Author's Note: I wanted to write Castle when he was young and callous and shallow. This is what happened. The real first time they met, set about ten years before the series starts.
He would conservatively estimate that he'd been there for at least a week. Book signings were, without a doubt, the worst part of being a writer. The line stretched out, seemingly endless, before him, filled with middle aged woman itching to tell him about how they were his biggest fan, grill him about where his storylines came from, or the absolute worst: wax poetic about how they'd love to meet a man like Derrick Storm.
He had to smile and act flattered and pretend to be engaged in any given conversation and sign his name over and over and over again until his fingers cramped and his entire world dissolved into a sea of glossy new dust jackets, crisp white title pages, a sharpie, and the same question repeated a thousand times. What's your name? What's your name? What's your name?
The book that landed on the table in front of him was not a newly printed copy of A Calm Before Storm. It was a paperback of Flowers for Your Grave and it was anything but new. The spine was cracked in several spots and the pages were dog-eared and yellowing. When he picked it up, he thought he could smell alcohol, old and stale and cheap. Which only made the young woman in front of him more intriguing.
She was dressed in the bulky black uniform of a beat cop, but was doing a marvelous impression of a drowned rat. Her hair had by-and-large escaped the confines of her bun and the strands were plastered to her skin in dark ropes. Her cheekbones were sharp, standing out in high relief in her pale face. It combined with the dark circles under her eyes to paint a picture of a recently ended shift, giving her enough time to get to the signing, but not enough to go home and change. She was clearly weary, tired from a long day, but her hazel eyes were bright, sharp awareness and fierce intelligence, and...
Who was he kidding? She was hot. She was hot and he'd be crazy not to have noticed. He gave her his most charming grin. "I would ask if you're here to arrest me, Officer..." He checked her out unabashedly under the pretense of finding her nameplate. He was willing to bet good money that she had a killer body under that uniform. "Beckett, but I suspect that you get that pretty often."
"Kate." She corrected, and he noticed that she didn't look overwhelmingly charmed, though there was some begrudging amusement in her tone. "It's not actually all that common. Most people tend to take the badge more seriously." She gave him a stern look and he held his hands up in subjugation.
"Guilty." He admitted, unable to resist. She tried very hard to fight the smile on her face, huffed out a laugh instead. He grinned and picked up her book. "So, I have to ask: Why Flowers for Your Grave?"
"Oh, well..." Was that a blush? She was blushing. How cute. "It just... got me though something difficult."
He wanted to ask more, wanted to pick apart her mystery and piece it back together, wanted to find all the little insignificant details that made up her narrative.
But he still had a line and at some point tonight, he really needed to get home and feed his little girl. Plus, if he ever wanted to get Gina, the up-and-coming girl at his publisher's office into his bed, it would probably be a good idea to keep this policewoman out of it. So he just smiled and when he leaned over her book to sign it, he resisted the urge to add his phone number to his name. Instead, he just closed the cover and handed it back to her. "Well I'm glad I could help."
"Thanks." She accepted the book, hugging it to her chest.
"You sure you don't want to arrest me? You'd be doing me a huge favor." He kept his voice low, conspiratorial as he eyed the line behind her.
She chuckled, rolling her eyes. "Maybe next time."
"I'll hold you to that." He assured her, and when she left, his gaze followed her out.
To Kate:
Remember every cloud has a silver lining.
Thanks for being mine today.
R. Castle.