This was not how Kate Beckett wanted to die.
Being a cop, she had always expected a bullet (It almost was). Or maybe her liver would give out from drinking.
Or maybe she'd just get old.
But here she was, only in her bra underwear and strapped to a metal table. The sick bastard who put her here lurking somewhere outside the room.
They call him the 'Reverend'. Every few years, he would kidnap seven women. He would carve one of the seven deadly sins into their skin, the girl still alive to feel the whole thing. He would carve a cross into their foreheads. Then he would 'cleanse' them, drowning them in a baptism-like routine.
He would leave their bodies on the front steps of a church, left only in their underwear.
He had killed nineteen women. Seven the first time, seven the second. He had only gotten through the third girl of the third cycle when he made a fatal mistake.
One girl didn't die.
Everything about the girl was the same, except the fact that she hadn't stopped breathing.
She was found unconscious, multiple causes: starvation, blood loss, the attempted drowning.
Sometimes Beckett felt pity for the girl, wished she hadn't lived. Not only because she forever had a cross on her forehead or 'lust' on her stomach, but that she had to live with the fact hat she was chosen. Targeted. Because of one mistake.
She had slept with her boss. He was unhappily married, and she was lonely.
Sometimes she thought the girl felt it, too. She probably thought, "Why couldn't he just finish me off like all the others?"
Now that Beckett was here, just waiting for the same treatment, she thought differently. She would take a few scars, mental and physical, any day over death. She had been shot, after all.
She wondered what her sin was. Thinking back to the case file, it didn't take her long to figure it out.
Pride.
It was the only one left in this round of killings, and always the last in the cycle.
Beckett thought back. Why her? Because she was a cop, because it was the only sin left?
Because of Drayton.
After the second round of killings, the team thought that they caught the guy. Chad Drayton.
They'd all been commended, mentioned in the paper.
Then it started again.
Forced to release Drayton, her pride had been wounded, sure. They had solid evidence against him. But it didn't fit.
Now that she was about to die, she wished she hadn't seen the evidence against Drayton. That she had kept looking.
Because he had been right under their noses.
The 'Reverend' was actual reverend Joseph O'Meyer. The patriarch of Saint Mary's, where the first body had been found five years ago.
When she found evidence that discounted his statement and alibi, her and Castle had gone to the reverend to question him.
She didn't remember much after searching the empty church. She had gone in, gun drawn and Castle close behind.
She had heard a drop, and swung around to find Castle on the ground. A sharp blow to the back of her neck had caused her to black out.
Beckett struggled to lift her head and look around the room. This wasn't the church, so she had been moved, probably drugged. The room was small, dark, and quiet. A sliver of light barely illuminated to room, coming from a crack in the wall that meant a door.
She pulled at her wrist and ankle restraints. They weren't going anywhere.
Beckett could tell she had been out for a while. She felt the internal burn of hunger grinding at her stomach.
As far as she could tell, the room was fairly empty. No Castle, so maybe he had left him. He would get help. He would find her.
Beckett heard a noise outside of the room. She turned her head and watched as the doorknob slowly turned.
Throwing her head in the other direction, Beckett squeezed her eyes shut and held still, praying he would think her still unconscious. That he would leave.
No such luck.
The footsteps entered the room, and the door closed behind him.
He moved closer. She played unconscious as he approached the table.
She felt cool metal on the skin of her abdomen, and tensed reflexively.
"I knew you wouldn't still be asleep. You're a fighter." Even his voice disgusted her. How had she not seen it from the very beginning?
He traced lines on her stomach with the metal object. Beckett turned her head up again and opened her eyes.
It was him.
"Good morning," he said in a smooth voice. "Or, should I say, good evening. You've been out for almost twenty-four hours, Detective."
He lifted the object to his face, resting against his cheek. It was a knife. "May I call you Kate? I think I will."
Beckett lifted her head as far as she could. "My team will be here to arrest you any minute."
He laughed. "What team? I have Mr. Castle locked up tight. No one's coming, Kate. Only God can save you."
Her head dropped back down onto the cold, metal table. Castle was taken, too. And she hadn't told Ryan or Esposito where they were going.
She was going to have to break herself out, or die trying.
"Isn't all this a sin? 'Thou shalt not kill.' It's in the commandments."
The reverend laughed at her again, but it was harsher now. Less playful. "You'll find that the commandments are moot when you are tasked to do His work by the Father Himself."
