A Different Kind of Magic

A magical AU twist on Season 3's Set Up/Count Down. 3-parter. Caskett.

As yet another shiver traveled up his spine, Richard Castle gazed around the enclosed arctic space and shook his head at their crap luck. Stuck in a freezer located in the middle of a practically abandoned warehouse—what were the odds of that? Of course he and his partner did tend to end up in bizarre places over the course of their cases, but this certainly had to be one of the stranger ones, particularly considering the contents of said freezer.

Were this just a run-of-the-mill murder investigation, he might have even found amusement in their predicament. He certainly would have come up with plenty of jokes referencing being cold or frozen and there would have been no shortage of suggestions that they huddle for warmth. However, given what they knew was out there—a bomb that would decimate the city and destroy the lives of many—his mind was weighted with too much uncertainty to joke. They needed to get out of the freezer, find the bomb, and save the city in order to protect their loved ones. Unfortunately, in able to do that they needed to actually get out of the freezer!

Blowing warm air into his hands, Castle shivered again. They'd probably been inside the cold space two or three minutes at maximum, but given that the temperature was solidly near the zero degree mark—if not lower—his breath was already beginning to feel cool instead of hot. His cheeks stung, his ears burned, and his nose was definitely beginning to feel crisp. Their situation was certainly less than ideal, but he had full confidence they'd be able to get out. Together, they would find a way; they always did.

"So, ah, you got any bars on your phone?"

He glanced over to see Kate pulling her hood up over her head and zipping her jacket as far as it would go. "Ah, I dunno." He put his hand into his pocket, but found it difficult when trying to get his fingers to respond to the command his brain sent to grab the phone. Geez was it cold! When he finally managed to grasp the rectangular device, he held it up in front of him until he was able to read the disappointing "No Service" message on the status bar. "No. You?"

"None." He noticed her shiver after giving her response.

"Guess we won't be calling for help then, huh?" he said even though he knew his comment wasn't helpful; from the look on her face he realized that Kate felt the same.

Turning his back on her to see if he could find another point of egress that had miraculously appeared in the enclosed metal box, Castle's eyes fell on Jamal's corpse. Unbelievable. As if the cold wasn't enough of a reminder of their dire situation, they had to be trapped with a dead body. Then again, if there were ever two people unfazed by such a thing, it was them.

As his eyes skimmed the ceiling in walls in search of anything that could aid in their escape, Castle's thoughts were interrupted by a metallic thud. Turning around, he saw his partner ramming her shoulder repeatedly into the metal door. "Beckett, stop," he said immediately, but when she slammed the door once more, he walked over and placed his nearly-numb hand on her arm. "That door is made of steel; you'll hurt yourself long before you make it move an inch."

She sighed exasperatedly. "Castle, nobody knows that we're in here. Nobody even knows to look for us. We're going to freeze to death if we don't get out of here soon."

"Well maybe there's another way out."

She held her hands out flat and skimmed the air in front of her as she said, "I'm open to ideas—even crazy ones."

He huffed under his breath. Yes, he was usually the one with crazy ideas, but that was usually at a time when his ideas could come to fruition with planning and resources. He imagined even MacGyver would struggle in the same predicament. What they needed was a miracle, or some sort of wish-granting genie, or even—Oh.

Oh.

He wasn't sure how he hadn't thought of it before, but he blamed it on the cold numbing his brain. The idea was crazy—definitely crazy—and also quite risky, but when it came down to dying or taking a one-in-a-million shot, he was definitely going to take the shot. Maybe he'd fail miserably but, hey, then at least he only had another few hours to live with the guilt—and her wrath.

"Okay…crazy idea—here it comes." Once he had her attention he continued with, "Maybe you should get us out of here with, um, your powers."

She blinked at him. "My what?"

"Your powers. Your magical powers."

Oh yeah, she was definitely giving him that "Castle has lost his mind" look. She placed her left fist on her waist, popped her hip out and looked at him as though he were about to go on about aliens and unicorns. "And what magical powers would those be?"

Despite his thundering heart, he maintained a steady gaze. "Your witch powers…because you're a witch."

"I'm not a witch."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"Castle!"

He shook his head and simply said, "I'm sorry, Kate, but you are."

