Beatles 65
by RGoodfellow64
Chapter 5, I'll Be Back, part 1
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Disclaimer: Now really, do you think after only four chapters things have changed? Disclaimer still at Chapter 1.
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You could find better things to do / Than to break my heart again
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The phone seemed glued to his ear and he finally had to interrupt, "Paula I said I'll be there and I will!"
There was a long pause as he listened and then he practically yelled, "I'll be there Paula! I swear if you don't stop harping on it I'll go somewhere else. Where? Vegas…no Paris, I'll go to Paris! What do you mean what for? For…for lunch, I'll go to Paris for lunch, and believe me Paula, I know it can be done."
He sighed and ran his hand through his unwashed hair, "Paula it went well enough, yeah well that's the best anyone's going to get, so live with it!" He disconnected the call before she could say anything else and put the phone back down on his desk, remembering the pre-release party that Paula mentioned. He thought it went ok but she said it was a disaster.
He was uncommunicative, she said. He stood apart with an angry look on his face to keep people away, she said. He looked sickly, as if he had a terrible disease, she said. He never smiled, she said. He never…she said, she said, she said! He was tired of hearing what she said! He was tired of waiting for a phone call that obviously was never going to come. He'd been an idiot, a fool, a pathetic excuse of a man by pining away for a woman who simply doesn't give a damn about him!
He looked down at Heat Rises and thought, "Oh Roy, I wish I'd never asked to follow her. You'd still be here, and I wouldn't be where I am.'
He stood up and walked into his bedroom, making his way to the master bath. Once there he stopped in shock. Was that him? Was that Richard Castle? He walked up to the mirror and took a look at the pale, unshaven face before him. His eyes didn't even look blue any more, they looked a sickly shade of grey…no, blue grey, but still they looked empty.
'Oh my God,' he thought, 'is this what I've subjected Alexis to all these weeks?' He turned his head from side to side and was shocked at what he saw, at what she had reduced him too.
He thought of the funeral when he saw the flash, trying to get to her in time and falling to the ground with her. He remembered his words, how he opened his heart to her, how he let her know finally what he'd been so afraid to speak before. But it always ended with her eyes closing and her being taken away.
He looked down at his hands and saw the blood, so much blood, so much that he still felt the need to wash his hands several times a day, just to make sure they were really clean. Then he remembered the hours spent at the station trying to find her shooter, all that time put in to help her and then the words, those wonderful, wonderful words from Jim, that she was awake, that she was talking and that he could come up to see her.
He looked at his reflection in the mirror and cringed. This was not the man who so joyously ran to see her. This was not the man who could hardly contain his smile at the mere thought of seeing her, and when he did, Josh was there. Holding her hand. Gently moving the hair from her eyes. Caressing her and claiming her, while he stood in the door awkwardly with a bouquet of flowers in his hand.
Then the words. She didn't remember. She thought it was good that she didn't recall what happened to her. Then she blamed him for Montgomery's death, said he should have let her fight it out with him. Inferred that Montgomery would still be alive if she had been there. She was still falling down that rabbit hole and had no intention of ever coming back out again.
She said she was tired, and only a few minutes after he arrived she summarily dismissed him. Then the clincher, 'I'll call you.' He snorted, as he looked at himself in the mirror, when had he last washed his hair? "I'll call you," he whispered to himself. How many times had he used the same line after a particularly bad date?
He stood up a bit straighter and took in his appearance again. "I'll call you," he said, this time a bit louder. He looked at himself and felt something start in his belly and work its way up till his lip snarled. "I'll call you!" he yelled at his reflection and then he answered himself saying, "Like hell you will!"
He was angry. Angry at himself and angry at her for leading him on. All these weeks he never once picked up the phone to call her or text her, not once! Waiting, always waiting and for what? She was probably too busy being brought back to health by Josh.
That was the thought that brought him over the edge and he seethed as he viewed himself in the mirror. She was getting better, she probably had to learn to do all sorts of things again, and slowly exercise to bring herself to strength, and all the time Josh was there to hold her hand. To steady her step, to hold her and keep her from falling…to be there loving her while she ignored him.
Suddenly words came back to him. Angry, biting words. "You know what we are Castle? We are over!"
When he heard those words again the flame of anger suddenly was snuffed out, leaving him cold. How foolish it was of him to think her words at the funeral, about being lucky to have someone stand with you, were meant for him. They were for Montgomery and the look she gave him was to let him know that she knew he was responsible for Montgomery's death. That if he hadn't stopped her Montgomery would be alive. That's what the look was for.
He shook his head again and thought how pathetic he was. 'I've been used,' he thought. 'Used and thrown away.' All his life he swore he would never use anyone as a toy, never treat a person like a thing. He also swore he would never allow another woman to use him the way Kyra did and what did he do? He walked with eyes wide open over the cliff that Kate Beckett led him to.
The anger was still there, but now it was focused, he was angry at himself for what he allowed her to do to him. For what he had allowed himself to become. Well it ended here and now!
Rick immediately started tearing the clothes off his body as he also turned on his shower. When he stepped into the hot shower he could actually feel it rejuvenate him, could feel life start to flow through his body again.
As he washed, he started to remember all that had happened while he was in his fog, his Beckett fog. The worry and fear in the eyes of his mother and daughter. 'Oh Alexis,' he thought, "I am so, so sorry.'
After he finished his shower, he took the time to carefully shave and put himself back to order. A little over an hour after he'd walked into his bath, he stepped out again, but the change was dramatic, he was Richard Castle, he was no one's lapdog and he was damned if he would put his life on hold any longer for her.
He noticed the time and knew that Alexis and his mother would be arriving in about forty minutes from the studio. He confidently walked to the kitchen and saw the mess he'd left for himself. Rolling up his sleeves, he started to clean up while he thought of what he would make them for dinner.
He was still angry, and that anger helped fuel his desire to get back on his feet. To be the father and the son his daughter and mother deserved. The man who had vacated his positions was back, and he had no intention of every falling away again.
As he started making dinner, he also started making plans for himself. He would call Paula later tonight to go over the schedule she'd made and even have her add a few more events.
Kate Beckett may have played him for a fool, but he wasn't going to be played any more. He may have been hidden for awhile, but Richard Castle was still here, and he'd be damned if he would allow her to put him in a box again. As his mother had said, he had twenty-three best sellers before he met her and he'll have at least that many more now that she's gone.
Since she was done with him, he was done with her. He smiled coldly as that thought came to him. He was done with Kate Beckett and after one more book, done with Nikki Heat as well.
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AUTHORS NOTE: Put yourself in his place. He has no idea that Josh is gone, he only knows that he waited for her to call when, from his experience, she never had any intention of doing so. That's in his mind, not hers, he has no idea what's happening to Kate. In his mind, they were over and this was her way of telling him.
I have to be honest that putting myself in Castle's shoes to write, I had to tone this chapter down. Way down. It's not fun being played and it's not fun being used, and you get angry at yourself for falling into the trap, and only later do you truly begin to get angry at the person who did that to you.