A Willingness to Believe

Written for castleficpromoter's Castle Halloween Bash! Getting it in late, but it's here!

Prompt: Courtesy of the AU Idea Bot on twitter - Ghost hunter and skeptic cameraman AU

"Can I ask you something?"

Kate Beckett doesn't bother looking up from the fold-out screen of her handheld IR camera. She has a feeling she knows what he's going to say, she just likes to make him work for her undivided attention.

"Since when do you ask permission?"

"Touché," he murmurs, grunting as he eases onto the hardwood floor beside her.

Her lips turn up, but she's able to conceal her amusement under the cover of darkness.

"Well?" she prompts, checking her equipment again. Everything is normal – no temperature fluctuations, no spikes in EM, just inky blackness in front of them.

"What made you decide to do this?" he asks, gesturing – she thinks – in front of them. "You're hard to impress, methodical to a fault, and you look for definitive evidence everywhere. You should be a cop, not a ghost hunter."

She snorts. "Well isn't that what we should be doing? Not just jumping at every little bump in the night and calling it paranormal?"

"Yeah, of course," he agrees, lifting his own camera to do a sweep of the room. "But you are such a skeptic."

"So? You say that like it's a bad thing."

Something solid brushes her arm as he shifts. His elbow probably; they're sitting close enough for it.

"Just me," he murmurs, in case she entertained the thought that it could've been anything – anyone – else touching her in the darkness of this old house. "It's not a bad thing. It just seems strange that you're here when you're so sure there's nothing out there, no potential for spirits or hauntings, or people talking to us from another place. I just wondered why."

She isn't surprised. Three other people she'd worked with before him had posed a similar question (albeit not in the middle of lockdown, she has to give them credit for that), scoffing a little bit when she lifted a shoulder and gave a nonchalant shrug.

"There's a thrill to it all, to being somewhere with history. Somewhere unknown, but with a story to tell."

Her partner hums, considering her words. After four months of lockdowns, evidence gathering, and debunking, she understands his tells him well enough to know he doesn't buy her explanation, but it will have to suffice for now. He may be a believer, but that doesn't mean she has to spill her guts to him just yet.

"Plus it's fun to watch you hotshot ghost hunters run shrieking from these places." Her tongue pokes between her teeth, cheeky even though he can't see her.

"I have never run shrieking."

"Except for that time with the–"

"That was a rat, Beckett. Can you blame me?"

Kate huffs a laugh into the shoulder of her hoodie. "I never said you didn't have a good reason for that high-pitched squeal of yours, Castle, just that you have, in fact, shrieked and vacated the premises post haste."

His breath hitches, and even in pitch dark, she knows he's staring at her with a slack-jawed look on his face. "You are so sexy when you talk like that."

Rolling her eyes, she turns to her camera once more. Still nothing. Not that she expects there to be anything, but sometimes it's fun to notice a change in thermal readings if nothing else.

"So the history of everything, that's what brought you into this?"

Her head drops back. "You know, if you wanted to have a sleepover, you should've just said something."

"Funny," he pauses. "Can we have a sleepover?"

"No."

"You sure? I'll paint your nails and braid your hair? Half-naked pillow fights are not a requirement, but they are always enjoyed."

Heaving herself off the floor, she dusts a hand over her ass. "As enticing as that is, I'll pass."

"Wait," he starts, catching her wrist with careful fingers. "Where are you going?"

She shakes her hand free, refusing to succumb to the giddy tremble her heart gives at his touch. "I'm going to walk around and do my job. Which is what I suggest you do, too. Just try not to annoy the spirits too much, Castle."

His offended huff only serves to make her smirk deepen.

"You know provocation is the best way to get them to communicate with us. Annoying them is the exactly what I need to do, thanks."

"Well you're definitely good at that," she exhales, checking the screen on her camera once again, "I'll meet you back at base camp in a bit to review the recorders. Radio if you need anything."

"I'll figure out your big secret eventually, Beckett."

"There is no secret," she calls over her shoulder, striding into the house's grand foyer with far more confidence than she feels.

