Becks Takes A Vacation

CHAPTER FOUR

Becks woke early and went about her morning routine. She dressed casual and brushed her hair into its default style. She looked at the map she had sitting on the table and compared the directions that Sue had given her to the corresponding lines on the map.

With the napkin Sue had given her in hand, Becks slipped her jacket on and headed down to the restaurant to get a cup of coffee before she left. But once she was down there she delayed leaving long enough to sample their French toast and sausages breakfast combo. She enjoyed her breakfast. She just hoped it wouldn't spoil her lunch.

She slid into her rental vehicle holding a plastic cup filled with her hot coffee, and a doughnut stuck in her mouth. She couldn't resist. It had just come out of the oven and was still warm.

Becks sat behind the wheel and placed her coffee in the cup holder while she finished off the doughnut. She glanced down at the directions one more time, then started the car.

The journey was uneventfully pleasant and Becks enjoyed the scenery as she made her way north from Isabella. She purposely drove at a more leisurely pace than she needed to. After about an hour and a half had passed she found the old logging road that would lead to Sue's little cabin in the woods.

As she drove, her surroundings became more forest and less grasslands. More evergreens began to crowd out the leafed trees, but they still were prevalent enough to provide bright splashes of yellow and orange against the deep green of the conifers. It also had become hillier.

Suddenly there was an opening in the forest off to the right, and a dirt path barely wide enough for a car. Becks turned onto the path and followed it for about a quarter of a mile until she turned a corner and in front of her was a small, but tidy looking cabin.

It's wasn't a log house like the Antler Inn was, but it was mostly wood. Large roughhewn boards made up the siding, the roof was a lighter shade of wooden shingles. There were a few narrow windows on the front and she supposed on the back. Each window was flanked by sturdy looking shutters.

Around the corner of the house to the left Becks could see part of a screened in porch, and the side of the house to the right was a large chimney which she assumed indicated an equally large fireplace.

A modest front door was centered on the wall facing the drive.

Sue must have heard her drive up because she was out the door before Becks was able to shut off her car. Sue gave her a big smile and came up and gave Becks a hug then put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm so glad you came!" Sue turned them toward the screen porch. "I wasn't sure my directions would be understood since there aren't exactly road signs on some of the roads, and I use that term loosely."

Sue led her toward the side of the house that had the screened porch. "I wasn't sure if you preferred chicken or ham on your sandwiches, so I made both."

Becks rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I would have been fine with peanut butter and jelly."

Sue grinned. "I'll remember that for the next time."

They entered the porch through a screen door that was centered on the long wall. It wasn't very large, but it looked like it would be more than enough for four or five people.

A table was set up on one end that held a plate with slices of ham, and a couple different sliced cheeses. There was a bowl of shredded chicken breast along with several smaller bowls with various condiments and dressings for the chicken. There was a large basket that held sliced bread, both white and rye. And over to one side was a plate with raw cauliflower florets and carrot sticks.

Sue waved her hand over the food. "I know I said we'd have a picnic, but I figured we be more comfortable in here."

She smiled as she opened the screen door that led into the cabin proper. "Come on in, I'll give you the quick tour and we can grab our drinks."

Becks followed. The cabin was simply laid out in a practical arrangement. As they entered, immediately to the right was a basic bathroom, with a combined tub and shower. Across from the bathroom was the first of the two moderate sized bedrooms on the left. Becks glanced in one of them and saw a queen sized bed and a moderate sized dresser. There might have been a small closet but she couldn't see from her vantage point.

Once you passed the bathroom, the room opened up into a small kitchen area. The sink and the cupboards shared the wall with the bathroom, while the refrigerator and stove were up against the back of the wall to the second bedroom.

There was a round wooden table with four wooden chairs around it just shy of the front door. The rest of the cabin opened up facing the large rock fireplace. A large woven throw rug covered much of that half of the cabin. There were a couple of comfortable looking chairs and a recliner set in a semi-circle in front of the fireplace, with small end tables next to each of them.

There were a few scenic pictures on the front outside wall, and a book shelf along the back of the bedroom wall. Becks itched to check out the books. Some looked familiar.

On the right hand side of the fireplace was an older stereo music system. Aside from the radio and the amplifier, it was hooked into a turntable. Becks could see some vinyl records in the cabinet that held the system. There were two small speakers mounted on the wall in the corners of the room.

