Surprised

Crack Fic. What would Season 1 Beckett think of her Season 5 self?

This is such a crack fic but it's something I've thought about, and Terri's tweet from the 100th episode got me writing. Somebody asked her what Season 1 Beckett would think of Season 5 Beckett to which she replied, 'I think she'd be surprised'. Lol, no doubt.

So basically this answers that question in more detail. This is set after 1x06, as I feel like Beckett knew enough about Castle at that point to inform this story, but not enough so that she wouldn't be totally taken aback by her future.

I've written before but it was a while back and couldn't remember my old account haha. This is my first Castle story. Anyway, enjoy!

The detective strummed her fingers along her perfectly organised desk. Her files were stacked neatly to one side of her computer monitor, while her brand new pens rested by the keyboard. No pictures, no figurines, no personal touches. This could have been anyone at the precinct's desk.

Although, really it couldn't have. Ryan had post-it notes all over his monitor reminding him of all the odd jobs the less tech-savvy members of the 12th had assigned him. He would frequently scramble to find the right note when a shout was heard across the bullpen; "Ryan, you searched the database yet?". Nearly every time his mad rush was halted by the food crumbs caught between the keys in his keyboard, preventing him from typing properly. Esposito's desk was filled with pictures of his mom and 'smokin' hot' ex-girlfriends. Every other cop's desk had coffee stains or scattered paperwork, but not Kate Beckett's. Her world was structured and organised, and that rigidity carried over into her personal life.

Not being able to uncover one piece of information had completely changed Kate Beckett's life. Before her mother was killed, she was flexible. She had fun. She chased boys, she ditched studying to hang out with her friends some nights, she let herself marathon episodes of Nebula 9 and order pizza instead of being productive. Granted, she was a teenager, but those things wouldn't have changed much as she got older. But her mom was killed, and they never caught who did it.

Her mom. The woman who taught her how to be smart and funny and social, while also being able to have a geeky and silly and mischievous side. The woman who had informed the person Kate Beckett was, and always was supposed to be. She had been ripped away from this earth so senselessly, and with her she took the life Kate was supposed to have, and so much of the personality she had given to her.

A steaming hot mug of coffee was set in front of the detective, startling her out of her thoughts about her mother's killer. Pretty much the same thoughts she had every day.

"Castle, why are you here so early?" Beckett asked incredulously, knowing the writer would rather eat nothing but salad for a week than miss a minute of 'beauty sleep'. There was hardly even anyone in the precinct yet.

"Thought I'd help out with some of your paperwork before the day officially got started," Castle replied with that charming ease with which she found herself becoming accustomed. "I know how much you hate doing it."

"Really?" Beckett asked, almost letting herself be nicely surprised by the sentiment.

"No," Castle laughed. "I visited a lady-friend last night and wanted to get out of there before she woke up, she's a little crazy. Here was closer than home."

Beckett rolled her eyes.

"Are you ever going to act your age?" She asked bluntly.

"What's the fun in that?" He replied with a slight pitch in his voice, as he plopped down into his seat by her desk. "Drink your coffee, it'll get cold."

"So what, now you're going to sit down next to me for the day in yesterday's clothes without showering, hyped up on caffeine because you surely haven't got much sleep in the last 48 hours, annoying me at every moment because you've got nothing else to do?" Beckett felt a growing sense of frustration as she spoke.

"Yep." Castle replied with a grin. "Hey, maybe someone will die to spice things up for you".

Beckett simply flashed him her 'got no time for your shit' look that he was being accustomed with.

Castle got up and started heading towards the break room.

"Hey, where are you going? I thought you said you were going to help with the paperwork." Beckett asked.

"Getting real mixed messages here." Castle stated, using his hands as he spoke to make himself more animated. "Go away, you're annoying and you stink. Stay here, help me with my paperwork. But seriously, you had to know that was never going to happen."

Beckett repeated her eye roll. "Ugh, go."

She shook her head as she returned pen to paper. Why did he have to act like such a child? A child with extremely questionable ways to fill his nights. She could only imagine the kinds of women who threw themselves at him. No wonder he was so willing to get away; but she bet he never even gave them a chance to prove they were anything more than just a willing body on a mattress.

"Beckett!" The Captain's low voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

"Yes, sir?"

"Go down to holding, would you? Dave isn't in yet and night guard has to go. Man the cells until he gets here." Montgomery gave her an apologetic look. "At least it's something other than paperwork."

She supposed he was right. She ran a hand through her short, dark hair as she got up and headed towards the elevator.

"Where are ya goin'?" She heard Castle's voice say just as his head popped out from the break room. She could have sworn he had another set of eyes to track her movements.

"Needed to get away from your foul stench."

With that, she stepped onto the elevator and rode it down to holding.

"Thanks Beckett," Johnny, the night guard, said as she entered. "Really need to get some sleep."

"No problem." She replied, surveying the few in the overnight cell. She glanced at the paperwork. A few drunk and disorderly, a guy who'd smashed a bottle over another guy's head in a bar, and a woman who'd been caught trying to break into a car. Great, she thought. This should be riveting.

