Previously in Angel of Manhattan: Rick Castle's life becomes even more complicated than normal when a magical scroll materializes before his very eyes, signifying the beginning of his unusual role as guardian angel to Kate Beckett. To complicate matters further, Detective Beckett, president of Cynics United, also receives a scroll, though she has no idea what to make of it and its unusual message of a persistent and patient man. With help from Martha and Alexis, Castle must navigate the thin line between keeping Beckett alive and keeping her from finding out the truth.
Castle opened the drawer of his desk and looked at the contents again as if trying to fit imperfect pieces of a puzzle together. A scroll. A hammer, and a chisel. A model of a lifeboat that gets itself the right way up if it capsizes, how awesome and cool is that?! He picked the model up and put it on his desk to ride the papery ocean waves.
This isn't helping. He closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh, wishing that the inside of his eyelids were black instead of the shimmering vision of Beckett's naked body burning in her own bath.
"Castle?" Her voice wafted through from the kitchen along with the most delicious smell of a beef stew full of red wine. He took a deep breath in to calm himself, trying to keep the panic at bay. Get it together, Rick. She's fine. She's in the next room, cooking dinner. So utterly domestic it's painful and that's why you're hiding in here.
"Castle?" Closer now, he could tell she was moving towards his office, probably watching at him through the open door, wondering why his hands were balled in fists, with no colour in his face and his lungs barely able to take in air.
She tiptoed through the loft and into his office, coming to a halt just within the boundary of the bookshelves. "Castle," she spoke in a soft, low voice, as if he were a skittish foal who might startle away if she called out too loudly. Her eyes narrowed, has he even breathed since I came in? Another few seconds passed and she couldn't wait any longer. "Castle, breathe." Finally, he did, and his eyes opened, wild and unfocussed.
Shit, he's having a panic attack.
She approached the desk slowly, and her movements caught his attention. His gaze moved in her direction without really seeing her, so she stopped opposite him and knelt down so she was in his eye line. "Castle," she repeated, and his eyes finally locked on hers. "Deep breath through your nose on my count, ok?" She counted to three and was pleased he was following her instruction. His hands began to relax and his cheeks had a bit more pink in them.
"Maybe we should book you in for a psych eval, now the case is over."
"What? No, Beckett, I'm fine."
"Sure. Explain that to Alexis when she has to tell you to breathe when you're having a panic attack."
Rick flexed his fingers and relaxed his shoulders before he put his elbows on the desk to bury his face in his hands.
"Every time I close my eyes, I see you burning to death," he whispered. Nothing like an impending sense of catastrophically failing the person you've been put on earth to protect.
"Hey. I'm here. Didn't even get a burn. Definitely not dead." She sighed when he wouldn't look up at her. "Come on, dinner's nearly ready. You're not seriously going to mope around in here when I've been slaving away in your kitchen all afternoon, are you?" She gave him a grin when he perched his chin on his hands which he returned with a small smile. "Go tell Alexis she has five minutes, 'kay?" He nodded as she got up and turned to go back to the stove.
Rick picked up the lifeboat and looked at it for a minute before he put it away in the drawer.
Beckett was dressing for work in the guest room of Castle's loft the next morning, slipping the necklace with her mother's ring over head and fastening the strap of her father's newly repaired watch around her wrist, when the thought popped into her head. Where's my scroll? She paused in her movements and mentally scanned the bag she'd brought back from her locker at the Twelfth. No, not in there, didn't take it back to the precinct after it turned up. She frowned. Maybe I should go take another look around my apartm-... the crime scene.
She shook her head, knowing it wouldn't help. The scroll was lost, though she couldn't bring herself to believe it had perished in the fire. And there was no way she could ask Castle if he'd seen it when he found her watch. So she would have to ponder the mysterious scroll and its strange message about walls without the physical evidence to hand.
"Dad, if you found a scroll with her watch, you should give it back to her!"
For once, the hushed voices of the two Castles-in-residence were actually quiet and not stage-whispers in the finest Rodgers tradition.
"But she'd probably shoot me if she found out I knew she had a scroll, and the likelihood is even greater because I've read it!"
