Thank you again to every person who has read and/or reviewed and is still along for the journey.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to AWM and ABC. I'm just playing.


A Writer's Trail – Chapter 9: A Little Backstory

Jackson Hunt returns, his hands full of groceries, files and a couple of cheap looking phones. Setting everything down in front of the apartment entry, he is disappointed to find the clear fishing line seal he secured to the door prior to leaving has been broken. Shaking his head, he wonders if he will find that Richard has left during his absence. Hoping the immediate threat to his fiancee's life has been enough to tether him, Hunt unlocks the door and steps inside.

Scanning the apartment, he is relieved to see Rick's form stretched out across the bed fast asleep. Mentally inventorying the space, he deducts they are still alone. Tossing the files on the kitchen counter, he begins to put the groceries away and prepare dinner in advance of Richard waking.

Having heard the return of his father, Castle sits up, raking his hands through his hair and back down his face. Shifting his legs over the side of the bed, he stands and stretches, waking up fully as circulation returns to his tired limbs. He catches a whiff of garlic and ginger and heads immediately for the kitchen.

Jackson Hunt is bent over the counter, brows furrowed in concentration as he chops up vegetables and chicken. A fry pan sits heating on the front burner, garlic and ginger sizzling in the bottom. A bottle of Merlot sits breathing on Jackson's left.

As he enters, Castle watches his father add the chicken to the hot skillet, listens as the meat sears in the pan as it browns. He wonders if his little excursion earlier has gone unnoticed by Hunt or if the man will bring it up. Putting his thoughts aside he pastes on a neutral face. "Can I help with anything?"

Looking up at the sound of Richard's voice, Hunt shakes his head. "I'm good. Not much of a cook, but I can do a basic stir fry. Why don't you scrape up a couple plates and some silverware? We're about ready."

Castle walks into the tiny space, pulls down two plates from the second cabinet on the left and two forks from the first drawer. From the first cupboard he takes down two Mason jar glasses and sets them beside the wine.

Taking one of the plates Richard offers, Hunt fills it with the fragrant, steaming food, before handing it back to his son. "Seem to know your way around a kitchen."

"I do most of the cooking, or Kate and I do it together," answers Rick.

Hunt pours wine in each of the glasses, hands one to Rick. "Seem to know your way around this kitchen."

Rick kicks himself for going off memory from his earlier search of the room. "Natural selection helps. There are only two cupboards and three drawers. Most people are not going to bend down for flatware, so it's typically in the top one.

Clenching his jaw, bracing for the questions his father is darting around, Rick takes a large bite of his dinner, the flavors hitting his tongue and reminding him how hungry he is. "This is really good."

Hunt smirks. "Changing the subject are you?"

Taking another bite, Rick only shakes his head, points to his face to indicate his mouth is full.

Hunt leaves the topic for now and the two men finish their meal in silence.

Meal complete and dishes done, both men walk to the small living room. Rick's nerves are tightly wound with thoughts of Kate and whether she got his message, whether he's doing the right thing by leading her here. These thoughts have him begging off the card game Hunt offers in favor of a good night's sleep.

Biting back the urge to call his son out on whatever he was up to earlier, Hunt watches as Rick walks to the bedroom, bids a quiet goodnight and closes the door.

Walking to the small linen closet in the living room, Hunt pulls out a roll away cot, gets it set up in the middle of room and hunkers down for the night.

XXXX

The morning breaks with no light filtering into the small room, but his body feels rested and his internal clocks tells him it's time to get up. Lying in bed he wonders if he will see Kate today, if the final message he sent via Clara Coberg was enough for her to find him. The mere thought of seeing Kate again is enough to force him out of bed and into the bathroom to shower and dress.

Entering the living room, he finds his father poring over photographs and documents, a paper trail laid out across the floor. "Ah, morning. What's all this?"

Holding a picture of Fowler in his left hand, Hunt gestures across the documents with it. "This, Richard, is the infamous Captain Fowler, his career, his partners and his crimes."

Castle sits on the floor, folds his large body pretzel-style to sit cross legged next to his father. He picks up one of the glossy prints, studies it intently. The image is grainy, the man in the photo barely recognizable, but the location chillingly clear. Fear and white hot rage course through his body. "This is outside Kate's building. Why is there a picture of Fowler outside of Kate's place?"

Sifting through the pile, Hunt hands Castle three more snapshots. "Here are a couple outside of your building and another one outside of Kate's. He was watching you both."

Castle drops the prints quickly as if his skin has been burned just by touching them. "How long has this been going on? Has he been inside our homes? How far into our lives has he crawled?"

Hunt hears the distress in Rick's voice, pushes forward with the information Rick has to have. "I have no doubt he's kept an eye on Kate ever since she started digging deeper into her mother's murder. However, Fowler stepped up his involvement with her movements when you came in the picture six years ago. You are a formidable team and posed a clear threat working together. For the most part he was content to sit back and watch or get reports second hand through Montgomery or other sources without raising suspicion, but once Maddox was killed and Beckett was not, his almost everyday surveillance began."

Rick unfolds his body, stands to pace the room, the information almost too much to absorb. Balling his hands into fists, he frantically moves around the tight space. "Are you telling me that he has been watching us, stalking us outside our homes for two years and no one caught on?"

Watching his son as he paces the room liked a cage animal, Hunt allows little emotion through. "Yes, that is what I am telling you. He's a police Captain, Richard. If anyone questioned his presence, he had the identification and the ranking to explain it logically. However, son, I was also watching you, watching over you and noted his presence one too many times. Eventually I opened a quiet investigation and started surveillance."

