Charlie III
Chapter 8
It is now 4 months later
Kate motioned for Charlie to get in her car so they could both go into work. Charlie was seven months old now and for the most part full grown. He might gain a little more weight, but he wasn't really going to get any bigger. He still somehow managed to give everyone his puppy dog eyes even if he wasn't small enough to have puppy dog eyes. Kate had to admit, however, that he was a handsome dog.
Charlie sat in the passenger seat and as usual he watched everything as she drove into the precinct. Gates didn't even say anything anymore and Charlie had gotten a lot better at not barking. Which was a good thing because his bark was a lot louder now that he was older.
Kate was smiling as she drove. Her mind took her to the day she had come home from the doctor's office with pictures from her ultrasound. She wasn't just having a baby, she was having twins! Either they were a little too young or both of them were hiding so she still didn't know the sex but she had another appointment in a couple of hours and maybe they would all know by then.
Alexis had shown Charlie her picture. "Twins, Charlie!" Alexis had recovered pretty well from losing her father so she was happy again. Now they watched as Charlie spun in a tight circle so fast they were sure he was going to make himself sick. All he did was bark until finally after what felt like minutes but actually wasn't, he stopped.
"TWINS!" Bark! Alexis might be happy again but Rick was over the moon. He vowed right then and there to protect all of them with his life if he had to. Their lives meant far more to him than his own.
By now everyone was starting to have suspicions as to just what was going on. Charlie always seemed to answer them whenever anyone said something. It was just that he was a dog and they were thinking he was just playing off of their emotions.
Naturally the poster about a found puppy was long gone and he was now officially their dog. Rick had also found that now that he was bigger there wasn't a bed too tall for him any longer.
He always started out in Alexis's bed until she went to sleep and he needed to pee so down to the puppy pee pads he went if he actually needed to. His ability to control his bladder was improving. It mostly depended on just when someone took him outside before going to bed.
Then when Kate woke up she always found Charlie in her bed. On his side of the bed. Or more accurately Castle's side of the bed. Since he hadn't pushed her off the bed during the night she let him keep doing it. However, she drew the line when she went into the bathroom. The door always got closed on him or he was thrown out if she found him already in there.
"Okay, Charlie, you know where we're going." Kate held the door open for him and watched him not race for the elevator but actually walk right next to her, always watching everywhere as they walked.
Once they were on the fourth floor, though, he always raced to his chair and jumped up and spun until he found a way to sit in it. It looked uncomfortable to Kate, but if that was where he wanted to sit she would let him.
Kate made a side trip to the breakroom to put his food away and get him a bowl of water, placing it next to her desk for him.
It actually felt pretty good to have him sitting in his chair, Kate realized as she sat down and turned on her computer. They just had to solve their case and she could take a couple of days off and enjoy them. It was April and it was starting to warm up so going to the Hamptons was now an option.
Kate began reading what had been sent to her between when she left last night and this morning with a hand on her now obvious baby bump. She still couldn't believe she was having twins. She didn't remember her mother saying anything about twins in her family and while her dad was happy to be a grandfather, his family wasn't prone to twins, either. Talking with Martha had also come up empty, at least on her side. Since Castle's father was still a bit of a mystery they didn't know about his.
"Where are we, Espo?" Kate asked since they had few leads.
"The plan is to go out and bring in his sister so we can talk to her today," Ryan responded.
"Take some uniforms with you. There's something about her that I can't quite place. I'm not sure I trust her," Kate said.
"Women's intuition?" Espo teased her, thinking it was because she was pregnant.
"More the void in her background that we can't find that has me worried about her. Just be careful," Kate cautioned. "There's something there."
ooOoo
Kate watched him and Ryan leave after making sure they were going to go with two cruisers and four uniforms with them.
She groaned a little as she stood up to look at her white board.
That had Rick getting down and stretching his muscles since sitting in his chair wasn't the easiest thing to do thanks to his new size. "What are you thinking, Kate?" Woof, woof. Rick had learned to bark softly when he wanted to say something.
"There's something about her that I can't put my finger on. Where did she go during this time?" Kate tapped the space on her board. "What am I missing?" Kate went back to her desk and logged onto her computer to do a search.
It was there that she found something but to get what she wanted she needed a search warrant and would have to have someone deliver it for her since she had chained herself to her desk.
Kate called Karpowski over and explained what she wanted and why. "See if you can get this signed," Kate asked. "Espo and Ryan are bringing her in and I'd like to have it before they get here." Roz nodded and hurried off.
Kate found Charlie's head in her lap which was something he'd learned he could do now. As was typical for her now she petted his head. "Castle would say I have a bad feeling about this. I just wish I knew what I was feeling bad about," Kate said frustratedly and looked down at him.
