Learn to Have Been
February 2015
After two hours of PT, Castle goes across the hall to the occupational therapist, twisting his wedding band on his finger as he does. He sits down before Beth, a soft-spoken woman with a blunt haircut and a vague presence, who never seems to waver. She pushes a set of wooden blocks over to him and Castle starts the puzzle wordlessly, focusing on matching the colors; he's done it before, he's done it at every session so far.
There's something comforting in that. There's no one else he's got to live up to here.
"What year is this?" she asks, beginning their usual interrogation.
"2015," he answers automatically. He's learned to not think too hard about the questions, because he can't be wrong. Even when he answers incorrectly, it's not wrong. It's all about making connections and keeping the connections he's made.
"Your middle name?"
"Alexan - Edgar," he corrects. That's one he messes up almost every time. He knows he changed his name, it came up in the thorough neurological test he took back at the beginning, and Kate's explained it. But at his core, he's still the Richard Alexander part if not the Rodgers. He's definitely Castle. Richard Alexander Castle. Even though he knows, intellectually, that's not how it went.
That's not how it goes.
It's strange how the mind works. He's kept most things; the important stuff is there. She's there. But small pieces have dropped out. Edgar dropped out, like the name was smudged by the accident, like the hit on his head and the days held captive made a jumble of his kaleidoscope.
"How long have you been married?"
His lips quirk and he glances up at the occupational therapist. Beth has thrown in a new one today. "That's been since the accident."
"Is that your answer?" A hint of impudence.
"We married right before Christmas," he says, his heart feeling soft. Thinking about that day does it to him, pushes into the deepest parts, touches the soul of him where he knows he's remained undamaged.
The soul can't be damaged. She's in his soul, Kate, and she's safe there, and he feels peaceful when he retreats to that place.
"When before Christmas?"
He's startled out of his retreat by Beth's voice, and he glances up at her with a strange thought: he's not expecting it to be Beth questioning him. He's not expecting this woman sitting in front of him.
Who was he expecting?
"Winter solstice," he says, jumping in to keep her from thinking he doesn't know. "December 21st, shortest day of the year."
"So that makes it...?"
"Little under two months," he answers, proud he can do the math, proud to have her. "Best two months of my life."
"Have you ever been married before?"
"Once. No. Twice." Castle winces, closing his eyes. He keeps - it keeps dropping out. How come he can't keep hold of these things? "Married twice before. Meredith. Gina." Who do I think is asking the questions?
"Any children?"
"Alexis," he says with relish. And a faint relief. He never forgets Alexis any more. He had such a wall about that, once; at the beginning of therapy, his brain wouldn't let him think about her.
He doesn't let himself think about her; he thinks of Kate, Beckett, always Kate; she'll find him-
"Very good," Beth says then, reaching forward and jostling him. She tugs the blocks out from under his hands and he realizes he's finished the puzzle, made the colors match up without even noticing. "Try this one. A little harder this time."
For a moment, it wasn't Beth asking the questions, and then it was again. When Beth asks and his fingers do the puzzle, the walls slide down again, like the movement and thinking that's required for the puzzle distract him from guarding his truth.
"Try this one," Beth repeats. "Rick?"
He's never seen this puzzle. But he puts his hands on it and focuses, stars and pointed-ends that have to fit together.
"Where is Alexis now?"
"Huh?" He lifts his eyes from the plastic starburst shapes, comes back slowly to Beth.
If she's frustrated with him, it doesn't show. Nothing shows but patience. "Alexis. Where is your daughter now?"
Alexis is... "In college. But she lives with me and Kate. Course, I don't know at this very moment, but she'll text me. She comes home for dinner on Wednesday nights. So tomorrow night for sure I'll see her."
Beth gives him an encouraging smile and nods to the puzzle; he glances down and blinks at the stars.
"What's Alexis's favorite food?"
"Used to be mac and cheese. I'd make it from the box because she hated it from scratch. Go figure." Rick smiles because - it's funny. That's funny. His girl didn't like real mac and cheese, just the fake stuff. He thought it was funny then, didn't he? And it is. Maybe his sense of humor is coming back.
"And now?"
