Kate retrieves coffee from the lobby while he throws their bags in the car with a yawn. She insisted on leaving as early as possible, not wanting to encounter any further delay.
"I can drive if you want to keep resting," she offers, "And yes, I know my way around a stick."
"I bet you do."
"Sometimes, it's better if you don't talk."
"Duly noted," he replies. And then, "Your foot gonna be okay working the clutch? She's tricky, and I don't think you should strain your ankle."
"Thanks, Mom. I can manage." Her left ankle still twinges with some pain, but it's snugly encased in the brace, so the discomfort's muted, and once she gets the car into gear, she's not going to need to press down on the clutch anymore. She's not going to strain anything. Not much.
The writer gives up with a sigh and settles into the passenger seat, his face suddenly contracting in pain.
"Jesus, why didn't you tell me there's a broken spring? How the hell have you been sitting on this?"
"You're such a wimp," she says, depositing her coffee in a cupholder and buckling in.
"You are so getting it for that."
"What, with you vast arsenal of rapier wit?" she asks, inserting the key into the ignition.
"Are you always this charming in the morning?"
"Just go back to sleep, Castle."
Needing no further instruction, he maneuvers the passenger seat so that it's leaning as far back as possible and plants his head on a stolen hotel pillow. He's out within minutes of her pulling out onto the main road. She envies his ability to slumber so easily. Guilt churns in her gut once again. She's the reason he's exhausted in the first place, and she couldn't even stomach telling him the truth about her nightmare. He knew she'd been lying last night, and he still tried to make her feel better. Still gave pieces of himself to her with no expectations, asking for nothing in return. And she keeps taking from him, greedily storing his words and stories inside her heart because it's been so long since she's really connected with someone. She doesn't want to mar it with her grief.
How was she supposed to say that she'd dreamt of being stabbed alongside her mother? What if she spills all her secrets to him and he runs off with them? What, then?
He was already becoming way too adept at knowing when to push her or when to pull back and give her space, when to comfort, when to tell a joke. They met less than 48 hours ago (though it feels much longer, as if time stops when she's with him), and she likes him way too much.
Because, fuck, that's what this is, isn't it? Her silly, little crush is quickly snowballing into a deeply troubling attachment. He can be a jackass and at times, egotistical, but it's all a thin veil that does little to hide how compassionate and caring he really is. And it's so not helping that he's stupidly beautiful.
She puts the radio on at a low volume to disrupt her thoughts and cover his light snoring, a now familiar snuffle. An hour into their three hour drive, under the shadow of the mountain range in the Ramah Navajo Indian Reservation, the signal cuts out, reception lost, every station she switches to pure static. Fortunately, she finds a cassette tape in the player. Unfortunately, it seems to be permanently and irretrievably stuck. And it's a single-song cassette tape. And the damn song she's doomed to endure on repeat? Escape (The Piña Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes.
She can't decide what she hates most about it. That the woman in the song places an ad in the personal column of the paper with the intention of cheating on her husband, or that her husband ends up being the one who responds to it. Either way, both parties are obviously unhappy in their marriage, yet all their very real issues magically disappear when they suddenly figure out they share a passion for piña coladas, being caught in the rain, and making love at midnight in the dunes on the Cape.
What a crock of shit.
On her tenth listen, she hums mindlessly along in spite of her hang ups with the lyrics. The tune is sort of soothing.
Eventually, she gets so lost in the ballad and the stretch of endless road, she doesn't notice when she starts singing one of the verses a little louder than intended.
If you like making love at midnight
In the dunes on the Cape
Then I'm the love that you've looked for
Write to me, and escape
"Are you serenading me?"
She startles, jumping in her seat. "Jesus! How long've you been awake?"
"You have a great voice," he says with a smug smile.
Her cheeks flush. "You're still dreaming."
"Did you know this song is about a husband and wife who want to cheat on each other but end up realizing they're perfect for each other?"
"Yeah, it's like an O. Henry story, but terrible."
"It is so hot that you're familiar with 20th century short-fiction," he says, "And it is kind of like Gift of the Magi. But you're wrong about it being terrible."
"Oh, please. It's bullshit. He spends most of the song saying he's tired of his lady and how they're stuck in the same, dull routine."
