"That was—"
"My mom. I recognize her from picture albums...but I don't understand," she says, her hands clutching her chest, "How is this happening?" Her breath starts coming in short gasps. "There's a weight, I can't—"
"Beckett, are you…"
Her eyes bug out. "Can't. Breathe," she manages.
"Okay, it's fine. You're just having a panic attack. You, um, need to concentrate and breath."
She tries to inhale but her throat feels like it's closing up.
"Look, maybe this is a dream. And you just imagined your mom," Castle throws out.
She shakes her head.
"You're right, if this were a dream, you'd definitely be naked."
She chokes and smacks a balled fist against his shoulder.
"Right, got it, not helping."
He snaps his fingers together a moment later. "Have you ever heard of that phrase, the...shoot, what is it?" He gestures at the air helplessly, "You know, the French one?"
Beckett's face pales, her color draining as she struggles to breathe.
"Folie à deux!" He shouts out. She fastens her gaze with his, concentrating. "It's the madness of two, uh, a psychiatric syndrome that one person can pass onto another. What if we're hallucinating the same thing?"
She nods, inhaling deeply, motioning at him as if to say 'keep going.'
He starts smoothing a hand on her back in calming circles. "Or you know, Einstein posited time speeds up or slows down based on relativity. And since time is relative, he theorized gravity could bend time."
Beckett's breaths slow as she focuses on his words.
"What if we stepped into a wormhole where time sped up and slowed down all in one instant, bending gravity until we ended up here?"
She lets out one last deep exhale, her breath evening out. His hand stays at the small of her back.
"Thanks, Castle." She clears her throat. "I haven't had one of those in a while."
"Are you sure you're okay?"
She nods, shaking him off and walking down the hall.
"So you think this elevator was part of our gravity-bending wormhole?" she asks, looking up the shaft.
"Your guess is as good as mine," he says.
She presses the call button and the cab slowly rattles down to the first floor.
"We can't stay here," she says.
He hesitates. "Don't you want to explore? Or, I don't know, talk to your mom and—" he stops suddenly and shifts his feet nervously.
"And what? Tell her about her murder?" she asks, crossing her arms.
He looks down. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."
Beckett sighs, dropping her arms to her side. "Of course I want to talk to her. But I can't. It's not right."
"When are you ever going to get this chance again?"
"You don't think I want to run back in there and hold onto her and never let go? This is bigger than us or my mom. Saving her could mean messing up everything else."
Castle deflates and rubs his face.
"I hate it when you use logic against me."
She gives him a small smile. "I think we've both seen enough sci-fi movies to know that being here can cause a rip in the space-time continuum or trigger the Butterfly Effect."
"The longer we stay here, the more things are going to change in the future," he says with a sigh.
"Now, will you get in here, so we can go—"
"—Back to the future! Ha, I said it first," he says, stepping in beside her with a boyish grin. She rolls her eyes.
She closes the spring door and presses the up button. They wait a moment but nothing happens. She presses it again, this time more forcefully. It doesn't move.
"What's wrong with it?" she asks, pushing it again.
"You know they say it works faster when you keep pressing it," he says.
"Castle," she fumes, her teeth clenching.
"Maybe there's something we have to do before we go back," he suggests.
"Even if that's true, why this year?" she asks.
"Let's see. SNL just started airing a couple of years ago. There was the bicentennial and Jimmy Carter won the presidency last year. Studio 54 just opened up...nothing else really except—"
Their eyes snap together at the same moment.
"Son of Sam," they say in sync.
"This is the year of his crime spree," Beckett says.
"Today's the 25th…" Castle's eyes widen, "Which means early tomorrow morning, he's going to shoot a young couple in front of disco in Queens while they're sitting in their car."
"Don't they survive?"
"Yeah, but in a month, he shoots another couple and one of them dies. We can stop him now. We know when and where he's gonna be."
"But if we stop him, then that will definitely change things. That doesn't make sense," she says, frustrated.
"What doesn't make sense is us being in 1977. This isn't some sci-fi movie. There's no script for us to follow."
He moves to take a step out of the elevator cab.
"Hold on—" she puts a hand on his chest, "Aren't you alive right now?"
"Okay, now you are hallucinating."
"No, I mean, you already exist here in this year. You would be…" she does the math in her head, "Right around eight."