Strictly speaking, that's not true. She wouldn't call it big, but she does have a secret reason for doing this job. No, she doesn't believe in this stuff, doesn't believe spirits can latch onto objects or walk the halls they once inhabited in life. But she has also had experiences she can't explain, ones she needs to find some way to understand.

Her mother's voice in her ear the night before the funeral, telling her not to cry.

The phantom caress of familiar fingers over her temple when she's had bad days.

A glimpse of dark hair disappearing down the hall and into the bedroom her parents had slept in her entire life.

She doesn't believe it's her mother's ghost or some non-corporeal remnant of Johanna Beckett, but these lockdowns, the EVPs, the ghost hunting lore, it all gets her closer to figuring out what it could be.

But Castle doesn't need to know that yet.

Or ever.

The steps to the second floor creak under her weight, reminding her to be present, to stay in this moment. Her partner's fascination (and flirtation) with her aside, she has a job to do tonight. And she won't be able to do it if she's in traction from tripping over a piece of antique furniture and breaking her leg.

As it is, her shin makes contact with something solid almost as soon as she turns the corner to make her way to the bedroom at the end of the hall.

"Ow." It slips out as a hiss, which she has to document on the recorder. "That was me. I… hit something."

She listens for any response from downstairs, indicating she had startled her partner. When none comes, she continues on to her destination, feeling around in the dark for the knob to let herself into the nursery, the hotbed of the house's supposed paranormal activity.

The caretaker had told them the door stays shut at all times. Everyone who's spent any time in the house knows to keep it that way, and yet there are times when he makes his way to the end of the hall only to find it wide open. The first thing Kate had asked about was the latch, the hinges, even drafts from the vents or windows, but Mr. Reagan had denied any issues. The extra shove she has to give the oak door to get it to open seems to confirm at least part of that; the hinges definitely aren't loose, and the latch is solid.

"Is there anyone here with me tonight?" she calls to the empty room. It's the quote-unquote standard start during a lockdown, but she always feels silly asking. "My name is Kate, is there anyone here who'd like to talk to me?"

As expected, silence is the only answer she receives. Still, she continues, going through the dossier in her mind to remember the name of one of the children who once lived here. The one who had died here.

"Molly, are you here? I heard you like games, would you like to play one now?"

Kate takes careful steps to the tiny coloring table in the corner, lowering the bear Rick had presented to her at the beginning of lockdown into the center.

"This teddy bear lights up when you get close. Can you make it light up for me?"

She waits, listening for anything out of the ordinary. This neighborhood is quiet, the house tucked away from the road, but the potential for noise contamination is always there, even in the suburbs.

"Here, Molly, I'll show you how it works. Then you can try." She feels silly doing this, talking to someone that isn't here and hasn't been for a long, long time, but it's how it has to go. So she taps the teddy bear's foot, makes its belly blink and a shrill beep dance along the walls.

"Maybe you can make it play a song," she suggests to the ether, glancing back at her camera.

Huh, that's odd. The temperature in the house had been holding steady, even with the HVAC system turned off, but this reading says the temperature has dropped almost five degrees since she's been in the nursery.

Of course, it is October, and they are in New York, but that's a still pretty drastic change. Especially for a room that's supposedly well-insulated and sealed.

"I'm going to look around, okay Molly? But I'm here if you want to play."

The drapes are thick, heavy and light blocking, and there's no draft that she can feel. Reaching behind them yields nothing as well; the windows are sealed shut. A brush of her palm against the wall tells her it's grown colder outside than the forecast had been anticipating (so much for that insulation).

"Well, that solves tha–"

The alarm rattles to life.

Kate freezes mid-step. There is no way that thing is – can it go off without stimuli? Castle swore to her it couldn't. Only physical touch, or manipulating the EM field around it, can trigger it.

Lifting her camera, she trains it toward the table.

What the hell? That can't be possible.

There's a cold spot directly in front of the teddy bear.

Her fingers close around her radio, fumbling to hit the button.

