Chapter Two

"Just like the light of new day,
It hit me from out of the blue"
"Believe It Or Not" Joey Scarbury

Montreal Global Bank
Two weeks later

The bank manager slid a key across the desk, his smile a professional mask meant to disguise his nervousness over the fact that he knew precisely who Richard Castle was, and was sworn not to reveal that knowledge, by the very man now sitting across from him, with the young redhead at his side.

"There you go, Mr. Castle. Box 115."

"Thank you." Castle replied, then couldn't help but ask, "And, may I ask you something? Do I look familiar to you?

There's a pause. The silence entirely too long and uncomfortable to be coincidence. "Uh, no. I don't believe so. Have we ever met?"

Castle could read the man's body language, he knew a lie when he saw it. But he kept his suspicions to himself. Kate had been right about one thing, he's a lot more careful with Alexis within his peripheral vision. He couldn't let his quest for answers put his baby girl at risk. She'd been in enough danger for his liking the last few years.

"I guess not. My mistake." Rick held up the new key to illustrate his point, "Is it possible to access this box today?"

"Of course, Mr. Castle." He said then waved over the guard at the door, "Would you please take Mr. Castle back to access his safe deposit box?"

"Follow me, sir." The guard offered politely, indicating to Rick and Alexis in the direction of the door and held it open for them. Rick smiled his best book signing grin and followed with Alexis trailing behind.

After they left, the manager sighed uneasily and picked up his phone, dialing a number from memory.

Rachael McCord watched from across the street as Richard Castle left the bank with his daughter in tow. She'd tailed them from the airport and watched them go into the bank manager's office. She'd played along when the Manager called her moments later after the security guard had escorted them out. Even managed to sound unsurprised when he asked if she wanted to open hers as well, producing the key (which had been sewn into her clothes) from her purse without missing a beat.

There was a memory card in an envelope resting on top of a smooth black metallic box in hers. She'd played it on her laptop across the street in a coffee shop while waiting for the Castles to come out.

Hers had two video files on it. One from herself, detailing how badly things had gone wrong over her two missing months. The second was from Richard Castle, begging her that if they couldn't walk away and do nothing with the contents of the shiny black metallic box. Let the contents dissolve into nothing. If they tried again to use the gift within that box responsibly, she was never, ever to reveal to him why he wanted his memory wiped clean, no matter what.

She had to admit, in spite of her first impression of the man, Kate Beckett's fiancee was remarkably self-aware. He understood himself and his motivations far better than most men she had ever met. Better, she was sure, than even her former protege suspected.

It was like a switch had been flipped.

She suddenly remembered everything, as if a logjam in her mind had been released, revealing the litany of her previous failure. Someone had wanted her to remember, set a trigger for those memories to be revealed. A punitive measure, perhaps? An abject lesson to remind her of the cost of abusing the gift they had been given. She could not be sure. She knew nothing of the beings who set them on this path, neither of them did..

To say this sudden epiphany was a shock would have been a massive understatement. Richard Castle had trusted her judgment in how to use the power within that shiny black box almost as much as he trusted Beckett with his heart. What she had done to abuse that trust, was once again free to twist in her guts. The fault for what had gone wrong had not been Castle's... it had been hers, but the sensitive soul he was couldn't live with what her terrible error in judgment had wrought.

There was blood on her hands, and she could not justify it under the veil of national security like she could in the past. This was on her, and there was no making it right. The best she could do was forge ahead and do it right this time, looking at Castle's interactions with his daughter as the two of them crossed the street to find a taxi back to the airport, Rachel understood why he could not accept that outcome and return home whole. Why he would not be able to look that pretty redhead, or Beckett, in the eye with that knowledge.

As this realization dawned on her, only the curtain of her long, curly hair and dark sunglasses kept the single tear from public view as it rolled down her cheek.

There was a third envelope taped to the box. This one addressed to Richard Castle in the writer's own hand. The words "With great power comes great responsibility" written in block letters under his name. She no longer needed to open the envelope, she now recalled exactly what this memory card contained.

She'd helped him record it.

12th Precinct
The following day

"Kate, if you're seeing this … well, if you're seeing this, I'm probably dead. I want you to know, I never intended to leave you, not like this, not on our wedding day, but I – it wasn't my choice. I wish I could tell you what's going on, I wish I could explain … but just know that I love you. I've always loved you. Always."

He watched Kate watch the video. He hadn't looked that haggard since the week after she had been shot. Kate closed her eyes at the end of it, and knew she was holding back tears. He'd sat with Alexis when she'd watched hers back at the loft and she'd curled up in his lap and cried uncontrollably for over an hour. His mother's reaction had been a bit more schooled, but similar. She'd hugged him tight and whispered "Oh, kiddo" into his hair before retiring to her room while he consoled Alexis as best he could.

"The ones to Alexis and my mother were pretty much the same." He said when he finally found his words. He paused for a moment, then whispered desperately, "Kate, what did I do?"

He sounded so much like the lost scared little boy she had seen in holding two years before that it broke Kate's heart. She turned, leaned into him, and caressed his face with her hands..

"I don't know. I don't." Kate whispered softly, "But we'll get to the bottom of this, babe, okay?"

Rick closed his eyes and turned his face into her touch, but before he could find the words to respond, somebody coughed from the doorway, startling them both.

"I might be able to help with that." Rachel McCord stated from the doorway.

Kate recovered first, of course, but Rick wasn't far behind.

"What brings you to New York, Rachel... and how does it involve Castle?" Kate stated sharply, her best interrogation face on. She wanted answers, she'd hunted for months to bring him home, and now that she had proof that he hadn't run out on her, (not that she had ever truly believed that anyway) she wanted answers.

"You know how these things work, Beckett," Rachel responded, her own game face on, "strictly need to know, and since you no longer have a security clearance you don't need to know."

Kate seethed internally, but somehow kept her outward calm. She'd hated that part of the D.C. job nearly as much as the gray areas in which she had been forced to operate. Secrets had nearly destroyed the relationship between herself and Rick leading up to her taking that job, the nature of which had then required her to keep even more.

She hated the thought that Rachel would be the one to help Rick find the answers he sought, instead of the two of them figuring it out together, that she might never know the whole story. If she was truly being honest with herself, however, the only question she had really needed the answer to, Rick had given her in that video message. But if Rachel McCord could help Rick find the peace of mind he so desperately needed, she would not allow herself to be the one to take away this chance for him to find answers and put this behind him. She loved him too much for that.

But if Rachel finished her investigation and left Rick with nothing, if she made things worse for him, then God as her witness, there would be a very unpleasant reckoning.

Richard Castle was thrown for a loop after watching the video of himself. Both the one he'd made for Rachel, and the one he'd made for himself. He'd fantasized about the whole superhero thing but the reality of it was a big responsibility, and the suit would only work for him. So either he stood up and took the mantle or their would be nobody.

McCord was straight with him about being abducted at the same time he was. Rick's head was spinning, He'd been abducted by aliens who had wanted to turn him into what amounted to a superhero, with a secret agent sidekick no less! Just yesterday if he'd ever suggested such a thing (and he had more than once) Kate would have rolled her eyes at him and told him to find a better theory. All that was needed was the CIA and troop of Ninja Assassins to become involved and it would be all of his crazy theories in one small black box.

When he touched the symbol at the top and the box slid open revealing the suit, however, he was overwhelmed by a deep sense of dread.

All of this felt familiar somehow. And not in a good way.