Her traitorous stomach growls as they drive away from the repair shop, so the writer pulls up to a local diner, insisting they grab some food before heading out of town. She relents, too sleep-deprived to argue. It's been a while since she's made time for a proper breakfast...her mornings for the past few months, more often than not, usually spent crashing after a late night out or recovering from a hangover by way of coffee, black and bitter, and ignoring any pangs of hunger.
But now, with him, she indulges, suddenly ravenous. She orders a whole platter of the classic stuff and has her coffee filled with creamer and vanilla syrup. The writer gets a whole stack of pancakes, requesting extra whipped cream and chocolate chips like a nine-year old on a sugar rush.
"Your mom is Martha Rodgers? Shut the front door," she says, taking a bite of her cheese-topped scrambled eggs.
"You've heard of her?"
"My parents loved her in Mousetrap."
"They have seriously questionable taste," he remarks.
"Thought you were an Agatha Christie fan."
"I'm more of a Hercule Poirot guy. Mousetrap has a convoluted plot and is chock-full of clichés. Not her best work."
"Such a critic," she chides.
"I won't deny Agatha's the master of the whodunnit. I just don't think theater was her forte."
Kate hums in thought, chewing on her side of bacon.
"So where did 'Castle' come from? You said your dad wasn't in the picture."
"He wasn't…and I changed it," he says, oddly reticent. Not like him to hold back. Interesting.
"Wanted a more writerly persona?" she probes.
"If you say Richard Castle fast enough, it sounds like rich asshole," he answers, "Something to aspire to."
"That is so not the reason," she says on a small laugh. "C'mon, cough it up, you know you want to tell me."
"No way. It's embarrassing."
"Now you have to tell me."
He's silent for a beat.
"Promise not to laugh?"
"Pinky promise," she says, holding out her right pinky finger to him.
An elated grin springs over his face, and he immediately snags his own right pinky with hers, locking them together for a moment. She smiles, his childlike excitement for the playground pact, somewhat adorable.
"Can't say no to a pinky promise. Those are really binding," he says, faux serious.
And even though it's brief, the link of their fingers feels significant somehow. His touch is warm and firm, and she realizes, too late, that she's supposed to be keeping him at arm's length; not beaming at him like an idiot with a schoolgirl crush. What the hell is he doing to her?
She snatches her hand back, hastily averting her gaze and clearing her throat. She picks up her fork and spears a piece of fruit, ignoring the sudden tension arcing between them.
"So?" she urges, eating her slice of mango. "Spill it," she insists in a mouth-filled mumble.
"So pushy," he rebuts teasingly.
She swallows her food and narrows her gaze. "Stop stalling."
"Okay, okay," he sighs. And then, reveals, "The truth is…I'm a sucker for fairytales."
She tilts her head in question.
He elaborates, "There's something so timeless about daring adventure and magic, you know? An unlikely hero fighting for the heart of a fair maiden, a knight in shining armor on a mighty steed, or a brave warrior slaying a dragon. And 'Castle'…it feels like a proper ode to those stories of old, to happily ever afters and—"
An unwitting chuckle slips from her lips and he stops, a pout creasing his mouth. Shit, she didn't mean—it was just, he was so…endearing?
"I can't believe it. You broke the sacred covenant of the pinky promise," he whines, a hot flush filling his cheeks. "How could you?"
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she pushes out quickly, catching her breath, her laughter subsiding. She sips from her coffee, trying to quell the sudden acceleration of her heartbeat. "Actually, I kind of think it's sweet."
"Sweet?" he echoes, his nose wrinkling.
Her hands curl around her ceramic mug, fixating on the swirling mixture inside.
"Not a lot of people keep believing in happily ever afters when they get older. So I think it's nice that you have that kind of hope in the world. It can be a shitty place to be. And having hope, the magical kind…that's rare."
He sits back in his booth seat with a smug expression.
"What?" she accuses.
"I knew you were a softie."
"Take that back," she demands. He'd tricked her, made her lower her defenses, and she revealed too much. God, how did he get her to say these things?
"No way. I totally called it—a rebel with a heart of gold. You can't fool me. I see all."
"Shut up, Castle," she scoffs, his self-given name rolling off her tongue with an instinctual ease.