Now it was her turn to laugh. "You think God is telling you to kill innocent women?"
"I wouldn't call them innocent." The knife was at her throat, now. He was getting angry, off-task, distracted. "They all broke God's laws, they were the Devil's daughters. Yourself included."
He pulled the knife from her throat and his face relaxed. He placed the cool blade on her abdomen again. "Now, you must pay for your sins."
He drug the knife across Beckett's skin. She yelled out in pain. He carved a line into her abdomen, about an inch above her navel.
He pulled the knife away. She stopped yelling, and heard a voice calling.
"Kate? Kate!" Castle yelled from the other room.
"Rick!" she called back, but was cut off by her own screams of pain when he began cutting her again.
When he pulled away again, she looked down. The letter 'P' was carved into her stomach.
She pulled against the straps again, fighting with all her strength.
He smiled at her, a smile filled with evil.
Just as he was about to start again, the door behind him burst open.
A team of gunmen flooded in and Castle pushed through them. He ran up to Beckett. He brushed back some hair from her face, and struggled to release the restraints.
Ryan and Esposito had tackled the reverend to the floor and were forcing on the cuffs.
Free, Beckett sat up and wrapped her arms around Castle. He embraced her back, both of them forgetting that she was clothingless.
His hand went up to the back of her head and stroked her hair. "Are you okay?"
She nodded against his shoulder. When they pulled apart, a tear slid down her cheek.
"Hey, hey. You're okay." He looked down to her stomach and saw that she'd been cut up. "Oh, you're bleeding."
Esposito walked up behind Castle with a blanket. He handed it to him. Castle turned to him, "Get a medic, she's been cut."
"I'm fine, Espo," she choked out, but he was already gone. Castle wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, keeping his arm around her. She leaned into him, and they walked out of he room, silent.
Outside, he brought her to the ambulance. They sat in the back, and a medic stitched her up. Beckett had Castle's hand, gripping it tighter and hissing when the medic pulled at the sutures.
She had only needed a few stitches, but it would leave a permanent scar. Now she had two, the bullet wound and the letter carved into her.
If she had been there any longer it might have been a whole word. A sin. "PRIDE".
When the medic was gone and Beckett was zipping herself into a police jumpsuit, Ryan and Esposito walked up.
"You okay?" Ryan asked.
Beckett sighed. "Yeah, I'm fine. How did you guys find us?"
"Well," Esposito started, "We found your evidence incriminating O'Meyer, and followed it to the church. But no O'Meyer."
"When you two never came back, we dug deeper. Eventually we found this property, which is owned by the church but has been vacant," added Ryan.
"When we stormed it and found Castle, we called for backup," stated Esposito.
"Well, you guys were just in time. Thanks."
Castle returned from wherever he had disappeared to and walked up to Beckett. "Can we talk?"
Ryan and Esposito cleared out quick.
Beckett looked at him suspiciously. "Yeah."
Castle pulled her aside gently. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Castle, I'm fine. I've been through worse. What is it?"
He sighed heavily. "I thought I'd lost you."
Beckett smiled. "Well, you didn't. I'm okay. Just a few cuts and bruises."
"No, it's not." He glanced down at her stomach. "It's another scar that you shouldn't have."
She swallowed, hard. "Hey, more for your next book." She tried to make it a joke, but it just sounded wrong.
Castle was silent for a minute. He brought his gaze back up to her eyes. "It's not just about the books anymore. Kate, I almost lost you, again."
She was caught off guard by his use of her first name, even though he's said it before. It was the way he said it.
Like it was the only name that mattered.
She brought a hand up to his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Rick," she tried, the name not as familiar but still meaningful.
"I know you remember, Kate. I know you do. I heard you say it, back on the bombing case."
Beckett tensed. "Castle..."
"Just tell me, Kate," he cut her off. "Tell me if you feel the same way. Because I have no clue. One minute you're hot, the next you're cold. You lied, Kate. Now it's time to come clean."
Her hand still on his arm, her sight dropped to the ground. She was silent.
He moved back. Her hand still in midair where he used to be, he began to turn away.
A whisper. "I love you, Castle."
He stopped in his tracks, and turned back to look at her face.
She let slip a small smile.
Castle rushed back and pulled Beckett into his arms. Her hand went to his face and he smiled with her.
When they kissed, all seemed right in the world.