One-shot based off 8x02.
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter—bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter
And because it is my heart."
—Stephen Crane
The wind blows cold off the ocean, makes her eyes sting. Her feet in their sensible shoes—the only kind she can wear these days—are starting to go numb; the screws and scar tissue that hold her knee together snarl in protest at the low temperature. But she faces the sea and doesn't seek shelter, doesn't turn back to look at the city. It will be Christmas soon.
He didn't say what time he'd be here beyond afternoon. She can stay here as long as she pleases. She has nowhere to be and no one waiting for her.
She doesn't so much hear him as sense him. She could have sworn there was no one in sight, but now here he is, appearing out of nowhere. Like Batman, says a voice she hears only in her mind now. She turns to look at him.
He looks old now. Before, even with the silver-fox hair and beard, he didn't look old. Now he's stooped and favors one arm much the way she favors one leg these days. For the first time, she feels like his daughter-in-law.
She's unsure of how to greet him, Hunt or Cross or whatever his real name is. He takes the matter out of her hands by saying, "I can't stay long. Catching a flight out to Europe tonight."
"You're still…?"
He shrugs. "It's all I know."
She hears what he doesn't say. It's all I have. She takes a breath. "I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am."
He only looks at her. His face is blank, as are his eyes.
"I never intended…I tried…" She falters. "I loved him."
"I know," he says. "But you loved something else more."
There's an empathy in his voice that's quietly horrifying, and in an unexpected way as bad as the look of cold hatred that was in Alexis's face; or the way Martha's mind went vaguely wandering as she sat by her window, asking when Richard was coming home; or Ryan and Esposito walking away from her; or the pitying look Deputy Chief Gates wore when accepting her resignation. She realizes that she wanted her father-in-law to berate her, shun her, despise her. His understanding comes because they're alike, more in love with ideals than with people.
And now she's left with a hard-won victory and a medal of commendation and an empty apartment and scars and a band of gold that weighs heavy and threatens to slip off her gaunt finger. And she supposes justice has been served.
"How's it taste?" he asks.
In that moment she sees his son in him. Because Castle wouldn't have asked something so vague as How does it feel? He'd have gone for the precise sensory description.
Like ashes, she wants to say, but that's what he would have said. "Bitter."
He nods, turns away from her to look out at the cold ocean and the lowering gray clouds. "I know," he says.
Now there's something besides blankness in his eyes, and she has to look away. She steels herself for the next apology she has to make, to say she's sorry about Rita, but when she looks back, he's gone, and there's just the sea, the sky, and her.
Sorry for the angst-wallow, but sometimes you just have to go with it.