Moment in Time

The Blue Butterfly

"We don't know how to thank you," Joe said.

"I do," Castle told him. "Just answer two questions. One, if you had the Blue Butterfly, why didn't you take it? And two, where has it been all this time?"

"If you really want to know the whole story," Joe told Castle, "I have something for you." Joe got up and rummaged in a drawer. He returned with a thin, hard cover notebook. "This is a journal I kept after Vera and I escaped. You can have it. I remember every moment."

Castle took the book, his eyes widening as he flipped through the pages. "Thank you - Jerry," he said.

Joe and Vera, tears still glistening in their eyes, smiled as Castle and Beckett left.


Castle put his feet up on his desk, with glass of scotch at ready. With mental images of himself as Joe and Kate as Vera, he began to read.

The heat from the blazing car blasted our faces. Vera tore at the Butterfly as if it was singeing her sweet cream skin. "Joe, this thing really is cursed," she told me.

I couldn't see it. "Vera, that thing is just fancy rocks on a pretty rope," I told her.

She wasn't about to give. "No it's more than that, it's misery, Joe. We can't." She tore the thing from her neck, about to toss it away, but I had another idea. I had no love for the thing, but I was damned if I'd let Tom Dempsey get his hands on it. I'd leave it under Dempsey's nose but where he's never find it. The brick that was knocked loose by my head when Dempsey's two goons tried to beat me bloody made a perfect hideaway for the sparkly stash. That pretty bug would hide in my hankie there until the building came down.

As the flames rose over Sally and Leo, Vera melted in my arms, but we had to get away. Without the bauble, we were flat broke, but Vera had an idea. She still had the fur that Dempsey had used to decorate her. We grabbed it from her place before anyone came looking. The pawnbroker was tightfisted, but we had enough for a stake.

To the world, Vera and Joe were dead. We needed new monikers. We had enough green so that no joints asked questions about Mr. and Mrs. Jones. I hated seeing my doll in those fleabags, but Vera never squawked. Finally we got a break, by way of a banner headline. Dempsey was dead and the Pennybaker club died with him. I figured no one would give a damn about a bartender, so I called myself Jerry Maddox, and Vera latched on to Viola. The Justice of the Peace where we got hitched, didn't wink an eye.

I never went back on the sauce, which made me an ace behind the bar. I was working in a joint called Blue Sun when Vera gave me the news, we were going to have a kid. Flying shrapnel never made me shake so much. That kid needed a future. I hung onto every dime that came my way. When Jimmy popped out, Vera and I were on the way to having a joint of our own. By the time Lois joined Jimmy, we had scraped enough together to open Club JV. We kept everything together with an apartment upstairs. Vera still knocked men out and they would come to the place just to take a gander at her. I just kept pouring. My doll had to stop for a while when Jonesie decided to enter the picture, but by that time our crowd was pretty solid. We got a songbird to tweet for us and had to add more tables. Vera also added Eddie.

Castle flexed his neck and shoulders, which had grown stiff as he read. Visions swam before his eyes of Kate with children, their children. He shook the images away and drained what remained in his glass. Unlike Vera, Kate was still in danger, with no end in sight. He couldn't even think of a life with Kate like Vera had with Joe, until that danger was past. Castle closed the book, poured and quickly drank another scotch and headed for bed.


As Castle warmed his hands around his morning coffee, he could feel the tug of the journal, calling him to read more.

The smell of smoke woke me and I rushed to get Vera and the kids out. We never found out what started the fire, maybe a butt that still had some life in it. The cause wouldn't change squat.. Club JV, our apartment, all up in smoke. The insurance company held on tight, only parting with enough green to barely put a roof over our heads. Vera and I were starting from flat again. We took over managing the joint of a guy who liked to spend his winters in Florida. I poured the drinks and Vera did the rest. With four kids to take care of, our stake didn't grow fast, but we got by.

Jimmy was old enough to help out and history repeated itself. One day the sight of a doll walking in hit him with the same ton of bricks that bashed my head in when I saw Vera. Her name was Sophie. Her father almost bust a gut, but she and Jimmy were married a month later. They had even less than Vera and I started with. What they called an apartment, most guys would call a closet. But they were happy. They looked at each other the same way Vera and I did. That was worth more than any pile of green.

Castle scanned through the remaining pages. Joe hadn't written much after Jimmy was married, but there were marriages for Lois, Jonesie, and Eddie, the births of grandchildren and great grandchildren. There were illnesses, one in which Vera had almost died. Castle shuddered in sympathy, as the sight of the life draining out of Kate flashed before his eyes. One grandchild had been lost, another source of pain. Whatever happened, it was clear from every page that love had gotten Joe and Vera through. Castle closed his eyes, once again seeing himself and Kate as Joe and Vera. He could only hope that some day their love could pull them through as well.

Castle picked up his jacket to bring the journal back to Joe. No one should ever let go of memories that precious.

A/N This was another request. I hope it added to an already wonderful story. Greetings to all my fellow geeks.