Author's Notes: Still no dialogue. Forgive me.
Spoilers: Up to and including 4x23, "Always."
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I am borrowing the characters for a test drive. Don't worry, they will come back in the same condition. I am poor, so don't try to sue me. Didn't make a nickel.
…
Richard Castle's loft was spacious, in a word. By New York standards, it was positively gargantuan. The rooms were wide and filled with natural light. His study was replete with tools of the trade; namely, his library of books, his laptop, several old typewriters that had given birth to his first set of novels, and a desk that allowed him to spread out his ideas, one by one for quick access and deft rearrangement into the story that unfolded inside of his head.
Tonight, it felt like a prison.
Echoes of memories bounced off of the walls; the sounds of the past eighteen years seemed faintly audible. His desk was cleared off, everything in its place, and, sitting alone in the center of the desk, was a small wooden box. The simple clasp was stiff from disuse.
With slightly shaking hands, he opened the box and took in the contents. He breathed in slowly, feeling the aroma of the 25-year scotch filling his nostrils. He held the glass to his forehead, drinking in the coolness against his feverish skin.
Ever since he had left her apartment, he had felt as if his bones were on fire. Every step he had taken towards her front door was in utter agony. His eyes had been clenched shut; for a moment, he expected to have taken a round in the back.
He would have deserved nothing less.
Once he had reached the door, he paused, fingers lightly resting on the handle. His breath had hitched in his chest and he had waited for several seconds, praying he would hear her voice, just one last time.
He waited in vain.
He had wanted to turn around, to see her standing there, hoping beyond hope that he would see something in her eyes, something he could hold onto. Something he could remember her by.
Instead, all he got in return was the sound of thunder, far off in the distance. Sighing deeply, he had pushed the handle and walked down the hallway in a daze.
As he had fled towards the stairs, his back began to bow and his hands found their way into his pockets. Head down, he had barely seen the door to the staircase. He didn't remember stumbling down the steps, shuffling across the pavement, and hailing the cab. He didn't remember staring up at her window and seeing the small, intense light flickering in the stormy air. He didn't remember which bill he had given the cabbie, and whether he had taken the stairs or the elevator to his loft.
He found himself at his desk, facing a future without the fulfillment of something real with her. He had believed in her, believed in all the tangible possibilities. But, it was over. He was done. He had acted foolishly, impudently, rashly. He truly believed that what he had done was the right thing to do. He could not have imagined a life without her in it, and he thought he had acted out of love. He thought he could save her, that he could protect her.
Instead, he had lost her. When she was so close to speaking to him without subtext, without hiding behind that curtain of brown hair, the quirk of her lips betraying her attempts at being the serious, stoic Homicide Detective Extraordinaire. The Wall was coming down. She had been in therapy. The revelation had floored him. Kate Beckett, able to face down the monsters of the earth, had actually been going to therapy.
No stranger to the ways of therapy himself, he wondered what they had talked about and if his name had come up. His ego squirmed at the thought of Beckett trying to open up about him, about their relationship, their partnership.
He looked down, saw the picture staring up at him, and fished it out to see it in the light.
Alexis could not have been more than seven years old, pigtails in full, summer-celebratory glory. She stood in front of the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History, her eyes aglow with wonder. He was kneeling down with her, his arm around her shoulders, his trademark grin lopsided on his face. He had asked the guard to take the picture for him, and the septuagenarian had had trouble understanding that he was supposed to push the button on the count of "three."
This picture always reminded him of the weekends he had spent roaming the museum with Alexis, who would beg him to stay just one more minute so she could crane her neck to see the top of the skeleton or the back of the diorama laid out before her.
His lips curled in a bittersweet smile. That Alexis was gone. In her place was a beautiful, smart, independent young woman who had bested her personal demons and successfully gained admittance to colleges that had politely thanked him for his application many years ago.
He missed his little girl, the one filled with the unbridled joy of discovery. At the time, she shared that trait with him, which is why it was never a chore for him to stay at the museum all day long, seeing every exhibit twice over.
He looked down at the links of a crudely-made bracelet in the bottom of the box. He gingerly lifted it out and placed it on the desk. The first tile on the bracelet had the year "2000" painted on it in a garish fluorescent color. The remaining smaller beads spelled out "Happy Fathers' Day," complete with the apostrophe in the wrong place.
He smiled wistfully. The writer in him had protested, but his heart melted when she had given it to him. His little overachiever had worked on it for two hours during the arts and crafts portion of her first grade class. Her teacher had called to tell him that she hadn't seen Alexis work harder on any project in her class, that Alexis had, in fact, thrown away the first design because it "wasn't good enough."
