14. Bottle of whisky and a new set of lies

The bullpen is just as busy as it had been two days ago, and the pile of paper on Beckett’s desk just as high. She gets straight down to it, flips a casual Hey when Ryan, and shortly after him Esposito, get in, and concentrates fiercely on making up for her day’s absence. 

By ten, she’s made a noticeable dent in the paper skyscraper – maybe ten storeys removed out of the twenty or so. There may be a way still to go, but it’s substantial progress.  She’s reaching for the next file when her phone rings.  She doesn’t recognise the number.

“Beckett.”

“Detective Beckett?” She doesn’t recognise the voice, either.  It’s a woman, and she sounds upset.  “It’s Mrs Berowitz.”  Uh?  Berowitz, Berowitz… Oh.  Oh God.  The alcoholic husband.  “You said…”  she can barely force the words out through her embarrassment and misery… “if there was anything.  Please – could I see you?”

“Yes. Can we make it lunchtime, Mrs Berowitz?  Come to the precinct around twelve-thirty, and we’ll go somewhere to talk.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Mrs Berowitz?” comes from behind her. Oh, hell.  Now she’ll have to make some excuse to keep Castle away.  “Wasn’t that the case just before Christmas, with the alcoholic husband?”

“Yes.” Her tone is very definitely discouraging.

“What did she want?”

“To meet me. Today.”

“Oooh. Why?  Has there been something new?  Did we get the wrong guy?”  Beckett rolls her eyes without a trace of humour.

“No. And it’s not we.  She just wants to see me.  It’s not about the case.”

“But I’m your partner. Your shadow.  Wherever you go, I get to go.”

“If I catch you in the women’s restroom, you’ll find out just how wrong you are,” Beckett deflects.

“C’mon. It’s got to be about the case.  Why else would she want to see you?”  Beckett can’t answer that without explaining about her father, and she isn’t going to do that.

“She wants to see me.  Not you, not both of us.  Just me.  It’s not about the case, so you’re not joining in, Castle.  Get it?”

Castle is very unimpressed by this. He’s perfectly certain there’s more to it than Beckett’s just said, and shutting him out of interviews is not the deal that he arranged.  A plan begins to unfold in his brain, largely connected with weaselling himself into this interview.  It’s entirely unreasonable of Beckett to have case-related interviews without him – and no matter what she’s just said, he’s sure that this is related to the case: how could it not be?  It’s not as if Beckett has any real life outside her job.  Anyway, she’s already lied to him once, so she could easily be doing it again.

He doesn’t admit to himself that this is as much driven by his still-prickling irritation over his discovery of her original lie about the mince pies, and his still-raging curiosity about her absence the day before, neither of which have yet been explained, as the actual issue at hand. It’s a work related interview, and he should be there, he thinks aggrievedly.  She has no right to shut him out.

He doesn’t notice the warning sign right there at the front of his head. He hasn’t put a limit on she has no right to shut him out.  Even if he’s technically thinking about work matters, he’s actually letting the lack of information about other areas of her life infect his current thinking.

He spends the remainder of the morning evolving a plan and “helping” with the run of mundane cases. Beckett looks tired, he notices, and justifies his plan to himself as taking some of the weight from her shoulders.  She knows his insights can be helpful.  It’s not as if she hasn’t been working really hard this morning: he’s never seen paperwork so ruthlessly demolished.  She’s hardly stopped to drink her coffee, even.

“Do you want me to pick you up some lunch, Beckett?” Castle asks, shortly before twelve thirty. She looks up at his question.

“Yeah. Thanks, Castle.  I don’t think I’ll have time to go out, what with everything.”  She waves wearily at the remaining pile on her desk, which is rapidly growing smaller, in the hope that he’ll infer that she means the workload on top of the meeting.  “Chicken salad and a soda, please.”  She reaches for her wallet, and hands over some bills.  “And something sweet.  Looks like I’ll need the sugar high to get through this lot.”

“Okay. You don’t need something sweet though.  You’ve got me.”  Beckett growls and then rolls her eyes. 

“Not the same, Castle. I need energy.”  She does.  She’s been flat all day and it’s a real struggle to keep her concentration, not least because she keeps expecting Castle to open up a discussion about why she lied.  She really does not need what is bound to be an emotionally intense discussion with a woman who clearly needs help, but she simply cannot let Mrs Berowitz suffer alone once she’s asked Beckett for that help.

