It's Only Just Begun
Traveling home for the holidays comes with more complications than Kate Beckett is prepared for; particularly after she runs into a famous mystery writer. A Caskett Pre-Show AU holiday tale. For the CastleFicathonWinter2017
A/N: There are 8 chapters - one a day up to Christmas
Chapter 1
With a grunt, Kate Beckett dropped her heavy duffel bag onto the smooth tile floor and winced as she brought her right hand up to rub across the spot on her neck where the bag's strap had cut in. She rolled her shoulder a few times to alleviate the tightness and used her feet to nudge the bag closer to the wall where it would be out of the walkway and wouldn't disturb the travelers walking around her. When her fingertips grazed across a particularly rough spot on her skin, she groaned again before looking down at her bag and cursing at it; she was stuck with it for the duration of her trip now, but she would never again use it for a cross-country trek, particularly not in winter when all her clothing was heavier.
As she stood out of the way, Kate decided to once again remove her heavy jacket. She'd put it back on after going through security, thinking it would be easier to wear it rather than carry it along with her bags, but the airport terminal was far too warm to make that decision comfortable. As she shrugged her shoulders and flopped her arms to let the coat slide off, Kate gazed around and took in the food kiosks in her immediate vicinity. Each seemed to be adorned with some form of holiday décor, even it if was as simple as a few red ribbons.
With a slight eye roll, Kate draped her coat over one arm and then heaved her duffel off the ground again. She then began making her way towards her departure gate once more while trying to ignore the festive atmosphere around her.
Kate didn't hate Christmas; not really. As a holiday, it was fine. Every year from childhood through adulthood she had spent Christmas with her parents and nearly every year yielded fond memories. The cheer, the warmth of the season, and the delicious foods all somehow combined into a joyous event. She would even go as far as to say that she looked forward to it every year. What she did not look forward to, however, was the travel relating to going home.
Over all the years after she graduated high school, Kate had never traveled back to New York this close to Christmas. When she was still getting her undergrad and then law degree at Stanford, the semester ended early enough to give her plenty of travel cushion. During the two subsequent years when she was doing grunt work at her firm to prove herself, her parents had actually come to San Francisco to be with her for the holiday, so she hadn't traveled at all. The prior year, she'd gone home to Manhattan, but had saved enough vacation to spend nearly a week at home with Christmas falling in the middle of her stay, but this year she had a case that didn't afford her that luxury, so she was stuck taking a red-eye that would land her in her home city just two days before Christmas.
When booking her flight, Kate had hoped that the midnight takeoff time would limit the crowds at the airport, at least insofar as departures. After all, the only flights taking off at that hour would be ones traveling all night to the east coast, and how many of those could their possibly be? Evidently a lot judging by how crowded the terminal was. Each passenger she passed seem to be weighted down with an atypical amount of luggage, which made sense given that winter wear was bulkier than other clothing and people were probably also toting presents along with regular travel necessities. Kate had opted to ship her presents ahead of time so she didn't have to carry all of them, but from the looks of it she was probably one of the only ones who had done so.
After getting bumped and jostled far more than she would have liked, Kate finally arrived at her designated departure gate. She sidled her way through the tightly packed seating area, which was made even narrower by people's carelessly placed luggage, until she found an empty seat. With a grunt, she dropped her heavy duffel to the ground and then collapsed into the barely-comfortable airport chair.
Leaning back into the seat, Kate hugged her purse to her chest with one arm while her feet rested astride her bag. She kept her elbows tucked in tightly to her sides since the armrests on either side of her seat were occupied and briefly wondered how long she'd need to sit that way when she realized she wasn't even sure of the time. Digging into the outside pocket of her purse, she procured her cell phone and flipped it open so she could read the display. She saw that the time was ten after eleven p.m., or still twenty minutes before her flight boarded, but more interestingly she saw that she had a text message from her boyfriend, Chris.
