a.n. So, yeah, this happened. I get them happy and then BAM! Angst-athon ahead. You've been warned.
Thanks to all of you who have sent along your reviews and kind words on Tumblr and Twitter. You are all awesome. Also, for the purposes of this story, don't assume that the timeline of canon is linear. In other words, there may have been a summer between 1x10 and 2x01, but there isn't in our story here. Only a month, which is denoted inside the story.
Disclaimer: No I do not own Castle. Not even a little bit.
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Chapter Fourteen
Previously…
He smiled over at her. "I won't hold us back too long, Kate. After tonight I feel more ready for us than I did before. We'll work on it together."
Smiling back at him she said, "That sounds good." She stopped and tugged on his arm, pulling him close. She leaned forward, their heights similar because of her heels, and kissed him like she had wanted to do all evening. God she loved kissing him. She just loved him.
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"Is that a guy up a tree?" Castle asked as they got the scene. Beckett was annoyed. She wasn't as annoyed this time around as she had the last time, after all he hadn't went behind her back this time and looked into her mom's case. But she was still annoyed.
She had just spent the last two hours with a reporter from some New York press rag, and it had seriously been the two most useless hours of her life. She shouldn't have been annoyed at Castle, of course. The press was requested by the NYPD when they found out that the first Nikki Heat was being published in the next couple months. But she was annoyed. And that annoyed her.
"Yes, Castle, that looks like a body up a tree," she snapped. At the hurt look on his face, she immediately felt guilty. It really wasn't his fault. She was just having another bad day. She needed her man, and he had been busy every day after work for the last week. She felt abandoned. He had been at functions getting ready for the launch of a new series, and was working on the outline for the next book. He had been apologetic when he had told her he would be too busy for any dates. That really hadn't made her feel any better, though.
They had been dating for over a month now and she could honestly say she was truly happy with the way things were going. They had been going out almost every day, or spending time at one of their apartments for a movie night or game night. They hadn't taken their relationship any further than a few rather hot make out sessions, but she was okay with that. It was just that she hadn't seen him outside the precinct in a week and she missed him. So yeah, she was annoyed.
Deciding to just move on to her case, she shouted at Lanie who was literally up the tree. "Hey, Lanie, what do we got?"
"Well I don't know what you've got, but I've got branches poking me in places that aren't polite, and spotlights on my booty."
"Could be worse, you could be wearing a dress," Esposito shouted up at her, smirking.
"Kate, do me a huge favor and smack that boy upside the head."
Kate smacked him, as requested, and then asked, "What's with the body?"
Lanie tossed down a wallet, and then said "Victim's a black male in his late thirties. Looks like he tried to pull a Batman off the top of the building."
"Vic's name is Brent Johnson. ID has him living on the Upper West Side. Looks like he was an insurance agent." Beckett immediately started to notice differences with this case. Before the victim's name was John Allen, if she was remembering correctly, and he had been a white male.
Huh. They had worked a few cases since the kidnapping of Angela Candela, some of them she hadn't seen the first time around at all, some she had, but she had become much more cautious about possible differences each case from her previous time here. She wanted to make sure she didn't put anything or anyone at risk because she didn't see the differences soon enough. However she was having a hard time remembering all the details about each case they worked, which was making the task all that more difficult.
They finished up at the scene, after dealing with the irritating reporter who still hadn't left her alone, and then started to pack up and go back to the precinct. On the way to her car, she noticed that Castle hadn't come with her, but instead had made his way with Lanie and the reporter towards the coroner's van. He had been silent since she had snapped at him earlier.
Shrugging her shoulders, figuring she would apologize later, she got into the car, and started to make her way to the precinct. It wasn't until she was half way back that she remembered how this scene had played out last time. The body had been grabbed by the drug runners who had been using the victim as a mule. Mentally slapping herself for forgetting, she got on her phone to call Lanie to warn her.
Lanie didn't answer her phone. Frowning, she pulled up Castle's contact information and hit the call button. He didn't answer either. Starting to worry, she called Ryan.
"Ryan."
"Hey, you guys have Lanie's van in view?"
"No. They left after us. Why?"
