A/N: This is a slightly belated fill for the ThankYouTerri Campaign, written by myself and Lou (lousiemcdoogle).
Disclaimer: We do not own Castle or the characters borrowed from the show for this story.
Meg's A/N: Lou, I had the best time writing this with you. Few times in life I have clicked with someone in a way that I have no doubt means I was meant to have them in my life. You are one of those people and I value our friendship more than you will ever know. Thank you for allowing me to write this with you. Dia and Kate, I am still so thankful that I got the chance to know you two lovely ladies. ThankYouTerri was an amazing thing to be a part of. Thank you for all you did and still do.
Lou's A/N: Meg, you are an absolute daisy, a treasure, and a sweetheart, and it has been an absolute pleasure to work with you on this fic. Also, Dia and Kate, even now, ages later, I'm still blown away by what you wonderful ladies were able to accomplish through this campaign. You both make me proud to be a Castle fan, and your friend.
Prompt and TYT info will follow at the end.
Also, this is set in the future. :)
Initial Attraction
She noticed the initials for the first time when she inspected the apartment – a KB carved clearly into the wall. Something about those simple initials struck a chord within her; someone had loved this apartment enough to live life here, to call it home.
It was exactly what she needed.
With her eyes on those initials, she turned to the real estate agent.
"I'll take it," she said.
Elizabeth first noticed him in the middle of her second week, as she was collecting her mail. He had an infuriating smirk as he held the elevator for her, and when he got off at the same floor as her, she was worried he was some kind of deranged stalker – only he stopped at 3C, fished out a key, and went inside.
She carried on down to 3G, sorting through her mail, shaking off the memory of her neighbor's twinkling brown eyes as she opened her apartment.
Throwing down her bag, she picked up the only envelope that looked like it contained something important.
One glance at the law firm's letterhead at the top of the page confirmed its contents.
Her divorce was finalized.
She was finally free of the lying, cheating bastard.
She felt like she should feel joy, or sorrow, or... something. This apartment was too quiet, though. She had to learn to live again.
Glancing up, her eyes strayed to the KB carved into the wall.
Once again, she found herself wondering who put it there, what the story was.
The following week, she bumped into her neighbor again – literally, in the basement laundry room.
Her dirty washing wound up scattered across the floor as he caught her elbows to steady her.
"Falling for me already, I see," he said with a roguish smile.
Against her better judgment, they started talking. Or, rather, he did. She had no escape until the machine was started, and while he had obviously been on the way out of the laundry room as she entered, he showed no sign of leaving any time soon.
"You moved in on the 25th, right? Be thankful that the Rodriguez's in 3E have been visiting her mother for the past couple of weeks. When they get going, they have some roaring arguments. They're the reason the lawyer who lived in your place before you moved out."
She pursed her lips, trying not to get suckered into conversation with this talkative stranger with the piercing brown eyes.
Even if he was a little attractive. A tiny bit.
Men are lying, cheating bastards, she reminded herself.
For the first time since her bastard husband had taken off with that walking cliché he called his secretary, she found herself doubting her mantra.
Talking to this guy was just... being neighborly, right?
"What was the lawyer's name?" she asked, the image of those carved initials appearing in her mind.
"Liam Chesterfield," he replied. "I have his forwarding address if you get any of his mail."
"Thank you," she replied, disappointed. Not the KB of the carving, then.
"I keep track of most people who live on our floor. Been here 15 years." It didn't look like this guy was going to stop talking any time soon. She had to keep reminding herself that he was annoying.
"So what's your story, anyhow? A lovely lady like you, in the prime of life...?" he slid himself onto the machine next to hers, making himself comfortable and kicking his feet like a child.
She shrugged. This may be New York, but it's good to get to know your neighbors, right?
"I'm Elizabeth," she replied in her usual clipped tone.
"That's a lovely name, I'm Daniel."
She gave him a half-smile and then began dropping her clothes into the washer. He waited patiently until she was finished. Once the washer was properly set and turned on she faced him again and propped her hip against one of the dryers.
"I guess you're waiting for the rest of my story?" she quipped with a smirk.
"What can I say; a person's story is what separates them from everyone else. So Elizabeth, what makes you who you are?"
She shook her head. There was nothing remotely exciting about her life story, but if he was asking she might as well tell him. At least he was someone to talk to.
"I'm divorced—or well, as of a week ago I am."
He nodded in understanding, offering her an 'I'm sorry'.
"Don't be," she replied. "He was an ass and I'm glad to be rid of him."
"Can I ask what happened?"
He was serious when he asked about her story, huh?
"Short story is, he ran off with his secretary after our daughter was killed in a car accident. My son blamed me for everything so he moved to the West coast and I haven't heard from him since."
He nodded in understanding, but remained quiet.
"Any more questions?" she asked.
"I don't really know what to say. I'm terribly sorry that you had to go through all of that."
"It is what it is," she shrugged.
They remained silent for several minutes, neither knowing where to take the conversation next.
"For what it's worth, my high school sweetheart broke my heart and left me in pieces. I wasn't sure I'd ever get over her."
She studied him before answering. "Are you now?"
She wasn't sure what made her ask him something like that, but there was something about him.
"I think I'm finally to a point where I could let someone else in, but I'd have to be sure of it, you know?"
She nodded again. "Yes, definitely.
Their conversation stayed relatively light after that, and by the time Elizabeth's clothes were washed and dried, her mood was significantly lighter and she had even laughed a few times. Daniel was handsome, intelligent, and humorous, and he made her feel things that she hadn't felt for a long time.
