Kate has never felt this good in her life. She has been able to spend the last five days walking to the ocean and down the beach breathing in the clean ocean air. Her wounds are healing very fast and she leaves the bandages off to let the skin feel the air around.

She has been diligent in following the PT's directions for exercise using the tension bands she was given to use. She has moved from the lightest to the next to the hardest and is feeling very good in doing so.

Early afternoon she returns to the house, she finds her dad sitting outside. "Katie? How are you feeling?"

"Wonderful, dad. Tell your client that this has helped me…a LOT"

"I will." He pauses "Has any more of your memory returned?"

"No. Since we have been here nothing. Not a glimpse, flash. Nothing"

It is obvious to Jim that her being here is not helping recover her memories.

"Well, maybe going back to the city will help. I have to be in court tomorrow"

"Does that mean we have to leave?"

"I am afraid so." He looks at his watch. "Fairly soon."

She has a sad look on her face. "This has been nice." She pauses like she is trying to think of something. "Oh dad…I feel so…I don't know…safe. I feel…safe here. It feels like the house is protecting me somehow. I hope we can come back here again sometime"

Jim knows that, if Rick can get her feelings for him to return, that revisit will definitely happen.

After packing and heading out in the car, Kate looks at her father. "Dad? Take me to my place."

He pauses knowing he can't stop her now. She has been doing so good exercising and eating well. "If you really feel like you can stay alone?"

"I want to try. And my physic evaluations begin on Wednesday anyway"

"OK"

On the trip home, Kate leans over on the seat and is quickly asleep.

/\/\/\/\/\/\

Kate wakes up just a few blocks from her apartment. When they pull up in front the apartment Kate still does not recognize the building. "Dad. I think I can take my bag myself. It has rollers and I will not try to pick it up just yet."

"Katie. Please don't try and overdo anything"

"I won't dad." And she leaves the car and walks up the steps that she still does not remember.

Once inside, she takes the elevator to her floor and pulls her suitcase to her unit. She drops the suitcase by the door and walks into the unit for what she remembers as only the second time. Unlike her first time, today, she has plenty of time to look around and get familiar with her surroundings.

She gets her bag and rolls it to her bedroom. Looking all around the apartment she sees nothing but furniture she does not remember buying. Her dad did tell her that her stuff was all destroyed in the blast and she had to buy almost all new stuff.

She gently picks her bag up and places it on her bed. She is careful to not do any damage to her incisions. She takes her clothes off and goes into her bathroom and checks out the scars and they are in extremely good shape.

She draws a bath. While the water is filling, she goes to the kitchen and pours a glass of wine and returns to her bath. Stopping at her bookcase she picks up the book from earlier 'Heat Wave' and moves back to the tub. After checking the temperature is not too hot, she shuts off the water, pulls a table beside the tub, places the book and the wine on the table and climbs in.

She is careful not let the water too high up on her side to possible soften the tissue, she reaches over and takes a sip of wine, then picks up the book and opens it to the dedication page. She tries to remember if there is another officer in the 12th with the initials of KB but she can only think of herself.

She then flips to Chapter 1 and begins reading.

/\/\/\/\/\/\

Richard Castle is sitting at his private office in the basement of The Olde Haunt. Using connections with the technology group at the police he has cloned the computer from the precinct that gives him access and using his little connection with the CIA so that any searches he does are going through a VPN that makes it appear his searches are coming from a foreign country.

After making sure he is set up, he picks up a burner phone and sends a text to two other burner phones 'Ready for blastoff'

Within minutes he receives responses from both of the other parties with a single letter 'K'.

/\/\/\/\/\

Kate has finished her nice soaking bath. It makes her feel like a new woman. She is careful in washing her hair to not get a lot of water over her wounds. She wraps herself in a bathrobe, takes the empty wine glass to the kitchen and the still unfinished book out to her living room.

After towel drying her hair, she goes to her couch and sits down. She picks up the book she started and begins reading where she left off.

It does not take her very long before she comes to a story in the book where Nikki Heat and her tag along are fully engaged, in a bed, naked. A small gasp exits her throat as she considers the possibility that Mr. Castle wrote this as an autobiographical event.

Kate decides she want some answers and fairly soon. She reaches over to her phone and almost drops it back down as it rings the moment she picks it up to place a call. She looks at the caller ID to see the person calling her is the very person she was going to contact…"Hey Lanie."

"Girlfriend…how are you?"

"I'm doing better each day. I just finished a nice bath and I'm sitting on my couch just reading. I was jut going to call you."

Do you feel like a little company? I thought we might have an abbreviated girl's night."

"Lanie. That sounds wonderful."

"Have you eaten?"

Beckett realizes that she has not stopped long enough to eat "No. I have not."

"Okay. I am stopping for pizza and I have a nice bottle of wine. We can eat and talk about the boys behind their backs."

Kate chuckles "That sounds good. I will finish drying my hair and see you in a little bit."