He gasps in delight. "It sounds so cool when you say it," he says, "Everyone usually calls me Rick and my mom is always saying Richard—part of her dramatic flair. Honoring people's true names."
"So no Ricky?"
He sneers in distaste.
"But I can just imagine little Ricky Rodgers," she coos, jocularly.
He throws a wadded up napkin at her and she dodges it with a smile.
"You like your last name?" he asks.
"You think you're real slick, don't you?" she asks, munching on a piece of buttered sourdough toast.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he says, feigning ignorance.
"I'm not telling you my last name."
He leans forward on the table. "'Fraid I'll look you up in the phone book?"
"Still haven't ruled out potential serial killer."
He releases an offended huff.
"You're the sociopath who went back on a pinky promise."
She hides her amused smile in the next sip of her coffee.
"You're not gonna let that one go, are you?"
"No, but I know how you can make it up to me."
He retrieves his travel guide from his messenger bag, flipping through it with renewed zeal.
Oh, God. What is she in for now?
He finds what he's looking for and spins the pages toward her.
"Ever been to the Grand Canyon?"
"No," she says slowly.
"Feel like going on a little detour?"
She sets her mug down with a knowing sigh.
"Would it matter if I didn't?"
A little over an hour and a half later, they pull up to the parking lot near the Verkamp's Visitor Center at the edge of the Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim, the sun hanging high in the sky and heat rolling through the air in waves.
"Is this where you take all your victims?" she asks.
"Yeah, I usually like to push them over the edge. The view really adds to the rush of the kill."
"Fascinating."
She opens the passenger door to climb out, only to quickly shut it again.
"Fuck, it's hot. There's no way I'm going on a hike." She crosses her arms, as if to say the subject was closed. She glances at him. "And you don't strike me as an outdoorsman type, what with your gentle hands."
"My gentle hands?"
"The soft, academic kind."
"I'll have you know my hands are very blistered and calloused. Writing longhand is more brutal than you think."
He shows her the blister on the palm of his right hand.
"Wow," she says flatly, "I can only imagine the pain you must be in."
"And it's all your fault," he jokes.
She huffs, indignant.
"I didn't exactly pack hiking clothes," she says, pivoting.
"We'll buy some at the gift shop."
"We are not buying anything. I can take care of myself."
"It really pays to be a bestselling author. And you're my muse. My treat."
Her eyes narrow to slits.
"Call me your muse again and I'll break your legs, okay?"
She exits before he can reply, the assault of the heat a better alternative than the reminder that to him, she's more than ordinary, that despite everything she's done to the contrary, he thinks of her as some sort of mythical martyr, a girl beyond reproach.
He's got it all wrong.
She's not special.
"You look ridiculous."
He's decked out in full hiking regalia: cargo shorts, a short-sleeve collared shirt, a wide-brim ranger hat, and heavy boots with binoculars slung around his neck. He even bought a walking stick; an overpriced polished piece of wood.
"Top-of-the-line ridiculously awesome," he says, checking himself out in a long mirror.
The Eagle Scout look actually suits him, but there's no way in hell she'd ever admit that.
She'd purchased a nice pair of athletic shorts and one of those breathable, microfiber tank tops. She'd also dug a sports bra and an old pair of sneakers out of her saddlebag and stuffed her short locks of hair into a Hudson University ball cap the writer loaned her. She'd shorn them to an abrupt chin-length a week after her mom's death, needing to do something, anything, to reflect the chaos she felt inside. It had grown out a little in the months after, now hovering a few inches above her shoulder in layered wisps.
She raises her 35mm Nikon camera, a birthday gift from her parents, meant to capture and document her college exploits, and snaps a photo of him.
"Wait, wait. Let me pose. And get my good side," he requests, repositioning himself.
"I only have so much film," she says.
The writer throws a meaningful look at his new best friend, the gift shop cashier. "Reggie?"
"We've got that," Reggie replies with a winning grin.
"They've got that!" Rick resounds with the baritone of a game show host.
"Fine. Pose away, Poser," she concedes, fighting a smile.
He wants to clean out the film supply, so she can have as much as she wants, but she reminds him there are other people trying to record memories, and—
"Yeah, yeah, you can take care of yourself," he sighs forlornly as he watches her hand Reggie some cash for a couple rolls of film.
