I began writing this before "A Rose For Everafter" aired, and it goes into details of Castle's backstory that can no longer be reconciled with canon. There was no way to fix that, alas, so I stuck with it the way it was. I like him better this way, anyway.
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First he is born. He doesn't remember that part.
***
It starts with drinks. Castle invites her back to his apartment for free booze and insists he has no illicit intentions. They end up at hers, instead, in some ill-defined power grab on her part.
And of course they argue.
Beckett says "Sorry it's not what you're used to," about her apartment.
It is small, and Castle can't imagine ever trying to live on a cop's salary. But he says "No, it's nice."
"Don't patronize me-"
"I'm not pat-"
"Oh, please." She turns away and walks to her kitchen. He follows her.
He says "It's nice!"
She turns around. "Shut up, Castle. You don't think I would rather I had your kind of money?"
"But you could have my kind of money. You're smart, you're beautiful - you could be making as much as you want to-"
"Shut up, Castle."
He doesn't say anything.
Beckett struggles for words. Then she says "Fine. You know all my secrets, I get it. What about you?" And then she laughs. "Do you even have any secrets?"
"Maybe I don't," he says. "But I'm here."
There is a moment of consideration before she kisses him.
***
The first part he remembers is at four years old. Daddy's leaving. This isn't his first daddy. It's the first he remembers, though. His name is Peter, and he is very tall and he wears glasses when he's reading.
Mother comforts him awkwardly afterwards.
***
Six minutes after that first kiss, they finally end up in her bedroom. It takes six minutes because of the second and third kisses along the way. He is a skilled kisser, and if she isn't she at least complements his fascination with a certain talent. By the third kiss they've moved on to groping, and he nearly takes her against the wall.
He brings her off twice before he's even really gotten started, but then she hasn't been laid in months and he gets it just a bit more frequently than that. When they get to the actual sex, it's pretty good too. He could definitely see himself doing it again.
***
He writes his first original story when he is seven. It is called Story. Daddy loves it. This daddy is named Larry and he has a beard, and he obviously knows immediately that his stepson has found his niche. Mother watches, uncertain.
Looking back on it, years later, he realizes something astonishing. Distance added, with the appreciation and understanding of the language that he can claim now, older as he is, he reads Story again. And it's good. For a seven year-old. He isn't quite the Mozart of the manuscript, no savant of saga, but it is better than any seven year-old's writing he's ever read otherwise. Or eight year-old's, or nine. But his experience is limited.
***
Beckett is sleeping, now, but he isn't. She sleeps - apparently - on top of the sheets, or at least she's doing it now, naked as the truth. It's August though. Can't fault someone a little exhibitionism in August. But there's no way he could pass up the opportunity to admire her.
She murmurs in her sleep, just a little.
***
Larry lasts longer than most daddies. He leaves two weeks before Richard's ninth birthday. As usual, it's no fault of Larry's, nor of Richard's. At the time he doesn't understand the argument, but later he comes to realize that mother cheated on him. He doesn't know who with, but he learns enough about the pattern to have a good idea. Maybe it was a stagehand in Chicago or a conductor in Kansas City.
Six months later, he finally figures out that most children's fathers stay around.
Why am I different? is what he wonders.
***
Okay, even watching Beckett gets boring eventually. He tries working on his next manuscript, dreaming up titles (he dismisses In The Heat of the Night, likes Dead Heat but thinks he'll save it for later, finally settles on Dry Heat), even decides to try to really sleep. That's when his cell phone starts to vibrate on the nightstand.
He rolls out of bed as nimbly as he can, though he has never been exactly agile. He grabs the phone and pops it open and, moving away from the bed, says "Hello?"
***
The day after he turns ten, Larry calls. Richard is going to start fifth grade soon, and that means that he is known colloquially, and entirely against his will, as Dick, or, sometimes, Dicky. Mother isn't happy about the call, but she lets them talk anyway.
There are no recriminations, no arguments, no conflicts. Larry wants to know what's going on in his life. Richard tells him, and Larry takes it seriously. Larry likes that he's still writing. Richard likes that nobody in his stories calls him anything like Dicky.
Richard writes more, and Larry is happy when he hears it. Larry calls again every weekend for a month, and then for two. Mother gets angry about it. She barely remembers Larry; there have been a hundred men and another engagement - broken off - in the time since.
