The Haunting Past (A Castle Fanfiction)

Part One: Memories Strike

A.N: THIS BOOK IS A SEQUEL TO ANOTHER BOOK OF MINE: "The Coming Future". IF YOU READ THIS WITHOUT READING THE OTHER BOOK, I CAN PROMISE THAT YOU WILL NOT FOLLOW THE STORY LINE BASICS. Just a friendly notice. Please, enjoy. :)

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Kate stared at the ceiling, her eyes tracing every shadow that danced in the moving light from outside the beach house her adoring husband had taken her to. In the middle of the night, laying perfectly still, she could come no closer to sleep than she was as the memories of her attack traveled through her subconscious. She could still feel the wet heat of the masked man's breath falling against her skin. His strikes that wrecked her body still burned deeply during troublesome nights. The scars on her wrists from the shackles she'd been left to hang in were still plainly visible in even the worst lighting. She couldn't escape the sound of his voice threatening the lives of her unborn sons. She couldn't escape his masked face. And by tomorrow, she'd be forced to face him again on a different battle ground.

As she thought about the trial, thought about everything coming back again to just seep into her freshly healed wounds, her hands subconsciously stroked her now very pregnant belly. It had been five months since she'd gotten out of his chamber, saved by the opened arms of her lover, and they'd been a very rough five months. After spending two weeks on vacation, she came back to simply be benched. Gates would have kept her in the precinct either way, but taking her heart condition into account, Kate hadn't been allowed to do so much as go into an interrogation room with a suspect. Instead, Beckett was simply doing paperwork, speaking with families, and working online searches and surveillance videos all day. Everything she did to relieve stress was no longer possibile. The pent up angst, coupled with a caffeine strike and hormonal imbalance had put her relationship with her lover to the test.

It wasn't until two weeks earlier when she was stuck in trial prep with the other seven cops, Maddie, Addison and the lawyers that she was able to come to some kind of peaceful, stable ground. This stability, however, was an illusion due to an added fatigue. After a week of preparing, Gates mandated that Kate take some time off and escape from all of this. The moment she suggested they get away from the stress the trial was putting on her, Castle had insisted that they travel up to the Hamptons for the week and just leave all the chaos at home behind. Alexis happily volunteered to watch the house and Maddie for the week and Maddie seemed a bit too eager to get the week away from the two fill-in parents who had taken her in. Still, Castle had eventually coerced his very pregnant wife into getting out of the city for a week, which had worked to de-stress her every day until the sun set and the moon rose.

One swift kidney shot from one of the boys beat Kate out of her thought and caused her to jump a bit. After not feeling her sit up and squirm about, Castle awoke to the lightest little bounce she'd done on the bed. When he stirred and looked up at her, she looked back at him and simply explained, "The soccer star is kicking again."

"Jaxon of James?" Rick asked, knowing she could tell just simply by where she'd been kicked, judging by the way they laid over each other.

Kate smiled and answered, "Jaxon. I've told you a million times, James just pretty much chills and writhes around a bit. I get James' elbow in my side and Jaxon's foot to my organs." When she was finished talking, one of the growing infants kicked again and caused her to smile to herself. Her adoring husband moved closer to her in the bed and rested his hand against her stomach, feeling the infant beat against his touch. That sensation was still the most incredible thing to feel for him. It still warmed his heart. But while he looked delighted, his wife simply seemed half troubled, distant even as her hands combed over her distended flesh.

Reading her as easily as he read a book, he sat himself up beside her and brought his right arm around her shoulder as her head fell to her chest, both of them still letting their hands dance over their children's resting place. He knew it wouldn't help her, he knew she was too strong, but Castle laid a gentle kiss along her head and told her, "It will be alright, Kate. I promise. This trial will be over before you know it and Tanner will be behind bars before Jaxon and James are even born."