Author's note: This idea came to me some time ago on reading other future AU-fan fiction. It didn't want to let me go, but instead demanded to be written, so here it is.

In the way of telling I wanted to try alternating POVs with every chapter. Throughout the story most of them will be Kate's, and besides the usual characters turning up, there will be new one's POVs told as well to give the story its unique perspectives.

The first chapters will mostly be about catching up on what happened the past decade, since their ways have been parted, and to set up the background for the story. For Castle to make his appearance (and having his POVs too) I need to ask you to be patient. But be assured he will turn up - eventually. Just stick with me.

Since I'm not a native speaker and this is my very first fan fiction I'd ask you to be gentle but I would love to read about your opinion and suggestions on the story.

I'm also interested on a beta to help me with grammar and ideas. If someone happens to be interested, let me know!

Last but not least I'd like to thank AlwaysextraordinaryMuse and especially for giving tipps, encouraging me to publish this story and in fact helping me to do so.

Disclaimer: I certainly do neither own the show nor any of the characters, but do only borrow them to play out my little story here.


Chapter 1 – Chance Encounter

Kate's POV

Tuesday, May 4th 2021

When Kate entered her apartment building the doorman gave her a friendly nod „Mrs. Davidson." She greeted back by waving at him.

"Something on, Wolfgang?"

"Nope, Ma'am." The mid-fifties Austrian was a friendly and reliable guy that had been working here ever since the day she had moved in about nine years ago.

She remembered when he had given her a hand with all her boxes, while she had been devastated that very day. She had been right in the middle of her divorce when she had decided to find a new apartment as quickly as possible. Luckily she found this one right away, which clearly wasn't what one could expect in Manhattan at all. Normally she would have had to hire a real-estate agent who would have been looking for months or even years to find an affordable apartment in a decent neighborhood. Instead it only took her some weeks to get this one. It had been great and she had been grateful for being able to move. She had been staying with her father after the break up with Josh, but she had desperately needed a place for her own to start a new life. More than eight years had passed ever since and she still was happy with her home. It was her haven to come to when life or the job was tough on her.

Kate sighed. It had been one of these days again. Ever since she got that promotion and transferred to her new position as the head of the 21st precinct, she had realized that her new job had more to do with politics and less with being a cop. And Kate, clearly, was no politician at all, but obviously she had no choice as to become one.

Sometimes she wondered why she even got promoted in the first place. Without being modest, she knew, that she had been good at her job as detective, maybe even the best. Her leading skills had been broadly acknowledged, so it would have been unlikely to hold her promotion too long. Her bosses knew she was a dedicated cop engaged to the job with all her heart and soul, so it had to happen eventually.

Still, sometimes she longed for those days when she only was a detective leading her own team, one case at a time. She missed to work the field, since she only got to join one of her teams every now and then, due to her current position. She missed that satisfying feeling, when they were able to close a case and tell the relatives that they got the guy, who was sent to jail to suffer for the crime committed. She missed bringing closure to the victim's families. She missed going for some drink to celebrate with her boys after work when they had succeeded. But as a captain she couldn't do that anymore. For Montgomery it had been possible to do it, but she surely couldn't. She was now able to understand her former Captain Iron Gates way better than she could back then. Not only was she younger than a whole lot of her detectives, but she also was a woman. It had never been easy to be a female detective especially until she had settled in with her immediate teammates, but being Captain and the head of the precinct took the game to a whole new level.

She knew she posed a threat to some of her men at the 21st. It was hard for them to have a woman for boss, especially since they didn't know her from before. So it was important to her to keep it up right away from the start. She needed them to respect her to do her job properly. Only if they took her seriously they would be able to accept her eventually and develop their loyalties towards her. It was vital to the work on the force that she could trust her men and they trusted her as boss. So she did her best. She didn't force herself on the cases of her teams to make sure they didn't fear her to be watching all too closely. At the same time she worked hard to keep up with all that was going on at the precinct to show them who was in control, while she also did more paperwork than ever before.