"Don't look so disappointed," she says, "You can buy us some sunscreen." She gets up close to him. Raises a warning finger. "Because if you make me sit in your car for hours on end with a sunburn, there will be hell to pay."
His pout vanishes, a mischievous grin taking its place. "You got it, Boss."
She should've known he'd buy the thickest cream with the longest-lasting SPF. It's going to take forever to lather on. She raises her leg onto a bench on the back porch of the gift shop, rubbing vigorously.
"Eyes up, Ricky," she orders, feeling his stare.
He doesn't look away. "Sure you don't need help? I've been told recently that I have gentle hands. Great for rubbing in lotion."
She can barely handle him calling her extraordinary, and now he's making it no secret that he finds her attractive.
She can't stand him.
"What's your ex's name?" she asks pointedly.
He tears his gaze from her calf. "Why?"
"I'm just wondering who put up with you for…?"
"Three years," he fills in.
"Three years, wow. She must be a saint," she says.
Three years, huh? She didn't figure him as the serious relationship type, not with his arrogant, playboy charm. Okay, so he can do real. What does that matter?
"I know you mean that as an insult to me, but Kyra is pretty worthy of sainthood. I told you, she's the reason I am where I am today. She wouldn't let me give up. Wouldn't let me give in to failure."
"So this a habit of yours…putting women on pedestals?" she puzzles out. "Ever think you place impossible expectations on people and actually end up making them feel like they could never measure up?"
She wonders if Kyra couldn't handle his new success, so she had to go chase her own.
"I like to see the best in people, what's so wrong with that?"
"Guess I'm just the glass half empty type." She peers at him. "You miss her?"
"Kind of unavoidable," he says simply. "There are little things that will remind me of her when I least expect it. Like when I get coffee, I don't know how to forget that she hated the stuff. All I can remember is that she loved to drink tea with three teaspoons of honey. And there's so much more that's ingrained...her favorite news channel, how her nose wrinkled when she smiled, or the cute little way she dotted her 'i's with hearts…I just don't get how she could so easily throw it all away," he says, his voice rasping slightly.
She feels compelled to offer him a hug, his heartbreak different from hers, but a break all the same.
"Though it helps when you bend over like that," he adds, covering the raw pain on his face with a shit-eating grin.
She expels a long-suffering sigh.
"You know, for a minute there, you actually made me believe you were human."
Castle consults the hiking brochure he received from Reggie.
"Okay, so up ahead is the Trail of Time. It focuses on the geological history of the canyon, and it's a couple miles long. Think you can handle that?" he asks.
"It's paved and clearly-marked. I think I'll be okay," she assures him with a roll of her eyes.
"Over 250 people have to be rescued from the canyon every year."
"Why'd you bring me here again?"
"You're making it seem like I dragged you to a cheesy tourist trap under duress."
"It is a cheesy tourist trap and you did drag me here under duress," she argues.
"Oh, c'mon. It's one of the great wonders of Northern America—tons of hard rock that took millions of years to erode, and that erosion gave way to something beautiful…something totally sublime. How can you not find it awesome?"
"You're eroding my patience," she grinds out, hating his easy joy.
But he doesn't hear her retort, his attention caught by a placard of fun facts at the trailhead.
"Did you know this is the world's largest geoscience exhibit?" he reports.
"Is it really?" she mutters.
He gestures for her to come closer, to join him further down the path.
"You don't want to miss this!" he shouts, waiting for her with an eager grin and somehow, it pulls a reluctant smile from her, and she finds herself stepping forward, thinking why the hell not.
"Oh, wow," she says, floored. They're standing near the edge of Grandeur Point, a vista outlook half-way down the trail, where they have a breathtaking view of the curving formations of the red-rock canyon and the blue ribbon of the Colorado River slashing a path down below.
Spectacular.
"Totally worth the detour," Castle crows. "I told you so."
Upon hearing her mother's favorite phrase, her budding smile immediately withers away.
"What?" he asks.
"Nothing."
"It's not nothing," he pushes back.
She scowls.
"I've been told I'm a very good listener. And you know from experience that I'm an excellent shoulder to cry on."
