One Last Shot

Beckett's been kidnapped; she's out there somewhere-and we have to find her. Caskett. AU post-47-Seconds-arc. 2-part Entry into the Castle Pornado weekend. Pt 1 is rated T


Sitting at his desk, elbows resting just in front of his keyboard, chin propped on his fist, Richard Castle let out an audible sigh. He'd worked hard—very hard—to create the final scene for Nikki and Rook in Frozen Heat, but it still wasn't right. Something was just…off—and that something was probably him.

Castle was at a crossroads. Certainly not his first and doubtfully his last, but it was a crossroads nonetheless. Not only was he ending another book series, but he had finally walked away from his time as an amateur detective. As if all of that was not enough, his daughter would graduate from high school in a matter of days thus beginning a new chapter in her life. Per usual, everything seemed to happen at once.

Barely a week prior Castle had walked out of the Twelfth precinct for what he believed to be the final time. The universe, in its infinite wisdom, had given him one hell of a last case (Zombies! How awesome!), but it was still not great enough for him to stay. Nor was the mixture of hurt and confusion on his former partner's face during their final goodbye.

In truth, he hadn't had the guts to tell Beckett he was done for good. He told her he needed to take a break, finish his book, and clear his head. When she inquired as to when he'd be returning, he told her he wasn't sure. He wanted to tell her the truth; to say he couldn't be around her after the hurt she caused him, but he could not. Maybe that made him less of a man. Maybe it made him selfish. Maybe it made him a fool. Most likely, it was a combination of the three, but he knew getting over her would be hard enough; he didn't need to hear her say the words or, worse, try to make him feel better while breaking his heart at the same time.

No, instead he'd take the coward's way out. He'd dodge her phone calls assuming there were any. Pray he never ran into her in a Starbucks line—at least, not in the near future. They'd simply fade away from each other's lives; it was for the best.

Turning back to his novel, Castle scrolled up to the beginning of the final chapter, hoping re-reading what he had created so far would help him craft a more satisfying ending. He knew for certain he did not want to kill off Nikki or Rook like he had with Storm. Such an act didn't seem fair; it didn't seem right. Despite how she'd hurt him in the end, Castle could not actual blame Kate for her feelings. She had every right not to fall head over heels in love with him, but that didn't mean she had no feelings for him at all. Her feelings simply resided in the realm of friendship and he would respect that. Yet at the same time he could not give Rook and Nikki a happily ever after, not with his own heart presently held together with safety pins and tape. No, their ending had to be ambiguous, but it also had to be right.

Right.

What did that even mean anymore?

A moment later Castle was interrupted by the buzzing of his cell phone. He glanced down at the device resting just beside his laptop and saw the caller ID displaying Esposito's face. Huffing out a breath, he reached out and pressed the "decline" button.

When he unofficially terminated his partnership with Beckett, Castle had no intentions of ending his friendship with his male quasi-colleagues. He would still invite them to Knicks or Mets games. He would still let them borrow the Ferrari if they begged or flattered him enough. He didn't want to drop them completely from his life, but in that moment all he wanted to do was finish Nikki and Rook's final chapter.

Not thirty seconds after he declined the call, he saw a text message come in from Esposito and groaned before even reading it. Of all the times he would have welcomed a writing distraction—which was more or less eighty percent of the time he was writing—this was definitely not one of them. Maybe, he thought as he picked up the device, if he just answered the text the boys would leave him alone and he could put the final chapter to bed.

Swiping his phone to unlock it, Castle was able to read the text message in full.

This is an emergency! Call us back!

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Emergency? What kind of emergency? Esposito was certainly not one to cry wolf, so Castle did not believe the "emergency" was of the "I need your Ferrari because…" variety. He also knew he would not be able to focus on his chapter until he knew what was going on, so he punched the call button next to Esposito's name a bit harder than necessary before holding the phone up to his ear.

"Finally!" Esposito answered gruffly.

Castle ignored this comment and instead asked impatiently, "What's your emergency?"

"Beckett's been kidnapped."

Castle nearly dropped the phone, but immediately decided he'd simply heard the detective incorrectly, because Beckett being kidnapped seemed highly unlikely if not borderline impossible. "What?"

"Jerry Tyson has her."

Castle immediately felt the sensation of icicles entering his bloodstream, freezing it in the process while also stabbing at his heart and guts. Jerry Tyson, also known as the Triple Killer, had vanished from before his eyes eighteen months earlier, but not before assaulting Ryan and leaving him tied to a chair. That night had haunted him ever since and now…Beckett.

Oh god! Beckett!