And as if that wouldn't be enough, she had to go to all too boring meetings nearly every second day. Today was the worst ever. She had been preparing for weeks. After two hours of pleading, pointing out her reasons, trying to offer some sort of compromise and pulling all her cards, she had gotten the strong impression of fighting for a lost cause which had been decided about prior to her arrival anyway. But it also seemed like she had lost her touch.

Obviously her stubborn attitude of not being willing to back down must have impressed the Commissioner somehow. He had finally offered her a six month trial run on the requested cold case unit provided that she picked a crew of three to four Detectives and supporting uniforms within a two week period and engaged herself in building that unit while evaluating its success or failure thoroughly. Kate had been ordered to report back at least every month and to file her final report by the end of November. The results of that evaluation would be vital to the decision whether or not a cold case unit should be installed permanently at the 21st.

Now her prepared plans only needed to be put into action. She already had some guys for her unit in mind. The request for a transfer of Detective Hastings, still working at the 12th, had been filed already. Beside that, she intended to offer the position of lead Detective to Ryan but needed yet to ask him about it. With Harris and Rodriguez, two seniors working Homicide at the 21st, there was a team of partners who's records clearly showed a huge amount of endurance in pursuing and solving cases long after they would have been declared of being cold. Their persistence would add not only the needed power to her unit, but also a lot of experience with working cold cases.

Yeah, it had definitely been one of those days. To be honest it actually had been a hell of a week. Maybe she should go on a girls night out or get her bike to spend some time on the road. She hadn't done that in ages or it may have only felt so. But she needed to get out for some time.

She was considering to call Lanie when the sound of the elevator bell snapped her out of her thoughts. She began moving towards the doors, which were about to slide open.

"Wait! You're not going alone." She turned her head at the voice of a young woman behind her. "Nathaniel Thomas Walker!" The woman called at the same moment when Kate felt a small hand grabbing her leg, pushing to get past her.

Looking down a strange and unexpected feeling – where was this coming from? – was washing over her. She was able to see a brown haired boy, two or three years old. He apparently wanted to be the first one on the elevator and was beaming back at them with bright blue eyes while he cheered loudly at his success. When Kate realized that the young woman, obviously mother to the little guy, was some steps behind, she quickly hit the button to keep the elevators doors from sliding closed.

Something about that woman seemed familiar to her but she couldn't quite place her. Probably they had met in the building before. Since she was juggling with three well filled grocery bags, it was likely they were living here and not only visiting. Kate took a closer look at the other woman.

She was about mid or end twenties, and she was married as the golden wedding band on her left ring finger suggested. She was casual, but well dressed so probably rather wealthy too. Combined with black pants she wore a green blouse fastened with a belt right beneath her chest, showing off her baby belly. Her probably dyed hair consisted of strands of different shades from rust-colored to auburn and chocolate brown. It was short cut at the back of her head, parted at the left side the longest strands were freely falling down in curls at her left cheek while the strands on the right side were safely tucked behind her ear. Her eyes were the same bright blue ones which her son must have inherited from her. Barely hidden by concealer dark bags beneath her eyes and a somewhat pale skin tone suggested that she was rather exhausted. Small dimples appeared on her cheeks when the young woman smiled at Kate gratefully getting on the elevator as well.

"Nate, you know you have to stay with me. I cannot run for you all the time, so I need you to do as I say," she addressed her son, who was looking at her sheepishly. "Got me?" He nodded in response and started smiling again.

"Where to you want to go?" Kate asked, who had been watching them and let the open-button go.

"Let me, let me!" The boy – Nate - bounced.

"Sure." Kate stepped back a little bit making way for him to get to the buttons, but she quickly realized that he wouldn't reach any but the alarm-button and the ones to go down to the parking garage. It wasn't very likely they would want to go there, was it? Without thinking she put her hands around his waist and lifted him up into the air. How light he was. Just as light as a feather but not as steady though. He was fidgeting with his hands for the right button to find.

"Eitf?" he questioned, pointing out the button and looking sideways to his mother which nodded. Wow, the little guy already knew his numbers?

