I don't own anything. Nada. Squat. Niente. Nisba. Niet. Nullius. If I did own even just a share of Castle's rights, nothing of this mess would have happened and we would have had at least a decade of seasons more. And all the Caskett babies we've always dreamed of.

So, here's my Summer 2016 Ficathon entry. For those who still want me to update Shadows, I'm getting there. I just encountered a huge writer's block and I'm trying to navigate around it. Also, this story has been floating around my head for a while (since February, to be honest, when I replayed Snake Eater and Peace Walker and Ground Zeroes in preparation of Phantom Pain) and I thought this would be a different take on an AU spy story.

And... in case a minority of you catch some similarities and stuff, yes, all the parallels, the mentions, names and locations that remind you of the Metal Gear Solid saga are there for a reason.

Hence, I don't own squat of MGS too, it all belongs to KONAMI, the game company that is basically the ABC equivalent of gaming industry that fired its most prized author and yet still wants to make more games out of his creation. Games no one will buy because no Kojima-San no Metal Gear.

Great thanks to Alex for the always awesome betareading, to Travis for the cover art, to Elisa for the fangirling when I told her the basics of the story and to my extraordinary husband-to-be who kindly pointed out that the first two chapters look more like Splinter Cell than MGS. Only problem is that I played only the first mission of the first game of the Splinter Cell saga. That's what happens when you take out the supernatural and the mecha out of MGS. You get Splinter Cell.

Hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I'm enjoying writing it.

Part One - Still In A Dream, Snake Eater

Chapter One - Blind In The Deepest Night

It was a normal morning. The sun shone over New York, a light breeze from the sea brought a certain zesty feeling to the air, and everything was normal. Plain, if you want.

Boring even.

The morning commute crowd was occupying the pavement in front of the Starbucks shop where he was having a well deserved cup of coffee after the short, though intense, meeting with his publisher. Just as usual, they had roasted him for not completing his new novel by the due date and most of all, for killing the main character. His 'golden goose', as they had called Derrick.

Little did they know how Derrick had become stale and boring, not to mention that lately writing Derrick's adventures had started stirring up some of his worst memories, and that brought flashbacks of things he had fought nail and teeth to bury deep down in his mind, never to be recalled ever again.

Thanking the barista, he grabbed the cup and headed outside the shop. The cold breeze made him shiver a little bit, beneath the too thin coat he had mistakenly worn that morning, and he took a sip of the coffee in his hand, looking around.

There was a strange feeling, nagging him the back of his head. It wasn't a migraine, they never started that way for him, it was something he had thought he would never experience again, not after Alaska at least. Ever since he had woken up, that morning, he had felt like a tiny woodpecker was trying to carve a hole in his skull, as of to warn him of an impending danger. And he didn't like it.

"Come on Rogers, get a grip. You're not in the military anymore," he told himself, under his breath as he started walking down the pavement heading home. He'd usually take a cab or the subway, but he needed to clear his head a little bit.

He had left his days as a Green Beret behind. Ages ago. He had managed to create a new life, away from the hectic deployments, the covert ops, the secrets and the lies that he had been fed for years as he did all the wetwork for a government that was ready to leave him on the battlefield if things went south.

No more. No more calls in the middle of the night, no more solo missions in hostile environments, no more sketchy instructions given by crooked officers that had even more crooked deals with arms dealers, lobbyists and other awful human beings. He had given it up when his PTSD had gotten worse, so bad he had abandoned his own daughter for six months in order to deal with his own demons.

And yet, there was that feeling, he couldn't get it out of his head.

His instructors, nearly twenty years earlier, had described that sort of sixth sense for incoming danger he had as the innate ability that would get him out of every battlefield he'd ever set foot on.

To him, it felt more like a curse. All of the guys he had trained with had perished in the line of duty somewhere in time, while he had always returned home, one way or another. Some pieces of him were left on those battlefields, but he had always returned home.

"Come on…" he murmured again, trying to find something else to think of, and he had almost found it when in the corner of his eye he saw black van speeding down the road and a dark police cruiser following it, police lights flashing but siren turned off.

No one around him seemed to have noticed the sudden apparition of the two dark vehicles but it made him stop, for whatever reason. It wasn't a case of speeding, of course, that was was an unmarked car with a plain clothed police officer riding it, and the van had something suspect about it.

Something that caught his eye.

And when the woman riding the cruiser first approached the driver of the van, after they had pulled over, then went to frantically open the back of the van and stop and look at its contents, he realised that the bad feeling that been tormented him all morning had a reason to be there.

Even at that distance, across the street, behind the petite frame of the woman, he could see the distinctive shape of the universal nuclear hazard sign plastered over a sealed, pressurized container.

A dirty bomb.

Without even thinking and throwing all caution out of the window, he dropped the still full cup of coffee and sprinted towards the van. He dodged countless cars, hopped above the hood of a couple of them and finally reached the woman.

Before she could even turn her head to see him, he unceremoniously shoved her out of his way and took a look at the explosive device in front of him. Nothing too complex, but he recognized the style. The way the whole thing was built, the materials used for the containers, the detonator and the way everything was wired. He had seen this type of work in the past. Quite recently too.

