Follows: Zeitgeist, Prologue: One Giant Leap

Chapter One: Brave New World

We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again:
And, by that destiny, to perform an act,
Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge.
—The Tempest; Act II, Scene I

Manhattan, New York; December 17th, 2010

Kate Beckett pressed her lips together to suppress an amused smile as Castle jogged along ahead of her. He was walking backwards so he could be sure of her full attention, arms swinging in a wide gesture as he spoke at her animatedly. She might have warned him had he allowed her to get a word in, but as it was there was no saving him from his collision with the uniformed officer who came up behind him.

At least he hadn't spilled his coffee on himself or their crime-scene.

While Castle turned to express his apologies to the officer, Kate took her opportunity and ducked under the tape. He was quick to catch up, though he seemed to have lost track of their conversation—monologue. Whatever.

"Where was I?"

Kate considered pretending not to remember, but knew he'd just act hurt if he thought she wasn't listening. Though she'd never admit it to anyone, least of all him, Rick's pout wasn't an easy thing to deal with.

"Specials," she reminded him dutifully, with a patient smile, "and how to write them into your books."

It was pretty much all that he had been able to talk about for more than a week. Not that he was alone in that. The news had only been broken two weeks ago, and the issue was at the forefront of everyone's minds. The knowledge had been overwhelming, though in his typical fashion, Castle had managed to deal with it by shrinking it down to something he could deal with: fiction. Right now, Kate was thankful that buffer existed between the enormity of the subject of specials and the conversation they had actually been having. Otherwise, she might not have been able to put the thoughts aside and focus on her job.

"Oh, right," Castle said with a vacant blink, eyes moving as he retraced the conversation and before he blitzed right back into it. "Anyway, it's an important step if I want to stay relevant. It's a brave new world out there, Kate."

She managed not to sigh. Castle was more of an asset to her team than she would ever admit to anyone out loud, but that usefulness had flagged ever since the bizarre incident in Central Park. At first she'd simply forgiven it—to be honest Kevin hadn't been much better. Everyone had been awed and shaken by the revelation that had been made to the world that night, and—in Castle's words the following week—who could focus on something like murder when there were people out there who could fly? Walk through walls? Live forever? Adjusting to that reality hadn't been easy for anybody. In the beginning, Kate had worried about Javier. His reaction had struck her as being...off somehow. The wake of the Park Incident had left him oddly quiet, and whatever he was dealing with had proved very damaging to his focus. Thankfully, he'd also been the first to shrug it off, putting it behind him after only a few days and keeping his mind busy with whatever was in front of him. Kate had tried do the same.

Castle, meanwhile, had seemed childishly vindicated by the whole thing; as though in proving that the world wasn't ironed-out as flat as everyone had once thought, the universe had somehow done him a favor, and he was loath to let the topic go for even a minute. While she could understand his excitement, facing it daily would quickly become exhausting.

"It's the same world, Castle," she said, finally, knowing he needed something. "We just know more about it."

Castle frowned thoughtfully.

"So you're saying I should use one of the characters I already have?" He paused, considering. "Huh. Do you think revealing Ochoa as a special would throw off Roach's dynamic...?"

Kate's mouth pulled in that smile she'd been avoiding and she shook her head. Turning around she greeted Kevin Ryan and his partner a with a nod before she turned her attention to the victim.

The body had been found inside the first floor loft of a warehouse building in Chelsea. He was an older man, in his sixties or seventies, with receding grey hair that had been pulled back into a short ponytail. A pair of round, dark-framed eyeglasses hung askew on his face. He was dressed for the weather, a long dark scarf and a grey coat thrown over his sweater, shirt and tie. The sweater, originally a medium blue-grey, had been darkened to a murky color by the blood which had run out from a narrow puncture wound just under his sternum. Blood had pooled around the body where it lay, obscuring what looked to be the remains of a long-faded mural that had once been painted on the floor. From the amount of blood that had collected, Kate knew this was unlikely to have been a dump.

"What do we have?" she asked, finally.

"A patrolman discovered the body around four A.M. when he noticed the front door of the building had been left wide open," Kevin supplied, looking over his notes. "Uniforms have already asked around the neighborhood, but so far they haven't come up with any witnesses. The building has been empty for more than three years, and the lock showed signs of tampering, so we're probably looking at a break-in. The victim's name is Jonas Zimmerman. Seventy-five according to his California driver's license, which lists his current address in Reseda."

"He's a long way from home," Lanie Parish observed as she stepped around the two detectives to snap a picture.

The camera's flash highlighted a glimpse of white peeking out from beneath the victim's scarf.

"May I?"

At the ME's nod, Kate stepped forward carefully and crouched down to get a better look. Taking a pen from her pocket she drew the fabric to the side. Underneath she saw the white flower the victim wore buttoned to the lapel of his coat. It was strange-looking. The long, thin petals arrayed star-like around the yellow clusters at the center had an odd, furry texture.

