Author's note: As someone who wears his heart on his sleeve, empathises for a living, is prone to adolescent behaviour, and is so hopelessly in love with Beckett, it seems to me that Castle would have been shocked at the revelation that she remembered everything about the day she was shot. Not just angry or upset, but shocked in the truest sense.
I think that a person like him would spiral into a dark place, filled and surrounded by doubt about himself. I think he'd take it very, very personally. The schedule associated with the show's dramatic arc for season 4 made it necessary to truncate and tame that aspect of what happened, but I think that, realistically, he'd have been more devastated, instead of driven to petty revenge-seeking.
This story is called Down because "47 seconds" dealt with the idea of mapping, precisely, the final moments of some innocent people's lives, and the realisation that everything can change in an instant: that countdown to something unexpected, and terrible. Even the incidental music used at the moment of Beckett's outburst to the witness has the quality of a ticking clock; you can hear it clearly as Castle looks round.
A few nights ago, when I first considered creating my own version of those events, I immediately saw the brief scene that became the first chapter: the interrogation of Lopez, but with Castle as the victim, and a clock that only the reader can hear, counting down towards Castle's own shattering. The timings of Beckett's various words to the suspect in the interview room are accurate to the episode.
It then followed naturally that "Down" would also describe the trajectory of Castle's mood, ego, sense of certainty and trust, and evaporating hope.
At the moment, this feels like it'll have the same sort of structure as Thaw, my most popular piece - still unfinished, but which I plan to return to when inspiration strikes - albeit shorter.
Thank you for reading.
-m
There was a long moment of perfect stillness, then everything seemed to tilt sideways.
Castle reached out for the narrow table along the side of the observation room to steady himself, then realised he had stopped breathing. His breath whistled as he inhaled sharply through his nose.
I remember every second of it.
She was still in there, with the suspect. She was standing at the far wall now, behind Lopez, letting him sweat. Her arms were folded and she was looking pensively at her own reflection in the other side of the window, several feet to Castle's right.
"All this time…" he murmured to himself. "You remembered?"
He felt off-balance. Images flashed through his mind.
Vivid blue sky.
Green grass.
Headstones.
A flash of sunlight on metal. Then–
He took a ragged breath, pushing the memory away. Not again. Not after the hundreds of times he'd seen it in his nightmares.
She remembered. A part of him had always wondered. Always feared.
Then there were the three endless, drowning months when he'd waited each day to hear from her. Awake before dawn, and hanging onto consciousness well past midnight, just in case. The broken sleeping patterns. The lost weight. The growing worry he'd seen in his daughter's eyes.
The dark thoughts. The eventual numbness within.
She was talking again now, haranguing Lopez. He knew the tone well. It wouldn't be much longer – and then she'd leave the interview room. She'd see the coffee on her desk. Then she'd find him here.
Go, a commanding voice in the back of his mind said urgently. Go now.
He dropped his own coffee cup into the small trash-can set near the observation window, turned on his heel, and strode out of the room.
"Hey bro, where you off to?" Esposito called from the bullpen, and he looked around.
"I've… got someplace I need to be. I'll see you later," he said.
The other man nodded, returning his attention to the case file in his hand.
Castle walked quickly down the corridor towards the elevator and pressed the call button. After five seconds, he decided to take the stairs instead.
He stumbled through the crowds of pedestrians without seeing them. Blank faces in his peripheral vision, moving along within the trajectories of their own lives.
The day was bright and cold, everything crisp and hard-edged, drawn in high contrast. He felt like he'd fallen from somewhere else, and landed hard, finding himself in this unfamiliar place.
She would have said something, he thought. She would have at least… just told me she was OK.
A man in a business suit hurried by, knocking into his shoulder. Castle didn't even glance at him.
If she knew, she wouldn't have-
But he knew her better than that. Her MO when she was emotionally threatened was to back away. To deflect, to retreat, and to hide.
He reached a crosswalk and went blindly onwards into the street, not even looking towards the WALK sign. His foot snagged on the edge of the sidewalk on the opposite side, but he kept going, passing a corner coffee shop.
It's not like she runs from relationships.
He'd seen her in several of them. He'd even seen her openly showing affection to the men she was with. She'd kissed Demming a few times in the precinct. The same was true for Josh, on the rare occasions the doctor had come to meet her after work.
But she closes off when…
The voice in his mind tailed off, and he frowned. He willed himself to finish the thought.
…when she's uncomfortable.
Yes. That was true. He'd seen it countless times. In fact, it was most often when they were having a moment.
Finding themselves too close together, or an accidental brush of her fingers when handing her a coffee, or a remark that seemed to have a double meaning. Whenever Ryan or Esposito would ask if they were interrupting anything. She'd close right down, putting distance between them, and change the subject.
And there'd be the barest hint of a flush in her cheeks sometimes, like-
She's embarrassed.
Everything tilted sideways again, and his hand shot out automatically to brace against a brick wall as he came to an abrupt halt.
Embarrassed.
Averted eyes. Changed topics. Taking a few steps away.
Deflections of innuendo. A hundred retorts of in your dreams, or no way, Castle, or just silence.
The horizon tilted again, violently left then right.
Embarrassed.
He felt the same feeling he always did when the pieces of a case finally clicked together; everything locking into place to reveal the hidden picture. Lies unravelled. Motives exposed. The truth laid bare.
He had been such an idiot. Such an incredible, self-deceiving, monumental fool.
"She was sparing my feelings," he said aloud, drawing a strange look from a passing woman with a small child.
Yes, that same voice in the back of his mind replied.
"Because she… felt sorry. For me."
Yes.
Why else would she be able to casually tell a suspect such an important truth, but not him? The answer was obvious, and it fit all the evidence.
Because she'd come to terms with what happened to her that day at the funeral, and with the PTSD, and her recovery. She's been working at it for months, putting herself back together. She even worked with a therapist during her recuperation, at the NYPD's insistence. She'd emerged from the other side.
She'd come to terms with it all, so much so that she could use it now, even to interrogate a suspect. She'd turned it into a strength; made it part of her arsenal, as she always did.
Except for one part.
I love you, Kate.
Except for just that one little thing.
Because she doesn't feel the same way.
He braced for another wave of vertigo, but it never came. The air was crisp, and the city was alive and indifferent, as always.
Castle looked around, searching for anything familiar, but he saw only strangers.
Then the tide of loss and humiliation rose up and swallowed him.