for Adriana ( AAR1806)
because sometimes loss needs translation

Code Breaker

an insert for Veritas 6x22, in between the discovery of the cassette tape and her arrest of William Bracken (for my purposes, the arrest occurred in DC)

"It was like we were exchanging codes, on how to be a father and a daughter, like we'd read about it in a manual, translated from another language, and were doing our best with what we could understand."

― Aimee Bender, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Kate taps a tattoo on the hard-shell suitcase, pausing for a moment before she wraps her hand around it and brings it out of Rick's closet. "This one?"

"Perfect." Castle smiling. Castle trying for her, being careful, like she's a thing he's approached in the wild, a thing set free from a trap and wounded in ways he can't yet find. "Do we need to swing by your place for anything?"

"No, most of everything is here," she assures him. She's spent six weeks using her apartment as a base of operations while he was on his book tour, the press of winter out her window and stealing inside. But when she slept, it was here. If she slept.

"We can share it?" he suggests. It's not tentative, and she's grateful for that. Castle has never been tentative; he blows right past her warning signs and she's needed that.

It trembles through her again, like ripples in a pond finally reaching their terminus. She can feel the effects beginning to line up, smoothing out, energy transference from the point of impact all along the timeline.

"We can share," Castle repeats, more firmly but softer too. He takes the suitcase from her and puts it on the bed, opens it up. "Funny, just unpacked this thing."

She nods absently and moves back into the closet, searching.

She finds black pants, shirts that travel well and won't wrinkle, her blazer. He's moving past her for his own clothes, and she goes to the bed and lays her things into one side of the suitcase, making a neat divide from his own.

His travel kit is already inside, pushed at what will be the bottom when the suitcase is upright. Strange. She always puts her shower things in the plastic zip pocket. Not wrong, just different.

It's just different now.

Castle lays his hand on her back as he leans past her, dropping a nice pair of jeans on his side. His palm is warm as he rubs her shoulder, a glancing kiss off her temple. Easy, unconcerned, waiting on her.

She's waited long enough.

So has he.

So have they all.

"I have to call him," she gets out, fingers drumming against the rim of the suitcase.

"You're doing it over the phone?"

"No," she says, horrified. "No."

"Our flight leaves in four hours," he reminds her. His stomach growls into the silence and he grins apologetically, pressing a fist into his abs to quiet the grumble. She finds her fingers chasing after his, hooking into his waistband through the material of his sweater, stepping in close.

"We need to do dinner," she admits. "Flight time at eight means-"

"No in-flight meal," he finishes. "Good thinking. I'll make something. Invite your dad. I can make myself scarce."

She almost says, no, stay, but she doesn't. She nods. "All right. Yeah. I will."

"Is this a celebration, you think, or just an everyday dinner?"

Her heart catches and flips; she lifts her eyes to his, finally seeing him. Seeing him, this earnest and predictably ridiculous man who waits on her to do what has to be done, this steady, unwavering man who was ready to take her into Canada and stay there indefinitely. We can do this, Kate.

"Hold off on the celebrating," she answers softly. She grips his shirt and brings herself in for a kiss, the electric brush of lips. "We'll do it right when this is finished."

His fingers skim her jaw and bury themselves in her hair, meeting her eyes as if looking for secret messages. He leaves a firm kiss to the corner of her mouth and then steps back. Without asking, he leaves the room, leaves her to it.

As she reaches into her back pocket for her phone, she can hear him in the kitchen, clattering a pan, opening the refrigerator, getting to work. Kate looks back to the open, half-filled suitcase on the bed.

She sinks down onto an empty stretch of mattress and calls her father.

"Kate, it's been a while," he says when he answers. It's warm but it's tenured, a phrase of long-standing between them, rife with meaning.

"Too long," she offers. Not apology, just awareness. They have their own language, the careful vocabulary of two people who don't know how to grieve small. "Dad, I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner with me."

"At the diner? I've been craving their buckwheat waffles with a big helping of-"

"No, Dad," she interrupts. "I would, but Castle and I are leaving in a few hours. The airport." She says it and hears herself saying it, wonders why every conversation between them has to be like this - her father hinting she's not being careful and Kate hinting that he doesn't know her anymore.

