My Name is Derek Storm
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I don't own Derek Storm, either. Rating: K Time: An AU Season Four.
"Kate, come in and sit down. I got your message and I've been looking up the literature about the residuals of a concussion and amnesia. There's nothing I've found so far that would explain Mr. Castle believing he's this Derek Storm."
"Thanks, Dr, Burke. I firmly believe he's Rick Castle, but to be on the safe side, I'm trying to find out if there really is a person named Derek Storm out there. But Castle couldn't have just disappeared and someone else appeared in that store in the few minutes we were apart. It's just not possible."
"Kate, we can't really do much about Mr. Castle now. We just have no information. How are you doing?"
"I'm upset, of course. One minute he's Rick Castle, my partner, my friend and the man who loves me, and then he's calling me Detective and insisting he's someone else."
"Being upset is only to be expected, Kate. But you know that you can work through this. Plus, while I've never heard of someone assuming the identity of a fictional character after a concussion, amnesia victims almost always recover the greater portion of their memories, eventually."
"It's the eventually part that I worry about. Suppose, subconsciously, Castle has decided that I'm a lost cause. That I'll never love him? Suppose his subconscious decided that if he was Derek Storm, he could forget all about Kate Beckett with no heartbreak?"
Dr. Burke smiled.
"Let's remember who's the doctor here, Kate. We know very little about what's happened to Mr. Castle or his subconscious. You shouldn't be projecting your own fears on this situation."
"I just can't help but feel that if I'd been more honest, admitted that I'd heard Castle and explained where I was, mentally, that things would be better with us."
"And it's entirely possible that Mr. Castle's delusion has nothing to do with you. Since we know so little about Mr. Castle's problem, perhaps we can talk about your PTSD?"
Kate picked up Storm at the hospital the next morning and took him to Castle's loft.
"You're sure these people are going to be okay with me staying here?" He asked as they got to the front door.
"They want to get to the bottom of this as much as you or I do. They're fine with it."
Kaye knocked on the door and Martha, who'd been expecting them, quickly opened it.
"Katherine, and Mr. Storm. Please come in."
"Thank you and could you please call me Derek?"
"Certainly, and please call me Martha."
Alexis came running down the stairs, and ran to Storm. She threw her arms around him.
"Daddy, what's wrong with you? What happened?"
Storm gently tried to push her away with no success.
"Miss, I received a concussion and I have a little loss of memory, but I'm afraid I'm not your father."
Alexis took a step backwards.
"Daddy, this isn't funny! What's wrong with you?"
"Miss, I told you before…"
But Alexis was headed back up the stairs at a run. She appeared to be crying.
"Perhaps this isn't such a good idea after all, Martha."
"Derek, you were in an abandoned store that blew up and were found wearing my son's bespoke suit and carrying his wallet with his identification and credit cards in it. As Katherine has said, this is a mystery and quite possibly a crime. I know my son would not want you wandering around New York with no friends and no financial resources. You should stay here until this is resolved. Agreed?"
He nodded.
"Agreed."
Kate went back to the precinct and her detectives gathered around her desk. They were both careful not to sit in Castle's chair.
"Ryan, anything on any Derek Storms?"
"There are five Derek Storms in the state that I can find. Two are way too young to be our guy, one is doing a nickel upstate for armed robbery, one is a Korean War vet in a VA hospital in Syracuse and one is a cop in Binghamton. I checked his photo out on their website and he looks nothing like out guy. Of interest to Detective Esposito, however, was one D-E-R-R-I-C-K Storm, a six foot, five inch stripper who also plays on a semi-pro women's basketball team, hoping to get into the WNBA. She plays under her birth name, Annalise Kronk."
"If Storm is who and what he says he is, I'm not sure we'll find anything about him in any database we can access." Kate said. She turned to Espo. "Anything on Blue Arrow Logistics?"
"The people I know have a lot of war stories they've heard about Blue Arrow, but damned little real info. And you know the difference between a war story and a fairy tale, don't you?"
Kate sighed.
"No, but I'm sure you'll tell me."
"A fairy tale begins, "Once upon a time…" and a war story begins, "This is no shit…".
"Okay, if that's all we have…"
"Whoa, Chica, I have more. Blue Arrow Logistics in headquartered in Colon, Panama. I gave them a call to see if I could find out anything about our boy. It seems no one there speaks English and, oddly enough, no one seems to speak Spanish either."
"So, dead ends?"
Ryan spoke.
"Tori Ellis has a program running that looks for Derek Storms. It runs automatically and at the end of the day she gets the results. She's expanded it to cover the whole US. We'll see if she finds anything."
"And I still know some people who may know something about Blue Arrow. I'll keep after them."
Kate went back to working on other cases, but her mind kept wandering to Castle.
Two days went by without anything happening that might help. At lunchtime on the third day, she met with a still very distraught Alexis Castle. Alexis looked like she'd been crying and she had.
