"You sure this is the place?" He asks as they exit the elevator.
Alexis is the first out into the hallway, looking over her shoulder with a smile. "This is the address he has listed."
Rick lengthens his stride when Alexis turns down the hallway ahead of him, wanting to catch up with her. She's been very eager to help him. He doesn't know how long it's been in this world since they've spent time together like this and he doesn't want to ask. He already feels the need to make up for more things than are his fault in his own universe, he doesn't need to start making a list in this one too. But whether or not she believes him and his literal out-of-this-world claims of his, she's excited to be a part of his life again.
With his arm still in a sling and his shoulder still throbbing with an uncomfortable dull pain, turning sharp every time he decides to move it out of place, Rick catches up to her just as she's raising her hand to knock on a door on the right side of the hallway. Once he's caught up and taking the last few steps, he hears a commotion coming from the other side of the door with a loud coughing fit erupting from inside.
"Just a moment!" They hear a man say with a slightly nasal tone and an accent hinting at being from a northern province of the UK. "Just-just a moment, I'll be right there."
Alexis and her father meet eyes for a moment, looking to each other to gauge the situation. Alexis knows the smell in the air too well.
The door opens and the smell wafts out into the hallway, the aroma blasting them in the face like the heat from an oven being opened. Rick grimaces backward, shaking his head. "Oh..." he waves his hand in front of him.
"Professor Graham Mansfield?" Alexis asks as Rick puts his forearm over his mouth and nose.
The short-statured, thinly grey-haired man in a pair of loose grey slacks, pale blue button-up shirt and an argyle sweater vest looks over his frameless glasses at the two of them, his eyes first catching sight of the college-aged girl, then of the sling her father's arm is in. "I'm sorry, young lady, but I don't deal."
As the door is being shut, Alexis calls back to him. "We're not here for that."
"Please tell me I had the drug talk with you in this universe." Rick strains over his shirtsleeve.
Eyeing her father for a second with a small smile, she looks back to the professor. "I'm Alexis and this is my dad, Richard Castle. We wanted to talk to you about a paper you wrote two years ago."
"Yes," Rick starts, reaching with a clumsy reach into his coat pocket to pull out a piece of paper, unfolding it against his chest, "this." He shows the professor the picture of the artifact.
Mansfield adjusts his glasses, pushing them up to his nose by the temple. "Ah," he says, only bothering to look at the photo for a second before smiling and turning away, "yes, that thing." He laments as he sloths back into his apartment, shoulders slumped downward.
Alexis and her dad meet eyes for a second before Rick takes the lead ahead of her and steps inside after him, leaving Alexis to close the door behind her. Inside, the professor is walking back through his apartment, over to a window with a small table beside it, a single wooden chair in front of it with a black metallic ashtray and a joint resting on its edge, smoke rising from the end.
"So, you recognize it then," Rick states, keeping himself in front of his daughter protectively.
"Yes, I recognize it," Mansfield says as he reaches for the joint. "I spent a greater part of two years researching that trinket before-" he stops to draw in a large hit of the joint in between his fingers, letting it out in a long puff of smoke against the window pane, "-my fellow scientists ran me out of the institution for-" he pauses to let out the last of the drug from his lungs and turns back to them, waving the joint in the air, "-for daring to question the seemingly biblical standard of Clovis first."
"Clovis first?" Rick asks.
Alexis steps up to her dad's side, putting a hand gently on his arm. "I read about it in my research. Clovis First is the leading theory of the Clovis culture from the Paleo-Indian era being the first to inhabit the Americas." She tells him in a hushed voice, hugging herself against her dad's side.
"A community that used to call me well-respected, a community of scientists no doubt," he professor says as he flicks the end of his joint against the ashtray and rests it against the edge again, turning around toward his desk on the other side of the room, "seem unwilling to accept evidence that shake the sands of which they built the foundations of their theory. It seems all I can do to get a single person to listen to me."
Rick looks to his daughter with a lidded gaze before looking back to the professor, who's sliding papers around on his desk. "There is us, Professor."
Mansfield looks over his shoulder with an impassive stare before waving papers in each hand around in front of him. "I mean a single person with some credentials, in the least. Now," he says, tossing the papers back down to his desk and adjusting his glasses again, coming to stand back in front of the father and daughter, his hands stuffed into the baggy pockets of his grey slacks, "what is it that you want to know?"
"This," Rick says, flashing him to picture of the artifact again and handing it to him. The professor looks at it more intently than he had at first. "What do you know about it?"
