Kairos – Chapter 27

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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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Wednesday Morning – April 30, 2013, 12:15 a.m., at the Kronologix Facility in Brooklyn, New York

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Richard Castle steps through the narrow opening that connects the two rooms – the vast, open demonstration area and the actual transport room – which is through the doorway, literally cut into the rock of the earth. He is two steps behind Kate Beckett, and a couple of steps ahead of the gun-wielding Jackson Hunt, who follows both into the transport room.

"What are you planning to do?" Castle asks, as he slows down only to feel the barrel of Hunt's weapon jabbing him in the back.

"Keep moving," Hunt replies. "Let's get this over with."

"Get this over . . . what, are you going to shoot me, too? Your own son?" Castle asks. His memory of Dr. Windholm is still too fresh. And truth be told, after all the years he has spent shadowing Kate Beckett, he hasn't seen too many headshots like that back there.

"I will if I have to," Hunt tells him, matter-of-factly. "Just make sure I don't have to."

"Look, I don't care what good you think you have done," Kate turns, now having had enough of being pushed around. "What kind of father threatens his own son so easily?"

There is anger in her eyes. Anger over how he is treating Castle. Anger over watching him kill the doctor in cold blood. Anger of what he is now asking them to do.

"You're not listening," Hunt replies solemnly. "My God, you two really don't get it, do you?"

He chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief, and his laughter sounds like ice cubes rattling down the chute of the refrigerator into the waiting glass. There is no humor, no joy in the laughter, or in the eyes that now are trained on the novelist and his muse.

"Okay," he offers them as he puts the weapon back into the shoulder holster. "I will try this again, and this time I'm going to speak more slowly so that you two can understand me."

He turns to Castle first.

"Richard, I care about you. But I care about only because in the last year I have lived a reality where I am your father. And knowing that I am your father, I have taken an interest in you. I've taken an interest in your books. In your accomplishments. But that is only in the past year – since I came back to the timeline I created. Before that? Listen to me – before that, I have no – zero – not one – memory of you. Zip. Nada. Are you clear on that?"

Castle angrily nods his head in the affirmative, and is about to speak when Hunt raises a hand to silence him.

"In my timeline, Richard – you didn't exist."

He lets that bomb explode in the transport room between the detective-slash-district attorney and his son. He really didn't want to have to tell them this, but they need to know exactly how much is at stake. And up to now, he knows they haven't been 'getting it'.

Now, it appears, they are.

"In my timeline, Richard, I loved one woman," he continued. "I married her. She is the only woman I ever had sex with. And we had two children. You were not one of them. So, Richard – understand – you are literally – in every way possible – a product of this timeline I created. Had I not done this, you would not have existed. Somehow, in creating this new timeline, Beverly and I never married. We never even met."

His eyes are sad, momentarily, before the fire replaces the sadness. His face hardens. His gaze reverts to a penetrating glare as he continues.

"When I reset the timeline, and arrived here, I spent the first month here searching for her, unsuccessfully. She was a nurse, so I checked all of the hospitals. I checked nursing school records. I checked everywhere I could. Then a horrible idea hit me."

He walks toward the computer monitor in the transport room, and enters a couple of parameters. He spends a few seconds gazing at the results, then nods his head before turning his attention back to the pale-and-growing-paler faces that stare at him. It's almost funny.

Almost.

"I realized that if I could not find a Beverly Winston alive in the new timeline, then I should be looking for someone who was dead," he says sadly. "That's how I found her. That's how I found her," he repeats, his eyes glossing over.

"Or rather, that's how I found her mother. In this timeline – that I created – Gloria Winston was killed in the Pacific. On one of the islands, in a makeshift hospital that was bombed by the Japanese in 1943. Gloria was killed in 1943, so she never gave birth to my Beverly in 1960. My Beverly was never born. And so my children were never bor. Beverly and I never met. Yet I have thirty years of memories of marriage to a woman who no longer exists."

He turns to gaze at Kate Beckett now, and although there is fear, and there is a bit of hatred, there is something else. Now, there is also understanding in Kate's eyes.