"Which is why it's so great when they both discover these new things about each other and fall in love all over again."
"You always find the romantic angle, don't you?"
"Makes you want me, right?"
She sighs, exasperated. "I was having a much better time when you were asleep."
The gas indicator begins blinking as if to prove her point.
"Great," she mutters.
"Look! It says gas coming up in a mile," he says, pointing at an incoming road sign. "Destiny strikes again."
"You're relentless."
"C'mon. If you can't believe in even the possibility of fate or destiny or magic, you'll never ever find it."
"I don't need to find or believe in things that don't exist," she huffs.
"You're really committed to this skeptic bit, aren't you?"
"It's not a bit. Just common sense."
He hums an eerie riff of The X-Files theme song.
"The truth is out there, Scully."
She side-eyes him.
"Shut your damn mouth, Mulder."
The station is a dilapidated little place with two pumps and a broken ice machine.
"I'm gonna refill the tank. Can you go inside to pay? They don't have credit card automation here yet. Think this place is still stuck in the 80s," she observes.
"Say automation again. Slowly."
"Can you just—?" she shoos him off. "We don't have all day."
"You really know how to boss men around."
She sticks her tongue out at him as he clambers out of his seat.
"Want any snacks or candy? I'm gonna grab an ICEE," he says, walking backwards toward the rundown store.
"You're gonna get cavities with that sweet tooth of yours!" she shouts.
"You're missing out," he sing-songs.
"Cherry flavor, please," she says, giving in.
"Coming right up," he says with a snap of his fingers.
She shakes her head, smiling like a fool, as she feeds the gas spigot into the tank. There's a click a minute later and she begins pumping, her gaze drifting to the desert landscape. Nothing but dirt and gravel for miles. There's something awe-inspiring and terrifying about the wide open space. Sublime her mind offers up.
Great. Now, she's thinking like him.
Sweat trickles down her neck as an invisible wave of heat rolls over her. She can't bear it much longer.
Once the tank is full, she quickly escapes back into the car, turning the air on while she waits on the writer's return. She picks up his guidebook and after about five minutes of aimlessly flipping through some pages, she wonders what's taking him so long.
She locks the car up and heads toward the store. The welcome bell rings loudly when she enters, an odd stillness in the air.
Her heart drops into her stomach when she sees the reason—a man holding the cashier and the writer at gunpoint. The cashier is a young girl with long, copper hair who can't be more than fifteen.
Rick gives her a look that screams run but instead, she approaches the trio, cautious and with her hands up.
"Stay where you are!" the gunman demands. He's jittery, his teeth scraping over his lips nervously. Probably didn't plan on anyone stopping at this wayward location.
She halts right by the writer, slightly in front of him.
"Just take the money and go. You don't have to hurt anybody," she says.
The gangly man darts his gaze around, his finger sweating on the trigger.
She's irrationally calm.
"Armed robbery is a felony. And if someone dies during the commission of an armed robbery, you're looking at felony murder charges. Which means no bond, less leniency, and permanent jail time. It's not worth it, okay?" she explains carefully.
"Let me think. Let me think, goddamnit!" he shouts.
She quiets.
The man zeroes in on the chain around her neck.
"What do we have here?" he leers, reaching for it.
"Get your hands off her!" Rick yells.
"Hey!" the robber exclaims, aiming his gun at the writer, giving her a full view of the weapon—a 9mm Colt semi-automatic.
"Rick, please," she urges. "I've got this. Trust me."
She knew what she was doing. She'd taken self-defense courses her first few months back at Stanford. Seemed like the natural thing to do when your mother's killed in the shadow of a dark alley by an unknown assailant.
Engage the subject. Endear yourself to them.
Except she thought that was a little bull. Scaring them with logic seemed like an incredibly more effective method. The robber was focusing on her and not the writer or the young girl. The young man who had something to live for and the young girl with a future.
The gunman points his Colt straight at her sternum. "Pony up."
She obeys, pulling the chain of her necklace out of her shirt, her mother's engagement ring dangling from the other end. The officer's words from that god-awful night replay in her mind.
She was just another tragic victim of gang violence. It was a random wayward event.
A slow, victorious smile spreads over the gunman's face.
"Ain't that a pretty little thing," he says. "Too bad it belongs to me now."