"Well," the professor says in a light, informative tone, "the legends span cultures, time immemorial. All have their own version of the story behind it, but much like the great flood story, the central theme stays the same. In that, an artifact is granted to a mortal or some power is gifted by the gods, usually represented by the sun, with the ability to grant the individual their deepest desire. Throughout history, this power is usually held by those who want to lead civilizations, men who..." he explains, waving the paper about, "look at themselves as more than mere men."
"So, what you're saying is this thing has traveled down from civilization to civilization?" Alexis asks, trying to follow the professor's thinking.
"What I'm saying, young lady," Mansfield says as he grabs for another paper on his desk, busying himself and talking hurriedly and uninterested as he works, "is that the men in these legends are usually those whose deepest desire is that of a leader, an emperor, a king, a demigod, whatever name they go by, they all usually want power. This object is usually used in carvings as a symbol of that power."
"If this artifact was so important, how'd it disappear?" Alexis asks.
"Because when the Spanish conquistadors sacked the Incan Empire in 1532 at the Battle of Cajamarca, Pizzaro already had power. This object was used to start civilizations, young lady, not carry them. The Sun Disk," he says, briefly looking over his shoulder, "as the natives called it, was lost to history after that."
"What if," Rick interjects himself, "hypothetically," he prefaces cautiously as he takes a step forward, "someone found it."
The doctor glances over his shoulder after grabbing another set of papers from those strewn about his desk for a second, looking back at Rick with an eye roll, but stops when he sees Rick looking at him with a wide, cautious glare. The professor slowly lets the papers fall down to his sides as he turns to face the pair.
"And what if, hypothetically, someone accidentally used it to alter an event in history?"
"Then, hypothetically, I would advise that someone, whoever he-" his eyes then travel to Alexis "or she... might be, to use very..." he says, his voice starting to shake and tighten as he paces toward them, "very extreme caution in how you go about using this object. The natural course of events is meant to play out in a very particular way and it does not like to be changed. Visualize a string, Mr. Castle." He says, putting his hands in front of him. "At rest, the string is inert. Now, if you will, imagine yourself plucking that string and along that string is the lives of billions of people."
"It wasn't anything like that. I only made it so I never met my fiance." He defends himself against an increasingly distressed and crazed looking professor.
"Mr. Castle," he exclaims in a scared voice, approaching him within a few feet, "let me borrow a line from one of your American films and say that you need to think fourth-dimensionally, Marty!" He hisses.
"What do you mean?" Alexis asks him, stepping up in between the two of them.
"Uh..." Mansfield stutters and quickly paces away from the pair, tapping his chin and jaw with his fingers. He spins back around and wags his finger at them. "March 7th, 1936."
"Marth 7th, 1936?" The two ask in unison.
"Yes, you see," he starts to explain, pacing back and forth in a small line in front of them, "the Rhineland was a region west of Germany that was demilitarized after the first World War. The German army under orders of their new leader, dispatched three lightly armed battalions into the Rhineland west of Germany. It was the first time the Germans had violated the Treaty of Versailles. It was a gamble that ultimately paid off, in that when the German Army marched across the bridge into the Rhineland at 11:00 AM on March 7th, they were met with no resistance from the French. After the war, the Allied forces had discovered through the records that if those soldiers had come across any resistance at all on that bridge at the river Rhine, if they had been met by even a single soldier who refused to step out of the way of the Germans, those soldiers would have marched back into Berlin... and they would have shot Hitler in the head themselves."
Alexis and her father both eye each other for another moment, some in anxiousness and some in sorrow.
"Now," the professor continues, catching his breath, "say your greatest desire is to be that one soldier on that bridge who refused to step out of the way. Well, a noble goal to be sure, to prevent the deadliest war in history... at least modern history. But," he says, wagging his finger at them as he paces across the floor of his apartment, "without a second World War, how would America have lifted themselves out of the Great Depression?" He asks them. "And without America to lead the Allied forces and to take the stage as the free world's leader in the late Twentieth century, who would have? Stalinist Russia?"
Rick feels his stomach sink to the floor, his body feeling limp and weak. It was an accident, using that stupid thing in the first place.
"You see, Mr. Castle, like it or not, things happen, however horrific and tragic, for a reason. And I would advise you to make sure you know the consequences and repercussions of using this object, as far reaching as they might be. One cannot tamper with the natural order of things without severe backlash."
"But I already tried to set things right." He says, taking a large step toward the professor. "I already tried using the artifact to send me home, but it didn't work."
"Mr. Castle," Mansfield chuckles loudly, "this object is of the Gods. If it didn't work, then that means it already gave you what you wanted. You can lie to yourself all you want, but no man is capable of lying to God."
