AN: This is my first Castle story. I wanted to take on the big gorilla in the room and the consequences of seeing Cole Maddox in Mr. Smith's office. It looked to me like Mr. Smith was going to have a very bad day. So far it's written through chapter 16 of 18. I'll publish one a week unless it is getting too close to the season premiere. I want this all done before that airs.
Many thanks to Patricia Louise and Gwynne for their help.
I own nothing, Marlow and company own it all. I just wanted to take the summer hiatus and play with some of their totally amazing characters. I'm a huge fan of the show; Stana Katic's portrayal of Detective Beckett in particular.
There Is No "I" In Team.
Prolog:
After their intense emotional reunion at Castle's front door, they'd moved naturally to the bedroom. What followed was an initial, almost mindless, feral animal encounter, dominated by the release of years of unsatisfied tension. When the inevitable intermission happened, and they had recovered enough to get their minds around where they were and what had happened, at least to some extent, Beckett felt Castle move and take a breath that she was sure preceded a question. She'd answered his unspoken question saying, "Rick, this is not a one night stand. In my mind, if you can forgive me for how awful I've been, this is the beginning of forever together. I love you. I have for two years now. I almost died last night. I had the crap beat out of me. I hung on the edge of a building, and all I could think of was you might never know. I could have forever lost the chance to tell what I really felt, so I hung on. I survived to tell you I love you: now, forever, till death do us part, come hell, high water, come what may. We can get angry with each other, upset with each other, but it's still us; we will get through it and find joy together. You and me. Rick and Kate. I love the sound of that. You, my wonderful man, are my one-and-done. I'm going no place. No woman should reach for you with anything she's not willing to lose. You are mine."
She felt Rick sigh, shudder, take a breath, pull her in close and then heard him say what she was hoping for, "Oh God, Kate, you have just made my life. I love you. I'm not going anywhere either. I am in the same place about you. I know we will have disagreements, but from now on, the disagreements have nothing to do with us being together; that's settled sweetheart. You are it for me too."
The second round was about them, about their commitment. It left them glowing more than spent, fulfilled more than used up. It was, Beckett thought, the seal on our deal, the difference between love and lust, we are joined for life. I need to tell him I resigned. Now. Before anything gets in the way. I want that to come from me. "Rick," she said, "I have more to tell you. You need to wake up enough to hear it." Her completely dark adapted vision saw his eyes open; apparently something in her tone got his attention.
"You have my attention Kate, but whatever it is, it's going to be okay," he'd said.
With some trepidation she forged ahead, "I made a mistake of judgment going after the killer with no backup. Esposito came with me; he's fine, but he was nearly killed, too. Ryan was right to try to stop us. He was also right when he went against Javi and my wishes and told Gates.
"Ryan saved our lives. But Gates was livid. I haven't seen her so angry before. She put Javi and me on indefinite administrative leave. I put my gun on her desk, stood there; holding my badge - the badge that I'd worked so hard for, and suddenly none of it mattered. I was done; all I wanted was you. Not the job, not to catch my mom's killer, I just wanted to walk over the rubble of the wall that had just that moment collapsed and be with you. I resigned." She'd been watching Castle's face while she unloaded that before it could become another festering secret.
His gaze was unwavering. His face moved with emotion as she talked. In the end, with the announcement of her resignation, he showed only concern for her, which was reflected when he said, "You resigned." It was a statement, not a question. He continued, "Are you sure Kate? The job has been so much of what you are, so much of how you see yourself; can you really do this?"
"Yes, I can. I'm out of it. Gone from the investigation. I just want to begin our life together, exclusive, sharing you only with Alexis, your mom, and your passion for writing. I'm more than the job now Rick; I want to be more than the job," she replied.
He pulled her close and said, "Well, all right then, this is the first day of the rest of our lives ... together. I so love the together part Kate." and she knew it really was all right.
At peace for the first time in more than a decade, lying in Castle's arms, Kate felt the tension drain from her body and mind and drifted into dreamless sleep.
Chapter 1, There is no such thing as safe.
