Her father helps her prepare her week's worth of meager belongings from the hospital, packing them into a plastic bag within minutes.
"You sure about this, Katie? If you think you'd be more comfortable staying with me at the cabin, I'd be more than happy to-"
"I'll be fine, Dad," she assures him, offering her best attempt at a smile. It's the third time he's asked her since he arrived this morning and part of her wants to take him up on it, stay with her dad in the secluded safety of a cabin upstate. But they both know how badly Jim tends to struggle through the holidays, how sacred his solitude becomes as the months grow colder. That aside, Josh mentioned that in a medical professional's opinion, the best way to trigger a memory was to spend time around the people and places she's forgotten.
What better place to start than with the person she's missing the most?
Technically. Not actually missing him. How can she miss someone she doesn't even know?
"This will help," she says aloud, more for herself than her father's peace of mind.
No, her dad doesn't really look worried at all.
"I think so too," he agrees, smiling back at her like he knows too much.
"Why won't you just tell me?" she sighs, attempting a glare at him from the edge of her hospital bed. But Kate inherited her killer glare from her mother; her dad has always been immune.
"Because it's not mine to tell," Jim shrugs, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets. "Besides, what makes you so sure you won't remember on your own?"
"It's not that." Even though it is. "I just want my memory jogged now. I need answers now, Dad."
"Just give it a little time, honey," he murmurs, stepping forward to cup her cheek. "Maybe a little faith too."
She scowls at him for that before redirecting her gaze to the walls strung with garland and glittery red bows. She doesn't know when the hospital staff covered every patient's in Christmas decor, but she could do without it. "Do you know how I usually celebrate Christmas?"
His brow creases slightly. "I thought you remembered your years on the force pretty well?"
"I do," she sighs, closing her fingers around the sleeves of her sweater slipping past her knuckles. "But Christmases are still a blur. I can remember ours, what they used to be, how they changed. But I can't remember what I do every year now. If I do anything at all."
She frowns down at her knees, the fleece sweatpants that Lanie picked up for her encasing her legs. She should have asked her best friend while she was here, should have grilled Lanie about every little detail. The M.E was overjoyed to see her, to question her doctors and learn all about her condition, but when Kovac suggested she refrain from overwhelming Kate with memories, Lanie struggled to hold back, especially when Kate asked about Castle. And yet all she got out of that question was a spark of mischief and knowledge in Lanie's eyes.
Yeah, she definitely should have pressed harder. Lanie would have caved.
Jim eases forward to sit down beside her, his face lined with concentration. "As far as I know, since we… stopped celebrating, you've taken on your own tradition at the precinct." She glances up to see him, the hint of guilt in his eyes, the melancholy twist to his mouth. "'Keeping watch', you call it. That's your tradition."
Taking the Christmas shift every year so that others on the force who did have families could spend such valuable time, keeping watch over those families and all of the others, ensuring they'd fail to end up as hers did. Yeah, if she had any kind of tradition, that would be the one she chose.
"I won't be able to work the Christmas shift this year," she murmurs, the disappointment seeping through her system. The one tradition she has, the only one she's good at, and she has to give it up.
"Just one year, Kate," her dad tells her, rubbing a gentle hand at her back. "You've watched over this city every holiday season for nearly ten years. You can allow yourself just one to heal."
Her chest simmers in reminder of just how miserable healing is bound to be, how excruciating it already is.
She leans gingerly into her father's side, inhaling the faded scent of woodsmoke and the cologne he's been wearing since she was a child. Her dad is careful with the arm he winds around her, exhaling a deep breath when he fails to elicit a hiss of pain from between her teeth and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
"You already know your mother would agree," he whispers, a smile as soft as the resting place of his side in his voice.
Her own lips can't help but quirk. "I remember her, every detail of her came back. I was always so afraid before, terrified I would forget exactly what she looked like, how she sounded, the way she laughed."
Jim squeezes her shoulder before letting go. "Me too, honey. But I can't forget your mother, even if I tried, and I know you won't either. She'll always be here," he murmurs, easing back to tap a finger to her temple before glancing down to her chest, her dilapidated heart. "And there as well."