He really was an amazing dog. Alexis and maybe even she was alive again and she could place part of that squarely on Charlie. She still didn't know how he did it, but he had a knack for being in the right place at the right time.
Kate was sure her twins had something to do with it but for Alexis she could place it all on Charlie. Alexis, she was sure, had wrapped what was left of her heart around this one dog and had gotten so much back in return.
Kate was still petting Charlie when her computer gave her an alert. She left Charlie to look at her screen. Opening it she started reading. The more she read the less she liked what she was reading.
"I know this company. Where have I heard this company before?" Kate had to keep digging. "Here you are." She kept reading and heard the elevator ding and the doors open.
Taking a peek she saw Ryan, Esposito with Scarlet between them and two uniformed officers right behind them.
Her other eye spotted a word on her screen. "Wichita!" However, she'd said that word a little too loud. A lot happened right after that.
Ryan and Espo took a fist to one ear followed by Scarlet using those same fists and ramming them into the noses of the uniforms behind her.
Scarlet moved faster than Kate thought possible and it was by pure luck that one officer was right-handed and the other left-handed. Combined they had their weapons facing each other with Scarlet between them. In an instant that defied belief she had both weapons out of the officers' holsters even though both of them had their weapons strapped into place.
She'd already shot both officers with one round each before Kate could even open her drawer to pull out her weapon to fire back.
Scarlet's luck suddenly changed when both officers, while falling to the floor, reached out and hit both of her arms, forcing her arms down. But it wasn't all bad for Scarlet. She pulled the trigger on each weapon and sent a round into Espo's right leg and one round into Ryan's left leg.
Now Scarlet was free and without really aiming at anyone she started blasting away into the room to hit anyone that was stupid enough to be between her and the far wall.
Gates' glass walls took two rounds and shattered. Kate finally had her weapon, however, while doing this her chair moved and she fell out of it onto her ass. Which later they would find saved her life. The first few shots actually went over her head and missed her.
Kate raised her weapon and fired and Scarlet soon learned that Kate was a good shot. While she was firing so was Scarlet and over all the noise Kate heard Charlie whimper but she was too busy to look at him. Scarlet was still standing and firing her weapons until finally she fell to the floor dead.
Now that it looked to be over Kate saw Scarlet on the ground along with Espo, Ryan, and the two uniformed officers. Then she saw Charlie lying on his side and there was a pool of blood forming around him. "OH, GOD!"Kate literally dropped her weapon and crawled over to Charlie who she could see was still alive and awake. "Charlie, No! Please God, No!" Kate could only pet him and search for where the blood was coming from so she could stop it.
"I had to Kate, she was going to shoot you. I'm so sorry." "Whimper, whimper, whine. He had to save her and his unborn babies. He wasn't that sorry.
"CHARLIE, NO! PLEASE DON'T DO THIS!" She could only hold him and watch him close his eyes. "NO! PLEASE GOD, NO!" Kate was now crying, bordering on openly sobbing. "Charlie, please?" She was watching him die and it was killing her. Finally her heart couldn't take it and she just sat there and sobbed loudly. Ignoring the blood, she lifted his now lifeless body up into her lap so she could hold him.
The precinct's janitorial staff was left to clean up the mess and at first watched Kate sobbing with a bloody and dead dog in her lap. She ignored everyone and didn't move when pulled.
Finally someone tried to take Charlie from her. "NO! LEAVE HIM ALONE!"Kate yelled at whoever it was and continued sobbing her heart out as her tears fell onto Charlie's fur.
ooOoo
Kate barely registered that she was being walked somewhere, then put in a cruiser, and driven away. She was so zoned out that nothing really reached her.
Alexis and Martha were home given that it wasn't a school day and Martha didn't have to do anything for her play today. Someone knocked on the door and Alexis got up to answer it. Stunned, she saw Kate being held up by two police women in uniforms and she also recognized Captain Gates. "What happened?" Kate didn't look like she was even awake save that her eyes were open.
"Bedroom?" Gates asked. Alexis pointed and the uniformed police women escorted Kate that way. Leaving just Alexis and Gates.
"There was an incident at the precinct today. Four officers were shot and the suspect was killed. Based on preliminary reports it looks like Detective Beckett killed our suspect during the incident," Gates told her.
Alexis got all that but was sure Kate had killed someone before now. All in the line of duty of course. So why would she look and act like this?
Gates took a deep breath. "There was one other fatality in the precinct." She hated to do this. Even she really liked Charlie. He'd somehow wormed his way into the hearts of nearly everyone in the precinct. Gates wasn't entirely sure how he got around the precinct, but he did. Kate was taking it the hardest but everyone else was affected as well. "Charlie was killed during the incident. We're still investigating but it looks like he got in the way of a round that might have been meant for Detective Beckett." Gates barely managed to get all that out.
