A/N: Based on a prompt from the CastleFanfics Prompt Challenge. AU: Ocean.
"I found your message laying at the bottom of a bottle.
Come back to where the streets are paved with stone."
Now.
He finds it in the early hours of dawn, in those scarce and precious moments between light and dark, when the world feels both limitless and impossible all at once. Maybe that's why, as the clouds part, the slowly rising sun sending shards of silver and gold over the rolling ocean waves, something sparks, and catches his attention. Maybe that's why, after the last few days of dark loneliness and time spent lamenting his latest divorce, the sight of treasure on the beach brings an excitement to his heart he hasn't felt for a long time.
He freezes where he stands to watch the bottle roll in the shallow waves that lap the shore. The play of light distinct and entrancing, reminding him of the spill of water reflecting on a spider web. There was a storm last night, loud, turbulent, churning up the ocean bed and sending driftwood (among other sunken treasures) cascading across the sands. He'd watched, hours lost in the changing colors of the sky, waiting for the violence to pass. And when it did, too early for the sun and far too late now to stumble to bed, he had found himself drawn out into the world. Called by the turning tide.
Caught in the same long strands of seaweed that catch at his bare feet, it's only when the tide pulls harshly, threatening to steal the bottle away again that he forces himself to move, to make a grab for it.
Cold water rushes up his arms, leaving them damp, skin tight and tingling with the remnants of salt. The water rolls back out to sea, leaving cuffs and pant legs drenched. His body shivering. If he wasn't awake before, last night's hangover still thick behind his eyes, he is now.
But the bottle is safe and that's the main thing. The glass he imagines hot in his hands as intrigue and excitement settle in his brain. It's strange in shape, reminding him of an old perfume bottle without the spritzer spray. More decorative than useful. It's pretty. Unusual. He turns the glass over on his hands, wiping away grit, feeling the cold bite of ocean remnants lingering on the surface.
Since he bought the house, since the divorces (two, in as many years) he's taken to wandering the shore in front of his property, picking up little bits of forgotten treasure. He relishes the stories that find their way to his feet, elaborating on them when he finally gives in and turns for home.
It's only then, on that slow walk back, with stories already forming in his head, that he notices the slip of paper cocooned within.
He ruminates the options over coffee and later, when that fails - and the recently signed papers at the end of the table call out to him - over scotch. Before the fire in his living room, slightly worse for wear and feeling a little sorry for himself, Richard Castle slowly eases the top from the bottle and pulls out the scrap of paper curled inside.
A faint aroma assails his senses but it's gone before he has a chance to catch it, directing his attention instead towards the paper. The edges are rough and damp, the sheet itself flimsy, clearly torn from a notebook, yet the folds have been created with care. He feels a sense of almost superstition in unfolding it. In the unbinding of the careful work of another, uncovering something they had cast out to sea.
But he's come this far, the alcohol still alight in his veins, the weight of the paper in his hands getting heavier by the second. He gives in with a haphazard "screw it" muttered under his breath, the paper stretching between his palms as it unravels.
It's dated, a little over five years ago. The scrawled script strangely making him smile. The r's curl a little too much and he mistakes the first few as l's until he realises it's just the way the person holds their pen.
He reads anger in the way certain letters dent, almost pushing through the sheet. Frustration in the swipe and thrust, the arch of certain words. There is emotion tangled here in every syllable. For a moment he runs his fingers over the bulging ink, the landscape of an unknown someone's thoughts and feelings forever altering the paper they wrote upon.
He drops to his knees as he starts to read, the first line taking his legs out from under him.
I buried my mom today.
Then.
Pulling her dad's jacket tight around her shoulders, Kate watches the man move further down the shore, further from her. He's torn apart at the loss of her mother, she can see it in the bend and stumble of his body, knows it well enough now from the slur of his words. Promises made and easily broken.
But today feels different somehow. A welcome moment of peace in the hullabaloo, their escape from the funeral coming at just the right time for both of them. She smiles, watching him, distracted in his search for stones and twine, twigs, and hope. Distracted enough that she has time.
With the empty bottle unscrewed, Kate inhales deeply the familiar scent of her mother's perfume. Pen in hand and heart in her throat, she goes for the journal with anger. She shouldn't be here, shouldn't be doing this.
Ripping the page out brings relief. Fleeting. Gone instantly.
She stares at the paper long before writing, but once she starts she finds she cannot stop, words tumbling out of her before she can truly catch hold of them, scarring the paper.
I buried my mom today.
It's as good a place to start as any.
She adds the date, touching at the numbers that she knows will be seared into her soul as deeply and as eternally as January 9th. Along the beach her father stumbles and she pretends to ignore it, swiping at tear blurred eyes to continue on.
I'm losing my dad too. He thinks I don't know where he keeps the bottles, or that he's buying more. He forgets I'm the one that finds him in the morning.
I buried my mom today, and all I can think about is how empty I feel inside. Who am I without her? What do I do now?
I miss her.
I miss her hope. I miss the feeling of possibility.
And love.
I want my mom back. I want it all back.
She signs it, not knowing why, only knowing that it feels like the right thing to do. And the first bricks of protection erect themselves around her heart the moment the bottle breaks the surface of the water.