"So you see, Ms. Kate Beckett Bracken," he tells her, spitting her names out almost derisively, "you weren't the only person to lose a loved one because of this reset timeline. It cost me everything. Everything!" he thunders, and Richard Castle takes an unintentional step backwards.

"It cost me my wife who was never born, and my children who were never born! If anyone has a reason to want to go back and try and reset things – with a few changes here and there – it's me! It's me! And I deserve the chance to do that, after what I did! But I realize the danger in going back, in making any change – any change at all – to the new timeline . . . it's just too great."

He stares at Castle for a few seconds, and then drops his gaze to Kate. Both shrink away instinctively. He nods his head, realizing that now they understand.

He turns and waves his hands toward the doorway they just recently walked through, to the large demonstration area.

"So when Sandra back there first mentioned wanting to go back to save her mom . . . trust me, I told her 'absolutely not' in so uncertain terms. She lost her mommy. Fine. I lost a hell of a lot more than that. And you know what, Kate! Losing Beverly – my girls – it was worth it, God forgive me! It was worth losing my wife and kids to see this new world! It was worth every fucking nightmare I have at night, missing my wife, missing my girls, missing my friends."

He then turns his attention back to Castle.

"The only reason you are standing here on planet earth is because I reset history. A history which somehow put me in bed with your mother."

He turns to Kate.

"The only reason you two even know each other is because I reset history. And trust me, I don't know if you even existed in the original timeline either, Ms. Beckett. So yeah, whatever changes you two managed to pull . . . well, we are going to un-pull, and pronto! Every minute we spend in this altered timeline is dangerous. So, before we make a return trip back to . . ."

He pauses as he turns and glances at the monitor again, and then turns his attention back to the couple.

". . . Central Park on December 24, 1998 at nine in the morning, I need you two to tell me exactly what you did, so we can figure out what to do to change it back."

For a few seconds neither Castle nor Kate makes a sound, as both stare wordlessly at one another. Hunt lowers his head for a second or two, shaking his head before he begins again.

"Okay, here is how it's going to go down," he tells them, and now there is a chill in his eyes that shakes Richard Castle to his core.

"I'm going to shoot one of you, and take the other back with me to 1998," he tells them. "Now, like the good doctor in the other room," he says, pointing his thumb back to the room they have left, "whichever one I shoot will be alive when we return, but they won't have any memory of what we have just done. Once we reset the timeline, they won't have any memory of this conversation, of being shot. They may or may not even know the other, because as I hope you have learned by now, nothing is set in stone when you mess with time."

He eyes both of them carefully before continuing.

"So I'm going to ask you one more time," he tells them. "What exactly did you do on December 24, 1998 that we need to reverse?"

There are another few seconds of silence, and Hunt begins to reach for his weapon.

"We intercepted a letter," Kate suddenly – and very quietly – tells the older man, as she covers her face with both hands. Her voice is muffled now as emotions threaten to overcome her.

"A letter written by a mobster in prison who wanted my mother to look into his case. When she did, she started a chain reaction that ended with her murder a couple of weeks later."

Jackson Hunt stares at Kate for a few seconds, then nods his head. He glances at Castle – his son in this timeline – and nods toward him as well, in grudging admiration that the man would risk getting shot, and risk losing his knowledge of everything happening here to save the secret of the woman in front of him.

"We figured if she never got the letter, she never looks into the case. She never dies," Castle finally adds, his head hanging sadly.

"Somehow, though, by intercepting the letter," Kate continues, her voice still soft, "we unleashed a series of changes. Mom lived. But Castle's daughter died. And his first wife died. And our best friends died. And the man who ordered my mother's murder ends up being my husband."

Hunt's eyes widen, and his mouth drops open.

"And the father of my child," Kate finishes, staring straight through their captor-slash-host.

Hunt stares at her for a moment before shaking his head.

"And . . . and you were okay with all of this? You were willing to leave all of this as is?" he asks. "All of this was worth . . . all of this was worth one life?"

Kate opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Castle attempts to weigh in on her behalf but Hunt waves him off.

