Disclaimer: I don't own Castle.
Prompt #8: Calender - The days had completely blurred together until she walked up to him three months after hell.
Words: 373
He's been stuck since she told him, "I'll call you." That long-ago promise made his time stop, trapping him in a bubble of a world that no longer appealed to him.
Seven million, seven-hundred-seventy-six thousand seconds.
Each is a slow, torturous tick of the second hand that makes him want to tear out his hair and take a hammer to smash every single damn clock. They repeat, never changing and never moving forward. He's stuck, and it sucks. Rage begins to boil at his frozen state.
One-hundred-twenty-nine thousand, six hundred minutes.
Each turns over and over into a cycle that slowly drives him more insane. There's no end to them, and they don't stop moving. But he's still stuck, and it's irritating. His anger's beginning to cool.
Two-thousand, one-hundred and sixty hours.
Every one felt longer and longer as each rolled into the next. They stretch like rubber bands with no limit, taut but showing no signs of stress. He's still stalling, and now his anger fades away, replaced with something calmer. Stasis is reached.
Ninety days.
That's how long it takes him to consider that his waiting is turning a waste of time. That he's finally hitting that stretch he swore he'd never walk - the stretch of boredom with normalcy. Stasis is becoming normal, and ordinary. He hates ordinary...but it helps him forget the pain.
Twelve weeks.
That's how long it takes for him to begin thinking about finding something - another book, another character, another muse, anything - that can drag him from this rut and set him back on that highway of glitz and glamor and fun.
Three months.
That's how long he keeps thinking along those lines, over and over and over like a messed-up merry-go-round in the mental hospital.
He's been stuck for so long, he's almost forgotten how to live.
Until that last day, at the book signing, when he hears that voice once again.
"Kate. Make it out to Kate."
Then his clocks all reset, and time moves forward again.
Double update for you all! This came out all at once after watching 4x01 "Rise" again.
Review please!