"Castle, get up here. Now," she orders, not waiting for him to confirm before adding, "and bring the SB7."

He comes stumbling into the nursery just a few minutes later, clutching his handheld camera in one hand and the SB7 device in the other.

"What is it? What's wrong?" he pants, only to stop short. "Oh. The bear? It's on?"

That's one way to put it. It hasn't shut up for more than a few seconds since it started.

"Molly," she says instead, turning back to her camera. "This is Rick. He brought something else we can use to talk to each other. Would you like that?"

The cold mass near the table hasn't left, hasn't dissipated as quickly as it materialized, and the longer it remains, the longer the device screams.

As much as she'd like to, she doesn't have an answer for that. She can't explain anything at the moment, not to him, not to herself.

"Turn it on," she hisses, glancing over her shoulder, where she knows Rick is standing. "Molly," she continues, dragging her tongue over her lips. "We call this a spirit box. If you have something to say to us, all you have to do is talk, okay? This machine will pick it up."

Castle hands her the box, pocketing his camera and gesturing for hers. The trade makes it easier for her to hold the device as they ask their questions.

"Is your name Molly?" he asks first, glancing down at the camera in his hand. He's holding his breath; she is, too.

She doesn't even move when he curls his fingers at her elbow and leans closer. He's buzzing, branding her with his excitement through the worn cotton of her hoodie, but she can't let herself be distracted by his touch.

"Can you tell us where you are?" he tries again.

The machine continues to cycle through radio frequencies, never once pausing to "say" anything.

"Was this your room?" he asks. "Did something bad happen to you in this room?"

Kate.

The spirit box whirs on, oblivious to the way she stiffens.

"Right. This is Kate. What's your name?" he continues, peppering the air with questions.

Nothing. He has to be messing with her somehow. All of this has to be a prank of his. Just like the spiders last week – getting into the Halloween spirit, he had teased – this has to be some sort of joke. He's screwing with her, winding her up a little before he singsongs a trick or treat, or something.

Mother.

"Mother… are you Molly's mother? Judith? Judith if that's you, could you tell us why you hurt your daughter?"

Katie.

What the–

Dead.

Kate swallows hard. She doesn't believe in this shit, she doesn't. It's all coincidence. It's not about her. She had been thinking about her mother, thinking about Castle's questions from earlier, so of course she would be inclined to believe this is about her.

Nineteen.

No. Even he wouldn't prank her with this. Besides, as far as she knows, Castle doesn't know any of this. He could have figured it out (they both know how to Google and research, after all), but he wouldn't have asked if he already knew. No, he would gloat about knowing, tease her with a secret of his own, dangle his knowledge in front of her like a carrot on the proverbial stick. But maybe this is the moment he chooses to do exactly that.

It has to be. No matter who is causing this, it's not a ghost. And it sure as hell is not her mother.

Right?

"Hey," Castle calls to her, breaking through the turbulent murk in her head. "Kate, Kate, hey."

Blinking, she pulls a ragged breath into her lungs. Castle's face comes into view, all angles and sharp shadows created by his military grade flashlight. They're downstairs now, no longer in the nursery, no longer listening to shrieking equipment and disembodied, robotic voices.

"Hey," he says, bleeding relief into the single syllable as it slips from his lips. "Welcome back."

"Back?"

He nods, sweeping his hands up and down her arms, using the friction of her hoodie to warm her up. Jeez, she's freezing.

"You uh, you kind of went blank. You almost dropped the spirit box and everything."

"Oh." The word grates out, ashy on her tongue.

A water bottle appears in front of her before she's able to consider requesting a drink.

"It's mine," he explains. "You finished yours earlier. Don't worry, I only have the best cooties."

He grins when she rolls her eyes. "There you are."

"What?" Her eyes lift. She's still not following him.

Castle shrugs. "Had to make sure you weren't possessed by a ghost or something." He lifts a hand as she begins to argue. "There have been many documented cases of encounters similar to what happened to you upstairs. Only in those cases people started behaving oddly, they didn't just go into a catatonic trance the way you did."

