Rescue
AU.
"He's passed out and the flask in his right hand leaves little to the imagination. And yet there's something about him that intrigues her. Maybe it's the way he's dressed- a well-fitted suit and tie; maybe it's the hair- gelled to perfection, wavy and soft; maybe it's just how troubled his face looks, even unconscious. It's then that she notices his left hand tucked under his body, balled up tightly into a fist."
xxx
The elevator's out of order. It doesn't perturb her at all; no-murder Saturdays really take the edge off. Kate whistles the theme song of 'Temptation Lane' as she skips up the stairs, glad to be home at a reasonable time to watch the next instalment of the show. Her mind is so preoccupied that she barely notices the physical strain of the ascent. She swings around the corner of the stairwell rapidly, stumbling as her foot encounters an obstacle. It's a man! Her first instinct is to check for pulse. And sure enough, he's alive.
She flips him over on his back, studies his gaunt frame. She's never seen him before. He doesn't look like he belongs in her part of town. Cop training kicking in, she searches his pockets for ID. She can't find a cell phone. In his inner coat pocket, she finds a leather wallet that's well past its prime. Aside from a few stray bills, there's a driver's license.
Richard Castle. Brooklyn.
She studies the picture before here, analysing him like she would a victim at a crime scene. He's passed out and the flask in his right hand leaves little to the imagination. And yet there's something about him that intrigues her. Maybe it's the way he's dressed- a well-fitted suit and tie; maybe it's the hair- gelled to perfection, wavy and soft; maybe it's just how troubled his face looks, even unconscious. It's then that she notices his left hand tucked under his body, balled up tightly into a fist. She loosens up the fingers, carefully, as if she doesn't want to hurt him. She doesn't know why she does it; she couldn't cause him any more harm than he has caused himself.
It's a crumpled up Polaroid, and what looks like a shiny poker chip that he clutches so tightly she has to prise them out of his stubborn grip. She's curious; she'll admit it. For a moment it occurs to her how awkward it would be if he woke up in the middle of it all and saw a strange woman examining the contents of his pockets; but the moment passes, and the next, she's straightening out the photograph and gazing into the face of a redheaded girl with braces. She looks about ten in her purple frill skirt, old enough to be his daughter, she guesses. The chip clatters to the floor, grabbing her attention. There's a phone number on the back of it. She flips it over to see the bold "AA" carved in right above his name, below which the inscription reads: '10 years'.
Oh.
There's a sense of déjà vu, she remarks to herself. It hasn't been long since she had to clean up after her father. She's subconsciously running her fingers over the inscription on the medallion. Ten years, she thinks. Ten years is a long time; too long to go to waste. It strikes her how determined his face looks, resolute yet tortured, ferocious yet broken, like a soldier fighting a losing war.
She wants to save him.
She's never felt such a strong protective instinct before for someone she doesn't know. But she can picture the disappointment in his daughter's eyes when she sees her hero fall apart. She wants to salvage whatever's left of the wreckage and guide it to a safe haven before the young girl with the freckles and the braces has to make the choice between saving him and saving herself. She feels like she owes it to herself and all the daughters who've ever been where she has.
She still has a shot at rescuing Richard Castle.
xxx
He wakes to a foreign room and almost instantly, feels alien in his own body, the splitting headache the only thing that makes him aware of reality. The pillow is fluffier than he's used to. He doesn't recognise the sheets. At least his clothes are the same. It's been a while but he knows what this means, knows full well what it implies and how it ends. He doesn't think he can take it another time. He can't. He won't make it. Not this time.
He looks around the room, puzzled as to his whereabouts. It looks like a woman's house judging by the decor. He takes an inventory of his pockets and goes from lost to panicked in a moment. Everything he owned is gone. The last time this had happened, he had woken up on the pavement outside his favourite pub next to a drug addled street dweller, completely devoid of memory. He wasn't expecting a suburban apartment this time. He runs through the only doorway to find an empty hallway. "Hello?" he calls out. There's no reply. He's about to scream for help when he hears a voice from the kitchen. Spinning around on his heels, fighting the head rush, he walks to its origin.
"Are you looking for this, Mr. Castle?" a woman sitting at the counter asks him, holding up a plastic bag with his belongings.
