The silence is stifling at the start. They've had silences in the car in the past, of course, even with Castle's incessant need to chatter, but they've been companionable silences. Comfortable silences. This is anything but. The weight of all that has been said, and all that lies unsaid, lies above them, pushing down on them.
He stares out the passenger's window, forcing her to make the first move.
"So...when's the next book come out?" It's a cheap ploy by her, she knows, but she can't think of anything better and frankly she just needs to say something, anything, to dispel the cloying silence around them before it becomes too strong, too heavy to confront.
He turns to look at her, and she lets her eyes drift briefly to meet his, green against blue. He's probably seen right through her, but chooses not to acknowledge it right now at least.
"Taking a little break right now."
"Oh yeah?"
"For a dues-paying, newsletter-receiving member of the Richard Castle fanclub you are remarkably ill-informed."
"Stopped paying the dues."
"No you didn't."
It's still strained, the back-and-forth. They don't have to reach for it, or try, but it's not easy like it used to be. It has traverse the rocky road of their past, and that is extra pressure on it, extra load. The struts of it creak.
"I took a break." His voice is suddenly serious, suddenly bleak. "Didn't mean to at the start, just…didn't have it in me. Then after I moped around a bit, Alexis took herself off to Barcelona for an exchange semester."
She encourages him softly to go on.
"I went to visit her- and all of a sudden realised I had no ties to New York for the moment. And I'd always wanted to travel. Never had the chance in my 20s. So I took off. Around Europe, through Asia. Did the Trans-Siberian, hiked in the Himalayas. I'd done book tours and junkets before, but never by myself, never gone off the beaten track." He pauses for a moment, searching for the right word, the right emotion. He might not be writing right now, but the wordsmith in him well never be far from the surface. "It was liberating."
"How long?"
"Oh most of a year. I came home expecting to see the loft trashed, but really mother had done quite a good job of keeping things together. And then Alexis was back too."
"But no writing."
He looks at her again. This time she keeps her eyes on the road. She can feel his bore into her, read her. Like he always could, like the first time they'd met, when he'd figured out why she was a cop in the span of five minutes. She'd never felt so vulnerable, so honest before in her life. In a way it was freeing that she didn't have to tell the bare bones of her story. That he knew. Maybe it was one reason she hadn't kicked up too much fuss about letting him stay.
"No. I mean I thought about it. Did a few plot outlines and stuff, but it wasn't coming. Then a friend of mine called me up. The CUNY creative writing program had an emergency and needed someone in a pinch, asked if I was interested. It seemed like a new and interesting challenge so…"
"Professor Castle. Can't quite picture it somehow."
"It was fun. More fun than I imagined. I'd never envisioned myself to be a teacher, but once I got into the groove of it…"
"And all those lovely young students with a handsome professor to crush on." She can't quite keep the hint of jealousy from creeping into her voice. It's ridiculous. Usually her iron self-control is something she prides herself on. Around him it's more rusty than anything.
"Please. I don't date down to my daughter's age group, thank you." He looks across at her again, more sharply, as if coming to some sort of conclusion. "Are you trying to tell me you're seeing someone Beckett? Is that what this is about?"
She can't help it. All her not-so-subtle detective hints have come to this farce. A small snort of laughter escapes her before she can help it, and he looks at her sheepishly after that.
"OK, dumb question."
"No Castle, I'm not…I haven't really for a while."
He doesn't say anything to that, and the silence settles in again. Less stifling this time. Not quite comfortable, but something in between.
The rain continues to drizzle on the windows, the windscreen. They're almost at the precinct.
"I tried." His voice is a steely whisper, a knife in the night.
"What?"
"To get over you. Move on. Date."
It feels like a punch to her gut, like Maddox again, raining down blows on her. She invited this. Invited this conversation. Invited him into her car, into their sacred space. She was wrong. They shouldn't have done it. She's not ready to hear the story of how he gets over her. She never will be.
"Never saw you on Page Six." She tries to keep her tone jovial, light, content. It's none of those things.
He gives her a long, measured look. There's something a little angry, a little waspish in those blue eyes now, blue eyes she doesn't look at because she could lose herself in them. Has in the past. Has in her dreams.
"Give me a little credit. Give yourself a bit too, while you're at it." He bites off the words, as if he doesn't quite believe they're necessary, as if he's having to spell out something for her that she should get intuitively because…well because he's Castle and she's Beckett and that's all the explanation that's ever been necessary.
She waits him out, pulling into the precinct garage and turning off the engine, but not getting out. Half-turning to look at him.
"No more- what did you call them? Oh yeah. No more bimbettes and celebutantes...I find my tastes a bit more refined now. Intelligent, complex, forceful, powerful women. I can't imagine who might've set the template like that." His eyes drill into her, like blue laser beams pinning her in her seat. Her breath is caught in her throat. How can he do that to her still with his words, make a sentence like that a paean to her and yet cut her to the core with it.
She has no reply, no witty comeback to his brutal honesty and the fierce spark in his eyes. He gives her a moment, then exits the car. She can live with it. Better ferocity than nothing.
Just to be clear, full flashback chapters are headed with a THEN at the start. Just to clear up any confusion. Other chapters might have Beckett reminiscing, but they won't be full flashbacks.
Reviews are great and I'm loving the speculation about the story and the case. Keep it coming, and I'll keep trying to pump the chapters out!