a.n. Thanks everyone for the kind reviews and such. You are all beautiful people, and I can't tell you how much those reviews mean to me.

This chapter gets heavy, but I tried to intersperse some levity in there too. Let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: Nope.

xxxx

Chapter Seven

Previously…

"Well, I've got to get back to the precinct to finish paperwork and see if I can get a confession out of Tisdale."

"Can I get a ride? I want to talk to Roy so I can get the ball rolling on our new arrangement."

"Sure. Let's go." He paid for their coffees despite her protests and they made their way back to her car chatting amicably. For the first time since she woke up in this new world, she had hope that she could take advantage of her second chance, and for now, hope was all she needed.

xxxx

When Kate Beckett finally got to her (old) apartment that evening, she was exhausted but satisfied with the way the day had gone after they had arrested Tisdale's sister. Castle had spoken to Roy Montgomery and had received his approval to shadow her both at the precinct and in the field, if he could get approval from both the Police Commissioner and the Mayor. When Castle had left he had seemed confident that neither man would have a problem granting him access to the NYPD. She just hoped he was right. The last thing she needed was to be held up because of red tape or political pride.

She threw her keys in the bowl beside the door, stripped off her jacket and locked her gun and badge away in the safe in her bedroom. It was weird for her to come back to this apartment, knowing that if things went as they had before it would become a smoldering pile of ash within the next year.

Standing in front of the mirror hanging over her dresser she took in her appearance. The short red-ish hair was something she was still getting used to. It felt odd not to have long locks of hair flowing over her shoulders. She could remember countless nights curled up in Castle's arms where he couldn't stop playing with locks of her hair. It was something she knew she would miss until she could, hopefully, have it again.

Looking down she took off her father's watch and placed it in the wooden box which she kept on the top of her dresser. Then she reached behind her and unclasped the chain around her neck, pulling her mom's ring away from her skin. Holding it tight in her fingers she studied it for the millionth time, but for the first time since she arrived in this new time. What am I going to do about this? Should I go in tomorrow, get the tape, confront Montgomery, and start the process of arresting Bracken? Or should I wait? What if something has changed? What if the tape isn't there?

Needless to say, she had a lot of questions about what was going to happen once she started to look into her mother's case again. When she and Castle had finally solved it in her previous time she had felt so relieved. She had felt that she finally had an opportunity to live and to love free of the obsession that had driven her for almost 15 years. That chance hadn't lasted long enough.

Setting the chain and ring down inside the box, she decided that she would work on her relationship with Castle first. She needed to get him settled in, following her, being her partner, and maybe take their first step romantically before she made any move in Bracken's direction. She had made the mistake before of putting her mom's case ahead of her heart. She wouldn't do that again.

xxxx

The next day she walked into the precinct and found Castle waiting for her at her desk.

"Castle, what are you doing here? Are you in?"

He smiled, "Yup. Commissioner and Mayor signed off on it last night. I've signed my legal papers, and I'm now officially an NYPD consultant. They even said they'd give me an ID badge."

"That's great!" She felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her chest. The first major hurdle in their relationship had been overcome. He was here, and he was going to shadow her again. The badge thing was new, however.

"So what do we have today, Detective?"

"Paperwork right now, Castle. At least until we get a call." She took off her coat, hung it over the back of her chair, and took a seat. "You can actually go home and I'll call you if that happens, unless you want to stick around."

"No, I'm here for the long haul. I need to experience everything, even the tedious parts. I'll get us some coffee," he said, walking to the breakroom.

When he came back five minutes later he said, "Beckett, this coffee is terrible. How do you drink this sludge? It tastes like a monkey peed in battery acid."

She laughed, remembering when he had said those words before. It surprised her that this Castle would say the exact same words, but it also gave her hope that real Richard Castle was still there even with the tragedy he had suffered.

"I'm sorry our coffee doesn't meet your standards, Mr. Castle," she teased. Secretly she hoped he would do as he had done before and buy them a better coffee machine. No matter how much she had avoided it to begin with, in the end it was oh-so-worth it.

Castle handed her a cup, then looked around, spotted a chair underneath the stairs and sat it beside her desk. She smiled again, happy that he had found the same chair. His chair.

For the next few hours she sat there doing paperwork, and he sat there watching her. At least the staring hasn't gotten any creepier, she thought. A little after 10 that morning her phone rang.

"Beckett," she answered. Listening, she picked up a pad of sticky notes and wrote down the address that the dispatcher had just given her. After getting the info, she hung up, stood and grabbed her jacket.