Alexis paused. "You read it?" Her father nodded. "What did it say?"
"Well, it made the hammer and chisel make more sense, something about seeing the light through a tiny crack in the wall and then chipping away at it until you're bathed in sunlight." He shrugged, "I'll slip it back into her stuff upstairs when she's gone to the precinct." He opened the fridge and went in search of the cheese that always ended up right at the back.
Beckett was unsurprised to find Alexis in the kitchen as she came downstairs, it was a school day after all, and she didn't think the teenager had ever been purposefully late for anything in her life. Her father, on the other hand... "Good morning, my dear detective!" Her hand whipped across to her hip, reacting to the surprise the only way she knew how.
"Castle!" Thank god I haven't got my gun out of his safe yet! She put her hand on her chest in an attempt to calm the adrenalin spike.
"Haven't you learned to not startle Detective Beckett before her first cup of coffee, Dad?"
"Usually I don't see her till at least her second or third cup, and I'm the one bringing the next one, so... I'll bear it in mind for tomorrow." Alexis seemed satisfied with this answer, but Beckett continued to stand in the middle of the open plan living area, her hands on her hips and a glare in her eyes. "...what?"
"Why are you up so early?" And why aren't you complaining about it?
"So we can go to the precinct together. Saves a car journey if we share, so we're saving the planet. And helps Alexis with her science project." Beckett turned to the younger Castle to see a fleeting frown before she can get her poker face on.
"Right, my science project. It's about carbon emissions."
Sure it is. "Mhm." Rick held out a cup of coffee to the detective, who took it with a grudging smile and a quiet thanks.
"Omelette for breakfast?"
Seriously? I'm going to put on a stone by the time I find a new apartment. "Uh, yeah. Thanks."
Martha gracefully entered the main room of the loft via what she liked to call 'upstage left', but what everyone else would call 'the stairs'. The apartment was quiet, as it had tended to become around the early afternoon now that Rick was working at the precinct. Martha gently held a small velvet bag in her hand as she headed into her son's study.
"I don't know why I didn't think of keeping mine with his before," she muttered to herself, sitting down delicately in his desk chair. She looked at the drawers on both sides of the desk before picking one at random. Left, third drawer down, full of fountain pens and ink in boxes, a thin layer of dust indicating he'd never used them. She tutted and rolled her eyes, before trying a different drawer. Left, top drawer, photo of Alexis and Rick from when she was around five years old. Martha picked the framed photograph up and smiled indulgently before rooting around the drawer in search of her son's scroll. She let out a frustrated humph and put the picture back where she'd found it.
Another try, right hand side, second drawer down. A small wooden box, a little model of a lifeboat that he insisted could right itself when capsized, and a hammer and chisel. Martha chuckled to herself and lifted the wooden box out onto the desk, opening it a little roughly.
"Oh!"
There were two scrolls inside already. Martha looked up from the desk and peered through the bookshelves that made up the walls of Rick's office, unnecessarily checking that the coast was clear still. She picked both of the scrolls out and placed them next to hers before she took the ribbons off each, discarding them into the box as the scrolls unfurled next to each other.
She was sure that the scroll in the middle had much more writing on than the other two, but as her gaze moved across to it, the writing swiftly began to disappear. The other scrolls also cleared quickly, and suddenly she was looking at three blank scrolls. Martha's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Curiosity killed the cat, I suppose!" She began to roll up the one in the middle and, assuming it was Rick's, tied it with the blue ribbon. She then proceeded to tie the one nearest the window with the purple ribbon, and finally tied the scroll to the left with the green ribbon.
She placed the three scrolls into the wooden box and gently put it back into the drawer, picking up her velvet bag as she stood. She shifted the small sheaf of papers that had dislodged themselves back into a neat pile. "It's like I was never here!"
Martha smiled and went off to get her purse so she could go shopping with Alexis after school.
A/N: Long time no see for this story. Five months, in fact. I'm sorry, I got swept up in writing for the Ficathon but I didn't even manage to finish that in time. I am trying to though, and I want to finish this one too. I have a couple of one-shots in the works, and I'm also starting a Christmas fic: a fun mixture of murder, mystery, and Muppets... which I hope you'll like.