"I didn't go into a trance," she mutters, gulping down more water. "It was nothing. Especially not a ghost possession. Sorry I worried you."

His head shakes. "That didn't seem like nothing, Kate."

"Well," she finishes off the bottle of water, "it was. So let's finish this lockdown and go back to the hotel and get some sleep?"

Her partner doesn't look convinced in the least, but he nods. "I left the static cameras running upstairs. Turned the one in here off when I brought you downstairs, though. I didn't think you'd want to be recorded."

That was sweet of him. Really sweet of him. Even if their footage is never seen, he doesn't want something like that on video. She has built her reputation on being unflappable, the same way he's built his on being exuberant and ready to believe, to have something that shows her losing her cool could be bad.

"Thanks," she murmurs, reaching for her camera. "I'll head back upstairs."

"Ah," he stops her with a gentle hand on her arm. "Maybe we should stick together? Safety in numbers being what it is?"

Something in her chest releases. She's not scared – there's nothing to be scared of – but having him come with her doesn't sound terrible at this point.

So she adjusts her camera in her grip, grabs a new voice recorder, and gives him a nod. "Okay."

After that, the night is almost run-of-the-mill. Small noises they can't debunk, light anomalies she can explain – the outhouse in the backyard has a floodlight that's tripped every time an animal gets too close – a few strange EVPs, but nothing of the magnitude of what happened in the nursery.

She's wiped out by the time they declare lockdown over and begin to break the equipment down and pack up. Castle has been watching her like a hawk for hours, waiting to swoop in if she needs anything, but she waves him off.

"Go back to being normal, Castle," she mutters, shoving two of the tripods into the back of their rented van.

Her partner chuckles. "Being concerned for you isn't normal?"

Kate turns, resting her hand on her hip. "Not one offer to be my naughty nursemaid? If you're not careful, I'm going to start thinking you are the one possessed."

"That would require you to believe in possession," he points out, lifting an eyebrow. "Has the indisputable proof finally swayed you?"

"No. And it's hardly indisputable, but good try."

Rick grins, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes. "I just want to make sure you're okay. I know, whether you believe or not, how terrifying these kinds of experiences can be."

There's something in his voice, a gravity that makes the hair on her arms stand on end, but before she can ask him about it, he shakes it off and backs away.

"I'll grab the rest of the cameras and then we can get out of here, kay?"

She nods, eyeing him with an investigator's eye. "Kay. I'll just do a sweep to make sure we didn't forget anything."

Rick nods, grabbing the first of their camera bags out of the pile as she turns to head back into the house.

"And Kate?"

She turns, hand curled around the doorknob.

"For the record, I am never opposed to playing naughty nursemaid with you. Just say the word."

Exhausted as she is, she still manages to bark a laugh. "In your dreams, Castle."

They're both dead on their feet by the time they stumble into their respective hotel rooms, tossing half-hearted waves over their shoulders as the doors swing closed. Sometime later, she wakes with her heart in her throat and the scent of her mother's perfume lingering in the air.

She doesn't often remember her dreams, but these had been vivid, sweet and agonizing. Her mother calling her name, her mother teasing her about Rick, her mother brushing a kiss to her cheek and telling her to open up, to believe in this; each memory leaves her hollowed out and raw, desperate for another minute with the life she had lost.

"Kate? You ready to go over the footage from last night?"

Damn it. If he's knocking, that means she's late and he's wondering where she is. Scrubbing her hand over her face, she takes a moment to breathe, to push the images of her mother back into a compartment in her mind so she'll be able to make it through the day.

"Kate?"

Draping her arm over her eyes, she grumbles. "I'm coming, Castle. Give me a minute."

"Okay," he calls through the door. "By the way, I have coffee."

That she hauls herself up for, stumbling across the darkened room to fling the door open.

Rick grins, raking his eyes down her body and back up, ignoring her scowl and her outstretched hand. "Damn, I was hoping for a corset and garters."

"Shut up. Coffee."