"See, this here is exactly why we had to be careful who we brought into this . . . why the original CIA was so small," a now exasperated Jackson Hunt fumes. "There are just too many people on this planet who would damn the entire planet just to get one thing right in their lives," Hunt continues, shaking his head.

Kate is about to say something, but the words – wisely – are stuck in her throat. She is about to tell him that he doesn't understand, that no one can understand. But now, she realizes, that he does, indeed, understand. Better than anyone, he understands. He knows what it is like to have your life ripped out of your hands. He understands what it is like to have the most important person in your life taken away. And in his case – it is threefold.

They are going to go back, and she will likely lose her mother all over again. And she will most likely lose her daughter.

But he's already lost a wife, and two daughters. And no, he isn't okay with this. But he has – very vocally and emotionally – told her that losing them is worth it. It is a sacrifice he is willing to live with.

She thinks about Javier and Kevin . . . and over a thousand other people who were killed in a blast that she and Castle stopped.

She thinks about Kyra Castle lying in bed, making love to Richard Castle, taking her place in his life.

She thinks about eating home-cooked meals with her mother and father . . . and sister.

She thinks about Lanie, her best friend . . . a lonely widow living a day-to-day, grief-filled existence.

"You're finally getting it, aren't you?" Hunts asks. He's been watching her for the past five, ten seconds. Watching her life flash in front of her. Watching her decide, then re-decide, then decide all over again. He recognizes the internal battle waging within Kate Beckett, because he's been there. For the first couple of months after he reset the timeline, it was pretty much a daily battle with himself. Surely there was something – anything – he could do to bring his wife back, to save her mother and make sure she was born. To bring their children back. In the end, he realized that nothing is set – in stone or time. Anything he did would have massive consequences that he wasn't considering.

"Beckett," he calls to her, but she doesn't respond. He calls again, with the same result.

"Kate," Castle finally calls out, softly.

She turns to face Castle, then his father.

"Kate," Hunt says, repeating his son. "Nothing else matters. Nothing. The Nazis were brutal. Seventeen million blacks – horrifically murdered. Over five million Jews slaughtered . . . and that after almost six million were massacred in Europe during the war. Your history books talk about a holocaust. In reality, it was a holocaust times three. And I want you to consider something, Kate . . . Richard," he continues, now turning his attention to his son.

"Can even your imaginative mind imagine, son, what kind of people sit by and watch six million people get slaughtered . . . that was the German public. They knew what was going on. What kind of human being just sits by and allows that to happen? Then cross the ocean, come here to America. And it happens again – not once – but twice! Twice, dammit! And both times, the public just sat by. Sheep. Not wanting to make waves. Sheep, allowing the wolves to feast. No one stood up. No one tried to fight back. Very, very, very few went underground trying to help free people who they knew would be massacred. Only a few tried. Everyone else? They went about their lives . . . thankful it wasn't them. Thankful that their skin color was right. Their religion was right. Their beliefs were right."

His fist are shaking now, as the memories come flooding back to him. Castle only now begins to imagine what this man's nightmares consist of. Massacred human beings, a lost wife, lost children . . . it's almost too much.

Hunt turns his attention back to Kate.

"Everything you know – everything you have experienced – none of it happened. That's what we risk by leaving things as they are. Somewhere out there, because of your little escapade . . . actually because of your two little jaunts through time . . . somewhere out there, there might be a very smart, very ruthless descendant from my timeline who learns that the life he . . . or she . . . is living is a lie. Is a manufactured reality. And they may figure out how to change it back. Just like we did."

She nods her head, tears forming in her eyes. Castle reaches toward her hand, and is relieved when she opens her fingers to take in his.

"So we are going back – right now – and we're going to make sure that your mother gets that letter," he tells her. "Whatever happens from there . . . we can't control. I know that life can play out many different ways. But we must leave life alone, so that it can play out as it is supposed to."

"You say 'we'," Castle notes with surprise. It's the first time he has caught this. "Does that mean you are going back with us?"

"Damn right I am," Hunt tells him. "Two reasons."

He holds up one finger.

"First, I need to make sure that the two of you do – in fact – make sure that Ms. Beckett's mother gets that letter."