"On my way."

Kate takes her hair dryer and finished the job that the thick towel had begun. She had completed brushing her hair and put the long strands into a ponytail. She stares at herself in the mirror and her longer locks thinking, 'This does look good'.

There is a knock on the door. "On my way Lanie"

Her best friend enters carrying a large pizza box and a bottle of wine. Kate tries to take something from Lanie who refuses to allow Beckett to take any weight. "I got this, now go sit"

"Yes ma'am" Kate laughs and moves back to her living room couch. Lanie brings a plate with two pizza slices and an almost full glass of Merlot. She turns and quickly toward the kitchen to get her own food.

While out of Kate's sight, Lanie is looking around to see what has changed. Castle had asked to borrow Lanie's key to Beckett's apartment. He said that he needed to remove something that Kate might see and trigger her need to go after her mother's killer and in turn get herself killed instead, but nothing seems missing or changed. Lanie does not know of the murder board that Kate has kept secret in her own apartment. She had only shown it to Rick.

Lanie sits down on the couch where she notices a copy of Castle's book Heat Wave. She is assuming Kate is reading it. She then looks Kate over carefully. She takes mental note of how well she seems to be moving and can see a much improved, Kate Beckett. "You are looking a lot better than the last time I saw you at the hospital."

"I must have looked really bad if you are saying THIS" she points toward herself "is MUCH better now" once more Kate puts a little humor in her voice.

"Well. So how is it really going now?" Lanie takes a bite of her pizza.

Kate has just taken a much smaller bite. "I'm actually feeling much better. I spent some time at my dad's place until the power went out and then we went to a hotel and then dad took me to a really beautiful mansion out on the Hamptons for a few more days. The doctors did not want me staying home alone for a little while, but now I am getting around and am feeling better"

Lanie points to the table "I see you're reading a Nikki Heat book." She notices Kate's neck quickly flush red then it passes up to her face.

"UH…yeah…I was needing to do something, and this was on the bookcase. Dad said it is about me"

"It was the first in the series."

Kate is hoping her flush calms down a little. "I understand I am the model for Nikki Heat"

"That was the original reason he started following you. To write about the escapades of Nikki Heat, NYPD."

Kate tenses her lips. "So is Jamison Rook Castle's image of himself?"

"Of course. He is also following his muse as Rick follows you"

"Then I can assume the events in the book actually happened?"

"The cases closely follow several of the real cases you two worked, of course enough things were changed so no one could connect reality with fiction."

"So was it truth, or fiction that they were dancing to The Horizonal Mambo?"

Lanie thinks she knows where this is going. "The WHAT?"

"Doing each other? Belly Bump? Smackey Mouth? Boinking? Shagging?"

"Alright girlfriend. I know what you are asking. "It is fiction. Total and complete fiction."

"So! I am NOT having sex with Castle?"

"I am pretty sure the answer is NO."

"Pretty Sure? You know me, Lanie. There is no way I would let this womanizer near my naked body."

A short sigh leaves Lanie "Kate. I want you to know something about Richard Castle."

Beckett sits in silence "He is not the man you described. He is a caring man who takes care of his teenage daughter and his mother. He has done many things to help you and protect you."

This news is again a little too much for Kate right now. "He stopped doing the publicity junkets where he paraded around with some big boobed, blond, bimbo. He goes with his daughter or alone. But everyone knows he wants it to be you he is with."

A moment of silence. "And besides, you kept putting other men in between. But Rick stayed close to you. I am thinking it was way more than trying to get in your…"

"OK, Lanie. I get it."

Kate is finding it impossible to believe the changes in him from what she knew before her memory lapse.

There is a loud silence in the room. Lanie decides to alter the subject. "When do they think you will start rehab?"

"I am actually doing stretches at home using rubber bands. They will schedule me for real rehab in the next two weeks. I also will have to go see a department psychologist before I can be reinstated. He will have to sign off that I am mentally fit to go back to work."

Lanie takes another bite of her pizza. She wants to ask but doesn't want to cause any problems. "Have you recovered any memories?"

This brings a response that she was worried about. Kate puts her slice down on the plate, then looks over. "Lanie. I am not real sure."

"Not sure? What do you mean?"

"I told you that the power went out at my dad's place?"

Lanie nods her head in agreement.

"I had some type flashback to when my apartment was blown up. I could feel and hear the explosion, see flames, smell smoke, feel the heat. I felt like it was real."

"What did you do?"

"I ducked down in the tub and screamed. When my dad came in I was shaking and calling for a towel that was not on fire?"

"That sounds a lot scary."

Kate pauses a moment. "I saw things that were not there. I felt things that were not there…I…uh…I panicked"

"That makes sense. You were having a flashback and it was real to you. You were reliving the blast that destroyed your place"

Kate is looking at her hands "I called out for help."

"Of course, you did. Anyone would." Lanie points out

She closes her eyes. "I called out the name 'CASTLE'."

.