Chapter Three

The morgue was a sullen place. It was quiet except for the buzz and hum of the florescent lights, peaceful except for the smell of death that hung in the air like a heavy blanket. In other words, there were few people who could spice it up in there.

Medical Examiner Heathe was not a sullen as a child. When he was a teenager he had big dreams of becoming an actor on the big screen, being immortalized as a star. But with growing up comes a sense of reality, routine, and paths of least resistance. Connor Heathe was always a natural when it came to puzzles. He couldn't get enough of them, and the first time he dissected a frog, he realized that anatomy was just like a bigger, more complicated riddle. Medical Examination had been his path of least resistance, and what had just been a hobby became a career.

Now career was routine, and each body became just another riddle, a story he'd read many times before. Kate Beckett was no different. Being in the forensic science business, he knew her name. Knew her rocky history with the force, the murder of a serial killer in the 12th precinct, something about a suspension after an incident with the edge of a building. He knew she'd married her partner, that famous writer… But other than that, she was just someone who'd had a common end for her profession.

Before making the slit, he handled the body carefully, looked around for tell-tale signs of foul play. There were bruising patterns around her mouth as if someone had covered it, and a red spot on the left side of her neck. They'd run a toxicology screen to see if any drugs had been inserted there via syringe, and the results had been positive. That was probably COD, but he wouldn't know until he got a look under the skin.

Heathe began to look in sensitive areas of the body for signs of allergic reaction to the drug. As he inspected the abdominal area, something caught his eye. He put his hands on the hips of the victim and stared down at her quizzically. Then he ripped his gloves off and was out of the door. There was something he needed to tell the detective.

Richard Castle stepped into The Old Haunt. He liked to go here when he was stressed, have a drink and relax. He oozed into a booth and ordered a scotch.

Kate had been gone for two months. Every P.I. he hired told him to give up, that she was gone and wasn't coming back. But he couldn't accept it. He knew his wife, and this wasn't her. He refused to let her be just another forgotten file in a room full of missing people. People who didn't have a face anymore because their loved ones had given up searching. He wouldn't be like that. He wouldn't give up.

She wasn't gone, she was just hiding. Now Richard Castle had counted to ten, and he was going to find her, whatever it took.

"Rick?" Barry, the bartender, looked at the writer, holding the public phone above his head. "It's for you."

Castle reluctantly took hold of the receiver and turned a corner so as to make whatever conversation he was about to have semi-private.

His voice sounded resigned when he spoke, like he'd lived too long and seen too much.

"Hello?"

"Castle, it's me."

Hearing her voice was like visiting the scene of a childhood memory. You think back on it for so long that you think you know every detail of the moment: who laughed and when, what it looked like, how you reacted when it happened. And then you go back to that same playground, now famous in your mind and realize that it's completely different than what you thought it was.

Nothing's ever what you think it is.

A bubble of anger expanded in his chest, butterflies danced around in his stomach, and his head ached with passionate desire. Castle didn't even try to say something. He just wrapped his hands tighter around the receiver and pressed his head against the wall.

"Castle?"

He could hear the fear in her voice. Was he still there? Was he ignoring her? Part of him wanted to make her squirm a bit, punish her for the hell he'd been going through lately. But he also wanted to cradle her face in his hands and feel her lips on his, be so close to her skin that he could feel heat radiating off it. And part of him wanted to slump down to the floor, close his eyes and go to sleep.

"Rick." This was of a question, and more of a plea. "Rick, I need you. I need to see you."

More silence.

"Please." She whispered. "Please…"

For some inexplicable reason, at that moment, Rick Castle looked toward the window, and there she was. Phone in gloved hand. Hat pulled almost over her eyes. Scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, in a black trench coat that fell to her knees with pants to match. Eyes fixed on him.

There.

Right in front of him.

He could hear the words through the phone as she mouthed them through the window. "Please."

He dropped the receiver, grabbed his coat, and headed towards the door.

"Detective Shoney?" Heathe spoke into the hallway telephone. A gruff voice replied, "Jesus, Connor, it's almost midnight. What the hell are you doing working?"

"Had nothing else to do. Listen, it's about the Beckett case."

"Couldn't it have waited until a more appropriate hour?"

"It's important. I was just checking the abdomen for anomalies, and there was something odd about the shape of her hips. I just checked the X-Rays, and Shoney, this woman has given birth."

"So?"

"So it was recently. As in the baby nothing but a month old. And I don't see any birth certificate, so where is it? Where's the kid?"

Silence on the other line, then: "Call Cap'n Gates. I'll notify the family, ask them if they know of anyone that the woman might've trusted to keep her baby safe."

