This story of following 2013/14 Winter ficathon Prompt #1 though elements of prompt #3 may also appear.
Prologue
December 1st 2017, 3:00 AM
She awoke with a start. The bed beside her was cold, the room still dark save for the soft glow of the street light filtering in through the window as it reflected off of the steadily falling snow. Kate hadn't felt Rick get up, but obviously he had been up for some time.
It had been five years since that night on the bridge. Since Castle had emptied her service weapon into Tyson's chest, sending him over the side into the river. Even after all Jerry Tyson had tried to do to them, to him, and to so many others. Even after trying to frame him for murder and turn the world against him, she knew he still suffered from nightmares. He had never killed anyone before and even now it still bothered him.
What happened over the next few months, Meredith's visit, Alexis Kidnapping, the bomb, Eric Vaughn, Agent Stack's job offer. The interview she'd hidden from him and lied about, his proposal, her abbreviated move to DC, his near death from the virus, her return to New York after she lost her security clearance, his shooting and her subsequent return to the NYPD. They seemed like a surreal dream to her now. What came after that though. What they'd learned about the true nature of the triple killer, about 3XK's true return even had her up nights roaming the loft at times.
She looked over at the bedside nightstand and the strangely quiet baby monitor, noting that he had turned the volume all the way down. He did that when he sought solace from his nightmares by looking in on their children and didn't want to wake her. Especially when she came home from a difficult case and needed her sleep. They were going out with Alexis and Max to pick out a Christmas tree in the morning and he didn't want her to miss it.
That man she thought to herself, that silly, thoughtful,selfless man.
She turned up the baby monitor to listen to Rick with their babies, Johanna and Jackson, to hear him whisper stories into their tiny ears or sing them a lullaby and what she heard him only half consciously singing stopped her in her tracks.
"We'll meet again
Don't know where
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again
Some sunny day
Keep smiling through
Just like you always do
'Till the blue skies
Drive the dark clouds far away"
After everything they had been through over the past five years, everything that they endured together. The fact that they were now safe and happy and their family was secure. That song still hit her the same way, and to hear Rick singing it as a lullaby to their children, so soon after waking from a nightmare...she knew it must have come to effect him just as deeply. She was horrified...
July 21st 1990
Kelly Chambers lay on a hospital bed in the very teaching hospital where she was a medical student feeling not only violated and ashamed, but humiliated as well.
Violated by a man she thought she could trust...a fellow med student. They had been lab partners for years, gone out a few times and she knew he had wanted her. She thought she wanted him too, but she wasn't ready. She told him she wanted to wait. Only Jeremy didn't want to wait.
She wasn't sure what was going on when he showed up at her apartment with flowers and a bottle of wine. She never realized how arrogant he was, or how full of himself...how self entitled...or how violent. Until the green and white rope was around her neck, cutting off her oxygen supply. He waited until she regained consciousness to rape her. Made sure she was awake for every minute when he cut open her sleep shorts and tore away her underwear. That she could feel it when he penetrated her.
She was sure the dry language of the report would read that she had been both vaginally raped and sodomized repeatedly for two days...held captive in her own apartment. Chained naked to the radiator in the bathroom until he wanted her again. Forced to take a shower and then a long bath before he left.
When she reported the rape, Jeremy's rich family stepped in. Hired the best lawyer money could buy and it was made quite clear that he would tear her apart when she took the stand. The offer of money from his mother...enough to put her the rest of the way through medical school...seemed like a godsend. All she had to do was drop the charges. Jeremy would be transferred to another medical school in California...she would never have to see him again. She took the deal.
As is the case with most rape victims, she blamed herself for her own violation. Told herself over and over again that she had led him on...let him into her apartment in her skimpy sleepwear. Only to be told repeatedly by the rape counselor that it wasn't her fault. Only in her mind...it was her fault.
In her mind she had been weak, and timid. A shy, quiet, mousy little blonde. Jeremy had taken what he wanted from her, not to mention her virginity and her self respect. What little self worth she had left, she gave away when she took his family's blood money, and she vowed never to let that happen again.
She would never again be weak, or mousy or be victimized again. She set about eliminating all traces of the person she once was, and Kelly Neiman was born.
The first thing to go was the blonde hair, she had it professionally done...dark with red highlights. Cosmetic surgery to remove the ligature mark from around her neck and her left ankle where the manacle had cut into it. A personal trainer to change her body. As she began to remake herself.
Seeking perfection.