This little idea just came to me tonight out of the blue. Hopefully it's better than I think it is because I'm totally out of practice when it comes to writing Castle fic and I've never written anything quite like this before.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not yours. Definitely Milmar's.
The mark appears at dawn on her eighteenth birthday, the pain of it burning into her skin pulling her from sleep, and she stumbles down the hallway to her parent's room in her fit of excitement. She knows it's a blessing, not everyone was lucky enough to get the mark. Her mother's cold fingers trail over the wounded skin as she traces the letters that spelled out the name of her daughter's soulmate and the girl giggles, giddy with the idea of love being on her horizon. "Oh Katie," her mother croons in the early morning light. "I am so happy for you."
Three months after her nineteenth birthday she takes a knife and drags it through that stupid mark. Blood oozes from the wound and she smears it with her fingers, covering up the name of her fated one. Three weeks ago they buried her mother and nothing felt even close to fine; her father hadn't been sober in more than a month, since they came home that night to Detective Raglan waiting for them. He had slipped into the bottle slowly until he was fully ensconced and Kate wasn't sure if she'd ever see him come out of it alive.
"Love," she scoffs. "What a fucking joke." With her father's hunting knife, she adds a second cut to further obscure the name scrawled across her ribs. She's careful, not stupid; it's a very topical wound, she's not suicidal, but like hell is she ever going open her heart up to that kind of wound ever again Her father's too drunk to care when his underage daughter pours herself a tumbler full of whiskey and sips at it to the dull the pain of the wound hidden under her shirt and several layers of bandaging. If only she could cut her mother out of her father, maybe then he'd be able to heal.
The wound heals, scars over, Richard scrawled in flowing script with two thick angry lines scratched through his name across the side of her ribcage. She pushes it out of her mind, not wasting valuable time thinking about a man she would never look for, never allow herself to love if he by chance stumbled into her life. Instead she throws herself into her new goal: finding her mother's killer.
In the academy, she hones herself into a killer – no feelings, no letting anyone past her walls. She's not celibate. There are men and she takes them with a control she'll never surrender. But she never allows herself to waste tears on them when they leave in the morning. One or two stick around for awhile but eventually she drives them away and that's fine, it suits her better this way. Alone. Solitude. Her father still lost to the siren call of alcohol and her mother six feet under now grown over dirt.
Kate Beckett only cares about one thing: revenge.
Roy Montgomery pulls her back, just ever so slightly – just enough to keep her at bay, keep her from diving headfirst into a situation that will get her killed. The man cares and she's not sure why but he helps her. Helps her step away from her mother's murder. Helps her father get clean.
She's still angry and closed off but she's not driven to the point of digging her own grave any longer.
And then he walks into her precinct.
Or, rather, she drags him there in handcuffs.
Richard freaking Castle.
She's in the middle of interrogating him because those murders from his books are happening all over her city and she'll be damned if she doesn't get to the bottom of it when all of a sudden she's doubled over in pain. Esposito comes in and takes over for her while Ryan drags her from the room and she protests, she can complete the interview, but then she's nearly brought to her knees by the pain in her side. Breaking away from Ryan, she rushes into the bathroom and locks the door before hiking up her shirt to observe her side. "No," she groans as she rubs her hand over her side. "No. No. No."
The scars have been erased and the faded ink has been replaced with new and vibrant black: Richard, in bold lettering. Fucking figures, she thinks, that her mother's favorite author and her potential suspect would be her damned fated one.
When the boys have cleared him of any wrong doing, she signs his release papers and is escorting him to the elevators when he quickly pushes her into the stairwell and she's grateful for the landing that keeps her from tumbling down the steps. "Hey," she growls. "You just got cleared of murder but I'll gladly arrest your ass for assaulting a cop."
"It's your mark," he tells her as he undoes the buttons of his shirt.
She frowns. "Do you want me to add indecent exposure to your rap sheet?"
"It's already on there," he tells her. Then he pulls his button down to one side and she sees the mark, her breath hitches in her throat and she stumbles back from him. "Katherine. That's your name, right? Detective Katherine Beckett."
"Fuck off," she orders and tries to shove past him.
"Your mark says Richard, doesn't it?" He doesn't move. He's a brick wall.
"Don't have one."
He smirks. "You're a terrible liar, detective."
"So what if I have one," she protests, aggravated and wondering if Montgomery would fire her if she shot the writer. "I don't believe in love."
"You're marked." He looks gleeful and she wants to smack the smirk from his scruffy face. He reaches to brush the hair from her face but she steps back with arms crossed over her abdomen. "We're fated ones. How can you not believe in that? It's written on your skin!"
"Look, Ri-... Castle." Kate sighs. "Even if I'm your fated one... You don't want me to be, trust me. I'm a human tornado. Your best bet is to just get the hell out of my way. Go find one of the unmarked one and make their dreams come true, your dreams come true, because it'll never happen with me."
He observes her for a moment and it's unnerving but she doesn't step away this time when he steps up to her and brushes his lips over the shell of her ear. "We'll see about that, detective."
"No," she corrects him. "We won't."
But she's not even a little surprised, though totally aggravated, to see him waiting in her captain's office the following morning and the most aggravating part is that she's not totally upset at the idea of him being there.