Castle bounces off to pick up lunch, much to Beckett’s relief. He’d been a bit odd about not being able to join in, but he seems to have got over that, and she is very grateful that he’ll get her something to eat.  She can feel her blood sugar dropping by the minute.  By the time he gets back she’ll be done.

Mrs Berowitz is a little late, and when she calls Beckett her voice is already breaking. Beckett steers her in the direction of a nearby coffee bar, and supplies them both with caffeine.  She doesn’t notice Castle wandering past the window on his way back from buying lunch.  Castle, on the other hand, certainly does notice Beckett. 

“Thank you for seeing me,” Mrs Berowitz chokes. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but you said” – she sniffs, and tries to pull herself together – “you’d been through this.”  Beckett nods.  “He’s getting worse and I don’t know what to do.”

Beckett winces internally. Mrs Berowitz isn’t going to like this conversation, she knows that already.  Mrs Berowitz still thinks that she can save her husband.  Mrs Berowitz is dead wrong.

“Mrs Berowitz,” she begins, gently.

“Julia, please.”

“Julia. I went through this with my father, when my mother died.”  She takes a slow breath, and tries to keep calm.  “I tried everything.”  Another slow breath.  Mrs Berowitz – Julia – is watching her as if she’s the Oracle.  “And nothing worked.  I couldn’t save him.”  Julia’s face crumples, and she reaches for a tissue in her purse.  “I spent two years trying, until I started listening to what Al-Anon was telling me.”  Julia’s crying.  Beckett reaches for her hand, clasps it firmly, lets it go.  “It nearly killed me to step back and leave him be, but he’d have dragged me down with him.  You have to step away or” –

The door to the coffee bar opens behind her as she’s saying “or it’ll bring you down too.”

“I brought your lunch over, Beckett.”

Beckett spins round and pierces Castle with a look that should have killed him stone dead on the spot. “Excuse me a moment,” she says, without a hint of her incandescent fury showing in her voice.  She rises from her table, walks out of the café, and explodes.

“What are you doing, Castle? I told you that only I would be talking to Mrs Berowitz.  It’s nothing to do with the case.  Now stay the hell out.  You’re intruding into a private conversation and you’ve done enough damage by interrupting.  You knew perfectly well you weren’t included.”  She spins hard on her heel, goes back into the cafe, through the window of which Castle can see Mrs Berowitz weeping, and returns to her discussion.

Beckett remains with Julia Berowitz for another hour, by which time she’s completely wrung out and fighting off a severe headache. She’s had to share her own experience, which is gruelling, and try to sympathise with this unfortunate woman, who doesn’t want to hear the grim reality that she can’t save her husband; all she can do is save herself.  Julia only leaves on Beckett’s promise that Julia can always call her.

Beckett knows she should go back up to the bullpen, but her head hurts so much that she can’t see straight and she’s beginning to feel nauseous. She recognises the symptoms of an absolute monster of a headache (it’s not a migraine, she never gets migraines, a migraine would involve strange smells or visual disturbances: it’s only a very bad headache that two Advil will cure.  She’ll be fine later on if she lies down for a while) calls Montgomery, and catches a cab home.  Shortly thereafter she’s flat out on her bed, trying to find a cool patch of pillow to ease the pain.

Montgomery is not at all surprised that Beckett calls. If they hadn’t been so appallingly busy he’d have sent her home anyway.  She’s never at her best on January 10, and though he’s never found a problem with her work she’s always quiet and withdrawn.  He is a little surprised that she was out at lunchtime and more so that Castle’s put a lunch bag down on her desk.  Some miscommunication there, surely?  Especially since Castle’s looking at the elevator doors and clearly expecting her back. 

“Castle?” Montgomery wanders out into his bullpen.  Everybody except Castle becomes very busy and exudes look-how-hard-I’m-working from every pore.

“Yeah?”

“Beckett’s not coming back today.” That’s a rather odd expression on the writer’s face.  Montgomery’s instincts twitch.

“Oh. Okay.  Guess she won’t be wanting her lunch, then.”

“Do you know where she was at lunchtime? It’s not like her to ask for a lunch and then not eat it.”  Montgomery is none-too-subtly fishing.  Castle’s face flickers.  Montgomery waits, quietly, inviting Castle to speak.