It's so tiring. It's done. This thing is over.

"Leaving?" her father says finally. Choosing his words. "Don't tell me you're eloping."

A laugh bursts free before she can stop it, the idea surprising her with its charm. "No, Dad. We're not eloping," she chides. That was different; he doesn't usually interfere with her life decisions. He advises, like the good counselor he is. "I want to do it right, the big day, you know? Perfect dress, our family. You walking me down the aisle."

His silence is attenuated with both sadness and joy; she can feel their language already shifting. Reforming. Her father is trying to take his measure of the change. "Okay, okay, so not headed to Vegas. Where then?"

"DC," she says. Maximum exposure; she wants it so badly, it's a taste in her mouth and a crack to her voice.

Her father speaks lightly, not as oblivious as he sounds, but falling back on old patterns. "Oh, did you get your job back?"

"No, Dad. I'm finishing a job."

The silence clatters and falls. Kate scratches a hand through her hair and tries again, trying to get it right this time.

"Rick will cook for us," she says softly. "I need to catch you up on what's happened."

"What's happened," her father says flatly, breaking all their rules. "Kate. What's happened."

"I'm calling you from Castle's," she says, like a coded all-clear.

"Okay," he says then. "Okay. At least there's that."

"I'll see you in an hour?" she asks.

"Of course."

"Spaghetti isn't his favorite, right?"

Kate jerks to attention, eyes snapping to meet Castle's. "Favorite."

"Spaghetti. I just thought - this is a night he's going to remember for the rest of his life, and I don't want to ruin spaghetti. Or if it's something your mom made-?"

"No, it's nothing special," she rushes. "Thank you, though. That's - sweet, Castle." Kate lifts her hand to the side of his face, promising herself to stay in the moment.

His grips her wrist, tugs her palm in to kiss the center, at her life line.

She moves past him and resumes setting the table, aware of him now in a way that's been missing the last few days.

It took a while to get the arrest warrant; the cassette tape's contents went through a lot of hands - select, circumspect law enforcement, of course - but it took time. It's taken time, and she's waited a decade and more for this, so the days shouldn't have been so torturous.

But they were. It has been.

It's nearly over.

The doorbell rings and Castle hurries forward, stops, turns to her. "You want to-?"

She nods and slides around the table, moves past him, their fingers strangely connecting, brushing, the slide of comfort. She opens the door of the loft to her father's reserved countenance.

"Dad."

"Hey there, Katie. Evening, Rick. Thanks for the dinner invitation."

"Any time," Castle says warmly. He's standing only a few paces behind her, but he leans in and takes Jim's coat, the only one to remember the social graces.

Kate rouses and takes her father's offered hug, embracing him back, moving their reunion scene further inside. Castle has hung up Jim's coat in the closet and now ushers them towards the table.

"It's nothing fancy, just spaghetti, but the bread is from the bakery at Spring Street, rosemary and olive."

"That sounds amazing," Jim answers, led on into the dining room by Castle's easy conversation.

Kate realizes she's said only one word since she opened the door and that's dad. It's time to move on.

The three of them are knotted at one end of the table for dinner, taking time to get settled, passing the bread, taking sips of water while they exchange normal pleasantries. How was the subway ride? What's your latest case? How's work treating you?

She uses their common language for it all, the shorthand of the years they spent being solitary family, a unit apart, but she has to stop and fill in backstory for Castle, give him the reference points and perspectives, the funny story about that one time on vacation when mom said, or the line from an 80s movie that they've butchered.

It's a kind of archaeology, sifting the strata to discover why, where, how. Castle loves stories; he mines their life for nuggets he can use later in a book, and she knows that, and she thrills to it. When she opens the next Nikki Heat, she'll find those same raw materials from tonight shaped and faceted and put into the particular setting of his words, sparkling from the page.

Diamonds.

"Oh, it's from the end of that movie, Back to the Future, when Doc pulls up in front of Michael J Fox's house after having just dropped him off. He slides down his sunglasses-"

"And that's when you realize," Kate adds. "In the movie, that's when the car lifts up from the ground and wheels fold in, a time-traveling hover car."