"I'm not supposed to be here, Castle. But I had to see you."

They'd relocated from outside The Old Haunt to a Starbucks down the road. Kate clutched a cup of coffee in her hand like it was a lifeline, and stared into Castle's eyes.

"Just say something. Please, say something."

They sat across from each-other, and to anyone walking by, they would seem like a normal couple. Normal people at a normal coffee shop having a normal conversation. But there was nothing normal about this.

"Where have you been?" He asked, his words locked and loaded with angst.

"I've b—" He cut her off.

"And what have you been doing? Who've you been seeing? What's this about? Why the hell haven't you called, written, or made any attempt to call me in the past two months? Why did you just walk out like that?"

Her voice was strained and stretched so thin it sounded like it was going to break. "I can't tell you." She whispered.

He couldn't take it. He walked out of the shop and on to the sidewalk to get some air. She followed. They both just stood there, watching the cars go by, observing the chaos of the city. Not saying anything for awhile.

Then,

"I can show you where I've been, if you want." She looked up at him. He still stared straight ahead. "But if I do, I'll have to relocate. You won't be able to find me there after this."

He looked at her and nodded.

The apartment was tiny, and in a bad part of town. It was one-bedroom, with a bar for a kitchen table, a sink and a fridge. The bed was the couch and the living room chairs.

"Welcome to my humble abode." Said Kate, spreading her arms wide and setting her coffee cup on the counter. She shook her coat off her shoulders and set it down with the coffee, revealing a long-sleeved, navy blue shirt that buttoned all the way down the front.

"Is this the part where we sit down and you tell me what's going on?" Asked Castle forcefully.

Kate's hands dropped to her sides, and she beckoned him to sit down on the bed with her. She took off her hat, scarf and gloves and set them on the floor. There was nowhere else to put them.

"I can't tell you much. Only that I've been living here for the past couple of months and that I've missed you. And I'm not supposed to be talking to you right now. Hell, I'm not even supposed to be looking you in the eye. I'm breaking all the rules…" She trailed off and looked downwards.

"What is this? Castle's voice filled with rage. He stood up and paced. "You call me, tell me you have to talk to me, and for what? Nothing! You can't just disappear and reappear at your leisure, Kate! You can't just drop by for a kiss and a coffee and then become invisible for the next two months! We're married, we have a life together—"

"Castle, please!" The desperation in her voice cut him like a knife, but he couldn't control himself.

"I didn't know if you were even in New York! Do you understand what that's like? You could have been dead, for all I know. You could have been—"

"Castle, stop!" She cried as she stood up, her eyes watery and threatening to spill over with tears at any moment. He looked away, his hands on his hips. Kate lifted her hand to meet his right cheek, her thumb cupping his chin and making an L formation with her pointer finger. She tilted his head so he had to look her in the eye.

"They. Are going. To kill you."

Green stared into blue.

"Think about that for a second." She whispered. "Just think about it." Castle said nothing, permitting her to continue.

"Imagine that someone hated you so much, that they were beyond hurting you. Imagine they wanted to torture you, break you until you were mere pieces of a human. Imagine that they were going to keep you alive, purely for the purpose of making you suffer. Imagine that they were going to kill every last person you love and make you watch." She spit out her words like they were bullets being fired.

"Imagine that they were going to start with me."

Castle stared still, but he was listening now. He was hearing her now.

"What would you do? Would you wait around for it to happen? Or would you try to keep as much distance as you could so that you could end it with no harm done?"

Their eyes never left each other's.

"What would you do," A shape drew from the corner of Kate's eye and trickled down her cheek. "For someone you love?"

Without leaving her gaze, Castle cupped her chin in his left hand. He swept his thumb across her upper lip, wiping away the tear that had fallen, and tilted her face to meet his. He let his lips melt into hers, and as they did, the pair simultaneously inhaled as if they were holding their breath, waiting for something to break them apart.

When they released, Kate buried her face in his shoulder and wrapped her arms around him. He cradled her, and stroked her hair. "Shhh," he comforted. "Shhh…"

When she looked up at him, her face was wet and shining. Her look was one of desperation, almost as if she were asking him for something.

"Richard, I—"

But he cut her off, pressing his mouth to hers with a passion, running his hands through her hair as he grasped at her hungrily. She pushed back, favoring his bottom lip and flicking her tongue once, twice, three times. They tasted each other.

Castle reached around her to the buttons at the back of her shirt and ripped them apart a few at a time. When Kate's skin made contact with the cold air, her skin prickled with goosebumps. She threw her head back with a moan as he kissed her neck, leaving her skin in confusion as it burned and froze at the same time.

-S.E.L.