Castle lowers his head to the puzzle, pleased the emotion is there. "Since you asked me this last week, I asked her. I'm not sure I knew before, because she told me she just found this Italian place that makes a chicken sorrento that she loves. New favorite."
"Really?" Beth asks, and she sounds surprised.
Castle glances up, glad to abandon the puzzle. "Really. Balsamic vinegar. That's the secret."
"You asked your daughter because I asked last time?"
Oh, now he gets it. "Yeah," he grins. "Yeah, I did. Looks like some short term memory made it."
Beth grins back and suddenly that mousy nothing transforms with her smile. He wishes Kate were here; he really wants to see Kate. Kate used to smile at him like that sometimes.
"You asked Alexis about her favorite food and you remembered to tell me. Do you remember how to solve the star puzzle?"
Castle groans and drops his eyes back to the table. "No." He's had the star puzzle before?
"No problem. It's all right," Beth assures him. "It's okay, Rick. Your hands will develop muscle memory over time, and eventually it will break through. Just as it has for the others."
Muscle memory in his hands.
"It's very good that you remembered to ask your daughter her favorite food. See? Aspects of your short term memory are there, and the puzzles are helping."
If muscle memory can rebuild these inane puzzles she keeps giving him, if muscle memory can attach enough significance to the act that he asks his daughter a banal question about her favorite food, can muscle memory guide him at the keyboard of his laptop too?
Maybe it's time to try.
She has four hours before she has to go pick up Castle from back-to-back therapy sessions at Columbia Neurology.
Which is why she's standing on the crumbling asphalt with her hands on her hips, hoping to find something everyone else has overlooked - for nearly eight months now.
She can't stay away.
Interstate 27 is a long ribbon of grey to the bleak horizon, the vanishing point disappearing into a formless winter. She licks her chapped lips and swivels her head to the opposite direction. Jake Campbell's truck is approaching and she waits for him to pull off behind her own car at the shoulder.
"Ma'am - Detective," he corrects, slamming the door shut. "How's he doing?"
"Pretty good. It's mostly all there," she says, offering him a smile and more optimism than she feels. "Thank you."
"Glad I was here," he shrugs. He's about fifty, salt and pepper hair, wearing a light blue t-shirt under his open jacket. His belt buckle is silver and well-made, but he's a local, a native, and he has that reserved distrust about him despite his good samaritan status.
"What can you tell me?" she asks. She sees her own breath before her in an icy cloud.
"He was headed west back to town," Campbell starts, shaking his head. "Or well, towards New York City, I guess."
"When you say 'back to town', was that because-"
"Naw, sorry. Just because I was headed out. He was walking on the side of the road in scrubs and a t-shirt and those paper shoes. Hot as blazes."
"Paper shoes?"
"Yeah like at a hospital. Cut up though, cause they're flimsy. Head was down, watching the road-" Campbell closes his eyes a moment like he's thinking and when they pop open again, she realizes he has the same intense blue that Castle has. "You know his hair was cut so short that I thought he was a soldier at first."
"A soldier."
"Buzzed, ears sticking out. And he looked fit - from a distance. Muscled. But up close I saw it was just - you know - how his bones jutted from his skin, all the weight he'd lost. He looked - not so good."
"He's better now," she assures him. "His mother has every meal catered and half the city is dropping off casseroles at our doorstep."
Campbell laughs at that, a rolling and easy laugh, reassured by her. Kate smiles back and her gratefulness for this man, for being here that day in June, fills her with so much she can't speak.
She has questions, but Campbell seems willing to wait for her to find her voice again, willing to fill in the details, because he puts his hands deep in his coat pockets and nods down towards the stand of three trees on the side of the road. "Down there. Stopped him right there. Saw he was confused and I reached out and touched his arm and he flinched."
He flinched. Kate steps closer, walking towards those now-bare trees, imagining her partner out here, her husband, and it makes her want to break things.
Someone did this to him. She knows who did this to him, and still they've got nothing.
"I took him by the arm but he pulled out of my grip. I thought then he was gonna make it, that pull back, asserting himself. Yeah, thought right then, this guy's okay. He's gonna be okay."
Kate reaches out and touches the bark of the tree, imagines Castle shaded by the leaves overhead, his sunburned skin needing the relief. She presses her lips together, fighting it off.
