A/N1: Hello peoples and WELCOME to the very FIRST chapter of my FIRST ever Castle fic titled 'Confessions' I hope you like it!
'Stay with me Kate. Don't leave me please. Stay with me, okay? Kate, I love you, I love you Kate'
Those twenty words had been running through Detective Kate Beckett's mind like a mantra constantly for six months ever since the sniper shot her at Montgomery's funeral.
And it scared the shit out of her.
Rick Castle loved her!
"Kate, are you with me?" a familiar voice asked, breaking through her reverie.
Kate came back to the present her gaze falling upon Carver Burke her department assigned psychologist.
"Sorry, I was off with the pixies." she told him with a sigh.
"You were recalling something," Burke said intuitively. "Would you like to share?"
Inwardly Kate's soul soared, yes she wanted to share for God's sake she wanted to stand atop the Empire State Building and scream it to the world...but she couldn't.
"I-erm-uh..." she stammered.
"Last time we met you expressed some feelings about Richard. I'd like to revisit that subject." Burke continued.
Kate raised an eyebrow. 'WHY?' She screamed internally.
"How has your relationship developed since our last session?" Burke asked, steepling his long fingers under his chin.
"A relationship is something far more intimate than Castle and I have," Kate divulged quietly, tucking her legs under her.
"You know what I mean Kate."
"Our situation is the same as it's ever been," Kate told him, flatly. "He's my work partner. He helps me solve the cases that come across my desk. That's as far as it's ever gone and as far as it will ever go I think." Even though the words left her mouth, she didn't believe them.
"You know if that's to change you must be honest with him, Kate." Burke informed her, sagely. "Richard isn't clairvoyant, your lack of saying anything to him is not going to help matters, you need to bite the bullet what's the worst that could happen?"
"He could reject me." Kate said in a barely discernable whisper.
"Pardon? I didn't quite catch that."
"He could reject me!" Kate spoke louder, projecting her voice a little more.
"And if that happened, what would you do?" Burke asked his steady gaze boring into her hazel eyes.
Instantly a lump formed in Kate's throat.
"I'd die." she whispered. It would kill her, because she felt so strongly for him, he had her heart.
Across town in the NYPD's 12th precinct's bullpen, Rick Castle sat in 'his' seat by Kate's desk, chin resting in hand a vacant expression upon his face. He had forgotten about Kate's monthly therapy session and two Grande Skim double pump sugar free vanilla latte's stood on the end of the desk rapidly going cold. Castle always looked forward to arriving at the precinct because Beckett would almost always be there before him and his usual happy demeanour evaporated when he entered the bullpen and saw her desk vacant.
"Yo Castle!" a familiar voice called.
Most of Castle's thoughts recently had surrounded the petite brunette and his feelings of affection had increased tenfold since the bank hold up infact...
"YO CASTLE!" the voice repeated, louder this time.
"Can the volume detective!" came the short sharp response from the Captain's office.
Castle only snapped out of his daydream when Javier Esposito, one of Kate's team smacked him on the head with a manila folder.
"Dude what is with you today?" Esposito asked with a raised eyebrow as he sat on a corner of Kate's desk. "You're normally right in the middle of things."
"What, huh?" Rick said vaguely. "What's up? We got a stiff?"
"Yeah you want in? Alley off fifty first and Lex." Esposito informed his friend.
"Yeah sure I'm in," Rick answered, getting up and cracking the vertebrae in his neck. "Let's go."
Manhattan traffic was always busy, but this particular morning it was foul and it wasn't for another half an hour that Rick arrived at the crime scene with Ryan and Esposito. Uniform let them under the tape and they made their way over to Lanie who was crouched down by the corpse clipboard in hand scribbling down notes.
"What have we got?" Ryan asked, pulling on a pair of latex gloves and crouching down beside the female corpse.
"White female, mid thirties, with six gunshot wounds to the chest, abdomen and one to the head delivered post mortem. Temperature and lividity indicates a TOD between nine and ten last night," Lanie began pointing out the gunshot wounds with the cap of her ballpoint pen. "I can give you a better indication once I get her back to the morgue, but one thing I can tell you she wasn't murdered here."
"How can you tell?" Rick asked, intrigued.
Lanie lifted her gaze to the writer. "Her clothes are soaked in blood but there's none pooling under her body," the M.E replied indicating to the huge dark red patch on the body's clothing with the end of her pen. "If she'd been killed here, you'd be standing in a puddle of bodily fluid. She hasn't been here any longer then two maybe three hours."
