World on Fire

A/N: I meant to wait to start writing this but I am impatient. Chapter 1 is short but the rest of them won't be. Let me know what you think! This is not AU, so Kate and Castle don't meet before they do in the series. This is Kate's story. Castle appears a few times but it is not a "they met before" story.

I look forward to hearing what you think! :)

Plot: What we know: on January 9, 1999 Johanna Beckett was murdered in an alleyway in the rough neighborhood of Washington Heights, leaving behind her daughter, 19 year old Kate, to pick up the pieces and deal with the aftermath. Ten years later Detective Kate Beckett meets Richard Castle, but what happened in between?

Prologue

January 10, 1999

The sound of the ticking clock had faded to a drone in the background. A constant, consistent sounds humming in her mind as the words coming out of the man's mouth swirled with the string of her own unintelligible thoughts. There were no more tears, they had come briefly as she sat staring at her bedroom wall the night before and in the living room answering a list of questions with monotone monosyllabic answers. Now, she was just numb, sitting in the room with the stiff back chairs and a simple desk. The room would be considered warm if she cared enough to think about it but she didn't. She didn't want to think about anything other than crawling back into her bed and staring at the photo framed on her bedside table. She didn't want to think about…

"Ms. Beckett?" The man's voice interrupted her thoughts and her eyes rolled up to look at him. "I know this is hard. If you would like to come back tomorrow I can make another appointment for you but these arrangements need to be made as soon as possible."

She swallowed. She could do this. She could still swallow and blink. She could answer these questions too. Her head nodded as she cleared her throat and sat up a little straighter in her chair. "No, no it's fine. We can do this now. Umm, the cherry wood is good. That's fine."

The funeral director looked at her, his eyes roaming over her face, trying to read her, as he continued to stare past him at the back wall. There was an untouched box of tissues on the desk, next to the unopened bottle of water. He nodded slowly. "Okay, then. Can I get you anything? Coffee?"

Kate shook her head. "No, thank you. I'm fine. Just fine."

She was fine. She could do this. She was…

"I'm fine."

He nodded again, slowly. "Okay, well, then we're almost finished."

Kate nodded again. Almost done. Almost…

She stared at the sheet of paper that the funeral director placed in front of her.

He was talking.

"You can take this with you if you like. We would just need it back by the end of the week. We will have a small place holder until the granite stone is finished."

Her hand stretched out almost of its own accord and she could feel the paper, rough and slick at the same time under her fingertips as she pulled the sheet off of the desk and into her lap.

"We have her name and birth date. We just need any other wording you would like. Any remembrance."

His voice trailed off as she continued to stare at the sheet, silently wondering why the tears still weren't falling. There was a box of tissues, open in front of her. She was supposed to be crying wasn't she? That's why it was there. People cried when they did things like this, when they picked out a casket and wrote down the phrase for a tombstone they were supposed to cry. They were supposed to tell stories and blubber as they pulled tissues sheet by sheet out of the box and left them in a crumpled heap on the floor for the custodian to clean up later that day. They weren't supposed to be fine.

"No," she forced her voice out of her dry throat. Maybe she should drink some of that water. "No, it's fine. I can do it now."

Her right hand carefully placed the paper back on the desk, smoothing out a bent corner as she mumbled an apology for messing up the perfectly crisp white sheet and slid forward in her seat, lifting her hips so she could pull the jagged corner of paper out of her pocket. She had torn it out of her notebook before she had left her parent, her father's, apartment earlier. Her palm held it down on the desk for a second before she pulled her hand back, leaving it beside the paper, reaching for a pen instead.

She straightened her Stanford sweatshirt, scooting forward in the chair again as she lifted the pen to the paper, feeling the weight of the plastic and metal in her hand as she held it over the sheet.

Vincit Omnia Veritas.

Truth conquers all.

She held the paper back out to the funeral director and he glanced down at it with a drawn brow before looking back up at her, the question evident in his eyes. The traditional beloved mother and wife missing from her sentiment, but she didn't have to write that. Everyone knew that already. Johanna Beckett loved her husband and daughter but she loved the truth more.

"It's what she would have wanted," Kate whispered.

The funeral director nodded and cleared his throat as he placed the paper back into the file. He looked back up at her hesitantly. "There is just one more thing…"

Kate forced down the urge to roll her eyes. Would he just get on with it already? She wasn't going to break. She was fine. This was all fine. She just wanted to get it over with.

He cleared his throat again and Kate felt the need to yell rising in her throat, the urge to throw something threatening to overpower her. "Yes?"

"About payment. I can set up a payment or send the bill in the mail."

Kate shook her head, reaching for her purse. "No, it's fine. My father sent me with a check."

She pulled the folded piece of paper from her wallet and smoothed it out on the desk in front of her. It was already signed. She had gotten her father to do that in the hours before, talking to him in low, calm tones as he stared blankly at the newspaper spread out over the kitchen table, sitting in his spot, the world news section placed aside in front of her mother's usual seat. "How much is it?"

He held out another sheet of paper and her eyes scanned over the list of numbers until they landed on the number below the line. One number: the numerical cost of her mother's death.

She nodded, using a sleeved hand to push back a lock of hair behind her ear. It was falling out of the braid she had tugged it into that morning. Slowly, she picked up the pen and scratched the number into the small rectangular box.

She held it out to the man as she stood from the chair, turning towards the door. "That's it, right? You don't need anything else?"

The funeral director, what was his name again, shook his head. "No, that is all for now and I'm sure if anything else comes up we can speak to your father about it."

Kate's head jerked up to his and he took a step back at the sudden flash of emotion, the only she had shown all day, flooding through her eyes. "No! No, if anything else comes up you talk to me. I can handle it. I can handle all of it."

He nodded slowly as she pressed the back of her palm to her mouth and nodded, confirming her previous statement to herself with a deep, calming breath. "I'm fine. I can handle it. Okay?"

"Okay."

The apartment door slipped shut with a quiet click as Kate made her way back into her parent's apartment. The kitchen table was clear now, the newspaper stacked carefully on the counter, waiting for her to take her sections if she wanted. There was a play coming out that she had been raving about seeing a couple of days before. It was opening off Broadway the next day. Her mother was going to take her…

Was…

Not anymore.

The apartment was silent, no signs of movement as Kate placed her purse on the table and shifted her weight to see into the living room, listening for sounds coming from the bedroom or the office. Nothing. There was nothing.

Her eyes drifted to the counter as she took a step back towards the kitchen. She really should eat something. A flicker of yellow caught her attention and her eyes drifted down to look at the pale square sticky note pasted to the counter.

Gone to the office.

She sighed as she peeled the post-it from its spot and crumpled it up in her fist, pushing it through the swinging top of the garbage can. She took another step forward and reached for the handle of the refrigerator, pulling it open so that she could stare at the contents as she leaned against the edge of the door. The shelves were full. She and her mother had gone shopping only a couple of days before.

We're going to get your favorites, Katie. Now that you're living across the country I have to spoil you when I can.

Kate had rolled her eyes as they wandered the aisles of the market, voicing that her mother didn't have to do that. She was fine eating whatever, but inside she had been smiling. It was nice to be wanted, to be home.

It had been nice… Now… She sighed as she pushed back from her resting spot and let the door slide closed. Now, she was tired. Now, it was time for a nap.

Then maybe, just maybe she could wake up and have this all be a dream.

If this all were a dream, she could wake up and then she would be fine.