It started out just like any other day in the hustle and bustle of New York City for homicide detective Kate Beckett. She was already up before the alarm even went off and dressed, her father's watch strapped to her wrist and her mother's ring around her neck on a think silver chain.

Making her way to her small kitchen space, Kate passes her enormous bookshelf filled with novels of all kinds, some holding more meaning than others. Once in the kitchen, she busies herself with making coffee, the decent kind. The vile liquid at the precinct was nowhere near what coffee should taste like. Of course, in dire situations when Kate had to spend her nights shoveling paperwork, the "coffee" was good enough to choke down and keep her focused. However, if it was avoidable, Kate would make her own and make it last as long as possible. After pouring her own brew into a stainless steel coffee mug, Beckett grabbed her blazer off the coat hook and was out the door.

As usual, Detective Beckett was the first to enter the bullpen, her desk welcoming her with even more paperwork. If someone would have told her fifteen years ago that she would be filing paperwork on a drug deal gone wrong, Katherine Houghton Beckett would have thought you were crazy.

At the age of fifteen, Kate had no idea where he life was really headed but she knew she was smart enough to get into a good college. She didn't know what career would really suit her, but she still wanted to make her parents proud. Of course this wasn't an easy thing to see in Kate at the time, as most of her decisions ended in her mother Johanna saying, "I told you so." Kate at the time hated hearing it, but now what she wouldn't give to hear from her mother again.

When Kate was eighteen, right around Christmas time, the whole Beckett family planned on going out for diner. Katie was in from Stanford and the small family needed some catching up to do. Jim, Kate's father, and Kate arrived at the restaurant a tad bit early. They waited patiently for a while and Johanna never showed. Jim and Kate figured she must have forgotten or gotten tied up at work somehow. However, upon returning home a detective was waiting for them.

Johanna Beckett was stabbed and killed in an alleyway. She bled out in a pile of garbage, all alone. Time after that seemed like a haze to Kate. Her father turned to the bottle and went to a dark place that Kate prayed he would never return to. She remembered the initial sadness and hurt of it all, but there was something else amongst all this. A certain clarity. Kate Beckett would find justice for her mother's murder. She dropped out of college and joined the police academy.

Her usual wild outings with friends stopped along with much of any other social interaction. She instead spent her time going through her mother's things trying to find some connection to her even though she was long gone. Amongst these things, she held two of them most dear. The first was the ring she now wears around her neck. The second was her mother's book collection, mostly mystery-crime novels. A majority of them were Richard Castle novels. In hopes of connecting with her mom, she read each of them cover to cover and became a fan herself.

However, it was still no distraction. Her life revolved around solving her mother's case to the point where it changed her, defined her. With Jim absent from her life at the bottom of the bottle, Kate was driven and made detective faster than any other woman in the history of the NYPD.

Once there, Beckett had here fair share of embarrassing moments, mainly being caught by the Captain when she was looking at her mother's case when she had not yet earned the rank to do so. However, Captain Roy Montgomery saw the potential she had and assigned her to a team that helped her to excel in her work.

Javier Esposito had seen a lot before ever going to the 54th precinct. As a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, Espo had been through reckless missions and seen a lot of death. Upon coming to the NYPD, he suffered from PTSD but managed to beat the disorder himself. He lost a partner at the 54th precinct and shortly after this he was directed to the 12th. There, he became a homicide detective.

Beckett and Espo hit it off immediately. Espo knew that there was some deep drive to Beckett's work, but he knew better than to pry about it. He made jokes when he could, but never questioned Beckett about her past. She felt like a big brother was watching over her at all times, which was not really a bad thing.

Then came Kevin Ryan from narcotics. He was a cute little guy, but he looked nervous all the time and never really sure of himself. Beckett and Espo gave him hell for a while but in no time at all were they a small little precinct family.

However, Kate constantly reminded herself to not get too close… They may end up dead in an alley too. She never let anyone in anymore, not even her best girlfriend the M.E., Lanie Parish. The thought of going through all of that pain again…

Morbid thoughts like these ran through Beckett's mind on a daily basis. Her guard was up at all times, and with every case she caught, she worked tirelessly to get the victim justice. She couldn't find it for her mother so she would find it for others.

Kate spent endless hours researching, studying, and tearing apart her mother's case. Many meals were left uneaten and many hours were spent awake in a caffeine haze reading files. There was no end to the case. No leads. No suspects. Hell it wasn't even Kate's case…

When too much time had passed and the real investigation team found no other leads, Beckett had to take a step back. It wasn't easy but with time Beckett found her way out of the rabbit hole she had fallen so deeply into. Johanna Beckett's murder was claimed an act of gang violence.

And now at her desk, Kate began to sift through all of the documents laid out before her. She was close to halfway through the stack when her phone rang.

"Beckett."

"Yo Beckett we got a fresh one." Esposito began to fill her in on the location, which left Beckett stunned. This would be no ordinary case.