Kate's eyes jerked wide open at the unmistakable sound of a rifle shot. Window glass shattered violently into the drapes; a bullet impacted the floor and opposite wall with a sharp thump. An instant adrenaline release fueled her into pure survival mode. In a split second she grabbed Rick, rolled them off the bed on the far side from the windows as the second shot shattered what was left of the glass into the heavy drapes. When they hit the floor, his impact on her battered body hurt so much she almost screamed, but it didn't slow her down. As Rick, wide-eyed, struggled to comprehend their situation, she shouted, "Over here, against this wall, the bullets can't get us there!" With almost superhuman strength, she dragged him into a sheltered corner of the room. She instinctively shoved him against the wall and threw herself on top of him as the incoming fire shifted from single shots to full automatic. Her head stayed up wide eyes, registered the change in fire mode, her eyes saw the bed and the far wall being chewed into uselessness by incoming bullets.
Rick struggled to move; she hoarsely growled into his ear, "Don't move if you want to live. Those bullets are hitting two feet to my right and skipping into the wall. It has to stop soon. We're okay if you don't move." She felt the change when he stopped trying to escape and just hung on. She noticed the heavy drapes contained most of the glass. If they were careful when the firing stopped, they could move, but they couldn't turn on a light and let the assailants know they had survived.
Then it was quiet, silent, dust and debris drifted in the air. The drapes moved from a soft breeze, light from outside streamed in through the holes torn in them by bullets and broken glass. She figured at least a minute wait to be sure they were done and started mentally counting. She got to 10, and suddenly the attack started up again. The angle had changed. The bullets impacted farther away from them. Whatever they were using it had a big magazine. She couldn't count the shots, but there were a lot of them. Then it stopped again.
She said, "Stay still, they may just be reloading or hoping we'll think they are done." She counted slowly to a hundred and twenty. When she heard nothing, she thought they were done. "Rick, she said louder than she intended, "where is your phone?"
To his credit, he seemed to adjust to what had just happened because he lifted his head, looked around, and said, "In those pants, over there, that look to be full of holes. They were new, new phone too. I bet its toast. I'm a phone's worst enemy."
In the middle of this nightmare, his coping mechanism and the intense physical effort to get him off the bed and over against the wall helped her overcome some of the adrenaline and think. Out loud she said, "I have no idea where mine is. My clothes might be in the office. I think they made it into the apartment at least." That last phrase was added for his benefit. The cop in her quickly surveyed their situation, and then sirens sounded. Rick started to speak, but she gently put a finger on his lips, listened, and then said, "I think those sirens are headed this way. There are too many of them to be random, and they are getting louder. I heard the sonic cracks from the bullets; the weapons were not silenced. That will have effectively called nine-one-one for us, but I want to make sure they know the fight's over before they get here."
"I hear them too," he said.
She replied, "Wait another thirty seconds to be sure they are gone, and we'll move to the closet for clothes, but no lights. Be careful, there could be glass everywhere. The drapes contained most of it, but they have some pretty big holes in them so it could be all over the floor." Rick nodded but didn't say anything.
"Okay, we move." As one, they carefully stood up in place. Kate could see glass reflecting on the floor in the now much brighter bedroom.
She took him by the hand, stepped carefully, and made it to his closet uninjured. He handed her one of his T-shirts and a pair of drawstring sweat pants, then a pair of flip-flops that would allow her to get over the glass if she walked carefully. Both of them wanted to be someplace else, like right freaking now.
Then they heard both of their cell phones and the house phone going off almost simultaneously.
Rick made it to his phone, took a look and said, "It's Gates," and answered it on the fourth ring, "Castle-"
###
That was as far as he got when he heard a very agitated Gates saying, "Mr. Castle, are you all right? We have heard from nine-one-one dispatch that your apartment was fired upon. Your neighbors called in automatic weapons fire and the sounds of breaking glass."
"Yes, Kate and I are shaken up, but neither of us was hit by bullets or flying glass."
"Detective Beckett is there?"
"Former Detective Beckett is here."
"Whatever. Ryan is at Police Commissioner Getz's apartment right now. Getz was tortured and killed last evening shortly after Beckett was beaten."
"What does that have to do with us?"
"I just got a package delivered by courier; the delivery was apparently set off by his being murdered. It contains a rather amazing bunch of files and a note to tell you Mr. Smith is dead. Just as I was getting ready to call, I got word that your apartment had been attacked with deadly force. There is more," she said, her voice growing in intensity," but who the hell is someone you know as Mr. Smith to you?" she practically raged at him over the phone.
"I'll tell you, but not over the phone, and not without Beckett being part of the conversation."
"Mr. Castle, answer me right now, who is this guy to you?"
"No. Not over the phone."
"Do you want me to place you under arrest for obstruction?"