"WHAT!"Alexis had stopped listening at the part about Charlie being killed. "Charlie?" Alexis looked past Gates trying to find Charlie. "CHARLIE!" He had to be here, he just had to be! She didn't know what she was going to do without him.
"NO!" Alexis ripped her arm out of Gate's grasp. "NO!" There was only one safe place left for her. Gates watched as she raced up the stairs and slammed her door closed behind her.
Gates was left standing there, alone inside a large, very nice apartment. She knew Castle was rich and since she had married him, so too was Kate. Now she knew how Kate was living and she was envious. Just not jealous given all the pain this family had been and still was going through.
The two women officers eventually joined her; they talked for a bit then those two left. Just as they did Gates saw Martha at the top of the stairs.
ooOoo
Martha, she noticed, took the news a bit better than Kate or Alexis. "I'll send Dr. Parrish over as soon as I can arrange it. When you get a chance tell Detective Beckett that she's on paid medical leave for at least four weeks. I am sincerely sorry," Gates said to Martha and let herself out. She wasn't sure yet just what she was going to do. She was down three homicide detectives and two uniformed officers and Internal Affairs was already all over her precinct.
That woman had gotten her hands on two weapons somehow and now she had wounded officers and one dead dog. A furious Captain Gates strode to the elevator and back to her precinct that was now severely understaffed.
ooOoo
Rick looked around and found himself in a nice, large, comfortable seat inside a train car. "Not again!" He leaned back and tried to figure out what he'd done wrong this time.
Just like last time there was a woman across from him with women on one side and men on the other. Then he watched as a worker came through the door and handed out menu cards, just like before.
ooOoo
This time Rick wasn't hungry. He was just angry so he settled for a glass of ice water for this trip.
He didn't even need that guy to tell him what doors to go through after he exited the train. Once again he stepped into a theater that had screens on the wall all the way around him.
At least he didn't get Jack the Ripper again which he took as a good sign. "What happened?"
Instead of answering his question the man used his pad and filled the room with pictures of his past. "A very colorful life, Mr. Rodgers. Or do you prefer Castle?" he started off with.
"Castle, please, or simply Rick. How did I end up here again?" Rick questioned him.
"I see you have been with us before. Interesting." Then suddenly Rick saw pictures of a dead red Irish Setter with blood everywhere and an in pain Kate sobbing over the dead body of the dog.
"OH SHIT!" He was the dog and he was dead again. This was getting really old fast. "What happened?" His memory was a little foggy, much like last time.
"It seems you sacrificed yourself to prevent a Katherine Beckett from being shot while pregnant. Interesting." He just kept using that word.
"And you are?" Rick would love to have a name just like last time.
"Albert Fish," he informed him, not that he expected him to recognize that name. No one did.
"Albert Fish." Rick searched his memory and dragged it out from a dark place in a far corner. "You killed three children in the early 1900s. Though you claimed to have killed over a hundred. At least one from each state. You even sent a letter that you had carved one of them up and eaten her."
Why in the name of God did he get all the homicidal serial killer wackos to go over his life history and decide his fate? What had he done that was so damn wrong to deserve this?
"She was indeed tasty," Albert recalled. "This way, Mr. Castle." He walked to a door, opened it, and waited for Rick to join him.
Rick recognized it immediately. "The same tree as last time."
"Indeed. All of the cards have been jumbled since your last visit with us. Simply pick a card and you can get on with your life," Albert informed him.
It didn't matter, Rick didn't really know where the card he had chosen last time was even located. "The Universe will provide." He remembered it had worked last time. He groaned, closed his eyes, and pointed.
ooOoo
The meal out was delicious last time and turned out to be the very different this time. He had a choice of Filet Mignon or Lamb Shanks. Sides were equally good and it came with coffee and Scotch after his meal. The very same bottle of Scotch as far as he could tell.
Rick was sipping his Scotch after eating a very delicious meal of Lamb Shanks and decided he should read his card before they arrived soon.
"So what is it this time?" Rick fiddled with the envelope that held his card but didn't open it.
That was when he heard two of the others. "EARTH WORM!? I'm a goddamn Earth Worm?"
He could even hear the guy from last time speaking as he passed him. "Never take his name in vain."
"I'm a horse!" She didn't sound upset or even all that surprised. She was simply stating it. Okay, maybe she was surprised a little, Rick was guessing.
He might as well get this over with. He set his drink down and would chug it depending on what he read on his card. Opening the envelope he saw the card was face down yet again. He closed his eyes and turned it over. Then he took a quick peek before opening them wide in shock.
3 Month Old Male Golden Retriever
He was a puppy again!