He holds up a second finger.

"Second, if I let you go by yourselves, then when you return, my consciousness will be part of the new reset. I will be unaware of what was happening. The timeline resets again, and I'm unaware. At least for a while."

"What do you mean 'for a while'?" Castle wonders aloud.

"That failsafe I told you about," Hunt replies. Every week, every Wednesday, the transport computer is programmed – in any reality – to find me. It has my social security number, my driver's license. It has my email addresses – which of course, could change – and my telephone numbers. Ditto for those. Hell, it has my DNA. But between all of that information, it can find me, and reach out to me."

"Why?" Kate asks.

"To tell me who I really am," he replies. "To remind me of what I did. Of who I was. Of who Josef and Walter and Sandra were. Of who Beverly and Samantha and Veronica were. Just in case something happened, just in case someone did exactly what you did. Within another few days, I would have been notified. I would have known. But now, I see that even that was a mistake. I figured once a week would have worked. But hell, you two reset things not once, but twice, before the system could even notify me."

He waves the couple into the actual transport area, and walks back to the counter, and makes a couple of entries.

"What time did you actually intercept the letter?" he yells out, asking the couple.

"It was . . . it was around . . . almost noon time," Castle tells him, thinking back.

"Okay," Hunt replies, punching in new parameters. Suddenly, he jogs back to the transport area, and moves to an area adjacent to the couple, who have knowingly separated, knowing the walls are going to be coming down. Literally.

"Put these on," he tells them, as he throws Castle the first bracelet, and Kate the second. Quickly, the couple puts the bracelets on, glancing at Hunt who does the same with his own bracelet.

"By the way, we're going back to eleven o'clock, not nine o'clock," he tells them. "And we have an hour and a half."

"That's not much time," Castle argues. "What happens if –"

"Your body, you hip, leg, whatever it is – it's already starting to degrade, Richard," Hunt tells him. "We're getting ready to tear you down again. I don't know that you have three, four, five hours in the past on that leg – not after we tear you down again. And then we have to tear you down yet again, to get back. You're going to be in a lot of pain, son," he tells him, and Castle doesn't miss the use of the word 'son'.

"The sooner we get in there and back, the better," he tells Castle. Then he turns to Kate.

"And I don't know what – if anything – has happened to you," Hunt adds, "but this is going to be your third time. I doubt you will get out of this unscathed either. All to say, we all need to be back in 2013 as quickly as possible. We're going to want medical technology to be as advanced as possible. We're going to need that."

Suddenly, a computerized voice is counting down. Castle is screaming to Hunt over the haunting, female computer voice.

"One more question –"

Three.

Two.

"What was Sandra's mother's name?"

One.

Kate Beckett closes her eyes, wincing as she tries to muffle the scream that begins to escape from her lips. A second later, she is nothing more than translucent mist forming an outline of her body. Then her dust falls, like snowflakes floating to the ground. This time, however, Castle isn't watching. He's seen this movie before, and knows how it plays out. And he needs this answer – this one answer – before they go.

Hunt stares at him for a moment, and then they both hear the countdown for Castle.

Three.

Two.

"Diana Cavanaugh," Hunt yells through the transparent glass barrier that separates the two men.

One.

Castle's eyes widen – not in fear, not in pain – but in recognition. He knows that name. It's a name he has stared at on a murder board, many times. Suddenly, he screams as he feels a hard, brutal tub on his left hip – then nothing.

Jackson Hunt stares at the remaining image of his 'son' float to the floor as the final countdown rings in his ears. He closes his eyes, waiting for the jolt of pain he knows is coming.

Three.

Two.

One.

"Dammit," he thinks to himself as he screams aloud for a second. And then he, too, is gone.

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A/N: So, huge kudos to binkey2013, who back in chapter 21 figured out Sandra Windholm's motivation for sending Kate and Castle back in time. There have been a lot of theories posted in reviews and in PMs (a couple of which I wish I had thought of myself), but binkey2013 nailed it solidly on the head.

One more chapter, and then the epilogue. As always, thanks for reading and sticking around.