450. Chapter 450

After The Fifth Bullet

Episode 2.10

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Shoot me, but hit the book in my pocket, if I claim I own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

Her head hurt terribly. She tried to move and felt nauseous. She slowly lifted her head. She was lying on a concrete floor. The first thing she saw was that there was a gun in her hand. Why would I be carrying a gun? She pulled herself up and saw him, laying there, with blood all over him. Her mind was blank for a second, then it hit her. Oh my god! I shot someone. I'm a murderer.

"Beckett?" A man's voice called to her. "Where are you?"

She opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. Suppose that man is Beckett? I could be in trouble.

A man came into the bottom of the stairway with her. "Beckett, are you okay?"

She looked at him. He was shorter than she was, blue eyed with light brown hair and he seemed worried. "I'm…" She didn't say any more.

He held out his hand and helped her up. "I see you got Timmons." He gestured to the man lying dead.

"Timmons?" She saw the badge at his waist. "Are you a cop?"

He looked shocked. "I'm Ryan. Kevin Ryan. I work for you."

She had no idea who he was. She worked with a cop?

Two more men came in. One was stocky and looked Hispanic. The other was tall and good looking. The tall one strode quickly to her. "Beckett, are you okay?" He put his hand on the side of her head. "Oh, crap! She's bleeding. Call an ambulance." He looked into her eyes, concern clear in his eyes. "What happened?"

"I don't know. I can't remember anything." She was terrified.

The cop called Esposito called an ambulance. The man called Castle told her that her name was Kate Beckett and that she was a homicide detective with the NYPD. He told her a little about herself, none of which sounded at all familiar to her. Then the ambulance arrived.

"Castle, can you go to the hospital with Beckett. We need to stay here and work the crime scene. Can you call her dad?" Ryan asked.

"I'll go with her, but her dad is on a hiking vacation in Oregon someplace. Beckett told me he'd be out of touch for the next ten days."

"Do I have any other relatives?" She asked.

"Not really." Castle replied. Seeing the fear in her eyes, he quickly added, "Don't worry. I won't let anything happen to you. I'll take care of you no matter what." That made her feel better for some reason.

The time in the hospital was frustrating to her. In spite of all that Castle told her about herself, she remembered none of it. The doctor who examined her didn't seem to be able to give her any concrete answers as to why she had amnesia or when or if her memory would return.

Castle took her back to what he told her was her apartment. The keys she had in her pocket opened the door, but none of it looked familiar.

"Tell you what." Castle said. "I'll order some dinner and then you can get a good night's sleep. I'll pick you up in the morning and take you to the 12th Precinct. Maybe the familiar surroundings will bring something back to you. Is Chinese okay?"

She didn't know what to say. "Do I like Chinese?"

He smiled at her. "You love Chinese."

All of a sudden, she began to cry. "I feel so damned useless. I can't even tell you what kind of food I like." She went to Castle and put her arms around him and cried.

"It'll be okay, Kate. We'll get through this. We've gotten through plenty before."

She looked up into those concerned blue eyes. "You like me a lot, don't you?"

Castle thought about being evasive, but how do you lie to a woman who has nothing to hang onto? "I like you a lot."

"Do I like you?"

"A little, maybe." He replied. When he saw how upset that made her, he wished he had been evasive.

"I don't like you? Why? Just being with you for the last few hours seems so normal. It feels….right. Why wouldn't I like you? What's wrong with me?"

Castle decided to tell her as much as he could, beginning with the murder of her mother and the reason she had become a cop. The Chinese food came and she discovered that she could eat with chopsticks which pleased her. She found out a lot more about herself.

"You wrote a book about me?"

"Not about you per se. It's about an NYPD homicide cop named Nikki Heat who's a lot like you."

"Nikki Heat? That's an interesting name."

"You don't hate it?" He sounded surprised.

"I'd have to read the book before I could decide whether I liked the main character." That seemed obvious to her. Was she missing something?

He smiled broadly. "I suppose you would."

She looked towards her bedroom. "So…We've never been to bed?"

"We've never even held hands."

She took his hand in hers. "We could change that." She whispered.

He gently took his hand from hers. "I don't think that would be a good idea, considering you have amnesia and all. We should go very slowly. "

"Do you want to sleep with me?" She asked, not sure what kind of relationship she had with this man.

"Take a look at yourself. What man wouldn't want to sleep with you?"

"It's just that I don't want to be alone tonight. I can't ask you to sleep on the sofa, so I thought…"

"We can pack up some of your things and go to my place. I have a loft. My mom and my daughter live there. And I have a spare bedroom. That should solve your problems."

She decided to be very bold. "Can I stay with you until…I mean, I don't know how long…" She suddenly felt so stupid imposing on Castle like this.

"You can stay as long as you like. Come on, I'll help you pack."

Martha and Alexis already knew about Kate's problem and couldn't have been nicer. The next day she went to the 12th Precinct and again, everyone couldn't have been nicer to her. Especially Castle. She thought. He really likes me. And I like him. According to Lanie, who everyone says is my best friend, I've been pushing Castle away ever since he came here. Why? I don't want to push him away now. In fact I'm terrified that he'll get tired of putting up with me and leave me. I don't know if I can handle not having him around.

Three days later, Castle found her sitting on the couch at 3 AM, crying. "What's wrong?"

She pointed to the book she was reading: Heat Wave."This is a great book, and it doesn't take a detective figure out that I'm Nikki Heat and you're Jameson Rook. And I can't remember anything about the cases, or the people or us. And I'm just so frustrated. I don't know what to do."

Castle sat beside her and held her. "I suggest you go to bed, get some sleep and everything will be better in the morning."

She stood up and took Castle's hand, leading him to her bedroom. He stopped at her door and let her hand go. "Tomorrow, Beckett."

"Call me Kate, please." She whispered.

"Tomorrow, Kate."

"Not tonight?" She said, leaning against him.

"Maybe when you get your memory back."

"What if that never happens?"

"Then we'll worry about that then."

The next day she was sitting at her desk with Castle sitting at a chair by her desk. She was reading old reports on cases she had worked in the past. She noticed a subtle difference in her reports before and after Castle had joined her team. We like each other. We like each other a lot. Why aren't we together? We should be together. We will be together.

As she sat there, she heard someone behind her talking about her to Ryan. "She has amnesia?"

"Yeah, just like that case we had a while ago. The guy's name was…." Ryan couldn't remember the name.

"Jeremy Prestwick." Beckett said, without looking up.

"Hey!" Castle cried. "You remembered that. Was it in one of the reports you read?"

She checked the reports. "No. I did remember it!" She said, leaning over to hug Castle. "I remember Jeremy Prestwick was shot by Darius Langley because Victor Fink was forging paintings for Bahir Harun…" Kate rambled on, the facts of the case spilling out of her until she suddenly stopped. "I don't remember anything else." She said disappointedly.

Castle took her hand. "But your memory's starting to come back."

In the next two weeks, her memory slowly came back, although she never remembered anything about the day she was injured.

She found herself standing back in her own, familiar apartment with Castle. "Castle, thank you for everything. I don't know what I would have done without you." Castle smiled and she added, "Just because I had amnesia and was very frightened, that doesn't mean that anything I said was anything other than something I said when I was not in my right mind."

He nodded. "Of course not, Beckett, Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, Castle."

As she watched him walk down the hall to the elevator, she thought to herself. Without all of the emotional baggage that I've accumulated, I really do like Castle a lot and I can accept that he likes me a lot. I wanted to sleep with him. I wanted more than to sleep with him and he wants more as well. So, not tomorrow, Castle, but soon.