The supernatural status of his partner was not something that Castle thought about very frequently—which was, perhaps, another reason why it wasn't his gut solution after they'd been trapped. Really, he doubted he thought about it more than once or twice a month, even if he'd had it figured out from early on.

Those days, even though they weren't in serious danger of being burned at the stake, and there were laws in place making sure they weren't prohibited from being hired or being served at businesses, not many men and women with magical powers revealed their status. Sure, there was the Vegas crew and a handful of magic clubs in most major cities, but in day-to-day life? Magic didn't make a frequent appearance.

As a man fascinated by all mythical things, Castle was, of course, endlessly disappointed that he wasn't in possession of the magic gene. As the estimate was one half of one percent he was far from alone in this, but that did not stop his disappointment. Since his mother was involved in the theater, he'd met two real wizards in his time, but Kate was the first witch—at least, the first that he knew about.

That was, assuming his deduction had been correct, and he really hoped that it was, or else she was going to kill him before the frigid temperatures did.

"I am not a witch." She snipped before turning back to the door and examining the locking mechanism.

Castle made to suck in a deep breath to boost his confidence, but the icy air moving down to his lungs made him cough and splutter. She turned back around with a wrinkled brow and he held up his right index finger to indicate that he was fine, but needed a minute. When he recovered, he tucked his arms tightly over his chest, now slightly annoyed she was making them suffer when she had the power to rescue them. "You are and if you're stubborn enough to let us freeze to death in here because you don't want to use your powers in front of me then I'm going to be seriously pissed at you, Beckett; seriously pissed."

She gazed at him with a rather odd mixture of surprise and stubbornness, but did not say anything.

For thirty seconds, their gazes remained locked as their standoff continued. Castle refused to back down on his point, never wavering for a moment on his stance that she was a witch. If nothing else, her silence was telling, for if he was wrong, he imagined she would have been heaving insults his way at that moment. Finally, when he felt his kneecaps beginning to tremble he snipped, "Really?" at her, and she blinked for the first time.

"Okay. Fine. Just—just give me a minute."

Castle's heart soared so high he was shocked his feet didn't leave the ground. "You mean I'm right—you're really a witch?"

"Castle! Concentrating!" she said while facing the door.

He whispered out, "Sorry," but the grin didn't leave his face; it was arguably the proudest moment of his life.

Short of seeing them perform magic, it was nearly impossible to tell a witch or wizard from a regular human. The markers were subtle and unknown to many, but during his thorough research for Hell Hath No Fury he'd spoken to many experts, so he knew what to look for though he hadn't actually been looking when he noticed them in his partner. They'd merely been getting closer and closer the more they worked together and suddenly one afternoon while sitting in his chair beside her desk as he watched her work, it hit him that she might be magically inclined. He watched her more intently after that with more of his "creepy" staring until he'd seen enough to be sure, but actually watching her perform magic? That was a treat beyond his wildest imagination—it would almost be better than regaining the feeling in his toes!

For almost a full minute she stared at the door, holding her hands out in front of her a foot apart with palms facing in, almost as though she was holding an invisible basketball. She would stare intently at the door for several seconds, then blink and shake her head before trying again, almost as though she was pressing the reset button on her powers.

Finally, after ninety seconds passed, Castle heard a metallic grinding sound as one door swung open. Oddly, it was not from the center—how they had entered—but from the side. It appeared instead of picking the lock, Kate had merely popped the hinges off the exterior edge of the door and opened it that way, which was fine with the writer; he'd take warm air any way it came.

As he made to rush past her, she held out her arm to stop him. She pressed a finger to her lips to tell him to be quiet, and then crept out of the box with her gun at the ready. He tip toed to the edge of the space and watched her creep away, but he could clearly see from his location that the van carrying the bomb was gone, which was terrible for the city, but good for them; at least they weren't about to be riddled with bullets.

Castle stepped out of the freezer and walked around to the side where he would be out of the chilly air. He bounced on his heels, curling and uncurling his toes as best he could in his shoes, while simultaneously shaking out his hands and arms to restore blood flow. A minute later, Kate returned to his side and said, "Guess they're gone."

"Yeah. Don't worry—we'll find 'em," he said with as much of a smile as he could muster. "Thanks, by the way, for getting us out of there."