The deeper it sinks, the firmer her resolve becomes.
Now.
He's a different person after. Not sure if it's a conscious need to change or the effect of reading another's heartbreak, so much rawer than his own. When the new day comes, he finds himself a new man, his bloodhound senses locked onto a story, the papers easier to sign. He has a mission now, a sense of purpose once more.
In making the decision to track her down and help restore her hope, he finds a little of his own taking root too.
It takes three days.
Though finding her isn't hard, the wait takes its toll. From the ocean view desk, with her bottle poised at his side he finds it easier to stay focused on the task at hand.
Research for books and a legal paper trail longer than his arm have given him all the basics he needs to be a pretty decent self appointed P.I. Not much legwork is required, her letter bears the two most important things he needs to track her down.
A date, and a name.
"Kate Beckett."
He says it quietly to himself one night. Driven by a force he's yet to understand he doesn't sleep the next night, nor the one that follows, nothing but coffee and determination keeping him awake this time around.
Less than twenty four hours later he has an address, his heart pounding at the knowledge he's been living within walking distance of her for a while. Has he passed her in the street and not known it? Worse, has he caught sight of a girl with her head down, and been too caught up in his problems to have even noticed?
It's been five years since she wrote that message, and perhaps by now she's over the worst of it. Grief is an uncappable thing, unencumbered by limitations or time frames, maybe the girl who wrote that note has moved on, found her own solution to recapturing hope. Perhaps she's forgotten the bottle she threw into the sea.
Somehow he doubts it. The first time he sees her, he knows it's not true.
It becomes almost a game, though less frivolous, he quickly learns her routine, finds himself caught up in the espionage of tracking this broken soul through the streets of his very own city. They brush elbows, pass on corners. Eyes wide over the top of a book, coffee cold in the cup he holds for show, his heart stutters in his chest every time he lays eyes on the woman he's been searching for.
She's a cop. Unimpressed by nonsense and frippery, eyes narrowed at the world around her. She rarely smiles, but the day she does he forgets to turn away. Staring openly their eyes meet for the first time.
She's both younger and older than he's imagined. Eyes a color he struggles to put a name to he starts to notice the days they're rimmed red, a hard night doing little to mar her beauty.
She hides behind her hair, a dark halo around her face when she's off duty and an imposing top knot when she's in uniform, it falls to cover her face with movement gleaned from practise. She's shy. Yet when someone jumps the line and barges in front of her the gaze she levels them with is quietly imposing, her tone one fueled with force and conviction that's as striking as the woman herself.
She's a conundrum. A mystery.
She's tall too, easily matching him in the heels she favours on her days off. Though he notices her feet kicking free under the table and he smiles to himself quietly, imagining her doing the same if they ever shared a meal.
He never follows her home. There's something far too intimate and unseemly about even contemplating it. But from his vantage point in the window of the cafe and her easily mapped schedule, he slowly learns more about her than he ever intended.
She's quiet and sombre most days, but occasionally she'll laugh at something she's reading and the world will freeze for the merest second.
He writes a verse about the way she holds her coffee cup. It's nothing but ramblings at first, the lightness of her grip, the way she casts the lid aside to drink deeply, mouth almost desperate at the rim. It seems silly, but the words flow, eventually forcing their way free long after he's closed his eyes.
When he can't write it down he dreams about it.
Somehow it spirals, he no longer needs his own cold cup to hide behind, his screen, his words become his shield. There's a drive in him he can put no name to but her own.
Words strike like lightning even when he doesn't wait for her to appear. He finds himself caught up in the story that she inspires, the plot untangling itself before him. Later, when she finally arrives, out of breath and pink cheeked, he angles the laptop to watch her sit, to watch her read. It's slowly becoming his favourite pastime.
Her face is serene when she opens a book. She loses the darkness of her days in the world she emerses herself in. It's possibly the only time he can see the youth hidden by her sombre exterior, the pleasure she takes in each turning page bleeding life into her skin.
Kate curls up here, exposed and unabashed, waiting out the closing time with coffee upon coffee, and a sense of peace he wishes he could capture for her. Bottle for her to keep.
Time moves slowly as he watches her, yet somehow too fast to now approach her and simply say I found your letter. Instead he bleeds his apologies onto paper, into the lines of a story. It's a tale he doesn't really have an ending for, knowing only as each word spills out of him, it's a beginning and that's enough.
That it's her he's writing about becomes painfully obvious to him the day he gets frustrated trying to describe her. The sunlight catching her hair, the wind throwing it into disarray. No words seem enough to describe the way she smiles and curls a strand behind her ear. Nothing he could ever write would be enough to explain how her eyes light up and dance when she pets a dog that passes, or takes her first sip of coffee.
No words do justice to the world he wants to create, but he plods on, pausing only to read now and again, reliving moments as yet unlived.
That it's him he pens meeting her in the city, with a bottle in his hand and his heart on his sleeve should take him by surprise, but it doesn't. The more he rereads his own words, the more he comes to realise that he feels for her far more deeply than he ever intended.
