One of the Lucky Ones
Detective Kate Beckett lives in a very different world - Caskett AU
See A/N at bottom of chapter for more info
Chapter 1
Sitting at her desk at the Twelfth Precinct, Detective Kate Beckett shielded a yawn with the back of her hand and then pressed her hands firmly against her cheeks, giving them a somewhat aggressive rub. She was struggling—struggling—to stay awake and was unfortunately only three hours into her ten-hour overnight shift—a shift that she strongly disliked. While she had yet to meet a person who enjoyed the overnight shift, Kate found it particularly unsatisfying. It was just so boring!
In some ways, she felt bad about wishing for more action during her shift. After all, as a police detective, having more action on her job meant more crime was occurring in New York City, and of course she didn't want that either. Yet, at the same time, as the wee hours dragged on and on she wasn't sure how much longer she could sit quietly in her desk chair trying desperately to stay awake.
Coffee. She definitely needed coffee.
Snagging the empty black mug from the edge of her desk, Kate began to migrate her way through the crowded seating area of the Major Crimes floor. Long before her time on the force the Homicide, Robbery, and Narcotics divisions had all been merged in to one and renamed Major Crimes. This change happened at the same time as around half the precincts were closed in the city and their jurisdiction areas redesigned. Though many tragedies had occurred over the prior few years, one of the bright spots was a reduced crime rate and thus reduced need for police presence, which was a relief to nearly all citizens, particularly after the almost full year they lived under Marshall Law.
Walking into the break room to fill her mug with coffee, Kate took a moment as she always did to pause in front of the memorial plaque hanging on the wall just inside the door. The wooden rectangular object rimmed in gold served as a reminder for all the NYPD members lost during the terrorist attack of 2025. Thousands and thousands of men had been lost, decimating the force, but the women who remained had stepped up, banded together, and kept the city going. Kate was proud of the sisterhood of officers and detectives that had formed in the wake of such a tragedy, but always took a moment to remember those who had lost their lives so senselessly.
Drifting towards the coffee maker, Kate tried to put herself in the shoes of a cop from back in those days. There would have been hundreds of more crimes to investigate—possibly even thousands. There most likely would not have been nights when she sat around bored, just hoping an email would pop into her inbox.
Since she was sixteen when the attack happened, she did have a fairly clear memory of that world. She knew her parents would never let her ride the subway at night by herself or even walk back from a friend's apartment after dark. While most parts of the city were reasonably safe during the daytime, she rarely strayed outside her neighborhood, and her parents would often talk about whether or not it was time to move out of the city and to a more low-key suburb. Then, within a period barely longer than two weeks, everything changed.
One day, Kate returned home from school and went to bed without a care. The next morning, she awoke to chaos. That night, men had flooded into the ERs of the city with Ebola-like symptoms, except Ebola hadn't been seen outside of Africa in three years and not one of the men had visited the continent. As days passed the number sick began to increase exponentially, which was alarming, but the fact that confounded authorities the most was that only men were falling ill.
By the end of the next week, the country's male population had dropped by nearly half. Kate's father and grandfather were among those lost. Families remained secluded in their homes for fear of the spreading disease. Ultimately, it was determined that a terrorist cell planted thousands of "bombs" that unleashed the airborne, highly-contagious disease. Though the bombs were only detonated once, all within a few-hour period around the country, the disease continued to spread and ultimately decimated three-quarters of the male population, with those under five and over seventy only having a two-percent survival rate.
With the country in a state of shock, the next several months passed with much confusion and uncertainty. By the end of the first year, things were slowly getting back to normal—well, the new version of "normal" with half the businesses closed and apartment buildings abandoned. Humanity muddled through, however, and Kate used the tragedy as motivation to decide upon a career path with the NYPD so that no matter what happened in the future, she would always be able to help people; to make a difference.
With a full mug of coffee in hand, Kate began to walk back to her desk only to be interrupted by one of her colleagues, a detective named Hastings. Kate liked Hastings but did find her to be a bit too green and overzealous at times. She had been on the force two years less than Kate, and if she was honest with herself Kate knew she had certainly been overzealous when trying to prove herself in that state too, so she tried to cut Hastings some slack and be supportive and helpful when she could.
"You don't have a case right now, do you?" Hastings asked her.
"No. Why?"