It scared her to think that she could actually like him.
Their friendship grew, often running into each other in the hall and winding up at his place or hers for an extended conversation, and Elizabeth began to feel like she had when she first started dating her ex-husband. She was still cautious, guarded, but she found herself wanting to let Daniel in. He was fun, easy going and she liked that.
He noticed the initials the first time he came over, and many of the nights they migrated to her apartment were spent spinning stories on what the 'KB' could stand for. They'd tried everything they could think of to find a lead, but every effort had been shut down.
One night, Daniel had brought over his address book and found the name of the tenant who had lived there before Liam Chesterfield. Her name was Sophia Clark, but the number that Daniel had for her was no longer in service and they had no luck in tracking her down. It was just as well, as Sophia's initials didn't match the KB, either.
Two months of searching and wondering passed, and Elizabeth had just about given up. She often paused by the initials and let herself spin a tale of how they came to be there, but she had accepted that she may never know the real story.
It seems fate had a different plan.
The knock sounded loudly through the otherwise quiet apartment early that Saturday morning. Elizabeth had just stepped out of the shower and had to throw her sopping wet hair into a bun as she scrambled to get to the door.
She swung it open to reveal an elderly lady and a much younger looking girl that she assumed could be her granddaughter.
"Hello dear, I was looking for Kate Beckett. Is she here?"
"Oh, um no sorry. My name is Elizabeth, I moved in here about two months ago."
The older woman sighed and gave her a soft smile. "I figured it was a long shot on finding her here. Seventeen years is quite a while for a young woman like her to stay put in one place."
Elizabeth shook her head as the woman's words began to fill in the history of the previous mystery tenant of this apartment. "I'm sorry, who did you say you were looking for?"
"Her name was Katherine Beckett, although most knew her as either 'Kate'. She was a homicide detective that lived in this apartment. I lived a few doors down and she always took time out of her busy schedule to check on me and make sure I was doing alright. In fact, she was like a daughter to me. My son decided to move to Chicago and he didn't want to be far away from me, so I moved with him. I'm here visiting with my granddaughter and I just thought I'd take a chance on catching Ms. Beckett. It would have been lovely to see her again."
As soon as Elizabeth was able to shut the door, she called Daniel, leaving him an excited message when he didn't pick up.
An hour later, there was a knock on the door and he came bursting in, his arms laden.
"I've found her," he said excitedly.
"What? How?" Elizabeth asked, watching him dump the armload of books and posters on the table. He picked up one of the posters and opened it for her to see.
"Senator Kate Beckett!" she gasped.
Daniel picked up one of the books. "I remembered reading a blurb about her around election time. She's married to Richard Castle, the novelist, so I picked up a few of his books to see – turns out, he wrote a whole series using her as his main character. Now that's the way to romance a girl! Apparently he used to follow her around when she was just a police officer, and they fell in love."
"Sounds like quite the story," Elizabeth replied, looking through the campaign information at the beautiful, smiling woman who was at the center of the mystery.
"Just goes to show you can never predict where love will find you," Daniel said. Elizabeth looked up to find his eyes on her, intent.
"Daniel..." she began, but he shook his head.
"It's too soon, I know. One story at a time, eh?" he asked sadly. "Now, look at this dust jacket. It says Richard Castle still lives with his wife, Senator Beckett, and their three children here in New York. That's where she moved to, you see?"
"This campaign booklet says she became a cop when her Mom was murdered, and she still has a strong sense of justice. I knew there was a reason I voted for her," Elizabeth said.
"So she lived here as a cop, and then fell in love with a famous writer – so of course when they got married, she moved to his place," Daniel mused.
"But she spent so much time alone after her Mother's death – she was clearly still grieving – so this apartment became her place of solitude, of safety. That's why she needed to leave her mark here when she left," Elizabeth picked up the tale.
Daniel nodded. "And to give future tenants a reminder that these rooms are a haven for the grieving, a place to grow into something more than just a vessel of the past."
Elizabeth's eyes spilled over at that, and he caught her in his arms, cradling her to him. He made ridiculous soothing sounds, shushing her as he stroked her back, and she couldn't stop the slightly hysterical giggle that bubbled up through her tears.
He almost looked offended when she pulled back enough to look up at him, but it was belied by the twinkle in his eye. She palmed his cheek affectionately.
"I want to be more than my divorce, Daniel. I want to live again. Will you help me?"
"Always," he replied, claiming her mouth for the first time.
Six months later, the Castle family was just sitting down to dinner at the loft when the doorbell rang. Castle looked at his wife, who shrugged. Sighing, he stood, and crossed to the door to find a pair of strangers holding hands and looking at him with nervous anticipation.
The woman spoke, her voice rich and cultured. "Richard Castle? You don't know us, and neither does your wife – but she's the reason we found one another. It's a long story, but in honor of the 'KB' that she left behind, initials that bore a love story I never imagined, we'd like to invite you both to our wedding," she said.
Prompt - A few years from now, a newcomer in the city of New York moves in this gorgeous apartment and finds the letters KB carved on the stairs. He/she decides to try and discover the story behind those 2 letters. Prompted by (xfcastle)
Filled as a gift to (HawkGal08) for her generous contribution to YoungStoryTellers dot com slash ThankYouTerri. See all the prompt fills at ThankYouTerri dot tumblr dot com.