Disclaimer: Castle is not mine, it just keeps me sane. Or… keeps me from being sane, depending on who you talk to.

Background: This story is a sequel to another story I wrote called Her Diamonds. (.net/s/6615276/1/Her_Diamonds) You don't necessarily have to read that one to understand this, but if you really want the full story, you might want to. It's only eleven chapters, so it's a commitment, but not a huge one. This story will be a little bit AU, since it's taking place within the universe that the other story created. To recap really quickly: Castle spent the day with Beckett on the anniversary of her mom's death. They wound up finding out that Josh and Beckett broke up on the same day that Gina and Castle did, the week before. Castle was basically just there for her all day, and kind of during the culmination of everything, they kissed. Castle convinced Beckett that she should try to write down specific memories she had of her mother to help her remember better, and she eventually agreed. Now this story picks up with Beckett trying to write that story and Castle trying to help her, as their relationship develops from that first kiss. (For the record, Her Diamonds took place pre-Knockdown, so it actually was their first kiss.)

That little recap was rough, I know, but like I said, if you really want all the background in a form that makes more sense, I recommend that you read Her Diamonds. Otherwise, let that suffice, and here we go! This is the first sequel I've written, so I'm quite excited about it. :)

I intended to post this yesterday, since it was ready and it was Castle Day, but the document manager wouldn't work for me all day for some bizarre reason, but it finally did, so yay! Hope you enjoy!

"I just… I don't want to forget."

He frowned, shaking his head. "You won't."

"No," she choked, frustrated, picking up her head to look at him straight-on. That was the default answer for him, the one she'd known he'd give. "I am. Every year I remember a little less about her." She didn't need to say who. He knew. "Who she was. How she was. Her face, the way she acted, the way her voice sounded. The details you can't see in pictures." She felt a few of the tears that had almost completely subsided start to roll down her cheeks again. She swallowed, and then whispered, "I can't lose her again."

She'd pulled away from him before commencing her little rant, and he now held out his hand, a simple invitation. She accepted it with very little hesitation, and he hooked his fingers around hers and squeezed gently. She expected another assurance that she would remember, and with his talent for persuasiveness she simply hoped that he could make her believe him. But what he gave her was something entirely different. He took a second before he responded, carefully turning something in his head as she had very seldom seen him do. "Do you want my advice?" he finally asked.

She nodded. Anything that caused him to think so carefully was something she needed to hear.

"When I want to remember something, I write about it. Sometimes I'll put it in one of my novels, but most of the time I just write it down. I have flash drives full of documents that will probably never be seen by anyone but me. And notebooks full of stuff from when Alexis was growing up. I know they say 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' but words… words can capture things that pictures miss. And a thousand words?" The corners of his mouth curled up just slightly, the first trace of a smile she'd seen him form that day. "Not that hard to write."

Here for the Story

"Why are you here? You don't care about the victims so you aren't here for justice. You don't care that the guy's aping your books so you aren't here because you're outraged. So what is it, Rick? Are you here to annoy me?"

"I'm here for the story."

Chapter 1

A New Beginning

When I was six or seven, my mother spent a lot of time at a library in a low-rent part of the city. I never knew exactly why, but my guess is that there was some resource there that she needed for research on one of her cases. After school and on weekends she would often take me with her, and I would read or do homework while she did her work. Sometimes we'd be there for hours, but every time we were there after dark, right at sunset she would drop everything and take me by the hand to the front steps. Somehow, she always knew exactly when sunset would be.

The scene at first, nothing visible but gray concrete, was uninspiring. But then, slowly, it would begin to change. The windows of the surrounding buildings would light up, creating a truly breathtaking scene. "Sunset is a magical time," she'd say. "It's the end of a day, a chance to erase our mistakes and begin again. It reminds us that whoever we are, wherever we are, and whatever we're doing, we can find beauty if we just stop and look for it. It's a time of transformation."

Transformation. New beginnings. What else? She knew she needed to write more, but she didn't know what. She thrust her pen at the page, frustrated, making a random dot of ink. She looked up from the legal pad where she was writing and met the eyes of her own personal new beginning. "I can't do this," she told him bluntly.

