Thanks for your comments, really appreciate them. And as a few of you have mentioned adding quotation marks I did just that. Hopefully it makes it a little clearer. Let me know what you think.
delete
He watched the words disappear as he hit the cursed button.
He took his notepad and flipped through the pages. Pages upon pages of notes; on investigations, bodies, legal procedures; on detective Beckett, her team, their most memorable quotes...
No, he didn't lack writing material. In fact he had enough notes to write at least ten more books. At least.
So why couldn't he finish this damn book?
He had his murder victim, his suspects, he already knew who had done it, how and why, he even knew what Nikki would have to go through to solve her case and how she would solve it. He really had it all planned out.
So why couldn't he write?
Frustrated, he closed his eyes, cracked his neck, shook his fingers and placed them on the keyboard.
He wrote a paragraph.
A siren rang in the distance and Castle looked out through the window. Night had settled in on New York a long time ago and yet the city still shone with thousands of lights. He loved New-York by night.
He turned his attention back to the screen and wrote a few more sentences.
He stopped. Read. Highlighted the whole paragraph. Delete.
A sigh.
He looked at his computer's watch. Three twenty. It was late.
But he wasn't tired
He loved New-York by night. The city that never sleeps.
Absorbed by his thoughts of Nikki Heat he had let his feet lead him to the Library. He stopped to admire the building a moment. He had spent so many hours inside this sumptuous building, reading, studying, dreaming... He had come a long way since the time he'd spend hours buried behind a pile of books, seated at one of the wooden tables.
Behind him, he heard a train entering Grand Central station.
He looked at his watch. Four thirty, time to head back home.
He slipped his hands in his jacket's pockets; summer was approaching but the nights were still rather chilly.
Sirens resonated in the night. A dog barked, a trunk drove by. Over there he could hear someone ruffling through garbage cans, over here the whimpers of a woman...
He continued his walk, admiring New-York's architecture by night.
Whimpers?
He stopped, turned around, listened. Another siren rang in the distance. A car passed by.
He took a few steps, listening intently for any suspicious sounds. Had he imagined those whimpers? Because he could have sworn they sounded like a woman in distress.
Behind him a door flung open. He jumped and swirled around, muscles tensed, on alert. A man in overalls came out through the door.
Castle relaxed and castigated himself; he had definitely spent way too much time hanging out with the detective and her crew.
He hadn't imagined them. But he hadn't seen them either. Two men, bent over a third body, much smaller, leaner, a woman most certainly. In the dark alley, bent behind the trash bin, he hadn't seen them. He hadn't been careful.
They had seen him though.
"Hey" came a man's voice behind him.
He turned back around, a slight smile on his face.
A distant voice was telling him to wake up. A man's voice. Why on earth was there a man in his apartment?
He tried to turn around, hide under the covers and bury his face in his pillow, but he couldn't move. He felt a throbbing pain in his stomach. What had he eaten the night before? A two-day-old pizza... Had it turned bad?
His bed seemed a little rough. He opened his eyes but all he could see were stars. And he could still hear that voice.
That annoying voice that disturbed him in his sleep.
His right hand slipped from his body onto the floor. Concrete? What on...?
The street... right, he remembered the street, a door opening behind him...
The ground was wet. He didn't remember the rain though.
He lifted his hand slightly and as his vision focused on his limb he saw the red liquid trickling down his arm. The movement caused an excruciating sharp pain in his shoulder.
Was it already Christmas that the twinkling lights were swirling all around him?
He heard a familiar sound, a siren.
New-york: its architecture, its shows, its pizzas...its sirens. This one seemed really close though. Maybe there had been a murder nearby. Maybe soon his phone would ring and Beckett would tell him to get out of this rather uncomfortable bed he was sleeping in.
Beckett...
"Dad?"
He knew that voice. The voice of a young girl that would wake him up early on a Sunday morning demanding to be served pancakes.
He tried to open his eyes. What had he drunk the night before to be so hung over?
"Dad, can you hear me?"
He felt his daughter's hand squeeze his. It was time to wake up and open those eyes.
A vivid white light assaulted him. He closed them back immediately. This was not his room.
"Dad, you're okay!"
He felt his daughter throw herself onto him and then he felt a terrible pain in his side. He groaned.
"Oh dad, I'm so sorry"
He half opened his eyes as Alexis lifted herself off of him.
His daughter, his beautiful daughter. She looked so pale; maybe it was this unflattering light. Her eyes were puffy and red. He knew that look. She'd cried. A lot.
He swore to himself he'd break the legs of whoever was responsible for making his daughter cry.
But...maybe later...
"Richard"
He knew that voice as well.
He reluctantly opened his eyes and they focused on his mother's figure standing there by his side.
"Thank god you're awake! You scared me to death you know!"
He looked around the room. This bed was not his, the walls were not his and the view... definitely not his.
Wasn't he in the street just a few minutes ago?
The street. A sharp pain in his shoulder. A door opening behind him. A constant throbbing in his gut.
Martha saw the confusion on her son's face.
"Richard, honey, do you remember anything about last night?"
He winced.
He remembered.
When he opened his eyes again he found he was still in that dreadful hospital room.
Alexis was seated by him, a hand in his, her head resting on his bed.
When she felt him move she lifted her head and looked up at him.
"Hey pumpkin", came his first words, "why so grim?", he looked around dramatically, "did somebody die?"
The slight chuckle that came from his daughter was enough to make him forget his pain. Stabbing wounds? What stabbing wounds?
"Dad! I was so scared"
She flung herself in his arms again, being careful not to hurt him again. Castle rested his valid arm around her and caressed her face gently.
"I'm okay sweetheart. It's just a scratch."
He saw his mother behind them, smiling. She rose to her feet and left the room.
She came back moments later followed by a nurse and two men Castle immediately recognized.
As the nurse started talking, asking questions, making annotations his eyes remained fixated on the door.
Kisses from his daughter, reassuring words from his mother, hand shakes from the two detectives, smiles, laughs even, voices that sounded more assured, faces that gained their color back...
A slight pang in his heart.
She wasn't there.