A/N: Just an idea that came to me while writing Convalescence that I finally got around to finishing. Will be posted in two parts. Enjoy!
Fourteen Years Ago - 1987
"No," her father said in an unusually sharp voice. He forcibly moved her small, eight-year-old hand away from the store window by the wrist. "No, Katie. Guns are not toys. They are dangerous, and they can hurt you or other people. I never want to see you holding or even touching a gun. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Daddy," Katie replied solemnly, staring up at him with big hazel eyes. To show her sincerity, she no longer looked longingly at the toy rubber band gun separated from them by half an inch of glass.
A few feet away, her mother said goodbye to her friend, walking back to them with eyebrows slightly raised at the sound of her husband using his stern voice. "What's going on?" she asked, looking between them.
"Guns," Jim Beckett replied, gesturing at the store.
Knowing at once what he meant, Johanna added, "You know what Mommy does, right, sweetie?"
Katie shifted focus to her mother. "Yes. You're a lawyer. You send bad guys to jail."
"Not jail, honey, prison," her mother corrected gently. "If they're just going to county jail Mommy's doing her job wrong. But yes, they're bad guys. And most of them use guns. Do you understand that? Guns aren't fun, and you shouldn't ever need to have one."
"Yes, Mommy," the young girl said again.
Jim tousled her hair. "We love you, Katie. We just want to keep you safe."
Present Day - 2004
Police officer Kate Beckett leaned up against her squad car, rear pressed against the warm metal and elbows on her knees. Her head was in her hands, and her sloppy ponytail was rapidly coming undone at the awkward angle of her body. She was covering her face with her hands as best she could, but failing miserably at fully blocking out the rest of the world as it continued turning without her. Her service cap was at risk of falling to the concrete but for once she didn't care.
Other uniforms like her were swarming the scene, and everywhere around she could hear trunks shutting and car doors slamming. She could just make out the raucous snarl of a leashed German shepherd of the K-9 division from somewhere in the vicinity, itching to be let loose to track down and apprehend the second suspect.
The second one. Because she had shot the first.
The body was still lying there where it fell. She could feel its presence, just as readily as she could feel when someone tapped her shoulder. She looked up into the concerned eyes of one of her fellow beat cops, Officer Vaughan. "You good?" he asked. She stood hurriedly, taking off her cap to sweep a few loose hairs back under it. She pulled it back on so it fit snugly around the crown of her head. "Just asking 'cause Sarge will be here in a sec."
Kate nodded her thanks, smoothing over her uniform and trying to get a grip on herself before having to face her commanding officer. "Officer Vaughan, I need you back at the yellow tape," barked the sergeant. He strode over to them and Vaughan made himself scarce as the sergeant rounded Kate's Crown Victoria to stand in front of her. A foot taller than she was, he cut an intimidating figure, although word around the precinct was that his bark was worse than his bite. "Officer Beckett," the Sergeant stated.
"Yes, sir." She stood as straight as she possibly could.
"Can I get your statement on what happened, Beckett?"
"Yes, sir. I was patrolling 7th Avenue when I responded to a 10-13U on the radio for a robbery in progress. It came through as shots fired a few seconds later, and by the time I arrived Officers Ceccarelli and Marks were already in pursuit. There were two suspects, and one of them disappeared into that warehouse over there and the other paused to raise his gun at us. I shot him twice in the chest." She had trouble keeping her voice monotone enough and keeping the tremble out of it.
The sergeant nodded, a quick, birdlike dip of his chin accompanied by a stiff, clenched jaw—probably thinking of all the extra paperwork he was going to have to do over this. Kate didn't care about the paperwork. Just the man she had shot. Killed.
"Officer Beckett, I need you to come back to the precinct with me immediately," the sergeant told her. "You're not in trouble, but there will be an investigation conducted by Internal Affairs about this incident like always. It's standard procedure." He held out his hand, and Kate slipped hers down to her belt and undid the small black button that secured the car keys and kept them from jingling and alerting suspects during building searches and other tactical maneuvers. She gave them to her superior, who closed his palm over them and deposited them in the glove box of his car. He gestured for her to get in and she complied easily.
The ride back to the Twelfth was spent in silence except for the ever-talkative police radio, which kept a constant chatter going throughout-belting out letters, numbers, and identifications so quickly that even on a good day deciphering them required a great deal of concentration. Right now, they were all meaningless jibber-jabber.
When they arrived, Kate kept her head down as they rode the elevator to the third floor. She felt unclean, filthy, like that man's blood was spilled all over her shirt for everyone to see, underneath her fingernails and coating her hair. There was not a drop on her, but she felt like she was soaking in it.