No, no, no; not this—never this! He needed to be apart from her in order to move on. In order to accept that she just wanted to be friends, because he knew that he could never move on while still remaining in her life; he loved her too deeply. Because of that love, he wanted the best for her. He wished her every happiness. He would have sooner died than wished any ill will on her—least of all Jerry Tyson!

God.

"Castle?" Esposito asked when the writer had been silent well over thirty seconds.

Castle set his jaw and squeezed the phone a bit tighter. "I'll be right there."


"I just—I don't understand."

Castle exhaled as he turned his gaze towards Beckett's disappointingly empty desk. She wasn't sitting there tapping away at her keyboard or shuffling through paperwork. She wouldn't look up at him and say, "What do you want, Castle?" in a way that sounded annoyed but they both knew deep down was only a cover to hide the smile blossoming across her face at the sight of him. He wouldn't get to see that smile, or hear her laugh, and, god, it was so unfair.

In his mind, he'd envisioned returning to the Twelfth several dozen times, but none of those times were like this. In his imagined scenarios he'd greet Beckett and they'd share pleasantries. In one of the more far-fetched ones she would even kiss him, but she was never missing—gone. All he'd wanted to do was love her and have her love him in return. Worst of all he never believed his feelings to be unreciprocated. The way she smiled at him, the way she'd gently touch his arm—there was no way she hadn't felt the same at least some of that time, so what had happened?

He ached to know the answer, but even more so he ached for her to be there in front of him. He'd sacrifice his own closure just to have her safe—free from someone as dangerous as Jerry Tyson, but even that made no sense. Kate was one of the most street-smart and savvy people he knew. How the hell had he gotten to her?

"Neither do we." Ryan signed as he stepped up in front of the writer. "When she didn't show up for her shift this morning we called her; she didn't answer. You know how unlike her that is so Javi went to her place."

Castle turned to look at him. "Was it tossed?"

Esposito stood from where he sat at the edge of his desk. Walking over to them he said, "No. I doubt so much as a toothpick was out of place."

His brow wrinkled. "So then how'd you know she was missing?"

"Tyson called dispatch, asked to speak to you; they transferred him to Gates."

Rotating one hundred and eighty degrees, Castle gazed at the woman leaning against the doorframe of her office. She had been largely silent since his arrival five minutes earlier, merely watching him curiously. "What'd he say?"

"'If you ever want to see Kate Beckett alive again, let me speak to Richard Castle.'" She repeated, then added, "You must have quite a history with this gentleman."

Castle flatted his lips into an expression that was miles from a smile. "Something like that." Unfortunately, he and Tyson had been mixed up far more than he would have ever liked and now it appeared Kate was paying the price.

"My office—now." Gates commanded him and he obediently followed her into the office, shutting the door behind him.

"Sir, look, I know that-"

"Stop." Gates held up her hand to silence him then gestured for him to sit in front of her desk. He did so and she didn't speak again until she was seated as well. "I have a very delicate situation on my hands here, Mr. Castle. My lead detective is missing—kidnapped, presumably."

"I assure you I will do everything in my power to bring Beckett home safety." Review hours of video tape, spend exorbitant amounts of money, move an actual mountain—he'd do it all even were it not for his lingering romantic feelings for. Nearly four years as her partner had earned her a place in his family and he'd do whatever needed to be done for family.

She bobbed her head. "I know you will, which is why I need you to promise you're going to play by our rules."

"What do you mean?"

Clasping her hands together, she leaned forward in her seat, almost as though she were about to reveal a secret. "I mean that I am not an idiot, Mr. Castle. I've watched you and Detective Beckett interact with each other for nearly a year and I know there's more than meets the eye there."

Castle felt his cheeks flush as though he were a small child caught pilfering a sweet off his teacher's desk. Evidently Gate's picked up on his mild embarrassment, and she shook her head, continuing with, "It's fine—your prerogative—and I don't need to know any more about it, but what I need from you is confirmation that you will not go off on your own and try to play the knight in shining armor. We need to do this by the book and not let personal feelings get in our way."

"Understood." He could read between the lines enough to understand she was directly telling him not to go rogue—and he wouldn't…at least, not for a little while. They'd play by the NYPD's rules for now, but if he ever got the inkling that bureaucratic red tape was standing in the way of Beckett's safety that deal was off.

"Good. Now we-"

"Castle—sorry, Sir," Ryan apologized quickly when he poked his head in the office to interrupt them, "but it's him; Tyson's on the phone."


"Are you sure about this bro?"