On the left hand side of the fireplace sat a large basket full of magazines.

Becks turned to Sue. "What no television?"

Sue shook her head. "Hard to get a good signal out here. I'd have to have an antenna forty feet high." Sue shrugged. "I'm not a big TV watcher anyway. I have my music." She pointed to her stereo set up. "And I have my reading material." She pointed to the books and magazines. "When I'm up here, I'm trying to get away from all that chaos and noise that is living in a large city." She looked around the room. "I find it peaceful up here."

Becks chuckled. "I'll bet you do. Not that I don't agree with the sentiment."

Sue led her back to the fridge and opened the door. "I've got juice, bottled water, beer and coke." She looked at Becks. "And I plan to make some coffee later."

Becks laughed. "A beer will be fine."

She took the beer offered and the two of them wandered back out to the porch. Becks looked around. "Where's Guy? I figured he'd be here."

Sue glanced out at the forest around her. "Oh, he was restless so he decided to go for a walk this morning."

"Does he know he's missing lunch?"

Sue laughed. "He knows it's here if he wants it, but truthfully I'd be surprised if got back much before dark." Sue began to make a sandwich for herself. "Besides, he knew I would want to have some 'girl talk' with you and would be bored to tears by that."

Becks just laughed as she went about making herself a nice picnic style lunch.

With plates and beers in hand they moved over to the other side of the patio and sat in couple of typical woven folding chairs. The breeze that blew through the windows was cool but my no means uncomfortable. The sun was bright and the day was warming up fairly quickly.

Becks couldn't help but let her mind drift back to the days when she was younger and they'd all go up to their cabin on the lake. She'd run down to the lake, stick her toe in the cold lake water, scream and run back out, laughing. Then her father would take her out in the boat and show how to put the worm on her hook, and how to set her bobber at the right depth. She couldn't help the smile that snuck on her face.

"What memory just had you smiling?" Sue had caught the look on her face.

Becks smiled at her. "I was just remembering being up at our family cabin in upstate New York as a kid."

"Good memories I take it."

Becks chuckled. "Mostly, I loved going when I was young, but when I became a teenager, it wasn't so cool to be going to the cabin with your parents."

Sue laughed. "I never got to experience this kind of being out in nature when I was a child. Our family were farmers so when we weren't in school, we were working on the farm."

Becks nodded. "I can only imagine. Farming was never something I ever got close to. How long have you had this cabin?"

Sue took a moment to formulate her answer. "I've had it most of my adult life."

Becks noticed the somewhat ambiguous answer. "From what I've read I never saw any mention of a Mr. Thomas."

Sue smiled and shook her head. "No, I got into this journalism thing pretty young and once I had a little success my life changed. I became this wandering nomad. Always jetting about to ferret out my next story." Sue shrugged. "I have a nice home down in 'the cities', which is what anyone from Minnesota calls the metropolitan area of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. But in truth I'm there only a few weeks a year. Not conducive to long term relationships."

Becks studied Sue for several moments. "But what about Guy? You said you've known him a long time?"

Sue nodded. "Yeah, like I mentioned the other day. I met Guy on a story I did several years ago, and we've been friends ever since. But we also have our lives that don't include each other. He comes and goes as he likes. He stays with me when he's around, then he or I have other places to be and that's just how it works."

Becks was nodding as she gazed out the front window. Sue decided she wanted to take the conversation away from herself. She was curious about this look-a-like cousin of Kate's who never came up in any of the conversations they'd had all those years ago.

She found that surprising since Becks had mentioned that she used to be a cop also. She was interested why she had been a cop. Did she emulate her older cousin? And why wasn't she a cop anymore? There were things that this lovely Ms. Beckett that were shuttered behind her enchanting hazel eyes. Which were exactly like Kate's. Sue imagined if Becks' hair was long and brown, she'd have a hard time telling them apart.

"So, what about you, Becks?" Is there any special young man in your life like your cousin Kate's man?"

Becks chuckled and shook her head. "There's only one Rick Castle, but you might find this amusing. For a few months I was dating this cute writer that I met through Rick. Not that Castle was all that in favor of our hook up."

"Was? So what happened?"

"Becks shrugged. "He was cute, and very nice, but he was beginning to come into his own as a writer and he was a little too into the life style. You know, the life that included celebrity and fan adulation. I didn't want to become a part of any of that, so we've put whatever we had on the back burner."