As the memories of his bomb defusing course came back, so did the adrenaline rush of the battle. A battle against a timer, that read ten seconds before the deflagration would instantly kill everyone in the small plaza and scatter enough radioactive material to contaminate New York for years, depending what kind of isotope had been stored in the leaded, sealed yellow canisters hanging above the explosive charges. He had seen it all, multiple times. It was the style of a very distinct man he had fought against over and over again since 1993.

He had no time to defuse it. Not the traditional way. But the fight or flight instinct he had spent so many years perfecting with training and conditioning was telling him that despite the lack of time he had at least try to do something, so he took a deep breath, grabbed the bundle of colored wires and yanked them out of their sockets.

He didn't really hear the woman behind him screaming not to do it, but as the timer ticked the last available second and nothing happened, he heard the loud yell of joy she belted out as she hugged him tight. And he hugged her back, despite not knowing a thing about that woman, except that she was clearly a member of the NYPD doing her job as she chased a suicide bomber down the streets of Manhattan.

He was still holding his breath and the wires in his hand when the woman let him go and finally he had the chance to see her clearly.

Never in his life he had laid his eyes on a woman as gorgeous as her, her smile alone would be enough to make a thousand men fall in love with her. He could swear his heart raced faster now than when the bomb was about to blow them all to hell.

"Oh my God…" Her voice came a strangled whisper. "What the hell are you doing here?" she asked him, flashing her badge pinned to her belt, beneath the coat.

"Richard Castle, at your service," he replied, deflecting the question and extending his hand. But it was clear that she knew him, or at least his face.

"Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD." She took his hand and shook it. "Now please explain how a mystery novelist knows how to defuse a bomb?"

Yes, she clearly knew him and his career choice.

"Well… it's a long story."

One that he didn't really want to tell her.

Despite that, he followed her to her precinct and answered her questions, as sincere as he could be.

"What were you doing at the scene this morning?" It was her first question, right after she had closed the door of the interrogation room behind her.

That, he could answer easily. "I had just come out of a nasty meeting with my publisher after I failed to turn in my last novel before the deadline. I had bought a cup of coffee and I was walking home when I saw your flashing lights and the van."

Detective Beckett sat in front of him and opened the folder she was carrying to a newly printed photo of the bomb in the van. "And what made you cross the street and risk your life to come and see what was going on?"

He shrugged. "Curiosity, I guess."

Awful. Absolutely awful. Good job Rick, he thought to himself. He was the worst liar in the world, he knew it, but he tried to school his face into a bland expression of honesty.

She wasn't exactly convinced too, so she took the photo and turned it towards him. "You have seen this type of bomb before, haven't you?" It was more of a statement, than a real question. "You've seen and defused another one. How come a humble mystery writer like you knows how to defuse, despite the brutal ways you employed, a bomb that our own technicians were staggered and wouldn't know what to do with?"

He have her another shrug. "I write novels about a CIA operative. I made research for those novels. I've seen pictures of bombs like that, asked for help from bomb specialists to have some insight about describing these types of bombs. One of said bomb disposal specialists simply showed me a picture of a bomb like that and told me that the safest way to defuse a bomb like that, is to yank the wiring."

"Can I have the name of that specialist?"

"It was in fact Peter Stillman, of the NYPD. Happened quite some time ago, I doubt he would recall my name or face."

"Yes, I don't doubt it, but I'd say he'd have a hard time recalling your face simply because he's dead."

Oh. The news shocked him. He had met Stillman in the early nineties, last he had heard of him was right in the aftermath of 9/11, as he released a number of interviews about how bombs were definitely not involved in what had happened, that was how he learned he had moved from Special Forces to the NYPD.

"I'm sorry to hear it."

"Sure you are." She didn't seem so impressed. "Again though, why did you walk up to the van instead of escaping and save yourself?"

"I guess that after spending thirteen years in the military you learn a lot about self sacrifice," he revealed. "When I saw the bomb, I just reacted like any other soldier would do."

"I didn't know you were in the army."

"Special Forces. Honorably discharged in 2005."

It wasn't true completely true. The Honorable Discharge part was, but the year was wrong. His last mission had taken place in 2005, but just as the secret missions of the movies, that mission didn't appear in his record. Or any other official records, to be honest.

Now it was her turn to be stunned. Detective Beckett knew about his writing career, but his affiliation with the US military had never been revealed. Most of all because he had enlisted using his given name of Rogers and not the literary pseudonym he had been using as his official name, lately.

"And you wrote books even while enlisted?"

"Deployment can be boring."

The half truth seemed to satisfy her, for the time being, but Castle was sure he hadn't seen the last of Detective Kate Beckett.

And considering who were they investigating on, he was sure they'd need his help to find the guy who had built the bomb. And the guys that had purchased the materials, organized what looked like a full blown terrorist attack, from what he had heard. The operation seemed like they were going to blame Islamic terrorism, but Beckett's squad before and his own intervention had turned their plans upside down, thwarting their attempts to cause a new, even deadlier 9/11.

They didn't know it, but they were about to bite more than they could chew, if they went on with the investigation. They were on a path that would lead them all to one single place.

