs from his own plate to hers and she catches him this time. She grabs his wrist and he freezes. She's laughing, though. She's laughing and tapping the page with her pinky. The chicken broth. He laughs, too, and she scoops up a forkful of eggs and feeds it to him. Follows it up with a kiss and a whisper. "Butter. More butter at the last minute and toss them in the pan."
He feels his face light up and he knows it's silly, but it's like an itch he's been waiting to scratch for three years. He wants to make another batch. To do it right, but she tells him no.
"Another Sunday," she says and goes back to the book.
Another Sunday. That sounds good. Whatever's on her mind, there'll be other Sundays and he'll do the eggs right. For now, he putters around. Cleans up and moves things from here to there and tries not to read over her shoulder.
It's strange. Good but strange, he thinks, the way she snorts and rolls her eyes at some things. The way she softens at others. But he holds his breath when she turns the page. The last two have him holding his breath.
He doesn't remember much. Half-formed thoughts and questions. Kate and and her mother and the two of them together and what did he know? Then or now, what does he really know about her mother and the way she was? He holds his breath and plays at being busy.
She doesn't spend much time there. Her fingers trail up and down the margins. Across the page and linger at the end. She shuts the book long before she can have read much of it. She shuts it for now. He thinks it's just for now.
"I'm sorry she's gone, too." She says it quietly. After a while. "With everything, I forget that sometimes. That I'd still be sorry no matter how she died."
He folds the towel in his hand and comes around to sit next to her. The book is heavy on her knees and he just wants it out of the way. He reaches for it, but she tugs back. He looks up at her, startled, and she's looking at him again.
"Thank you," she says and lets it go.
"Welcome." He sets it aside and waits. She's still looking at him and he thinks he won't have to ask. If he can keep quiet a while, he won't have to ask. If.
He doesn't have to ask. She waits for him to settle. For his hands to go as still as they ever are. She waits a long while and he nods, finally. She nods back.
"Are you sorry?"
"About?" It's not what he expects. It's the kind of thing that probably should have him worried. Have him running through what he did or didn't do, but he's just curious. She's hesitant. She won't back out of this now that she's made her start, but she's hesitant. And he really doesn't know what it's about.
"About your father. About not having one." Her cheeks go a little red. She looks away, then back toward him like she wants to know it's ok.
He's still now. Truly still and not just for him.
He wants to tell her it's ok. He wants to smile or kiss the top of her head or offer some kind of gesture. But it's a howling blank for him. Just a howling blank, like it always is. He's not sorry. He's not angry. He's not anything in particular about it and he doesn't have an answer.
He doesn't know if it's ok. If he's ok. Because that's for someone else to say. Alexis and his mother. Her and the people who depend on him. It's for all of them to say or at least he's always thought so.
He's never had an answer for this, but she's looking at him and he thinks he should. For the first time, he thinks he should, so he starts. He makes a beginning with her.
"I don't know. I've never known."