Whisper: Chapter 12

DISCLAIMER: Most of these characters are not mine at all, but they are memorable. Thank you, Mr. Marlowe. The others? Yeah, they're mine

Epilogue: Saturday Morning, March 24, 2012 – 7:37 a.m. – at the Washington, D.C. Home of Senator William Bracken

Elizabeth Bracken sits on the terrace in the backyard. She sips her morning coffee, up early on this Saturday morning. She always beats Will out of bed on weekends. It is her personal time, her time to think, to review, to contemplate, to plan.

The past week has been – for certain – a personal disaster, but also a political and public triumph. Her plans for her husband and the presidency could not be moving forward more beautifully. Yes, it has cost him dearly. His parents are gone. She loved his parents dearly. But nothing is free, and the universe has decided that they have outlived their usefulness, and taken them away. She accepts this without hesitation or regret. Compartmentalizing has always – always – been her primary strength.

It is what allows her to be magnanimous in one moment, then murderously ruthless when necessary. Two sides of the same coin.

"It's nothing personal," she has often said – both to herself and the henchman she has selected to carry out some of her more 'permanent' solutions.

She knows her husband will – in time – get over it. Bombing their house was brutal, sure, but also quick. She knows they didn't suffer.

Compartmentalizing.

She also knows that she and Will have both suffered personally as well. She gingerly fingers the still swollen and tender scar that runs along, underneath her jawline.

"Scarf my ass, bitch," she thinks to herself. "I will proudly wear this, allowing everyone to see your handiwork," recalling how the assassin inferred that the punishment she was administering would – ultimately – bear good fruit for the Senator and his wife. She feels the stitches, and for a moment, fights down a bout of anger that threatens to rise. She closes her eyes, thinking about the scar now a permanent fixture down her husband's cheek.

And somehow, she sees that damn detective behind it all.

Yes, Sheila Elizabeth Bracken will secretly be keeping tabs on one Kate Beckett. There is something sticking in the back of her mind, a horrible itch she cannot reach. It refuses to crystalize, but it refuses to disappear as well.

She continues to wonder what caused a truly loyal friend and confidante to her husband such as Elena Markov to betray him. Yes, she considers it a betrayal, whether the woman was misinformed or not. She knows that the assassin is far more intelligent than your typical hitman. She knows the woman is too smart to think so simplistically as to believe Will would play her so callously. No, something happened. Or, rather, someone.

She has no proof, of course, but she believes with her every fiber than somehow, the detective is behind it. Of course, she believes Kate is behind every problem her husband runs into. It's his damn obsession with the detective. Why he hasn't just allowed her – or Elena – to eliminate the nuisance, why he seems so damn honor bound to stick to some ill-advised agreement to keep her alive is beyond Mrs. Bracken.

All she knows now is that her days of sitting aside allowing him this leniency are over. The Stone be damned, she's going to make Beckett pay. For Will's parents. For their scars. For losing Elena. And if the Stone really, really wanted either she or her husband dead . . . well, she wouldn't be sitting here sipping on her coffee with Amaretto creamer, now, would she?

Of this she is absolutely positive. Somehow, his threats aside, his posturing aside, it occurs to her that the menacing Stone might actually want her husband to ascend to the throne. Taking out his parents instead of him? It just doesn't make sense, unless he was trying to send a message to someone. And that someone can't be Will, because the Stone had already delivered his message to Will days earlier, in the form of the finger digits of one Scott Dunn.

She shakes her head, trying to piece these disparate pieces together as she blows the top of her hot coffee, ready to take another sip. She stares down at the digital photograph in her hand. It is a photograph of one Jackson Hunt. No, she doesn't know him by that name – she doesn't recognize the man. But this photo was captured as he turned on the ignition of Will's limo on that fateful night that Will's parents met their maker.

In a turn of tremendous irony, one of the security measures that Elena had recommended to Will was to implement a means of tracking his limo in the event that someone either stole or hijacked the heavy vehicle . . . and his wife. The hidden camera had captured the image of Hunt. She doesn't know who he is, but now she knows who to look for.

It's more than they had a week ago. She takes a long sip, smiling, deciding that the death of the elder Brackens was easily worth the image she now holds in her hands.