After three months, the calls stop. At first Richard thinks it's Larry's fault. He doesn't realize it's his mother's for another five years.
***
"Rick?" asks the woman on the other end of the phone. He recognizes the voice a little.
"Yeah. Listen, it's two in the morning, so-"
"Rick, it's Annie."
He actually stumbles in mid-step. "Annie?"
Her voice is despairing. "Annie Maclear, Rick. You remem-"
"Of course, I remember, Annie, it's just... it's been twenty years."
"I know. It's... I need your help. Please. Can we talk?"
He rubs his eyes, but the thought of saying no is never considered. "Yes. But not at my place."
"But-"
"I have a kid, Annie." It comes out as a hiss.
"Oh," she says. She sounds... betrayed? She has no right to sound betrayed. "All right. Where?"
Not here. The amount of sheer dislike that Katherine Beckett would bring to bear on Annie would be... well, there might not be a word to describe it. "The playground's still there."
***
At the age of eleven, having been in sixth grade for two months, he wins a writing contest - a statewide writing contest for students in middle school. His mother reads the news, her lips pursed together. She frowns.
***
He starts to dress, as he wraps up the conversation. It's a little difficult to put on pants and talk on the phone at the same time, but he's hung up by the time he has to deal with the zipper. He takes his wallet and his keys from the nightstand.
Before he leaves, he chances one more look at Beckett.
She's awake, and watching him. He doesn't ask how long, and he has no way to explain Annie to her. He offers her an apologetic smile he knows isn't enough, and leaves her, naked, behind him.
***
Twelve years old and he meets Annie Maclear. Her name is Anne but she likes to be called Annie. She has short black hair and she's on the school soccer team. She asks him for help with English homework, and by the next week they're the closest friends in the world.
Her father hurts her mother. Never her, though, so he doesn't find out for more than a year, though he always thinks it's weird that he never gets to see her place. When he does find out, it's because she tells him.
"Sometimes he doesn't even need a reason," she says, her feet swinging. They're at a playground, where all the kids are younger than them, but they don't do much playing. Sometimes it's nice to be where people are, where none of them are paying attention to you.
She says "Mama says it's okay, because he still cares. And she says I wouldn't be able to go to such a nice school." It is a very nice school. Richard's in on a scholarship his mother usually doesn't need.
It doesn't seem like much, but Richard tells her about Peter, and Larry, and all the others in between and all the others after. They sit very close together, but Richard is pretty sure Annie doesn't think anything of it.
***
The playground is, of course, empty. It is not yet three in the morning. He doesn't see her, so he sits down on the bench. His feet plant on the mulch. The last time he was here was five years ago, and they were trying out those shredded tire pieces.
A shadow moves, and she says "I've always been so proud of you."
"Annie," he says.
"Rick," she says, and sits down next to him. "I'm so sorry."
"You should be." He can't resist the bite in it.
She doesn't flinch. "It was for your own good."
"Yeah. Funny how no one ever seems to appreciate it."
She smiles. It's a sad smile, but it's not a shy one. "You didn't need me."
"It took me sixteen years to figure out who I was, and you left. And it took me more than twenty to do it again. How old will I be when I figure it out again? Will I be sixty? Seventy?"
She sits in silence.
"Whatever," he says. "We both know, if this is important, I'll do it."
"It's my life," she says.
***
Fourteen. High school starts.
***
"I do security now," she said. "I work for forgers, smugglers, thieves-"
"Independent professionals."
"Yeah." She frowned. "Last month I worked for a guy putting together an art job on a retired mob boss."
"You robbed the mob?"
"No." Annie says it firmly. "I didn't work the job. I'm not that stupid. I followed the guys who were doing the job. Make sure none of them try to pull shit."
"Let me guess. One of them tried to pull shit."
"Yeah. Only..." she stops. She rubs at her arm in a way he's seen a thousand times from junkies. She turns to him, and she does look sorry. "Only, he got to me first. He bribed my dealer to give me bad coke."
"Jesus."
"He killed my boss and took the painting, and I was passed out in my own vomit."
He didn't press her. It was impressive enough she'd admit it to him at all. Instead, he asked "And your dealer?"
"I put him in the hospital." She was nonchalant about it, and he expected nothing more. "He'll be out in three months, they say. I think I'll do it again when he gets out."
He didn't say anything to that.
"The thing is... everybody knows, Rick."
