Visitations

Chapter 9

Bombshell

Getting ready for a day on job, Kate was just buttoning her blouse when Johanna popped in. Johanna gazed at the puckered skin covered by the last button thoughtfully. "Kate, what did you tell Castle about hearing him say 'I love you,' when you were shot?"

Kate looked up guiltily. "I lied. I told him I didn't remember what happened. Somehow it seemed easier than telling him I heard him and couldn't handle it."

"Kate, I thought I taught you better than that." Johanna declared, disappointed "Vincent omnia veritas. So when did you finally tell him?"

"I never did," Kate confessed. "But somehow, he seemed to know that I lied. For a while he said things that made no sense otherwise and turned away from me. I never understood what was going on."

"That sounds like another unresolved issue," Johanna observed. "We need to unravel it."

"I remember this case," Kate told Johanna, looking around the precinct. "A bomb went off in Boylan Plaza. Everyone was pretty shaken up, especially Castle."

"You good?" Earlier Kate asked.

"Yeah. Yeah," Earlier Castle replied. "Just - this case, you know? Kind of gets to you. How'd it go with the rest of the families?"

"Um …," Earlier Kate reported sadly, "One victim was the first kid in his family to go to college, and the other was the mother of two, so - about like you'd expect. No one seems to have been targeted, though."

"So their deaths were at random." Earlier Castle shook his head in bewilderment. "You know, most of our victims, they - they die for a reason, you know? There's a logic behind it. It's a twisted logic at times, but at least it makes some kind of sense."

"Yeah," Earlier Kate agreed soberly, "but in this case these people were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"And their future and all their plans, everything is just gone in a flash," Earlier Castle continued as he met her eyes.

Earlier Kate held his gaze. "It makes you think about all those things in your own life that you don't want to put off anymore." Earlier Castle couldn't pull his eyes away from hers as she opened her mouth, but there was no sound.

"What were you about to say?" Johanna asked.

"I think I was about to tell him about my feelings for him," Kate recalled. "I just couldn't get the words out and then, you can see, Esposito interrupted us. After that we pushed through with the case until Castle saw Alexis in the morgue."

"What happened down there? Johanna questioned.

"I'm not sure," Kate told her. "I didn't hear the conversation."

"You should hear it now," Johanna advised.

As Kate nodded, the scene shifted.

"Hey, honey, Earlier Castle greeted his daughter. "How're you doing?"

Alexis pushed off the wall she had been leaning against. "Yeah, I just needed a minute."

"You look exhausted." Earlier Castle observed. "How long've you been here?"

"I'm not sure," Alexis confided. "It's been so crazy. I've been cataloging the victim's personal effects."

"Well that can't be easy," Earlier Castle murmured sympathetically.

"It was fine," Alexis maintained. "Then I saw how one of them had on this bracelet strung with beads, made by a little kid and it was like that bracelet that I made you for Father's Day when I was six. Do you remember?"

"Remember!" Earlier Castle exclaimed with a weak smile "I still have it."

Despite the warmth of her father's presence, Alexis appeared on the verge of tears.

"C'mon, Earlier Castle urged. "Let's get you home."

"No, I should stay," Alexis protested. "There's still work to do."

"And it'll be here tomorrow," Earlier Castle countered.

"Dr. Parish said I had to get all this finished before she...," Alexis argued.

"Lanie will tell you the same thing," Earlier Castle insisted, holding out his arm. Alexis walked into the comfort of his embrace. "Let's get you out of here." Alexis leaned on her father as he led her out of a hallway.

On her cell at the end of the hallway, Earlier Kate watched them go. Even under the almost crushing pressure of the case, watching father and daughter momentarily lightened her mood.

"You love watching Castle as a father, don't you?" Johanna observed.

Kate nodded. "Seeing the obvious love he has for Alexis, it's one of the most attractive things about him."

"So what happened after he left?" Johanna asked.

"I'm not sure," Kate replied.

"Let's look," Johanna proposed.

Kate and Johanna materialized in the loft to a conversation between Earlier Castle and Earlier Martha.

"Well if the bombing proves anything, it's that bad things can happen no matter what you do," Earlier Castle mused. "No one's tomorrow is guaranteed."

"So - how do you plan to act on this realization?" Earlier Martha asked.

"What do you mean?" Earlier Castle responded.