Soft smile crossing her face, Kate used the phone's buttons to click her way to the message inbox on her phone. Have a great flight; talk to you tomorrow, the message read. Kate shut her phone and tucked it back into her purse without responding. Then, she rested her chin on her fist and her elbow on her thigh as she propped her head up. She liked Chris; she really did. They had met over the summer at a Young Professionals of the Bay Area mixer. Like her, Chris was a lawyer, though he worked in environmental law not corporate law like she did. He was also busy and traveled because of what he did, so even though they agreed to date exclusively, they still only saw each other an average of once a week. Kate didn't mind this at all, as it gave her the opportunity to get to know Chris gradually and, most importantly, not share too much of her heart all at once. For eleven months of the year that kind of relationship worked well, but holidays made it more challenging.
When it came right down to it: Kate didn't want to spend Christmas with her boyfriend. Specifically, she didn't want him traveling home with her to spend Christmas with her family, particularly not when in all likelihood it will be their last together. If she thought too hard about it, she would have been forced to come to the conclusion that those sentiments meant that ultimately her relationship with Chris would not be a long term one; it would never lead to marriage, but that was fine. She had just turned twenty-eight; she didn't need to be thinking about marriage yet, not when she was so focused on her career.
For the time being, she was perfectly content with Chris as her boyfriend. She enjoyed spending time with him when they were able, and when they weren't, their phone calls were sufficient. As he was a native San Franciscan, she had even joined his family for the Thanksgiving holiday and met his sister and brother-in-law along with his parents. As she hadn't spent too many holidays with boyfriend's families, she'd been worried about it being awkward, but it wasn't; they were perfectly nice people just like Chris was, but one nice meal was hardly indicative of a perfect future. Besides, why would she invite a boyfriend home to meet her parents—something she had yet to do outside of college both because of geographic difficulties and a lack of want to do so—when she wasn't even sure how much longer they'd be together, particularly if she chose not to remain on the west coast. In her mind at that moment she figured there was a twenty-five percent chance she'd be moving inside of a year, but that entirely depended on the state of her mother's illness, which she could not gauge until she saw her in person.
"Are you sure about that? Can you please check again?"
Kate's attention was drawn away from thoughts of her family by a familiar-sounding voice from not too far away. Looking up, she saw a tall man in a dark coat with floppy brown hair leaning heavily on the United Airlines counter nearest her gate. Her brow wrinkled slightly as she tried to place the man—thinking he may have been a client or someone she interacted with through the firm—but she could not recall his name, though he did seem rather familiar to her.
"I'm sorry, sir. We do have record of your ticket, but no seat has been assigned. I can do that for you now if you'd like."
"Ma'am—Sherry, your name is Sherry, right?"
"Yes."
"Okay, Sherry—the thing is when I called yesterday to rebook my flight, I was told that I had a first class seat."
"I'm sorry that you were misinformed, sir, but there are no first class seats available on this flight. If you'd like, I can try and look to see if any flight tomorrow have first class seats and book you on one of those."
Kate watched as the man winced and pinched the bridge of his nose. Ultimately, he shook his head and said, "No, no I…I need to get home. What seats are available on this flight?"
Humming softly to herself, Kate leaned over and unzipped the edge of her bag so she could pull out the book she'd tucked in at the last minute. Poor guy, she thought to herself, thinking of the passenger cheated out of his first class seat, for which she had no doubt that he paid a first class price. Normally, she probably would have simply rolled her eyes at someone so insistent on getting a first class seat, but on a red-eye, she felt it was justified. If she had the disposable income to do so, she certainly would have bought a first-class ticket herself, as spending the night attempting to sleep with her head tucked beside a plane window certainly would not be the most restful. However, her wallet didn't really leave many other options open.
Before opening her book, Kate checked the time on her cell phone once again mostly out of pure habit. A quick calculation in her mind told her that it was well after two in the morning in New York and she silently hoped that her father was asleep and had been so for at least an hour. He'd always been the more anxious and prone to sleep disruptions of her two parents, and her mother's illness had only amplified that. She had lost count of the number of times over the prior few months he'd finally returned her call after midnight New-York-Time and from the stress and strain in his voice she knew he'd be pacing the halls for hours after they spoke. Many times Kate had volunteered to move back to her home city in order to help her father, but he continually refused. He was doing fine, he told her, and her career was the most important thing. She knew he believed that, but she still wasn't sure putting career above her family was something she wanted to do any longer.