"Seven bullets? That's overkill isn't it?" Ryan asked, screwing up his nose in distaste.
"There were seven I counted, there's so much blood on the body, it could be concealing more." Lanie told them. "Uniform are questioning local business owners but given she wasn't killed here, there's nothing much to go on."
"Thanks Lanie."
"This is a really busy area, why would someone dump a body here?" Rick wondered thoughtfully, striding away from the corpse as a pair or morgue attendants began to put it in a body bag.
"This isn't the first one in this location, Karpowski's team got one last week and I reckon Oliver's team were here the week before." Esposito told him. "Reckon it could be the same killer?"
"Wouldn't rule it out," Ryan said with a sigh. "Seven shots? Whoever it is would had to have reloaded and whoever they are, they're a sadistic son of a bitch."
"She knew her killer though," Rick said shoving his hands in his pockets. "If past experience is anything to go by, this sort of bullet use indicates familiarity, or it could be some secret government department conspiracy. She knew something about a high profile public identity and was killed to stop her going public."
Ryan and Esposito groaned and rolled their eyes in unison and for the first time that day Rick cracked a smile knowing if she was here Kate would be wearing the same expression.
"What guys? Come on you can't totally rule it out that's the first thing you two and Beckett taught me in this business," he called after the two detectives as they started back toward the yellow tape. "You can't rule out any possibility. You know one of these days I'm going to be right and I'll stand, point and go ha ha. Don't you?"
"Whatever Castle!" came the collective reply
"Come on we've got to talk to the uniforms, you in or do you want to sit in the car and create another conspiracy theory?" Ryan asked with a widening grin. "Or you could play Angry Birds again, a new version came out last week."
Rick rolled his eyes.
"Ha ha hardi har," he said dryly. "Where did you get that comeback? 'Jokes for Dummies?"
"Whatever." Kevin grunted.
Shortly before midday, Rick trudged back into the 12th precinct with Ryan and Esposito. The trio got into the lift and made their way up to the bullpen.
"She'd be back by now, you know." Esposito informed the writer, upon noticing him bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.
Rick immediately ceased his bouncing.
"Who?" he asked, trying unsuccessfully to sound indifferent.
"Beckett." the Hispanic detective replied with a roll of his eyes.
"Well of course she would." Rick stated, with a 'well duh' tone.
"It's just that...oh never mind."
Moments later the lift bell dinged and scraped open to reveal a bullpen full of noise and activity. A large and loud drunk group of metrosexual men wearing preppy fashion, most in handcuffs, were gathered in the aisle that led to the break, room and interrogation rooms and being supervised by several uniformed officers. One man Rick guessed to be in his early twenties lunged for another of similar age just as Rick saw Kate walk past, his fist missed his 'friend' and connected with Kate's cheek, immediately felling her.
There was uproar.
The offender broke free of the uniformed officer restraining him and raced towards his intended target, but Ryan and Esposito got to him first slamming him up against the brick wall.
"Assaulting a police officer, what do you reckon that's work Detective Ryan?" Esposito hissed, expertly handcuffing the man and shortening the chain painfully.
But Rick didn't hear Ryan's response he pushed through the commotion and raced over to Kate, who had been knocked out from the force of the blow. Jane Karpowski one of the other detectives crouching down by her side.
'Kat-Beckett you alright?' he asked in alarm.
''She's out cold" Jane told him.
"Some help here!" One of the uniforms called as an all in brawl broke out.
"Jane, go I've got this," Rick told her.
'You sure?' the older woman asked, doubtfully.
"I'm fine," he assured her. "I've got this, Go." he ordered.
"Alright then, get her out of here Castle."
He nodded. "You got it."
Karpowski got up and raced into the fray, twisting one young man's arm up behind his back and slamming him into the nearest wall with a crash.
Rick crouched down and immediately scooped Kate up, he held her body to his and pushed through the melee an into the deserted break room where he laid her down on the sofa, brushing her brown tresses from her face.
"Ugh w-what h-happened?" the brunette began to ask, coming to.
"Some dick out in the hallway went to punch his friend and got you instead." Rick told her, pushing her back down as she tried to sit up.
"Sit and stay." he said firmly.
'Castle I am NOT a dog!' Kate trilled as Rick strode over to the door, shutting it, immediately lessening the volume of the brawl.