"Detective Beckett, thanks so much for seeing me."
"I'm always glad to see you Alexis and please call me Kate. How are things at the loft? That's what you said you wanted to talk about, right?"
The redhead shook her head.
"Are you sure that's Dad? He's so different. He seems to have no sense of humor and he loses his temper easily. He's been on the phone and the computer constantly since you dropped him off trying to get in touch with his company and his contacts, whoever they are. But he can't get in touch with anyone. They either say they've never heard of him, or the phone is out of service or he gets some gas station in Florida. He's blown up a couple of times at people on the phone: Yelling, screaming and cursing."
"I think you've answered your own question, Alexis. If he really was who he says he is, his company and his contracts would know him. This proves he's really Richard Castle, not Derek Storm. Besides, he was out of my sight for no more than five minutes before the store blew up. That's just not enough time for someone to grab your dad, get his clothes off of him, get him out of there and have the place blow up."
"I guess you're right, but I want my dad back. This one isn't him."
"Other than that, how are things? What's he doing when he's not on the phone or computer?"
"There's a gym in the basement of our building. He spends several hours a day there. He says he can't imagine how he got so out of shape. I've seen him. He really works hard, not like Dad, who spent more time goofing off in the gym than anything else." She thought for a second. "Oh, and he absolutely refuses to read any of Dad's books."
"I'm expecting to get a copy of the FDNY's report on the explosion tomorrow. I'm going to call your dad and probably meet him for lunch somewhere. I've already talked to the investigator involved and they're ruling it an accident."
They parted and Kate returned to the precinct. No one had anything further on Castle/Storm. They caught one murder. A man shot his girlfriend during an argument and was in hysterics when they got there, saying he hadn't meant to hurt her. They got a quick confession and all that was left was paperwork.
The next day they met so that he could review the FDNY's report. He was not impressed.
"So they found it to be an accident. A leaky gas valve and old wiring giving off sparks and boom. I don't buy it. And expert could rig that to explode in less than half an hour and he'd leave nothing for even the best arson investigator to find."
Tim knew this was true. The expert had set the whole thing up in twenty-six minutes from the time he walked through the door to the time he left.
"And how do you know that, Mr. Storm?" Kate asked.
"I read a lot."
"You can keep the copy of the report. Now I have to get back to work."
It was three days before Storm called her and asked to meet for lunch. She agreed, but decided not to eat at a cop hangout to keep the questions from the idle curious to a minimum.
"You told me this guy Castle was working as your partner, not just following you around for background for his books. I'd like to do the same."
"Why?" Kate asked.
"Two reasons. One Martha and Alexis are driving me crazy. They talk incessantly when I'm around about what Castle has done. Yesterday they started bringing out photo albums, and sharing them with me. This morning I was treated to a video of Alexis' first trip to Disney World. I understand she went three more times and there's video of every second of it. I cannot watch any more of a six year old girl on some ride."
Kate smiled.
"They're just trying to help."
"Maybe, but they're driving me nuts."
"Okay, what's the second reason?"
"The police find out things. That's their job. You said I was a mystery and maybe even a crime victim. Wouldn't it be better if I was around in case something comes up. Besides, like I said, I read a lot and have picked up a lot of odd knowledge."
Kate thought for a second and then nodded.
"Okay, but there are two conditions. One, you work for me and you do exactly as I say. No matter what you know, or think you know, you're not a cop. You don't think like one or act like one. You make a mistake on a case, we could end up having to let some killer go. You do that and you're gone."
"Fair enough. What's the second condition?"
"From now on you name is Richard Edgar Castle."
"Why?" He demanded.
"Because everyone who sees you is going to think your Rick Castle and I can't spend half my time on a case explaining to someone about an explosion, your concussion, retrograde amnesia and all the rest."
"Okay, my name is Rick Castle. Is that it?"
"Show up tomorrow at the 12th Precinct. Oh, one thing. Do you have any problems doing paperwork?"
"No. I do paperwork all the time in my job."
"Excellent."
Kate found she had a call from Dr. Burke and stopped by his office after work.
"You have something for me, Dr. Burke?" She asked as she entered his office.
"I've found two cases similar to Mr. Castle's. In 1947 the chauffer of the British ambassador to the US was in an auto accident. He was concussed and when he woke up, he thought he was the ambassador, one Sir James Melton-Pryor. He had Sir James' cut-glass, upper class accent, he had Sir James' mannerisms, he even became a fan of cricket like Sir James. It took a month or two for him to recover, but he kept the accent and the love of cricket."
"The other one?" Kate asked.
"In 1954 a fifteen-year old boy was hit by a car and concussed. He had been writing a paper on President Franklin Roosevelt and woke up believing he was Roosevelt. It was easier to convince him he wasn't a president, but he ended up getting a PhD in history and becoming a notable expert on Roosevelt and his times."
TBC