Standing in the cool night air in front of quite possibly one of the most unsettling abandoned warehouses he'd ever seen, Castle glanced up at Esposito while adjusting the side Velcro on his Writer vest. It was 11:58 p.m., just before Tyson's midnight meet, and their nightmarish ordeal had been going on for a little more than ten hours.

After the initial phone call during which Tyson refused to tell him Beckett's location as vehemently as he refused to name a ransom price, Castle was stuck running all over the city doing Tyson's bidding in the hopes of keeping Beckett safe. He had managed to talk the killer-turned-kidnapper into sending a proof of life video, which of course was sent from a burner phone and was no good to use in determining their location, but at least he was able to see her tied to a chair looking angry but otherwise unscathed.

Finally, after hours of pointless time wasting, Tyson had agreed to meet and "settle things up." Gates had stepped in, clearly just annoyed about the charade as everyone else, and asked if Beckett would be returned to them during their arranged meet-up. Tyson was silent for almost thirty seconds before he said, "Yeah, if Castle did everything he was supposed to, you'll get your detective back," but of course no one was too inclined to believe him; they just had to wait and see.

Clearing his throat now that his vest was fastened, Castle faced Esposito and asked, "You mean going alone into the creepy abandoned building probably littered with booby traps created by a psychopath? No, not really, but what choice do I have? If this is what I have to do to get Beckett back, so be it."

He didn't care what happened in that warehouse; it had to be done. It didn't matter if he faced bodily harm himself—hell, he almost expected it—he would not be responsible for going against Tyson's wishes if that carried even the smallest possibility of bringing harm to the woman he cared about. If he acted even slightly outside of Tyson's maniacal plan and Beckett were to die because of it? He'd never be able to live with himself.

"We've got eyes on the building; you're not going to be completely alone."

Ryan clapped his hand on Castle's shoulder. "We got your back, man."

Castle nodded to both of them. "Thanks."

Walking away from the secure line of cop cars towards the building meant he had several hundred feet of exposure, but the writer turned hostage negotiator wasn't concerned. Unnerved, certainly, but he didn't expect Tyson to be in an upper floor window with a sniper's rifle; that wasn't his style. Tyson enjoyed the game itself far more than winning it. If he intended to kill Castle, it would be after he was able to see Beckett and perhaps listen to some sort of deranged manifesto from the serial killer. At least, that's what the writer was banking on.

Thanks to the NYPD surveillance team they'd arrived with, Castle knew from the heat signatures in the building that two figures resided on the second floor near the center of the building. Due to the fact that, per Tyson's rules, the NYPD had to keep their distance, that was the best intel they could gather, but it was better than nothing. At least Castle could be satisfied that Tyson did not have a hoard of goons waiting to kidnap him as well. Then again, he supposed he never would have actually thought that as a possibility; 3XK was a lone wolf.

As he opened the door to the warehouse, a loud metallic screeching could be heard and Castle involuntarily winced, half expecting a hoard of bats to fly out of the building. There were no lights inside, so he switched on the flashlight provided to him and swept the beam around the tight area. It appeared he had entered into some sort of stairwell alcove, because to the left he could see stairs going up, and to the right was a door presumably leading towards the interior of the first floor. Seeing as he knew there were two people on the second floor, Castle turned towards the stairs, but before he could take a step an echoing voice could be heard.

"I said to come alone."

Castle looked up, curious as to the source of the sound. He did not see any speakers affixed to the wall, but then again the hand-held flashlight did not do a spectacular job of illuminating his surroundings. "I am alone."

"By my count there are seven cruisers outside." Tyson's voice crackled as it echoed around the stairwell, but Castle was too determined to let his poorly executed Oz impression distract him from the ultimate goal: finding Beckett and assuring that she was brought to safety.

"Key word being outside. I'm here alone and unarmed like you asked."

"Go to the second floor."

Castle held the flashlight beam out in front of him as he ascended the stairs. He easily avoided some trash and debris, but was pleased to see light filtering in from the second floor when he turned the corner to go up the second half of the stairway. As it was bright enough for him to see, he switched off the flashlight and tucked it back into the pocket of his vest.

Walking through the halls following the construction lamps that had been set up, Castle remained intensely careful of every step he made; every placement of his foot. He was convinced tripwires or, hell, even landmines could exist somehow buried in the subfloor of the warehouse, but mostly all he saw was trash. He soon found himself weaving deeper and deeper into the building through a variety of halls, open spaces, and doorways where the door itself hung by only one of its hinges, until finally the construction lighting stopped and he lifted his head to gaze down the hall. There, a few hundred feet away, a woman sat in a chair. She had her back to him, turned maybe only fifteen degrees in his direction so he could see her hair and the crest of her forehead, but somehow he just knew it was her.

