Castle's suicide note
— ANONYMOUS
#323
(I don't know what might trigger you, but if the prompt above makes you feel disquieted, please don't continue. Be assured, Castle is not killing himself.)
She's rushing through the loft, grabbing a shoe here, snagging her jacket from the couch, hopping on one foot towards the kitchen for coffee she doesn't need. She has files under an arm for the press briefing tomorrow, she's walking funny as she searches for her other shoe, she's trying to shove toast into her mouth so her stomach won't rumble later tonight when everyone has gone home and she's tempted to do the same.
She's not pregnant. But they're working on it; they're going to see the specialist later this week, he finally agreed. No one will get wind of it, she hopes, at least not until she has something for them to get wind of. Stupid to feel like her job could jinx her, but it could. Does? Is?
She's alone in the loft, and as the coffee finishes percolating, she checks the time.
It's late. Where's Rick?
All of her controlled whirlwind comes to a grinding halt.
It's late. She didn't give it a second thought when she came stumbling home and straight into the shower, stripping her mud-soaked clothes off and leaving them on the floor under the second showerhead. She didn't even think of him when the door didn't open and his face didn't pop around the corner and ask her for all the fun details of her case.
She's a captain; she's needed back at her precinct. But where is her husband at this hour?
"Rick?" she calls out, more tentative sounding than she'd like. She's trying to remember if she actually saw his body in the bed or if it was mere pillows.
She takes a step towards the hallway, crashing into the wall as she forgets she's missing a shoe, and her phone vibrates angrily in her back pocket.
Forget the pumps; she can wear her brown boots for this.
She kicks off the heel and jogs back for the bedroom with the smell of coffee redolent in the air. Drawing her back. She needs to go. Her phone has another anxious alert that comes in right as she clears the doorway.
No. Not Rick. Just pillows.
It's nearly midnight. Where is he?
She strides to the closet and tugs out her favorite brown boots, unzipping one as she jostles the files, the other boot, and her phone. She's already heading for the office to check - sometimes he gets in the zone, just as she does, and he wouldn't register a train wreck - but his office is empty.
His laptop is up. Her phone, alerts unlooked at, buzzes again. But she's irresistibly drawn to his desk, her feet moving without her express written consent.
She's not pregnant yet. There might be something wrong, one of them, both of them. Her heart is pounding. It's midnight, or almost, and he's not here to make her coffee she shouldn't drink, and his laptop is up and not plugged in and he never leaves it like that.
She taps the space bar and the computer whines and wakes, blue illuminating the screen.
He has a document open on his desktop, untitled, unsaved. Words on the screen she shouldn't read.
She shouldn't read, but he hasn't been writing lately, said after they got shot it was too hard to put Nikki and Rook through anything more.
She shouldn't read but it screams off the page.
I can't keep going like this. I'm sorry. You're stronger than you know. You survived your mother; you'll survive me.
Everything falls.
Papers flutter and skim across the wood floor, boots thudding hard after. Her knees drop and her body hits the desk on the way down.
She claws, the chair, the desk, her phone crushed in her hand. Nothing registers, nothing comes through, a terrible black darkness and a denial so strong and vivid and furious that she chokes on it.
No.
A clattering from somewhere, sounds muted by blood rushing in her ears, throbbing in her head. Sounds and disquiet, things disturbed, a sudden grip on her shoulder.
"Is it bad news? I saw something on CNN. Did another bomb-"
She turns a blind face to the thing hauling her to her feet.
"Oh, shit. That's a novel. Kate. That's the novel. I just started it, had to run out for snacks, I've been writing reams since you've - shit - Kate. Kate, that's Rook. And it's not a suicide note, Rook would never do that, oh my God, stop looking at me like that."
She cracks.
Flings herself at him, crushing everything, and he's crushing back, murmuring words into her hair, petting her, holding her up until her feet finally work. Knees. Hips. Shoulders.
She smacks him best she can so close like this. Hits him again for leaving it up untitled and a mess on the laptop.
He's laughing a little, chuckling at her anger that isn't anger. "I know, I know, really bad timing. But hey, I'm writing again."
