Back to Where We Have Never Been
A/N: As always, you all rock. Thank you so much for all of the reviews, suggestions and encouragement, I really appreciate it and I am glad you are enjoying this story. Now, on to chapter 4.
Chapter 4
Kate couldn't help but turn in a circle when she stepped into the loft for the first time. It was gorgeous. Together, she and Mark definitely lived comfortably but the salary of two college professors did not come anywhere near the millions that went into Richard Castle's New York City apartment.
It was late morning when Kate knocked on the door. She would have come sooner but Castle had begged off saying that he had a meeting with this publisher that couldn't wait. The underlying tone told her that he wasn't looking forward to the meeting, she had bit her tongue to keep from asking if it was because his publisher was his ex-wife or because he was still blocked on his latest novel. He definitely didn't need to know that she knew that information.
"Can I get you anything, coffee? Water? Alcohol?" Castle questioned as he made his way over to the kitchen island.
Kate followed behind him, hanging her purse on the back of one of the chairs by the kitchen island.
"Coffee would be great, thanks. This place is gorgeous." Kate responded as she took a step back towards the living room, hands slipped into the back pockets of her jeans, her heels clicking on the floor softly.
"Thank you. It was one of the luxuries I allowed myself when I hit it big. Well, this and the Ferrari down stairs," Castle responded as he gathered the supplies and started the coffee pot.
"What? No private jet?" Kate quipped back.
"No," Castle answered over the gurgle of brewing coffee. "I just borrow Patterson's if I need a lift."
Kate couldn't help but smile at the answer as she made her way back over to the island where Castle was holding out of ceramic mug to her. Truth be told, it was a little hard not to relax when the other person in the room was barefoot in worn jeans and a Green Lantern t-shirt. Maybe one day she would bust out her Wonder Woman shirt and throw him for a complete loop.
"I didn't know how you liked your coffee but sugar is on the counter and cream and milk are in the fridge. Help yourself," he continued as she grasped the warm mug and moved around behind him into the kitchen.
The silence that followed was awkward as they both held in questions that they wanted to ask, but didn't know how.
"So," Castle started again. "Why did you change your mind?"
Kate shrugged. What was she going to say? My fiancé decided he wanted to stay in Russia for another week and even though I said it was okay, I'm still kind of pissed so I said I would help you to a. annoy him and b. so I wouldn't be completely bored for the next twelve days?
Not quite.
"I didn't have anything better to do."
Castle let out a small snort. "And here I was thinking that you were taken by my charming wit and my dazzling personality."
It was Kate's turn to snort. Castle pushed himself off of the counter with his hip and began to make his way across the apartment calling over his shoulder for her to follow.
"Come into my office and I will show you where the magic happens."
Kate continued to look around, taking in the various knickknacks and artwork around the apartment. Somehow, she wasn't surprised to see a mixture of original art pieces mixed in with action figures adorning the shelves. This was Rick Castle they were talking about, after all.
"So, is it just you here?" She asked as they neared the door to his office. She already knew the answer, he had a daughter, but he didn't need to know that.
"No," Castle called back over his shoulder. "I have custody of my daughter and my mother lives here, with us, as well."
Kate stopped at the threshold of the office as he made his way over to the desk and couldn't contain her small laugh. That was news. "You live with your mother?"
Castle huffed, pinning her with an exasperated look. "My mother lives with me and, no, I am not ashamed of it."
Kate held up her free hand in surrender. "Sorry."
Castle let out a stiff nod and held out a stack of papers bound by three brass pins on the side.
"Here is the rough draft of my latest novel. So, how do you want to do this?"
Kate took another step into the room and reached out for the pages. She shrugged slightly. She had never done anything like this before. Normally, she was looking at two works and comparing them: theme, characters, setting, syntax, etc. This was something completely new.
"I guess I will look it over and go from there."
Castle watched her, perched in the chair at his desk, as she sat in the overstuffed black leather chair by the door, one leg crossed over the other, foot dangling as the toe of her stiletto tapped silently at the air. She made another red mark on the page and he couldn't help but grimace. He didn't even know where the red marker had come from. She must have pulled it from her pocket or had it hidden up her sleeve or something. Not that her current outfit had any sleeve in which to hide something.
