Dead to the World (3/X)
CASTLE
He doesn't remember much from the past three days. It's all been a blur, a one giant, horrible, morbid blur.
He's just had one of the best mornings of his life, finally, after four years and so much heartache, waking up to the smile and caress of the woman he pursued for as long as he could remember. They made love again and then he made her breakfast and they drank coffee and laughed and kissed and caressed and everything felt even better than it was supposed to. Until it wasn't.
She left after breakfast in order to go home to get changed from her clothes. He didn't want to let her go; maybe he had a bad feeling already back then, but he refused to acknowledge it in the face of the happiness he was feeling at that moment.
She left him in his apartment with a promise of a soonish return that would be followed by the delicious lunch of his making. They didn't set an hour, but by 1 am, when the pasta was already cool on the stove, he picked up his phone to call her at last, even if it made him look all impatient and clingy.
He knew there wasn't something quite rightthe moment his call went straight to voicemail. He tried her number again with the same result. Third time wasn't the charm either.
But Alexis came home soon after and made him forget about Kate's absence for a while. He was a little edgy, but he forced himself to smile for being so overly dramatic. It was just the writer in him; he tried to convince himself of that as he listened to his daughter's recollection of her graduation party.
But it wasn't just his mind playing tricks on him.
He chose the time without Beckett to talk to his daughter about the latest development in his relationship with Kate. Alexis wasn't way too impressed, but Castle understood her reluctance for what it was - protectiveness towards his feelings. She's seen him hurt before. But there was nothing to be afraid of, not this time.
By four in the afternoon, and after 10 more calls, Castle stopped playing the cool boyfriend and was halfway out his front door on his way to her apartment in order to check on her. After all, she faced a trained killer only the day before. He was just taking his coat from the closet, his keys dangling from his fingers, when his phone rang and he nearly sagged with relief. Finally! But it was not Kate's name flashing on the screen but Esposito's.
He doesn't remember much after that. He thinks he might have sunken to the ground, right in front of his door, the very same door they so passionately kissed against only the night before. He has an impression Alexis rushed to him, demanding answers; he might have given her some, but he is not sure.
The next three days are as if he is walking under water. He refuses to believe the news at first, of course he doesn't. He somehow manages to overcome the initial shock and makes himself on his way to her apartment, because he simply has to see with his own eyes.
The sight welcomes him with sickening familiarity, broken windows, blackened walls. He isn't let inside but is met with a red-eyed Lanie, Esposito and Ryan at the yellow tape. Lanie seems to be hit the hardest, but just as he is about to tell her that this is all just one giant misunderstanding, that there must be another, simpler explanation to all of this, she holds out a shaky hand to him. Air rushes from his lungs when he recognizes the single blackened yet still glimmering object hanging from a singed chain from her hand. His heart stops because he's seen it, seen her put it on just that very morning. Put her mother's ring around her neck.
All hell breaks loose inside of him. He is under the impression he let out a howl, like a wounded animal, at the sight of her ring; but again, he's not sure. The next thing he has a real recollection of is being home and tucked into his bed, his daughter and mother sitting at the edge of the mattress, his mother running her fingers through his hair, the saddest look in her eyes.
"You'll get through this, kiddo." He must fall asleep after that.
The next morning, he is once again in denial, especially since his sheets still hold her distinctive smell. He calls Esposito again, asks him for details. His hopes are definitely crushed when he's informed that there is DNA proof now. He throws the phone away as he blindly stumbles to his bathroom to vomit violently. The shock is slowly creeping up on him; the news just really starts to sink in.
He doesn't leave his bed that day, or the day after. He has to the next one however, because that's the day of her funeral. At least that's the information he gets over the phone from a way too quiet Ryan.
He stands in front of his closet, wet from his first shower in days and feels lost. His mother and daughter pick up his suit and shoes, even comb his hair. Alexis' eyes bright with tears, she silently ties the black tie around his neck. He looks into his daughter's eyes, his bright little bird, his only remaining source of happiness and he knows what kind of flowers he has to get Kate.
It's not an official police ceremony, because she resigned, but Castle thinks she'd deserve one nevertheless. Maybe though, it was Jim Beckett's wish to hold a civil funeral, Castle doesn't know. The day is sickeningly bright and warm, the grass so familiarly green Castle feels the urge to flee the scene. He doesn't want to see the inside of a sunny cemetery ever again. He doesn't want to bury another person in his life.
