Chapter Text
He hangs around. He doesn't know what else to do, once he rejects the idea of going after them. Throwing himself at her father's feet and taking the blame. He mostly rejects the idea. Mostly because she'd kill him for it. And because there's a strong possibility that blame taking would develop into hand-asking-for or worse. He's not himself right now. Or maybe he is. It's possible that Operation Heliotrope has driven him off the deep end.
Ryan and Esposito slink back in at some point. They mutter half-hearted apologies. They prod him for details and lay the groundwork for their own defense. They're definitely suspicious that they've been played, so they try to get that out of him, too but they come up empty on all fronts.
He's got nothing to say, and his marathon silence gets the job done anyway. It makes them miserable. It makes them writhe. And it ultimately shuts them up, along with the rest of the bullpen. Everything has an almost funereal quality, but at least it's quiet.
He waits out the clock. An hour. More. He checks his phone obsessively. He balls up the newspaper he somehow ended up with and slams it into the trashcan at his feet. He pulls it back out again and smooths it on the desk. He folds it away, and generally has no idea what to do with himself.
He wanders when it's too much. From desk to break room to bathroom while it pushes on past the ninety-minute mark, and the energy he can burn keeping his hands busy just isn't enough.
"You had. One. Job. Castle."
The low, deadly voice makes him jump. She's caught him mid-circuit. Not back in the stealth hallway, but stranded. Better than the alternative, he thinks. Better than . . . whatever comes next shaking out in front of a live studio audience back in the bullpen.
"I know. Beckett, I know . . . I'm . . ." He turns, approaching with his hands out, palms up. A posture of apology. Surrender, but he gets a good look at her, then. He pulls up short. "Are you ok?"
She doesn't look not ok, exactly. She just doesn't look . . . exactly like herself, either. She's not actually furious with him, for one thing. She gives him a little gotcha gesture, but it's sheepish. A little shame-faced. Katie, he thinks. Hears her father's voice inside his head and wonders if this is how Katie looked when she got caught doing something she shouldn't.
"Ok . . ." When she finally speaks, It's repetition, rather than an answer. She's shaking her head at her own shoes, arms folded across her chest. A time-buying move he's seen her use over and over. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"
"Me?" He leans his back against the wall next to her. "Oh, what's one little heart attack before forty?"
That gets a laugh. Something small—truncated—that leaves her pressing a hand low to her ribs.
"You're not ok." He crowds toward her, alarmed.
"I got . . . held up." She fends him off with a palm. "Ran down to the corner store to keep out of the way while you . . ."
"Made a complete mess of everything?" He's trying not to hover. "What happened?"
"Kid snatched the purse off a lady's shoulder."
"Right as a cop walks in?" He frowns. "I thought that only happened on TV."
"My lucky day, I guess. That's why I was late."
"And your dad was early." The penny drops. Realization, and she knows she's caught. "Your dad is always early, isn't he?"
"Usually," she says, admitting nothing. Admitting everything with the press of her lips.
"You . . . " he sputters. He kind of wants to shake her. He kind of wants to kiss her full on the mouth and whisper low in her ear that he'll have his revenge.
"I wasn't supposed to be that late. And I figured you could handle things for two minutes." She flicks a sideways glance at him. "And I figured letting you sweat just a little might teach you a valuable lesson about imaginary babies."
"Lesson," he scoffs. You should know by now I'm unteachable. And it hurts little Heliotrope when you call her imaginary."
She laughs. Her ribs catch her out again. She twists at the waist, giving the muscles an experimental stretch. It's not a rousing success. She grimaces, and he wonders how much worse it is for the brave front she must have put up with her dad. Standing tall and moving easily, no matter how much it cost her.
"Was it . . . bad?" He doesn't really know what to ask. And he kind of doesn't want to know. He kind of never wants to talk about this day ever again, but it seems wrong not to ask. Cowardly.
"Nah. He just got in a lucky kick." Her eyes skitter away like she never wants to talk about it either.
"Beckett . . ."
"Bad?" She gives him a sidelong you first look, then sighs, resigned. "No. It's never bad with my dad. He just . . . wonders a lot."
The word is intriguing. She's chewing her lip and fidgeting as much as her sore ribs will let her, like she does want to talk about it, but she doesn't want to want to.