"Don't even think about it. I can afford more lawyers than you can shake a stick at. I'm not refusing to tell you, just not over the phone. So get over here, or go to bed, I don't much care which you do." And he broke the connection.
He looked up to find Kate standing in the door looking at him, her face full of questions. The first one being, "Was that Gates?"
"Yup. I didn't like her attitude. She's not happy with me."
"I figured out you aren't happy with her either."
"No, she threatened to arrest me for obstruction when I wouldn't tell her who Mr. Smith was."
"Why did she want to know that?"
"It turns out he was Commissioner Getz, he was tortured and murdered last evening."
"Murdered?"
He saw the realization taking hold of her and moved quickly in her direction. Uncharacteristic of the Detective Beckett he had known, but fully in character for the new Kate of the last few hours, she let him approach and took one of his hands in hers. Then the other. Standing there, face to face, holding hands, he understood for the first time, really understood, clear to the middle of his soul, what they were to each other.
He said, "Tortured and murdered. He apparently had a failsafe in place; the files he was holding were couriered to Gates. I have no idea how he managed to do that in the middle of the night, but apparently he did. The courier had to have been triggered by someone who somehow learned in the middle of the night that something happened to him."
"Oh God! I've put us, you, your family, in terrible danger; this is just their first attempt. When they know it failed they will come after me again." She paused, he could see from her expression, the cute wrinkle over her nose between her eyes, and then she looked up eyes wide open and asked, "How would they even know I was here? Oh crap, this was them coming after you! Not me. We didn't even know we were 'us' until a few hours ago. They definitely could not have known I'd be here; they were after you."
Rick felt the first real fear of his life right then. Suddenly he felt almost blinding recognition of what she had been living with, what her scar reminded her of, every day for the last year. He knew how it felt to wake up every day and wonder why you hadn't been killed yet. She must have seen it in his face because she moved much closer, looked directly into his eyes and said, "Rick ... Rick! Look at me. Look at my eyes. Now."
He felt rather than saw her intensity, finally managed to focus on her eyes. When she saw she had his attention she said, "We will get through this. It's in the open now. Those bastards aren't going to steal the rest of my life like they stole the last thirteen years. It's my life, our lives. We do this together, we get the bastards."
He was relieved, frightened by her intensity, but reassured and hopelessly attracted to her, completely gone in love with her, the feeling made his hands shake, but he managed to get out, "We will, even if I have to hire a damn army of my own to take them out. We will crush them."
Kate threw her arms around his neck and pressed close against him. His arms responded on their own and folded around her waist to complete the hug. She flinched and cried out with pain, and he released her immediately. She reassured him saying, "Not you, I'm just really sore from the beating I got before I fell off the roof and was hanging from the ledge.
Rick said, "You're hurt?" eased her away and pulled up the T-shirt. Where they stood there was a stream of light and he could see a lot of bruising, so much that it made him wonder how she'd been able to tolerate what they'd done in bed.
She said, "I am really stiff and sore about everyplace, but nothing's broken, and even if it were, I'd still have wanted last night." She eased back into the hug; he very gently wrapped his arms back around her.
She hung on to him for a few moments, pulled back just enough for a quick kiss and said, "Us is so much better than just me."
"It certainly is," he replied, "but we need to get us more dressed. I invited Gates to come over. I expect her to take me up on my invitation, and that," he said referring to the loud knocking on the door, "is probably the nine-one-one response. I'll get the door."
Rick hurried when he saw the door vibrate with each knock. Concerned about a battering ram, he shouted between knocks, "I'm coming. I'm coming. I'm Rick Castle, the owner, everybody in here is uninjured." He got to the door, looked through the peephole to see a uniform, and shouted through the door, "I'm going to open the door now. It has lots of locks, hang on a second."
###
Kate watched Rick head for the front door. She expected the responding officers to be nervous, so she stood in the open, relaxed, hands in plain sight, and waited for Rick to let them in. She saw him confirm them through the peephole, then open the door. Kate recognized the first patrolman through the door, it was mutual, and he said, "Detective Beckett? ... Everything all right?"
She replied, "Officer Benton. Nobody here was hurt. The bedroom window is all shot out, the room was shot to pieces, but we were not hit." She felt self-conscious because she had just admitted she was in bed with Castle when it happened, but that wasn't going to be a secret for long at all anyway, so what the heck? Right? Yeah, right, she thought.
