Author's note: This is a lot of writing for a Sunday, and it's almost 11PM here in the UK. I'm exhausted. Please excuse any carelessness.
It's an interesting challenge trying to give text messages a sense of pace and dramatic tension, and the frequent scene-breaks need careful balancing too. This is probably one of the most technically demanding stories I've written. Incidentally, the interplay of each character with their own inner monologue is intended to subtly mirror how they finish each other's sentences in real life, when building theory on a case.
I've always loved stories with electronic communication like emails, texts or instant messages. They're the love letters of a new century.
Castle stared at the message, wide-eyed, his jaw hanging open.
I wished I was with you then too.
In the Hamptons. That Summer. Gina.
He felt like the floor was tilting below him, and he put his other palm flat against the couch to steady himself.
"But she was with Demming back then, and…"
And then she wasn't, his mind whispered.
"Ryan and Esposito gave me hell when I came back."
And you were never entirely sure it was just their own feelings of abandonment.
"Are you saying that she-?"
I'm not saying anything. But neither are you, just like before.
"Well… crap," he said aloud, reaching for his glass of scotch and then remembering he hadn't poured one yet. "But… no. I would've known. She would've said something."
After you spent the Summer with your ex-wife, and never contacted her?
He paled. Everything around him seemed a little unreal now. Was it even possible? Or was he just misunderstanding her message?
A rumble of thunder echoed from far out at sea, but he didn't even glance towards the windows.
He looked at the last part of her message yet again.
I wished I was with you then too.
His thumb hovered for several agonising moments, then slapped down onto the smooth, cold surface in a rapid-fire pattern before tapping the Send button.
Beckett put the bottle of wine back into the fridge, then picked up her glass. She was halfway to her couch when her phone chirped at her.
She paused for a moment, her pulse quickening, then she took a calming breath.
That'll be Lanie checking up on me, she thought, feeling simultaneously grateful and disappointed.
She walked calmly the rest of the way, sat down, put her wine glass on the coffee table and picked up the phone from the arm of the couch.
The notification banner said Castle.
"Oh god," she said, swiping to the passcode screen and hurriedly tapping. On her third attempt, the phone unlocked.
You did?
She blinked, feeling her pulse pounding in her ears. She slid her thumb downwards to scroll back a little in the conversation, revealing her previous message. It was clear what he was asking.
She took several deep breaths, not realising that she was biting her lower lip the whole time. Slowly, she began to type.
Castle saw the typing indicator appear, and after a brief internal debate, hurried over to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a generous scotch.
He made it back to the couch in time to see a new message slide up into the conversation view in a coloured speech-bubble.
Yes. I wished it was me. It's good to hear from you. I've been worried. Are you OK? Kate x
"You've got to be…" he tailed off, re-reading her words in shock.
That doesn't leave much room for misunderstanding, his mind said.
"So she-"
She wishes you took her to this house instead of Gina.
"Her."
Yes.
"To this house."
Indeed.
"For the Summer."
Now you're getting it.
"Which kind of means-"
Kind of, yes.
He sat in stunned silence for almost a minute before opening his mouth again.
"But then why push me away all those times?"
Seems like something you should ask her.
He nodded, then a thought occurred to him.
"Is it… possible, at all, that I've been – hypothetically – an idiot?"
… It's within the realms of possibility.
He took a ragged breath. "You're starting to sound like my mother."
He tapped out a few characters, then his mind froze up and he grimaced. His thumb made circles and loops in the air above the keyboard, without typing anything.
"Bad time for writer's block. Epically bad time," he muttered to himself.
You could just answer her.
"That's what I'm doing!"
You could reassure her, then.
"About what?" he said, momentarily puzzled, then he smiled in relief. "Ah, right."
He tapped a few more virtual keys, and sent the message.
Beckett was still chewing her lower lip, stopping only to take tiny, bird-like sips of wine every so often, when the typing indicator finally transformed into a message.
I'm OK. Quiet here. Just me in the house. Writing is going well.
