Happy Now

The disappearance of Richard Castle rocked Kate Beckett's world—and his return just might do the same. Semi-AU Season 3. Post 3XK.

Note: This assumes 3XK was set a little bit later in the season than it actually was - hence Semi-AU.

5 Parts. Part of the Caskett Fanfic Pornado weekend (meaning Part 4 is M rated)

One

Kate Beckett walked through the Twelfth precinct on her way back from the bathroom without much thought. She gave Ryan a polite nod as she passed him, but otherwise continued on her path with no interruption. They were between cases at that moment, which she was perfectly happy about as it gave her time to catch up on paperwork and some "rainy day" projects that had been sitting around for months.

As she arrived at her desk, Kate dropped her left hand to her side and let her fingertips graze over the side arm of her guest chair. Of course, the chair was not so much a guest chair as it was The Consultant Chair. Or, as she liked to think of it, Castle's chair. Though it had been over a year since her writer companion had occupied the spot, she still thought of it as his, and felt actively uncomfortable when anyone else sat in it, for her heart knew it could never truly fit anyone else.

Not one work day passed without Kate thinking about the man who had been her loyal partner for two years. Sure, now and then she would go through an entire day off without thinking of him, particularly if she was quite busy or otherwise occupied, but at work—how could she not think of him? His absence there was palpable. His laugh still echoed from the walls and the memory of his smile still pulled at the strings of her heart.

Kate knew that for as long as she lived she would never forget the moment that she burst into a pay-by-the-hour hotel room to find one of her partners bleeding and unconscious and the other gone without a trace. Due to his head injury, Detective Ryan was unable to provide any information on Castle's whereabouts. He didn't even remember arriving at the hotel. Fortunately, Kate had put the pieces together herself, but the knowledge that Castle had been kidnapped by a serial killer certainly provided her no comfort.

The man known as 3KX or the Triple Killer had hoodwinked all of them into believing he wasn't the monster he was. By the time they'd figured out Jerry Tyson's true identity it had been too late, and Castle paid the price. With no security cameras or witnesses in the area, they were behind before they could even get ahead, but Kate refused to give in even a centimeter, especially after she watched the horrific sorrow on the faces of his mother and daughter when they were told the news.

As was her way, Kate threw every piece of her body and soul into bringing her partner home. She was confident to the point of cocky in those first few days. Of course she could bring Castle home; of course she could find him. Tyson was just a person—a human. He would screw up. He would be seen. Even if he was on point, she knew that her partner would be trying to escape every single second and, as he was one of the most clever and intelligent people she knew, she believed he could succeed. Or, at the very least, find a way to leave them breadcrumbs.

Two days passed, then three, then seven, and they still had no clue. There had been no sightings of Tyson or Castle anywhere. With both her team and the FBI feeling the frustration, Kate could have begun to lose hope, but she refused, because she knew her partner was out there, and she would not give up on him, because she knew he would never give up on her. They were partners, and that's what partners did.

Unfortunately for her resolve, days turned to weeks, and weeks to months. The FBI downgrading the status of the case had been an unexpectedly emotional blow to Kate. So had Esposito's reality-check style conversation with her, during which he encouraged her to accept the possibility that after many months it was entirely possible her partner would not return to them alive and well.

Knowing she had almost lost everything, her life included, to one case she'd dedicated her life to, Kate knew she would not survive a second trip down that rabbit hole, so she'd backed off on her investigation. She would never, ever, ever give up hope that Castle was out there somewhere, but other than her bi-weekly checks of known associates, APB's, and other places she felt likely to find success, she had stopped her investigation as well; it simply hurt too much.

Sitting back in her seat, Kate gazed at her guest chair with a sad little smile. She liked to touch it every time she walked past as she believed that touch to be a silent promise to her partner to honor his memory in every little way she could—and of course to never forget him and the many ways in which he'd changed her life.

As she had not thought about Castle to quite that level in a few weeks, Kate made a mental note to call Martha and check in with her sometime in the next few days. Without a doubt, the two Castle women had taken the writer's disappearance the hardest. Every time she saw them arrive at the Twelfth to look for any updates on the case, she felt no small amount of guilt because were Castle not her shadow, he would not have been kidnapped. Evidently sensing this feeling, Martha had pulled her aside a few weeks in and explained that they in no way found her responsible. Her son, she said, would not have stopped shadowing even if they'd begged him to. He was happy with what he was doing; it was all his choice—a choice she was certain he would make again even if he knew the outcome.