"Wonders?" he prompts cautiously. It's hard not to seem eager even though this is really one of the world's most awkward moments. But he loves little glimpses like this, rare as they are. The times when she forgets that being annoyed by him is a full-time job and they just . . talk. He loves just hearing about her, and it's hard not to settle in.
"Oh, you know . . . " She drops her voice low. Makes it stern and eerily calm and measured. It's a pretty good rendition of her dad. "He wonders about the wisdom of pranks in the workplace. He wonders if I realize how important reputation is, especially for a woman in my profession, and he wonders if I'd even though about how easily something like that could get out of hand . . ."
Castle snorts. "He wonders why you let an idiot follow you around . . ."
"Well, I wonder that, too," she says, softening it with a sly smile and a bump of the shoulder that makes her wince again.
"You and me both."
He tries to match her tone—to keep things light—but he swings and misses. The truth is, he does wonder . He has been wondering for going on two hours why it took a close encounter of the Jim Beckett kind to make him realize that the con they mapped out—the one he sold so easily to Ryan and Esposito—is way too plausible. And she's hurt on top of everything else, and he wasn't there. He didn't have her back, and she's somebody's daughter, and it's all just depressing.
"He likes you," she says.
Castle's head whips around. He's sure he can't have heard her right. "He said that?"
"No." She looks at him like he's crazy. "But I could tell."
She looks a little annoyed by the fact, that she knows or that it's true at all. He's not sure which, but she's more than a little annoyed, and a light goes on somewhere for Castle. He thinks maybe it's not just a Kate thing, but a Beckett thing in general. Plausible deniability. Saying things without saying them.
"I like him," he says. This time it's her head that whips around. "I mean . . . I can imagine liking him. In another universe where I wasn't completely, pants-wettingly terrified of him."
Her brow furrows. "I'm not sure that universe exists."
"Yeah. No." He smiles down at the floor. "Pretty sure in every plane of the multiverse, your dad scares the hell out of me."
"Just the way he likes it."
It sounds like thinking out loud, and he puts his finger on another thing. Another way she's not exactly herself right now. She's mad, and even though he'd have said two minutes ago that he was well-acquainted with every facet of Angry Beckett, this is new. The shades of this particular anger are familiar in an unexpected way.
You have a daughter?
"He worries about you," he says tentatively, half-thinking he shouldn't be saying it at all.
"I'm not a child," she snaps. Apparently she agrees with that particular half, but he presses on. For her, as much as for her dad. For himself and them in some strange way, too.
"You're not a child. But you are his child." She's silent, so he pushes his luck. He goes on. "That never stops. And this job is . . ."
"Dangerous? Violent?" Her palm makes contact with her ribs. Too hard, and she hisses through her teeth. "Like I don't know all that. Like I don't see it every single day?"
"But he doesn't see it every day," he says. "He hardly ever sees it. Mostly he just imagines it. And, trust me, there's no mind as terrifyingly creative as a parent's when it comes to every single, awful thing that could happen to their kid."
He presses his lips together, hard. He's said enough, if not too much already, and he's not even sure why. He's not sure it isn't some strange Jedi Mind Trick of Jim Beckett's, to have someone talk to her like this. To have someone show her that she matters, and she's more than the job, however good at it she is.
"So what's your point, Castle?" she says finally. It's sarcastic. She kicks at the side of his shoe. A sullen message received gesture.
"My point is little Heliotrope is not going to the academy." He dodges the back of her hand just in time. He doubles over, protecting his midsection as she gives chase. "She can be a fire jumper or a stunt woman or the next Steve Irwin, but she cannot be a cop. As her father, I forbid it."
She corners him, a familiar, furious, twisted up smile on her lips now, though when he bends his head to offer his ear, the twist she gives it definitely has a little extra something on it, ribs or no ribs. She pushes at him once for good measure and turns back toward the bullpen.
"Come on." She straightens her shoulders like she's not looking forward to what comes next. "We should find Ryan and Esposito. Call a truce."
"A truce?!" He's indignant. Those two have gotten nothing like the comeuppance they deserve.
"Castle. This is my job. Things have already gotten out of hand. I'm done." She gives him a hard look over her shoulder.
A hard look and a lightning-quick flicker of one eyelid in the very last second before she turns and strides off.
"Was that . . . did you just wink?," he hisses, jogging after her. "Signal if that was a wink! BECKETT!"