After I, Witness
Episode 7. 13
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: You are all witnesses to the fact that I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.
As she usually did, Kate woke up when Castle exited the bathroom. By the time she got out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, Rick had breakfast ready for them, including a skim latte with two pumps of sugar free vanilla.
She took a sip and smiled at him. "Perfect as usual. If the writing thing doesn't work out, you can always open a coffee shop. Franchise it and there'll be a Castle's on every street corner on the planet."
"Maybe I should do that instead of being a PI." He said glumly.
"Babe, what happened is so not your fault. Whitfield was probably a murderer, and he certainly was a serial cheater. Eva got greedy and Haskins decided to take the law into her own hands. And if you weren't a PI, things would have worked out pretty much the same with some other PI."
Rick nodded. "I still feel bad about it. I managed to accuse everyone of being the killer. I was absolutely sure I knew who did it. I was wrong each and every time. And finally my brilliant wife figured out what actually happened."
Kate smiled and bowed slightly. "Thank you."
He smiled back at her, then was serious. "I didn't become a PI to work cases on my own, I wanted to work with you. Sure, so far we've managed to run our cases more or less in parallel, but that isn't always going to happen. The truth is, I need my partner. I need her badly."
Kate moved around the kitchen island and hugged her husband. "You know if it were up to me, you'd be sitting in your chair right by my desk. And I promise you, if and when you need me, I'll be there for you. We're still partners, no matter what One PP says."
"Unless Gates sees me hanging around with you. Then I'll probably end up in a dungeon in the bowels of One PP. I bet that's what Gates does when she goes to One PP for her so called meetings. She's supervising construction of the Richard Castle Wing of the Official One PP Dungeon for Unwanted Partners and Police Horse Rustlers. She's probably testing the iron maidens on some miscreant as we speak."
"You only borrowed that horse." Kate said, suppressing a giggle.
"Maybe, but I still need my partner. I screw up without my partner."
Kate looked very serious, but then smiled. "I seem to recall you helping to put a whole lot of people in jail. And you did more than just help. There are cases I'd never have solved without you. Finding the man who killed my mom, Dick Coonan. Or, forcing me to investigate Bobby Mann's death when it was an obvious heart attack. You said it was murder and it was."
"Now that's just what I mean." Castle broke in. "Also on that case, my partner, seeing things clearly as always, told me that Ellie Monroe was just sleeping with me to get the part of Nikki Heat. But did I believe her, no! I was convinced that she wanted me because I was the handsome, charming and fun Rick Castle. She was sleeping with that network president to get a part at the same time she was sleeping with me. She would have slept with me if I'd looked like one of the seven dwarfs and hadn't bathed in this century."
Kate suppressed a laugh. "Perhaps I should start calling you Grumpy?"
"Only 14.28 percent of dwarfs are grumpy." Castle shot back. "And if I hadn't acted like such an ass over Ellie, I might have had the nerve to tell Demming that I was interested in you."
Kate shook her head. "I wasn't ready for anything serious, with you or anyone else. I was just looking to have some fun. I had been hiding behind my walls for a long time, and I had met this writer who had started making my life a little fun again. I just wanted a little more fun."
"Fun. Fun and uncomplicated. Jacinda. How stupid could I have been? If I had just had the brains to talk to my partner, I would have found out how you really felt about me, instead of making something up out of wounded pride and anger. I could have destroyed our whole relationship."
"Oh, unlike me? I forced you to leave me by not listening to you. Castle, you told me that you loved me, that you knew that I heard you that day at the cemetery. You knew that and you still loved me. And I loved you. But all I could see was that you were keeping secrets from me. Tell me that I didn't need my partner more than ever before then. Tell me that I didn't come close to making the biggest mistake of my life that night. What if we had broken up that night? I'd be dead and Bracken would be well on his way to being President-for-Life."
Rick pulled Kate close and hugged her, then kissed the top of her head. "Face it. The universe wants us to be together. We couldn't possibly have not ended up together."
"Since we did end up together, I'll agree. But every time I think of how close we came to not getting together, I get nauseous."
"You don't have to worry about that. We'll never…"
He was interrupted when his phone rang. "It's my PI office." He accepted the call. "Richard Castle Investigations. Mr. Castle speaking. How may we help you?"
Kate tried to listen in, but all she heard only Castle's side of the conversation which was series of "Yeses", "Nos" and "I sees." Then he hung up.
"What is it?" Kate asked.
"A woman wants me to retrieve her cat."
"Are you going to take the case?"
He nodded. "I don't know the woman from high school, her husband doesn't appear to be cheating on her and there's very little chance that this is some vast, complex plot filled with mystery and intrigue. Of course I took the case."
Kate kissed him. "Go get 'em."
Later that afternoon, Rick called Kate at the precinct. "How did your case go?"
"I'm afraid I need your help."
"Well, Gates is at a meeting in Albany for at least a week, so I can take some time off."
"No, this is official. My client was Nancy Barnes. She and her late husband owned about half of the apartment buildings in the Tri-State area. Her cat wasn't just missing, it was being held for ransom. A million dollars ransom and yes, she's he kind of crazy old lady who'd pay that. She wanted me to drop off the ransom, but when I got there, a parking garage on the West Side, all I found was a dead cat. When I went back to Mrs. Barnes, she was dead. Neck broken."
Kate thought for a moment. "Mr. Castle, since you're the only witness, I'm afraid I'm going to have to impose upon you and ask you to make yourself available for my investigation. Can you do that?"
"Always." He replied.
"Give me the address and we'll be right over."
"Can't wait."
"Me either."