"Not if I can help it," she says, dropping the chain and her hands.
"You're really begging for a bullet, aren't you? Give it or I pull the trigger."
"Kate," Castle pleads softly. "It's not worth your life."
"Listen to your boyfriend, sweetheart," the gunman taunts.
"First of all—" In a flash, Kate lunges forward, her hands in a "V" shape as she shoves upward at the gunman's wrist. The force of the action jostles the weapon from his grasp and it flies into the air. She catches the Colt mid-descent like it's old hat for her, instinctively tosses it toward the writer, and fluidly spins into the robber so that her back aligns with his chest.
"—I'm not your sweetheart."
And then, in a well-practiced move, she yanks down on his still-outstretched arm and dispatches him over her shoulder like a sack of flour.
The would-be robber hits the linoleum floor flat on his back with a surprised grunt and she quickly rolls him onto his front, pinning him down with her knee and trapping his hands at the base of his spine.
"And secondly—"
She leans down by his ear, digging her patella further in between his shoulder blades. "He's definitely not my boyfriend."
"Okay, the definitely is a little uncalled for," Castle protests. "But otherwise, that was completely badass." He repeats I'm not your sweetheart, miming her voice. "I'm so writing that one down. And please tell me you saw how I caught the gun? It was awe—"
"Castle, can I get some backup please?"
"Oh, yeah," he says, recovering. "What do you need?"
"Zip-ties, rope, anything we can use to tie him up."
"How about some duct tape?" the cashier pipes in, holding out a roll of the silver bonding material.
Kate arches an amused eyebrow at the writer. He turns toward the young girl with a grin.
"Yeah, that'll do it."
As the pair gag and bind the gunman to a chair in the back storage room, the young girl (Penny) dials the local police.
Kate locks the door, jiggling the handle to make sure it's solidly in place. It doesn't budge.
"Still believe in fate?" she asks, stepping down the hallway, toward the front.
"More than ever," he says, falling into step with her.
"What?"
"If we hadn't shown up, who knows what would've happened to that girl. You saved her life. And mine, for that matter. Thanks for that, and I mean, the way you took the gun from him—that was so beyond cool. Are you some secret super spy? Wait, no. You're totally Elektra. That was a martial arts maneuver, right?"
"I'm not super anything, Castle. I'm just a girl with a motorcycle."
"By day," he tacks on. "And by night, you're the last thing that stands between good and evil."
They join Penny by the cashier's window.
"Police said it'll take an hour," the young girl reports.
"Jeez," Castle says, "Is it just you?"
"My mom's usually here, working the books and inventory, but she had an appointment today. One of her readings."
"Readings?" the writer asks, intrigued.
"She's a psychic medium in her spare time. She's a bit of a local legend. It's actually a family gift."
"Shut the front door," Castle squeals. "That is so rad. Do you do readings, too?"
"No. But I get dreams sometimes," she says. "I had one last night, but I didn't know what it was supposed to mean until today."
"No way. Was it about the robbery? Did you know it was going to happen?" Castle gasps.
"Not exactly," she says. And then, nodding at Kate meaningfully. "I think it was a dream about you."
"Me?" Kate points at herself. "No, uh, that can't be. That's not possible."
"I can't really explain why, but I feel very strongly that I'm supposed to tell you something. Something important. Are you ready?" Penny urges.
"Ready, uh—?"
"Alexander."
"Okay?"
"Alexander," Penny repeats, "I don't know who he is or what he means to you."
"I don't know any Alexander," Kate says.
The writer makes a sound and she casts him an inquisitive look.
"You will," Penny insists, "You will meet an Alexander and he will be extremely important to you. At some future date, he may save your life."
Castle squeaks again.
"What?" Kate exasperates.
"My middle name is Alexander," the writer reveals.
"Sure it is," she scoffs.
"Well, it's Edgar now. I changed it in honor of Edgar Allen Poe when I changed my last name to Castle, but my given name is Richard Alexander Rodgers."
"That's just a stupid coincidence."
"Oh, yeah. Just like it was a coincidence that we happened upon a robbery in the middle of nowhere and you happened to know how to disarm a gunman. Just a stupid coincidence, right?"
"You're absolutely intolerable," she huffs. "Not everything is some elaborate orchestration of the universe, okay? Sometimes shit just happens."