Compartmentalizing.

"The universe decides," she says aloud, another of her signature catchphrases that she takes to heart. Literally.

Her cell phone rings, and she glances down at the number. It's his second, stashed cell phone he is using to reach her. The one he uses only for their 'business'.

"Hello, my Mr. Smith," she greets him with a chuckle, which he returns in kind.

"Your Mr. Smith?" he smiles. "So possessive, Mrs. Bracken," he laughs, but there is no mirth in his voice. On to business.

"You wanted to know the whereabouts of the detective," he begins.

"Yes, yes," she replies quickly.

"She's out in the Hamptons," he responds, and lets his answer hang in the air. He enjoys their little games.

"With him?" Sheila finally asks.

"With him," he acknowledges.

"And you came to know this how?" she asks, taking another sip of coffee. It is unusually good this morning.

"Gates, of course," he replies.

"The captain is turning out to be very useful, indeed, Clay."

"Victoria is the best kind of plant," Captain Clayton Russell agrees. The fifty-two year old Russell is a thirty-year vet on the NYPD force, and for the last seven years he has headed up Internal Affairs, where one Victoria Gates used to work under him.

"The kind that doesn't know she's a plant," he continues. "The kind that just does her job, and by doing so, gives us everything we need."

"And Gates has told you that the detective is out in the Hamptons with her writer?" Sheila confirms. She has to make sure – has to get this right.

"Yeah, been there for a couple of days, I believe, until last night," he tells her.

"What happened last night?" Bracken asks. "I'd think the two lovebirds would have wanted to celebrate their weekend."

"I'm not so sure they are lovebirds, and I don't think Castle has much to celebrate," he replies. "He's been shot, damn near suffocated, his little girl was kidnapped and God only knows what she went through," he continues. "I'd damn near say the detective is as much bad luck for him as she is for you."

"It has nothing to do with luck," Senator Bracken's wife replies. "It's her . . . her karma. It breeds on her, and attaches itself to anyone she interacts with for too long – be they friend or foe."

Smith is once again taken aback with the Senator's wife's utter hatred for Kate Beckett. He finds it unusual, unreasonable. After all, it was Sheila who originally ordered the hit on Kate Beckett's mom. Had she not done that, then Beckett is just some two-bit cop who never even enters the Bracken's orbit.

"Anyway, Gates called her back in for the bombing investigation," he tells her.

"Bombing?" she asks.

"Back here in the city," he explains. "Would have thought it would have made the evening news last night in D.C."

"The Senator and I . . . have not seen much television in the past twenty four hours," Bracken explains, and Clayton Russell, nee Smith decides that the less he knows about that, the better. He has worked for the Brackens for the past fifteen years, - a failsafe put into place by the Senator back in the day, just in case things ever went sour with Roy Montgomery. And no, he isn't buying her ignorance of a bomb blast in New York City. If there is anything that the D.C. power couple do religiously, it is absorb media.

"I understand," he replies. "Just understand, the Feds are coming in on this one," he tells her. Her silence tells him all he needs to know.

"Let me know if I can be of service, Mrs. Bracken," he says as a way of signing off.

"Always, Mr. Smith," she chuckles, drawing a concluding laugh from the IA captain as they both terminate the call together.

She sits for a few more minutes, enjoying the morning songs that bathe their backyard in soft ambience. She smiles, all things considered, still completely satisfied with her life. Their life. Finally standing, she makes her way inside, and heads back to the bedroom where she will rouse her sleeping husband.

Opening the door, she gasps as she sees her husband sitting up in the bed, his mouth taped shut, his hands tied in front of him, and his chest tied to the bed post behind him.

Wide-eyed, she immediately scans the room, quickly left and right, looking for his assailant, but his muffled noises and vigorous head shaking let her know that whoever has done this is gone.

She quickly makes her way over to him, and immediately notices the tape extends from one side of his face, over his mouth, to the other side. There is no way she can remove the tape without damaging the stitches put there five days ago. Stiches for the slash from Elena Markov. She frowns, pursing her lips. He nods his head vigorously, anger in his eyes, telling her to get on with it.

