I couldn't resist writing, there were too many ideas jumbling themselves in my head. Plus, you guys deserve a couple of chapters. I have been the flakiest author! I love the way this story is coming along and I hope you do too!
3,
Kahli
I don't own Castle, the oh-so-lucky Andrew Marlowe does. He is indeed the keeper of the Castle Book of Secrets. Please read and review! I get so happy when I read them :)
By two o' clock, Beckett heard a soft knocking on her door. The smell of hot coffee filled her nose as she padded to the door. When she opened the door, a different sort of smell filled her nose. His smell. And her eyes, when her eyes met his; green collided with blue . Both waited for the other to break the terse silence. Finally, Castle did.
"Kate."
"Hey, come on in," she responded, giving him a tight hug. She inhaled his very essence and closed her eyes. Richard Alexander Castle, you have no idea how much I have needed you in the past three years. He let go of her embrace and she missed it already.
"Is that coffee I smell?" Castle said, smiling.
It's still there. If there was one thing about Richard Castle that Katherine Beckett could not resist, it was the way his smile seemed, no matter how small, to reach up and kiss his cerulean eyes and how it made them crinkle softly at the corners.
"Yeah, you want a cup? I thought you might want some considering, well, it's, um, two am."
"Yeah, I would."
"Grab a seat and I'll get you a cup."
He walked into her living room and listened to the clang and clatter of the coffee mugs in the kitchen. He looked around at her living room. It's barely changed at all. Pictures of her friends and family littered the mantel of her crackled, white fireplace. Castle only paid attention to two specific photos though. One was of a brunette that looked much like Kate herself. Her mother. The other picture that caught his eye was a picture of three people. It was Kate, Alexis, and himself. She never forgot. She was always thinking of Alexis and I. At that second, Kate walked it carrying two steaming mugs of coffee.
"Kate, I need you to tell me what happened. Please. I don't know how much will change or what the hell could have so important that you couldn't tell me. Or at least let Montgomery tell me. You missed so much. My mom's dead, you know that, right? Alexis graduated. "
" I know. She came over and told me all that and more. Rick, do you remember the guy they busted about two years ago? They called him "Your Worst Nightmare?"
"Vaguely. There was a period of time when I was more absorbed in the Jack Daniels label than any piece of news or journalism. What was his M.O?"
Kate knew Castle well enough to know that she had engaged the writer in Castle's brain.
"He stalks his victims for years at a time, looking for their worst fear. You know, that one fear you only trust with certain people. The one that would kill you if it ever happened. You once told me that yours was losing Alexis."
"That doesn't even sound like it should be real. What a psycho," Castle said, pausing to take a sip of his coffee, "but what does that have to do with you?"
"NYPD had tried everything to lure this guy. The only way that they knew they could get the bastard was to send someone undercover. They said it was long term; and I have to admit, if I could have seen this conversation before I made the decision to go, I never would have" Beckett swallowed, as she realized the magnitude of vulnerability she was showing right now. He deserves me not lying to him anymore.
"So you did it. Kate, what was your worst fear?"
"Losing someone I love. Losing my dad." Or you. Or Alexis
Oh God, Rick thought, her dad.
"Is your dad-"
"No. That's how they caught him. About two years into the operation. I was living as Anna Simmons, a waitress at a 'blue-plate special' in the middle of downtown. Walking down the alley out to my car, a man grabbed me and I couldn't fight back. I wasn't supposed to. I was his prisoner for over four months. Raped over and over. He told me that it was every woman's fear to be raped, to have that stolen from them. He beat me. Then he figured it out. My cover was blown. Then he remembered an incident. A conversation I had long forgot. Apparently he's a big Richard Castle fan because the only way he remembered this conversation was because he saw you. We were waiting for the light to change at a crosswalk. You asked me what my worst fear was. Long story short, he went after my father who was being followed by a security detail for two years straight. I had told Montgomery what I told you."
"Kate."
"I don't want pity. I thought it might make this whole "forgiveness" pill a bit easier to swallow."
"Did he do that to all his victims? Rape them, I mean?"
"There was evidence of it on the rest of his victims. I was the first one that he imprisoned."
"He's in prison now, right?"
"He's awaiting trial."
" Are you going to have to testify?"
"Considering I'm his only living victim, yes."
"I 'm so sorry, Kate. That I doubted you like I did. It's just, and it isn't a cop-out, if you had watched what it put Alexis through when you left. She was valedictorian. Y ou would have been so proud of her. She came home and cried. Do you know why her concentration is criminal law?" Castle said, tears in his eyes.
"I have a sick feeling that I do."
"She said that she wanted a major that would make you proud, whatever the hell had happened to you. She said she never wanted to have to face on of your cases someday as the defense. She wanted justice, and defending killers and rapist's wasn't what she was ingrained to do. I can thank you for that quality in my daughter."
"Rick, I wanted to tell you so bad. But I knew he would just keep killing, no, brutalizing these women. And I knew that if Montgomery told you, my cover would be gone. Well, earlier than it was blown anyway." Kate almost whispered, a dark chuckle was it's accompaniment.
"I want this to work. It will be baby steps. I used to tell Alexis when she was little that just because it was an accident didn't mean that it didn't happen. It's gonna work the same way with you. Kate, I can't afford for you to break my heart again. I need to know that you're still the same Kate Beckett that I remember."
"Okay."
"Just one more question. You said you're worst nightmare was losing someone you love. The only reason I'm here is because you had a nightmare. Does that mean what I think it means?"
They never once broke eye contact.
"Richard Alexander Castle, I love you."
~Open up next to you and my secrets become your truth; And the distance between that was sheltering me comes in full view; hang my head, break my heart built from all I have torn apart
And my burden to bear is a love I can't carry anymore~
Song is "Breathe Again" by Sara Bareilles