"Where's the fun in that?"
She groans in frustration, stalking away from him and wrenching the front door open, the bells jangling discordantly behind her.
Psychic mediums? Yeah, right. More like con artists and charlatans. They were all fakes, making everything up. None of it made any sense…but did anything make sense? She's in the middle of nowhere and she'd just been held at gunpoint.
Maybe her mother's death really was just a random wayward event.
Outside, she kicks at some gravel and leans against the faded brick wall of the building. She lights a cigarette, huffing the smoke away angrily.
The bells jingle softly.
"So. Shit just happens, huh? They should put that on a T-Shirt," the writer voices tentatively.
"Do you ever let up?"
"You don't happen to moonlight as a vampire slayer, do you?" he asks.
That earns a smile from her.
He stands next to her. "I think I need one of those, too."
She passes him a cigarette and helps him light it.
He coughs loudly.
"Shit, Kate. How the hell do you inhale this crap?"
"Told you. Death wish."
"Yeah, I noticed. That why you practically sacrifice yourself back there?"
The embers of her cigarette glow on her next pull as she shrugs.
He sighs. "We can't leave her alone all by herself."
"I don't want to go back in there and listen to her crap."
"Kate."
"I'll wait in the car."
"You'll kill the engine if you idle for too long. And you'll melt in this heat. Come inside."
She gives him a sidelong glance.
"You're getting me ear plugs," she says, dropping her cigarette to the ground and stamping it out.
"I'll do you one better."
Kate hides in the far corner of the refrigerated section, icing her ankle, wearing a new pair of headphones that are connected to a new portable CD player. It blasts Pearl Jam's '98 album Yield. The rush of adrenaline from the whole ordeal had made the pain from her injury temporarily non-existent, but in the comedown, it returns full-force, smarting again.
It's been over half an hour, and she's jittery and restless. Castle is enjoying his free reign of the ICEE machine, seemingly unfazed. She doesn't look forward to speaking with the police. Doesn't want to deal with them at all, actually. At least this case was open-and-shut and they had their culprit for them all wrapped up in a big, duct-taped bow. The officers in her mother's case didn't bother to dig deeper before boxing it up and writing it off as random gang violence.
The door bells chime loudly.
Kate shoves her headphones off in time to hear an older woman with copper hair shout, "Oh, Penny. My baby girl! I got here as soon as I could."
"I'm okay," Penny assures her. "You shouldn't have left. We needed the money."
"I don't care about that. I needed to see for myself that you were okay," the older woman says, engulfing her daughter in a hug.
The writer pops up out of one of the aisles, his arms full of snacks.
"You must be Vivien," he says.
"Yes, and you must be the writer," Vivien says. "Thank you for staying with her."
"No problem at all," he says warmly, "Though you may need to restock your Cool Ranch Doritos. I'm afraid you're all out."
The elder copper-haired woman chuckles good-naturedly. "I'll make a note of it."
Kate approaches the group and Vivien angles toward her. "And you must be the hero of the hour," she assesses, "I'm so grateful you were here." The older woman throws her arms around her and Kate stiffens at the sudden contact. Vivien pulls back, her gaze wide. "Oh, my. You poor thing. How horrible."
Oh, great. Was this woman a mind-reader, too?
"Castle, I think we should go."
"But—the police. Our statements—"
She doesn't like the way Vivien is staring at her, almost in a trance. It's freaking her out.
"I'd rather just get a move on and leave our names out of it," she says, "Is that alright?" she asks Vivien pointedly.
Vivien blinks, shaking out of whatever daze seems to have taken hold of her.
"Of course," the copper-haired woman says, "We've got it from here."
But just as Kate brushes past her, Vivien gasps deeply, her eyes slam shut, and her hands clamp down on Kate's shoulders in a vise.
"Bug, please. Help him," the psychic medium pleads.
Chills run down Kate's spine, the sound of her mother's pet name for her like a blast of ice. Her body jolts away in shock, her face draining of color.
"Castle," she calls out, "We gotta go. Now."
She clutches the steering wheel like a lifeline, trying not to tremble. They sit in complete silence, the air thick with heavy tension. She can practically feel the writer bursting at the seams.
"Do you wanna talk about it?" he asks, finally brave enough to break the detente.
