Acknowledgements to Shutterbug5269, for adding a little more gravity to this chapter.
I'm glad to know that some people are enjoying this story. None of the reviews have been abusive or flamey in any way, I've just been a little surprised by some of the negative assumptions that have been made about what this fic is going to be. The word Conundrum refers to a confusing and difficult problem or question; a puzzle designed to be solved.
I'm loving the theories; keep them coming. :)
Castle didn't want to open his eyes. He longed to hear her voice, to feel her lips against his skin, for the sound the of the shower coming from his bathroom; anything that would tell him this entire day had been a long, crazy, vivid dream and he was back in the real world with her. If it wasn't, if this world without Beckett was real, he didn't want to know. Unfortunately, his mother burst his bubble by knocking on his door and reminding him of the appointment with the psychiatrist to whom dr. kale had referred him.
Castle stared at the psychiatrist expectantly after laying out the whole story for him as he sat across from the middle-aged man in his office.
"So, what's the verdict, Doc? Am I crazy?" Castle asked, not really wanting the answer.
"Mr. Castle, you've been under a lot of - " the psychiatrist began.
"Stress, yeah, so I've been told," Castle said, cutting him off.
"I don't believe that this is schizophrenia or any other kind of psychosis," the man replied, seemingly unfazed by the interruption. "The way you seem to have rewritten events in your own life to incorporate your delusions fascinates me."
"So that's what you think it is?" Castle asked. "Is that what you think she is? Nothing more than a delusion?"
"As you're unable to tell me how long this has been going on," the man offered in the same irritatingly calm tone he'd used for the last hour, "I can't be sure of that. You'll have to come back and see me in a month to get a more accurate diagnosis."
"A month?" Castle responded indignantly.
"For me to diagnose you with Unspecified Delusional Disorder, the symptoms would have to have lasted at least that long," he replied.
"I might not still be here in a month! Or at least, I hope I'm not, anyway."
"Mr. Castle, what I believe to be most likely here is simply your way of coping with something you can't control. My suggestion to you would be to continue to see your therapist, spend some time with your daughter and mother, write, concentrate on your recovery, get plenty of rest and if you still don't recognise the world around you as reality in a month's time, come back to see me and we'll assess where to go from there. "
After returning home, Castle selected John Coltrane's instrumental cover of My Favourite Things on the stereo and blared it at full volume as he stared at the ceiling.
He had always liked jazz but had never truly appreciated it until he had begun to listen to it with Kate. She'd taken him to jazz clubs, introduced him to more obscure artists in her collection, though he knew her favourites were the classics; the legends of the genre - Sinatra, Nina Simone and yes, Coltrane, among many others. She would sometimes put on a playlist of classic jazz for them to make love to.
He could clearly recall the feel of her skin on his as he moved inside her while this particular track played; her hot breath in his ear as she laughed when he sang along and demonstrated all his favourite things which happened to coincide with parts of her body.
He slept for the rest of the afternoon. At around four o'clock, Dr. Kale called to inform him his blood test results had all come back normal. As far as she could tell, there was nothing physically wrong with him. He thanked his doctor and returned to bed, going back to sleep.
He missed her.