The basement office at the Old Haunt is a quiet, secluded, secret place.
The bar began its life at the height of prohibition as a bootleg bar. People came to sneak drinks when booze was illegal. During that interesting time, places like this existed only because of their ability to operate without police interaction and hidden spaces. The Olde Haunt is no different.
For someone to reach the office where Castle is working, they would first have to know there was door at streel level and able to locate it. Then to know how to trigger the door to open before descending to the lower office.
Another feature of the secrecy relating to the office was an intercom between the bar upstairs and the office desk below.
Castle is startles when the buzzer sounds on the intercom. He reaches over and picks up the handset, "Castle"
The voice on the other end is his bartender, Jake, "Mr. Castle, there are some people who have arrived up here you might like to know about.
It is not common for the bartender to alert him of guests, so he knows this is important. "Who is it?"
Jake starts with "Detective Ryan, Detective Esposito, Dr. Parish…" none of which surprised Castle, then he adds the last name "Detective Beckett"
Castle rapidly turns his head toward the stairs rising to the street level, then asks "Is she with the others?"
"Yes. They are all sitting together"
Rick knows this is good. She is meeting with the team and hopefully will begin remembering the events of the last three years. Hopefully remembering him.
"Don't bother them, let them have whatever they want, but let me know when Kate leaves"
"Will do, sir" and the line goes dead.
/\
When Kate sits down next to Esposito, they all smile and let her know, with words of greeting, how glad they are that she came. How much she was missed. How glad they are that she is alive and healing.
"Beckett, you look good" Ryan is always the optimist.
"Thanks Kevin. I am doing a lot better than a month go."
" Yes, girlfriend, I have to admit you are looking great today. Way better than the last time."
"Told you" Kate smiles to Lanie.
"So, Beckett…" Esposito begins "when are you coming back to the 12th?"
"When the doctors all say I can. The P T's are happy with my progress. I can move my left arm almost all the way up to the side," she shows them by raising her left arm, but it stops just a little past level with her jaw line. "but I have to be able to place my palm on the top of my head before I can go back to work"
Ryan who has always been more than just a co- worker asks the nest question. "What about the memory issues? Any movement there?"
"Not yet…" Kate takes a sip of her drink "I keep getting tiny short blips of events, but I can't assemble anything to connect them together."
It is at this moment that Kevin's phone rings.
Kevin brings the phone to his ear "Hi honey" with a lot of syrup in his voice"
Kate has no idea what is happening, so and has a confused look on her face. She listens to Ryan obviously talking to a woman and he has love flowing from his voice. After listening a few moments, "I need to go. We are meeting with Beckett…OKAY I will let her know. See you in about an hour…I love you…bye"
"Can I ask who that was?" Kate questions.
Esposito smiles "Honey milk"
"Honey Milk?"
"Her name is Jenny O'Malley, and we are getting married in a few months."
"That's what Castle and I call them. Honey Milk. She fixes him warm milk with honey every night." Javi adds.
There is the name again. "You are friends with Mr. Castle?"
There is a minute of total silence when Lanie responds "Kate, we are all friends with him"
Esposito continues the thought. "In fact, we were all there when Kevin proposed to Jenny, including Castle"
"Her name is Jenny?"
"Yes, Kate. I met her two years ago."
"And you are engaged?"
"Yes. In fact, Castle helped me in planning the proposal."
That remark brought a flash of memory to Kate that caused a flush of red to travel from her neck to her face. She sees in her mind Richard Castle looking at her lovingly and holding a jewelry box containing a nice ring and he is speaking the words 'Will you marry me?'
Lanie sees the blush and starts to be concerned "Kate, are you alright?"
She stutters "Um…yeah…uh…I am ok. I just had another memory flash."
"What was it?" Esposito asks
"OH, Not a complete thought. Nothing I can use to help me." She is still reeling from this memory. First his books describe sex with me…uh, Nikki, and now he proposed to me? What did I say? What did I do? Wait. I must have said no if I was dating the doctor…uh. Doctor Davidson. Her mind is now focused on this single event.
She looks across the table "Listen everyone, I need to go. I am really tired, and I need to do a couple of things before I call it a night" she stands and walks briskly toward the door.
"Lanie, what just happened?"
"I think a memory popped into her head and whatever it was, it scared her bad."
"You think it was something we said?" Espo questions.
"She seemed to react to me talking about Castle helping me propose to Jenny…": a look comes across Kevin's face "When me and Castle were talking about me proposing he suggested I get a helicopter ride and propose. Beckett said that was not romantic. "Kevin pauses "OH BOY!"
"What is it Kevin?" Lanie poses the question.
"Castle was holding the ring. He said 'what is a guy supposed to do? Just say' he held the ting in Kate's face and said, "Will you marry me?"
"What Bro? Castle proposed to Beckett?"
"No. Not real but you should have seen the look on both of their faces. PANIC"
/\/\/\/\/\
Beckett has just entered her apartment and drops down on the couch. These small moments and snippets of memory are more troubling than she could ever imagine. She is trying to come up with a way…something…anything that will help her bring her down.
She takes her laptop and again she tries to find something, anything that can help her. But all she finds are more pictures of him at events. But she realizes that he is not holding some top-heavy woman on his arm. He seems to be at the events without an escort. Has he really changed from the man she read about?
She is tired and needs to pick this up tomorrow with her next visit to Dr. Burke.
She goes and washes her face and removes what little makeup she wears. She changes into her old NYPD shirt she uses for sleeping. Her room is a little warm, so he cracks open a window to bring in a little cooler air inside. She turns off the lights and crawls under the sheet and is asleep in a few moments.
Her cracking the window does something she had not considered. Later in the night, a strong cold front moves into the city and below freezing temperatures fill the air in her bedroom.
Her body begins to react to the lower temperature but her sleeping mind brings another dream that seems real. She feels the cold surrounding her. She looks up to see the face of Richard Castle. They are trapped in a freezer. She is curled into his chest and they are sharing what little warmth is left. He and she are going to freeze to death in a very few minutes. She hears herself 'I wanted to tell you how much I love you'.
She snaps awake to find the room is freezing but she is alone. There is no one there for her to say this to.
She quickly closes the window and turns up the heat before she actually does freeze to death, but also the warmth of a strong body that she was curled into.
The planned restful sleep is broken by a returning dream of standing in a graveyard and being told how bad a person she is for not loving Rick and leaving him for another man. She feels pain and is screaming that she does love him and then she starts falling into a grave.
This jolts her awake. In her bed, in a cold sweat.
Knowing she can't go back to sleep she goes to the living room and opens her laptop.
Browsing the web pages again, she finds no reference to him except a reference to him in the Ledger's most eligible bachelor list. This shows he is still the 'White Whale'.
Where did that thought come from. Someone called told her that she has caught a big one. That the other women called him the White Whale.
One more disconnected memory that proves nothing to her.
Or does it?
She drops the computer on the couch.
She decides it is time for her to make a move that might help her.
She will face him. One on One. This is probably the only way she can move forward and bring closure to her memory loss and recover at least something.
She needs to go to his home and confront this, but she does not have an address.
She will use her connections to get the address. She takes her phone out and dials Lanie. On the first ring, her best friend answers. "Her girlfriend…what's up?"
"Lanie…will you call the guys and get them to get me Mr. Castle's address. I want to go talk to him."
Dr. Parish is caught off guard by the question. "Kate…look in your phone for Rick Castle. You will find his address in your frequent contacts."
Beckett had not tried to look up Castle on her phone, but when she does, there he is with all of his information. Home phone, home address, cell phone and links to the cell phones numbers for Alexis and Martha.
She sits speechless on her couch.