Disclaimer: Any recognizable characters are the property of Andrew W. Marlow and ABC television. All others are the product of my own imagination. Any resemblance with any person, living, or dead is purely coincidental.
Three years earlier…
Being a boxer taught him certain skills in the ring. The first and foremost is to have the ability or the intuition to duck and bob before the punch lands to your head or any other vital body part. It's funny because he never remembered this one simple lesson when his opponent seemed to constantly land hard right hooks to the side of his head time after time. After the last hit, he was slow to respond to his opponent's barrage of hits. He ended up on the mat looking up at the lights shining above…
Xx
Present Day...
She'd been a force to be feared when she was working the society column. She had the city wired and knew about every soiree to full blown wedding on the social calendar. She stepped off the elevator and loved the sounds of the press room. Phones buzzing, people yelling for the copy boy, the smell of fresh ink wafting up from the print room. As amazing as this was for her she was about to be a lamb led to slaughter, only she just didn't know it yet. She had been called into the lifestyle editor's office even before she had time to take the first sip of her coffee. She put the cup down on her desk, grabbed her pad and pen and headed towards her office. As she passed a well-known sports writer (a man that she could not stand) he commented to her as she passed him "You won't be needing those things for this." He pointed to her pad and pen and kept walking away. She looked back at him as if he was in on whatever she was going to be told. Maybe he was. She stepped into her office and Claire was standing next to her desk talking to the owner of a trendy new eatery in midtown. When the call ended she's sure that this favor to her involved a bottle of twelve-year-old Scotch. When she was finished with the phone call he sat down picked up a folder thumbed through it, sighed and then told her that she'd been thinking about the article Kate was writing about the McMillians.
"Kate, I know that you've been working on the society column for the last year but I'm not sure we should run with your article."
Kate just looked at her like she'd lost her mind. She had to tell her why she thought this was a bad idea.
"Claire you know that I busted my ass on this article. The hours alone I've spent on this can't begin to account for my time. I've conducted interviews, talked to people connected to the family and I did so much research I feel like I'm part of this family."
"You know that sometimes we need to pull back on some questionable articles."
If the look she gave her could strike her down she tried even harder to project that look.
"Kate, you can make all the faces and dirty looks at me you can come up with but until further notice, your article is on hold, for now."
She sat there speechless. This was such a bad idea and she wondered if she even thought it through.
It's then when her rage surfaced but she kept her rage in check. She pleaded to have her reread the article and reconsider.
"That's all Kate. But I'll expect you to have the column for the Davis-Jenkins wedding done and on my desk first thing tomorrow morning. So, get to it and make me proud."
"Claire come on, are you sure about this? I mean why don't you reread what I gave you and then make a decision?" Kate wasn't giving up yet.
"Kate, maybe. But I have a lot on my plate today so don't expect me to do it anytime soon."
Xx
He had taken one of the worst beatings he can remember. His opponent kept up a relentless 1-2-5-2 Jab-Cross-Left Uppercut-Cross punches and he couldn't keep his guard up to fight them off. But at least he had made it to the eleventh round before he went down.
"Rick did what I tell you mean anything at all? We had everything on this guy and you just stood there like a scarecrow. If I didn't know any better it seemed to me that you wanted to go down. Did you?"
"Really Pete? Is that what you think?
"Rick, I don't know what to think. You had this guy wrapped up and yet he knocked you out. To me, it seemed that you don't care about winning anymore."
"Pete, I'm tired can we pick this up after the steam room?"
"This isn't over Rick. Go to the steam room and when your done make sure that the doc takes a look at that eye."
"I will." Rick gently touched his swollen eye hoping that it didn't look as bad as it felt. But he knew that it did because he couldn't see out of it. So, it had to be bad.
