This is a fill for one of the prompts on the castlefanficprompts tumblr, I'll post it at the bottom. Thank you for reading. Oneshot.

I have had no time to write anything of substantial length lately and that makes me super sad. If you want to PM me prompts or message me on tumblr (castleholic) I'd love to maybe do a drabble series because I hate not-writing and all I have right now is a bunch of incomplete documents I don't have time to finish. (I'd also like to apologise for everyone who has reviewed anything of mine lately and not received a reply because I am so grateful. But busy. I hate school).

Disclaimer: If I owned Castle, Stana Katic would be contractually obliged to wear a tie at least once an episode.


They don't remember


She wakes up in hospital, a riot of angry colours spinning across her vision and pounding against her skull. Curses the inevitable mandatory leave she'll be on from work. If only she could find her phone she'd be on the line to Royce, make sure that the time off won't harm her chances of making detective in the near future.

She corrects the young nurse when he calls her Detective. She'll accept the title when she's earned it.

He gives her a strange look, and asks her the year.

She rolls her eyes and tells him it's 2003, of course. His eyes bug, and it's with shaking hands that he pulls a - is that a cellphone?! It looks practically space age - from his pocket.

March, 2014, the device claims. She heaves into the bin beside the bed.


He wakes up in hospital, tubes and lines holding him hostage in the crisp white sheets. Wants to know where his wife is, and why his ten year-old daughter looks closer to twenty. Except she's not just reached double digits. She's nineteen, at college now, and Gina isn't his wife. Hasn't been for seven years. He wonders what went so wrong, so rapidly; as far as he can remember, they are blissfully happy.

He weeps for the memories he's lost.


Her dad tells her she's engaged to Richard Castle, and she laughs. Funny joke. He knows he's her favourite author.

She would be mad at him for using this… amnesia (she hates the word, feels like a character in a second-rate romcom) to play tricks on her, but seeing him sober she can't find it in herself to be anything but grateful.

And then he tells her he's serious, and she reads the truth in his eyes. But - if she is engaged (and to Richard Castle, jeez) then where the hell is he?

"That's the thing, sweetheart." Her father tells her, voice cracking with something close to grief. "He doesn't remember you either."

Must have been one hell of a car accident, she thinks.


His mother tells him that he's engaged to one Detective Kate Beckett of the NYPD-

-he asks for Gina.

She's at a conference in LA, Martha tells him.

"Won't she come back?" He questions, begs really. "Tell her I love her. Won't she come back?"

His mother runs a tired hand through her red mane, squeezes his hand tight and tells him she'll call her.


Maybe if she sees him she'll remember, the doctors hypothesise.

So they stick her in a chair - apparently she's the one in better condition - and wheel her into the adjacent room.

He looks older than she recalls from his book jackets. Then again, seeing her own reflection should have prepared her for that.

He stares at her blankly, and she waits for that spark of recognition to hit. To zap through her veins and fill in the blanks of the last eleven years.


Maybe if he sees her he'll remember, the doctors hypothesise.

So they wheel her in in a chair, and she's undeniably gorgeous; even with the lacerations that streak her skin in crimson strokes she's near-ethereally beautiful.

But not his wife.

That lightning bolt the doctors were hoping for doesn't come - he doesn't know this woman.

Doesn't particularly want to, either. Just wants Gina.


"So," she asks, finally. Breaks the uncomfortable silence. "How much have you lost?"

"Nine years." He husks, tears held at bay. Nine years of Alexis' life and it kills him. "You?"

"Eleven."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah. Me too. For yours and mine."

It's a silent understanding between them - the lack of desire to make this thing that neither of them remember work. They're both in the past; one where she's young and not interested in commitment. More interested in her work (and perhaps her training officer) than anything else.

He's in love with another woman, stuck in a long-since-finished marriage that he can't accept as over.

As far as they're concerned, there's nothing between them to lose.

They don't speak again after that, not for a fair while. Not until the nurse comes in to take Kate back to her room.

"It was nice meeting you," he says politely.

"And you," she replies with equal courtesy.

She leaves the - her - engagement ring on the table beside his bed.

"I've seen fics where Castle or Beckett get amnesia. How about both at the same time? (Talk about a fresh start...)" - ANONYMOUS