She would never tell him, but Castle and one of his wild stories wouldn't go down too badly right now. Maybe just a brand new novel of his would be better. That way she could get the story without having to deal with the man, like she always used to. Ah, how she envied her self from two months ago. She had no idea the kind of annoyance she was in for.

"Hey, do you think we could get some food?" One of the drunk guys grumbled. "I swear I haven't eaten in like, 75 hours."

Clearly the effects of the alcohol had yet to dissipate.

"You'll live." She replied without care. "It's 7:15am. Pizza doesn't even deliver this early."

As soon as she spoke, the woman in the cell's head immediately snapped up. Beckett hadn't really noticed her before, but she didn't look like a common criminal. Certainly not like someone who would try and steal a car. Sure, her clothes were ragged and her hair was a mess, but she looked like the kind of girl who would have a respectable family waiting for her. Not somebody who would get involved with the wrong side of the law.

The girl's eyes were frantic and she quickly got up from the corner she was sitting in, which was as far away from her cellmates as possible, and rushed towards where Beckett was standing, halted only by the bars between them.

"Kate," she said. "You're Detective Kate Beckett, right?"

Beckett frowned and looked a little harder at the girl. She didn't recognise her at all. "Yes, I am. I'm sorry, how do you know me?"

"Oh, thank god." The girl breathed a sigh of relief. "You have to get me out of here."

"I certainly do not. I'm a cop, it's my job to keep you in there until somebody comes to bail you out." Beckett retorted, taken aback by the girl's words.

"No, you don't understand." The girl said with a pained expression. "Nobody is coming to bail me out. I'm not from here, I don't even know where my adopted family live at this time."

Now Beckett was really confused. The girl had looked frazzled, yes, but not crazy. She couldn't have been more than twenty. It was a shame.

"What do you mean 'at this time'?" Beckett asked.

"Like I said, I'm not from here." The girl said emphatically, as though she was trying to remind Beckett of something she already knew.

"You're not from New York?"

"No, I'm not from this time." The girl replied.

Okay, definitely crazy. "Please, just sit back down and stop wasting my time." Beckett, ever the realist, replied.

"No, I'm sorry, I'm really not wasting your time." The girl, whose name was Grace as Beckett read off the sheet before her, said with fear. "I'm not crazy, I promise. Please, just hear me out."

Beckett eyed the girl. Usually she would have ignored her, but something about this girl made her pay attention. She was too scared, too insistent, seemingly too familiar with Beckett herself to make the detective comfortable to leave her alone.

At that moment, Dave walked through the door.

"Sorry Beckett, my alarm didn't go off this morning." He said as he entered.

"Uh, no problem." Beckett replied. "This girl Grace just had her charges dropped so I'm going to walk her out."

"Are you sure? I can do it." Dave said.

"No, no. Really, it's fine." Beckett answered hastily as she opened the cell for Grace to exit. The blonde girl gave her a hopeful smile as they left the room.

Beckett quickly pulled Grace into a spare closed off cell once they were out of the others sight.

"You know." The girl said with a sense of such relief and joy that Beckett almost felt bad for what came out of her mouth next.

"I don't know you at all, but you better start talking before I take you back in there and tell Dave that there has been a mistake. How do you know me?" The detective asked with a stern glare.

Grace's smiled faded. "You don't. Not yet, anyway."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You help me, five years from now. My adopted brother is murdered and you're assigned to the case." Grace answers, almost resigned to the fact that Beckett isn't going to believe her.

'What?' is the only thing Beckett can think. Before she can say anything, Grace interrupts her.

"Please, I know it sounds insane but just listen to me." Grace urges. "My brother, he got caught up with the wrong guys at this time and when he tries to leave them behind in the future they don't let him. He's adopted, just like me. Our parents are some of the only ones who take teenagers in. They helped him see that he was throwing his life away. But these guys, they prey on kids like him. Get them when they are in their early teens, totally reckless and without any sort of supervision, and make them do something stupid to be initiated into their gang. They made my brother steal a car."

"So it runs in the family." Beckett interrupted, thinking the girl was completely crazy at this point.

"No, I stole the car before my brother could." Grace said. "You see, he never steals the car, he never gets involved with those guys so he never gets killed."

"And what does this have to do with me?" Beckett asks, exasperated now. Seriously, all she wanted was a stress free day. First Castle and his general idiocy, and now this.

"Like I said, you're on the case. You are the one who figures out that they killed my brother. Well, you and your boyfriend."

"Grace, I'm sorry to tell you this, but this is all part of your imagination and I –"

"No!" Grace cuts Beckett off. "It's not! Please, it's not. Your mother was killed when you were nineteen!"

Beckett meets the girl's eye. She's stunned.

"I'm sorry, that was horrible." Grace berates herself. "I just need you to believe me. I know who you are, you know me. You tell me about what happened to you, to your mom, when you are investigating my brother's case. You tell me a few things about yourself actually."