She's gorgeous, brown hair cascading down her back, eyebrows knit together so closely. She slides the bag across the table to his side. He doesn't pretend to smile as he retrieves it, can sense that it won't amuse her in the least. In his experience, it's always better to mumble a string of apologies and leave, get out, run. That's his programmed response. And so he turns to flee, shoulders sagging, a man who once promised himself that he would never end up here again, but did anyway.
"Stop!" she says.
He turns to face her, surprised.
"Would you like some coffee?" she asks and he stares at her with the most incredulous look he can muster up.
This has never happened to him before. He's been given lectures and abuses; he's even taken a beating once but this- this is new. He considers the possibility that this woman might be crazy but it couldn't be- not when she sits so composed on her stool, legs crossed gracefully, commanding the room around her without a movement.
"Uhh I wouldn't want to impose on you, Miss," he says, realising that the respectful salutation had been inadvertent. She had been kind to him and he felt like he hadn't deserved it.
"Kate."
"I wouldn't want to intrude, Kate."
"You can sit down," she says, calmly, but it sounds like an order to his ears. He obeys quietly as she pours him a mug of coffee.
"Thanks," he says. "I needed this."
"What's her name?" she asks and it takes him a while to realise that she's talking about the photograph.
"That's my daughter. Her name's Alexis," he replies shyly. He looks at the photo himself and forces back tears, wondering if all the good he's ever done for his daughter will be enough for her to forgive his greatest flaw.
"I've already called your mother. She'll be here in a while. I uh found her number on the back of your sobriety medallion; couldn't find your cell phone. She's your sponsor, isn't she?"
He feels overwhelmed. It's all too much; too fast for his aching head. He nods.
"She's twenty years sober. Nice family, huh?" he chuckles morbidly. "Funny thing is- they're about the only thing right in my life at this point."
He buries his face in his coffee and hopes she won't make him speak anymore. He feels like she has some sort of hypnotic power over him, and he just might tell her all of it, blurt it all out and drive her away.
"You're lucky you have family," she says.
Oh. It makes sense now, why she's having coffee with him instead of kicking him to the curb. She's been there? He doesn't believe it. He's pretty good at reading people. She's broken, yes, but not that broken.
As if to resolve his internal strife, she clarifies, "My father."
She doesn't speak much, he notes. But she speaks volumes with her eyes- deep blue oceans and dark forests, all encompassed in the tiniest glance. He doesn't know why he feels they could continue this conversation without words and still understand each other.
"Why did you come to this building yesterday?"
She's still asking questions and he's distracted, so distracted by the tiny coffee moustache she has, and the way she licks her lips and…
"Castle?" she snaps her fingers to bring him out of his stupor.
"Ya…I…it's a long story," he stutters.
"I think we have some time."
He takes a deep breath and begins, hesitantly. He's a storyteller but this is one story he'll never like, perhaps because life wrote more of it than he did.
He doesn't want her to know his failures as a writer- the empty nights in crowded bar rooms and the long list of rejections he's tried to erase from memory. He doesn't want her to know about the door to door salesman's job he has, just to make ends meet. He wants to show her the tattered pages of the manuscripts he ripped in frustration, and convince her of his talent.
He doesn't want her to know about his ex-wife, and how she abandoned him and Alexis; doesn't want her to know how hard he fought his disease (Yes, that's what alcoholism was- a crippling, debilitating, horrid disease) just to win custody of his own flesh and blood. He wants her to meet Alexis and see the girl he has raised in spite of it all.
He doesn't want to her to know how many times he relapsed after he first joined Alcoholics Anonymous; how many times it took him to finally let go. He wants her to meet his mother, and see the smile on her face that he brought back when he turned sober.
The words aren't testimony to his story. People are.
The words are just the medium; that's how it's always been for him.
It probably doesn't even matter anymore. None of it really matters after last night, after the one person who convinced him to become a writer dismissed his writing as trash. So what if that person was his estranged father? So what if he had spent his entire life trying to find him? It doesn't matter. What idiotic notion ever managed to convince him that he could ever match up to the standards of Casino Royale?
Ten years sober? Twenty? Fifty? How does it matter when they're full of moments he wishes he hadn't lived through? How are they worth fighting for when he hates how they've driven him away from all he has tried to achieve?
He doesn't know how long he's been rambling but he sees no change in her. She still sits up straight, eyes alert, trained intently on his body language as if she's looking for signs of breakdown, trying to figure out how to stop him before he crumbles.
He stops, finally, running out of breath before words.