Earlier Martha answered exasperatedly. "Oh, you know what I mean. Richard, how much longer are you going to drag your heels before you tell Beckett how you feel – and I mean while she is awake, not lying on the ground with a bullet in her chest."

"You don't understand." Earlier Castle protested. "It's..."

"It's complicated," Earlier Martha interrupted. "So you say. Only, it's not. It's not," she reiterated to his pained look. "Nobody's tomorrows are guaranteed, right? Wouldn't it be better to tell her, even if the timing is wrong, than never to tell her at all?"

Earlier Castle considered his mother's words. "And what if she isn't ready?"

"Then she never will be." Earlier Martha contended. "Then you move on."

"Wow," Kate marveled. "I had no idea, but that explains what he was trying to say when he came back to the precinct?"

"Here?" Johanna asked, bringing them back.

"Mmm," Kate confirmed.

"Hey, Earlier Castle greeted Earlier Kate as he handed her a coffee.

"Hey," Earlier Kate returned, thanking him as he took his accustomed seat by her desk.

"You got a second?" Earlier Castle inquired hesitantly.

"Yeah," Earlier Kate replied. "What's up?"

Earlier Castle appeared unsure how to begin. "Um, I've been thinking. About the victims and all the opportunities they'll never have. And I don't want that to happen. I've been..."

Ryan arrived, interrupting the conversation. "Beckett? We've got something."

Upset by Ryan's interruption, Earlier Kate looked at Earlier Castle, "Um."

"It's okay," Earlier Castle reassured her with a forced smile. "It can wait until after the case."

"But you didn't talk after the case?" Johanna guessed.

"No," Kate confirmed. "I thought that we would finally come together but that was when he pushed away from me. I don't know what happened."

"I think," Johanna announced, "that's it's time you found out."

Kate and Johanna could see earlier Kate conducting an interrogation as Earlier Castle watched through the glass.

"Would you like me to refresh your memory?" Earlier Kate asked the suspect as she put a map in front of him. "You were standing here, by the lamppost. You dropped the backpack and started running as it exploded, killing five people."

"I didn't do what you're saying," the suspect lied.

"Witnesses saw you drop your backpack, Bobby," Earlier Kate contradicted him.

"It wasn't mine," Bobby asserted.

"Oh, so you admit to having it?" Earlier Kate continued.

"No, that's – that's not what I meant," Bobby protested.

"You just said that it wasn't yours," Earlier Kate countered.

"Yeah," Bobby retorted "because you got me all confused with..."

"Did you or didn't you have it?" Earlier Kate interjected. "It's a simple question."

"I don't know," Bobby claimed.

"Who put you up to this, Bobby? Who gave you that backpack?" Earlier Kate pushed.

"I don't – I don't know. I don't remember," Bobby insisted.

"You don't remember." Earlier Kate repeated. "How do you not remember?

"I was in shock," Bobby maintained. "The bomb went off. Everyone was running and screaming and..."

"Okay, okay, so you remember what happened after the bomb went off but not before?" Earlier Kate prodded.

"It must have been one of those traumatic amnesia things," Bobby suggested.

Earlier Kate's anger colored her face. "Bobby, don't lie to me."

"I'm telling you," Bobby persisted desperately, "it was all a big blank. It was the trauma."

Earlier Kate's voice rose. "It was not the trauma. You do not get to use that excuse."

"I swear I don't remember!" Bobby continued to insist.

"The hell you don't remember!" Earlier Kate shouted. "Do you want to know trauma? I was shot in the chest and I remember every second of it."

Earlier Castle looked on in shocked silence.

"And so do you." Earlier Kate continued, oblivious.

"All this time, you remembered?" Earlier Castle murmured to himself. Shoulders hunched against the shattering realization, he left the room.

Kate scrubbed her hands over her face. "Oh my God! He heard! He did know I lied to him and I never had a chance to explain."

"Well you do now," Johanna counseled. "He should know."

Kate closed her eyes and bit her lip, before finally nodding her assent. "He will."

"What?" Castle asked, seeing the nervous but determined look in Kate's eyes as she appeared back in the loft.

"Castle," Kate forced out, almost inaudibly. "There's something I should have told you a long time ago."

Castle caressed her face and took both her hands, pulling her down facing him on the couch. Their eyes met and held. "Whatever it is, I'm listening."