"So he slides down his sunglasses," Jim keeps going. "And he says, Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads."

"And she always-?"

"She said it every single time we got in the car, every trip, like it was this great adventure." Her father beams back at them over the rim of that story, often told, but not often told recently. In fact, many of the stories her father has dredged up for them, for Rick, really, are things Jim Beckett hid away for years, protecting, precious.

Her father knows.

He knows why she called. Of course he does. But he's playing along.

"Well. Who wants coffee?" Castle asks, laying his hand over hers on the table. Stilling the rapid tap of her fingers with a knowing look.

She subsists, shoulders drifting down, some of her tension melting out. "Coffee would be good."

"Jim?"

"I could use a cup. Not too strong though."

"Coming right up." A significant look at her. "You two talk."

Jim turns an amused glance to her, and Kate rolls her eyes. "He's not subtle, is he?"

"Not at all." Her father chuckles, that low-register sound that has always meant smooth sailing when she was in trouble. Her father found her amusing, her father thought her clever, she wasn't going to be too bad off after her latest exploit. She's always loved that sound.

She glances back to the kitchen where Rick is taking his time, pointedly not watching them. She smiles to herself, pleased with him, with his pushy not-pushing, and turns to her father again.

"Dad, it's about mom's case."

His eyes grow dim, the amusement dies.

"You have something," her father says, quiet.

"We have it all," she says, cheeks burning as the emotion cracks her voice. She has to rub her fingers under her cheeks to brush off tears that spill, fast and instantly. She hasn't cried yet, why now?

"All. What is all?"

"A case landed in my lap, few days ago," she hedges, skirting the nastier points. "A murder of a drug dealer. Castle and I were looking into correlations between the drug dealer and mom's case, and things happened. It shook things loose. Literally."

"What? Kate, what's-"

"Mom had evidence," Kate rushes in. "With her. She hid it in the elephant family - it's a tape - the back of the biggest elephant, the one leading the whole procession, he comes op-"

"Elephant family. Elephant - what are you talking about? That - the knicknack thing from her desk?"

Kate nods, tries to take a step back, calm down. All her carefully rehearsed speeches have flown from her. "The elephants from her desk. You know I took them with me?"

"No," her father says softly. "I didn't know that."

"When I made detective, I put them on my desk. A - reminder."

"Like you don't have enough of those," Jim sighs, a hand covering his eyes and running down his face. "How much - many of her things do you have, honey?"

"I took a couple boxes," she admits, wincing. "I didn't know how to - tell you. I thought you'd be upset, but then you packed everything up and just - never - you never-"

"No, I'm not upset. I wouldn't have been upset. You took them when I was in rehab?"

She nods, tongue-tied. Her father doesn't talk about rehab; she doesn't think he's ever actually said those words to her when I was in rehab.

"But Dad, the point is that - when this homicide showed up, things started to make sense. I started putting pieces together - things my Captain told me about how to go about investigating a cold case, things that other principals in the investigation had said that lined up-"

"You always do this," her father says suddenly, his eyes distant, fixed somewhere beyond her. "Revert to jargon when you talk about her death. I always - I never could understand how you could do this. Look at her like that, keep her in your memory like that. Murdered. Why would you..."

"Dad," she gasps. Is that why he drank? Because every conversation she had with him, she talked about her murder? Instead of her life.

"Go on," he says, waving her off. "I'm maudlin tonight. Your phone call has - we don't usually do this, do we, Katie?"

"No," she murmurs, shame lodged in her throat. "But I love you."

Her father startles, and that hurts too, his surprise at hearing the words. His own come swiftly, tripping over one another. "Oh, Kate. I love you too. This has been hard, I know. I didn't make it easier for you."

"But I did it," she blurts out. "I put it together, and it was right there in front of me. Inside those elephants. Mom had gotten a cassette tape, evidence, the crooked cops wore a wire to one of their meetings and Senator Bracken said it pointblank. What he was going to do. We have it on tape. We have it on tape."

Her father's face has gone ashen.

Her words are stuck in her throat, knotted, clumping together. She can't get past we have it on tape.

There's a long silence before Castle sets a mug of coffee in front of Jim, then herself, sits down in the chair with his own.

