Body Without a Soul

Castle stood at the doorway to Kate's shattered apartment, peering past the yellow crime scene tape. He was dressed for dirty work (no, the other kind of dirty work): an old jacket, a somewhat baggy pair of Carharts, and a forest green Henley. He carried a bag of cannoli and a cup of coffee, and a small duffel.

He recognized the uni. "Hey, Pirelli, you mind if I come in?" He held out the cup and bag. Pirelli, a middle-aged fellow with a strong resemblance to a scaled-up Danny DeVito, raised the tape. "Where's Detective Beckett?" The cannoli and coffee were deposited promptly into his tender care.

"Shopping." Rick paused, absentminded, looking around at the shambles. He and Beckett had already retrieved a few things, but she didn't have the heart to pull cinders and splinters out of her wardrobe. Worst: the shoes were a thing of the past, nearly all of them unrecognizable. And she still thought her father's watch was missing. He'd already spirited that away to the repair shop. "My mom took her shopping. For clothes."

Pirelli grinned. "No offense, but I seen your mom. She'll probably wind up looking like Big Bird."

Castle pulled himself together and grinned back. "Nah. If anyone can override my mother's abysmal sartorial judgment, that will be Kate."

Pirelli glanced around the devastated living space. "What're you lookin' for?" Hundreds of books and all of Kate's living room furniture were blown to smithereens. Cold mid-winter sunlight streamed through the hole blown in the wall. Castle was glad nobody in the next-door apartment had been home. Kate's kitchen was gone altogether.

Castle pulled a small notebook, a box of #10 envelopes, and a large ziplock back out of his duffel. "I'll know it when I see it." He donned some kneepads, and then some gloves. Pirelli sat on his stool and waited for the door replacement crew to come.

Four hours later, the door in its frame had been replaced, and the Super had given Rick a key to lock up and turn in. Rick was now coated with a layer of soot and had to pick glass shards out of his hands several times, but he left with a smile. The insurance actuary showed up as he was leaving. "Excuse me," she said sharply. "What's in the bag?"

Castle held out the notepad.

"Books. It's quite a list." She took a glance at the torn, charred slips of paper in the bag, then smiled at him. "Just make sure I get a copy for insurance purposes. Saves everyone the time and effort. Okay?"

He nodded. "Will do."

•
Really, he didn't have time, and he hated messing around with paste. He still had boxes of family photos he'd never bothered to put into frames or scrapbooks. But he had a friend whose mom was into scrapbooking, and pulled in a favor.

•

Once Kate found her new apartment, he helped her move in. Together they brought over what few possessions had made it from her apartment to his loft, plus the haul from her shopping trips with Martha. He helped Beckett get some things from her storage space – finally got to see her Harley, but she refused to let him take a picture of her sitting on it. She smirked, "No creepy staring, Castle." And while she worked at the precinct, he hung out waiting for the cable guy to come and the fridge to be delivered. He tried just to be a good friend. And, since she'd lost nearly everything, he was glad not to have the temptation to snoop too much.

They were both at her new apartment when her bedroom furniture was delivered. He stayed out of the delivery guys' way although he was itching to help and direct. He stuffed down the urge to make lecherous, teasing suggestions about breaking it in. He really was on his best behavior. It worried her a little, until she realized he was just trying to keep her from throwing him out.

They stood in her brand-new, nearly empty living room. There were a few naked bookshelves, and the stairs going up to her snug little upstairs storage cubby were empty.

The room echoed a little as she sighed, "Body without a soul."

"Room without books?" he smiled sadly.

"Yeah. I guess I've answered that hypothetical 'what would I save from a burning building?' question." She huffed, somehow let down at her own inability to transcend the speed of a fireball. Shamefaced. "My own skin."

Castle chuckled softly. She glanced over at him. "And we also know what you would save from a burning building."

He opened his mouth and closed it again, the light soft in his blue eyes. He swallowed a lump in his throat and turned to look out the window at her new view, which was marginally worse than the old one. "We've seen a lot of dead people. Bodies without souls."

She nodded, but didn't really understand what he was getting at. It was hard for him to talk about, this fear in him. Sometimes it was low-grade, a tiny niggling simmer. Sometimes it screamed in his mind, that Kate had a job that could kill her. That she might die, alone, and never know that he loved her. And did she love him? He had no idea.

He wanted an idea.

She said, "How about if we ordered some Chinese?"

"Sounds good," he breathed, happy to be off the hook. She got on the phone, and he retreated into his own thoughts. He'd felt so much better when she was living at the loft with his family. Now she was on her own again, with no one to watch over her. The explosion kept playing in his head, over and over, waking and sleeping. He didn't remember flying up the stairs, or pushing through the crowd of neighbors in the hallway. He had a vague glimpse of the half-shattered door, edges crawling with red sparks and tiny slithering flames

He'd imagined her dead. Anticipated finding pieces of her. Not so far-fetched. That was one hell of a blast.