Blowing out a breath through her lips, Kate shut her eyes and tried to push all heart-wrenching thought of her mother's frail state from her mind. Odds were her eyes would be filled with tears many times in the upcoming days, but she certainly didn't need to start that in the San Francisco airport. There would be more than enough time for that back home in her childhood bed. For now, she just needed to read and attempt to relax herself so she could fall asleep on the flight home.
As he sidled his way down the tight airplane aisle, Richard Castle's heart sank a little as he passed the last first class seat and entered the cramped, stifling cesspool that was economy seating. God, how long had it been since he'd flown in one of these uncomfortable seats? Oh, well there was that flight he'd made to DC the prior year, but they had hardly been in the air any time at all! For a cross-country flight? He definitely couldn't remember the last time he sat outside of first class.
Seeing as he spent the first twenty-four years of his life without very much money to his name, Castle hated to be "that person"—the entitled, wealthy individual complaining about sitting with the lowly middle- or lower-class people. And, truly, it wasn't the people he cared about, but the space. He was a large man at just over six-one and two hundred thirty pounds. Though the people at Boeing would probably disagree, economy seats simply weren't meant for men of his size to be comfortable for long stretches of time. Despite this, it appeared he had little choice in the matter, so he'd just have to deal with it. After all, what was six hours over the span of his entire life? Certainly not enough of a chunk to ruin his holiday week over.
The bright side of all this was that he would get to see his daughter half a day earlier than he originally planned—his daughter and his mother; his family. After the week he had, he definitely craved the presence of his two favorite women. The press tour itself hadn't been any more grueling than usual, but the voicemail he received from his now-estranged wife certainly had been a blow. Evidently, Gina hadn't seen fit to tell him in person or even over a live phone call that she would not be returning to his loft apartment after she spent the holidays with friends in Vermont. Instead, she'd be moving into a new sublet on the second day of the new year.
Considering that they hadn't been physically intimate since the end of September, Castle couldn't say he was shocked that his second marriage would soon be ending in divorce. Quite frankly, the majority of their two year marriage had been more tension-filled than not, and he was surprised she'd stayed as long as she had. Well, there was the money and the lifestyle; she liked both of those things very much. Everything pertaining to him, on the other hand…well, that was a different story. Still, telling him that she was leaving him in a voicemail was cold even for Gina; no wonder she'd made a last minute excuse not to go with him for his press appearances and had sent one of the junior literary agents instead.
As he waited for a man to attempt to stuff a clearly oversized bag into the overhead big, Castle shut his eyes and sucked in a slow, calming breath. As not even forty-eight hours had passed since he received Gina's voicemail, he knew he hadn't fully processed that his second marriage had come to an end in an oddly similar way to the way his first had. True, Gina wasn't packing up to move across the country with her new lover, but from the male voice he heard at the tail end of her voicemail, he suspected she was going to be spending the holidays with a gentleman friend in addition to her two female ones. Probably another writer, Castle thought with no small amount of bitterness.
Though he wanted to wallow, drink more whisky than necessary, and obsess over wondering what was wrong with him that made two wives leave him, Castle knew he could not. Christmas was barely two days away and he needed to pick himself up and salvage what was left of the seasonal cheer in his heart in order to give his daughter a great holiday. He wouldn't tell her before Christmas that Gina wasn't coming back; there would be no point to it. He would save that until a day or so later. They would have a whole week at home together before she went back to school and he'd find the right time. Though he knew her to be wise beyond her years, Alexis was still only twelve and would probably struggle to understand why Gina wasn't coming back. He would do what he could to assure her they would be okay, but he also remained thankful that she was never terribly close to her technical step-mother.
Finally, the man with a heavy beard and flannel jacket gave up on his bag and handed it to a flight attended so it could be stowed under the plane. When he took his seat, Castle was able to continue on down the aisle, which was now completely clear all the way back to his seat in the third-to-last row. He glanced again at his boarding pass and realized with no small amount of disappointment that he was in seat B; the middle seat. God, could it get any worse?