"Come on, Castle, we have a body."

xxxx

"You ready for this, Castle?" She asked as they walked together towards the crime scene. She remembered this building from her first visit here; how she had come to the crime scene after abandoning Castle to finish his paperwork, how he had shown up after talking with the doorman, how he had annoyed her every second. She remembered it all.

"Sure, Detective. I've seen crime scenes before," he said softly.

"Okay." Together they crossed the threshold into the apartment building's laundry room.

"Victim's name is Sara Manning," Ryan said, walking up to them and leading them to the body. "26, works as a nanny for a married couple upstairs."

"Who found the body," Kate asked, studying the crime scene for differences from her first time here. The body was still stuffed inside a dryer, the bleach bottle still on its side on the floor. Looking back she noticed Castle poking around, studying the crime scene, but still focusing on her.

"Little old lady from the third floor. Came down to do her laundry, and needed the machine. Left it there the first time," Ryan said, "but decided that she didn't want to wait anymore. Opened it up and found the body."

"No one should root around in someone else's underwear," Espo said, walking up behind Ryan.

"If you leave the machine unattended, and it gets done, you should expect someone to get your clothes out. Come on, Espo, it's unfair to think you can just take up a machine all day and get away with it," Ryan retorted.

"Probably not a motive for murder, though," Castle said from behind her. Her lips quirked up as they always did when he stepped close to her.

"What else do we know," Beckett asked, getting her team back on track.

"Not much yet," Espo replied. "She was a nanny for a little girl up on the twelfth floor. We're tracking down next of kin."

"Alright. You guys pull surveillance tape, Castle and I will go talk to her employers. Do you have a room number?"

"12-F," Ryan says, getting the number from his notepad.

xxxx

They talked to the husband and wife who employed Sara Manning. Claudia and Howard Peterson had been friendly, but distant as she and Castle had questioned them. They were the definition of unhelpful, but they were definitely hiding something just as they had the last time, Kate thought as she and Castle made their way back to her car.

"They were hiding something," Castle said as he buckled his seatbelt. "What's your next move?"

"I need to find out more. They said she had a boyfriend, so we need to talk to him, and she was friends with another nanny from the fifteenth floor. So we need to talk to her too. And yeah, they were hiding something."

"Claudia Peterson is having an affair," Castle said, climbing into the passenger seat.

"What? How do you know?"

"The husband couldn't keep the disgust off his face every time she spoke, which is why he kept the conversation flowing. He didn't want to hear her voice."

"Okay, why does that mean she had an affair? Couldn't they just have had a fight?" she asked, pulling out into traffic and pointing the car towards the precinct.

"No. Plus they aren't sleeping together. I looked in one of the rooms we passed by, and the bed was unmade and his clothes were spread out over the room. It wasn't the master bedroom. Maybe Sara Manning found out about the affair and threatened the wife? But that doesn't make sense because the husband already knows."

"That's really impressive, Castle." She meant it. She had picked up on the husband's awkwardness around his wife, but hadn't seen the bedroom. It was the husband who had the affair the last time around, but it had ended up having nothing to do with the murder. So if this is true, she thought, this case is different than it was before.

He smiled. "Thanks, Detective. One of the things I've learned as a novelist is that the more details you soak up about your environment, the better your writing is. It makes it feel more real."

"So you're a real Sherlock Holmes, then?" she teased.

"Hey, I'll have you know that if I had been alive when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had written those books, I'd have been his muse."

She laughed. "So is that what I am to you? Your muse?"

"Yes, and an extraordinary muse you'll be too, Detective. I can already tell."

She smiled. "Thanks, Castle."

xxxx

"You ever been married, Detective?" Castle asked as they walked through the playground, looking for the Chloe, the nanny who had been friends with their victim. His voice was somber, as he studied the scores of children who played on the equipment.

Almost, she thought sadly. "No, Castle, never been." She remembers telling him before about being a 'one and done type of girl'. "You?" In the previous timeline he'd been married twice, but this time things from his past seemed to be different.

"Actually I've never been married either. Alexis' mom deserted us right after she was born. I was going to propose when she got pregnant, but she wanted to wait until after the baby was born. Turns out she didn't want it at all. I didn't even hear from her when Alexis was killed."

God. What hell that must have been. "That's terrible, Rick."

"Yeah. I always regret Alexis not having a real mother, but I'll never regret her. She was the best thing that ever happened to me." She could see the tears gathering in his eyes. He tried to rub them away, but was rather unsuccessful.

