Summary: A series of drabbles and one shots about the state of Kate Beckett's heart through the years.

Chapter 1: Beginnings


Kate Beckett's heart breaks when she is nineteen. And as the days go by she picks up the pieces, forces them back together in a harsh mockery of what was there before. It holds. Mostly.

But it is a heart waiting to be shattered again.

So she starts building a wall.


She finds these books. They're about a man. Derek Storm. He tries to save the world. She reads them all, and when she finishes the last one she reads them again.

It's her fourth time through the series when she picks up an application for the New York City Police Department.

She doesn't tell her dad.


During the oral board she says all the right things. She knows with the background check they will find out about her mother, so she doesn't try to hide anything. Instead, she just makes it seem like the most unimportant thing in the world. But there is a small part of her that is dying as she speaks.


Her goal going into the Academy is to fly under the radar, do what she needs to and get through it. It's just another box to check off.

It takes all of a day to realize that's not going to be possible.

So she decides she's going to be extraordinary.


You will survive. That is the message drummed into their heads during every simulation, every scenario, every debriefing. You. Will. Survive.

It is a lesson she doesn't need to be taught.


She graduates from the Police Academy. And then she heads down the rabbit hole.