A/N: So we're officially on a schedule. I'll be updating this fic every Saturday for the time being. Thank you for sticking around to read more, it really does make me super happy that so many people are following this now after only 2 chapters. Like always, Castle and its characters don't belong to me. - Immac


JANUARY 6, 2000

Kate woke up early that morning. It was time to start packing up, get ready to go back to California. Even as she thought it, she felt an ache in her heart, like she was making the wrong choice. However, it was too late now. She'd already paid for her classes and even arranged her schedule. Her dad had managed without her just fine for most of the past year.

Okay, that was a lie.

As Kate hauled a bunch of cardboard boxes out of her closet, she thought back over the past year. Maybe if she had stayed instead of going to Stanford his alcoholism wouldn't have gotten as bad as it was. She knew she shouldn't be beating herself up over her father's dumb choices, but she had to admit she'd been a little selfish in the past few semesters. Staying in New York, knowing that whoever had stabbed her mother was still out there, had been too painful at the time. Staying with her dad, and seeing the dull lifelessness in his eyes every day, seemed near impossible. So, only two weeks after the funeral, Kate had fled the city for the sanctuary of a college on the other side of the country.

Only now was she seeing her life with startling clarity. She, Katherine Houghton Beckett, was motherless. She was now the daughter of an alcoholic. She was cripplingly unprepared for pushing forward in life, moving on.

The fact of the matter was that when Johanna Beckett died, Kate's love of life died with her. Kate went from being a social butterfly to a hollow shell of what she used to be. Her friends had all noticed, and she considered that a contributing factor to her only having three people she even talked to anymore.

Sure, her college buddies put on a good face and acted normal for her sake, but she knew they pitied her. They wanted her to move on. It's what she would've wanted.

Kate blinked hard, scrunching up her face, willing the thoughts to leave her head. She didn't have time for the tears, the pain. She just wanted to get this over with.

Last time, it had been easier. When she approached her father about moving back to Stanford so soon after the funeral, he had been a bit concerned. Nevertheless, he still agreed to help her. And when she left again in the fall, he had been incredibly stoic about it, but still helpful. But when she had returned home last December for the holidays, things had changed. He was no longer joyous. It was obvious that Kate and Johanna's absences had crushed him. She had showed up at his house in the morning and found him passed out in the bathroom with several empty bottles of whiskey.

That's why she rented an apartment for the month. It was small and cold and lonely, but at least she didn't have to watch her dad constantly drink until the sobbing stopped. Only now she was on her own to move her stuff out. Kate sighed and flopped down on the floor by her bookshelf.

She looked at her shelves, searching for the ones that would return with her to college and the ones that would go into storage at her dad's or get sold to some second hand store. Kate reached out at one, smiling fondly at it. A Calm Before the Storm by Richard Castle. Her father had given it to her as a going away present when she'd left a year ago. It was his latest book and she'd already read it 23 times. She had absolutely fallen in love with the story. Kate felt like her mother would've loved it, too.

That was the thing about the Beckett girls. They loved mysteries. Maybe it was Johanna's love of the legal system, and that love had being passed down to her daughter, but the two couldn't put the books down. They especially loved the ones by Richard Castle. He's got such a way with words, Katie. Johanna told her that every time she read a new one.

Kate smiled, thinking of how she had talked to him. He had approved of her reading choices, given her suggestions. Her mom would've loved that. Hell, she probably would've finished all three books in one day and give them back to Kate with a wink that said she'd love them too. And, in all honestly, Kate had read a good bit into each of them already. Something about her conversation with Mr. Castle had changed something. It made her feel a way she hadn't in a long time.

It made her feel happy.


Kate finished sorting all of her books within the hour. All the ones she wanted to keep or leave with her dad were piled up victoriously on top of her bed, and the rest were in the cardboard box to be donated. Glancing at her watch, she stood and closed the box up. She had time to run it by the local Goodwill and maybe even meet Will for lunch. Kate grabbed her phone and put in speed dial number 3 to call him as she left the apartment.

"Kate!" he said in greetings after letting the phone ring a few times. "Haven't heard from you in a while. What's up?"

"Just wondering if you'd like to grab lunch together. Are you free?" Kate asked with a smile.

"Sure thing. I'll meet you at Luigi's in an hour. That good?"

"Perfect." Kate said her farewells to him as she took the stairs down to the street, box in hand. She really did like having Will around, even if neither of them were exactly what you'd call "ready for commitment." But it was nice having someone for lunch dates and angry sex. Kate slipped her phone into her coat pocket and stepped into the cool outside air.

It was still absolutely frigid outside, and as she walked the snow crunched beneath her boots. She always liked that noise. The streets were bustling with people walking to the places they needed to be. Kate liked that too. Even when she felt absolutely alone, she still had the strangers around her to remind her that she wasn't.

Except strangers weren't exactly kind when you block their path.

Kate let out a sort of scream-slash-gasp as she slipped on a chunk of ice. Her box of books went up in the air as her body went down towards the ground, and it landed upside down on the ground beside her. The pedestrians grunted in anger as they had to recalculate their path so they didn't step on her or her cardboard box. Kate moaned softly, trying to shift her weight in a way that didn't hurt more. While she was fairly sure that her tailbone wasn't broken, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it would be bruised like hell within a few hours.

"Here," a man's voice said. "Let me help you."