Hastings smiled. "Want to ride-along with me? I need to go check something out and I could use the backup."
Having no desire to continue staring at her vacant email inbox, Kate didn't hesitate to agree. She took a few sips of coffee, grabbed her badge and gun from her desk drawer, and then followed Hastings to the elevator. While they went to sign out one of the cars from the motor pool, Hastings explained the call they were about to go on.
"Over the past week there have been a series of break-ins with the same MO. A lot of pulled out drawers, flipped tables, emptied refrigerators—big messes, but in the end, not much of value taken. Further to the point, things of obvious value: jewelry, electronics, and sometimes even cash, were all left behind. The 10th chalked it up to teenagers having fun, but the same car has been reported in the neighborhoods before each robbery: a silver BMW with a broken taillight. Doesn't really seem like kids to me, so I have a BOLO out on the car and it was just spotted pulling into one of the abandoned buildings near the Hudson Yards."
"At this time of night?" Kate asked with extreme skepticism; that certainly did not go well.
A knowing smile crossed the younger woman's face. "Not just that—suspicious activity was reported there last night as well."
Kate nodded. "Okay, so maybe this is their hideout? Where they're stashing their haul?"
"Not much of a haul, but maybe."
By the time they arrived at the deserted-seeming building, Hastings had Kate fully up-to-speed with everything she knew about the case. Unfortunately for Hastings case, the BMW was nowhere in sight—if it had ever even been there at all, but the two women decided as long as they were there, they would check the place out.
Kate exited the car and held a small flashlight in her left hand while keeping her right firmly planted on the weapon in her utility belt. She and her fellow detective intended to circle the building and look in as many windows as they were able to see into, as that was all they could do without a warrant, but halfway through their search, they came upon two interesting discoveries: a cloth that appeared to be spotted with blood and a propped open door.
Crouching down on the ground, Kate pulled a pen from her pocket and used it to lift the cloth so as not to contaminate the evidence. She examined the cloth as best she could using her flashlight before gently placing it back on the ground before turning to her companion. "The blood isn't wet, but it's not discolored, so I doubt its very old."
"You think one of them hurt themselves? Maybe cut themselves on something inside?"
Kate gave a little shrug then turned her flashlight towards the popped open door. She felt a familiar prickle on the hairs at the back of her neck and huffed out a little breath. "I don't know…something about this just doesn't seem right to me." The strange location. The ransacking-without-theft MO. Her gut told her something more was going on.
Knowing she would be going against protocol, but not caring for that particular moment, Kate approached the propped open door and nudged it all the way open with her foot. Then, she stepped inside and examined the immediate area. She found herself in a very large room, but since her flashlight was small and thus not very powerful, she couldn't see much at all other than some random bits of trash. She took a few steps forward, not expecting to see anything of interest—and certainly nothing incriminating—but from the corner of her eye she saw the light of her flashlight reflecting back at her. Turning in that direction, Kate spotted what she assumed was once an office or meeting area for whatever business owned this large building. Unlike everything else in the immediate vicinity that was dingy and dilapidated, the door looked pristine—new.
Now more curious than ever, Kate slowly approached the door, barely aware that Hastings trailed just behind her. She stepped right up to it and realized that the door was actually a different color than the woodwork around it. It was painted with a pure white base coat versus the yellowed and chipped color on the woodwork. It also didn't have any scuffs or dings almost as thought it had been newly purchased at a construction supply store. What struck Kate as further odd was that not only did the door have a locking handle, but a deadbolt as well, which seemed highly unusual for an ordinary office door.
Dropping to the floor, Kate tried to shine her flashlight in the space between the door and the floor, but it was no use; the angle was too tight for her to be able to see. She sat back on her haunches for a moment as she contemplated her next move. She was silent for almost a minute before she turned to Hastings and asked, "Do you think one of those windows on the outside of the building might let us see into this office?"
"Maybe. Can't hurt to check, right?"
With that, the two women went back out the way they came and walked along the building until they believed they were even with the office area. They did find windows, but unfortunately they were up too high to see in by just standing on the pavement. After a few minutes of searching, they cobbled together a makeshift ladder by piling up leftover wooden pallets. The jury-rigged structure was clearly unstable, and thus Hastings, the smaller of the two women, climbed atop. While holding Kate's hand for support, she climbed up and stood on her toes to look into the office. She was barely tall enough to see in through the glass, but when she proclaimed, "I think…I think I see someone tied up inside!" that was the only information Kate needed to hear before the two women returned to the building. That time, Kate had her lock-picking tools in hand.