"Our guess is that he was here visiting family," Kevin continued, flicking his fingers toward Javier in an inclusive gesture. "He was carrying a letter on him from a Barbara Zimmerman with an address in Mid-Town. We're hoping the body of the letter might confirm that, there's just one problem."

He handed her the letter as she stood. Skimming its contents through the protective plastic, Kate was quick to see the problem herself.

"It's in German," Castle commented, leaning over her shoulder. Kate repressed the childish urge to drag the letter away where he couldn't see. "Does that say Auschwitz?"

"Do you speak German, Castle?" Kate asked skeptically, looking over her shoulder.

"Uh, no," Castle admitted innocently, "but I know how 'Auschwitz' is spelled."

"It doesn't say 'Auschwitz'."

Castle shifted his coffee to his other hand and pointed with a gloved finger to a spot on the page. Kate squinted.

"Okay," she admitted, reluctantly, "Maybe. But lets wait on CSU's translation before you jump to any conclusions."

"Aw, but Kate," Castle said, looking at her with an exaggeratedly sorrowful expression, "If I wait then when the translation reveals the epic Nazi conspiracy outlined in the letter, I won't be able to say 'I told you so'."

Kevin shook his head with a smile, and even Javier snorted at that. It was the most Kate had heard from him all morning.

"Alright," she said, turning to the two detectives so that Castle wouldn't see her own smile, "I want you two to check out that address and try and track down Barbara. I'm going to head back to the station and contact the PD in Reseda while we wait on the letter. See what I can get on our victim."

"You got it," Kevin said.

He glanced at his partner briefly, and Kate caught his slight frown. Javier drew his attention away from their victim and tossed Kevin a nod, still silent. As they took off together Kate glanced over at Castle. From the writer's puzzled expression, whatever was going on, he had picked up on it too.

"Hey Lanie," he asked, looking over at the ME who was now bagging the peculiar, furry white flower. "What's up with Javier? He's kind of quiet today."

Lanie tossed a glance at the retreating pair, lips pursing slightly.

"Castle, I haven't got a clue what Detective Esposito's problem is," she answered, raising her voice pointedly as she spoke his title, her tone carrying well across the empty loft. She pressed the seal on the bag and began labeling the tag. As the two detectives passed beyond the tape, she lowered her tone. "Not that I don't have my theories..."

(—
=)

Kevin shot a questioning look over his shoulder as they left the building on Reed Street. Javier realized he must have heard Lanie's comment as well.

"Trouble in paradise, 'Detective'?" his partner asked, predictably.

Javier sighed.

"More like a hurricane that wiped out the whole sunny little island..."

The warm metaphor only served to remind him how bitterly cold the weather was. He blew into his hands again, which only helped for a few seconds before the moisture of his breath started to grow cold again.

"Ah, bro, that sucks," Kevin offered sympathetically, sounding genuinely heartbroken for him.

As they walked, Kevin reached a hand into his pocket and handed something aside to Javier. His gloves, he realized. Kevin must have picked them up from his desk on the way out.

"Chica's crazy," he said with a shrug as he unrolled them. "She actually thought—"

Javier brought the sentence up short, exhaling his frustration instead.

"You know what," he continued finally, shaking his head, "it doesn't matter. It was nice. We just...didn't work."

"Maybe it just wasn't meant to be."

Javier's step stuttered and he came to a stop. He managed to avoid looking at his partner until he could be sure none of his disquiet showed on his face. He pulled on his gloves slowly, fitting the fingers, focusing on them more than he needed to to try and cover the pause. Not that he thought for a second his reaction had gone entirely unnoticed.

"So what do you think?" Javier asked once he finally managed to look Kevin in the eye. "About the case."

Kevin's eyes hesitated on his face for a moment before he answered with a faint smile.

"I think we lucked out with the whole Nazi thing."

Even in his off mood, Javier couldn't help but snort.

"Bro, I fail to see how."

"Are you kidding?" Kevin asked, his eyes bright. "It's Castle. His crackpot theories included things like mummies and time-travel even before life got weird. Hand him Nazis and who even knows what he'll come up with. Maybe for the first time all month he won't be thinking about specials."

Whatever levity Javier might have won from the anticipation of Castle's antics died a slow and painful death.

"I wouldn't bet on it," Javier said quietly as he fell back into step beside his partner.

It was more than a simple hunch.

Unknown to Kevin, Javier's mood had nothing to do with him and Lanie—or the complete and utter destruction of the very idea of "him and Lanie"—and everything to do with the case.

It was too soon. Far too soon.