"I can feel you staring at me, Castle," she grumbled, head never leaving the page she was reading. "It's kind of creepy."
Castle startled slightly and jumped in his seat as he adjusted himself, looked for something anything to do. Oh, a yo-yo. Perfect.
"Staring? I wasn't staring."
She looked up, giving him a look that clearly said yeah, right with her mouth pinched. She let out a single eye roll and went back to her reading. She would definitely be one of the professors freshmen would be scared to go see during office hours.
"Do you make your students cry?" He continued after a moment.
Kate let out a sigh and flipped the manuscript closed, clicking the button on the bottom of the pen to snap it shut.
"This isn't going to work."
Castle looked up startled. "What? Wait, no. I'll be quiet, I promise. Just, please, keep on reading."
Kate shook her head as he continued to babble. "No, that's not what I meant. I meant that your word choice and plot lines, while they may not be my personal favorites, are not bad. Your grammar is excellent; your writing style is good. Your problem is not with your writing itself. In that aspect you know what you are doing. You know how to build a story. The problem is with your characters. They have no soul, for lack of a better word. They need substance, depth. So, where are your outlines and sketches?"
Castle stared at her and blinked once as she leaned back in the black leather chair, pinning him with a raised eyebrow and a click of the pen.
"Oh, um, well," he stuttered as he pushed himself out of his chair. "I have my murder board up here."
"Murder board?"
"Yeah, see, a couple of years ago I shadowed a couple of cops over at the twelfth precinct for a few weeks, trying to get some inspiration. Ryan and Esposito. They always had a white board that they worked off from, called it their murder board. The experience didn't help my writer's block at all but I did get the idea of having a murder board for myself. I just went a little bit more high tech," Castle explained as he pressed the power button on the remote and the flat screen in the corner flickered to life.
He went through it, touching the screen to bring up his various characters, walking her through the outlines.
"That is so cool," Kate let slip as she held up a finger to touch the screen.
"Like that, do you?"
Kate let out a noncommittal hum and Castle cracked a smile.
"If you like that, Beckett, wait till you see how I do my outlines."
Kate couldn't help but crack a smile. "Beckett?"
"Yeah, you call me Castle. I call you Beckett. It makes us sound more badass."
Kate simply shook her head and went back to the board, working her way through each character one at a time.
They were arguing over something, Kate couldn't even remember what, they had been going back and forth for so long that the original topic was long gone, when the front door slammed and a female voice echoed through the living room.
"Dad, I'm home!"
Both adults turned away from the murder board to look out through the doorway as a flash of red came towards them.
"Oh, sorry," Alexis stuttered as she came closer to the office. "I didn't know you had company."
Kate held up her hand in a slight wave as Castle proceeded to perform introductions.
"Beckett, this is my daughter Alexis. She is actually applying to Stanford for early admission for the spring. Alexis this is Dr. Kate Beckett, professor of literature at Stanford. She is helping me with some writing stuff. Why are you home so early? I thought you and Ashley were spending the day together before you were torn apart and your love was turned into an epic romance spanning the distance of the country."
Alexis looked between the pair for a second as they stood awkwardly by the large desk in the office. Castle had the manuscript in one hand and Kate had been jabbing, the red pen she had been holding between him and the rough draft for the last ten minutes. Once she had gotten the pen back to him, that was, a few minutes before he had been holding it out the window threatening to let it fly.
"It's nice to meet you Dr. Beckett," Alexis stated shyly with a small wave.
"Call me Kate, Alexis. It's nice to meet you, too," Kate replied to the suddenly timid girl.
Alexis shook her head in response. "I don't think I can do that. I have actually been looking into taking some of your classes in the spring, so calling you Kate would just be weird."
Castle started shaking his head frantically at the girl's admission. "You don't want to take her class. She's mean. She won't even let me have the butler as the killer. It's a classic choice."
Oh, yes, that is what they had been fighting about.
Beckett rolled her eyes as she jabbed the now open pen at him one more time. "There is classic and then there is cliché. The butler doing it is just too much. I am letting go the CIA conspiracies and the alien abductions, the overdone scorned girlfriend out for revenge, but I draw the line at the butler."