He stands from the hospital bed and begins to gather the few of her remaining possessions lingering on her bedside table, his fingers pausing over the oversized watch that once belonged to him.
For the life that I saved.
Her brow furrows at the black leather between her father's calloused fingertips.
It's your dad's, right? That's why you wear it?
Her fingers automatically rise to her neck, the naked skin. "Where's my chain? Mom's ring?"
And this is for the life that I lost.
"I packed it for you, sweetheart. It's safe, I promise," her dad informs her, clasping the watch around her wrist.
Her head begins to pound, that telltale ache that ensures a budding memory is trying to form, that it's going to rip through her like a trail of thorns first and still leave her with a head full of questions.
We were supposed to go to dinner together - my mom, my Dad, and I, and she was gonna meet us at the restaurant, but she never showed.
She remembers the conversation, the context, the searing slice through her chest that bleeds every time she talks about her mother. But she can't envision the setting, can't picture the scene or the timeframe in which it occurred, can't see the person she was even talking to.
My Dad took her death hard. He's sober now. Five years.
She clutches the watch in her hand, reverently brushes her thumb over the clear face of it.
So, I guess your Nikki Heat has a backstory now.
"Nikki Heat," she tests the name out on her tongue, opens her eyes to stare up at her father. "Who's Nikki Heat?"
Her dad glances to the opening door in what looks like utter relief.
"I think you should ask her creator."
"What kind of name is Nikki Heat? Why would a character with that kind of name be based on me?"
This car ride is both amusing and becoming his own personal hell. He wants to tell her everything, wants to explain the Nikki Heat series, just how great her role in them has been, but he also doesn't want to disrupt her own process of remembrance. More than anything, though, he just needs to keep her distracted in the backseat of his town car, keep her from focusing on how every twist, turn, and bump along the road triggers ripples of agony across her face.
"I'll let you read the books sometime, Beckett. The name will grow on you."
"It's a stripper name," she growls, her fists shining ivory at her sides, her jaw sharp enough to slice. She's trying so hard not to crack, to give way to the pain visibly lancing through her entire frame.
"Well, she is a little slutty-"
"Castle."
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding," he swears when she looks as if she may risk injury to land a smack to his arm. He takes one of her balled fists, cradling it in one of his palms and circling his thumb along her knuckles. "Mostly."
All he receives is a fierce glare for that one and it makes his heart revel in delight. It almost feels normal, as if it's just another bout of banter between them.
"Maybe I don't want to read about your stripper cop," she mutters, releasing a slow breath through her nose as they speed over another pothole.
"Too late, you already have. I'm sure a walk through of your apartment will prove that."
"Maybe I should have taken my dad up on his offer for the cabin after all," she scowls, but her closed fist unfurls to curl around his hand when the car finally slows to a stop in front of her Tribeca apartment.
He winks at her as he opens the door, hunching his shoulders against the bitter chill of the wind and doing his best to block Kate from its bite while he helps her out of the car. She's bundled up in an oversized hoodie, a light coat that won't weigh too heavy on her shoulders, but she's still so brittle, so fragile, vulnerable to the brutal cold of winter.
She can't afford to shiver, breathing is hard enough of a task for her.
"Wow," she hums, shuffling onto the sidewalk. Her eyes rove the exterior of the building, approval simmering in the gold specks of her gaze. "Nice place."
"You have great taste," he nods, slipping one of his hands to the small of her back to steady her.
The snow from the sidewalk that leads to her building has luckily been cleared for the day, but by the time Kate manages to cross the distance with her small steps and shudders of pain from the cold, from the mere exertion of movement itself, minutes have passed and they've just made it inside the apartment lobby. She's practically frozen.
She leans on him in the elevator, her entire body tipping forward and trembling with effort. Castle wraps a loose arm around her waist, lays his hand to the cool skin of her nape, glazed in sweat.
"I should have just taken you home, I'm sorry," he whispers, pressing his cheek to the chilled cartilage of her ear. "I should just come on my own-"
"H-hush," she gets out against his shoulder. "I told you I wanted to come, wanted to see where I live, want to pick out my own clothes to pack."