"Officer Benton, this is Rick Castle," she said to ease his apparent growing embarrassment.
She watched as the two men sized each other up. Rick, gentleman that he was, offered his hand, Benton took it.
Officer Benton asked, "What happened here?"
Rick looked at her, she answered, "We were asleep when the bedroom window exploded in a shower of glass. We reacted defensively; rolled out of bed to the floor and managed to get out of the line if fire by the time the second shot came through the window. Then automatic fire started, and we just stayed there covering as best we could to avoid being hit by fragments as the gunfire chewed the window and the bed where we had been sleeping to pieces."
"You were machine-gunned through the bedroom window, on the fourth floor?"
"Yes, if I'm right about the angle of the incoming rounds, it came from the adjacent rooftop or an apartment higher than this floor in the next building."
"Thanks Detective, yes, I'll call it in right now." Turning away, he keyed his shoulder mike and said, "Dispatch, Officer Benton on scene. Machine gun fired through a bedroom window possibly from the roof or near the roof of the adjacent building. Nobody injured. Residence owned by a Richard Castle. Detective Beckett was onsite when the shooting took place."
"Is Beckett on duty?"
"No, she is one of the victims in this case."
"Standby one."
Waiting for Dispatch to get back to him Benton looked at Beckett and said, "Sorry, I had to tell them you were here. Is there anybody else on the premises?"
"No, just us," Rick said.
Beckett asked, "Officer Benton, would you have someone clear the adjacent roof top? We don't want to go back in that room to get dressed until we know no more rounds are going to be incoming."
Nodding he keyed his mike again, saying, "Dispatch, please have officers clear the adjacent rooftop. Look for but don't touch anything that looks like it remains behind from a weapon that can deliver automatic fire."
Just then Officer Benton jumped as there was a knock on the open door behind him. Beckett said, "That looks like a courier to me, not a threat, Officer Benton."
The courier looked at her with relief and asked, "Is there a Richard Castle here?"
Rick, looking happy to be back involved said, "I'm Rick Castle."
"I have an Urgent Delivery package for you, sir. I need you to sign this receipt please?" the courier said as he held up a thick padded envelope to Rick. Rick handed it to Kate, freeing his hands to sign the machine the courier held out to him. The courier said with evident relief to have his mission over, "Thanks, I'm out of here."
Officer Benton moved to intercept him, and Beckett said, "Let him go, Officer, he's just the messenger, literally." Then she added, "Can you give Mr. Castle and me a moment alone please?"
Benton looked embarrassed and said, "Uh, sure, yes, Detective, I'll be right out in the hall."
When he was out of ear shot Kate said, "Rick, do you have a hidden safe we can put this in? It's from a Mr. Smith, and I don't want anything to happen to it before we have time to make a dozen copies and hide them all over the planet."
Rick immediately stepped toward her saying, "Yes, you are right, got it." He took the package and disappeared into his office.
###
Just then, Beckett's phone rang. Caller ID said it was Ryan. He said "Beckett?"
"Kevin, where are you?"
"Beckett, are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm at Castle's. Bedroom got shot to pieces, but we're not injured. You okay?"
"You're at Castle's?"
"Yes. We'll get into that later. You're okay." A statement this time.
"I'm fine. I'm still in commissioner Getz home office, but the patrol officers here know I work with you and told me your apartment was shot up, broken into, and generally trashed. The bed was shot to pieces apparently before they realized you weren't in it."
"That means they didn't know I was here. Castle is definitely a target too! Can you get word to whoever is in charge of the scene to call me?" she asked.
"It's Karpowski," he said, "You have her number?"
"Yes, I do. I'll call her. And Kevin?"
"Yes."
"You did the right thing yesterday. You were right, I was wrong. I owe you big time."
"Thanks Beckett. Thanks a lot. That helps a lot too. I wish Javi saw it that way."
"He will. Give him time. Watch your six. These guys might come after you too."
"Okay, got to go."
When the call ended, Kate checked her contact list, found Karpowski and touched the name.
Karpowski answered, "Beckett, you okay? Your bed was literally shot to pieces. I didn't see any blood so I was hoping. I'm so glad you weren't in it. Where are you?"
Kate stifled embarrassment, figured everybody would know by the end of the day, maybe by noon, and said, "I was at Castle's. His bed was shot to pieces, too, but we got out of it in time. We're all okay."