"Excuse me, sir," Castle said to the man on the aisle when he arrived at the proper row. The man appeared to be around his mother's age and was already reading the airline magazine provided in the seatback slot. "I'm in the middle—would you mind?"
The man shook his head and quickly slid from his seat, stepping back behind the row so Castle could get in. He ducked his head and clutched his bag even tighter to his chest as he slid his body into his seat as smoothly as he could. God—how were these seats this small!? It was ridiculous!
Huffing out a breath, Castle bent over at the waist and stuffed his bag beneath the seat in front of him. Thank goodness for Black Pawn's new kick of mailing its client's luggage when traveling cross-country. He doubted it would last long as there was no way it could be economical, but for that moment he was thankful he didn't have anything else to inconvenience him.
As he sat back up in his seat, he realized that the person beside him, the one sitting by the window, was now looking his way. He hadn't noticed before as he was too worried about actually fitting properly in the seat, but now he saw this passenger was a woman and a pretty one at that. She had dark hair that was pulled back and tied in a knot atop her head, which gave him full view of her lovely face. Her eyes were a curious color, somewhere between hazel and brown, and she had cheekbones that made him wonder if she'd ever been a model. He smiled at her, thinking she might smile in return, but she didn't; she merely turned back to the book in her lap.
"Excuse me, sir?"
The sound of a flight attendant's voice called Castle's attention towards the aisle. The blonde woman pointed down towards his feet and said, "Your bag is not fully beneath the seat in front of you. Will it fit? Or does it need to go in the overhead?"
"Ah, no, no it'll fit," he said. At least, it had on the prior two travel legs he'd taken that week. Grumbling, he leaned over again and tried to stuff the bag further under the seat. He didn't know what, but something was blocking it, so he tried to pull the bag all the way back out and try again, but in doing so his right elbow collided with the shin of the woman sitting beside him. She let out a grunt and he shut his eyes and cursed to himself.
Thankfully, his bag fit perfectly on the second try shoving it beneath the seat, so Castle was able to sit up again and apologize to the woman now scowling at him. "Sorry about that," he tried to brush off the incident with a light laugh. "I'm not used to the middle seat." After one more second of looking perturbed, the woman once again turned back to her novel.
Shutting his eyes, Castle leaned his head back and tried to get comfortable. He shifted his butt around in the seat, trying to find a comfortable position, but ended up pushing his knees forward enough to ram into the seat in front of him. He winced and reached forward to rub his patella, but in doing so hit the arm of the man beside him, who was apparently intent on using both of the armrests available to him. Gritting his teeth, he rubbed his knee and tried to take in a soothing breath. God, they weren't even up in the air yet and the fight was already too long. How the hell was anyone supposed to sit comfortably like this!?
Doing his best to narrow his body, Castle tucked his hands between his thighs and gazed over at the woman beside him. She was being courteous enough to allow him their shared armrest, which was nice, but as he looked over at her he could tell she had plenty of room. She was sitting with her right elbow propped on the far armrest and seemed to have inches to spare in her seat; she looked so small!
As he continued to observe, he realized that assessment was not entirely correct. Given how close her knees were to the seat in front of her, he knew her legs had to be quiet long. Perhaps not quite as long as his, but still long meaning she was tall, but slender and, really, the middle seat was an issue of width, for they all had equal amount of leg room (or lack thereof).
The longer he gazed at her, the more solidly a plan began to form in Castle's mind. Presumably this woman had chosen the window seat for a reason, but that did not mean she was entirely committed to it, particularly if he could provide some incentive.
Plastering on his most debonair Richard Castle smile, he reached over and tapped the woman on the shoulder. When she turned to him a bit incredulous he said, "Hi, excuse me. My name is Rick; what's yours?"
Her eyes flicked up and down his torso for a moment before she said, "Kate," in a tone of utmost suspicion.
"It's very nice to meet you, Kate. I was wondering: would you perhaps consider switching seats with me for a hundred dollars?"
She blinked. "Excuse me?"
A bit louder, he said, "Will you switch seats with me for a hundred dollars? I really like the window."
