Fire and Ice

A Castle Fanfic by ChrisPerryRyan11

AU set after 'Under Fire' before S7.

'Some say the world will end in Fire

Some say in Ice' ~Robert Frost

"Bro, maybe you should slow down a little, I don't know about you, but I can barely see out the window, let alone the road," suggests Detective Kevin Ryan hesitantly from the passenger seat of his partners cushy police outfitted sports car.

Besides him the Irishman's partner is leaned over as far as his seatbelt allows, driving 'white knuckled', attempting to see through the near white-out of snow. "Shut up, will you? I'm fine," his voice is tight and he grits out the sentence through gritted teeth.

The world around them is completely white and the only shapes they can see clearly jump out at them moments before they pass out of the headlights.

"1 novel of mystery on the wall, 1 novel of mystery, take one down pass it around, 0 novels of mystery on the wall!" Ryan breathes a brief sigh of sweet relief before the author starts back up again. "99 novels of mystery on the wall, 99 novels of mystery, take one down pass it around, 98 novels-"

"CASTLE!" Detective Javier Esposito hollers, finally loosing his last shred of already strained patience with the writer. "Would you Shut The Hell Up already!? Can't you see I'm trying to get us out of this alive? I Really, Really Don't need another rendition of '99 beers on the wall' Thank You Very Much!"

Richard Castle, seated in the back, huffs in annoyance but falls silent, Ryan releases another sigh of relief, that's unfortunately also short-lived. "Hey! Hey Ryan! Guess what I know," the writer says in Ryan's ear.

"What Castle? What do you know?" The detective asks, knowing the writer wouldn't shut up until he responded.

"I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves. I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves and this is how it goes. Buh Buh Buh..." the writer might've continued on indefinately but Ryan pops open the glove compartment and produces a roll of shiny silver fabric and a pair of metal cuffs.

The writer promptly shuts up, but starts unknowingly humming to himself, he'd only succeeded in getting the infernal song stuck in His head.

Finally able to fully concentrate on the road Espo and Ryan sit in the comfortable silence, both peering into the wall like snowfall. Ryan pauses from his self assigned job of adding another set of eyes on the road to consult a road map. "Shit," he comments half-heartedly.

"What now Bro?" Espo asks, momentarily distracted by the younger detective's worrisome comment.

"Did you happen to see a sign in the last few minutes that said 'Townsend Pass'? Perhaps while I was detaining Castle," asks Ryan anxiously.

Esposito feels his heart sink a little. "Possibly, yes. Was that our turn? If it was we may be just a little screwed, cause that was a while ago if memory serves."

Ryan's anxiety spikes. "According to this map, yes. We may be screwed unless we find a turn around point."

"I don't see what the problem is guys, we're the only ones crazy enough to be out here in this storm so a u-turn should solve all our problems," the car slows to a slippery stop and both glaring detectives slowly turn to face the writer. "Why are you guys lookin' at me like that?"

"Castle! We're not in the city anymore! We're on some skinny road several hundred feet higher than normal above sea level! Executing a u-turn in normal conditions here would be risky and take hours, in these conditions forget it," explains Ryan, trying to remain calm.

"So Quit Backseat Driving!" Espo exclaims in frustration.

Castle holds up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay bad idea. Hey, Ryan, are there any other roads marked on that map in, oh let's say the next 10 miles?"

Ryan, puzzled, consults the map. "Nope, there's not another for about 15 miles. Why?"

Castle pales and gulps before pointing past the steering wheel. "Our idiot light just turned on, we're just about out of gas," as if on cue the car dings loudly.

All three men glance, in unison, at the blinking light and then each other. "Oh Shit," says Espo, turning the car off, basically summing all their thoughts in one word.

"Espo, this is a Dodge Charger, correct?" A nod. "That means we've got 35 miles til empty. Ryan, how far do we go on Townsend Pass?"

Ryan once again consults the map, his bright blue eyes sweeping back and forth across the page. Eventually he swallows hard and looks up. "About 20 miles and since we're 5 miles past the turn,"

"That gives us 10ish extra miles for the u-turn and the weather conditions. That is based on the '35 miles until empty' statistic I'm using, which by the way factors in normal conditions," finishes Castle.

"This is by no means normal so I think the vote would be unanimous," adds Esposito.

All three men share a grim look about their dire situation before nodding. "Yeah, U-turn it is."

Esposito turns the car back on. "Buckle up everyone this is gonna be Real fun."

Carefully he pulls the car back into the middle of their lane and slowly begins to execute the U-turn. All seems to be fine when Espo finally manages to get the car sideways, completing the trickiest part of the maneuver, all three occupants breathe sighs of relief.

Castle absentmindedly glances out the window on his side, the side that was now facing the way they'd been going, he peers through the smokescreen of snow. 'Was that? Yep.'

An SUV. A black SUV barreling straight at them. Castle finds himself without words and Espo moves the car, with Ryan's help, into a position that had their back end precariously close to the ledge, their front end in the path of oncoming traffic.

When it's right on top of them the spell on Castle breaks just as the SUV's brights blind the three friends. "Look Out!"

Then there's noise, shouts, curses, sharp light, it all ends in dark, coldness and a half-hearted comment. "Well, Shit," and everything goes black.

Chapter 2 coming soon! Perhaps even November 21st depending on reviews, perhaps even sooner.

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