Barely two weeks had passed since a girl had jumped from the top of a Ferris wheel in view of cameras and lived to tell an incredible story. Less than two weeks since Javier had been forced to reexamine his reality along with the rest of the world—only with a unique insight toward where that reality might be headed. Because the "Park Incident" as they were calling it had happened just as his "dream" had hinted. Because there were these people called "specials" who could do impossible things, and he didn't know what that said about him. Because his search that same night had revealed that there really was an Anthony DiNozzo working for NCIS in Washington. Because Castle had let the title Heat Rises slip out during lunch just the week before, and suddenly what had simply seemed predictable now felt like a sign.

He'd chosen the blue pill, God damn it. He'd chosen to bury himself in denial and tell himself it had all been a dream. But so-called "reality" had decided to knock on his door and kick him in the teeth anyway. It just wasn't fair.

After the Park Incident, it had crossed Javier's mind to talk to someone about what he'd come to suspect about himself. To tell someone what he'd seen. Any other time Kevin would have been the obvious choice, but his partner was the last person he felt he could go to with this. It wasn't that he didn't trust Kevin. If it was just a matter of admitting that he thought he might have some kind of abnormal ability, he was certain his partner would still have his back. No, that wasn't it at all...

He just didn't think he could look Kevin in the eye and tell him about the future he'd been shown: one where they were together. Possibly even married. He'd imagined that conversation more than once, never without a sick quiver in his stomach. He just knew he couldn't handle that.

He hadn't felt comfortable telling Kate, either. Again, not for lack of trust, but simply because he was childishly fearful that she'd insist he tell Kevin anyway.

He'd finally wound up going to Ike Thornton, his old partner. A man he knew he could not only trust, but who he knew could keep a serious secret—the man's "death" more than three years ago had proved that much. Explaining his fears to Ike—that he might have an ability—had been strange enough. Describing his "vision" and the actions of his future self had been worse than embarrassing, even without factoring in the relationship he'd read in between the lines. Ike wasn't sure he believed it, though he hadn't disbelieved it, either. Claire Bennet's stunt in Central Park had shattered the ceiling on a lot of people's perceptions of what was and wasn't possible. Still, it had been a lot to swallow. Javier could relate, and then some.

Ike had suggest he treat it like a case, decide what the important pieces were and try to put them together into something that made sense.

That hadn't struck Javier as a bad idea. It was just like a case in some ways, though not like a homicide or robbery, where the apprehension of a single suspect was the goal. It was more like when he and Ike had worked Organized Crime. In that department, it was essential not to get caught up a single collar and instead try and make sense of the larger picture.

Since that conversation, Javier had been desperately cataloging every detail he could remember about what had happened to him back in June. He'd written down every bit he could recall of the "dream" he'd tried so desperately to forget. He had printed out the photos Castle had taken of them that night for the case file he now kept taped to the back of his dresser. It wasn't until after he'd done it that he wound up looking at that one photograph of him and Kevin, wondering if it was the exact same copy he would be carrying eight years from now... He wished to God he hadn't deleted that voice mail. What if it was important? He'd watched the movie Kevin and he had rented, and every one that DiNozzo mentioned that he could remember.

Names, allusions, the car, the photos; any one of them might turn out to be significant.

Now, more of it was happening. Now it was the Zimmerman case—a case whose circumstances he hadn't learned, but that in eight years would still weigh heavily on Kevin's mind. That had to mean something, right? Not for the first time, Javier felt that sucking dread in his chest, the feeling that he was being dragged toward a future he didn't understand, and that he might be helpless to effect its outcome.

He had taken the dream as a hint that he should try and put some distance between himself and Kevin. It had been a spectacular failure. Javier hadn't realized just how deeply in each other's pockets he and his partner were until he tried to force that distance. Kevin had seemed to notice, and had acted rather hurt. And Javier had found himself disturbed by the realization that he couldn't stand to see that hurt in Kevin's eyes. Instead, he had been content with trying to divert his focus to Lanie, hoping that if he tried hard enough he would forget that his and his partner's closeness had ever threatened to mean anything. That he could forget how conflicted he had felt when he saw Kevin bend a knee in front of Jenny in the station of all places...

And that was when it had still been just a dream.

Now, if Javier was a little bit afraid of causing that future, he was even more afraid of making it worse. He simply didn't have enough information to decide what to do— Which in that future, he figured, had probably been Kevin's purpose in keeping him in the dark. And perhaps his own purpose, he though uncomfortably, remembering the clues that had been left behind for him after the vision had faded. Had he been nudging himself in the right direction? If so, the touch was subtle. Nonetheless, he couldn't help but feel like he was being manipulated, persecuted by those two strangers and the plans they had for him and his partner...

This is bullshit, Javier decided, stomping down on that train of thought.

He couldn't keep second guessing himself like this. Not if he hoped to stay sane. All he could do for now was focus on the case—his own and the team's—and hope that when the time came, he knew what he had to do.