“She said she had to meet Mrs Berowitz, from that case before Christmas where her son got murdered. I remember it because Beckett said the husband was an alcoholic.  She asked me to get her lunch so I thought she’d be back.” 

Montgomery only just controls his face. No wonder Beckett’s called him sounding like death warmed over.  It’s just as well he’d told her she could go.  He nearly hadn’t, what with the pile of work they’re dealing with, and only his knowledge that Beckett would move heaven and earth not to let the team down had changed his mind.  He knows what she’s done.  She’s poured out compassion on someone she’s only met once and left herself empty.  It makes her a brilliant detective, but some days Montgomery wishes that she’d be a little less generous to the bereaved.  She works far too hard as it is.

“Okay,” is all Montgomery says, without emphasis. Castle casts him a suspicious glance.  “She’ll be back tomorrow.”

Castle is sure that Montgomery knows more than he’s saying, but he doesn’t know him well enough to ask any of the questions boiling in his mind. Starting with why isn’t Beckett here?  And since there is nothing for him to do, he might as well go home himself. 

The loft is quiet, and empty. This suits Castle fine.  He makes a drink, retires to his office, and sketches out some plans for Nikki Heat.  When that palls, he plays with his latest computer game, and thinks about a pleasant dinner for himself and Alexis.  Then he remembers that Alexis is out tonight, at Paige’s.  In fact, she’s been out all day.  It’s another irritation.  He would have liked some company this evening.  A peaceful afternoon was what he wanted, but now he’d like someone to talk to.

He rummages in the fridge and finds the makings of a decent dinner. That, some ice-cream, and a glass of a white wine that has somehow escaped his mother’s notice, improves his mood somewhat.  He’s bored, though, and just a little lonely, and he has no inspiration to write.

When Castle is bored his mind starts to work, not always in helpful directions. This evening’s direction, however, is definitely helpful.   Not, initially, pleasant, but helpful. 

He’s – well, pissed – with Beckett. Beckett didn’t come back after lunch. Beckett’s lying to him, and keeping secrets from him, and not letting him shadow her properly. 

He also, though, has the unpleasant feeling that he let himself down earlier, by quite deliberately ignoring Beckett’s instruction because he didn’t like it. Ow.  He doesn’t like that feeling.  It pursues him for a few moments, and by the time that’s passed he’s realised that he owes Beckett an apology, just as much as she owes him one.  The absolute fury in her eyes should have told him he’d got it wrong right there and then.  She wasn’t lying to him about that being a private meeting, and he’d interrupted.  Ow.  So now he just needs to find out why she lied about something as trivial as not liking mince pies.  It wouldn’t have been a problem, she only needed to say she didn’t like them.

Hmmm. Time, Castle thinks, for a discussion with Beckett.  Get it all out in the open, like two adults are supposed to do.  And since impulse control is not one of his strengths, and, now that he thinks about it, he would very much like to clear the air and then indulge in a nicely cuddlesome Kat – or a nicely naked Beckett, depending on her preference – in his arms, he collects his coat, scarf and a hat – it’s freezing – and bounces off to her apartment, happily thinking that they will sort it all out, just like he’d thought they should on Christmas Day, and it’ll all be fine.

He’s knocking at her door, a little snow-dusted, not long later. Beckett peers round it, blearily.

“Oh,” she says. “It’s you.  What do you want?”  She doesn’t sound enthusiastic or, he suddenly works out, awake.

“I came to talk to you.” Beckett manages a look of confusion.

“Why? I’ll see you tomorrow.  Couldn’t it wait?”  Her attempt at snark is ruined by a jaw-breaking yawn followed by a wince.  Castle steps inside and, in a Pavlovian reaction to pain on female faces, cuddles her in very gently.  It’s about that moment that he realises she’s wearing a robe, with bare feet, and it’s none too warm.  So he pushes the door closed carefully and walks over to the couch, which, since he hasn’t let go, means that Beckett ends up on the couch too.

“Can’t this wait, Castle?” she repeats, wearily. “I’m not in the mood.”  Castle thinks about sweeping her up into his lap, and then looks at the furrows in her brow and the tight stress lines at her mouth and eyes.  He recognises the signs.  Instead of sweeping her up, he very carefully moves her on to his knee and even more carefully massages her temples with the tips of his fingers.

