The elevator continued downwards, even though Beckett knew it had gone far below the foundations of her building. It had become noticeably colder, and the sound from beyond the steel doors was like a shrieking wind.
Martha stood in silence, looking at her with the same regretful expression on her face.
"Oh god, Martha," Beckett said, still pressed up against the left wall of the tiny space. "How did… I mean… what happened to you?"
The older woman was silent for a moment, her strange eyes twinkling, then she spoke.
"When I died?"
Beckett nodded, a shiver running up her spine.
"Tonight isn't about me, Katherine, as you very well know."
The ghost started to turn her head away, but Beckett took a step forward.
"Please," she said. "I have to know. I… was it at least… a long time from now?"
Again Martha paused, considering the question, then she sighed. Her breath plumed out, visible in the air.
"I'm afraid it's not so many years away," she replied at last. "A silly accident. I fell down some stairs, at my dear studio. How I've missed it."
Beckett frowned. She'd been to Martha's acting studio, and it was in a converted warehouse on the corner of a block. It was all on the ground floor. There were no stairs anywhere.
The ghost raised an eyebrow in amusement, and Beckett remembered that these beings could hear her thoughts just as easily as her spoken words.
"I moved to another studio," Martha said. "Better acoustics."
"I'm so sorry," Beckett replied, and she truly meant it. She felt a tear roll down her cheek. The idea of this proud, flamboyant, strong woman ever dying was hard to accept. The idea that it was in a silly accident, and long before her time, was appalling. It was like losing another mother.
There was silence for several long moments as the elevator rumbled ceaselessly downwards.
"But you're still… alive. Here and now, I mean?" Beckett asked, then she realised the absurdity of her question. "Or where we just were."
The ghost nodded.
"So how can you be here too, while there's another Martha at home, in Castle's loft?"
The ghost smiled, and there was a disturbing hint of mischief to it.
"My dear Katherine, it's you who's not 'here' anymore. Where we're going, I've been dead for quite some time. But we have a stop or two to make first."
Beckett felt fear rise up inside her. She'd seen some painful things with Royce and Montgomery, but she truly dreaded the thought of seeing her own future laid out before her.
Some questions shouldn't be answered, she thought.
"But answer them we must," Martha replied, turning to face the doors of the elevator again. "And I think it's time we began."
The elevator shuddered briefly, and then slowed. The howling wind outside faded abruptly to silence, and then the elevator clanked as if it was slotting back into a larger mechanism.
Beckett felt the floor pressing up against the soles of her feet as the elevator braked heavily, and after another few seconds it came to a stop with a small jolt.
She heard the muted pinging sound that indicated they had arrived at their destination, and the doors slid smoothly open.
Ahead of her, she saw the familiar corridor leading to the bullpen.
"We're in the precinct," she said, and Martha nodded, gesturing with her arm to indicate that Beckett should go first.
They stepped out of the elevator and began to walk towards the open area at the far end. Beckett looked around carefully.
It was the middle of the day, and everything was much the same – but there were differences. The computers were new, and of a model she didn't recognise. The murder board was now a smart board.
A uniformed officer walked by, not noticing either of them, and he was holding a mobile phone that was thinner than any she'd ever seen before, and seemingly made of a single piece of glass, the display running edge-to-edge on one side.
We're in the future, she thought, and Martha nodded.
"What year is this?" Beckett asked, and Martha glanced at her briefly before shrugging.
"The date isn't what's important, Katherine," she replied. "Suffice it to say that there've been a handful of Winters since you stepped into that elevator tonight."
Beckett frowned, but accepted the ghost's answer.
It's your show, she thought.
"And it's for your benefit," Martha replied archly, then strode diagonally across the bullpen towards the break room. After a moment, Beckett followed.
The room's blinds were drawn and the door was closed, but Martha simply passed straight through, with Beckett only a step behind.
As the interior of the room came into view, she stopped abruptly in shock.
She was looking at Castle, and herself.
Both of them were ever so slightly older. She could see some fine lines around her older self's eyes, and even a telltale glimpse of isolated grey strands showing in her hair. She was in the same shape as ever, but her style of dress was subtly different. Darker colours, and lower heels. One of the lapels of her blouse was heavily creased.
Maybe I'm just having a bad day, she thought, but she didn't believe it. Tension was radiating from her older self, and Castle didn't look much more comfortable.
He looked a little older too, but not in a bad way. There were matching little clusters of silver hairs coming in at his temples, but his hair was as thick as ever. As she looked at him she had a brief mental image of how he'd look when he was older still, with a full head of silver-grey hair. She flushed when she remembered that his mother was in the room with her, and could hear her thoughts.
"Don't mind me, dear," the ghost said, but there was an edge of sadness to it.
Castle sighed, running his hand through his hair as he leaned against the counter that held the coffee machine – a different one than the contraption he'd bought for the homicide department.
"Kate," he said, and Beckett flinched momentarily before realising he was talking to her older self. He didn't continue, but the older Beckett shook her head.
"There's nothing more to say, Castle," she replied. Her tone was cold and flat. "I've made up my mind. I can't make you go, but I'm asking you to walk away."
He looked at her for several seconds, then opened his mouth to respond but he was interrupted by a soft tone. The older Beckett rolled her eyes, and he pulled a thin, translucent oblong of glass from his trouser pocket. It was a few millimetres thick, with no markings except the grey outline of the familiar Apple logo. When he turned it to face him, the entire surface became opaque, showing a three-dimensional animated icon of a speech balloon.