In the time since his disappearance, Kate saw the Castle women once a month on average. At first it was to catch up on the case, but as time went on and the leads dried up, they would just get together to have dinner and catch up on each other's lives. Though they had not been particularly close before his disappearance, they shared the bond of losing the man they cared about, which brought them closer. Kate was always pleased to see the women doing as well as could be expected all things considered.

Ten minutes later as she continued to clean up her email inbox, Kate noticed her phone ringing even though it was on silent. She turned her eyes to the screen and saw it was an unknown number, so she declined the call and went back to her work, figuring it was a telemarketer. A moment later, she noticed the notification light blinking meaning whomever it was left her a voicemail.

Huffing out a breath, Kate picked up her phone, dialed into her voicemail, and then held the device to her ear, fully expecting to hear the tail-end of an automated junk sales call. Instead, what she heard caused her to nearly drop the phone from her grasp.

"Beckett."

Instantaneously, her heart ceased to beat. The blood froze in her veins and her stomach jumped up into her throat. The tone on the other end of the line was quiet, purposeful, not frantic, but undeniably recognizable.

"At least I hope this is still Beckett's number. It's me—Castle. I…I guess it's been awhile—don't know how long, actually. Tyson had me—I assume you figured all that out, but, um, anyway. I'm going to call the police and then my mother, but, um, well I wanted to talk to you if—sorry. Point is: I'm okay. Talk to you soon, I guess."

Though she heard the click indicating the voicemail had ended, Kate remained frozen. She didn't blink. She definitely didn't breathe. She suffered from the pure shock of not understanding how someone who was more than likely dead called her up out of the blue as though he was a friend she hadn't seen since high school.

"Beckett? Yo Beckett you okay? Kate?"

Only when she heard Esposito use her first name (a true rarity from him) did she snap out of her trance, blink her eyes, and look to her left, where both of her partners stood with looks of grave concern.

"Is everything okay, Beckett?" Ryan asked, but all Kate could do was shake her head and rasp out a few words that made the hairs on the backs of their necks stand up.

"Castle…Castle just called me."

"What? Shit – where…how. I don't…I don't—oh god." Their reactions were frantic and rushed, and they meshed together in Kate's still shocked mind.

Thankfully, Esposito had the sense to pull the phone from her limp grasp and redial the last incoming call, but he received a tone from the operator saying the call could not connect. Cursing under his breath he handed the phone back. "It won't go through. Maybe it's a payphone or burner. Let's get a trace on that, though; maybe we can find him. Did he say where he was?"

"He…No! No!" She was slightly startled by how frantic her own voice sounded, but she couldn't help it. Castle had worked with her long enough to know protocol. Why hadn't he said where he was? Perhaps because he didn't know, she answered to herself, but he'd found a phone somehow which led her to believe he was within reach of something that would give them at least a direction to work on.

"It's okay, Beckett—they're back tracing that call now," Esposito called over from his desk where he cradled his phone between his ear and shoulder.

Kate nodded distantly, still feeling in a daze. She simply stared across the room, mentally reviewing his voicemail when part of it hit her. Mother—he was going to call his mother!

"Shit—I…I gotta go. I have to find Martha and Alexis. They'll…they'll want to go to him wherever he is—they'll want to go and…and…"

"We got it, Beckett. Go and hopefully by the time you get to their place we'll know where he is," Ryan said with a shocking amount of calm for someone who had been the most visibly devastated by Castle's disappearance.

Kate gave him an appreciative nod before grabbing her phone, keys, and jacket and sprinting towards the elevator.

Though during the prior hour of her long drive Kate's eyelids definitely felt weighted down, the moment she turned on to the correct street and could see a cluster of police cars up ahead, her heart began hammering beneath her ribs and sweat formed on her brow. This was it; they were here. In a matter of minutes Castle would be in front of them and… god, she still didn't know what to think of it.

By the time Kate arrived at the Castle loft apartment, both red-heads were in hysterics, having received the call they'd been dreaming of for a year. Around the same time, Ryan called her to inform him that the police had picked up Castle from the gas station from which he called them and were in the process of contacting with the FBI. Then, as the women collected themselves and prepared for their drive, their plans began to fall into place.