He bumps the mug against her knuckles, his obnoxious smirk fading into genuine concern. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she says, closing her eyes to savor her first sip of coffee. "I'm fine."

He's not to be deterred. "Rough night? Such as it was."

Giving in, she nods. "Dreams. I just overslept."

His fingers curl around her elbow, stepping closer, invading her space. "Kate, after last night… the dreams could be–"

"Nothing. They're nothing." They're just dreams, that's all they are.

"Look, Beckett," Rick starts, rubbing a hand over his cheek. "I sound like I'm pushing and I'm sorry, but these experiences have lasting effects. Trust me. The dreams could be just the start."

Kate scoffs, stepping back from the doorway to let him pass. They don't need to do this out in the hotel hallway. "The start? Of what?"

He steps inside, making sure the door is closed behind him.

"Okay, Mr. Dramatic, tell me. What could my night of unproductive sleep possibly be the start of?" She moves to the window, slipping the curtain back and bathing the room in afternoon sun.

"Rick," she prompts when he says nothing, watching him sink onto the spare bed. "Hey, talk to me. What happened?"

She lowers beside him, watching his head dip and his fingers rub against one another.

"My daughter. Alexis."

Oh. Oh, God.

"We were in an accident on our way home from vacation. Our car flipped and rolled down an embankment on the highway. Her seat belt protected her as well as it could've, but on the final roll, she hit her head against the side. There was bleeding, swelling… brain damage."

Kate slips her fingers over his when his voice cracks.

"The doctors did everything they could, but we lost her. I lost her."

Her thumb slides against his, lending him what comfort she can.

"After she died, I saw her everywhere, in everything. I thought I was just having trouble letting go, letting her go, but one night I woke up and the room was frigid. And there she was standing beside my bed."

"And that's when you started doing this?"

He nods. "Well, first there were a few sleepless nights where I thought I was losing my mind. I mean, I've always been a believer, in theory, but in practice? After that, I started doing research, trying to make sense of it all. And the things I found just made me more convinced of what I'd seen and experienced."

Shifting closer, Kate runs her free hand up and down his arm. His hand flips, palm meeting hers with a gentle press.

"Everything I read said she was still there because she hadn't let go either. I had to help her do that. Once I did, I started doing more investigating, helping others. I met you a few years later, and here we are."

He sucks in a breath, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

"How old was she?"

"Eight. She would've been fourteen earlier this month."

"I'm so sorry, Castle." The words seem woefully inadequate, but he dips his head in acceptance anyway. "I can't even begin to imagine."

When her mother died, she had felt something inside her snap and change, transforming her into the woman she is now. But losing a child? God, she can't imagine. How does he even manage to get out of bed?

"Last night, what was coming through the spirit box wasn't about Molly," he murmurs, keeping her hand when her first instinct is to stiffen and pull away. "It was about you, wasn't it?"

She nods. "My mother," she admits. "She was murdered when I was nineteen. Almost nine years ago"

"Kate–"

"And instead of being a lawyer like her, or a cop like I'd considered, I started doing this. To find out why it seemed like she was still with me, even though she was gone."

Rick's fingers tighten around hers, somehow conveying his understanding without a word.

"That's what the dreams were about," she admits. "And when I woke up, it was like I could smell her perfume. It was like she had been here. Which I know is impossible, but…"

"But it challenges even your skepticism," he supplies, waiting for her answering nod. "It's okay to believe a little bit, Kate. It's okay to open yourself up."

Her breath stutters in her chest, her heart slamming against her ribs.

"That's what my mom said. In the dream."

Rick nods, dipping his chin. "Well, maybe that's a sign, too? If not from her, from somewhere in your mind?"

Licking her lips, she looks at their joined hands. His broad palm cradles hers, sharing his strength as their fingers slot together and hold tight.

They've both been through painful, terrible things, but somehow they're still here. A little worse for the wear sometimes, a little rough around the edges, but still here.

After a moment, she nods.

"Maybe it is."

A/N: Happy Halloween, everybody! I hope you enjoyed this, and thank you all for reading!