"Have you been perusing the personal section of the Richard Castle website again?"
"Castle," she exasperates, not in the mood for jokes. "Isn't it paradoxical for two versions of yourself to exist at one time?
"Say paradoxical again."
"Will you focus?"
"We're not sure if my younger self even exists right now," he says.
"What do you mean?"
"He could've been sent to the future in my place," Castle says dramatically, getting a far-off look in his eye.
She resists the urge to roll her eyes again.
"Castle, I'm serious. Is there a way to check you exist? The younger you, that is."
He looks at her, thinking and then lights up.
"Summer school gets out at three."
"Summer school?"
"I was a rowdy kid," he says, shrugging. "And it was free daycare for my mother."
"I thought you had nannies growing up."
"That was when I was really young. She couldn't afford one when I was in grade school. Everything went towards tuition," he says, "I'd always go to the library next to the school and wait until my mom could pick me up once her rehearsal was over. She didn't want me walking by myself to the theater. Not with all the 'riff-raff' about. Then, she let me hang out backstage until the show was over."
"Was she in a show in the summer of '77?"
"I think she was an extra in The King and I."
Beckett looks at the clock above the frosted door of Truman, Taylor & Associates. "It's almost three now. Where did you go to school?"
"Midtown West. It's on 48th in Hell's Kitchen."
"That's almost 100 blocks from here," she says, rooting around her pockets and pulling out her wallet. "We can't use our credit cards, and I have..." She opens the folds, inspecting, and says, "Seventeen bucks and eighty cents. You?"
Castle pats down his clothes and then gives her a guilty look. "I think I left my wallet in the car. But I have very thrifty fingers, I could—"
She gives him an admonishing glare.
"No pick-pocketing."
He frowns.
"What, you gonna arrest me?"
"I still have my badge and gun."
He brightens. "You do?"
"Down boy," she says, putting her wallet away. He grins.
"What you have should be enough, anyway. I think I remember subway tickets only being 30 cents apiece. As long as no one takes a close look at the serial numbers, your money should work," Castle explains.
She nods and looks him over.
"Unbutton your shirt," she says.
"Huh?" he says, dazed.
"We need to blend in. My outfit kind of works. And your sports jacket and slacks don't stick out too much, but you should—" she reaches out and ruffles his hair, making it look more sloppy. "There," she says, "Much better."
"Don't you mean groovy?"
"Don't make me kill you."
They exit the subway in Midtown an hour later. Castle shudders as they merge into sidewalk traffic just west of Times Square.
"I forgot how dirty everything was," he says, making a face. "And I don't usually mind graffiti, but it's literally everywhere," he observes.
"So are the porno theaters," she says, pointing to the block of marquees promoting 'filthy and promiscuous sex.'
"Now those, I remember."
She bumps her shoulder into his.
"Charming."
"Did you have a usual spot?" Beckett whispers as they enter the library.
"I always liked this one corner. It was pretty hidden and holy—" he stopped at the sight of a small boy in a private school uniform, his head bent over a book.
"Is that you?" she says.
Slack-jawed, Castle nods.
"Oh my goodness, you were so cute as a kid," she murmurs.
"Just as a kid?"
"Don't make this weirder than it already is, Castle."
"Sorry," he whispers.
"Ok, so younger you is still here. That's good, right?"
"And I'm not disappearing, so definitely good," he says, checking out his hands. "Do I look like I'm warping?"
"Warping?"
"You know, getting all bendy and swirly-looking. Like in Edvard Munch's Scream."
"No, Castle, you're not warping," she says on a quiet chuckle and takes another peek at Castle's younger half. "Who's that guy?" she asks, noticing someone approaching his table.
"What guy?" Castle asks, peering through the bookshelf. He watches as a man with a military haircut greets his younger self and pass him a book. "Oh my god," Castle says, "This is insane."
"What?"
"That's the guy who changed my life."
A/N: Thank you all for the nice reviews! I came up with this idea a while back, and I'm finally putting it into words. I have an outline for 9 or 10 chapters and the first half is pretty much written. The second half is still in development. I'll be updating every three days for now, but it'll probably slow down after a couple of updates (depending on how fast I can get that second half done). Let me know what you think! I'd love to hear all your theories.