Hey everyone out there in fanfiction land! It's been awhile, I know, but I'm returning with my first attempt at a multi-chaptered "Castle" story. It's intended to be suspenseful and include all of my personal favorite things about the show, two adorable pairings – one obvious but not admitted, and one admitted but seldom shown, the great father-daughter relationship between Castle and Alexis, and all the humor/mystery fun. I guess I should stop trying to explain and let you start reading. Obviously I don't own any of them, nor the show, but it sure would be fun to be a writer there for a few weeks….
I guess that's it. Enjoy, and please PLEASE let me know what you think if you have a moment when you're done reading.
The Walls Fall Down
Prologue: Vanished
Nothing suggested that this particular crisp, cool, late November morning would be any different than thousands of other before it. There were no foreboding signs, clues, or premonitions of how it would tip so many good peoples' universe off its axis and turn their worlds inside out. All that Alexis Castle noticed was a perfect late fall morning as she stepped out of the building where she shared a loft with her father and Gran. The cold air nipped her flawless, pale skin, turning her cheeks a bright apple-red. She huddled deeper into the black and white houndstooth peacoat she wore, and set off walking – well ahead of schedule, but anxious to check out a book in the school library before her first class.
It had been one of their idyllically offbeat Castle family mornings, her father making pancakes cheerfully, while she could hear Gran warbling Rodgers and Hammerstein classics in the foyer. Of course, her dad had been childishly ecstatic when the phone rang with Beckett calling him to a crime scene. He had rushed out less than fifteen minutes later, with a quick kiss on the cheek for her and the promise to "see her tonight and share all the gory details." As usual, Alexis had been left shaking her head after him lovingly and wondering which one of them was really the teenager.
It wasn't until she got several blocks down her familiarly busy street that something felt strange. At first, Alexis tried to shrug off the way the hairs on the back on her neck were suddenly standing on end. She was a practical, intelligent girl and reason told her that no one else on the street seemed concerned or at all aware of anything that could be causing her distress. Shaking her head and making her distinguishing shiny curtain of red hair fly out over her shoulders, she forced herself to keep walking and not look back.
Just as Alexis had started to think it really had been in her head, and she had begun to relax, an arm slung over her shoulders as someone came up behind her. Even though the gesture seemed – and was meant to look – companionably friendly, she stiffened, ready to cry out in fear. She looked over and saw the face attached to the arm, and her blood ran cold at the recognition of where she had seen that face before. It was then that the person steered her into the next alley where a car waited, idling quietly. Though Alexis was smart enough to know she had missed her chance to scream for help and fight him, it had all happened so fast that she was out of the eyesight of anyone who could help her before she could do anything.
She was shoved into the car none-too-gently, and the car was gone with no one the wiser. The cold November breeze whipped through the bare trees, people kept walking by, and it would seem when they frantically searched later that Alexis Castle had vanished without a trace.