He needed to get his head on straight. He never saw the hits coming at him when he expected them. He was expecting something totally different from his opponent and that was his mistake. But this fight was just a stepping stone to get him better bouts. He knew this and so did his promoter. When he was offered the fight, his promoter expected him to lose, but he never expected the fight to go eleven rounds if anything six but Rick almost doubled that total. He knew that there would be a visit from his promoter sometime soon he only hoped that he was done with his steam and the doc before that happened. He sat there in the steam room letting the steam work into his body, then when he was done with this the rub down that followed should make him feel a little better.
He wrapped a terrycloth towel around his waist and knotted it tightly. He walked barefoot to the doc's office and sat on the exam table waiting for him to come in. When the door opened he looked up through his good eye and noticed the doc smirk at him.
"Hey Rick, I'd hate to see what the other guy looks like!"
"Well, I am here to tell you that I took most of the beating. He was relentless and my head feels like an eggplant right now."
"That'll pass. Rest will help with that but if anything persists like a bad headache you need to come back and see me. Now let me take a look at that eye."
Rick grunted and groaned when the doc manipulated his right eye. After about two minutes of prodding, he said,
"Rick just keep your eye iced with a cold pack and maybe tomorrow you can start sparing. But before you do see me first."
"Okay, doc."
"Now let the trainer work out those sore muscles. You need it after that knockdown."
"Are you trying to be funny?"
"Yup, I am. Get some rest, Rick." The doc got up patted him on the shoulder and left him sitting on the exam table. He got up and headed to the training room.
Xx
She had wrapped up the exposé on the McMillians. It was good and if she played her cards right it would get her out of writing that stupid wedding article on the Davis-Jenkins wedding. She hoped. This is why she never started to write the article on the wedding. She turned it into her editor Claire directly hoping she wouldn't be mad. She bypassed her managing editor because it gave her a fighting chance to get this printed. Kate knew that Claire and Michael hated each other with a passion. Now with her article exposing the McMillians for what they really were now rewritten and safely in Claire's hands, all she had to do is sit back and wait for the call to tell her that she would be printing it tonight.
Claire knew that her top reporter would be poached out from under her if this article tanked. She quickly read the article she turned it in loving every word of it, forgetting everything she told Kate earlier this morning, it was that good. She sent the article straight to the copy room to run in that evening's edition. The paper printed it and by the next day, she knew that their circulation numbers would increase. No one in the city loved the family she had exposed because they thought they were gods and deserved to be brought down a peg or two. She was surprised the next morning when she turned the corner to head to her office to see the papers owner, publisher, and managing editor standing in it. She slowly approached and could immediately tell that they were not happy at all.
"Good morning Robert." Claire said cheerfully.
"Claire." Robert responded with a little anger in his voice.
"Robert, what's wrong?"
"Claire, the article you sent to print in last night's edition was it evaluated by legal?"
Claire felt her stomach knot up in a terrible way. She loved the article that Kate wrote so much that she forgot to send it to the legal department before it was sent to print.
"No, it wasn't Robert. Why?"
"It seems that the McMillians have decided to sue us for Defamation of character and Libel and anything else that their attorney can come up with."
"I'm sure that the reporter who wrote it did all the fact checking before she turned it in."
"Apparently, they were not as absolute as they could have been. Claire, who wrote the article?"
"Robert, I can't tell…"
"Claire is protecting this reporter worth your job?" Robert cut her off.
"I can fight this under the first amendment."
"Claire you'll lose. The first amendment protects reporters from revealing their source during a criminal trial. Not from being employed.
"It was Kate. Kate Beckett." Claire told him knowing that he was right.
"I'll need to see her now."
"I'll go and get her.
Kate was watching as the big wigs gathered in Claire's office from her desk. She knew her article was gold and now all she had to do is wait for the promised land. Claire walked out of her office and Kate sat up in her chair hoping that this was it.
"Kate, I need you to come with me for a minute."
"Claire, what's going on?"
"Just come with me, Kate."
She followed Claire into the office and a chill ran down her spine when she saw the looks she was getting from the men around the office….
A/N: Updates will not be on a set schedule. I've been writing for Castle for the last six years now and unless something jumps out at me to write about between these two great characters, this will be my last "Castle" story.
P2P