Castle understands sin. Not in the religious sense - the Bless me Father, for I have sinned sense - but rather the oh my God, I must have it sense. He understood it early, had reveled in it, had rolled it around his mouth and mind until he had perfected his enjoyment of it. Until he had lost all guilt or remorse in his revelry.
Once upon a time, Martha had taken him to church - It's for a part, dear, dancing nun - and he had been amazed not by the spirituality, but by the theater. Smoke and mirrors and no small amount of costuming. Watch, Richard, and you shall see the greatest show on Earth. As an adult, he had taken that sense of theater and run with it, chalking up his own tally of the great seven and mocking the bread and wine with champagne and hors d'oeuvres.
He thinks now he knows when he was lost. He thinks now he knows when he was saved.
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She is his Mary and his Delilah and he wavers between wanting her to lift him up and make him better or cut his hair and make him humble and he is never certain which side she will encourage - saved or sinner - and he finds that unquestionably the most erotic thing he's ever encountered.
Noli me tangere and yet he circles about her waiting for the moment when he can touch and he wonders if he's placed her upon a pedestal that is destined to fall. Pride, Richard, he reminds himself - his, hers, theirs - and he knows it is only time before he is Samson and he no longer has the strength to carry them both forward.
This is my blood of the new covenant, which shall be shed for many. And the covenant that had been made - the four of them swearing on brotherhood and love and loyalty - had been blessed in blood twice over and he cannot stop washing his hands for the sight of it. He can feel it on his skin, warm and sticky and nothing like the descriptions in his books, and he runs the water so hot that Alexis steps in and turns it off, wrapping his hands in a towel, questions lurking in her eyes she's too afraid to make real.
He retreats to his office and sits, too tired to sleep and too worn to rest. He's waiting for a sign, for an indication of the battle to come - he has become St. George and the dragon has come for payment. The manilla envelope on his desk - oh, God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee - both saves and condemns him and he knows that he cannot tell her and he cannot walk away and that leaves a bottle of bourbon, a gun, and a letter to be written to fill the last hours of darkness before morning.
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
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In the end, as the sun rises and he seals the envelope, he knows that every moment of his life, every minute of excess and every act of contrition, has brought him to this point. He has grown from boy to man and she has been the one to give birth to that change in him and he has nothing left to offer her but this... this one act.
He never believed in God, but he believes in salvation - Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death - and he knows that if he returns, he is both blessed and cursed. He will tell her, one day, that he did this to save her, to protect her, to protect them all. But in truth, he does it to save himself - from his sins, from his pride, from his need to know more about her past and their future. For now, he slides the gun into his pocket and puts the letter in his safe and he wonders if he had paid attention more in that church all those years ago he would be any less afraid.
He knows now the moment he was lost. He knows for certain the moment he was saved.