A/N: For those of you who get confused easily, we're getting glimpses of life in two different places at two different times . . .

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle – all credit goes to Andrew Marlow and the writing team for ABC's Castle; my thanks to them for providing a foundation for this little exercise. Special thanks to Marlow's wife, Terri Miller on this theme, since she's the one who wrote most of the sci-fi based episodes, with Adam Frost helping to round things out.

Chapter 2

Bad-ass Richard Castle awoke earlier than usual. And if that wasn't bad-assed enough, he carried a grouchy streak along with it. He hadn't slept well in the brief span of about five hours that he had allowed himself. Furthermore, he had attributed it to being alone in bed; something that had been happening all too frequently as of late, which represented a significant departure from what he had experienced in his rather long and storied past. He could have counted on company, a different company if he so desired, every night; but now things had changed. It seemed to him that as his popularity and book sales numbers had grown, so would the opportunities for private company; but the trend had taken a downward turn many months ago and he really hadn't paid it any mind. This particular morning however was another matter; the feeling lingering and bothering him more than previously. He promised himself that he'd look into the troubling business of so-called friendships with his publicist and some of his other closest friends after he had attended to some other pressing matters regarding his latest submittal to the publishing house.

His relationship with Elemental-Fic Press (EFP for short) had not reached even a year so he knew he had to play it by the book and do everything their way. This publishing house was much bigger than Black Pawn; and even though a couple of the EFP marketers had convinced him to jump ship when his last contract with Black Pawn had ended, he still had to be careful. He was still 'new' and while he was quite high up on the totem pole as far as volume and sales were concerned, he was not their one and only. They were far too savvy for that. The regular contributors featured on the New York Tribune's best seller list were numerous and EFP was home to a significant number of them; so Castle, although smug as usual, had to stay in line with the rest of the big boys.

He managed to let the annoyance of the solitary morning and the demands of his publisher fade into the background; so with that accomplished, he pushed the call button beside his bed for his personal assistant. Since it was already past eight o'clock, Castle knew 'Sir Jeffry' would be in the kitchen area awaiting instructions for the day in addition to the breakfast order. As Castle was waiting for Jeff to make his entrance, he drew back the curtains on the windows facing westward, which revealed a bright, clear morning and the buildings across the river, over in New Jersey, growing more prominent on the skyline under the ever-intensifying sunlight. The view was from his newest apartment over in one of the Tribeca high rises. Not that he didn't like his original loft apartment across town on the upper east side of Manhattan; he was still plenty fond of that, but on the other hand this new view was good for a change of pace. He had been visiting a former friend in this building, liked the view and the sunset as seen from the thirtieth floor, and purchased the first unit that had become available with a similar view. He would have been just as pleased to have moved into the friend's apartment, but that relationship had not ended well, and she had decided there were better opportunities for her career in Chicago. Consequently, the coveted apartment was taken over by another member of her family and Castle had to go apartment hunting on his own.

"Good Morning Mr. Castle", said Jeff in a cheery yet hopeful voice, motivated by the desire that Castle might be less grouchy this particular morning than he had been each morning over the past week or so.

"Morning Jeff. Breakfast ready yet?"

"No Sir. I've run out of options for this week. Do you care to repeat anything?", Jeff asked with some trepidation regarding the possible reply. To his surprise, Castle only shrugged and put on a pensive expression.

"I could go for the Belgian waffles again. Yeah, go with that Jeff. And get my office clothes ready. I'm going to pay some folks a visit later this morning", Castle finally commanded.

"As you wish, Mr. Castle . . . your breakfast will be ready in about twenty minutes", Jeff replied, his voice echoing along the hallway as he returned to the kitchen area.

While Jeffery McManahan began work on Castle's breakfast, he began to mutter to himself about how it had come to this. His thick Scottish brogue became more prominent now that he was by himself. He had learned to suppress it when in polite company, although he didn't consider his present boss exactly polite company. A couple of indiscretions and bad investments followed by an extended period of heavy drinking had brought him to his present lot in life. Like everybody else he needed the money. The only reason Castle had hired him was the empathy factor. Castle himself had almost ruined his own career early on by an extended period of excess with just about everything – but especially the drinking. Castle didn't have respect for much of anything else but offering someone, who showed a sincere desire to reform, an opportunity to bounce back from that situation was something he actually did value.

That one virtue aside, Jeffery really hated Castle's public image. To him Castle was the epitome of moral decadence. Apparently, Castle's near crash and burn episode had taught him little, except maybe to be a little more careful, because Castle was still a poster child for the night club life and the needless excess spent on enjoyment just for the sake of it. Jeffery had overheard that Castle could spend more in just one evening at one of those places than the average person could even earn in a month – and he was comparing it to New York standards, not some backwoods place in Louisiana. Then there was the housewarming party he threw when he had finished outfitting the new Tribeca apartment. There must have been a hundred people crammed in there, and seventy percent of them were women of all shapes sizes and ages, but sixty percent of that group seemed to be in the blonde bimbo category. During the aftermath, Jeffery had spent the next two days cleaning the place up and finding discarded articles of women's clothing in all kinds of unexpected places. If Jeffery had harbored the same outlook as some of Castle's so-called friends he would have exclaimed 'Heck yeah, party on!', but he was past that chapter in life. Maybe it was just a natural reaction but he, the reformed partier like the reformed smoker, had really begun to abhor the practice.

Then there were Castle's business investments. Jeffery's downfall had been partly due to a bad real estate deal. He knew Castle has such a disgustingly big portfolio that he had the purchasing power to have become a fifty-one percent owner of an opulent building in Manhattan known as the Trump Tower. Such properties must be cursed, reasoned Jeffery, because the current controlling member must have used the former owner as a role model – also exhibiting all of the 'fine' business traits of being a self-centered, arrogant jackass with ever increasing ambitions. Jeffery was sure that the average New Yorker shared his opinion.

But all of that was nothing in comparison to Castle's attitude toward people. In summary – he didn't care about them. It had come to a point where Castle seemed to consider his fan base as nothing more that a collection of drug addicts, and he was their dealer. They needed him. He no longer recognized that reading was a voluntary form of pleasure and not a necessity. But the fan base was beginning to realize that while reading his work was fun; attending one of his book signings wasn't.

Jeffery got things ready for his boss while Castle was eating breakfast. Jeffery had decided to make a full day of service at the apartment and then wait around long enough to prepare dinner and afterwards head to his own home. While out dropping off some dry cleaning, Jeffery received a text from his boss. It read 'Won't need your services this evening. Have two meetings this PM and will be going over to the loft apartment on the upper east side to check on something so I won't be returning to Tribeca this evening. See you tomorrow.'

Upon reading it, Jeffery shrugged his shoulders, finished what he had to do, and headed home for some well-deserved relaxation.

A/N: To be Continued.