"When have I ever wanted to talk about it?" she snaps.
"I don't know. I thought being held at gunpoint together might've changed things a bit. C'mon, Kate. You gotta say something," he challenges.
He's right. But she can't do it. She'll fall apart if she starts talking about her mother. And there's no way in hell she wants to discuss an incomprehensible message sent from the so-called beyond.
"We were never in any real danger," she argues instead.
"What?"
"The safety was on."
"The safe—why didn't you say anything?"
"Where's the fun in that?" she says.
He stares at her, incredulous.
She presses out a smile.
"How'd you know about the felony sentencing and everything?" he asks.
"Pre-law," she answers.
"And what about the ninja-like fight skills and gun stuff?"
Okay, this wasn't supposed to be 60 Minutes. She'd said more than enough already.
"What's with the third degree?"
"I guess it bears repeating that I'd like to know absolutely everything about you. And it's not everyday you see a Stanford dropout disarm a gunman. Questions are warranted."
"Some things are private. And I'm not what you call a sharer," she says, hoping that'll be the end of it for now.
"You don't say," he mutters sarcastically and then, he's quiet for one, brief and heavenly, second. Until he asks in a last-ditch effort, "Is the person you lost the one who gave you the ring around your neck?"
Her pulse skyrockets. "Like I said. Private," she grits out. Her palms sweat, her nerves on edge, and she wishes he wasn't so goddamn nosy. Better to let him think she's mourning the loss of a fiancé. Maybe he'd back off with the sexual innuendo and the lingering glances loaded with something that she doesn't quite understand, something that, confoundingly, makes her heart thrash uncontrollably every time he holds her gaze a moment too long. Something that seems like more than just a crush.
Yeah, it's better this way.
He doesn't need to know about the sleepless nights in her dorm, her mother's unsolved case, a constant specter in her thoughts. When she wasn't drinking and partying to numb her feelings, she would spend hours sifting through New York newspaper reports about homicides and gang-related activity, looking for common patterns or perpetrators. Because that was the only lead she had. And he definitely doesn't need to know about the days she would hole up at the gun range, hurling rounds into targets, picking up second-hand knowledge from other patrons.
What's the point of him knowing anyway?
She's not gonna stick around once her bike is fixed, fate and destiny and psychic predictions be damned. Whatever this thing between them is...this so-called "partnership"...it isn't anything. It can't be.
Right?
He'd been about to propose to someone else all of four days ago. They'd only met two days ago.
"I just think it's great that I'm traveling with a Bond girl, is all," he says, not pushing further, instead fiddling with the radio dial, trying to find a working station.
"If anything, you're the Bond girl," she mutters. "I did all the hard work."
"I'll give you that," he laughs in agreement. "But I do have one last question for you…" He hits play on the tape deck, and right on cue, belts out, "Do you like piña coladas?"
She can't like him. She won't. It's selfish of her to keep taking without giving anything back.
They're still practically strangers.
And yet, in spite all her rationalizations of why she shouldn't let him in, she wants to give pieces of herself to him in return. She wants to smile back at him, sing-along, and bob her head to the tune. Wants to be carefree and absorb all the light he shines on her; wrap herself in each of his silver linings. Wants to be more than the broken girl with a broken motorcycle.
They'd just been held at gunpoint for God's sake. Maybe it was random. Or maybe it supposed to happen. Either way, what was the point in dwelling in darkness and denying herself the possibility of joy?
So, in this one instance, she chooses to climb out of the rabbit hole. She ignores the doubts cluttering her mind and lets the grin she's been holding in overtake her, incandescent with it as she bobs her head to the beat, and a verse later, she bursts out with, "Yes, I like piña coladas. Getting caught in the rain..."
Because with him...
She's invincible.
And maybe (just maybe), she can have hope.
xxx
A/N: Had a lot of fun with this chapter—hope you enjoyed it! Really glad everyone is loving this summer adventure as much as I am.
I, too, have never been to many of these spots. Of the locations mentioned in this story, I'm only really familiar with Los Angeles, Chicago, and NYC. Case in point, an Arizona local kindly pointed out that Flagstaff, AZ is not desert land as I'd assumed, but rather, mountain territory (I have since updated my description, thank you!).