"Sure you can. You were doing fine. What happened?"

"I don't know what else to write. And I'm sure what I have isn't any good anyway."

Castle raised his eyebrows. "I'll be the judge of that. Let's see."

But rather than handing it to him, she put her arm over the page. "No, really, you don't want to read it."

He gave her a serious smile, a look in his eye that made it clear he wasn't going to back down. "I'm positive I do. I can't help you fix it if you don't let me see."

"You think it needs fixed?"

"Well, you certainly seem to. Thing is, I have more confidence in your abilities than you do. I'm sure it's great. But if you let me read it I can help give you ideas about where to go next."

She sighed and passed him the legal pad. She'd said she wanted his help, hadn't she? This whole project had been his idea in the first place, and he certainly knew enough about writing to be helpful. Besides, it wasn't as if she'd really written anything too personal to share with him. She wasn't even sure anymore what "too personal" was. After all, he'd been with her all day on this day, her least favorite day of the year. The anniversary of her mother's death. He'd seen so much of her, and done so much for her, that the lines between them were starting to blur.

No, her embarrassment about letting him read her writing had less to do with the content and more to do with the writing itself. He was a bestselling novelist. She hadn't written anything other than police reports since college. She didn't think she could possibly still be any good at it.

As he read, she found that she couldn't look at him. She didn't want to watch, didn't want to know what his face was doing. She didn't want to see his confusion as he tried to work out what one of her awkwardly-worded sentences was supposed to mean, or his amusement at the absurdity of her prose. She'd have to hear his review soon enough without speeding up the process. She didn't need previews.

She was apparently so far away, both trying to imagine and trying not to imagine what he was going to say, that she didn't even notice when he finished reading. "Okay," she was vaguely aware of a voice saying, although she didn't process its meaning.

It wasn't until she felt his fingertips rest gently on her shoulder that she was pulled back into the moment, and it happened so abruptly that she actually jumped. Regardless of how many times it had happened that day, she still couldn't get used to physical contact with Castle. "Sorry," he said, quickly pulling his hand back as though she was a snake that might bite him. "I'm finished reading."

She sighed. "Oh." That was all he said, nothing about how he'd liked it. That must've meant he was holding back, she figured, reluctant to hurt her feelings after all the emotion she'd already been through that day. She figured she'd say it first to spare him. "It sucks, right?"

"Sucks? Kate…" He studied her for a moment and then made a frustrated noise. "I hate that you're serious right now. No. It doesn't suck at all. You write beautifully. And I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing you use cursive. That legal pad really isn't doing it justice. It's like a work of art."

She rolled her eyes. "It wasn't really my handwriting I wanted you to critique."

He chuckled. "I don't just mean the handwriting. The writing itself is really good too. I'm impressed."

She looked at him, untrusting. "You are?"

"Of course." He laid a hand on her arm. "You constantly impress me."

She pulled away. Yes, they'd kissed earlier, but that didn't mean he could suddenly touch her whenever he wanted, especially not when he was being irritating. "No," she protested. "Now you're patronizing me."

"Patronizing?" he sputtered, looking at his hand as if trying to figure out what was wrong with it. He set it down on the couch's armrest like he was putting it aside, and instead reached out to her with his eyes. "Katherine Beckett. You are a good writer, and the sooner you accept that, the better off we'll both be."

She sighed. In the time she'd known Castle, she'd become very good at ignoring his eyes, the power they'd always had to bore straight into hers, into her mind, her soul, and, ultimately and most disconcertingly, her heart. But it was getting harder to do. "Fine," she said, caving. "Thanks. But that still doesn't help me figure out what to write next."

He nodded. "I do have one suggestion, but you're not going to like it."

Good. Now they were getting somewhere. But still, her heart beat faster. She had done something wrong. "What?"

"It's good, it's just… It feels restrained. You're holding back. The stuff your mom said about why she loved sunset is great. That's the high point."

Her heart sank and she interrupted him. "I didn't even write that, she did. It's what she used to say, it's not like I made it up."

"You might not have made it up, but you still wrote it."

"What?"