Which meant she'd be friendless, unprotected, and useless in the middle of the highest-stakes criminal network west of Moscow. "Jesus."
***
Annie starts smoking before he does. He doesn't say anything, because he isn't entirely sure he disagrees, and he's fairly certain she'll just hit him for it. She starts out with tobacco, but she's onto pot within two weeks.
He likes her when she's high. She doesn't try to hurt people when she's high, and he's gotten so used to being the one that holds her back when she tries that it's a nice break. Eventually, of course, he takes it up too. It's nice. Nothing special, and he's not attached to it the way Annie is, but it is nice.
Mother doesn't know about the drugs, but she knows she doesn't like Annie. She doesn't like that he doesn't have any other friends. Mother's friend, who teaches theater, tries to be some kind of mentor to him, at Mother's request. He wants to spit in her face, or punch her, but those are things Annie has the stomach for, and he's not violent. But he says no.
***
"All right, how does this work?"
"This guy is headed to talk to a buyer this morning. I convinced the buyer to stay home. You'll stand in."
"And?"
Annie smiles. "You make sure it's the real thing. Then we end him."
We end him. End. Nobody in his life now talks about it like that. "We never killed."
"This is the plan, Rick."
"Annie, we never killed."
"Oh, Christ, are you chickenshit now or-"
"We never killed anyone."
"What," she says. Her foot sweeps at the mulch under her feet. "You think no one ever OD'ed on the stuff we sold 'em? You think all the people we put in the hospital are above ground today?"
"There's a line."
And then she is in his face. Her eyes are wide. His are too. She says "This asshole's left me out to die. The only line is the one between his side and my side."
But he's never killed before. He pushes her away, turns away - wants to walk away.
"If you leave, Rick..." and now she sounds vulnerable, and he's done for. "I'm dead. The only thing keeping me alive is my name, and this guy... this guy took my name."
It's Annie Maclear. What is he supposed to do?
***
Pot was nice, but coke is nectar.
They fuck like animals, except laughing the whole time. As his skin scrapes against hers, and tracks of sweat exchange between their bodies, they don't talk about how she doesn't go home most nights, stays outside the school sometimes and comes home with him as often as Mother will allow it; they don't talk about the fact that his stories are now published regularly, that critics are beginning to notice him. They rut, laughing, and Richard can't stop himself from touching the new spikes she's left in her hair.
When they're not fucking, though, he's writing. His English teacher thinks he's God's gift and his math teacher has to be convinced not to fail him. High, he is the bastard gay lovechild, the deformed fetal alcohol child of Joyce and Hemingway.
***
Annie hands him a gun. He recognizes it for a Glock 27, a tiny little gun with a kick. He checks the magazine, checks the safety, tucks it into the waistband of his pants. "So what am I buying?"
"I don't know exactly. A painting."
"You don't know." He hardly bothers to raise his eyebrows.
"I told you. It wasn't my job."
He finds himself staring down the street. There is a little breeze now, picked up out of nowhere in the way of the weather. "So," he says, "if he asks-"
"Stall."
***
Mother yells at him. She says "I won't have you talking to her anymore."
He laughs at her.
She finds his stash and throws it out; he gets more and keeps it where she won't find it.
She grounds him; he sneaks out.
She confiscates his notebooks; he buys more, and doesn't speak to her for six weeks.
The next time she tries something - anything - he threatens to run away.
***
The seller is a big white man with two bigger black bodyguards. One of the bodyguards is carrying a black duffel bag. The other is carrying an MP5.
"Wait," says the seller. "You're the buyer?"
"That's me," he says.
"You're Richard Castle," says the seller.
There is a pause. Castle resists the temptation to cringe.
"Dude, I've read like half your books. The guys'll never believe this."
"It's always nice to meet a fan."
"Didn't know you were a collector, man."
"I dabble." Castle smiles broadly. "I like to surprise people."
***
They're an odd couple, but they're odder still on the streets of New York. They wander, pulling scams and helping buddies in the Irish and Italian gangs for just enough cash when the royalties aren't enough. These are the glory days. They feel like they'll go on forever.
He's still writing. He knows an editor who doesn't ask questions, and he sends the man notebooks and finds them published in one magazine or another. Richard Castle is a minor legend in underground circles, the kid writer nobody can find.
Eventually they get caught. He gets caught, specifically, helping her get away, because he knows that if it's her she'll go after the cops and things will go downhill from there. They track him to a missing person report. Mother convinces them to let him go, and the next day he runs away again.