He then unearthed the Playbill sitting at the bottom of the box with Mother's face staring back up at him. She had graced the cover of the Playbill for the first time on Broadway, and he would never forget the lights, the sounds of the actors pounding the boards of the theatre, and the thunderous applause when his mother had taken her final bow.
He had clutched the Playbill in his hand the entire cab ride home that night and he had spent hours staring at the cover. His mother looked so different in the picture. He did not open it until early the next morning and when he had read her biography, he regarded it for what seemed like an eternity.
"Martha Rodgers has appeared in numerous plays off- and off-off Broadway, and she graces us with her presence in her Broadway debut. She credits her son, Richard, as the one accomplishment she is most proud of in the world and dedicates her performance to him."
He had cried himself to sleep that night with tears of joy.
Tears. They were all he had left now. Filling his eyes, but refusing to fall. He was alone. Truly alone.
Mother would likely still live with him, but, with her acting school going well and students beginning to fill the halls, she couldn't stay forever. She would eventually live there part-time, returning every so often to check in on her son.
And although Alexis would be a mere subway ride away at Columbia, he wanted her to live on campus, so she could fully enjoy the thrills of living with roommates in the middle of a bustling hub of academia. She would visit him, of course. But, she, like Mother, would be a part-time resident.
After everything they'd been through together, he truly thought he could have shared this space with her. Together, they would have made new memories and filled the walls with the sounds of a life of discovery, of trust in each other.
As he looked at the pictures one by one, he could almost see the suppressed smile, the lilt in her voice as she spoke.
Castle, I had no idea you were so fashion-conscious even then. Are you wearing a Members Only jacket? With the collar popped?
A private jet? When you were all in your Halloween costumes? Wait, are you Gilligan? Don't tell me your mother is dressed as Ginger. Actually, that's oddly appropriate. Where were you off to, your own private island?
You would have liked my grandfather, Castle. He and I built a model aircraft carrier one summer. Took us an entire month. Is that a P-53 Mustang?
So this must be the infamous graduation photo. At least you had the decency to keep your robe on for your mother.
As he thought about her, hearing her voice brought a smile to his face. However, her playful tone was quickly replaced by her look of determination, the resolve of a soldier guarding The Wall. His smile fell. Never again would he hear that sarcasm prodding him to defend himself, never again would he see the small upturned corners of her mouth as she tried to keep her dazzling smile at bay.
Never again could he see himself as the man he once was. Richard Castle – the playboy, the Master of the Macabre. He had tried that recently, to no avail. He had believed what he had said to her a few weeks ago.
"I'm not asking you to do it for me. I'm asking you to do it so the real killer doesn't get away with murder."
"What makes you think I'm actually going to fall for that blatant manipulation?"
"Because it's true?"
He had bought into the creed of all homicide detectives: the victims come first. Gone were the days of charming excuses used to justify his juvenile behavior. He believed in what the detectives did for the families. He believed in Beckett, who always went deeper into the story, never satisfied with the easy resolution or the trite, clichéd explanations.
And now…it didn't matter. Just when he had grown up and accepted the fact that the victims in the cases came before his personal wants and wishes, just when he had changed for the better…she was gone.
He had done it for her. She had forced him into the harsh light of an interrogation room, and he had not liked what he had seen. He took her calls in the middle of the night, in the wee hours of the morning, and had always shown up, coffee in hand, grin on his face, and a twinkle in his eye. It wasn't about the books anymore; he wanted to help her, to help the victims.
Now, he was the victim – victim of a lie born out of a misplaced love and unwanted protection. He had been afraid. He had been desperate to shield her. He now had to face his new reality alone.
He had promised her always. Their unspoken promise of fidelity and undying support for each other now lay in ashes on the floor of her living room, set ablaze by her steely glare when she made her declaration of war against Them.
With her defiant declaration, he had folded. He couldn't follow her anymore. He had always seen himself as her partner, and he had thought he would have followed her through the Gates of Hell itself if need be. But, when she had needed someone the most, she refused to listen. She had refused to see him standing right in front of her, his heart in his eyes and fear in his voice, pleading with her to stop.
He couldn't bear another funeral. He couldn't bear to see Jim Beckett, to have to explain why he had failed his daughter again. He couldn't listen to the sound of the drums, beating their mournful tattoo as the pallbearers carried her to her final resting place. He couldn't listen to the muffled sobs of Ryan, Esposito, and Lanie as they said their final goodbyes. His only choice was to step away.
He stood up slowly, resting his hands flat on the desk to steady himself. He reverently placed the artifacts of his former life back into the box. It was time to move on, with or without her at his side.
He owed himself that much.
…
A/N: Well, that was uplifting, was it not? I will likely attempt a much lighter, dialogue-filled fic in the future to test out my hand at their voices. Seems the hiatus just lends itself to angst.