She sighed. It wasn't much, but at least he was talking to her now. She quickly typed another message and sent it.
I'm glad. I'm sorry you're alone, but I was scared you might not be. Can I call you? Kate x
He felt a tug in his heart, and the beginning of a sense of wonder.
He desperately wanted to believe this alternate history that seemed to be waiting just beneath the surface, but he also felt disconnected and unsure what to believe.
He typed his response painstakingly, deleting words and changing phrases as he went.
Not yet. This is a lot to take in. You usually push me away.
The words were like an arrow through her heart, and she felt tears prick the corners of her eyes. She started typing immediately, swiping away a single teardrop that fell onto the screen.
I'm so sorry. I don't mean to. It's not what I want! I hate the way I treated you yesterday.
Castle felt himself pulled in two different directions. He desperately wanted to comfort her, but he also needed the truth – or this was never going to end.
He saw that she had forgotten to sign off on that last message, and he knew it was because she was upset.
In a moment of perfect clarity, he knew that she was sitting staring at the bottom edge of this same conversation, waiting for the typing indicator to appear.
He tapped a key, and in his mind he saw a picture of her that was so vivid it could have been happening in the same room: eyes a little wide, tension in her jaw, those magnificent cheekbones casting soft shadows on her face in the cosy evening light of her apartment, and the tiniest beginnings of a smile now that she knew he was replying to her again.
He felt like a complete jackass.
He knew he had every right to be angry, and to feel mistreated, but all his life he'd never been able to maintain a grudge. He could run and hide from a situation, but he would always have long since forgiven the person responsible for it.
Then he met Kate Beckett, and he honestly had no idea how he'd even managed to stay angry this long.
Forgive her, his mind chanted, over and over. Do the noble thing. Set her free. Fall on your sword.
"Just like always," he said, then took a deep breath and began to type.
Beckett audibly sighed in relief when the typing indicator appeared, then she tapped her nails nervously on the coffee table until the new message slid into view.
Let's just forget about that. All forgiven. I probably deserved it. It was really my fault.
She frowned in confusion. It was so like him to accept blame, but it just didn't make sense this time. She quickly typed a reply.
No, it was me doing what I always do. I don't want to do that anymore. How could it be your fault?
He read the message, and smiled a sad smile. It took him only moments to tap out his reply.
For pushing you, as usual. Wanting something I can't have. It won't happen again.
"No!" she said, another tear dropping onto the screen and instantly becoming a prism, lighting up from within in a hundred tiny bands of red, green and blue pixels.
This was the very thing she had dreaded. He was giving up, right in front of her. She blinked to clear her vision and tapped rapidly on the screen.
Castle took a large swallow of whisky, feeling strangely mellow despite the hollowness inside him. They were talking about it at last. It would all be settled tonight, and then he could at least move on with his life.
His phone made a small sound as a new message slid onto the screen.
What about what I want? You said you'd be there for me.
He winced. It was even worse that he could so easily picture her large, liquid eyes as she was typing the words.
"Damn it," he said, with more sadness than frustration, already typing his reply.
I meant it, and I will be - always. I just don't know what to think. What do you want?
She smiled through her tears. Whenever she read (or even thought of) the word "always", she heard it in his voice.
"It's time," she whispered, and she was surprised to find that she wasn't even scared. She tapped the screen unhurriedly, without any uncertainty or hesitation.
The entire conversation so far – and the last several years of their lives – had led inevitably to these last three words, which would end one stage of their relationship.
And please let them start a new one, she thought, then she sent the message.
Castle put the glass down with a clink, relishing the slow burn of the liquid as it slid down his throat. The sky outside was black, and the wind pushed against the windows as if testing for weaknesses.
Storm rising, he thought, but he didn't smile.
He saw the message slide onto the screen almost in slow motion, and then the room and the sky and the storm ceased to exist.
There were only the words, long imagined and wished for, leaving no ambiguity.
He closed his eyes and mentally counted to five, then opened them again. The message was still there, undeniable in its reality.
I want YOU.