She merely nodded before slipping her gun back into its holster. "C'mon let's…let's get back to the twelfth and see if there are any security cameras around here."

Castle followed, unsure if they were going to talk about the new giant pink elephant in the room, or ignore it like they did everything else—including their kissing ruse from a few weeks earlier. They walked in silence to her cruiser, where she pulled a sweatshirt and an extra coat from the trunk. Her coat was far too small for him to put on, but he could use it as a makeshift blanket, which was better than nothing for his still trembling extremities.

"So," she began once they were pulling out of the parking lot and on to the main road, "how'd you know?"

He gazed over at her. "I'm not sure if you realized this or not, but I am rather observant."

She shook her head. "You've never seen me use my powers; I haven't used them in a decade."

His brow wrinkled. "A decade? Really?"

"Yes."

He pressed his lips together and considered. It didn't make sense to him that she would lie now that he knew. While he believe she was not interested in flaunting her powers, he was also certain he'd seen sparks and snippets of magic from her over the years. "I don't think so."

"Well I haven't."

"Are you sure?"

She gave him a side-eye. "Pretty sure I'd know, Castle, and I haven't, so how'd you figure it out?"

Feeling warmer now that the heat from the engine was pouring through the vehicle's air vents, he tossed the jacket in his lap to the back seat and turned to face her as best he could while ticking off reasons on his fingertips. "You have all the tell-tale markers: tall, slender figure, effervescent beauty, and eyes the change color."

On the last point, she rolled her eyes. "Hazel eyes aren't the sign of a witch."

"But your eyes aren't hazel." As someone who had spent many hours staring into them, Castle believed himself to be an expert on every square millimeter of her iris, so he knew for a fact that her eyes were not traditional hazel. "Sure—to the untrained observer they are, but witch eyes are different than regular hazel. Human hazel eyes trend green or brown in different lights or based on the colors they're surrounded by, but are always actually the same color; witch eyes change color."

Castle had seen many days on which Kate's eyes were a brilliant green, or honey brown, or even a deep chocolate. He'd also seen them flash violet and red, but only ever for a fraction of a second, and probably something a person not intimately familiar with her eyes would have picked up on.

Tapping her thumbs against the steering wheel Kate asked, "How do you know so much about this?"

He almost chuckled; why did she even need to ask that question? "Research, of course. So who do you get it from?" He asked, referring to her magical gene, which was always inherited linearly. "Your father or your mo—oh. Kate…" The moment he saw her knuckles tighten on the steering wheel he knew and—oh, god—his stomach flipped in his gut. Jesus, how had he been so insensitive? He'd been having so much fun quizzing her now that they were finally having an open and honest conversation that he'd never even made the connection between her dark history and the reason she'd want to keep her powers a secret.

"She was, wasn't she? She…she was…"

"Yes," She finished for him. "We believe she was killed for being a witch."

Castle felt his heart ache as he drew his next conclusion, "But you can't know for sure because if you revealed to the cops who she really was, they would have known that you-"

"Yes." She rasped out.

Of course, it was not a guarantee that a witch's child would also be magically inclined. Though he hadn't done as much research with witch genealogy, he did know that the magic genes were strongly tied with women, though the research was unclear as to why, but witches outnumbered wizards almost three-to-one. Also, the female children of witches were almost ten times more likely to be witches themselves versus the male children of wizards. Thus, if Kate had revealed to the police that her mother was a witch, they would have certainly assumed she was one as well.

Had Johanna's murder taken place in present day, that factor probably would not have made that much of a difference, but a decade earlier would have been the tail end of the Second Salem movement, just before the witch-and-wizard protection laws were put into place. Back then, the general public did not take kindly to those with powers—even then there were certainly pockets where those with magic powers would struggle to live, particularly in rural areas. Given all that he knew about the prejudices, he understood why Kate had kept that factor a secret, though he also imagined she wondered if it would have made a difference in solving the case.

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you."

As they neared mid-town, Castle decided to lighten the mood with a story he hoped would distract her. Plus, he wanted to confirm his own suspicions as an ulterior motive. "You want to know when I knew for sure that you were a witch?"