"Sounds almost like the problems that your cousin had with Rick early on."

Becks leaned her head back and stared at the roof overhead and laughed. "You have no idea."

Sue stared at Becks a wry smile on her face. "I find you a bit of a puzzle, Becks." Becks just returned a look of confusion. "You say you have been working for Rick for a few months now, but you mentioned the other day that you have only been hanging around with your cousin pretty much just during this time since you took over his P.I. firm. There was never any mention of you by either Kate or Rick when I was with them on that case five years ago."

Sue got up and grabbed some carrot sticks and came back and sat down. "I heard all about Martha and Alexis. Kate shared her love for the family cabin with memories much like your own. She talked about her father, and her mother. The good and the bad. I even got to hear stories about Aunt Theresa and a cousin Sophia, but never a mention of a Rebecca Beckett." Sue captured Becks' eyes with her own. "Why would that be? Especially since you were also a cop."

Sue downed the rest of her beer and Becks took the break to down the rest of hers also.

Becks gave a Sue a weak grin. "Kind of nosy aren't you." Sue laughed.

"I'm not trying to stick my nose into your business Becks. But I'm a journalist and I have a driving need to find answers to things that don't follow logically. Believe me, this isn't for any story it is only for my own curiosity."

Sue shrugged. "I only met Rick and Kate that one time, but I have to think we bonded a little more deeply than one might think over a few days considering what we went through together. Near death experiences can heighten your emotions many times over."

Becks got up and went into the cabin. Sue could hear the refrigerator door open and close. Becks came back out and dropped back down into her chair with another beer in hand.

Becks glared at her. "So, what is it you want from me?"

"Who exactly are you? And why do you look so much like Kate?"

"And just being her cousin isn't enough for you?"

Sue shrugged her shoulders. "It would be if the pieces fit better. Your name is Beckett. I saw pictures of Kate's folks. She looks very much like her mother. So do you. But you two are related through her father's side." Sue stared at Becks.

Becks drew in a deep breath. "I'm pretty sure you are an intelligent woman who, in your travels, has seen and done a lot that might not be able to be labeled as 'normal', but I don't think you'll believe me if I tell you what you want to know."

Sue burst out laughing for several seconds. "You'd be surprised what I'm able to consider as 'normal'."

Becks frowned at the woman. "Okay, I'll tell you what you want to know if you promise me to answer a question for me after."

"Done."

Becks took another deep breath. "My current legal name is Rebecca Anne Beckett. All the paperwork and hocus pocus that the government can do has been done for me."

It was Sue's turn to frown. "You mean like witness protection. That kind of identity fixing?"

Becks nodded. "Yes, exactly like that. I was born Katherine Houghton Beckett. My parents were Jim and Johanna Beckett. My mother was murdered when I was in college. Her death prompted me to change my mission in life and I became a cop." Becks took a swig of her beer. "Sounds pretty familiar so far, right?" Sue nodded.

"Well here's the first tripping point. My father turned to the bottle after my mother's death, but unlike Kate's father, who eventually sobered up, mine never did. He was killed by a hit and run driver as he stumbled out of a bar and into the street."

Sue's eyes grew wide and her hand covered her gasp.

Becks continued. "So I was a cop, but I was alone. I had my partners who became my friends. Javier Esposito and Kevin Ryan were like brothers to me. We became the top homicide team in the precinct. Still sounds pretty familiar, doesn't it?" Sue nodded again without speaking.

Becks took another hit off her beer. "Just wait, it gets better. One day I had the 'pleasure'," She used her fingers to make the quotation marks. "To make the acquaintance of a Mr. Richard Castle in regards to a case we had been assigned. Apparently someone was killing people like had been done in his books."

Sue nodded. "I remember them telling me about how Rick wound up following Kate."

"Well in happened pretty much the same way with me and a Richard Castle."

Sue jerked. "With 'a' Richard Castle?"

Becks was able to smirk at the confused woman. "You'll see. Things progressed as you might have heard. Castle was forced on me by the mayor and my captain. He was to be allowed to shadow me in the name of research for a new book series. One that the city and the NYPD were in favor of for the good publicity."

Sue waved her hands to get Becks to stop. "Wait a minute! Are you telling me that you lived through everything that Kate did? How's that possible, and if that's so, why aren't you fifty some years old? Are you trying to tell me that this is some sort of Twilight Zone episode?"