"Like what?" Beckett asks, a little spooked. She doesn't know what to make of any of this.

"Like," the girl falters for a moment. "You had a wild child phase in your teens where you got this tattoo that your parents went crazy about. And if you weren't a cop, you would have been a lawyer. And your boyfriend used to drive you totally crazy but now you are so in love with him and it's like, the cutest thing ever."

Beckett stares at Grace for a moment. She has no idea what she's talking about in regards to her last statement but the first two were a bit freaky.

"Lot's of people have wild child phases," Beckett tries to brush her off. "And all you would have to do is look up my university records to see that I was studying law."

"But I didn't do that. You told me." Grace says, begging to be believed. "Just like you told me that you always wished you had a brother, because your dad took you to so many baseball games as a kid that you ended up wearing team jersey's to school for all of seventh grade which was a highly embarrassing thing to do."

Beckett looked at Grace, and her expression softened. "How do you…"

"Please, Kate. Please believe me." Grace said, tears brimming. "You're my only chance to make sure my brother lives."

"What do I have to do with it?" Beckett asks, trying to get a grip on reality.

"We agreed, you and me in the future, that you would arrest the guys who kill my brother before they can beat him up for not stealing the car."

"And how were you planning on convincing me of this? I'm still not convinced, at all. You could just be incredibly perceptive." Beckett was lying to herself, and she knew it. But her rational mind wouldn't allow her to believe the situation.

"By having your future-self talk to you." Grace replied. "I brought you with me".

"What do you mean?" Beckett retaliated. "And how on earth do you just come back? What, does science really advance that much in five years?"

"No, this has nothing to do with science." Grace replies seriously. "It's to do with magic."

Beckett rolls her eyes. Okay, she's had enough.

"No," Grace grabs her arm to hold her in place. "My mother, my real mother, was what she would call 'an interpreter of the natural world' but what most would simply call a witch. She could make things happen, she knew how to alter time. And it cost her her life. But she left me a set of instructions, for only absolutely dire circumstances, on how to alter it myself if I ever needed to. I never really believed it. I mean as a kid I did, but as I got older I realised she was probably a little crazy. But when Tommy died, I figured 'why not?', you know? What did I have to lose? Nothing at that point. So I tried it. I only went back a day at first, to see if it really worked, and I was scared of not being able to return. But it did work."

Becket shook her head, trying to take in the information being thrown at her. "So where do I factor into this?"

"I told you about it, the time travelling thing. And you pretty much had the same reaction you're having now. I guess that side of you hasn't changed. But when I insisted that you at least give me the chance to show you I wasn't lying, you agreed obviously thinking nothing was going to happen. But it worked, and I brought you back here with me." Grace explained.

"So, where am I then?" Beckett asked, still not believing Grace's story.

"You're at your dad's. You said that as long as you wore a hat, he wouldn't notice the difference. He doesn't pay much attention to your looks."

Okay, Beckett thought, another point to Grace for that one. But then again, a lot of dad's were the same way. Although, she bet Castle would notice if Alexis had so much as an extra freckle.

"And we aren't together because?"

"Because I had to get to the car before Tommy did, and you needed to be able to arrest the guys. And then you needed to be able to convince your past, or I guess present, self that they needed to be put in jail and all that because it's not like you can arrest five gangsters all by yourself. I mean you're awesome and everything, but come on. Plus you would need officers to come pick them up and take them to the station and everything."

Okay this, if Beckett dared to think it, was starting to make a bit more logical sense. If you could call believing in time travel logical.

"The whole me being arrested thing was not part of the plan, but just my luck, a cop surveying the area saw me right as I was breaking in. Seasoned criminal, I am not." Grace added.

"So, what? You're just expecting me to let you off on a felony charge to take you to my dad's house where you will probably just escape simply because of a few good guesses?" Beckett asked.

"No," Grace responded. "We have to steal the car first. I never got around to moving it, and my brother will be there tonight."

Beckett sighed. "This is crazy. There is no way I'm helping you steal a car. You've just made up this story so you can get away with what you originally wanted without doing any jail time. Points for cleverness, but no way."

Grace gripped Beckett's arms on both sides. "Fine, don't believe me. You told me you wouldn't anyway. Call your dad's house, that's all I ask. You can even lock me back up with those derelicts in there while you do it."

Beckett eyed the girl for a moment then let out an exasperated sigh. "I swear, I almost want you to be telling the truth just so that this won't have been a huge waste of my time." She said as she got out her phone and dialled her dad's home number.

Grace smiled as it rang. After three rings, her call was answered.

"Hello?" A voice, all too familiar, said.

"Hello?" Beckett asked back, now unsure of everything she knew.

She heard a gasp on the other end. "It's you, isn't it?"

There was no mistaking it now, that was definitely her voice on the other end of the telephone line. Beckett felt like she might have a stroke.

"Don't you mean, me?"

Sorry to be annoying and end it there, but I feel like that chapter just needed to introduce the story and then I could get onto the more fun stuff. So sorry if that was a bit tedious to read, more to come soon! Please review :)