"Oh, yeah. You're a real gentleman," she bites out. "Hitting on me every five seconds."
"I never claimed to be a gentleman," he says with a wink. Then, tender, "But I really do think you could use a friend. Let me in, Kate."
She wants to tear her hair out, throttle him, run in the other direction, jump off the cliff edge…anything but let him in. Who the hell did he think he was?
"Look, if you don't want to talk about whatever you've got going on, then maybe you just need to scream it out," he suggests.
"Scream it out?"
"Like this."
He faces the canyon, cups his hands around his mouth, and shouts, "Love sucks!"
His cries echo back.
Huh. Not bad.
"Is that the best you can do?" she taunts.
"Alright, how about this?" he challenges. He shouts again, yelling, "Fuck love! Fuck London!"
"That's better," she cedes, her smile making a gradual reappearance.
"Your turn," he demands, chest heaving from exertion.
God-fucking-damnit. Always pushing. Fine. Have it his way.
She cups her hands and cries out, "Richard Castle sucks!"
"Hey!" he protests in mock-hurt.
"You're right," she grins, the ever-present knot of anxiety in her chest loosening slightly. "It does sound like rich asshole."
"Oh, funny. And a smile. Good."
He pulls out his wallet, extracting a shiny band with a diamond from inside it.
She stills. "Is that—"
"An engagement ring for Kyra? Yeah. Didn't get a chance to ask her though. Since she was busy asking for space and everything."
He closes his fist around it and looks out at the canyon with a wistful expression. And then, he's winding his arm up.
"What are you doing?" she asks, panicked.
"Letting go," he says.
"Woah, wait." She grasps his elbow, stopping him. "How can you do that? It's only been three days."
He looks at her, and she's shocked to see unshed tears swimming in his gaze.
"She doesn't want me back. What's the point in holding on?"
What's the point? Hell if she knows. Nothing has a point. Except...
"Love isn't a switch that you can turn off," she says vehemently. "And she said she needed space. She didn't say anything about not wanting you back. Maybe you were supposed to chase after her."
"Then she should've said that," he says angrily. He wrenches his arm from the vise of her fingers and wipes at his eyes. "Why do you care so much, anyway?"
She quickly steps back, the abject hurt in his voice, startling her.
"I don't…I just think you need to hold on to the people you love for as long as you can. You never know when you might lose them."
He softens, and she knows he can see the grief leaking out of her. I see all. She despises him and his infernal observation skills.
"Who'd you lose?" he asks quietly.
Nice try, Writer Boy. But this moment isn't about her right now. Not if she can help it.
She ignores his question and picks up a nearby stone instead, weighing it in her hand. She nods at the ring in his palm, her face set in determination.
"On three?"
He nods back, understanding. "One, two…"
They both launch their arms, sending their separate rocks deep into the abyss of the canyon. The diamond flashes in the sunlight.
"Nice air," Castle comments.
"Not too bad yourself," she returns. "So...how much was that ring, anyway?"
"About as much as my book advance."
"And that was...?"
Stricken by a horrible realization, he says, "Too much. Way too much. Oh my god, why'd you let me do that?"
"Let—you're kidding me, right?"
"I am so screwed." He hastily raises his binoculars, scanning the canyon below. "Damn it...if only it had been a piece of costume jewelry." He lowers his binoculars, turning toward her with a gotcha expression.
"What?"
"Kyra did a news piece about Africa and the blood diamond trade, so she has a whole thing against them. Any jewel, really. She's more of a cubic zirconium kind of girl."
"It was fake!?"
"Less than fifty bucks."
"You're terrible," she shoves into his shoulder. "Do you always have to act like a twelve year-old?"
"You ever have any fun?"
She huffs out a laugh. "Oh, I have plenty of fun." She leans down to pick up some more stones. "In fact, I'm having a blast just knowing I have a better arm than you do."
"As if," he scoffs.
She shrugs and offers him a rock.
"Rematch?"
He smiles, wide and bright.
"You're on."
xxx
A/N: Is it illegal to throw things in the Grand Canyon? Absolutely. (It can endanger wildlife and other hikers). So for the purpose of this story, let's pretend that that law hasn't been made yet or doesn't exist in this universe and that no animals or humans were harmed.