He's always been a believer in fate, in destiny and the power of the universe. As a plan begins to form in his mind the seeds of hope that she long ago planted take root and sprout yet more inspiration.
Perhaps there was a reason he found that bottle.
Why he sends it in he doesn't know. Yet night after night it's the look on her face when she loses herself to a world between the pages that comes to mind. That serene peace he wants to give her.
He tries, for her.
That they choose to publish it leaves him awe struck. It's a dream he's long since lost hope in, but there it is in black and white.
Knees buckling at the kitchen counter, he just about finds a seat, tipped forward over the letter he holds in his hands. With shaking conviction he knows there's one last thing he has to do.
The advanced copy that comes is ridiculously large, he laughs as he fans the pages, leafing through and running his fingers over the words, over the story. He'll admit if she asks that he agonized over them, that he dug deep for each one, wanting to give it the proper weight and meaning without being overbearing.
When he finally hands it off to the courier, her address written on the front, he slumps against the door feeling sick.
This is it.
When it arrives, she drops to the couch with the box in her lap, confused. Tearing at the paper the world stands still when she reads the first line.
Almost two years ago I found this, and it belongs to you.
I made it my mission to find you, KB, but somewhere along the way I failed. In my quest to bring hope back to your life I found myself in your presence everyday not knowing where to begin. This story is our story, or at least the version of it you inspired.
Without even knowing you, you've brought light into my life, I hope one day I can return the favour and finally get up the courage to tell you, I found your message.
She lifts the bottle from the brown box, throat burning and fingers shaking the second they touch the cold glass. It's scratched and beaten by its years at sea but she can tell from the way it's been wrapped that for a while it's been in the loving care of someone kind. Unscrewing the cap and inhaling her eyes closed as the scent wafts free. It's faint, but it's there.
She'd never forgotten, but she never expected this. In an envelope atop a large paperback book is the note she wrote on the day they lay her mother to rest. It's flimsy now, the ink of seven years ago faded, but she doesn't need to see them to remember every word.
Her heart pounds, hard, attacking her ribs, each breath an ache through her chest as she reaches for the book. Her fingers shake turning it over to catch a glimpse of the man who's sent her this lifeline to a time gone by. His kind eyes and gentle smile meet her own and she gasps, recognising his face.
It's a gut feeling that guides her to the dedication.
For Kate,
Hope, like the love of those we've lost, can sometimes seem elusive. But it finds its way back to us. It becomes the small, clear voice in our hearts, that will be with us,
Always.
She doesn't go to the first signing. It's not that she doesn't want to meet him, she does, but he has so much intimate knowledge of her life that she feels at a disadvantage.
It's not tit for tat, yet she finds herself watching him long before she gets up the courage to approach. Having read the book she supposes turnabout is fair play, and, though it is a little creepy - they'll need to talk about that - it's also kind of fun.
He's older than she imagined, though not by much. He smiles at everyone that comes to have their book signed with kindness, but the happiness on his face rarely makes it to his eyes. He scans the crowds constantly and Kate wonders if he's looking for her, if he's disappointed that she hasn't come yet.
Days become weeks and still she lingers in the crowds, one of many. Behind stacks of books that don't hold her interest she watches him, from dusty corners and with amusement sparking she finds herself taken with the man.
When she sees the name of his next signing advertised she knows it's time. In the first bookstore her mother ever brought her to, Kate finds a quiet corner and watches the day unfold. She waits until the queue dwindles, but steps into line long before they close. It might be a little superstitious of her but it feels like fate. She's not about to let the moment pass her by.
His eyes don't lift from the table when the woman in front of her moves away. Grip hard on the book so her hands don't shake, Kate takes a deep breath, trying to calm the flutter in her chest. She waits him out, voice a bitten back whisper when their eyes finally meet again.
"Hi."
"Hi," he stutters, half rising to his feet, eyes wide. "You came."
She smiles, stepping up to the table and dropping a hardcover copy of his - their - novel in front of him. "They gave me this for you to sign," her lips curl again, "I tried to explain that I didn't need it but no one would listen."
"Didn't need it?" He tries to stop the plummet of his heart, the deadly drop it takes into the pit of his stomach.
"I brought my own."
She lays the large, dogeared advanced copy on the table between them, more tenderly than the first. Hand lingering as he reaches for it, Kate bites her lower lip when their fingers meet across the cover.
"You read it?" He asks, petrified and exuberant all at once. He pays no mind to the waiting crowd at her back, the feel of her fingers slipping into his own have drowned everything else out.
She nods, "It's a beautiful story, Richard."
"Rick," he offers, smiling when she blushes.
"Rick." Her fingers brush his again, strangely an intimate touch given that this is the first time they've met. But it feels like they've been a part of each others lives for a long time now. She clears her throat, "And the dedication is - I -" she sighs. "Thank you. I know that doesn't seem like enough but, after this maybe we-"
"Could go for dinner?" He finishes for her, squeezing her hand. "To talk."
"I'd like that." She squeezes back, letting go reluctantly. She pushes the book back into his hands.
"Would you like me to -?" He gestures with the pen, surprised, pleased.
"Kate," she says quietly, smiling wide, unfathomable eyes searching his face. "You can make it out to Kate."