She continued to stare at him for almost thirty seconds. Her expression made it clear she was half expecting him to retract his statement and say it was a joke, though he did not. Ultimately, she said, simply, "No," and returned her eyes to her book.
"Two hundred?"
"No."
"Three hundred—and I swear that's all the cash I have on me!" He offered sounding a bit more desperate than he intended. When she didn't speak or look at him, he continued with, "C'mon—it'll be like riding for free," as a last means of encouragement.
Kate huffed out a breath and slammed her book shut. Turning to him she said firmly, "I'm sorry, Mr. Castle, but I also like the window."
Castle leaned back in his seat and gazed at Kate, now even more intrigued. She knew who he was without him revealing his last name, but yet was not flustered or falling for his charms. That was interesting. He estimated her to be around her mid-twenties, certainly no old than thirty. His fan base was generally not within her generation, so did that mean she knew of him because her mother or grandmother read his books? But if that was the case, how could she recognize him so randomly? No, she definitely had read his books; he was certain of it.
"Okay, Kate," he continued, "how about three hundred dollars and I'll sign anything you'd like. Since you know who I am, you know how valuable that is."
She snorted out a laugh and then said firmly, "No."
"Really!?" he responded, a bit shocked.
She merely reached down into her bag, grabbed what ended up being a nighttime eye mask from the side pocket, and slipped it over her head before saying, "Goodnight, Mr. Castle," pulling the mask over her eyes, and settling back in her seat with her arms folded over her chest.
Though he wanted to be mad at Kate, Castle knew he couldn't be for he would not have switched seats if he were in her position. As he looked around and saw that most people in the back of the plane were seated, he considered making a similar offer to someone in the surrounding rows. He slid forward and arched his back to look at the row ahead, but could see the two by the window holding hands, which meant it would be unlikely that one would switch with him. In the row behind, a boy around thirteen or fourteen sat by the window. He considered this, but then decided that while the kid might jump on the cash, he didn't want to deal with the rather stern looking mother, who would probably not appreciate his suggestion.
In a final desperate attempt, Castle made to look across the aisle to see if the other side of the plane had any options, but as he did so he could see the flight attendants gathering in the aisle to do their pre-flight safety demonstration. Grumbling to himself, he realized he was too late; he would be stuck in the middle seat for the flight and there was nothing he could do about it.
Before he could close his eyes and settle down, Castle reached for the bottle of water in the side pocket of his bag. He'd purchased it after the United gate attendant printed his board pass, thus sealing his economy seat fate and ensuring he would not get all the free drinks he desired in first class. As Castle twisted the cap to unseal it, he realized he was twisting a bit harder than he originally would have found necessary. Evidently, his bottle had a faulty seal that was simply twisting round and round instead of breaking under the tension so he could open the cap. Trapping his tongue between his teeth he tugged a bit harder, which succeeded in opening the bottle, but unfortunately it also caused water to slosh out and land directly in Kate's lap.
"Fuck." He breathed out as she whipped off her facemask and glared over at him.
Cautiously, he twisted the cap back onto the bottle and said, "I'm so sorry; I didn't mean…here let me-"
"No, it's fine."
"Really, I can—shit!" He cursed again when they both leaned down towards their stowed bags at the same time and the tops of their heads met in a jaw-rattling collision.
"SERIOUSLY!" Kate barked, now clearly furious with him.
Castle held up his right hand defensively. "I'm so sorry—I was just trying to get you a-"
"Well don't." She snapped. "I'm fine; please just leave me alone."
Seeing as her yelp had drawn the attention of some surrounding passengers, Castle shrank back into his seat the best he could and folded his arms tightly over his chest. The last thing he wanted was for the others to think he was being inappropriate with her, when really he was just being clumsy and accident prone. Pressing his lips tightly together, Castle shut his eyes and tried to focus on the flight attendants warnings about what might happen in the event of an emergency.
This was definitely going to be a very long flight.
A/N: Thank you for reading! As I said earlier, there are 8 chapters in total (no epilogue!) and I will post daily updates.
I do have 1 source of inspiration for this fic, but I'm not going to say it yet bc that will give it away :)