"If anyone asks," Kate said as she kneeled down in front of the door so she could begin to work on the two locks, "we heard someone crying out for help."
"Absolutely," Hastings agreed.
Though it took almost six minutes, Kate did manage to unlock both the deadbolt and door handle of the mysterious office. She then looked back over her shoulder to see that Hastings had her gun at the ready before she slowly pushed open the door and shined her flashlight into the gap. Other than a desk and two chairs pushed up against the opposite wall, Kate was unable to see anything until she opened the door all the way. There, in the corner, she discovered what Hastings glimpsed through the window. There was indeed a person tied up inside the room; it was a man who was not only bound but gagged and looking at them expectantly, clearly having heard what was transpiring for the prior few minutes.
Kate took a step into the room to ensure that the man was the only occupant before approaching him cautiously. While it was entirely possible that he was a victim, that was not a guarantee. It was also possible that he was working with the criminals and had been left behind as a decoy. She hated to think that way about a potential victim but had recently read about an old case involving that exact scenario, which made her cautious.
Crouching down in front of him, Kate shone her flashlight on the man's face and he blinked rapidly, half turning away. With that close distance, Kate could tell that the man was probably around her age, perhaps a few years older. Seeing as she hadn't seen a male her age in weeks, Kate took an extra moment to gaze at his face. He had a strong jaw, blue eyes, and a large forehead that, at that particular moment, was marred with a large cut that was crusted over with dried blood. She immediately thought of the cloth outside the door and wondered if it was saturated with his blood. Though an injury did seem to indicate that he was a victim, it was not a guarantee, so Kate remained on high alert when she reached out and removed the cloth tied around his head being used as a gag.
"Sir, I'm NYPD Detective Beckett and this is Detective Hastings. What's your name?"
He shook off her question and asked in a rather frantic, panicked way, "You found them? You stopped them?"
Kate's brow furrowed as she reached out to untie the man's hands, which were bound together and then looped around a pipe protruding from the wall. "Stopped who?"
"The couple—the couple that took me."
With the man's hands free, Kate cut the plastic ties around his ankles and then took a step back so he could stand, though she warned him, "Please stand slowly. Do you have any weapons on you?"
"Weap…no! No! It's not me—it's them. I know they're making it look like it's me, but it's not! It's not!"
At the man's frantic tone, Kate glanced briefly back at Hastings, who gave her a confused shrug. Clearly, this man was not making any sense, but Kate wasn't sure if he was actually crazy, or a victim perhaps suffering from a blow to the head. "I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand what you're talking about."
Clearly frustrated, he huffed out a breath. "There's a couple—a Bonnie and Clyde type, I'd guess. They kidnapped me from my apartment today, or…or yesterday—I'm sorry; I don't know how long I've been here. The point is: they're going to replicate the crimes in my books. They're going to kill people!"
"Books?" Kate questioned as the man's story was becoming equally more confusing and intriguing.
The man bobbed his head. "I'm Richard Castle, but I publish under R. Castle; I write mystery novels."
Kate felt her cheeks flush as she knew exactly who R. Castle was. The writer, who had never been identified as male or female, though she'd always suspected he was male, was one of her favorites.
Before she could even formulate a response, the man took a step towards her, almost pleading with his hands clasped in front of him. "Please, Detective; please. You have to find them—you have to stop them. I…I don't want anyone to die—not because of me. Please."
Kate heard the genuine concern and fear in the writer's voice and felt immediately confident that he was indeed a victim. Yet, at the same time, she felt her chest constrict with fear. Clearly, they were dealing with a situation far more complex than a few B&Es.
"I think you need to come with us, Mr. Castle. And on the way back to the Twelfth you can tell us everything you know."
A/N: So this story might seem slightly familiar to you...in that its kind of a combination/hybrid of Metamorphosis and Human Being/Being Human, so if you're like "been her, done that, dont feel like reading this" - that's fair, but a) this will be different than those (hint: Johanna Beckett is alive) and b) this was written late in the summer when i was STRUGGLING to write anything so the fact that I came up with 8 chapters of this is basically a miracle.
Thanks for reading! Hope you stick around for the next 7 chapters :)