"Neither Lanie or Castle are answering their phones."
"Castle is with her? Why didn't he ride with you like he always does?"
"Not sure," she lied, knowing that he had taken the opportunity to get space from her. "Can you guys turn around and see if you can find out where they're at? I just have a feeling that something happened."
Knowing that her gut instincts were pretty good, Ryan didn't protest. He relayed her instructions to Esposito, then said, "We'll find them. I'm sure everything is fine." He hung up and she carried on to the 12th.
It wasn't until she pulled into the parking garage that she got a call back from Ryan.
"Beckett."
"Kate, you need to get here." Ryan said. He sounded panicked, and he never sounded panicked. She felt her blood turn cold and her stomach sink.
"What happened," she asked, turning her car around.
"A truck rammed into the coroner's van and tipped it over. The body's gone."
"Ryan, What about Lanie and Castle?"
He was silent for a beat before he said, "they're in pretty bad shape, Kate. The ambulances are on their way. The reporter that was with them is dead."
"Where are you?" She demanded, needing to see him. She needed to know that he was alright. This was all her fault. For real this time. She knew that this was going to happen. But she had forgot until it was too late. Not fifteen minutes after thinking about how she needed to pay attention to the differences, she had forgot a major detail of the case. Now it might have cost her everything.
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He looked so bad. His face was all bloodied and bruised, both legs were broken, and there was a huge gash where something had stabbed him in the chest. There was so much blood. When she pulled up, the EMTs had just loaded him into one of the ambulances. Hurrying up to Ryan she asked, "What's going on?"
"They've already taken Lanie, and they're loading Castle up now. Lanie was conscious when they loaded her up. She had a seatbelt on, so the EMTs said she might just have a concussion and a broken wrist along with whiplash."
She hadn't taken her eyes off the ambulance holding Castle, which had just sped away. "Did you hear them say anything about Rick?"
"No. We should get to the hospital. We need to be there for both of them. I called Montgomery. He's going to put Karpowski's team on the Johnson murder, and get them to handle what happened here as well."
"Esposito?"
"He went with Lanie. Let's go."
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"I'm so sorry, Martha!" Kate said when Castle's mother entered the ER waiting room an hour later. She had met Martha again, and had spent some time with the woman over the previous month she and Castle had been dating. The woman was just as dramatic as she had been in Kate's previous time, but was more reserved in some ways. Kate knew that the differences could be attributed to Alexis' murder.
"I'm sure it's not your fault, darling. Now what happened?"
Kate explained how the coroner's van had been ambushed, and how Castle shouldn't have been there in the first place. "I snapped at him and he chose to not ride with me. And now this…" she trailed off, tears running down her cheeks.
She couldn't lose him. Not now. Not again. This was her second chance. She had done everything she could to get them together, and they were. They were happy. They were working towards being more. And now this. Now she might lose him again.
I can't handle this, she thought for the millionth time since she got to the hospital. If he dies, I'm done with this life.
"Was anyone else injured?"
"Dr. Parish, our ME, was injured. The reporter who was doing a piece on the Nikki Heat book died in the crash."
"Oh, dear lord," Martha exclaimed, bringing one of her hands up to her mouth. "Has there been any news at all on Richard?"
Kate shook her head and sat back down in the uncomfortable chair she had taken residence in when she had walked into the ER. "No. Nurse said that it could be hours yet."
Martha sat down next to her and put a hand on Kate's knee. "He's going to be alright. He's a fighter. He wasn't supposed to survive the stabbing either, but he did. He'll make it this time too. He's been happier since he met you, dear. He has something worth living for again."
Sobbing, Kate grabbed Martha's hand and gave it a squeeze. She knew that if Castle died, her reason for living would cease to exist right along with him. She wouldn't get another second chance.
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a.n.2. You can send your hate mail via review or PM. Death threats aren't okay, though. Review?
a.n.3. Also, Kate hasn't shown the tape to Castle yet. She hasn't forgotten about it, she's just been focusing on being happy instead. There'll be more on her mom's murder and Alexis's murder in future chapters. First I need to stop trying to kill Castle, right?