Her sergeant led her down the hallway and deposited her in his office. Like the rest of the Twelfth Precinct, it was made up of darker brown tones with no windows to the outside, but had one looking into the bullpen. His personal effects were scattered all over his desk—pictures of his wife and kids, pictures of his yellow Labrador. He pulled the shades on his window before he left, saying, "Wait here. I have to inform the Captain and make the call to IA." She nodded, hating how the shades made her feel more ostracized, like a kid called down to the principal's office.
What she wouldn't give to be a kid again, in a happy home and a happy life. What she wouldn't give to have her family back, whole and intact.
As she was sitting there, alone, that day came unbidden to her head. Replaying, over, and over. Her father had never once mentioned it when she applied to the Academy, nor when she got her badge. She didn't know if he even remembered the conversation that took place on that hot June day, when she learned guns were bad. Dangerous. Should she have listened?
She hadn't listened when he had said, "Don't go to that party," and that had turned out fine.
She hadn't listened when he said, "Don't buy a motorcycle," and she'd never gotten into a crash.
She hadn't listened when he had warned her against guns, and maybe this time he had been right. Somebody was dead because of her. Dead, like her mother. Who was she to inflict that upon anyone?
Kate jumped when the door opened, jerking her out of her reverie. Sergeant Matheson walked in and sat behind his desk. The man that followed him she assumed was Internal Affairs, and her heart skipped a beat in anticipation. He took a seat on the sergeant's right side, facing her and near to the door. Now it felt like a trial.
"Would you please repeat the statement you gave me for the record?" her sergeant asked, placing a small tape recorder on the desk in front of her. She did, all too aware of the piercing gray gaze of the IA man even though she kept her eyes carefully trained on her commander. As soon as she was done he clicked the recorder off.
"Officer Beckett," the man spoke. She looked at him. "As far as I can see, there has been no wrongdoing on your part in this instance. It was a clean shoot, but there will have to be an investigation to make sure everything lines up. Officer Marks has already submitted his report, which corroborates your account." She nodded again, not trusting herself to speak.
"Beckett, policy states that you will be put on desk duty until the investigation is closed, although no one would blame you if you wanted to take some time off the job," Sergeant Matheson continued. "There are also two mandatory psych sessions that you must complete before returning to active duty. You can schedule those with Marina at the front desk when we're finished here."
"Yes sir," she said. "I…I actually would like to take some time off, I think."
He looked surprised—she only ever took off one day a year—but opened the folder on his desk. "How many days?"
She paused before answering. "Just the rest of today and tomorrow."
"All right," he said, jotting it down before turning to the other man. "You have all you need, Bates?"
Bates said yes, scooped the recording off the sergeant's desk, shook his hand, and left. Kate handed over her gun to the sergeant, and he dismissed her to go home. She was glad to be rid of its weight on her belt, of the constant reminder, but even so, giving up her weapon did nothing to relieve the massive amount of guilt pressing down on her chest and suffocating her from all sides.
After changing into her civilian clothing in the precinct locker room, she made a beeline for the exit. Marina at the front desk scheduled her two appointments with a department shrink, and Kate hurried outside. She hailed a cab with a wave of her hand.
Her apartment appeared even more sparse and desolate than usual when she opened the door, light kept out by her heavy curtains. Save the bookshelf, there were no personal items at all in the living room or the tiny kitchenette; then again, there wasn't much room for any. She did have a TV, though, and briefly considered it after setting her badge in the tiny safe in the corner. She opted for a book instead, and almost picked up the newest from her favorite author off her bed, but thought better of it. She wasn't really in the mood for femme fatale, macabre, and especially not murder right then. Richard Castle's way with words in Storm Rising would pull her far too much into the bloody, action-packed story.
Was she a murderer? The thought flitted into her head and as much as she tried to cast it aside, Kate couldn't shake it. The thought clung to her like a rabid animal; its claws dug deep into her insides, tearing them to shreds. She lay awake for hours into the night, eventually fetching her dictionary and reading it by the light of her phone. Murderer: one who murders, one who commits the crime of murder.
Helpful.
She flipped almost frantically to 'murder' instead. Murder: 1. the crime of unlawfully killing a person, especially with malice aforethought.
She dropped her phone onto her bedspread, its light extinguished by the thick covers. "I'm not a murderer," she whispered to herself in the darkness of her bedroom. "I'm not." She fell asleep, finally, hugging the book to her chest. The dead man's face haunted her dreams.
Thanks for reading! Any feedback you have is very much appreciated!