Castle had rejoined society just outside the High Peaks Wilderness in upper New York state—a several hours' drive from Manhattan. Though their destination arrival time would be at or near midnight, all three women agreed to make the trek as they—Alexis in particular—did not want to wait another day to see the man missing from their lives for so long. Thanks to Ryan acting as a liaison between them and the FBI, who had descended upon the small-town sheriff's office to take over the investigation (much to the frustration of the locals, Kate imagined), Castle had been informed they were on the way and they were told he "couldn't wait" to see them; the feeling was certainly mutual.

"Oh my god, Gran; he's in there." Kate heard Alexis coo from the backseat and a small smile crossed her face.

"I know, darling, but we must pace ourselves; I can only imagine how weary he is."

"Gran. C'mon—this is Dad. He's probably had ten cups of coffee and is driving the FBI nuts!"

Kate's smile grew a little bit wider as she parked her car beside two large black SUV's that screamed "federal vehicle." Turning around to the ladies in her back seat she said, "Why don't you two go ahead in?" She had made the decision very shortly after they began their drive and the two tearful women had been excitedly chatting about seeing Castle after so long. Really, what choice did she have? As much as she wanted to see Castle, she knew how dearly he loved his mother and daughter. They deserved to have a private reunion—or as "private" of one they could have with the FBI hovering.

Clearly too excited to protest, the women rushed out sentiments of appreciation and then hurried from the car. Alexis led the way, practically sprinting the fifty feet to the building's entrance with Martha clearly hurrying along in her wake. Smile still on her face, Kate reached for her phone, texted Ryan that they had arrived, and thanked him for all his help. It was only then that she realized there was another person she had yet to contact regarding the situation.

"Shit." She cursed under her breath as she pulled up her text message conversation with her boyfriend, Josh Davidson. Kate had been so shocked and all-consumed with thoughts of Castle since she received his call, that she had not thought once about her boyfriend. She took a moment to process that thought and decided it definitely was not a good thing, but she could not go back and change it. She did, however, need to contact him.

She knew that he was in the middle of a forty-eight-hour shift and most likely would not get her message, but she quickly tapped one out just to keep him in the loop.

Long story, but Castle was found. I took his family upstate to get him. I'll talk to you when I can.

Kate moved to put her phone back in her purse and ready herself to exit the vehicle when, much to her surprise, her phone chimed with a response from Josh.

Holy shit. Let me know if you need anything.

Thanks, she replied.

After putting away her phone, Kate exited the car and had walked halfway to the building's entrance when her heart fluttered in her chest at the same time her stomach lurched. She pressed her palm flat against body just above her belly button, shut her eyes, and took a deep breath. Castle was back—he had returned against improbable odds and that was a good thing. So why the hell was she so nervous?

She took a few deep gulps of the cool night air and then set her jaw as she continued towards the entrance. She put on her steely detective exterior and raised up those walls around her heart to keep her emotions in check. Though she had come with the family, she was still technically there on NYPD business and thus needed to behave as such.

Kate half expected to see Castle immediately inside the door of the small sheriff's department, but she didn't. Instead, she came face-to-face with a trio of men who were obviously feds. She flashed her badge and introduced herself and explained that the recently-returned man was her partner. One of the dark-suited men wrinkled his brow and said, "I thought he was some sort of celebrity."

A breathy half-laugh escaped her lips and she simply said, "Yeah. It's…a long story."

The Feds seemed uninterested, which didn't surprise her, so she merely inquired where the man of the hour was and they pointed her down a short corridor that evidently led to a conference room. Her heart hammering and stomach churning once again, Kate walked up to the edge of the doorway and peeked her head inside. Castle had his back to her, but she could see the tears on both Martha's and Alexis's face as the trio embraced. She hung back in the doorway, giving them another moment of greeting, and then finally stepped inside the conference room, the sounds of her boot heels against the tile floor alerting them to her presence.

As she witnessed Castle's body begin to rotate towards her, Kate felt as though time began to move in slow motion. She was transported back years earlier to the very first time they met—well, the first time they met when she was a detective. Just like that night at the book party, she felt caught off-guard the moment his azure eyes met hers. The breath left her lungs and for a moment she felt suspended in time, like it was just the two of them alone in the world for that one, memorable moment.

"Beckett." His voice, though she had heard it through her voicemail a few hours earlier, sent a shiver down her spine. Instantly, the metal walls fell from around her heart, and tears pricked at her vision. God, there he was, just a few feet away. He was real; he was safe. Yes, he looked quite different with his beard streaked with grey and brown strands of hair, his usually well-quaffed hair a straggly mess, and the clothing hanging on his thinner frame, but he was still Castle.