His heart fluttering with relief, Castle called out her name. "Beckett! Oh, Beckett thank-"

"That's close enough." Tyson's voice warned, though it still obviously came from some sort of loudspeaker or amplified system not from the room in which they stood.

Castle looked around in a fruitless attempt to find the villain, but with no avail. Speaking a bit louder than he normally would have, he took one step forward and said, "I just want to-"

"Not another inch, Castle, or I pull the trigger".

Trigger? Castle's brow wrinkled. As far as he could tell Beckett sat in the center of a room not in front of any walls or doorways. A light was on the floor in front of her. He couldn't see it, but he knew it had to be smaller than the construction lights he passed due to lack of illumination. It was entirely possible the light was only an upturned hand-held flashlight; just enough so that her silhouette could be seen. Tyson wasn't in the room with them, so what trigger could he possibly—

Oh.

Castle's heart sunk when he caught sight of the tiny blinking red light under Beckett's chair. A receiver, he imagined, for what he could only assume was a bomb. So that was Tyson's play. Blow Beckett up in front of him and if he tried to intervene then Tyson would get a two-for-one-deal and be quite pleased with it, Castle imagined, but as he was a man who always had faith he believed there was still a chance they could both get away unscathed. Letting out a long, slow breath in hopes of regulating his heart rate, he took a step backwards from the woman tied to the chair.

"Ah—you see it now, don't you?"

"I just want to know if she's all right."

"She's fine, for now."

"I just—I just want to see her nod or something." He crouched down, trying to see if he could get a glimpse of Kate's face. Her head was upright, not slumped, which led him to believe she was alert and thus could hear him, but yet she made no attempt to move, which he found very odd.

"Not now. First, I want us to have a little chat, Castle. You see, last time we met, you put a pretty big damper on my plans."

"Sorry," he said reflexively, not really feeling any remorse at all. In fact, the only thing he felt bad about was letting Tyson walk out of that hotel room alive.

"I really don't think that you are, Castle." Tyson snarled through the still-crackling auditory system. "Don't you know how long it took me to plan that escape? Months and months but then you showed up and in an instant everything I'd worked for—everything—was gone."

"You still got away, Tyson," he said, a bit exhausted with the theatrics.

"But not like I'd wanted, not like I needed to. Yeah, I disappeared for a while, but it wasn't enough; it wasn't good enough. I had to make you suffer like I was suffering. At first, I thought about taking your daughter—cute little red-head, right? But kids aren't exactly my type."

Castle felt his stomach lurching in his gut at the thought of Tyson touching his daughter, making her suffer the way his other victims had. He his body began to tremble with anger. Tyson watching him—them—was sickening enough, but the fact that he'd actually considered…god! The thought was too horrible to imagine.

"So I kept watching you and you know what I saw? Her. Of course I knew who she was but I saw her through your eyes and then, well, the story practically writes itself, wouldn't you say?"

Castle felt an iron weight settle in his stomach as the realization hit him; this was all his fault. Yes, the argument could be made that he could not control the actions of a psychopath and that was true, but indirectly this was his fault. Had he not interfered with Tyson, had he not riled him up while they were in that hotel room, maybe they wouldn't be in that position. Maybe Beckett would be back at her apartment, asleep in her bed, safe, certainly not tied to a chair atop a bomb. She was merely an innocent victim; a pawn Tyson was using to torture his real victim—him.

Then why—why hadn't Tyson just taken him instead? They could have ended this with no others involved. Tyson could have kidnapped him directly from his apartment. If he had gotten to Beckett, the loft would have been a breeze. Then he could have had his little show and been done. This fight was between the two of them, no one else, and that's how it needed to end.

"So it's me you want; fine." Castle called out. "I'm here now, just let Beckett go and we'll end this."

"Don't you see, Castle? It's already over."

The explosion of the gunshots reverberating through the naked building sent Castle into a crouching position involuntarily. He ducked his head, brought his hands up to cover his face, and rounded his shoulders, as though such a stance would protect him from flesh-piercing bullets. Four shots rang out and then silence; nothing. No explosion, no shouting, no footsteps slamming against the concrete floor—just silence.

Castle opened his eyes and scanned down his body, knowing that the level of adrenaline he had coursing through him might have meant he did not feel any pain were he injured, but he saw no wounds or blood. Then, as a sickening thought hit him, he lifted his head and the sight before him sent him to his knees.

"Beckett! No! No! God…no."