He wears heavy dark glasses, and he stands with his mother and daughter in the back simply because he can't stomach being that close to the casket. It still feels surreal; he cannot wrap his head around it. He hardly hears a word of the eulogy, all that he can think about is how it doesn't make any sense because hell she gave up, chose to walk away, just the day before and they killed her anyway.
A tight icy knot forms in his gut that afternoon and he never manages to lose it again. He's really lost her. She's not coming back.
People come by, condole him as well, but he doesn't understand. Why him? No one knew that they were finally together, no one, not officially anyway. No one knew what she meant to him, what he hoped he meant to her.
Jim Beckett is the last to stop at his side, tries to talk to him, but Castle finds he can't look the man in the eye. He has killed his daughter.
He wants so badly to say something to him, try to console her father on what must be the worst day of his life, because here stands a man who's been robbed of everything in his life. Yet Castle cannot find the words, and he feels like he failed her on a whole new level.
Jim leaves and it's only days after that Castle realizes he hasn'tsaid a single word to the man. Truth is, Castle doesn't talk much at all these days.
A few weeks go by in a blur, Alexis and mother keeping him constant company, trying to cheer him up. He starts to eat again, smiles, even grabs a few hours of sleep at night. He starts to become a master at pretending life's returning to normal when nothing ever felt so wrong before.
He had it all within reach only to have it snatched from the tips of his fingers so crudely.
A month into his grieving he gets a call from Gina. He can tell she is nervous at the other end of the line, uncomfortable with whatever she has to say to him. A minute later, he finally understands and she is right, she should feel ashamed to even ask him! He slams the phone down with unnecessary force.
But three days later spending in deep thought, trying to bargain his way out of it, he knows she's right. The contract is binding, and it's not even about the money. "C'mon Rick," he tries to encourage himself in his mind, "how hard can it be?" Maybe it will even bring him some comfort.
Not a full hour later he already knows this has been a terrible, terrible idea. Frozen Heat blinks opened on the computer in his study, yet he's not writing at his book but sobbing like a little girl into the sheets of his bed that long ago stopped smelling like her.
That's the day he starts to write the journal. He doesn't give it a name, a label. It's just a little book bound in black leather he pours his thoughts into. Sometimes he adds a date, sometimes he doesn't.
The next weeks, he shuts himself in his office in order to finally close another painful chapter in his life and finish Frozen Heat. It's at least a good excuse to distance himself from his mother and daughter. Though being a great source of comfort, their hovering is slowly driving him crazy. Amongst other things. Like the constant present thought that Kate is really dead.
Working through Frozen Heat is murdering a little peace of his soul every day. The pages often blur, every scene bringing out a memory of Beckett this and Beckett that. By the time he wraps the book up and sends it off to Gina, he feels like he's been tortured for weeks, lying under a ton of bricks on end. The weight doesn't lift. Either way, he doesn't want to see an inside of a bookstore ever again. He's done, definitely done writing. His muse isdead, his heart is dead, so why bother?
The only source of writing remains his little black book.
Frozen Heat sells better than any of his previous books, quickly becomes Number Onebestseller. He knows the publicity of the tragedy is all the reason behind it, although Paula tried to damper it on that matter as much as she could. Still, Castle knows it's the main reason behind the astronomical sale numbers. It disgusts him to a sickening point. He's making money out of Kate Beckett even after her death. The reviews are awful though and it makes him feel a little better.
For some reason, it feels like a good punishment to have his latest book torn up by the ruthless claws of sharp-tongued critics. He is glad they can see - as he knows well by now - that his writing has considerably degraded along with the demise of his muse.
God Kate…it still hurts to even think her name.
She would probably kill him if she knew what he did to her precious Nikki, how he ended the series. She always tried to play down her enthusiasm for his books, but he knew better. And what did he do to her favorite two characters? He unexpectedly killed Rook, made Heat resign and leave the city, holing up at some stupid ranch with horses in Kentucky never to recover from the blow. Extremely pathetic and even more poorlydone; and all in the span of the last fifteen pages without any previous indication the plot of the book was even heading there. Artistically and technically? Total crap. Personally? The horror of his life.
Of course he didn't plan on the book to go there at the time he had most of it already written and nearly finished. He didn't anticipate her to die either. Yet he couldn't bring himself to go over the whole book and make adjustments that would at least hint towards the tragic ending. Rereading and rewriting it anymore would be way too painful and even worse, would feel like altering the past, where he still hoped for a happy ending for the two of them.
Despite his depressive mood, Castle didn't want to let that go. Not even in his book.
TBC
Thoughts? (apart from that it's sad and I am bad, cause I already know that. ;))