It had been a long day; a long, long week, really. Unlocking her front door, Kate Beckett tried to put her work day behind her. As an NYPD homicide detective, she had seen more than her fair share of atrocities, domestic and otherwise. But the case she and her team had closed today, aided by a specialist FBI team that was headed by her boyfriend, Will Sorensen, had been particularly difficult. No one liked kidnapping cases, no one even pretended to like them, but this one had ended in the worst way possible. They hadn't solved it quickly enough to save the child, and it was eating at her from the inside out.

Kate had declined Will's offer to come round to her apartment with her and spend the night to comfort her. Awful as she knew it sounded, she could hardly think of anything worse. She needed the time alone to get the case squared away in her own mind, to stop the memories of it from overwhelming her.

Any other evening, she would have been heading straight to her claw-foot bathtub for a scalding hot bubble bath with candles, a large glass of red wine, and a decent mystery novel. But tonight she was too exhausted to even manage the first step. She toed off her heels, dumped her purse, and headed straight for her bedroom, swiftly changing into shorts and a baggy t-shirt. She looked across the books on the shelf and picked one with a dark cover and starkly contrasting block letters. She took the dust cover off and left it on the dresser before she slipped under the sheets and snuggled down to begin reading one of her favourite stories. One that had a happy ending with justice served, one she could get lost in, one that would replace her own reality for a while. She opened the cover and her eyes glanced across the title: Storm Approaching.

Kate skipped straight to the first chapter and began to read but her eyelids began to droop within the first few pages. The book slipped from her hand onto the bed and she fell asleep.

An elderly lady glides up towards the door, a tiny dog trotting along behind her. "Good evening, Mrs Dale!" He gives her a wide smile; she looks smart and chic for her age, like she's been out for cocktails with some Parisian friends, and returned before sunset. His white gloved hand pulls the door open for her and he tips the brim of his hat respectfully.

"Good evening, JT," she replies amiably as she scoops up her dog into her arms and carries on through the door to the elevator. He lets the door swing shut, tugs down his jacket sleeves tidily, and clasps his hands in front of him as he continues to watch the street. He knows the façade of the building opposite like the back of his hand now, the black awning over the door with the brass-coloured poles, the red bricks, the grey stone, and the black railings around the balconies. The regulars are just as familiar, not only for his building, but also next door, opposite, and the people who walk past every day on their way to the Park.

He smiles, in a quiet contentment that is rudely interrupted by the squeal of tires. A black SUV with its driver's side windows rolled down turns in from Fifth Avenue, narrowly missing a pedestrian crossing the road. The woman shouts an obscenity as she gets to the other side of the street, but it's lost in the awful din of gunshots. JT Richards turns his head towards Central Park for the final time as his body comes to rest on the sidewalk and he takes his last breath.

Later, across town, day has given way to night. The apartment is dark, except for the light given off by the time on the microwave clock, and the street ambience that filters up to the ninth floor, seeping under the curtains. Among the shadows, a pile of blankets rises and falls softly on top of a bed, occasionally emitting a quiet snore. A large foot and half of a well-sculpted calf are exposed to the night air, and at the opposite end of the bed a thick mop of brown, bed-rumpled hair pokes out.

The blanket creature snorts and rolls over in its sleep, taking the blankets with it, revealing its true form: that of a ruggedly handsome man. A very naked, ruggedly handsome man. His knee is raised up across the blankets he is now snuggling up to, accentuating his muscled legs and back. The protective arm that is slung across the sheets appears to be the size of a tree trunk.

The peace of the dark, quiet apartment is shattered by the shrill ringing of the cellphone perched on the bedside table. The charging cable prevents it from vibrating itself onto the floor but its insistent light and noise rouse the man slightly and he reaches his arm out to grasp the device. Then the world tugs itself sideways.

As the reader fell asleep, the writer roused himself with a particularly loud snore. He raced his finger over the track pad of his laptop to wake it from its screensaver, the phrase 'You should be writing!' taunting him as ever, and looked at the time. At almost four in the morning, he knew the best thing to do would be to get up from his desk and head to bed. But he was awake and his brain was already running in overdrive. He stared at the blank word processing document on his laptop for a while before acknowledging that there was nothing likely to go onto it tonight and shutting the lid.

He stood and stretched, the sound of his spine creaking and his knees clicking loudly in his office made him wince and he sighed. The great Richard Castle, finally getting old, reduced to wandering around his loft in the middle of the night to get the ideas flowing. He walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge, blinking a few times to adjust to the light pouring out of it. Sometimes this was all he needed to inspire him, the simple act of looking at the food and drink within to spark a memory from his 'research'. But not tonight. He reached for the carton of milk and shut the fridge quietly before hunting for a tall glass. After pouring his milk, he put the carton back in the fridge and fished two cookies out of the jar, noting that there was one left for his daughter, Alexis, to take to school in the morning. He took his snack over to one of the large windows of the living room and sat down to watch the world go by on the street below.