The Hollow Woman
A/N: This is my first time writing Fanfiction for Castle. Somehow the promo for 5x05 and "The Hollow Men" found a link in my head and this came out. English is not my mother tongue and I apologize in advance for the mistakes you'll find. I am also no good with the details of police work so at a certain point you'll see a jump in time.
I don't own Castle or anything related and unluckily I am no T.S. Eliot. All the expressions that you recognize as superior writing belong to him.
"This is the way the world ends: Not with a bang but with a whimper"
T.S. Eliot had always been one of her favorite poets. When her mother died "The Waste Land" and "Prufrock" seemed to be the only fragments that she could shore against her ruins, the proof that someone else could feel as wretchedly unoptimistic as she did. And now, as if the world were playing a cruel joke, the ending of "The Hollow Men" kept occupying her head, a sinister chant in such a horrible moment.
She knew what had brought it along. It was that sound, the whimper that Castle emitted when they had arrested him and she had refused to look him in the eyes. She would never forget the anguished way in which he had pronounced her name: "Kate, you have to know I didn't do this. Kate, look at me! Kate!". Then Ryan and Esposito had brought him away and she had left immediately after. She couldn't chance to look at Martha and see the crushing disappointment.
So now she was in her apartment, in her bed after having changed the sheets that still smelled like him, Eliot torturing her. She had never been the girl to model her entire world after a man and yet ever since she had started letting Castle love her, her world had shifted significantly. Somehow his enthusiasm made everything brighter, and she seemed to have enjoyed some kind of emotional tan. Lanie had seen it, the boys had seen it, her smile was fuller, her bark more playful, her comments less sarcastic and more witty, her concentration reeked less of desperation. So in a way Eliot was right. That whimper had ended her new and improved world. Because how could she now go back to that perfect relationship when all the trust had been destroyed?
It was difficult to disentangle her thoughts. Some part of her knew for certain that Castle could not have killed that young woman. If he wanted to exercise violence he used his books, if he wanted to posit a scenario for Nikki he'd turn it into a hilarious adventure with his mother and daughter, if he knew about psychopathic methodologies it was a professional hazard. Ending a human life in such a premeditated way, with brutal violence and twisted arrangement of the body was not in Castle's DNA. She was sure of it. And yet, and yet she had seen countless wives and husbands, boyfriends and girlfriends swearing that there was no way in which their loved ones had committed a crime. Evidence had a way to put things in perspective, to rupture the bubble that seemed to envelope lovers. How much could one actually know another person?
Plus he had lied. Or he had withheld information. Same difference. Why wouldn't he tell her about the jewelry? Why wouldn't he tell her where he was Friday night? There was only one possible explanation. He was cheating on her with the brunette. The realization hurt more than she would ever imagine. She had known about his playboy ways but she had been convinced that he had changed. Tears came without her noticing and she almost howled in pain. She had been sure that her threshold limit for pain had been set that fatal evening in which a cop had told her that her mother was no more. She had been wrong. Tonight, somehow, she was hurting more. Because that night she had lost her past, tonight she had lost her future.
Morning saw Kate arriving early at the precinct, "shape without form", eyes bloodshot and looking worse than she had ever looked before. She didn't even have any coffee because that gesture was inextricably linked with him and today she didn't need any reminder of the Castle she knew, the one that wasn't lying in the holding cell at the moment. However, the pull was too strong. She went to find him. He was sitting on the bench, his back to her, his eyes to the wall, his breathing seemingly calm. He had to have heard her approach. He seemed to have some sort of radar to identify when she was near. But he didn't move, stillness seemed to have taken hold of his body. Seeing him like this, shoulders slumped, shirt wrinkled, motionless she felt the urge to open the cell, hug him and kiss him, to tell him that she had been an idiot, that her doubts were relics of the past, when she couldn't trust anybody enough to let them thoroughly in. Instead rationality brought her back to her desk, ready to work. "Between the emotion and the response falls the shadow."
He had been exonerated. They had found the real killer. Somehow the victim and the killer, both aspiring writers and earlier acquaintances of Castle had conspired to commit the perfect murder and frame Castle out of spite for the success that had kissed him and eluded them. Somehow the brunette had missed that his partner-in-crime was planning to make her the victim all along. "For a perfect crime book, you need a shocking twist" he had said smirking when he was brought away. Castle had been released by the time she got back to her precinct. Gates had told her that he had thanked them for the excellent work that brought the real killer to justice and then had left, his mother and his daughter following in tow. The boys wanted to convince her to go to Castle to apologize. The idea of an united trio was appealing. She'd let them talk, go through the motions and nod in all the appropriate places but she couldn't. That would be too coward a move. Let them go, and accept the forgiveness that she was positive that Castle would graciously give them. He never seemed to hold a grudge for too long with anybody but her. After all, they weren't sleeping with him, their lives hadn't been saved by Castle multiple times , Castle wasn't in love with them, they weren't the ones for which that jewelry had been bought and they had followed her lead. She waved them goodbye and finished the paperwork. Among the evidence left to get back to its owner there was the engraved double bracelet that they had finally found hiding behind one of his books. In tiny letters, so as to fit them all was written "Remarkable, Maddening, Challenging, Frustrating. In a word: perfect". The tears were threatening to spill again but she didn't want the few souls still left to see her like this. Impulsively she took the bracelet and its case, left the precinct and started walking with purpose towards Castle's house but she stopped just across the street. What on earth could she tell him to make this right again? "Between the motion and the act falls the shadow."