"He-hey Castle," she managed, her voice a bit shaky. She felt her knees begin to knock and dropped her gaze to the ground, cursing herself and willing her mind to get a grip. There was too much to be done for her to fall apart in that moment.

"I—I'm so glad you came. Thank you for bringing Alexis and Mother up here."

Kate lifted her head to reply, but before she could, Alexis jumped in with, "Kate was at our apartment almost immediately after you called, Dad; and we left right away!"

She watched as Castle smiled at his daughter and then pressed a kiss on her cheek before peeling his body out of what Kate could only assume was a death grip. He then took two steps towards her and she realized he was coming to greet her with a hug, which instantly made her feel more nervous because…well, they didn't really hug, did they? Actually, they usually didn't have much physical contact at all, but of course she would never refuse his embrace. She just didn't want it to be…awkward.

"I, ah, I'm glad you're—you're okay," she said as his arms closed around her shoulders.

"Me too," he replied, pulling her in close. She let her hands settle at his sides and…

Oh.

Like a wave crashing against a sandy beach, the emotions washed over her the moment her body was pulled tightly against his. Castle—Castle was back. Her partner. Her friend. Her… oh, god, he was so much more than she realized until she was against him and remembered what it was like to feel the comfort of his presence.

Her diaphragm spasmed against her will and the tears collecting in the corners of her eyes slid down her cheeks. She didn't want to cry in front of him, in front of his family, and most certainly not in front of the FBI, but it was all too much to hold in. She had fought so hard, spent so many hours researching, pursuing, failing and trying again. She didn't succeed in finding him—he found her, which almost seemed more appropriate—but he was back. He was okay. He was not the next case she would lose herself in. He would get to live a long life. He could laugh, and write, and…love.

The last notion startled her into letting go. Only then did she realize how tightly she'd been gripping his body, but he didn't seem to mind. He pulled back wearing one of his classic dopey smiles. He studied her face for a moment then reached out and collected one of her fallen tears with the pad of his thumb without saying a word. Then, turning back to his family he said, "You all must be exhausted. I'm pretty sure that hotel room they booked us should be ready; we should go."

"Hotel?" Alexis asked, her voice ringing with notable surprise. "This town has a hotel?"

Castle hummed. "Well…from what they were saying, 'hotel' might be a bit of a stretch. Perhaps 'inn' is more appropriate. Guess we'll find out when we get there." He turned back towards the detective and smiled. "Coming Beckett?"

"Ah." She cleared her throat and then bobbed her head. "Y-yeah. Let's just check in with the FBI and make sure we're okay to leave."

Fifteen minutes later, Kate discovered that in actuality "inn" was stretching the term. At best, the place they were directed to was a bed and breakfast, but evidently it was the closet place to stay overnight for almost twenty miles. As all four of them were quite tired, they agreed not to question the owl-themed establishment run by a polite-though-weary couple in their sixties.

The room provided to them was in the old home's attic. It had four single beds and a bathroom in the hall that Kate felt Castle's six-foot-one frame would barely fit in. As none of them had the wherewithal to grab overnight bags before they left, they used the B&B-provided toiletries to clean up.

Though she felt reasonably awake during the drive, the moment she sat down on the single bed furthest from the door Kate felt exhaustion seep into the very marrow of her bones. She tugged off her boots and pulled back the sheets as she listened to Alexis and her grandmother pepper Castle with dozens of questions. From what she could tell, he was being quite evasive with his answers. She had every intention to continue listening (while being subtle, of course), but her intent failed, for she fell asleep almost the exact moment her head hit the pillow.

A/N: a few things here

first, i really wish i could have made this into a longer multi chap because the potential is there, but my muse, unfortunately, is not. I've been struggling to write even a little bit so i'm pleased I actually got 5 parts out of this one.

Second, I am purposely posting this today, Nov 16th, for 2 reasons. 1) The Pornado weekend and 2) the Winter Ficathon. I'm actually "cheating" a litle bit and will need to post 2 chapters on Saturday in order to get the M chapter in the weekend. But i dont think anyone's going to complain :)

Third, update schedule will be: Ch 2 Sat Morning (EST), Ch 3 Sat Evening (EST), Ch 4 Sunday morning, Ch 5 Monday Evening.

ENJOY