Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance, Family, Humor

Rating: M for violence, language and sexual situations

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters featured on the show Castle, they belong to the creator of the show, ABC, and the others who do own them.

A/N #1: Okay, since this prologue is so short, I'm going to be posting the next chapter in a few hours, so look out for that if you want to read more of this story!

A/N #2: The title of this story is the title of a song by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, the version I'm taking from Michael Bublé, from his album It's Time. And I just want to note to my readers, the title of the story doesn't mean this is the last one in the series, not in the slightest, lol. The title of this chapter is the title of a song written by Ringo Starr and George Harrison, from Ringo's album Ringo.

Photograph

The rasping sound was quiet, but he didn't care, it was visible immediately to him as the image soon disappeared under numerous lines. He held the photograph up to the light, seeing he'd scratched so hard that time that it was shining through the paper in a few places. There was a slight smile as he had the sudden wish he could do the same to the subject, but he knew there was time, there had been a lot of waiting, but things were nearly in place and he could begin.

He wondered what would happen when they knew, what would they say, what would they do? He was optimistic, but so many years of watching had led him to believe that it would be tough to get through. But he was patient; he'd always been patient. Since they'd first met he'd been waiting, he'd had to learn to be. He went to the wall in front of him as it was clean then and pinned it up with the other photographs that were there. He then went back and picked up the next one in the stack he was working through. There he picked up a sharp scalpel, slicing the unnecessary subject out of the photo that time. There was a method, there needed to be, to show how he was only going to want them to himself.

There was the sound of more scratching, and he suddenly snapped, digging the scalpel into the photo, gouging out the subject's face, the smile that made him feel like strangling that subject with his bare hands. He ripped up the picture as there was a gaping hole when he realized what he'd done, and he quickly tossed it into the trash, already a small pile there with other results of his intense frustration.

"All you had to do was look," he muttered, taking the next picture. "Look and see where I am, always with you. You never looked." He sighed and didn't touch that photo; it was perfect. He went to the wall next to the other, pinning it with other pictures that were unmarred and he tilted his head as he could see from the top of the wall to the bottom the difference in the years of his photography. Things had changed, but as time had gone on, there were less and less in the way of those perfect photographs, and his lip curled up in a sneer. "You were supposed to be all alone, and all mine," he told the subject, almost spitting the words out. "All you had to do was look…"

Turning back to the desk in the small room, he sat down again, looking at the next picture. It was outside, at an amusement park. Coney Island, he reminded himself. He had been watching, pretending not to want what he couldn't have in that moment on that perfect summer day. He quickly reminded himself that there would be a time when he wouldn't have to act, wouldn't have to hide, to pretend that every second with them wasn't an agonizing march of time. He breathed out then as he scratched then cut and pinned up that picture. Sitting down he scratched, then pinned. Scratched, gouged and had to throw away.

Cutting that picture he murmured lovingly to the subject remaining there, telling them to wait, not to go through with what they had planned, what he'd discovered. He would stop things before they got so far he told himself, before the object of his desire made the biggest mistake of their life. He would help them and they would be together, as they should have been in the first place.

He pinned up the picture that was complete, and studied his other wall, the one with the marred photographs and he smiled before saying, "You don't know do you? I take pictures and keep taking them to have you with me. But you'll understand why I do this for you; you'll see that I want you like no other man has ever wanted you before. You'll have something with me you never could get with them, all of them; especially this one," snarling on the last two words, as there were pictures up at to the ceiling down to almost his waist. All of them scratched out until around a quarter of the way through, then they became a mix of scratches and cuts.

Walking back to the desk, he saw his next picture was a perfect one, taken the month before, surreptitiously with his phone as he'd been there. He ran his fingertip across her cheek in the photo as he took it over to his wall filled with other pictures of her whispering, "I promise you Katherine, soon."