Kairos – Chapter 10

DISCLAIMER: Most of these characters are not mine at all, but they are memorable. Thank you, Mr. Marlowe. The others? Yeah, they're mine.

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Saturday Evening – April 27, 2013, 8:57 p.m., A few minutes ago at Kate Beckett's High Rise Manhattan Apartment

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"Are you all right, baby?"

She hears his voice – it is a familiar voice. It is a completely unwanted voice. It doesn't belong here. Not in her home. And not in such damn close proximity to her face. She feels – and smells – his breath on her. It's nauseating, and it takes everything not to throw up right there on the spot as she regains consciousness.

He's placed a cold, wet rag on her forehead. She blinks a few times until the blur fades, and it is his face that comes into clear view.

William Bracken.

"What? Wha-" she begins.

"Shh, darling," he interrupts, thinking she is wondering what just happened. In reality, she is wondering far more than that. What in the hell is he doing in her house? Then it hits her, and the bile in the back of her throat makes a sudden reappearance as she realizes what is happening. The articles online didn't tell the entire story. He is far more than just her mentor. She's under more than just his wing.

They're having an affair.

She's his mistress.

"Oh dear God," she moans, pushing the cold rag away from her forehead, and struggling to her feet. He tries to restrain her.

"Don't move," he tells her. "That was quite a fall you took. Don't move too quickly."

"I'm okay . . . I'm okay," she manages, now thinking quickly. She's got to get out of here. But how? Even in her state of distress, she is still together enough to realize that she can't do anything drastically out of character. That, and she has no idea what kind of man Bracken is. She has no idea how he would react. All she knows is that he has no problems keeping a mistress.

Then again, apparently she has no problem sleeping her way into influence . . . or affluence.

Then hit hits her – again.

Her mother. Dinner.

Thank you, God.

"I . . . I have to go," she tells him, gently pulling away from him. "I am having dinner with Mom and Dad," she tells him. "I just came here to get a bottle of wine."

Her mind instantly replays the scene when she walked in. He said that his wife – Elizabeth – was out of town. The fact that he mentioned that means that his wife's trip was a last minute thing. He wasn't expecting to be here. More, this timeline's Kate wasn't expecting him to be here.

That will be her out.

"I'm sorry . . . babe," she offers, and it kills her to utter that word to him. "I had no idea you would be here tonight," and the fact that it is the complete truth allows her passion to sing through loud and clear. She tries to steady herself as she stands, and barely makes it.

"I set this up with Mom and Dad, and I'm already late," she tells him as she walks quickly, groggily, toward the refrigerator, hoping that this version of Kate Beckett keeps a bottle or two of red wine in the fridge. She opens the door and breathes a sigh of relief at the Merlot that sits on the bottom shelf. She smiles, recalling Castle's adverse original reaction to her taste for heavily chilled red wines.

She grabs the bottle, and quickly makes her way to the front door. In what she will later consider her finest acting job – in a long line of acting roles she has had to play as a cop – she comes alongside the Senator quickly, grabbing his chin and pulling his face down to her. She closes her eyes, holds her breath . . . and kisses him. Deeply. It has to be convincing.

She has no intentions of returning here tonight.

"You know I would rather be here with you," she tells him as she pulls away, her voice low and drawn out, letting her forefinger run a trail down his chin, to his chest.

"But I promised Mom," she continues, almost pouting now. "And she's already reminded me how little time I spend there. You understand, don't you baby?"

She can tell the man is disappointed, but yeah, he understands. The fact that he has surprised her here and that she wasn't planning on staying long makes perfect sense to him.

"I should have called," he tell her. She doesn't give him time to change his mind.

"That would have ruined the surprise. Now I have ruined it. I'm so sorry. Forgive me?" she purrs meekly.

"Of course, darling," he tells her. "Just don't accuse me of never trying to keep things interesting."

Not knowing exactly how to respond to that, she decides to say nothing. She blows him a kiss, and is out the door, bottle in hand.

She makes a quick sprint to the stairway exit. No, she's not going to go down thirty-seven flights of stairs. But neither is she going to make it that far in the elevator.

She gets to the 36th floor before it explodes. With heaving gusts of breath, she vomits in the stairwell corner. Anything to get the taste, the stench of the man she hates above all others out of her mouth, out of her lungs, out of her throat.

She stands, bent over, heaving until she empties her stomach completely. Light-headed, she grabs on to the railing of the stairwell, eyes clenched shut until she can gather herself.

She wipes her mouth with her jacket sleeve – yeah, that's not going to work, and falls back into a sitting position on one of the stairs. She sits there, eyes closed, breathing deeply, for a few minutes more.

"Shit," she mutters, reliving the past few minutes in her apartment just a floor above her, wondering how the universe could be so callous, so calculating as to throw her into William Bracken's bed.

"In any universe, some people are just destined to meet."

She laughs hauntingly now at the words Castle had shared with her during the wee morning hours not even a full year ago, when she showed up on his doorstep, wet and alone. She'd missed Alexis' graduation. She'd been hanging by her fingertips from a rooftop, mere seconds from death. She'd gone off on a foolish quest once again, and this time, she barely survived – literally – by her fingertips. They'd made love that night and into the morning – their first time . . . times. And she had asked how they had managed to finally do it, finally come together. She'd asked how unlikely it was that they'd even met.

His words had been about them. Turns out, they could just as easily about Kate and a certain Senator.

Her bearings intact, she stands slowly, taking a final deep breath, and heads inside, walking through the stairwell door on the thirty-sixth floor, and makes her way down the hallway to the elevator. When she gets to the lobby, the elevator door opens, and she exits quickly. Stanley is quickly around from his desk, inquiring about her.