Rick's breath leaves him. His heart sinks into his feet.
How can this be what he wanted?
He slowly turns around and starts to pace away from the professor and Alexis follows him, putting her hand on his back and stepping into his side supportively as he starts to leave the apartment. "Uh, one more thing... Mr. Castle." Professor Mansfield stops them. Rick turns around with a pale expression. "A far cry for me to be paranoid but... I would also advise you to avoid anyone... official looking."
"What do you mean?" Alexis asks for him.
"In 1979, the federal government started testing two college students who claimed to have the ability to uh-bend spoons with their minds." He starts anxiously. "After four years of experimenting and millions of taxpayer dollars, they had discovered that the two had in fact faked the entire time." He says, eying the two. "I'd hate to see what they'd do to a man claiming to have the ability to alter the course of history."
On a deep, determined sigh, he makes another turn down another aisle of matching evidence boxes. "It's gotta be around here somewhere." He mutters to himself as he quickly moves down the aisle.
His fingers trace the numbers on the boxes, looking for the right one. He's been down here enough times to know how the cataloging system of the NYPD evidence lock-up works. Standing in the middle of the aisle, his neck craned back to look up at the boxes on the top shelf, he searches for the box he's looking for.
But her, she's standing at the end of the aisle, words failing her as she sees him again. When she'd gotten word that he was here, she was more elated that she wants to admit to. But now, after tracking him down to evidence, she feels at a loss as to what to feel toward him. Yes, he's very handsome, he probably feels a little bit better since his arm is out of that sling she last saw him in at the hospital.
Still, every dream she had feels fresh in her mind. Every sensation, every emotion, every feeling, every touch. It's all so foreign to her. So alien. She feels as if she's supposed to feel close to him, like she has a deep-seated intimacy with him on a level where she knows him inside and out. But he's still a complete stranger. She's banking on her therapist being right, in that it's just some fantasy gone wild. That, she can control at least. She can stomp it away.
"Mr. Castle?" She asks, startling him and making him jump back into the shelves.
As Rick jumps, his heart skipping at the sound of her voice, he turns to see her in a black skirt coming to her knees, black pumps, a white blouse with a waving flourish in the front that moves up the valley of her breasts, and a black blazer, her hair tied back into a bun with her bangs hanging down. His stomach folds when he sees her again, wanting to correct himself.
It's not his Kate. He has to remember that. "Captain Beckett." He says with a smile. "I didn't expect you down here."
Kate smiles softly as she clasps her hands in front of her, trying to play it off as she approaches him. "We already have an intern to sort boxes for us, Mr. Castle." She tells him, coming to lean against the edge of the aisle he's standing in.
"No, I was just uh..." he trails off, looking back up to the boxes in front of him, "looking for the evidence from the coal plant."
"It's right here." She says, pulling out a box next to her and setting it down to the small table at the end of the aisle. "Still," she starts, her chest tightening nervously as she steps back, "I thought I'd at least earn a visit or two from the man who took a bullet for me."
Rick smiles heavily at her, his heart wanting, more than anything, to get sucked in by her beauty. He misses the real her so damn much. But there's a look in her eyes that's missing. "I didn't want to get in the way." He says and quickly steps in front of the box, pulling off the lid haphazardly with his one good arm and careful not to move his other shoulder too much.
She nods at him silently, watching from behind as he goes about digging through the box. It's only another tense moment, feeling an intense pull in her system when she catches his focused and determined features as he searches through the evidence box. Her week-long headache slowly creeps back around her head as her hand's tingle with the want to pull at his face and take his lips, press him back with her body and trap him in between her and the wall with a passionate kiss.
But Rick, after searching underneath a few evidence bags, he finds it near the bottom. In a large bag, he sees the golden markings of the artifact and grabs for it eagerly. He takes the bag in his hand but feels his entire world fall away, his heart crumbling into pieces when he sees the artifact cracked into two pieces from a single bullet hole in the center.
Kate notices his face pale as he holds the bag in his hand. "Something wrong?" She asks casually, keeping her hands clasped together for her own good.
His hand falls weakly back into the evidence box and he forces a smile over his shoulder at her. "Fine." When she watches him grab the front edge of the box and shove it away, she nods and shuffles back a small step. "I just lost my one hope at getting home is all." He murmurs, his voice slurring.
His eyes sting hotly as he fights his emotions. It can't end like this.
He's stuck here. He abandoned her all over again.
It's over.
A/N: The scene will continue in the next chapter. Didn't want this one to run long. Let me know what you think. Professor Mansfield liked enough to make another appearance maybe? :O