"Still stupidly stubborn," he mutters, earning the hard pinch of her fingers to his side that makes him jerk.
"Don't call me stupid," she growls, tilting her chin just enough to dig into his collarbone.
"I didn't call you stupid, I called you stubborn," he hisses, wanting nothing more than to nip at her ear in retaliation. "I'm the stupid one, always willing to follow your stubborn lead."
Kate's head lifts, a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth when she looks up at him. He strokes the line of her vertebrae with his thumb and her gaze flickers to his mouth.
The elevator doors slide open onto her floor.
He keeps his hands on her, stabilizing, but takes a firm step back, ready to guide her out into the hall.
"Only a few steps away now," he encourages, trying to erase the way she just looked from his mind, the way her eyes caressed his mouth, the way her cheeks colored with something other than the cold.
The way it reminds him of that night in the parking lot, the way she tasted on his tongue.
Kate follows him out into the hall wordlessly, shrugging off the claim of his hands and instead walking alongside him down the short length to her front door. Castle draws her key from his coat pocket, unlocking the door and holding it open for her.
She steps inside her own home with uncertainty clinging to her every move, her eyes scanning the place with trepidation before the spark with near immediate recognition.
"Oh," she murmurs, venturing deeper inside with a little more confidence. "I know this place, I remember living here, shopping with Lanie for it."
He shuts the door behind them, feels his heart calm a little once he turns the lock. He's doing his best to ignore it, but having her out in the open is coaxing his paranoia to the surface, filling his head with worse-case scenario. If her shooter comes after her again, the first place they'll search is her apartment.
"Lanie and I spent most of that summer apartment shopping," she continues, pulling him back from thoughts that terrify him, images of her lying bloodied on the beautiful wood floors beneath their feet- "Were you around then?"
That has his full attention snapping back to her. "What?"
"The summer I bought this place," she picks up, studying the room as if the memories of that summer are all replaying for her across the apartment. "Where were you?"
"I… well, we've actually never spent a summer together," he tries to explain, shrugging when she glances back to him with a deep crease in her brow.
"No Christmases, no summers," she murmurs as if she's checking off a list. "When do we actually spend time together, Rick?"
The use of his first name throws him just a little, has an inappropriate flare of want simmering in his gut.
"At work, usually," he murmurs, tamping it down. It's just a pleasant change from her addressing him by his first name in her home without a fight brewing between them, that's all. "The summer before last, we were in a fight, and the summer when you found this apartment, I was in the Hamptons with Gina, and this past summer, we saw each other but I had book promotions, Alexis's college stuff, and your mother's case kept us both pretty busy."
She leans into the support of the living room wall, eyeing him curiously. "Gina?"
"Ah," he sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck. Shit. "My ex-wife, and publisher."
She blinks, an old wound she can't possibly understand reopening in her eyes when they meet his. Reopening one of his own. "You left me for someone else?"
"Left you?" he states, an unwelcome combination of confusion and indignation swirling in his stomach. "I couldn't leave you. You weren't mine."
She swallows hard at that, diverts her gaze to his chin, lost and embarrassed, and wow, he's an asshole.
"Kate-"
"Are you… with her?" she questions, staring back at him with so much weariness lining her face and dragging her brows into a furrow, her lips into a frown.
"What? No," he denies quickly, covering the few steps of space between them as he speaks. "Kate, that… it was over a year ago. You were seeing someone else at the time, another detective, and I asked you to come with me to my house in the Hamptons. You said no and -" He scrapes a hand through his hair. "And I asked Gina."
She tilts her head back against the wall, her gaze falling to the living room sofa, anywhere but him.
"Kate?" He's close enough to reach for her, to take advantage of the allowance of touch she's given him since she awoke, but he waits, forces himself to wait.
She glances back to him in askance, looking as if she's unsure she wants to hear whatever it is he has to say next.
"It's why I couldn't stay away as soon as I got the chance to work with you again. You told me to go home, you were always telling me to go home, but I wouldn't listen. Couldn't."
"Stubborn," she whispers, the corner of her mouth twitching. "Both of us."