They both fell quiet once again when a giggle came out of Alexis. "She's right Dad. It is a little over the top, even for you."
"Traitor," Castle mumbled as he relented and turned to the murder board, pressing on a series of pictures and screens, deleting his original plan.
"Okay, well, this has been fun, but I have to go change. Ashley's parents are taking us to a gallery opening. Apparently, they want to spend as much time with him as possible before he leaves for school and therefore we get to double date."
Alexis turned towards the stairs and Kate looked down at her watch. It was already five o'clock.
"I should get going," she said, bringing a hand up to pinch her nose. "We've been at this for six hours already."
Castle glanced over at her before looking back at the screen of his laptop for confirmation. He ran a hand through his hair as he saw that she was right. That had gone fast.
"You want to stay for dinner?" He asked suddenly. "I don't know about you but I am getting hungry and I make a mean Chicken Cacciatore."
Kate blinked up at him a couple of times before looking down at her shoes and clicking the pen back shut. They were standing close to each other, where they had drifted over the past few hours, arguing, bouncing ideas, joking about random topics in books. "No, I think I am just going to go."
Castle nodded, his head bobbing more times than necessary to get his point across. "Right, okay. I'll show you out."
They walked across the apartment in silence, Kate stopping by the kitchen momentarily to gather up her purse.
"So, you coming back by tomorrow?" Castle asked his hands stuffed in his pockets as he rocked back and forth on his feet at the open doorway.
He looked like a fourteen year-old boy, asking a girl out for their second date.
"Yeah, Castle. I'll be back tomorrow. Just work on those back stories, okay?"
Castle nodded silently in reply as she turned towards the elevator and closed the door. She had given him homework.
He turned around only to find himself face to face with his teenaged daughter, arms crossed over her chest and face posed in question. He yelped in response to her stern face.
"Is there something you would like to tell me about, Father?"
Kate was sitting at the counter in her parents' apartment nursing the glass of wine her mother had poured for her and ignoring the older Beckett's pointed stare.
"So, Katherine," Johanna started and Kate visibly flinched. She had used her full name; this was not going to go well. "What have you been up to today?"
"Just wandered around the city, had a meeting with someone about a book." Kate bit her lip as she quickly brought her glass up for another swig and slid off of the barstool. "Have you seen the news today, anything interesting going on?"
"Hold it right there young lady," Johanna scolded as if Kate were five years old again and fibbing about getting into the cookie jar. "You have been skirting around this conversation for days. I know you, I know when you are lying."
"Mom, I am a grown woman. Could you please not call me young lady?"
"I will stop if you start telling me what is going on with you. You've been distracted and evasive for days. Did you have a fight with Mark? Did something happen. I know you aren't happy about him staying in Russia, even if you say you don't care," Johanna continued, pressing her daughter until the woman finally broke.
"It's not about Mark. Well, yes it is because I am still mad at him even though this is a great opportunity, but I kind of met someone," Kate trailed off and she took another gulp of wine.
"Katherine!" Her mother exclaimed and Kate's eyes widened as she realized how it sounded.
"No, no, not like that. Oh, God, no," she amended, her hands waving wildly as she shook her head, eyes wide. "I just meant that, when I was at the bookstore the other day, I kind of ran into Richard Castle and we got to talking. Well, he was talking, I was trying to ignore him, and he said that he wanted to talk to me about something. I met him at a writer's bar last night and he asked me to help him with his novels. Apparently, he has been having some trouble writing later and would like some help with the details. I just spent the day with him going over his latest rough draft. It was no big deal."
Kate downed the rest of the red wine in her glass and brushed past her mother who was standing wide eyed in the middle of the living room.
"Richard Castle," Johanna started, pointing her finger at the bookcase in the living room with a series of hardbacks lined up on it, as Kate poured the remainder of the bottle of wine into her glass and a second glass for her mother. "That Richard Castle? The author that you hate and huff about every time I give you a plot line? You are helping him with his next book?"
Kate shrugged her shoulders as she held out a glass for her mother. "It's no big deal, Mom."
It really wasn't. Really.
Johanna just nodded at her and took a giant gulp of wine.
"So," Johanna continued after a few moments of silence between her and her daughter. "Is he really as ruggedly handsome in real life?"