She went to say something else, when he pointed and said, "There's one that looks like it could be Chloe."

xxxx

"Okay, I really didn't see that coming," Castle said as Ryan and Esposito let the killer out of the apartment complex. "Wow." It turned out that Howard Peterson had been having an affair with their victim, and had killed her when she had threatened to tell his wife. Sara Manning had wanted him to divorce is wife for her, and when he wouldn't she decided that she would break them up.

"I admit, even I'm a little shocked by that turn of events. You were right, though. Claudia was having an affair. We just didn't know that he was too. Howard Peterson didn't care about his wife's feelings, he just didn't want to lose the money when the divorce went through, so his infidelity couldn't come to light."

"Why is it always money?" Castle asked as they followed the boys out to the street where her car was parked. "I hate the idea that someone would kill for something so…petty."

"I do too. It's probably the motive that bothers me the most," she said, stepping around her car.

"Yeah. Hey you want to grab something to eat? I have some questions, and I'm starving."

"Sure Castle. We can stop by Remy's. Do you know it?"

"Do I know it? Oh, I know it, Detective. They have the best shakes this side of…well anywhere. Their burgers are good to," he said with a smile as he got into the car.

As they drove towards the diner, Kate couldn't help but be happy with the way their first case had gone. She was almost giddy that he had mentioned getting dinner. She wanted to spend more time with him, but had been a little afraid to bring it up. She knew that if she was going to really do this, she was going to have to get over that fear. It was fear that led you to the mistakes you made last time, she thought.

Arriving at Remy's they placed their order and talked about the case they had just closed. The conversation was so easy; maybe even easier than it was between them in her previous time. She couldn't get over how much she loved this man, how much she wanted him. She knew that she shouldn't push him, and it took all her will power not to just lean across the table and kiss him senseless. God I want that.

"Kate, can I ask you a question?" Castle asked after they had finished their burgers and shakes.

"Of course," she said with an encouraging smile.

"How do you deal with the ones you can't solve?"

The question surprised her, though given his past it shouldn't have really. "Not very well, is the best answer I can give, Rick. You know my mom died? I was 19 when she was murdered, and it's what drove me to become a cop. I wanted to solve her murder so bad. And to this day I still haven't. I'm better about it now, but when I first became a detective I dove headfirst into the case and didn't come out until my training office forced me into therapy.

"For the non-personal cases I do the same thing. I dwell on them and obsess over them until I'm forced to leave them be. It's not healthy, but I guess I can't stand that there are people out there like me that don't receive the justice they deserve when they lose a loved one."

"I was the same way, you know?"

"After Alexis died? For how long?"

"I have connections, you know? So I weaseled the case file out of a buddy at the 19th, and started to do my own investigation. I was obsessed for almost two years. I only got out of it because it almost killed me."

"What do you mean it almost killed you?" She wasn't sure she wanted the answer to that question, but she wanted to know as much as she could about this new Richard Castle.

"I was depressed for a long while afterwards, and they put me on antidepressants. I wanted answers so bad, but some days I didn't feel like getting out of bed. So I took more of the pills thinking that it would help me want to do something, maybe want to do something else. The OD caused some major problems and left me in the hospital for four weeks. After that I got help. Saw a therapist, and buried myself in my writing."

"God, Rick, that's terrible."

"Yeah. I have no idea why I told you that. It's not something I talk about."

She looked at him then, considering how damaged this version of Richard Castle really was. He put on a good show, making it appear that he was perfectly fine. But he wasn't. He was a lot like her when they had first met before. Sad and broken. It worried her that her quest would prove to be much more difficult than she had anticipated because of how damaged he was.

"I'm glad you told me," she said finally.

He gave her a sad smile and then said, "I should let you get back to the precinct. I have to do some writing." He stood, took out his wallet and laid down enough to cover the bill. She could tell that he wanted space after the conversation they just had. She was well versed in that fine art, so she decided that she wouldn't push him for more. Not just yet.

"Until tomorrow, Detective," he said.

"See you tomorrow, Castle."

xxxx

a.n.2. So I know I didn't go into a lot of case details here. Let me know if that is okay. I covered the differences. If I didn't mention it, assume that the details were the same as canon. I really don't want to make this into a case fic, but the cases will still structure the story if that makes sense. I need to find the right balance between case details and moving Caskett forward.

Please leave a review and let me know what you think.