Chapter 1: Prologue

"What am I bid for a signed set of Derrick Storm?"

Hands go up with alacrity, rings and bracelets sparkling and glinting: a bunch of Patek Philippes or Rolexes showing. Designer dresses swish about the floor, tuxedos smugly squire them. The smell of dollars scents the air. New York's Richest have come out to play, and one of New York's Finest is feeling distinctly inferior.

"Thousand and…. Fifty, hundred, two hundred, three – four-fifty. Come on, it's for a good cause – six hundred – going – seven-fifty, eight…" And on, and on: the cash register clicking over faster than the rattle of a semi-automatic. The hammer had come down on the first set at fifteen hundred dollars. This one's rapidly doing better.

She'd wanted a set. Just something, to connect her to her mother, honour the cause – AA: she has five years of reason to support AA. But there's no way she can afford this. Cops in the NYPD don't get paid anything like enough to bid in this company, and she's too cautious to break into her savings. One never knows when or where the blow might fall. Oh, she knows that all too well. Her father had nearly broken under that blow, and only her savings had kept her safe.

Detective Kate Beckett regards the excited crowd, splashing the cash with a will, a way, and very public generosity, and resigns herself to being a spectator at this party. So much for her fragile hopes. She stops listening, and finds a drink that doesn't cost the equivalent of a Fifth Avenue penthouse or look like it was made by Technicolor.

Her attention is returned to the auctioneer with a jerk.

"Come on. Surely someone will bid on this? One copy of Casino Royale, owned by one careful child."

It's something. A gesture. "Twenty-five." Beckett raises her hand. "Twenty-five… thirty? Anyone for thirty – over there on the left." Beckett waves again. "Thirty five… forty…. Fifty. Going once… going twice…gone." The hammer falls, and Beckett realises she's paid fifty dollars for a dog-eared copy of Casino Royale, owned by some kid who'd probably scrawled in the margins and torn the pages. It's not at all the same as having a signed copy of a Richard Castle book. Not at all. Still, she's supported the cause, which is some consolation.

She goes up to pay, signs with a scrawl that couldn't be read by a top notch graphologist, hands over fifty dollars in cash, and collects her book. It's in surprisingly good condition, for something that's obviously been read a million times. She skips past the name in the front, which means nothing: childish handwriting which she'd as soon wasn't there at all.

She takes it home, reads it over a few days, noticing that there are indeed marginalia, in pencil and in the same childish handwriting of the title, and then tucks it into her bookshelves, where it slides to the back. Shortly, she's forgotten about it.

She hasn't forgotten that she didn't get a single signed Richard Castle book, but she's got a couple already: stood in interminable lines for them, and it's not like the signature would make any difference to her life. It's the story that matters. Mystery solved, bad guys caught and put away, good guys winning in the end. Some days, she's really needed to know that good guys win in the end, simply to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Not so much, now. Never so much since her father got dry, and stayed dry. But sometimes. Still, sometimes.

Sometimes, she needs a little help to keep going.

Thank you to readers and reviewers. Given that the site is a bit of a mess at present, if I don't reply to reviews/PMs it's because there are no alerts. Apologies in advance.

This is a short prologue. Posting on the usual Sun/Tue/Thu schedule, barring accidents. As if it isn't obvious, this is an AU meeting, not long before the series began. My specific thanks to Mobazan27, who supplied the prompt which is also the book's title. I hope she likes it.

I have finally joined the 21st Century and acquired a Twitter account. Garrae at Garrae_writes.