There was a pause, and then Karpowski said, "Uh ... got it. I'll make sure this gets locked down before I leave. Whoever did this wasn't taking any chances – looks like they picked your dimple key locks silently enough that they thought you wouldn't hear them. It takes a real pro to pick those locks. Apparently they couldn't see if there was anybody in the bed, so they just shot it up first, looked later. Nobody heard any shots, though I'd guess there were all of 60 holes in the bed, so it was probably a pair of silenced full autos of some sort shooting subsonic ammo. It was the noise of them trashing the apartment that got the neighbors attention."
Just then Officer Benton came back in to announce, "Captain Gates just arrived downstairs. The officers down there said to, 'dig a hole and crawl in, she's on the warpath'."
Kate smile at him and said, "She's always on the warpath. Compared to being down range from a machine gun, she's a piece of cake."
Benton grinned and said, "Well, when you put it that way ..."
Kate turned her attention back to the phone and said, "Thanks for the heads up, got to go," and broke the connection. She had a less than a minute to get herself ready to confront her ex-boss.
Benton's face reappeared in the door saying "I hear the elevator."
He turned as they both heard elevator doors in the hall way. Kate stepped to where she could see out the door and sure enough, there came Iron Gates looking more like bristling pillbox Gates.
Gates didn't bother to knock; she almost ran into Castle's apartment and stopped so abruptly her balance teetered. She didn't shout, but you could almost see the heat radiate from her words as she said, "Detective Beckett, what the hell is going on? Just in case you didn't know it, your apartment was broken into and shot to pieces as well, apparently they didn't know they had the wrong bed."
Kate noted there was a bit of sarcasm in the last phrase but didn't let it push any of her buttons. She needed to stay on mission if she was going to survive.
Gates waved a piece of paper with handwriting on it and demanded, "Why does this note," waving a piece of paper with handwriting on it "say he can't keep you safe anymore, that the plan isn't working, and that I'm on the hit list too? I just had to call my family and tell them I had a protective detail coming to watch over them and and to lock the doors and windows and not let anybody in till they call me to confirm they are who they say they are. Not to mention they are scared out of their minds."
Kate watched all this with surprising detachment. Welcome to club fear, Captain, sir, she thought, come on in. Get ready, you have no idea what's coming your way. This is going to get a hell of a lot less IAD black and white. How you going to deal with that? But all she said was, "Let me know when you are ready to listen."
Gates sputtered, "Don't you talk to me like that Detective, I'll-"
"What?" Kate cut her off with emphasis, then continued with an edgy intensity Gates had never heard from her before, "You'll do what? You won't do shit. You're really great at discipline problems. You toe the line, read the regulations and worry about what the boys down town will think of you. You're great at pitching things so you look good, but you absolutely suck at investigation, at understanding your people and motivating them. Right now you better hope that somebody in the unit is better at it than you are, or you are going to die. And when that happens, you will just look dead to the people downtown. Six second later they will look at each other and argue and exchange favors with each other in support of their favorite to replace you with. You stopped investigating this case almost a year ago because you were worried about how the budget would make you look. Well, how do you think getting all shot up will make you look?"
Kate almost felt sorry for Iron Gates. She turned purple, sucked in a breath and was just about to vent when Kate said, "And don't bother to threaten me, Captain. I resigned; I have a witness, Esposito. So just calm down, rake the scattered leaves of your self-respect up into a pile, put them back in the basket, and we can have a dialog about how to save your life just in case that's more important to you than how you look to the big wigs downtown."
Kate watched Gate struggle to get her emotions under control; she needed to turn on her professional persona, and she found it hard. Kate said more quietly, "I'll give you a moment; I'm going to make coffee. And just so you can get over it all at once, I'm calling Special Agent Jordan Shaw because I suspect there is a mountain of corruption behind this, and a lot of it is in the NYPD." She saw Gates winding up again and added, "I don't like you much, but I trust you. You may not be much of a Detective, but you are honest, and given a chance, I can work with that. But I don't trust the people you will have to go to to work this case, so I'm calling Shaw. I trust her too. And she owes me a big one." With that she turned and walked away leaving Gates speechless.
Kate grabbed the bag of Columbian beans off the shelf because they were the easiest to reach, measured them into the grinder, turned it on, put a filter in the Big BUNN coffee maker that was plumbed into the water system through a filter, and flipped it to on. She picked it because it was fast and she needed caffeine badly in her sleep deprived state. Hell of a day didn't begin to describe it she thought.