Castle halts his pacing, pinches the index and thumb of his right hand to the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stem the anger coursing through body. His voice quivers with rage, as flashes of Paris and Bracken and Vulcan Simmons blur his vision. "You could have stopped all of it. You could have stopped every terrible thing that's happened over the last two years before it spiraled out of control. Why…How could you have let it get this far?"

Hunt stands, faces his son, looking beyond the betrayal he hears. "Richard, I couldn't stop anything until now. All I had were some photos of his coming and goings, his illegal dealings and a non-sanctioned investigation. He's careful and until Bracken went down he had surrounded himself with a fortress of confidants. And, until this spring all he had been doing was watching you; and despite the surveillance and discreet phone tapping, I was never able to pick up any indication of his moving forward as a threat."

Shaking his head, Castle puts the timeline together. "This spring, when Kate got closer to catching Bracken and Bracken got closer to announcing his run for the presidency? That's what spurred him on, forced him to react?"

Hunt nods, "Yes. And when Kate survived the undercover assignment it was like poking a stick in a bee hive. Fowler is in all out panic mode and it's time we bring his secrets to light."

Bending down to pick up another photograph of Fowler outside the loft, Castle looks at the man who has tried so hard to end his world. "If we're doing this together then you'd better let me in on your plan."

Hunt hears the resignation in Rick's voice, knows he's willing to move forward. He hopes the decisions of the past three days have been the right ones. "We'll get to that, Rick. I'll lay it out for you, tonight or tomorrow at the latest but there are things to do –"

Ricks cuts in, "Dad, enough. I need to know. It's too big, too important to rely on blind faith any longer."

Hunt tilts his head towards his son, studies him. He sees the weariness, the distrust but also the fierceness he is presenting. "Fowler may have rented an office not far from here. I need to verify if this is true. That is step one."

Rick takes a deep breath, feels it rush in and calm his rapidly beating heart. "Okay. I'll go over the information here, get myself up to speed."

Hunt lets out a frustrated sigh, shaking his head at his son as he starts going through one of the bags he came in with yesterday, pulling out a couple of items and tossing them to Castle. "You'll be going with me today, Richard. I'm not sure what you were up to the last time I left but I have no doubt it could have resounding repercussions. I imagine you attempted to get a message to Kate and maybe you even succeeded, but I can't give you another chance. So, today you'll come with me, now go ahead and put those on."

Rick looks down at what his father had tossed his way - a fake beard, a baseball cap and chunky, black glasses. "I haven't shaved since yesterday morning, you sure the beard is necessary?"

"Richard," Hunt chides.

Taking steps towards the bathroom, Castle heaves a sigh. "I'm going."

Walking back to the living room once his disguise is in place, he glances around the tight space. The floor is bare again, no evidence of Fowler or his secrets left in the room.

Hunt steps in from the kitchen, pulling his arms through a denim jacket. "Can never be too careful, you know."

Hunt nudges Castle towards the front door. "Get your coat, let's go."

XXX

Walking side by side down the sidewalk Castel revels in being outside and away from the cramped apartment. Even as they stay amongst the side streets and alleyways he basks in being near people again. "Where are we headed?"

Never altering his pace, Hunt turns his head to Rick. "Up another eight blocks. I have a small camera I want to hide in the entry of the building I got word Fowler may be using."

Castle thinks if it wasn't his life, and Kate's life his father was trying to save, this spy life might just be pretty cool. "How are you going to do that?"

Not answering, Hunt continues to bob and weave through the streets, forcing Rick to keep up until they come to a run down, two-story, commercial building with no address or tenant names on the entryway box.

Stopping, Hunt pulls a tiny device from his pocket, holds it up briefly for Rick to see before running his hand up along the top of the door jamb and affixing it to the weathered metal. Reaching into his pocket he brings out a small screened television and turns it on. The screen flickers for a second before their two bodies come into view, framed in the small entrance. "That should do it. We'll head back to the apartment and see if Fowler shows up here."

Castle looks at the tiny surveillance camera. "And, if he doesn't? What then?"

Shutting the monitor screen off and returning it to his pocket, Hunt shrugs his shoulders. "We dig deeper. He's not stupid enough to do anything from his own precinct so he's gotta do it from somewhere. Our job is to find out where that is."

Stepping away from the building, Hunt begins walking back towards the apartment with Richard following closely behind.

They stop around the corner from their hide out to get a cup of coffee and a newspaper. Hunt discreetly nudges Rick behind him and out of the vendor's line of vision as he pays for the copy before handing it over to his son. Flipping the pages open, Castle is surprised to see the story of his accident and presumed death has been relegated to page 3. Quietly muttering to himself about not being front page news, he follows Hunt around the corner, across the street and into the corridor of their home for now.

Castle skims the article as they walk up the three flights to their floor. Folding the paper back into its rightful shape, Castle tucks it under his arm as he waits for his father to unlock the door.

Inserting his key in the opening, Hunt hesitates a fraction of a second as he hears the locks tumble back in place, the pins resetting themselves before turning again. The mechanism shows no sign of being tampered with, however, he knows picking a lock one way often means you have to pick it back the way you found it, and whoever has entered the apartment has neglected this small step.


A/N - Thank you to Kellie and KG for being willing to read through each attempt. Thanks to WOML for being the best kind of medium.

A/N # 2 - This is not what my beta wanted and all mistakes are my own.

A/N # 3 - Next chapter will see us moving to M rating but I will make the change clear beforehand.