"I asked him his name but he didn't answer me. Got him up into the truck and drove him to the hospital. He was all right. He was just fine, except quiet and not talking, but I didn't think nothing was wrong with that."
"He's... a talker," Kate gives out, a grim smile on her lips that she can't hide.
"I didn't know he was," Campbell shrugs. "So it seemed fine to me. First few things he said were jumbled up, and then he said he was supposed to get married, and I thought that was more nonsense but I found out-" Campbell nods to her and gives her a hesitant grin, as if sensing that she's not quite okay.
"He was," she affirms. "We were. We are." She shrugs and thumbs the ring. "We're married now. No accidents, thank God."
Campbell gives something like a laugh, but it's stilted. "Not sure what happened to him, but I knew then it wasn't right. He sat there in my truck and I had to even put a hand on him when we got cut off by a tourist. He jumped out of his skin."
Kate is brought back to the moment in a rush, her eyes sharp on Campbell. "You were cut off by a tourist?"
"Well now that I know he was in that accident, it's no wonder he reacted like that."
"Like what?" she says, making her words even, keeping her tone steady.
"He flinched. A violent flinch, you know the kind where your whole body moves. He nearly hit his head against the passenger window."
"What made him flinch? You said you were cut off?"
"On the road," Campbell nods, gesturing towards the interstate. "A minute after I picked him up. A black Mercedes came up on me and then passed in the oncoming lane, cut us off as it came back over. I had to brake but your guy - well, he flinched. Damn tourists."
A black Mercedes.
"Was it a man or woman behind the wheel?"
"I don't know. Didn't see the driver. I was afraid your man had knocked his head so I was looking more at him."
Kate gazes down the stretch of I-27 towards the city, and then she turns her head to glance east, away, where the black Mercedes had come from, where Castle might have been held.
It's not much, but it's more than they had.
Her mind is still spinning with ideas about that black Mercedes by the time she parks in the hospital garage. She has some latitude from her Captain, but she has to tread carefully. She's got one shot at this, and if she makes a mistake, she'll get yanked off his case. Gates spelled it out for her, my detectives don't work their own cases.
Kate stands in the hallway outside the therapy room with her arms crossed and her hands cupping her elbows, holding herself together. Last time he was surprised to find her waiting, even though she picks him up after every therapy appointment; she does this every time.
She hopes he's expecting her. She hopes he remembers.
A nudge at her ankle makes her startle, and a quiet apology sounds somewhere behind her. Kate turns and finds a dog in the hallway of the therapy center, golden-haired and sedate, with a man just behind it.
"She has a nose for people who need comforting," the man says, smiling gently. "The dog. So she wants you to pet her, if you don't mind. It might help."
Everyone here is kind. It's rubbed off on Rick, made him exceedingly polite. She hates it.
But she bends over and pets the dog, ruffling the fur at its neck, reminded of Royal and joint custody and the way Castle was so patient, so unintentionally endearing at the same time.
Okay. So Castle has always been kind. It's not just the accident. They're all in confusion, trying to find the best way forward, and damn, she's stupidly grateful for this dog. She needed this.
Kate sinks heavily into one of the plastic chairs lining the hall and cups the dog's face in her hands, scratching her ears and feeling pathetically grateful. "What's her name?"
"Ananda."
"Oh, thank you, Ananda," she murmurs, rubbing her thumbs over the arc of those wise old eyes. "You knew I needed it." Kate lifts her head and offers a smile. "And thank you...?"
"Mark. I'm a therapist here. I do physical therapy mostly with three year olds."
"Three year olds?" Kate smiles. "Challenging."
"The dog helps - she's a therapy dog. I'm guessing you don't have a three year old in there," Mark says, nodding to the door she's been waiting in front of.
"Despite how it looks," she admits to the hovering, "not a three year old. A husband. He was - in an accident. Some damage."
Mark nods slowly; he looks sad and she hates that. She hates that they all look at her like oh, it might never be better than this.
She doesn't need better than this. Castle is alive, he's alive, and that is the answer to her prayers, the wildest dream she's ever had, the hope beyond all ludicrous hopes.
Castle is alive.
Even if he's not quite the same man.