"Incredibly," he nods, reaching out to tuck a straying strand of hair from her braid back behind her ear.
She turns her head to see him, watching him with exhaustion exuding from every pore of her skin, every blink of her eyes. He knows she must be in agony, her body suffering from the car ride, the walk to her apartment. She needs to sit, but before he herds her over to the couch, he lets his touch linger along her jaw for just a split second, grazing the harsh edge of bone.
"Just so you know, I missed you," he confesses, words they jokingly exchanged when he returned from that summer away in the Hamptons without her. Words he wished he could have professed then like he is to her now, with all the honesty he should have given her back then.
He missed her every day of that summer. Almost as much as he misses her now.
She tucks her jaw to her shoulder, trapping the cradle of his palm there for a moment.
"Whether I admitted it or not-" A soft exhale of her breath skitters across his wrist, heating his pulse. "I know I would have missed you too."
Her heart still feels stuck in her stomach an hour later, that sinking feeling she so vividly remembers now like a nuisance.
I couldn't leave you. You weren't mine.
Why does it bother her so much? That simple sentence that is simply stating fact. Did it eat at her like this before, the fact that she was never his and he was never hers? When her memories were intact and she was able to know him without having to try so hard?
Obviously not, if she was dating another man. A different man, a detective who's still blurry to her mind's eye. Not Josh. No, her recollection of him has become quite clear. She remembers the summer when she met the heart surgeon, enticed by their mutual interest in motorcycles and leather jackets. But no, Castle leaving for a summer away with another woman - his ex-wife - is still a blank. Just like everything else where Castle is concerned.
Kate purses her lips and tries to focus. She's standing in the middle of her closet, a room packed with a decent share of clothing on racks and rows of shoes, and she's supposed to be packing. Well, picking out things for Castle to pack since she can barely use her upper body.
She curls her fingers around the cashmere sleeve of a sweater. She won't be able to remain standing for much longer, the twinging sensation in her chest tightening like the gears of a wind up doll.
"Hey Beckett? Almost done?" He's leaning against the entryway, peering inside the closet. His lips fall into a puzzled frown that makes him look like a little boy, curious and confused, when he notices her empty hands. "Can't decide?"
"Not really," she murmurs, turning her back on the plethora of unmade decisions and shuffling towards him. "Does it really matter? I'm just going to be laying around all day, going to physical therapy."
"Hey, I might take you out on a walk through the park sometime. Not to mention, we have to go see the Christmas lights display in Brooklyn, plus there's all those extravagant arrangements in the store windows. Oh, and the Rockefeller Center, we have to go see the tree and head over to Bryant Park-"
"Rick." His eyes are sparkling with excitement, lighting up like the magical Christmas landmarks of the city he speaks of. She doesn't want to dull their shine, to crush his Christmas spirt, but the thought of any of it feels utterly impossible. "I can barely even walk around my own apartment for more than a few minutes."
He ponders this for a moment, but something tells her he's already thought it all through.
"There are other forms of mobility we can choose to exercise."
Her brow arches. "If you think you're going to roll me around New York City in a wheelchair-"
"Shh, we'll discuss the details later."
"Castle." The curl of his hands around her hips has her shutting up, stiffening ever so slightly.
"We've never had a Christmas together," he reminds her, glancing down to his hands as if he's just realized where he's put them, as if they've never spent time there before. Huh, she's disappointed.
He goes to drop them; she hooks her fingers around his wrists, staying him.
The uncertainty dissipates from his gaze, brimming with delight instead.
Oh, this is a dangerous game isn't it?
"It may not be exactly how I hoped our first Christmas would be, but I still plan to make it special," he finishes, circling his thumbs at her hipbones.
"What exactly were you hoping our first Christmas would be, Rick?"
She's noticed that with every use of his first name, something like need ripples across his face, fire lining his features. She's starting to enjoy making him burn.
The swirl of his thumbs come to a pause.
"As long as I get to spend it with you, it's everything I could hope for, Beckett."
She tightens the grip of her hands around his wrists, sealing her thumbs to his pulse, feeling it pound beneath her touch.