"No," she growls, slapping his chest and pushing back. "You've been sad and quiet, you get quiet when it's bad, like right after we were shot and you couldn't help me, and then trying to have a baby-"
"Hey, no, no. I'm - yeah, okay, I'm sad. I've been… I don't know if you can call it depressed-"
"You stopped coming to the Twelfth."
He sighs and bows his forehead to hers. "Okay, I've been depressed."
"And quiet," she whispers.
He doesn't answer that.
"Three years ago, I'd have known this was a novel," she chokes out. "Three years ago, I would never have thought-"
"Three years ago, we hadn't been shot in our own home."
"And." She grips his biceps because therapy has only done so much, and there's more to this. "And? Three years ago…"
He growls her name as if in exasperation, goes on. "Three years ago, my wife hadn't told me she needed space, utterly upending my entire sense of self and what I'm worth, not only to her, but to the damn world. Are you happy, Kate? I'm still not sure I'm any good for you, I'm damn well certain I bring you nothing but heartache and misery, and if I were thinking about killing myself, I wouldn't write you a note like a selfish bastard. I'd just do it."
She stares at him. He stares back. His lips move, nothing comes out.
Kate steps into him, presses her cheek to his; she's not sure which of them is crying, maybe both. She clings to him because she never has the right words, because words don't penetrate this writer, not when he's so good at twisting them to his own ends.
"You need to go back to the therapist," she whispers.
He nods against her. A little noise in his throat. "Rook didn't write a suicide note."
"No," she agrees, clutching him a little harder. "No, but did you?"
"No," he says forcefully. "No. I just found my angle for the novel. I was only…"
She turns her lips into his jaw, his neck. "Let's hold off on the doctor's appointment, hold off on the baby-"
"No," he gasps. "No, that's the-" A rough noise, his hands at her shoulders. "That's a bright spot, thinking maybe we figure this out. Start something."
She nods, but she'll cancel it anyway, reschedule.
"I'll call Dr Burke," he says, sounding cowed. "I will right now. Well, when his office opens. No, I'll call and leave a message right now."
She nods, caressing the back of his neck with her fingers. "Please do. You're worth the whole world to me, Rick Castle."
"I - I do know. I do. I just… get trapped in my head sometimes."
"I know the feeling," she chuckles softly, another kiss at his jaw. She also knows kisses and words won't do the work; he has to want to do it, has to keep going to the therapist even when it's dark and scary. "You haven't been sleeping, the nightmares, you haven't been writing - well until now-"
"Three sentences," he grumbles.
"I haven't been here, last few weeks, because of this task force, so I'm not sure you've even eaten-"
"Cheetos," he admits with a sigh.
"And peanut butter," she remembers. One night crawling into bed, the jar on the night stand. "I haven't been paying attention because I bury myself in work, I combat my darkness with overtime. But I'm cheating you, and I'm sorry, so sorry-"
"I'm not trying to kill myself," he grumbles.
"I know," she promises. "But you are the world to me. Asking for space was dumb, and it's not what I'm doing now. Don't dwell there, Rick, when we both know better. You are the world to me. My whole amazing beautiful goofy world. My dreams come true."
He grunts and digs his chin into the muscle at her neck. "Sometimes you have damn good words."
She grins, relief easing the knot in her lungs just enough to let her breathe again. "You must be rubbing off on me. A little plagiarism too." He's still buried in her neck, squeezing hard, and she combs her fingers through his hair, holding onto him. "I've had my own darknesses, Rick, and you've walked me right through them. I'm not going anywhere. I may be walking a few steps ahead of you, but it's only to lure you forward."
"You're a damn fine carrot."
She laughs, feeling a lot better now, a lot better, oh God, the truth of those lines and how real it felt. "Don't you forget that."
"I'm calling Burke now."
She hands him her phone.
—–
(If you or someone you love is dealing with depression or suicidal thoughts, if you're unable to articulate your feelings or cutting in order to feel, please please ask for help. Any adult. No one thinks less of you. No one will turn you away. It might take some time to get the right kind of help, it might be frustrating, a long road, but you are worth it. National Hotline: 1-800-273-8255)