That was when he married her. Just before he broke the door down. She wouldn't realize that until years later, that he was in it forever. And she hadn't seen that for what it was, hadn't heard the desperation in his voice when he burst into her bathroom, out of his mind with fear. For her. That realization that if she died, he'd be a room without books, forever. "Yes, Rick. It's all about you."

He only barely remembered breaking the door down – although it had been partially shattered, so it was relatively easy, with the adrenaline and all...

He kept feeling that if he could only put the experience in order, the anxiety would give up and go away. He tried to piece it together like a puzzle, but it kept flaming out from the middle, like that old map in Bonanza.
1) Explosion.
2) Crossing the street, running up the stairs to her apartment
3) Door.
4) Falling through, into her apartment, so damaged it offered little fuel left to burn.
5) Kate, in the bathtub, surprisingly small, like a wet kitten, and dazed and naked. He kidded about it, but it was only to hide his own terror.

She didn't yet have a sofa or dining set, just one chair Ryan scrounged off a street corner for temporary seating. One mustn't eat on a brand new bed, that's like kicking a seething nest of spill-probability. They ate Chinese seated on the floor in the living room, as is customary for those who move to new digs in New York. They made small talk. He groaned a little when it was time to stand up and leave. He said, "I should have worn my knee-pads."

She cocked an eyebrow, trying to figure out whether that could be taken as flirtation. But no, he just seemed rueful. Sad. Her eyebrow gave up and relaxed its vigil.

"Castle," she said. "Thanks for everything."

He looked around her painfully bare apartment. "You're always welcome back at the loft, if it gets too quiet here."

She glanced over at some stacked boxes – papers and such. Evidence from her mom's case was in there, third box down, second from the left, marked only "M" for Mom. She had put it in storage to keep temptation at bay. Taken it out for her new apartment. Maybe a quick look... "Oh," she sighed. "I'll have plenty to fill up my time. And my new stereo should be delivered tomorrow. I'll crank it up loud."

He nodded. "Until tomorrow then."

She nodded.

•

The next day her building super had two packages for her. One was the stereo. Another was a Priority Mail package from one Richard Castle. She opened that first.

It was a scrapbook. The first page had a list:

The Late, Lamented
Kate Beckett Library: First Editions

1. In a Hail of Bullets...

and it continued on down, all the way through his current Nikki Heat. There were other books listed as well. Some had belonged to her mom, some were books from Kate's childhood and teens. That had been their thing: Johanna and Katie, going to book signings, eating cookies together in line, drinking cocoa or lattes or Italian sodas, meeting authors. A mommy-and-me thing so much better than getting mani-pedis or going to the movies. Talking, and waiting, and reading together.

Kate turned to the next page and gasped. It had fragments of the front page of Castle's first book, the one she'd gotten from her mother. It wasn't all there, of course, and some of the edges were burnt, but there was enough:

In A Hail of Bullets

by

Richard Castle

Black Pawn Books, 19-

First Editi-

To Johanna:

-ope this lives up to your high expe-
Thanks for coming to the re-

Richard Castle

Kate paged through. He hadn't found all of them, but he'd found most of them. Had them pieced back together. Dedications from her mom's books, her books. "Johanna." "Johanna – apparently you're a glutton for punishment. Thanks for reading!" "For Katie." "For Johanna, who never gives up, even on me. Richard Ca-" "Make it Kate."

Their books.

When she'd done crying, and she thought she could speak without utterly losing it, she phoned him.

"Hey."

"Hey," he said, and she could tell he heard something ragged in her voice. She tried to reassure him, although he didn't ask.

"I'm, I'm fine, Castle."

He didn't seem to know what to do with that. "Good. That's good."

"I got your package."

He just waited. Would she be pissed he'd gone snooping through the fragments of her life? He said, "I wrote so many dedications. I wish I could say I really remember her. I almost do. I wasn't sure. The signings are always such a blur."

She was trying not to cry. "Thank you. It's... it's even better than the watch."

She heard him release a breath, and realized he'd been holding it. "I'm glad you like it. If you want, I can get ahold of new copies for you. Although 'Hell Hath No Fury' wound up in remainder. So that one might not have a front cover." What he really wanted to say was "Come live with me and be my love. My books are your books."

She chuckled. "Only if you can get them on discount. I wouldn't want to break the bank."

"Not to worry. I know a guy."

"I do too. I know... I know the most – amazing – wonderful guy."

"You do?"

"Yeah, Castle. I do. I know you."

"Say that again?"

"I know you."

He was quiet, just a moment, soaking those words in. He thought he'd been teasing, wishing for her banter: 'What, you want me to say I do? In your dreams, WriterBoy.'

She never seemed to mean what he thought he wanted her to mean. Always a surprise, this Kate Beckett-woman. He said, "Hey, there's a book fair this weekend, Friends of the New York Library... are you busy?"

"I am now," she said.

After their goodbyes, he thought her words over and smiled bitterly to himself.

I know you.

She had no idea.