He finds her hanging out with a buddy named Mickey in an Irish bar. She laughs, and within an hour they're fucking again. She sucks him off, and he returns the favor, and they take a break for a hit and go at it again.
***
"Where's the money?"
Castle frowns. "Let me see, first."
The big white man laughs. "Don't you trust me?"
"Of course I trust you. Now let me see."
The big white man signals to the big black man with the MP5. He raises it threateningly, if not imaginatively.
Castle raises his hands, not all the way up but enough to placate. "Okay, look. You can do whatever, but you don't get my money until I see-"
"There are other buyers," the seller says.
He turns to the man with the MP5 just in time to watch his head explode. The crack of Annie's rifle comes only a fraction of a second later.
***
He's bleeding. He's been hit in the head with the butt of a gun, so now he's bleeding and he has a hell of a headache. There are seven guys around him - Latinos, the oldest maybe twenty-two. Every one of them is armed and he isn't. The one in charge is Eduardo Jimenez, who is not a nice guy. He's very angry. "Who told you you could screw with Eduardo just like that?" he demands.
"I don't know," says Richard. "The tooth fairy?"
That gets him kicked in the stomach. He's on the floor.
"Okay..." he says, after groaning. "Santa?"
That one gets him kicked in the stomach again. He knew it would, but he doesn't know how else to act.
"I'm being nice here," says Eduardo. "You give up, and go home, and I won't touch your little head. That's better than we do to most white boys like you."
"Okay," says Richard. That sounds good. "I give up. What am I giving up?"
He braces to be kicked, but it doesn't happen. Eduardo is bending over, leaning way down to be able to look him in the face. Then he grins. "You didn't know?" He's laughing now.
There's a disturbance behind him. He turns. It's Annie. "It isn't him you want," she says to Eduardo. "I'm the one who took your guys out."
"And the money?"
"I took the money," she says. "I don't have it anymore. But I'll pay it off. With interest."
Eduardo considers, then nods. "All right. But till you do, you're mine."
Annie nods. "As long as Rick can go." Her hands are clenching into fists, unclenching, clenching again - reflexively.
"All right." He nods at his guys, and one of them unties Richard. Richard stands awkwardly. He's still bleeding. He looks at Annie.
She says "Go."
He just stands there, his senses dulled by surprise and by that headache.
"You're better than this, Rick. Go. Don't come back."
***
The man with the duffel bag drops it, going for his own gun. The seller's going for his, too. Castle succumbs to peer pressure and grabs his own.
The man with the duffel bag, no longer holding the duffel bag, stumbles back abruptly and then collapses as his shirt turns red.
The seller points his gun at Castle, and Castle points his right back. They stand there for a moment. Then there's a deafening crack, and the seller dies. Castle looks down at his finger on the trigger.
He rushes to the man he killed, kneels over him, but it's over and he's crossed the line.
***
He does try to find Annie after, of course. He gets close once, but all anybody will say about her is that she doesn't want to see him.
***
Castle doesn't check their pulses. Annie is on the phone. He wanders back to a nice, solid, stone wall. He can lean against it, and not think. She has his gun. He must have given it to her, but he doesn't remember exactly.
"Rick," says Annie. Apparently she had hung up the phone. He doesn't remember that. She says "That was my boss. I'm forgiven, and he's sending a cleanup crew."
He looks at her, considering shaking his head to force his mind into action. He can't make himself. He knows the way Annie's mind works, and he knows that nothing about this night has been under his control. He has known, really. Annie always knew what to say.
"Rick," she says again. She pauses, looking at him. She looks sad. "Go home," she says.
***
He shows up at his mother's doorstep. She looks at him, at the fresh bandage on the front of his head, at his bloodshot eyes and his too-skinny frame. She says "Come on inside, Richard."
He says "It's Rick now."
***
He doesn't go home. He doesn't know - he can't show his mother this. He can't show Alexis this. He catches a cab, and finds himself grateful for New York cabbies, who don't ask questions. He knocks on Beckett's door. She opens it, and takes in his dirty face and his bloody shirt. She raises her eyebrows.
He says nothing.
She says, half-exasperated, "Get in here, Castle."
He feels something. He doesn't know what. He says "It's Rick, now," and he breaks down, crying.
She cradles his head into her shoulder and shuts the door behind him.