AN: This was really hard to write, I will see the reviews and change the chapter so it will more fitting, I'm sorry for the mistakes English is not my native language.
Disclaimer: Still don't own Castle.
"Wait, Castle? That means that you must be Richard Castle's daughter, so Katie married-"
"Who's at the door?" Her father asked through the living room.
In that moment Richard Castle saw the last person he expected to see at his door a Tuesday evening: Johanna Beckett, his wife's long-lost mother.
Castle had only seen Johanna Beckett in pictures, the ones Kate showed them when she told Roy and Jo about their grandma so they couldn't forget her. But she was in their lives, whether it was Jo smiling or Roy trying to make everything as fair as possible or even in his wife and her habit of fighting for everyone's justice. But he NEVER in his life thought that the same person who had shaped his family so much would be standing there. He stared at her; she had her eyes, Jo's smile, Kate's nose and of course Kate's and Roy's eyes. She was 100% Johanna Beckett. He had been thinking about the words that he could say to her since he had that dream in which he met her but didn't say a word, but being Richard Castle the words that came out of his mouth were:
"Holy shit, you are HER. Alexis pinch me, I must be dreaming" He said without breaking eye contact with the woman outside his door. She did and he cringed.
"No, I'm not dreaming, neither I'm in a parallel universe this time so that must mean that you are real" He said reasoning with his crazy theories in his head.
"You are Richard Castle?" She asked as she extended her hand, "I'm Johanna Beckett, Katie's mother" She said shaking his hand.
"I think you already know my name…Alexis go and look for your mother" He said, inviting Johanna in.
Once inside, they came face to face with an overly excited Jo.
"MOMMY! LOOK WHO I FINDED: GRANDMA JOHANNA" The little girl screamed out of her lungs, her mother replied from the master bedroom.
"Jo, I told you not to joke about it, that's impossible even with your father's childish imagination-" She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw who was standing beside her husband.
"Who are you? Is this a joke? Because if it is, Rick you are sleeping at your mother's" She said looking at her husband and then back to the other woman in front of her.
"No, Katie this isn't a joke, I'm real and I'm alive." She said stepping closer to her daughter.
"The hell you're real, stay away from me and my family. You may sound like her and look like her but you aren't her. Because my mother died, she's been dead for over 22 years. YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER! SHE'S DEAD, SHE'S FUCKING DEAD!" She screamed at the woman in front of her.
Jo, who had never seen her mother screamed like that, started to cry. Castle saw his daughter cry and tried to get to her, but she refused to go to him, instead she went to her room and shut her door. Alexis took Roy's hand and went to get her sister. She closed the door behind them letting her parents deal with the new information.
In the living room, Rick was standing next to Johanna Beckett watching his wife react to the news. Kate was red from anger, she was still refusing to believe that her mother, the person who she dedicated her life to, was alive, the reason she left her studies in Stanford was ruined. Everything she had done in her life to get closure to her mother wasn't significant anymore. All the night she had pulled off to solve her mother's murder was now a waste of time, even the fact that Bracken was rotting in jail was worthless to her. She looked at her mother, REALLY looked at her and found all of the features she knew so well, but now she had wrinkles, her hair wasn't as brown as she remembered, her eyes weren't so bright anymore. She understood then that as every person in the world, time had caught up with her; she was no longer frozen in time like she was in her memory or in the photos. Johanna Beckett was alive and in her living room, waiting for her to do something.
"You're supposed to be dead; you can't be here right now. Because if you are, then everything I have achieved in life was for NOTHING! I wasted my time at the Police Academy; I wasted my money in moving back, I spent three fucking years trying to sober dad up because he couldn't take it, he couldn't accept that you had left us. The only thing that was worth it was meeting Castle and even that was based on lies, because if you wouldn't have died I would never read his book or became a cop anyways. You can't be real because if you are then, my family is a lie. MY LIFE IS A FUCKING LIE!" She screamed with tears in her eyes. Her mother didn't say a word; it was her husband who dared to break the silence.
"Kate, why don't you go out with Alexis to clear your head and then come back?" He suggested knowing perfectly what she needed: the comfort and the reassurance of her eldest daughter.
She consider the idea, she just wanted to be anywhere but there.
"Ok, I'll call Alexis and leave the kids at my dad's for the night" She said, getting her phone out of the pocket.
"Kate, I'll call him, you go get the kids and Alexis. Want to take my car?"He offered her his Ferrari, which he still didn't do usually.
"No, I'll take mine" She said going upstairs leaving a really stunned Johanna on the living room.
"Johanna, why don't you come with me to my office?" He said smiling at her, that charming smile that he used with the people so rarely.
She nodded and they went to his office. The office was the only place of the loft without framed photos; Kate had said that it was because he usually was distracted with anything so the office was lacking the family environment. Over the shelves, there were his novels, the Derrick Storm series and his favorite: The Nikki Heat series. Over the years, he had written more books still, the only series that convinced him as a writer were the adventures of Nikki Heat. He was staring at the woman in front of him, there were so many things that he wanted to know. The writer in him demanded an interview to the person who gave him his wife; he knew that wasn't possible because his wife was the one who had the right to ask first. He waited patiently as she opened the first of the Nikki Heat novel, her face lit up when she read the dedicatory of the book.
KB were the letters that somehow made her the proudest mom ever, her Katie had been in this man's life longer than she thought. Because if she knew something about her daughter was how much she valued family, and to have that with her favorite author was unbelievable. She had guessed that she was married by now, never suspected it was to Richard Castle. As she read through the first lines of the book, she could sense all of the hard work he had put into it, this wasn't like a Derrick Storm novel, in fact, it was another thing entirely different because he had based his book on her daughter.
He didn't say a word until he heard the door shut. He was about to say something when she asked him the question she had had on her head since she had stepped foot in his home.
"Do you love her?" she placed the book back in the shelf and turned to look at him.
"I do, I can't imagine my life without her or the kids for that matter. We met at a case and I knew from that moment she introduced herself, that I couldn't let her slip away. I knocked down the walls she had built around herself. And I was there when she arrested Senator Bracken for you murder. I waited four years until she decided to take a step forwards in our relationship, I was there when she stepped in a bomb, I didn't leave even if I wasn't supposed to be there. And of course I was there when she found out we were expecting Roy and Jo. I went with her to my book launching parties, at least the ones she agreed to go. She certainly made it clear that I was off the market by then. But most of all, she has made my life complete in so many ways that when I think about it, it makes me wonder what did I do to deserve her." He went to the door of the office and waited for her, she looked confused as she didn't know the man at all. She only knew his connection to her daughter.
"I'll give you a tour of the place" he then opened the door and waited until she was gone to close the door.