"'You know,' he said, sitting back, reflectively, 'it's at times like this that you kind of wonder if it's worth worrying about the fabric of space-time and the casual integrity of the multidimensional probability matrix and the potential collapse of all waveforms in the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash and all that sort of stuff that's been bugging me.'" – Mostly Harmless, by Douglas Adams
Beckett scanned the gray basement whose window she'd just pulled herself through, the fingers of her right hand fidgeting and tapping on the gun in her holster. She drew it, deciding that it would be best to be prepared should the thieves/killers above decide to come down and investigate whatever thump or thud she must have made hopping onto the cold concrete floor of the unfinished cellar. As she held the weapon out in front of her, she noted with some satisfaction that the muscles in her arms were just as finely toned as they would have been were she a detective in this parallel world. Actress-Kate must hit up the LA gym quite often, she thought to herself.
The basement was large and square, with a plywood staircase in the middle leading up to the main floor. Shelves lined the four walls, stacked with the usual cans of paint and storage cases, as well as some items specific to these house owners: tools of the trade like crowbars and lock picks. She spotted dental supplies she knew from a case she'd once worked with Castle was used in car thievery.
Kate had realized what a stupid idea it was coming in here alone halfway through the tiny inches-off-the-ground window. She also knew that if she called in the real police, her being there would compromise the investigation and ruin any chance of catching the criminals. She had to be the one to stop them, and she had to do it now. She had to call Castle.
She was standing near the stairs with an ear pointed upward, trying to decipher the muffled voices upstairs, when the tap on the window shocked her almost out of her shoes. She choked down the squeak of surprise and turned to see Castle's face framed in the window. "Come in," she mouthed, and watched as he slid open the fortunately unlocked window and propelled himself through it, crouching as he landed and absorbing the impact on the balls of his feet.
"Hey," said Castle, a bit too casually for the situation. Beckett glanced around.
"It's just you?"
"Who were you expecting?" he asked. "Mal Reynolds?"
"You didn't bring any backup?" One cop alone was a mistake, but a cop plus an inexperienced fluff writer was just as bad, if not worse. She'd expected him to show up with an army of the "guys" he supposedly had everywhere. The two of them alone were woefully outnumbered.
Castle grinned at her. "And dilute the dream team?" He slid the window shut behind him and loped towards her, acting like this was all just a big game to him. "Come on, we're the good guys. We always win."
"Castle," she hissed, "this is reality." She paused, considering. "Well, okay, not my reality, but reality nonetheless." To look at him it was like she hadn't said anything. "Come on, let's just get this done or die trying."
A few steps down from the door to the main floor, eyelevel with the aging hardwood floor, they could see a thick film of dust coating the floor, interspersed with footprints. They learned from running through it and dodging bullets that the filth left from years of use and no cleaning made the floor slippery.
There were four men at the table debating whether to up and leave New York after the Alan Basher incident when they heard the basement door creak open and froze, each landing a hand on his gun. The first to draw his gun and point it at the door was suddenly on the floor, the crack of Beckett's gun only registering as the blood pooled around the fallen robber.
It was like a paused movie starting up again. Beckett and Castle came around the edge of the door and the three remaining men started firing. Beckett downed another as Castle ducked behind a counter, feeling unprepared as the only unarmed participant.
A bullet came flying towards Kate's chest and she had to fall to the floor to avoid it, slipping and landing on her stomach. She pulled herself under the kitchen table while silently cursing herself for foregoing the bulletproof vest. One of the men dropped to his knees, firing off a shot that missed her by centimeters. Taking advantage of the near-frictionless floor, she grabbed a leg of the table and pushed hard, sending herself gliding across the floor. When she hit the opposite wall and aimed up, shooting almost at random, she landed a bullet in the standing man's stomach.
As the gunshots rained around him, Castle opened the nearest cabinet door and searched frantically for a weapon of some sort. Cheese grater? That would only work if he got close enough to shred up someone's face. Colander? Only if death by dry pasta were an option.
Frying pan? Castle weighed the panhandle in his hand, contemplating it. Remembering the latest Disney movie that he'd taken Alexis to see, he held it above his head and practiced a swing. Yes, he thought to himself, he could definitely bash someone's head in with this.
Meanwhile, Beckett was keeping the remaining two men busy by tobogganing across the floor, shooting upward shots at them every time she stopped. One of the men was staggering towards her clutching a wound on his left side and aiming his gun at her; the other one had stopped to swear and clutch a shoulder injury.
Standing up in one fluid motion, Beckett spun and kicked the staggering man squarely in the chest, knocking him off his feet. His head cracked against a wall and he slumped down to the floor, motionless. Immediately, she tackled the man who'd been shot in the shoulder and threw him to the floor, producing handcuffs seemingly from nowhere and cuffing his hands together. He grunted and kicked at her, but seemed too weak and cornered to put up more of a fight.
"You're under arrest for the robbery of Gretchen Prescott," said Beckett, "and the murder of Alan Basher." What she didn't see was the man she'd kicked, struggling towards her with his gun still out. One foot came up, then another, advancing towards her. "You have the right to remain silent," she continued through clenched teeth. "Anything you say can-"
Clang! Just as his finger found the trigger, the man crumpled under the business end of Castle's frying pan. The writer spun the cooking instrument around in his hand, a cocky grin lighting up his face as he looked at Beckett.
"Tell me you saw that!" he exclaimed, winning a smile from her. It could have been from relief that she had been saved, from thankfulness, from amusement, or perhaps just from the memory of their very first scrape with death, when he had spoken the same words to her with equal pride and delight. Maybe, though, she was just smiling because she had accomplished what she had been trying to do since she had woken up in this strange and confusing parallel universe in which her mother was alive and she was an actress. She had captured the men who had murdered Alan Basher. For some reason, she felt that everything else would just fall into place.
The cops, for the most part, cooperated with Kate. They seemed to have suspected the men she had attacked of the robbery already, if not the murder. Despite some doubts, again most of the police seemed on board with the idea that Basher had been killed to silence him of the robbery he had witnessed.
Two days after breaking into the thieves' house, two days after calling Ryan and Esposito and informing them of the injured men lying on the floor surrounding her, two days after the last time she had seen Castle, Kate Beckett stood on her mother's porch, leaning against the front door, trying to bring herself to knock.
The events of the past week were racing through her head, and now there was a new worry- on top of the worry that she would never get home, there were worries involving the home she got back to. The last thing she could remember, she was giving the eulogy at her captain's funeral. Why, then, did she not remember going home and going to sleep? She was sure it had to have been the last thing she'd done- why else would she have woken up in bed? And yet, she only remembered the funeral.
As Kate raised a fist to knock on the door, gathering her courage, she heard the pebbles on the walkway behind her crunch. Instincts kicked in, and she spun to face whoever was following her, hand dropping to her hip holster.
It was Castle- Richard Castle, writer and partner and it didn't matter if he wasn't her Castle, from her universe. He must have cared about her, otherwise why would he be here? Something still lingered, she thought, whatever it was that existed between herself and Castle, the real Castle, had leaked into this universe as well.
"Kate," he said, and she exhaled heavily.
"Hey," she said with a weak half-smile, "I was just-"
"Kate," he interrupted, and she stared at him. Something was off… "Kate," he said yet again. "Kate, please, come on."
"What are you-"
"Wake up!"