In one quick motion, she rips the tape off, closing her eyes momentarily against the violent scream of pain and anger her husband releases.

Seconds later, she reopens her eyes, and begins working on his bindings.

"What in the hell –" she begins, but doesn't need to finish the question.

"Elena," he spits out, tears burning his eyes against his own will as the blood now pours from his re-opened wound on the cheek.

"What?" she asks, incredulously. "Here? How?"

"Not important," he says dismissively. "She paid me a visit. Paid us a visit. Said she actually slept in our guestroom last night, the ballsy bitch!"

Sheila is taken aback by the Senator's tone, as he has always referred to the assassin in more reverential tones. Even with all that has happened, in the past few days her husband has been annoyingly defensive of his former pet assassin. She is secretly glad to see his anger rise against Markov. She is frightened, however, at the notion that – once again – Elena Markov is proving to both of them that she can move freely at will in their world – in their own house, dammit – completely undetected.

"She said she wanted to wait until you went for your morning coffee, so that she and I could talk in private," he continues, noting her look of alarm. "Yeah, I caught that, too. She knows your patterns as well as mine."

He rings his now free hands together, rubbing life back into them as she unties the knot from the bed post. He watches the drops of blood begin to pool on his lap.

"She told me – and I quote – 'Richard Castle and his family are off limits'", he tells her, drawing a raised eyebrow from his wife.

"Told me – and again I quote – 'your issues with the detective are between you and the detective.' She was very clear about you and I not allowing Richard Castle to get in the crosshairs of our little . . . feud with Detective Beckett. And said she is going to be sticking around, keeping an eye on things."

"Will," Sheila interjects. "This makes no sense – at all. Why in the world would a world-class assassin give a shit about a stupid –"

"Because, Sheila," he tells her, holding her gaze firmly in his, "he is her brother."

Sheila Bracken's jaw-dropping expression is priceless for the Senator, and under different circumstances, he would find it wildly entertaining. As it is, however, it simply mimics what he is feeling right now. He can tell that lost puzzle pieces are now starting to fall into place in his wife's mind as well.

"She's his sister, Sheila. She's his damn sister."

A/N: So – this finishes this set-up tale for the next phase in this AU, with lines drawn tenuously in the sand, with alliances teetering and a few new players introduced.

From a family perspective, Castle's once tightknit crew is – while not fractured – definitely far more tentative in their walk together. The ramifications of Alexis' decision will have major undertones in future stories, as you can expect, as we will discover exactly what 'protection at all costs' means to an assassin bound by honor. And the Brackens – while in the midst of an election year – aren't going to take the past week lying down. It's just not in their nature. And we will learn a lot more about Mr. Smith, who takes on a much more villainous turn in this AU, as did his good friend, Roy Montgomery.

And best of all for me – some of Season 4's latter episodes, starting with the bombing in the plaza, can now take on a very different arc, and the 'Always' that Castle and Beckett search for could eventually be much stronger and, therefore, less susceptible to the horror that was Season 5. My humble opinion, of course

I will be moving forward with this AU again next year – let's remember that these are imperfect characters.

I love the Elena character, and I have written her to have a strict code and culture of honor. But let's not kid ourselves, she is a vicious killer.

I love Kate Beckett, but I realize she is a self-absorbed, singularly focused loner who craves companionships that can be compartmentalized. That way she doesn't have to commit completely.

I love Richard Castle, but realize that he is a serial self-deprecating doormat whose optimistic outlook doesn't allow for even considering worst-case scenarios.

And then there is Alexis – a good girl, with good intentions who is scared of her nightmares while sleeping only to have worse daydreams. How she has reacted can be debated – but the die has been cast.

All of these characters can change – can learn, can become better. Whether they actually do or not? Hehehe…well, that's the story isn't it?

As always, thanks to everyone who reads, follows, favorites and reviews my writings. And I love our PM exchanges – such fantastic ideas often come from those. Whether you like the stories or not, you humble me, and honor me. Thank you.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone. I hope all of you have a great holiday season.

Continue to pray for France. The holidays – for many, many, many people, will not be the same this year, or for a long time.

God bless you all, richly and greatly.

Aalon