The graveyard.

Too bad they didn't know it.

"Mr. Castle, on behalf of the NYPD and the Mayor I thank you for your help defusing the bomb. You will probably receive a medal for it."

"I accept the gratitude but you can keep the medal. I have a whole lot of of them in a box at home, and all the blood spilled on them makes me hate them, I don't want another one."

"No blood has been spilled for this one, Mr. Castle."

"Not that you know of."

She leaned back and crossed her fingers on the table, rolling a pen between her thumbs. "You know more than you're telling me, I can see that. I doubt you have only seen pictures of this bomb before, you knew exactly where to look and what would happen. And I don't buy the whole research thing, at all," she explained. "I understand your military background would give you a reasonable knowledge of explosive devices, but there's more to this. I and plan to find out what it is, whether you tell me or not."

Castle looked straight in her eyes and crossed his arms at his chest. "Detective Beckett, I can't tell you more because I don't know anything more." He strategically avoided adding about this to his words. "I have seen bombs in my life and after a while they all look the same. Detonator, explosive, wires… this one had just the radioactive material added to it. You can interrogate me again if you want, but I don't know more than what I told you."

"We'll see about that," she exclaimed, standing up. "Don't leave town."

When let go, hours later, Castle rushed home as fast as he could.

Forgoing lunch completely, despite the pangs of hunger made his stomach cramp, he stormed into his study and tore the large framed picture of the spiral staircase from the wall.

He was punching the drywall when his mother walked in, all flustered and worried. "Richard? What on earth are you doing?"

He finally tore enough plasterboard away to reveal a hidden safe. "They're back, Mother." His voice was almost reduced to a whine, while he punched in the combination and opened the thick steel door. "They were about to turn New York in a post apocalyptic scenery with a dirty bomb."

From the safe, he took a thick pile of papers, three frayed manila folders and a bunch of old pictures from his time in the military and he splayed them over his desk.

"A dirty bomb? Here?" asked again Martha.

"Yes they…" he paused his words just the time he needed to find a picture of a bomb very similar to the one he had defused that morning among the others. "They were going to blow us all up."

"With they you mean they as the group of rogue secret service agents that did that thing in Bosnia and Alaska?"

He nodded. "Among other things." His mother was the only one, outside his commanding officers and a few other generals back in Washington, that knew the truth about the nature of his missions. "Them. Too many things coincide, from the type of bomb they used to the modus operandi… they're back. And this time I'll put them down, one way or another. Tomorrow I'll take this to the NYPD detective working on the case and…"

"And what? Richard, those men are dangerous. Last time you tried to investigate on them they sent you to Alaska with the sole purpose of being their scapegoat for their failing coup d'etat. What do you think will happen this time?"

"I don't care. I'm done running away. I ran away for years after Bosnia and Shadow Moses, this time, I'll stop them, once and for all. I'm done hiding."

Martha took a deep breath and walked up to him, taking his hand in hers. "The flashbacks are back, aren't they?"

He fell on his desk chair, hiding in face in the crook of his elbow. "Yes."

"Why don't you just visit a therapist?"

"Oh yeah right, I just waltz in and say hey I'm a war veteran that nearly died trying to prevent the genocide in Bosnia before his boss calls him and threaten to accuse him of treason if I go and kill Mladic and prevent the death of thousands of innocent people?" he nearly shouted. "Should I go in and just spill the fact that there's someone, an oligarchy of powerful secret service agents that actually pilots the United States Of America via a perpetual state of war they instigate in order to keep the population under control with fear of something they supervise? Or maybe that through information control they feed us twisted and partial truth about what's really going on in the world to keep us in check? Oh that would just be the icing to the cake and boom, I'm being labelled insane and interned for life."

She knew he was right, he could read it in her eyes. Defeated, Martha simply let go of his hand and walked away. "I need to make a call, then I'll make you coffee. It's going to be a long afternoon." Then she left him to his notes.

Somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a man stood on the helipad of his offshore platform, enjoying the view of an oncoming storm already ravaging the sea some miles away, while the moon still cast its pale light on his home of concrete and steel.

The smoke of his cigar shone in the moonlight, while lightening lacerated the sky on the horizon. The scents of a storm were already engulfing him and humidity was rising, clinging to his old bones and the battered Vietnam war era fatigues he wore that day. He'd soon have to retire to his cabin to catch some sleep and be ready for the next day.

The chirping of his burner phone disturbed his quiet moment. Without even looking, he picked up the call. It didn't last long. From the other side of the line, a female voice he hadn't heard in forty years came to his ear like a siren song to deliver a code only known by the two of them.

As soon as the call had came, it ended.

With a deep sigh of disappointment, the man closed the call and put the phone back in the back pocket of his pants, then headed to the office of his intel manager.

Never in his life he would have wanted to hear those codes convened many years before between the two spies, over months of coded messages exchanged between postal boxes. It was a call for help, a distress signal meant to protect someone they both cared about, deeply.

Her words looped in his head like the blaring of an antiaircraft alarm he had heard so often in his past, haunting him until he felt even the marrow of his bones had frozen over with fear.

"V Has Come To."

Word count: without the long author note 3237