"Are you usually this sappy?" she mumbles, twisting her lips to stop the returning smile when he smirks at her.
"Yes," he nods, unfurling his fingers from around her bones, forcing hers to do the same. "And we're going to be having marathon Christmas movie nights on the couch to make up for the days you didn't get to spend immersed in holiday cheer, so you'll want the correct attire for that too," he muses, grinning as if he's been made proud by the roll of her eyes. "Why don't I just grab a few things for you? I know your style pretty well."
She raises an eyebrow at him, but doesn't argue. "Sure, go for it."
"Okay, direct me towards your underwear drawer to start with."
"Shut up," she groans, brushing past him with as much ease as possible.
"Kidding," he tosses over his shoulder, shooting her another one of those lopsided grins she's starting to… appreciate more, before she can abandon him for the living room.
She migrates to the couch, clutching the furniture's arm as she lowers herself to the cushions. The coffee table in front of her is littered with empty coffee cups, a manilla folder teetering precariously on the edge, and a Charlie Brown style Christmas tree in the middle.
Somehow, she already knows who provided that piece of decor.
Her eyes trail along the space while she gingerly eases back into the sofa, studying the artwork displayed along the walls that wins her over a second time, the knick-knacks scattered across the surfaces, the bookshelves crammed with literature. She cringes to find that he was right, that there's a small section on the shelves dedicated to Richard Castle.
The place feels well lived in, feels like her. Not quite like a home, but close enough.
She stretches just enough to shoot an arrow of fire across her side, just enough to reach for the case file on the table, drawing it into her lap, and flipping it open. A professional photo of Montgomery in uniform stares up at her, post-it notes in her handwriting pressed against the inside flap of the manilla folder.
Third cop.
Raglan, McCallister, Armen's murder, framed Pulgatti.
Add information to murderboard shutters.
Her brow creases deep and she presses the tips of her fingers to the image of her captain. Feels the cool touch of his flesh beneath them, stained in blood from the battle with Hal Lockwood, the Dragon's men. The war he waged for her life, one he gave his own for.
She startles harshly, the sudden jerk of movement thrashing her demolished heart around in the shaky foundation of her chest.
Murderboard shutters.
Kate grits her teeth and grips the arms of the sofa again, heaving herself up. It brings tears to her eyes, has the sizzle of pain in her chest spreading like wildfire, gasoline leaking through her blood, into her veins and all over her bones.
She drops Montgomery's file back to the table as she goes, her lungs heaving with effort as she crosses from the living room to her office. See doesn't waste time reacquainting herself with the space, moving straight for the shutters that are already cracked and waiting for her.
She has to press one of her arms to her side, the incision scar forming just below her ribs still so fresh and fragile and threatening to rip free of its stitches, but her other hand reaches for the shutters, easing each one open until the entirety of the window pane's contents are revealed.
Until her mother's murder board is in full view.
Castle hefts the duffel bag over his shoulder, scanning his eyes over the contents of her closet once more to ensure he isn't forgetting anything. But she has a point, they won't be doing too much for at least the first couple of weeks, so comfort is key and he has a number of button up shirts she could borrow in the meantime. To avoid the painful hassle of pulling clothing over her head, lifting her arms when she can barely move them without evoking fireworks of agony in her chest.
Plus, he wouldn't mind seeing her in his clothes.
He exits her closet, striding through her bedroom and expecting to find her on the couch, maybe exploring her bookshelves if she can stand to be upright for that long. But her living room is bare, no sign of her save for the case file left askew on the coffee table.
Montgomery's case file.
Shit.
Castle heads for her office, finding her immediately, silhouetted by the darkness of her homemade murderboard. His heart clenches with worry, it's too soon for this. The doctor said not to overwhelm her and here she is standing in front of the most overwhelming part of her life.
"I knew there was something else about that summer that I wasn't remembering," she whispers and he drops the luggage to the floor, starts towards her.
"Kate-"
"Montgomery's case file on the coffee table," she murmurs, her eyes never leaving the window panes of case notes, victims, all an intricate web stemming from the picture of her mother's dead body at the center. "I remember the hangar now, I remember everything that happened."