Becks chuckled. "That's as good a comparison as any." Becks shook her head. "Anyway, after a few months working with Richard Castle as my shadow slash partner, I had finished up my paperwork after closing a case and decided it was time to go home."

She finished off her beer. "Anyway I got into the elevator, there was a flash and the elevator felt like it was moving too fast but it turns out it hadn't moved at all. I was freaked out so I exited the elevator and left via the stairs."

Sue was able to finally crack a smile. "I'm sensing this is a crucial part of your story."

"You might say that. When I tried to go home I found out my apartment was gone and the landlord I knew wasn't there and the landlord who was there didn't know who I was. So I left now much more freaked out."

Becks rubbed her chin. "I wandered through the streets that were both familiar and not. I finally found myself over by Castle's loft. Since I didn't know where else to go I entered his building, got past the security guard who claimed to recognize me after making some comment about a new haircut. I took the elevator to his floor and knocked on his door."

Sue was grinning from ear to ear. "Surprise!"

Becks snorted. "You can say that again. There in front of me was Richard Castle, but not the Richard Castle that I knew. This one had some grey at his temples and a few extra lines around the eyes. As I goggled at the 'wrong' Rick Castle someone called out and walked out of the bedroom. It was a pregnant woman with long brunette hair who looked a lot like me."

Sue did laugh again. "I imagine you thought you had lost your mind."

Becks snorted again. "Yah think? You can't imagine. You see, when I got up from my desk that evening my calendar had the year 2009 printed across the top. When I walked into the loft, it apparently was 2019. I had traveled ten years into the future."

Sue's jaw dropped. "What did you do?"

"What any intelligent, logical person would do… I fell apart."

Becks spent the next two hours going through the whole experience she went through with Rick and Kate trying to figure out what had happened to catapult her a decade into the future. How they worried that something she might do would somehow affect Kate, and finally how they found out that she hadn't gone into the future, but instead had been shifted into a completely different parallel dimension. A dimension very much like her own but ten years further on.

Sue didn't interrupt during this time.

Becks continued on how they used Castle's dad to help find a scientific researcher who they hoped could help her get back.

Becks purposely left out the time traveler that they had conversed with. She was having enough trouble telling her story without bringing actual time travelers into the mix.

She told how she and Rick had finally tracked down the researcher they hoped had the answers they needed. He'd had the answers all right. They just weren't the right answers. The answers she need.

She explained to Sue that Dr. A.W. Marlow had told her that he didn't believe that she would have been able to move into her own future. Instead he'd guessed that she had been accidently thrust into a parallel universe. And since there were theoretically an infinite number of such dimensional universes, even if they had a method to send her back, they'd have no way of knowing how to identify her home dimension so they would know which one to send her to.

Sue had been stunned by Becks story, but the earnestness she exuded as she told her tale had Sue believing her. Considering the secrets Sue was keeping, parallel dimensions were a walk in the park.

Sue was still shaking her head when Becks finally ran down.

"That's an amazing story, Becks. So how were you actually able to get all that WitSec type paperwork, and background records, actualized?"

Becks grinned. "Well, if there is anything you need, 'Rick knows a guy'. And in this case he knew several guys, and gals, all who came through for him and me. I now have an identity and a life. It's just not the one I had before."

Sue could see the melancholy in Becks facial expression and tone. "So, you've been dealt a tough break, but I have to say you came out pretty well."

Becks shook her head. "I know, and I'm not really complaining when I hear of some of the things that I was able to avoid having to live through, like getting shot in the chest by a sniper. Or getting shot twice in my own kitchen."

"What!" Sue exclaimed. "They told me about the sniper at the funeral, but I never knew anything about them being shot in their own kitchen."

Becks nodded. "That happened only a couple years ago. But yeah, both Rick and Kate were shot in their own kitchen after they had thought they'd wrapped up the case."

Becks twirled the beer bottle in her hand. She then stared out the window not meeting Sue's gaze. "When it comes right down to it, there's really only one thing that I wish I hadn't had to miss."

Sue turned her head. "What's that?" Sue registered the sad look on Becks face as she looked at her clenched hands.

"I wish I hadn't missed out on my Castle."

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A/N: I know I said I was going to post every other day, but I got restless so I'm posting this today. Since I have finished the story the posting schedule will be "when I feel like it." But never more than a couple days.

All Readers are Appreciated, Review if you wish.