"Writing isn't just about making stuff up. That's part of it, and I'll admit it's one of my favorite parts, but there's more to it than that. It's about making decisions. Choosing what to include and what to leave out. You chose well. That was the perfect thing to put there. My biggest issue is you're leaving yourself out. You were there too, weren't you?"

She frowned. "It's not about me. It's not my story."

"Of course it is. You're writing it, aren't you? They're your memories, not hers."

"It's not supposed to be about me, though."

"Maybe not primarily, but you can't pretend you weren't there. You weren't just an observer, you were a part of the moment. You participated, changed the course of the scene. Your reactions, even your thoughts… they're important. They're part of the story, the same as everything else. Why do you think I created Jameson Rook?"

"Sex scenes," she answered without an instant's pause.

"Oh," he said, surprised. "Well, yes. But also because whether you like it or not, when I'm around the work that you do is affected. I couldn't realistically base my books on you and what I observe shadowing you without having a character playing my role."

She eyed him.

"Well, my role in most respects. The point is, you're an important part of the story now because you were an important part then. You can't write yourself out."

She looked at the page of her own writing that he'd handed back to her. "Okay, I get what you're saying, but how do I do that here?"

"Just try to remember what you were thinking at the time. Did you like it, were you bored, did you understand what she was trying to tell you? If you still remember it this many years later, clearly it made an impression. That's the rest of the story. Write about that."

She nodded and reread the last bit before pausing with her pen poised above the page, thinking. Gathering ideas. When she was satisfied, she began writing again.

I was still at the age that I wanted to be "just like Mom." There at the library, I did my homework as studiously and carefully as she did her research, but secretly I longed for the moment when it would all stop, if only for a few minutes. Sunset. When we sat there together on the front steps, hand in hand, it was like we were the only two people in the world. People walked past us, coming and going, and some looked, wondering why a mother and her young daughter were staring at the ugly buildings that surrounded us, oblivious to the beauty that we saw. It was our secret. Our moment. When she gave her speech, though it was mostly the same every time, I hung on every word, trying to memorize her wisdom.

It got to the point where if it was still daylight when she finished working I would try to stall, asking her to read to me or help me with homework I already understood. I wanted the moment. The sunset. The new beginning.

She set the page on the coffee table and the pen on top of it. "There."

"All done?" Castle asked. "May I see?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I guess."

He set the pen on the table and took the legal pad. She again felt her heart rate increase when he began reading, but this time she watched him. It didn't much matter, though. Contrary to her expectation, Richard Castle was apparently not a reactive reader. His expression remained the same—serious, almost blank—until he finished. Then he set the pad back down on the coffee table and looked at her. "Beautiful," he said simply.

She felt herself blush. "Thanks."

"But more importantly, does it help you remember? When you read this, will you be able to picture the scene? Can you hear her voice, maybe even feel your hand in hers?"

She nodded. "Maybe not completely, but it helps."

He smiled. "We'll work on 'completely'. For now, what do you say we call it a night? It's getting late, and I'm sure you're tired. You've had a long day. And I should probably be getting home."

"Yeah." What he'd said about it being a long day couldn't have been truer. She was exhausted. "Thank you. For this, and for everything." She looked at the flower arrangement that he'd given her. "You… you made a terrible day a little more bearable."

"I'm just glad I could help." He stood up to go.

But she stood up as well. She remembered pushing him away a little guiltily. The kiss had meant something, and she couldn't let him leave thinking she regretted it. She didn't. She took his hand and pulled him into a slightly awkward half-hug, hating herself for the awkwardness. She wasn't generally an awkward person. New relationships never made her freeze up like this. But with Castle, somehow it was different. Being with him felt perfectly natural, but she still wasn't used to any kind of intimate interaction. "See you tomorrow," she told him quietly.

"Tomorrow," he repeated, a little dazed. "I'll be the one with the coffee."

"Perfect." He left, and she found herself staring at the yellow legal pad on the coffee table. Eleven years since her mother's death. Another anniversary she'd managed to get through. Another sunset. A new beginning.

In case you've not read my stuff before, I LOVE reviews. Always, but especially because this is a new story, let me know what you think! Thanks so much!