"Now that you've heard my story, please feel free to feel pity or disgust in whatever measure you may choose," he finishes, his self defence mechanism rearing its ugly head.
"The story always matters," she says, with no trace of pity or disgust. "There's always a chain of events that makes everything make sense."
"Would you believe me if I said I believed those words not a long time ago? Even though I've given you no reason to believe I was ever sane."
"I believe you," she says.
She really does. Her eyes never lie.
"I don't know why you should."
"I don't know why I should, either. But I do, anyway. I believe you. I believe in you."
He's flabbergasted. He feels like a cheat, a fraudulent jerk who's giving her some false impression of his greatness and no, he's an honourable man -was, at least, once upon a time. He won't ever let her believe these fallacies that she has mistaken for truths.
"You don't understand. I'm an ordinary insurance salesman who spends his nights writing words that no one will ever read. I have a mountain of debt. I have no idea how I'm going to pay for my daughter's college tuition let alone support my mother's acting career. You shouldn't believe in me. You shouldn't. Don't. Oh God, please don't. I can't let another person down. Not you. Never you."
He buries his face in his palms and rests his case, choosing to face her verdict without looking her in the eyes. He doesn't notice she has moved until he feels her palms take hold of his own as she pulls them away from his face.
"Why did you get me here? Why didn't you just leave me there like you would any other drunken loser?"
He's avoiding her gaze but he can tell she knows that he didn't intend it to be a question.
"Because your shoes were too fancy," she answers, matter-of-factly.
He sees her face split into a wide grin, and the dam breaks. He laughs, loud and free and innocent like a child for a long while. She laughs too, probably at him. But he doesn't mind. Her laugh is beautiful. The way she throws her head up in the air has him wishing he could have a picture of this moment.
"Now tell me about this story of yours," she says, and this time he doesn't question her intentions, doesn't doubt his own either. What they have is too pure to label.
And so he begins again with words, taking her along on the journey. He smiles when she rolls her eyes at the clichés. He pouts when she raises her eyebrows suspiciously at a crime scene detail. He tells her a tale of love and mystery and adventures in a land so far from this little kitchen counter. He narrates it all, all he's ever written- except the end.
He doesn't tell her the end, leaves her hanging with a crooked smile even though she pleads. The story is the only thing that would ever bring her back to him. He can't let it end.
And he realises the important lesson she's taught him today, a truth he forgot somewhere along the way. The story always matters. As long as he still had a story to tell, there was still hope. And he had so many stories, so many ideas inside of him, waiting for their tryst with paper.
As long as there were still stories left to tell, there could never be an end.
The doorbell rings and he turns to her in panic, with the sudden realisation that his time here was over. He hadn't thought about life outside this room at all. He hadn't thought about life without her silent reassurance from across the kitchen counter. And he's not afraid to admit he's scared.
He may never figure out how she knows exactly what he's thinking when he's thinking it, but she speaks just then, silencing his doubts forever, "You're ready."
And he falls in love with her in that instant, knowing he would do anything to prove to her just how ready he is. He would do anything for those eyes, the few words she speaks that make a thousand of his lose value, the way she bites her lower lip when she's nervous, the way she worships her coffee, and the way she believes in him like no one else ever has.
She opens the door and his mother enters, her diva personality instantly breaking up their little microcosm. His mother speaks to Kate first, and then him, but he can't seem to focus, barely registers what she's saying. He's looking at Kate, unaware of anything else in the room. She's writing something down on a piece of paper and he wonders what it is, waits impatiently for her to finish.
His mother is already on her way out the door; he doesn't follow her, lingering inside, frantically searching for excuses to stay. He hangs on until there are no more. He smiles, in gratitude and apology all at once, and grabs his coat. Kate walks over to him and hands him a card. It's simple, just like her; reads 'Det. Katherine Beckett, NYPD' in her handwriting.
"Detective?" he asks, a little hint of mischief in his sincere question.
"Homicide," she answers, grinning.
The last thing he sees before he shuts the door is the wide grin on her face, and he thinks it could last him a lifetime. It's only outside, in the passageway, that he flips over her card and reads her small, squiggly print: "Call me if you need coffee or a story. Always."
He smiles and thinks out aloud, "You had me at coffee."
Fin
xxx
A/n: Happy #CastleFanficMonday !
*edited 03/03/2015- minor changes in grammar, paraphrasing*