"It's Literally Verbal Masturbation" - aka an alternate interpretation of the series finale. NOT to be taken overly seriously. Spoilers for 8x22 herein!


"Sorry, Rick," the villain growled as he leveled his weapon on the defenseless writer, "but how am I gonna enjoy my retirement with you and the missus hunting me?"

"Castle!" shouted the beautiful captain, entering the room with her gun drawn. And the room exploded in a hail of bullets...

"Dad!"

Castle looked up guiltily, hastily slamming his laptop shut as his teenage daughter entered the room.

"Oh. Hi, pumpkin, what's up?" he asked just a little too innocently.

Alexis sighed, shaking her head at him. "Seriously? Are you still writing that self-insertion fanfic about you and Detective Beckett? It's really getting kind of-"

"Pathetic. I know," he groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. His cheeks were rough with stubble and he suddenly wondered just how long he had been sitting here, lost in the magic of the story he had woven. "But I was just about to end it, Alexis. I swear."

"Really." His daughter eyed him skeptically, coming over to perch on the corner of his desk. "How? Are you making them ride off into the sunset on those motorcycles?"

"What? No." He frowned. "You read that one? I thought we agreed that you wouldn't look at my hard drive any more."

"I was checking up on you," she shrugged, unrepentant. "But don't worry, I never look in your X-rated folder."

"Alexis," he protested, squirming in his chair. His precious little girl wasn't supposed to know about that.

"We worry about you, Dad," she said more softly. "It's not healthy, what you've been doing these past few months. Sitting around all day in your underwear, writing this whole fantasy world where Detective Beckett is in love with you and lets you solve cases with her and everything? Eight years' worth of it? It's pretty creepy, actually."

"It's not harming anything," he muttered sulkily. "It's just for fun."

"I know." Alexis leaned over and hugged him. "And I'm sorry. I know how disappointed you were that she and her captain refused to let you shadow her."

"I helped them solve that case and everything!" he exclaimed, not noticing how Alexis hid her eyeroll in the crook of his neck. "Without my help they never would have caught Harrison Tisdale. You'd think they would have been a little bit grateful."

"Dad, they were." Alexis pulled back and looked reproachfully into his eyes. "You got an official commendation from the mayor and everything. Why can't that be enough?"

"The girl is wise," came a mellow voice from the doorway. Castle groaned.

"Mother."

"Well, Richard," said Martha Rodgers, entering the room with her typical aplomb, "you must admit your daughter has a point. But did I hear you say that you're putting an end to this foolishness at last?"

"Yes," he grumbled, reopening his laptop and turning it so that both women could see the words on the screen. "I was just working on the penultimate scene. I wrote the last scene already."

Alexis's eyes skimmed swiftly across the text. "Oh my god," she gasped, one hand flying up to cover her mouth. "Caleb came back? I thought he died in that car explosion."

"No, that was all a ruse to draw us out. I mean, them," Castle amended hastily at a sharp look from his mother. "But after we - they - take out the big bad, Caleb comes back and gets his final revenge by shooting both of them."

"You're killing yourself off? How very avant-garde," Martha commented.

"No!" Now it was Castle's turn to gasp, affronted. "God, no. I would never. You can't just kill a beloved character like that!" He hit the page-down key. "Look, they're both going to be fine, okay?"

SEVEN YEARS LATER... read the screen.

"Wait," Alexis said, grimacing. "You gave yourself and Detective Beckett three kids? And you even named them? That's way too far into creepy territory, Dad."

"I had to put the kids in there," he protested. "I wrote that one last month about the time-traveler who tells them that they have three kids. Consistency is very important."

"Oh, of course, consistency," Martha scoffed, rolling her eyes melodramatically.

Castle ignored that. "And I debated about whether that included you," he added, putting a hand on Alexis's arm, "but I decided that by the time we were having kids, you'd be in college and living on your own anyway."

"Richard," his mother chided, shaking her head.

"What?" he bristled defensively.

"You said 'we' again, darling."

"ANYway," he said firmly, folding his arms across his chest, "that's finished. I don't need it any more. It just so happens that I sent the first draft of Heat Wave to Gina yesterday, and she loved it. Black Pawn is going to publish it."

His mother and daughter both exclaimed with surprise. "Really? You actually wrote the book based on Detective Beckett?" Alexis asked, her eyes wide.

"Yeah," he shrugged, "I got enough material from those couple of days we were working on that one case together. Of course, if I wanted to stretch it into a series, I'd need to do more research with the NYPD, but..." he shrugged expressively.

"Aha," Martha said knowingly, winking and nodding at him. "I see where you're going, kiddo. Just be careful, all right?"

"What?" Alexis looked from her grandmother to her father and back again, and at last the penny dropped. "Ohh. You think when Beckett reads the book she'll be so flattered she'll decide to let you follow her after all?"

"You never know," Castle said, shrugging too casually. He stood up from his chair and stretched with a loud groan. "Dinner?"

"You should clean up first, darling," his mother said, breezing out toward the living room. "I'll be upstairs whenever you're ready."

"Me too," Alexis agreed, giving him a peck on the cheek before bouncing away.

Alone again, he looked down and hit the page-down key on his laptop one more time.

Every writer needs inspiration, and I found mine.

"Ugh, no. Way too cheesy," he grumbled, and hit the delete key.