“Headache, Beckett?” There’s a dispirited hum of assent.  “Just stay still.”  The broad pads circle very gently over the lingering traces of pain.  She stays quite still for a moment, and then leans limply into him.  Castle, suffering an unusual and severe attack of common sense, drops the idea of a detailed conversation for the moment in favour of the idea of a comforting cuddle, and continues to rub Beckett’s temples.  Gradually the furrows smooth out, though she doesn’t evince any signs of life or enthusiasm beyond the slight rise and fall of her ribs as she breathes.

“Is that better?” he asks softly.

“Mm.” She clearly makes some effort to speak.  “Yes.  Thanks, Castle.” 

There’s a question in her face that she’s too tired to articulate. Castle, who likes helping people and likes more having soft Beckett (even if it’s not softer, and in search of affection, Kat, unfortunately) in his arms, slips her hair back behind her ears, tuts when it won’t stay put, and very gently tips her face up.

“I learned ages ago. People in the theatre were always stressed, and you can’t just not go on stage – at least if you want to have a job tomorrow.  So I saw people doing this, and it worked on Mother – along with Bloody Marys,” he grins, and there’s almost a hint of a smile, “and it comes in handy sometimes.”  He has a sudden awful thought.  “But I’m not trying it on Ryan or Esposito.  No way.”

“I don’t think you’ll ever be asked, Castle,” Beckett manages to say, though the snark it should carry is noticeably lacking.

“Phew.”

That seems to be it, as far as Beckett talking is concerned. On the other hand, life is seeping slowly back into her expression and the creases of pain have disappeared.  Unfortunately, this means that she slips off his lap.  Disappointment is mitigated when she stays leaning on his shoulder instead, caught in the crook of his arm.  It’s beautifully comfortable.

“Want a drink, Castle?” Beckett asks, after a few moments. Castle considers.  He does indeed want a drink, if only because it gives him an excuse to stay longer and snuggle up with Beckett some more, with a possible opportunity for kisses if her headache has gone.  What he emphatically does not want, though, is his ill-regulated mind and mouth asking questions that will probably kick off an argument.  He considers for another moment.  Surely he, wordsmith extraordinaire, can phrase his questions carefully enough not to mess this evening up?  He answers himself in the affirmative.  His words and word craft have made him millions, after all.

“Yes please.”

In a short time coffee arrives.  Castle re-envelops Beckett with no difficulty at all and not even a hint of resistance.  He’s just plotting what to say when Beckett opens her mouth.

“About the mince pies.” Castle nearly drops his coffee in surprise.  “I didn’t want to upset you when you’d gone to all that trouble to bring them and make that butter stuff.” 

Beckett is not speaking one word that isn’t absolutely true – she’d swear to it all in court. That doesn’t mean that her words aren’t very carefully chosen.  But she’s uncomfortable with her original lie and she wants to clear that up.  She doesn’t like feeling that she’s let herself down – in both her own eyes and Castle’s.  She carefully doesn’t consider which one makes her feel worse.  She wouldn’t like the answer.

“I’m sorry,” she continues. “I should just have said I couldn’t eat them.”

“Oh,” Castle says, rather blankly. He hadn’t expected this, and he’s rather wrong-footed and certainly confounded by her apology. Oh, however, isn’t really an adequate response.  Beckett’s already shrinking away from him.  He eases her back towards him again.  “Next time, just tell me, okay?  I’m not going to get upset if you don’t like eating something.  Unless it’s ice-cream, of course.  If you don’t like ice-cream that’s a deal-breaker.  It’ll prove you’re a pod person.  Some alien in human shape, here to invade the earth and turn us all into algae-eating mind-wiped cattle that other aliens will prey on and” –

“Castle! Stop.  I like ice-cream, okay?”

“Oh. Okay, then.”  He sounds almost unhappy that his doomsday scenario has been defeated.

Beckett seems to have livened up marginally, from walking dead to merely half-dead, under the effects of head massage, apologising (still astounding!), and Castle’s general variety of verbal insanity. Castle notices that her robe is soft and satiny, and that its dull deep green shade brings out the hints of green in her eyes.  He pats her shoulder, still gently, and discovers that the robe is very strokable.  So he does.

Then he remembers that he needs to apologise too.