He glances between them and then he says, "We're flying to DC. The senator is there. He's holding a press conference tomorrow morning at eight, to announce his running for president." He glances at her, inclines his head, a prompt. "Kate."

"I'm going to arrest him. I have the warrant." She has the original tucked inside the box with her service weapon on the dresser. She'll pick it up and put it in the pocket of her blazer; she'll wear it like she wears her mother's ring, her detective's shield.

"You're going to arrest him," her father echoes. His hands come up and hide his face for a terrible moment. And then he straightens up, looks at her. "He's going to jail."

"The grand jury will convene. NYPD has already been warned that Secret Service wants in on the case, but we have jurisdiction, we have it. It's ours. He'll be flown back here for trial."

"Oh, my God."

Yes. Exactly.

Castle has left them alone, a brush of a kiss to her forehead as he left the table. She has her fingers tucked into her father's hand, squeezing. Her dad is so still, so inwardly focused, but he's gripping her fingers hard.

She waits until he clears his throat, waits for him to speak after all the information she's dumped on him.

"And... and just like that?"

"It will take a long time," she admits quietly. "The trial of a senator. But doing it publicly, arresting him at his own news conference-"

Her father's smile flickers on. "I like that."

She lets out a little laugh. "I do too. Castle's idea, actually."

"Is he going to be there?"

"Well, he'll be outside waiting. I'll have DCPD and Secret Service agents with me to 'escort' me through the senator's offices. In the end, it will just be me."

"That's good. Very good."

Her father isn't cold-hearted, but she sees it in the darkness of his eyes, how her mother's death warped him, just as it warped her. The scars are old, silvered things, but scars they are.

Here there be dragons.

"You'll be safe, now?" he says then, eyes narrowing on hers. "That will be the end of this?"

"I... think so. I don't know what purpose my death would serve him now."

"Revenge." It comes out so easily, so effortlessly, her father's answer. As if, of course, revenge. And she wonders, for the first time really wonders, how dark did it get for him?

And is it still?

"Perhaps," she says lightly. "But I'm not sure he's capable of arranging that once his hands are tied."

Grim satisfaction.

"Rick told me about the deal he made to keep you safe," Jim says then.

She shifts her glance back to him, surprised by that too. "He did."

"And then you made yours," he goes on. "And now - now no more deals. Promise me. Katie. You promise me, there are no more deals."

"They'll pull me from the active case - after I've arrested him. You know that, Dad."

"No more deals. He killed my wife."

Kate freezes, an echo somewhere in her father's voice of Castle's voice, a tenor she's never heard before, never had the perspective to hear. If it was her. If it was Castle being given this news. If that day in the cemetery, she hadn't made it, if those two in the motel room had gotten her and Castle had come back to find her like that.

"No more deals," she gets out, choking on the rush of words as they leave her. No deals. William Bracken is going to pay for the death of Johanna Beckett.

At the door to the loft, they exit together. Castle carries their suitcase in one hand, holds open the door for them. Kate has her arm wound through her father's and they move slowly down the hall while Castle locks up behind them.

"And him?" her father says, a tilt of his head back to Castle.

"Very supportive. You know Rick."

"I meant - how are you with him?" her father says. All their old ways of communicating are abandoned. He's asking things he's never asked, asking like he deserves to know, like he never broke them with his drinking.

She's still finding herself in this new world. "How am I?" she wonders. "I don't know, Dad. Honestly. It's been who I am for so long, and it's been a part of our relationship - foundational, really. I don't know what it looks like after tomorrow."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Castle interrupts, catching up to them. He lifts a hand to touch the small of her back, but drops it when they can't quite walk three abreast. He falls back naturally, covering her, she thinks. Covering her back.

"A good thing," Jim says.

"After tomorrow - the future is whatever we make of it." Castle laughs. "At the risk of sounding corny." He moves with them onto the elevator, gives Kate an apologetic look, like he can't help what's about to come out of his mouth next.

She almost stops him. She almost panics, and doesn't trust; she almost reverts into old habits, old ways of thinking.

But she doesn't. And Castle keeps going.

"It's just like Johanna used to say, right?" Castle beams. "Where we're going, we don't need roads."

It's a new adventure.