Disclaimer: This is an amateur non-profit work, and is not intended to infringe upon copyrights held by Andrew Marlowe, ABC, Beacon Pictures, or any other lawful holder.
Chapter 1: Tumbling Down
He sits on the train, watching the scenery pass by, the rolls of hay on farm fields, cars stopped by the tracks, and small shrubs by each plot of land, then tall buildings, soaring skyscrapers, and a thick grey smog over the city, present even as the sun sets in the distance, far away from the bright lights of the famous New York night scene.
He has arrived, though for a fleeting moment, he wishes he is anywhere but here.
As much as he loves New York City, he had appreciated the sense of anonymity in a small town in the middle of nowhere, where no one knows who he is or what his past entailed.
An idyllic dream, but reality is here, in the midst of hordes of people, flashes of paparazzi cameras, and endless noise. This is the life he has chosen for himself, after all.
Grudgingly he picks up his bags, and walks off the train and out of the station. Hailing a cab, he quickly makes a call to his wife.
He only reaches voicemail. Sighing, he mumbles a quick apology and perfunctory love, and steps into the cab.
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He steps gingerly into the – his – apartment, careful not to make any noise. He has no wish to wake Meredith; hell hath no fury like a woman scorned – though, perhaps he is the one who has been scorned.
He chuckles – perhaps that would be the title of the present manuscript he had in his briefcase.
"Something funny, Rick?" It is only at the sound of Meredith's voice Richard Castle realizes that his wife had been waiting up for him in the living room, scantily dressed. Inwardly he groans, but his external physicality has different ideas.
"I'm waiting, Ricky," Meredith crosses her arms. "You told me you would be back by eight. It's half past midnight."
Oh, how fickle he is: simultaneously enjoying her façade and disliking her actions at the same time. She is not serious; in fact, this is but one of her fantasies – jealous wife and cheating husband – not that she needs scenarios to engage in her favourite activity.
How he despises her for reducing him to a sex machine. But oh, how good it felt, until the guilt creeps in again.
"What are you doing, Meredith?" he asks tiredly. "Alexis is asleep –"
She waves dismissively. "She's with your mother."
He knows this already; he hadn't expected her to last two days with the toddler – yet there is still a lingering feeling of disappointment. Though, when all is said and done, his mother is, though not entirely put-together, the better option.
"I'm too tired for this –" Castle weakly protests, dropping his briefcase to the ground, his resolve already weakening as she saunters over to him.
But for once, his spine holds up. "No, Meredith, I've had an exhausting trip, and I really need sleep if I'm to face Gina tomorrow morning."
The next morning Meredith is gone.
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"Mother, she's gone," Rick says tiredly into his phone. He had stumbled out of their guest room to see Meredith had stripped their bedroom entirely of her things – and a few of his besides. On their – his – bare bed lay a stack of papers. Instinctively he knows she has filed for divorce.
Rick,
We had a fun time, didn't we? I'm off to Malibu, with Jeremy. You can have Alexis.
Meredith
"She left me a note. And the divorce papers," he rubs his eyes resignedly. "How am I going to tell Alexis?"
"Oh, Richard," his mother sighs. "I told you she was no good for you."
"Yes, Mother, and now it's over," he replies testily. "I'll come pick Alexis up after my meeting with Gina."
"All right, dear," his mother says airily. "You know where I am."
His meeting with his agent, Gina Cowell, is short. She can sense a different air about him and does not even lecture him on his public image – for once. She does say one thing, though, uncharacteristically. "Rick, I'm here for you if you need me."
Her words haunt him as he goes to pick up his little girl from his mother's apartment. At three, her blue eyes are all his, and her red hair hers. Yet, when he looks down at their combined production, all he can feel is a deep swelling of his heart, of love spilling out beyond what he can imagine – for the little girl who will grow up all right, he promises fiercely.
He knocks.
"Richard, darling." His mother is a welcome hurricane in his already chaotic state of mind. She looks at him with sympathy, though he knows she feels a sense of justification in his current circumstance. "How are you doing, Richard?"
He shrugs. "Relieved, I think. She was too much for me." He can't resist; "Much like you, Mother."
She sputters. "Really, Richard." He is saved by the ringing telephone.
"Martha Rogers, speaking." His mother picks up the phone, and Rick goes out in search of his daughter. His beautiful, precocious, and all-hisdaughter, she sits quietly in her playpen. When she sees her father, her face breaks into a smile, and lifts her hands up to him. "Papa!"
He lifts her out of the playpen, and buries his face in her curls. "Alexis…"
"Papa?" she asks inquisitively. "'Scaring me…"
"Sorry, baby." He needs to know she is real, that his brief marriage to her mother has at least one good result. That he hasn't just wasted the last three years of his life on a flighty twit only interested in sex.
And then she asks the question he isn't sure how to answer, her big blue eyes wide and innocent; "Where's Momma?"
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She hasn't stopped crying since he told her.
Had it been the right choice?
He has tried hard to not pass judgement on Meredith – Alexis deserves to hear all of the truth, not just his side, though his side seems most true at the moment – but it's clear he's not ready to speak about his soon-to-be-ex-wife without any bitterness clouding the timbre of his voice.
Nor is he expected to.
He stays home every night, pushing Gina off about his book tours and signing; his world is Alexis. He moves out of his apartment – he wants every reminder that Meredith was ever in his life gone, and into a loft where he rebuilds his life.
His mother moves in with him.
Everything about this decision chafes at him: he's a grown-up and he can take care of himself. Eventually he concedes Alexis needs a female presence in his life, and as he has no romantic prospects at the moment – if ever; why not his mother?
He's the perfect father – for about three months. Then begins the parties and endless romps, in an effort to forget about Meredith and Gina's doe-eyes and his single-parent status, and the ever burning question of Why wasn't I enough?.
"Richard, I'm going out tonight. You will have to find someone else to take care of Alexis while we're both out." And then his mother is out to her parties, and Rick knows he'll have to stay in tonight. There isn't any way he'd be able to find a babysitter on such short notice. He resigns himself to a long night, alone, again.
He smiles at his daughter who toddles around the play area he's cordoned off in their living room. He feels slightly guilty over leaving his daughter with her babysitter, night after night, yet Alexis still shows nothing less than glowing approval for her father. Quietly, he resolves to keep her with him tomorrow, and take her to the park.
Father-daughter time would be good, he decides. Just Alexis and me for the day, with ice cream. Though perhaps the ice cream is more for him than for her. He smiles again. Perhaps there will be a better day.
Author's Note: Fully intending on this to be a multi-chapter fic, but I need a beta! Also, let me know what you think in the review box below: liked, disliked, grammatical errors, etc. Cheers, Ce'Nelenia