The woman before him was no longer upright in her chair, but slumped down, her head dangling back in an unnatural position. No more than several seconds later the silence was interrupted by the soft patting of liquid as it came in contact with the metal legs of the chair and the floor. Only it wasn't just any liquid—it was blood. Beckett's blood.

God, oh god; how had it come to this?

Violent sobs began to stutter in his chest, his vision now blurred by tears as he gazed at the contorted body of the woman he loved. Four gunshots, one to her head judging by its position. Even a man with a deep rooted sense of faith and good in the universe could see no possible window of survival given the grave injuries, which meant only one thing: she was gone.

Beckett was gone.

Castle's chin dropped to his chest as the realization settled on him, crushing his shoulders and threatening to obliterate him all together. Kate was gone; gone forever. He would never again see her smile or gaze upon the light sparkling in her eyes. He never even had the chance to say goodbye to her properly, tell her how much he still cared and always would. She had hurt him, but it wasn't fair of him to judge her too much for that, to let that one moment taint all the positive ones, because there had been so many.

God, he had loved her. He'd loved her arguably more than he'd loved any woman before. She'd consumed him, body and soul, shown him how to be a better man, a man he never thought possible, but it was—all because of her. It didn't matter that she didn't want to be with him romantically. If that wouldn't make her happy, he didn't want it either. He wanted her to find someone that made her heart soar like his did every time he looked at her. She'd suffered so much in her life that she deserved a happy ending and now…now she'd never have the chance. And it was all his fault.

"Beckett…" He sniffled out her name lifting his head once more to see the blood pooling more heavily beneath the hands that hung down limp. "I'm so sorry, Beckett…"

His body shivered at the viciousness of the emotions roiling in his gut. He felt as though he was being split in two: half of him being pulled towards a soul-crushing devastation that would leave him bed-bound for weeks, and half towards a fury like he'd never known before, a fiery rage within himself he would not previously thought possible.

For that moment, the fury began to win. He balled his fists until they shook and bit back the bile in his throat, vowing then and there to make Jerry Tyson pay for what he'd done. In her life Kate Beckett wanted nothing more than to seek justice for the victims delivered to her and with her death he felt that torch had been passed to him. He vowed then and there not to rest until her death had been avenged, even if he had to do so with his bare hands. The boys could drag him away in cuffs at Gate's instruction and he could spend all of his remaining days behind bars, but that didn't matter. Jerry Tyson had to pay for stealing away the life of the woman he loved.

"Castle! Castle!"

The writer could hear the duo of male detectives shouting to him, presumably forced to abandon their plan to stay outside once they heard gunshots, but he could not respond. He was still frozen on the ground; a statue.

"Castle! Oh—he's over here Ryan! Castle, man are you—oh god. Jesus."

He heard the tone of Esposito's voice change and assumed he'd seen the body. When Ryan entered the room and exclaimed similarly horrified sentiments, Castle finally managed. "He shot her. I didn't even see him. He was talking through a speaker or…I…" His voice was lost again as grief took over.

Castle was distantly aware of a hand on his shoulder and shuffling footsteps, completely unaware of how long he sat, but then realized it must not have been very long when he heard Esposito proclaim, "Wait—this isn't Beckett!"

Castle's head popped up in shock as he gazed towards the collapsed woman. "What?" Could…could it be? Was that even possible?

"It's not her." Esposito said with a level of confidence that had Castle pushing himself to a standing position and taking a few shaky steps forward. He let out an audible gasp when he was close enough to see that Esposito was indeed correct. Even with the bullet piercing her forehead, the rest of the woman's face was intact enough to see plainly that this was not Beckett. She was, he had to admit, very similar in many ways, but mercifully not the woman they all cared for.

"I don't…oh god…"

"She must have been some sort of decoy." Espo concluded.

Castle turned away from the body as he felt his stomach lurch in his gut. Thank god he had not eaten for over twelve hours or he surely would have vomited from the shock. He felt a gentle hand on his back and heard Ryan ask if he was okay. He swallowed hard and took in a few breaths through his nose before nodding in confirmation that he was. Then, he turned back to face the detectives and the SWAT team now pouring into the building.

"I bet Tyson was never even here—at least, not when we were; he was probably long gone."

"Did he say anything to you? Anything that could help us?" Ryan asked.

"Not really, no. I thought he made it clear this was his end game, but evidently not."

"So she's still out there somewhere…"

"Yeah," Castle said, as grave as ever, "and we have to find her."


Part 2-the M rated part-will be posted this weekend.

Thanks to Lou for helping with the title!