"I know you're not a dog but please just sit for a moment," Rick replied, going over to the refrigerator and opening the freezer door.
He dug through the contents of the freezer and pulled out a gel icepack. He wrapped it on a tea towel normally used to dry the coffee mugs and made his way back over to Kate pulling a side table to the next to the sofa and gently pressing the cool pack to her ever reddening cheek.
"Ow ow ow that stings!" Kate exclaimed giving a little start but ever so slightly relaxing "thanks Castle."
Rick gave a smile that made Kate feel all gooey inside.
"Anytime," he said holding the compress against her face and looking deep into her acid green eyes. "Why is it you attract trouble?" he questioned.
"Ha! Me attract trouble?" Kate scoffed with a wry smile. "My day started out perfectly fine but then you step out of the elevator and it hits the fan. You're a trouble magnet Richard Castle, while it might not always happen to you it always happens around you."
"Hey what can I say? I'm gifted," Rick told her, grinning. "In more ways than one." he added wiggling his eyebrows, suggestively.
Kate rolled her eyes and slipped her hand under his to hold the icepack against her cheek herself.
'You've got a dirty mind Richard Castle," she said in amusement. "Seriously though, thanks you're a good nurse maid."
"Wish I'd been prepared I'm sure there's a naughty nurse costume in the costume department of Mother's acting school," Rick said with a chuckle. "You know me. I'm always one for authenticity. A costume would only help things along there."
"Oh ha ha," Kate replied, rolling her eyes. "You're many things Rick Castle but I can't imagine you as a naughty nurse."
Rick leaned forward.
"You need to think more than, detective." He told her, in a low voice that immediately sent Kate's thought pattern to the gutter. "You might be surprised what I'm capable of."
Moments later just as Kate was about to let out the breath she was holding in, the break room door opened and Esposito poked in head in.
"Yo Beckett you alright?" he asked interrupting the somewhat intimate atmosphere and causing Rick to sit up in a hurry.
"Yeah I'm fine Espo, been through worse than being decked by a shitfaced preppy boy," Kate said with a smile then wincing as the simple action caused a stinging pain to shoot along her jaw line. "And I have the scar to prove it."
Castle couldn't help but let out a snort of amusement. Esposito cracked a grin and winked.
"Cool just wanted to check," he told her. "I gotta go and help uniform get these assholes down to the holding cells, Ryan and I will let you in on the case we had this morning. Think you'll like this one."
"Oh good a weird one?" Kate asked in interest.
"Yeah, shit I gotta go back in a minute, oi Karpowski!..." his voice trailed.
And with that he was gone.
"So what's the deal with that lot?" Rick asked Kate curiously, as they watched Esposito hustle along the man who punched Kate.
"Columbia frat party," Kate informed him. "A body was found in one of the dorms and Mr Piss Pants and his cronies decided to get drunk before they called 911. Karpowski's team is onto it. I think they're going to let them sober up in the cells before bringing them up here, personally I'd grill their drunk asses, dammed if they're going to floor me and get away with it."
Rick let out a snort of laughter.
"Can I be in on the interrogation if you help Karpowski out?" he asked with his usual childlike enthusiasm.
Kate once again rolled her eyes.
"You just want to see me in action," she teased.
And as soon as she finished speaking Kate slapped a hand over her mouth, shocked at the pure suggestiveness of the sentence. It was like her mouth didn't have a filter and it was it broken.
Rick's eyebrows arched in surprise and a slow smile formed on his lips.
"Detective you know me well," he said leaning forward to whisper in her ear before standing up. "Now how about a coffee? Caffeine fixes all my ills."
"Caffeine? Not high end bourbon?" Kate joked, her insides still a pleasant puddle of goo.
"Caffeine when I'm shadowing you detective. I want to be in full control of my faculties when a body drops," Rick said grabbing the milk jug that accompanied the espresso machine and pouring some milk into it. "I like to be fully with it when I'm in your company, the usual? Grande Skim double pump sugar free vanilla latte?"
"You know me well, Castle." A smile tugging at her lips.
And as her partner dove into preparing her favourite hot beverage, Kate took a moment to sit back, relax and nurse her rapidly bruising jaw line. Burke was right, Castle wasn't clairvoyant and she had to tell him how she felt. But Kate knew she wasn't quite ready to do so just yet, but like a master builder he was unknowingly chipping away at her foundations with a chisel and one day she knew he would be the one to bring her walls down.
She just had to let him in.