"Are you all right, Miss Beckett?" he asks. "Is everything okay?"

She wonders for a moment what he could be talking about, but then notices two things quickly. Cop habits die hard, evidently.

First, the other security guard is nowhere in sight. Second, the bank of monitors forming a half-moon on the security desk reminds her. Surveillance. Her upchucking act was probably caught on camera in the stairwells.

"You saw," she says simply.

"Motion detectors picked you up in the stairwell and turned the camera on," Stanley explains. Reggie just headed up stairs to see if you were all right. Let me call him off," he tells her, taking the walkie-talkie set off his hip and pushing the button.

Meanwhile, Kate is making a beeline for the door. She doesn't need any more questions.

"Please apologize to Reggie for me," she tells him. "And I am sorry for the mess I made up there." Before Stanley can reply, she is gone. He gazes upward, as if he could see thirty-seven floors up.

"Bastard," he mutters under his breath as he returns to his seat behind the circular desk.

Outside, Kate is already hailing a cab. She gives the cabbie her mother's address, and sits back. She reaches inside her purse, pulling out a package of chewing gum. She grabs a stick, unwraps it and throws it in her mouth, looking to get the stench out.

Leaning her head back, she closes her eyes. Suddenly, she opens her eyes and reaches into her purse, pulling out her cell phone. Castle. She has to call him. She needs to her his voice. After having her lips on another man – any man, but especially that one – she needs the reassurance of his voice.

It rings four times and then rolls over to his voice mail.

"This is Richard Castle. You know what to do."

She hangs up, her disappointment heavy. Immediately her minds runs toward worse case scenarios. She can count the number of times – few and far between – that she has called Richard Castle and he hasn't picked up the phone. It's a rare occurrence that he allows her calls to go unanswered. Suddenly, she begins to wonder – in earnest – exactly what her mother's resurrection is going to ultimately cost. A question she has no idea how staggering that answer might be.

She allows herself to drift off for a quick shut eye, and roughly twenty minutes later she is pulling up to her parent's home. She tries calling Castle again, but with the same result.

Frowning, she pays the cabbie and walks – on suddenly very unsure legs – toward the front door. With each step, her heart skips a beat, or so it seems, until she is almost sprinting across the thin layer of snow to the doorstep. She rings the doorbell, then on a whim, tries the door. It's open and unlocked. Of course it would be. This is her very trusting mother we are talking about.

She opens the door, and the smell of homemade meatloaf almost knocks her over. And then she hears that voice.

"Katie?" her mother's voice rings out. A hundred cocoons burst open, and Kate almost staggers as she watches the now older woman she used to call 'Mom' step around the corner from the kitchen.

"There you are!" Johanna calls out to her. Kate Beckett, however, has planted roots and grown paralyzed in place. She wills her feet to move, but they refuse. Her brain has locked up and without warning, refuses to allow any command passage.

Johanna simply laughs, making her way to her daughter and wrapping her in a huge hug. Kate's hands finally find a mind of their own, reciprocating the action. She hugs her mother tightly, fiercely. She sniffs deeply, inhaling the smell of her mother. It is noticeable to Johanna, who is not used to such a display of affection. And more, she is not ready for the tears she feels dropping on her cheeks, or the sobs escaping from her daughter's lips.

'Katie?" she asks.

"Oh God, Mom," Kate manages between sobs. "It's been . . . it's been so long!" She pulls her mother back into their embrace, holding her even more tightly this time.

"I . . . have . . . missed you so much," Kate tells her. "So much . . ."

"Katie, it's just been a couple of months," Johanna reminds her, not realizing that for her daughter tonight – it hasn't been a couple of months. It's been a decade and a few years more.

"I've just missed you, Mom," Kate tells her, now recognizing her father immediately as he makes his walk out from the hallway."

"Katie!" he calls out. "Your mom told me you were coming. What a pleasant surprise."

Kate pulls him into the embrace, now experiencing something she had forgotten long ago. Family.

She almost feels guilty, knowing how hard Castle has tried to include her into his family, trying so hard to make her feel welcome, and part of his family, his world. Now? Holding tightly to Jim and Johanna Beckett, Kate is reminded once again . . . there's no place like home.

She opens her eyes as they embrace and her eyes are drawn to the wall just past her, heading to the living room. There is a picture there. A picture of two girls. Sisters evidently. Her eyes mist again, as there is no denying the blood connection between Kate and the younger version of herself.

"Kendall," she whispers, remembering Johanna's words earlier.

"Spending the night with a friend," she tells her daughter. "She'll be home tomorrow afternoon. And she can't believe you've come over for dinner. Speaking of, let's go get caught up. I've warmed your plate. And I see you brought wine."

"Cold?" Jim chuckles, squeezing Kate's shoulder.

"Always, Dad," Kate replies.

"Where in the world did you find my watch?" he suddenly asks, glancing down at the large watch on her wrist. "I didn't know they still made this guy," he marvels, comparing the watch on his wrist to hers.

"I just . . . I just wanted to keep you close, Dad," she tells him, now astutely aware of the necklace around her neck – inside her blouse – that her mom absolutely cannot see. Explaining a knock-off watch is one thing. An exact replicat of a wedding ring, however . . .

Jim tightens the embrace on his wife and oldest daughter, and Kate simply closes her eyes, reveling in the long-lost intimacy with both of her parents. She opens her eyes briefly, to get another glimpse of the picture of the two Beckett sisters.

Yeah, the words from the old movie were spot on accurate. There's no place like home.