She gave a rather sarcastic shrug. "Sure. Why not?"

"Remember that car accident we had about six months ago?"

She glanced over at him. "That guy that ran the red light?"

He nodded. They had been on their way to interview a suspect traveling at normal speed with no lights on. As the light turned green, Kate moved into the intersection, when an asshole with no respect for traffic laws or common decency sped through the red light like he was doing the Indy 500. Unfortunately, Castle's side of the vehicle had been in his direct path.

"I'd always suspected—mostly because of the eyes—but that's when I knew for sure—when that EMT said he had no idea how the door didn't break my arm and leg." In fact, other than a sore neck for a few days, he didn't have so much as a scratch. Kate, on the other hand, had a cut above her eye, and had fractured her pinky finger when it hit the dash.

Kate's cheeks flushed and her eyes darted nervously back towards the road. "I, ah, I meant what I said—I haven't purposely used my powers in over a decade, but…but they're also tied to my emotions. If I'm scared or I have a lot of adrenaline, things will sometimes just happen. I saw that car a split second before it hit and I thought, 'Don't let it hurt him.'"

He smiled, touched equally by her sentiments and the fact that she trusted him with the truth. "Thank you."

They rode in a comfortable silence for the next ten blocks until Kate parked her cruiser in a spot out in front of the Twelfth. She pulled the key from the ignition, but did not move to open her door. Instead, she rotated her body towards his, a grave expression on her face. "Castle, you can't tell anyone about me—what I really am."

He shook his head as he never had intentions to do so. "Secret's safe with me, Beckett."

Her voice turning more intense, she continued, "No, I mean you can't tell anyone—ever. And you sure as hell can't make Nikki Heat."

"Whoa Beckett." He cut her off by raising his hands up, palms facing out. "No—I'd never. I promise—I won't tell anyone; not even Mother or Alexis." Though he knew he could skirt boundaries at times (like when he used her mother's murder as part of Nikki's back story) he knew full well when to draw the line. The public was well enough aware that Kate was Nikki's real-life counterpart, and by calling out Nikki as a witch, he would indirectly be doing the same to Kate, and he wouldn't compromise or life or safety in that way—not ever.

"No one knows Castle, so you can't-"

"No one? Not even Josh?"

She shook her head. "Only my father."

"No one," he repeated a bit dumbly, still trying to process. She nodded her head and his next inquiry popped out without a thought. "Why? How?"

She turned to face the steering wheel once more while saying, "I was born a witch, Castle; that doesn't mean I want to be one."

The finality of her statement made his gut roll uncomfortably. Surely, she couldn't mean that. Good, bad, or otherwise, every bit of her complied together to make up the woman she was. Her mother's murder, her father's struggle with alcoholism, her magic powers—without any of those pieces she would not be the extraordinary woman who sat before him, even if she wished they were not part of her history. The same was true of himself with his absent father and cheating ex-wives, but again, they made him who he was and though he might not have chosen them if given the option, he didn't shun them, but accepted them and grew from them.

"But being a witch is part of who you are—part of what makes you you. Like me: I was raised by a single mother and that's why I am who I am. Do I wish I didn't have to grow up without a father figure in my life? Do I wonder who I would be if I had? Of course, but I can't change it and no matter how much I don't like it, it is something that made me who I am today. These powers are a part of you and you should embrace them. I'm not saying wear a sign around your neck that says, 'Hi, I'm Kate and I'm a witch,' but your close friends would understand. Ryan and Esposito would understand. And, my god Kate, the man you're in a relationship with should understand. How else could he know the real you?"

She gazed over at him, her chest rising and falling a bit faster than normal, for almost a full minute before she shook her head, reached over and popped open the car door. "C'mon; we have figure out where that bomb went." With that, she stepped out of the car and walked towards the precinct without looking back.

Huffing out a breath, Castle mirrored her actions and trailed after her. Evidently, they were going back to not talking about things. As he jogged after her to catch up before the elevator car ascended without him, he silently hoped that once their latest case was over they'd be able to talk for real. Even if he had figured it out and called her out on it, the fact that he was the only person she'd ever been open with about her powers had to mean something—it just had to.

A/N: I swear I don't know where i get some of these ideas lol... there are 2 more parts