"That's the same floor I want to go to as well. I am living there," Kate smiled at the boy while putting him down to his feet again. "Are you living there too?"

"We moved in just the other weekend," his mother answered in his place.

Kate hadn't noticed before that somebody had been moving in on her floor. But thinking about her last work week, which actually consisted of going in every day very early, and often staying late as well for 10 days in a row up to now. It wasn't surprising that she didn't know what was going on at home. Yeah, she clearly needed some days off. Maybe her recent success on the CCU justified staying home next weekend as long as there were no emergencies coming up. Her guys would be calling her anyway if she was needed. Probably some of them would be rather glad not having their Captain around all the time. Kate smiled at the decision she had made.

The soft female voice of the elevator interrupted her thoughts to tell them, that they had reached the eighth floor. Nate was the first one to be out again, obviously making his mother mumble on his rush.

"May I help you?" Kate offered taking two of the bags the other woman had been carrying. They passed by Kate's apartment door, catching up with Nate who was already eagerly waiting at the door to their own apartment. After the woman had unlocked the door and Nate had already been dashing off, Kate stopped at the doorway, not quite sure if she should just go in.

"I'm sorry, please come in," the other woman suddenly reappeared in her sight. "Just watch your steps, there are still some boxes we haven't been able to unpack yet. You can put those down at the counter," she pointed at the bags Kate was holding and motioned to the right, where obviously the kitchen was. Kate did as she had been told.

From what she could tell, the apartment was similar to her own, only it seemed to be bigger although some moving boxes were piled up along two walls and let the room appear smaller than it actually was. In turn some of the cupboards seemed to still wait for being filled with whatever was in the boxes. Books maybe, the good china, framed pictures of relatives or the creepy doll collection. Kate smiled at herself. No, she didn't figure Nate's mother to be the kind of person to collect dolls. The book thing seemed to be more likely. Somehow she reminded her of herself. Kate thought about her own living room. Yep, shelves were to be filled with books. The kitchen's interior style was a modern combination of mostly silver shining stainless steel and bright yellow cupboard fronts. The walls were painted in off-white and a tone of terracotta. It still smelled freshly furnished. While the cupboards ran L-shaped on the right hand side, the centre of the room clearly was a huge island unit which also consisted of an extended counter completed with four barstools and a children's high chair. Kate could picture the whole family, sitting there sharing breakfast on a late Sunday morning or even a quick cup of coffee or hot chocolate on weekdays. She sat the two bags onto the counter.

Already being busy unpacking the other bag the younger woman paused and turned to Kate.

"Thanks a lot, Mrs...?" Oh, she had not introduced herself yet.

"Davidson, but you can call me Katie."

"Can I too?" Nate had come to the kitchen as well, a stuffed animal pressed to his chest and was now trying to climb one handed onto one of the barstools next to Kate.

"Sure you can, sweetie." Kate smiled at the boy and was tempted to reach out to stroke him, which may have been widely inappropriate. Instead she only steadied the stool so it wouldn't fall over.

"Thank you Katie. Well, you already know Nate. I'm Alex. Alex Walker. Nice to meet you," the woman – Alex – offered her hand, which Kate took without hesitation.

"Do you like a cup of tea or coffee maybe?" Kate knew she should be going. But somehow she liked being there. So she decided to stay. Just a little bit longer.

"Coffee would be nice. Can I give you a hand?"

"Sure, the dishes are over there." Alex pointed to a cupboard while she stuffed a pack of cereals in another one. "And since we have an espresso machine you only need to press some buttons. It's always filled and on power. There's also decaffeinated there," she smiled at her belly. It wasn't hard for Kate to find the cups and she took three of them.

Later Kate sat at the counter with a fresh cup of cappuccino in her hand, chatting with Alex. Nate was sitting between the two of them, loudly slurping from his cup of hot chocolate and letting his legs dangle. It was strange but even though they only had met a short time before Kate was pretty sure she had made a new friend, two in fact.


Author's note: So, there we go. Please let me know what you think about it.