She saw Ryan and Esposito getting out of the building, smiling. She had been right, Castle had forgiven them. She wished she could believe that he would bestow such a gift on her too but she knew better. He had barely forgiven her the last time she'd hurt him and she had used his attraction for her as a deadly weapon. It wouldn't work this time. Not after what she had done. Still, she couldn't avoid this moment forever. She could break down as soon as that door closed leaving her outside his balmy apartment and heart. She knocked and prepared for the cruel look that Martha or Alexis would give her. Instead, he opened the door and she wasn't prepared for that. T minus 0. Time to suffer through it.
Castle watched her for a second with a look of resignation, almost as if he was expecting her, and he probably had been, then let her in.
"Martha and Alexis?" she asked, as soon as she recovered.
"I sent them away as soon as Ryan and Esposito called me to tell me they were stopping by. They wouldn't be as forgiving as I was and I didn't want to witness an argument."
" Are they coming back?"
"No, I was waiting for you to show up and the last thing I needed was to watch them kill you. One murder accusation after another is too much, even for the Castle family."
Gosh, she loved this man. He was protecting her and the boys when they had just hurt him badly. Soon, tears were clouding her vision and normally Castle would have taken her in his arms, told her that whatever was bothering her could be fixed but now he was maintaining his distance, his eyes down, nursing a drink. She tried to touch him but he actually flinched and moved to sit on the sofa. "In this last of meeting places we grope together and avoid speech gathered on this beach of the tumid river".
He was giving her his back and that somehow gave her courage. She could face this as long as he didn't look at her.
"I could say sorry a thousand times and it wouldn't be enough. I could get on my knees and beg and it wouldn't be enough, I could tell you those three little words that I have been wanting to say to you for a long time..."
At this he turned and waited for the rest of the speech.
"...But I don't want to tarnish that moment with this horrible memory. One day I will tell you those three little words and you will take them as the truth, not as a weapon to get you to forgive me. I screwed up majorly Castle. Hundreds of investigations have left me jaundiced but of course I knew that you were innocent. I doubted you because it involved a woman, you possibly cheating. After all this time, it seems that I still can't trust that your love for me will lead you to be faithful but when I read the inscription on the bracelet, it was the last straw, the last brick left to that wall crumbled under the weight of your devotion to me. I know it's not enough to say that in the future I won't doubt, I know it's not enough to just apologize when it's all over. I know that. But somehow I have to believe that I haven't jeopardized my happiness in two stupid days, that there is still a chance that one day you will maybe try to forgive me and up until that day and every day after that I'll do everything in my power to prove to you that I trust you and that even if you deserve better I want you with every fiber of my being and that I am working extremely hard to forget the past and move towards you. "
Castle was now sporting mirroring tears and he had almost started to look at her as her Castle normally did. He approached her, took her hands in his and said:
"Epic romantic speeches are right up my alley, you know that and you are trying to force my hand" he smirked at her and kept going:
" I love you Kate. I am hurt and I feel like licking my wounds and hurting you in return. But what would that accomplish? I love you and I want you to believe that I would never betray you in that way. Never. If it takes me forgiving you after this to get to that stage, I'll do it. It will take time and in the meantime you can be around and show me exactly how much you trust me and find the perfect theatrical way and moment to tell me those other three words. I am in love with you Kate and maybe this makes me pathetic but I'll forgive you a lot if it means that you'll want me to be your partner in every sense of the world for the rest of your life."
He kissed her rapidly, just a peck on her lips but she probably enjoyed that kiss more than all of the others that had preceded it. They still had a long way to go, he would probably be still upset for a long time but there was an end to the suffering in sight. She could get it all back. She wasn't hollow anymore.
"What might have been and what has been point to one end which is always present."
Her and Castle. Together.
A/N: I don't really like the ending scene but I cannot imagine Castle not offering Beckett hope for their future. He seems a doormat with the women he loves and considering that Kate is the one he loved and loved the most... Let me know if it was truly awful and I'll maybe leave only the angst part of the story.