That's… a text message, Beckett thought. Or something like it.
"Sorry," he said, pocketing the strange device again, but the older Beckett just frowned.
"She's right, you know," the older Beckett said, and Castle looked confused for a moment.
"About it being time you gave up playing cop," she continued. "You've got responsibilities, and more on the way."
Castle inhaled deeply, again running his hand through his hair.
Who's right? Beckett though, glancing at Martha, but the ghost didn't look around at her. And what responsibilities?
"Steph was just asking me to pick up some–" Castle began, but the older Beckett cut him off.
"I don't want to know, Castle. Your fiancée can ask you to bring home any damn thing she likes. She's carrying your child. That's where you should be. Not here, or out chasing murderers."
He was silent for a long time. Eventually, the other Beckett looked away, tilting her head to crack her neck.
"You've changed, Kate," he said quietly, and Beckett's older self looked at him again, defiant at first but then with a flicker of uncertainty. "You didn't used to be like this. Even the guys think so."
"Ryan and Esposito?" she asked, incredulously, and he nodded. "I haven't talked to Esposito in a month, and Ryan spends most of his time in oversight meetings. What would they know?"
"They used to know. They used to know you damned well," he replied, getting angry now too. "But you've been pushing us all away for more than a year now. What I can't figure out is why."
"I'm not having this conversation again," she said, and there was finality in her tone. "I asked you in here because I've requested another partner. I think you know that this thing has run its course. For the sake of everything we've been through together over the years, I'm asking you to walk away now. You have your life to get on with, and I have mine."
Martha lowered her head, and Beckett felt anxiety pulsing through her. Why would I say that to him? What happened to me?
Castle was still looking at her older self, and Beckett saw the moment that he finally gave up hope of getting through to her. It was the tiniest change in… something. His expression. His posture. His eyes. And then it was over.
He stepped forward, and the older Beckett glanced up at him, her face a mask of indifference.
"It's been a pleasure, Kate Beckett," he said. "I mean that."
He raised his hand towards her, and she drew herself up to her full height then she reached forward and shook it firmly.
"Have a good life, Castle," she replied. There was still the coldness in her tone, but Beckett thought she could also hear a desperate sadness beneath. "I know you will."
Castle looked around the small room, then fixed his gaze on her for another long moment before quickly crossing to the door, passing straight through Beckett. She smelled his aftershave as he passed by.
He paused, his hand on the door handle.
"I still think you're extraordinary," he said, his voice just loud enough for the woman to hear, but the older Beckett didn't reply. After another moment, the opened the door and stepped out, closing it behind him.
"What are you doing?" Beckett cried out, raising her hands towards her older self even though she knew the woman couldn't hear her.
She turned to Martha. "Why is she doing this?!"
The ghost didn't reply, and Beckett waited only a moment before running straight through the closed door into the hallway, and glancing around for Castle. He was already at the far end, stepping into the empty elevator. He pressed a button and the doors began to close.
She ran towards him, but she was too late. The doors met, and he was gone.
She came to a halt, then impulsively raised her fists and thrust them towards the metal doors, and she was surprised when her hands banged painfully against the cold steel.
"I'm afraid we're getting the next one," Martha said from just over her shoulder, and she spun around.
"What's going on here?" Beckett asked, her voice wavering. Everything about this was wrong. Castle was engaged to Stephanie? And living with her. And she was pregnant!
She suddenly burst into tears, and the ghost laid a comforting hand on her arm.
"I know, dear. I know. But you waited, you see," she said sadly.
Beckett swiped at the tears on her cheeks, her brow furrowing in confusion.
"When did I wait? What caused all this?"
Martha looked at her for several seconds, her expression filled with dismay and regret.
"Even after all you've seen, you held back. You worried about whether friendship was all you could be sure of. You feared you'd reach out for more and it would all come crumbling down. And so you waited, and you delayed."
Martha sighed, taking Beckett's hand in hers.
"You asked for time, but really you were giving it to him – the time to move on, slowly, bit by bit. To get over you, before there was anything to get over."
"But I… I was going to…" she began, but the ghost shook her head sadly.
"Yet here we are," she said simply. "And the night is young."
The ghost gently ushered her forward, and Beckett saw that the elevator now stood open in front of them, even though she hadn't heard it arrive. The interior was also the elevator from her apartment building, not the one here in the precinct. They stepped inside, and the doors slid shut.
There was a moment of silence before Martha spoke again.
"What you must understand, Katherine, is that this is your final night."
A chill ran up Beckett's spine, and she visibly shivered.
"What does that mean?" she asked, in a small voice.
The ghost's eyes shifted from green, to blue, to brown, to grey, and then to some unidentifiable colour.
"This night – the one when you stepped into this elevator – is the last before it's too late. All the pieces are in place. There's no more time."
Then Martha smiled wistfully, and it was terrible to behold – an expression that whispered of untold ages of loneliness, spent silently waiting to try and set something right that once went wrong.
"Now, you must see what happened after you waited too long. We have more stops to make before this night is done."
The elevator jolted, even though neither of them had touched any of the buttons. It began to move downwards, slowly at first and then faster, and with a final shriek of metal against metal, the sound of the howling wind outside returned.
Beckett stepped back against the wall, pressing her palms flat against the surface.
They fell through whatever void lay beyond the thin walls, hurtling ever downwards, into the shadowy years ahead.