A/N In typical Castle fashion this scene wormed its way into my head and wouldn't leave me alone. It's short but poignant. Sorry about the darkness.

"Everything I've ever done, every choice I've ever made, every terrible and wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, it's all led me right here, to this moment with you." R.C.

Chapter 7

He no longer tried to keep track of the days, what was the point, they all blended into one long dark night. Instead he noted the number of cracks in the drywall, the number of drips from the water seeping from the broken drain in the corner, he even resorted to counting the number of roaches that crawled across the floor in front of him. But he refused to count the times that they visited him. For to do that he would need to acknowledge what happened when they came for him and he couldn't do that. Wouldn't do that. Richard Castle had always had a deep and wild imagination that had helped get him through endless boarding schools, lonely vacations spend in theatre dressing rooms. That had launched a bestselling career as a fiction novelist. In this long dark endless night he utilised his imagination in a way that he never had before, he pictured movie nights spend curled up on the couch with his fiancé and his daughter on either side, he imagined what she looked like sleeping in the early morning sunshine, her face smooth and free of worry as she slept in his borrowed shirt, he pictured nights curled up beside Kate, so close that they felt like one. His imagination was so vivid that he could feel the smoothness of her skin, the way her hair curled around his finger, claiming him as hers, when he tucked it behind her ear. He could smell the scent of her hand cream as it wafted around him, settling like a warm embrace to soothe him in his darkest hours. There was nothing that Richard Castle couldn't remember about his fiancé in those endless hours. He had even started to count his own heart beats to remind himself that each beat was another one taking him closer to her, because he never doubted that they would find each other again.

"What's a great love story without obstacles to overcome, every fairy tale has them. Terrible trials that only the worthy can transcend, but you can't give up. That's the deal. We want the happy ending, we can't give up"

He had promised her a fairy-tale ending and he needed to believe in his own words now more than ever. So Richard Castle lost himself to his imagination in a quest to forget the terrible things that occurred in this room and to remind himself of why he couldn't just give up.

He knew that they were drugging his food to keep him docile and inert. Initially when he had believed that he had a hope of escaping he had refused to eat, but that just made the interrogation sessions longer and more painful. So he now ate the drugged food, to forget, to dim the world around him so he could fall easier into the dream world that he had created. But it didn't stop the interrogations, the questions, the pain completely. He had long ago learnt to compartmentalise his emotions and now he could almost stand back and watch the poor pathetic man chained to the basement wall as if he was on the outside looking in. Because in his imagination he was safe at home with Kate, not chained to a floor.

His broken ribs had refused to heal and each breath he took felt like a red hot poker in his side, spending hours with his arms chained above his head whilst he stood on the tips of his toes, the beatings he endured had prevented any healing from occurring. His right wrist had been snapped just days ago during one particularly brutal moment, he had ripped the sole of his black dress shoes to use as a brace and splinted it with strips of his shirt. A macgyver moment that had made him turn to his side to share with her, the grin slipping from his face when he remembered she wasn't here, that he didn't want her here in this room. It ached liked someone was gnawing at his wrist but he no longer felt like screaming. In those moments when his imagination failed and he tumbled headlong back into this nightmare he remembered that she would be out there hunting for him. He would remind his captors, the still faceless men who had snatched him off that road, that she was a hunter and she wouldn't stop looking until she found him. But they never answered him. Like mindless drones they asked the same question over and over, never deviating from their script.

"Where is she, Mr Castle" It had become a liturgy that chased him into the restless sleep he sometimes managed to escape to and it would chase him out of his dreams about Kate. "Where is she, Mr Castle?"

He had asked his own questions at the start, uncertain of the person they were talking about. Was it Kate, Alexis, his mother? But they never answered except to increase the pain and ask again 'Where is she?" He had learnt to not ask questions after a while and now he remained silent during those sessions. He had searched and searched his memories but no answer he gave seemed to appease them or stop the pain, so Richard Castle had stopped questioning. He didn't know the answer to this story, so he lost himself in his imagination as he created the stories that he did have answers to. Stories about Kate, his family, the precinct, his wedding day.

Through his drug-induced haze, Castle's eyes would roam his dark prison, desperately searching for a way out, a way back to his family. He knew every corner of the dim, damp room. He had woken up here, his cheek resting on the cold damp floor, his hands handcuffed together, a chain anchoring him to the wall behind him. He remembers the blazing hot pain that lanced through his side as he sat up, the nausea and dizziness causing the room to tilt and darken. But he knew that the movement of the room was due to his head injury and no longer represented the swell of waves under his feet. He had staggered to his feet, his hands clasped in front as he struggled to remain upright. As the vertigo settled he paced out the length of the chain exploring his new prison. The walls were brick with old dry wall flaking off them in places, water seeped out underneath the dry wall and along one wall a cracked downpipe dripped into the drain below making a loud ding as the droplet fell onto the metal grate. The only way in and out was via a heavy metal door, the dull olive green paint in bad need of repair and a testament to the long ago abandonment of this building. There was no key hole in the door and no hinges on the inside, no hope of escape via that route. No windows, no hidden doorways, no trapdoors in his 6 foot by 6 foot prison. A single bulb swung on a rope above his head but with no light switch in the room he had no control over it either and spend most days in absolute blackness until they entered the room. Not many sounds penetrated the thick walls, occasionally he would feel a rumble as if a train had rolled past, small pieces of dry wall would rain down on his head as the walls heaved and shook with the force of the train. Sometimes he would hear a distant muffled siren. Initially the sound had made his heart race and leap from his chest as he though she was coming for him, but now he knew it just to be another sound representing the distant life that was occurring above him, outside of his reach.

In his lucid moments, usually just before they brought more food for him, he figured that's when the effects of the drugs would start to wear off, he would try and solve the mystery surrounding him but those moments didn't last long and the drugs made it difficult to string coherent thoughts together. He thinks he might be back in New York City because he knows that he needs to be in a city with an underground railway with buildings old enough to have brick basements, but then he reminds himself that that could mean Paris, London and any number of cities worldwide. He shivers then remembering those helpless few days in the Parisian catacombs looking for Alexis and it makes him wonder if his dad is involved this time. But no, it's a she that they are looking for. Wouldn't they just ask for his father outright for him? Through painful deduction he has long ago dismissed his father as a suspect as well as 3XK. Maybe it could be Bracken he sometimes wonders but then he remembers in his muddled mind that Bracken is in jail and he has always known where Beckett was, no need to repeatedly ask the question then.

And so he goes back to counting the cracks, the drips, the roaches, his own heart beats as he slips in and out of his own imagination and his dreams of Kate. "There is always a story, always a chain of events that makes everything make sense" He remembers he once told Kate those exact words and these days he holds onto the hope that she can find this story for them, because he doesn't have the answers this time.