#hiatusproject

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Prelude.

Watch her move in an elliptical pattern; And I’ll be anything you ask and more.

It was nearing midnight when Detective Castle decided it was time to take a break from his paperwork. After all, shouldn’t he enjoy the special coffee machine he had just bought for the precinct after they captured a serial killer? Entering the break room, he noticed a strange dim light emanating from under the door of the records room.

Alert even without his caffeine fix, Castle felt for his holster, silently drawing his gun. This better not be Ryan and Esposito playing a belated April Fools’ joke on me, he mused, as he reached the records room and placed his ear against the door. He heard breathing. This perp is cornered, Castle thought, as he kicked the door open.

“Put your hands up!” He pointed his gun at the records room thief. It was a tall woman with long brown locks of hair. The file she had been poring over and the torch she used fell to the ground as she raised her hands in compliance, the wild panic in her sharp intake of breath unmistakable. Gun still firmly trained on her, Castle picked the torch up to shine in her face.

She squinted and ducked her head, but he recognised Kate Beckett, his favourite mystery novelist. (She was excellent with the details of death.)

The words spilled out of him before he could hold on to them, “You’re Kate Beckett.” Her eyes widened. (They were olive.) “Yes,” she said slowly, “Can I put my hands down now?” Her gaze shifted almost imperceptibly to the file on the floor.

Castle gripped his gun harder, unsure what to make of the girl with the piercing gaze and wondering why his chest felt like it was going to burst its seams. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Beckett spoke quickly, “Yes, I know, but please, something’s not right. That file is my mother’s—she was murdered and the police attributed it to random gang violence—but something doesn’t add up.”

He stole a glance at the file in question and saw the name Johanna Beckett. It was a cold case; he recognised it. Slowly, he lowered his gun, and Beckett seemed to breathe again. “Please, detective. You can help me. You’re a homicide detective, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m Detective Castle.”

They stood staring at each other for a moment, curious eyes meeting clouded ones, before Castle gestured toward the open door. “Want a coffee?”

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Act I.

You are carbon and I am flame; You fill me in, and you are permanent

The ring of her phone traveled a familiar line between endearing and grating as it reached out through the fog and grabbed her back from her dreams. Kate Beckett stretched for the device and pulled it to her face, squinting at the caller: Detective Castle. A shot of ecstasy electrified her, his promise to contact her once he made inroads into her mother’s unsolved murder weighing heavy on her mind. Lucid, she took a deep breath and answered, “Beckett.”

“Castle here.” His voice melted into her like the warmth of morning coffee.

“What have you found?” She sat up in her bed.

“Oh, no, I haven’t started on your mother’s case. A body dropped. I’m sorry.” He sounded so, but she felt dropped from a precipice.

She snapped, “So, what are you calling me for?”

“Not a morning person, I see.” Castle had laced his words with charm, but they were anchored in regret. Her sentiment instantly mirrored his, and she rubbed her forehead with her palm tiredly, but he spoke before she could apologise. “I was wondering if you would want to grab some lunch with me today.”

“Oh.”

“Doesn’t seem polite to catch a girl breaking into a police station and not invite her to lunch.”

His words eased her.

She swallowed the instinctive refusal that she has since trained not to slip out of her. After all, being a writer has taught her to embrace the potentiality of storylines. In fact, a thousand possibilities exploded in her head; her mind latched greedily on to the idea of gaining access to Castle’s promised investigation into her mother’s murder.

The prospect sent her heart thundering, and when she answered, she made an effort to keep her voice measured. “Sure, why not?”

She could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “There’s this burger joint just around the precinct…”

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Act II.

Come sweeten my every afternoon; I fall into an ocean of you.

He was leaning casually against the window of the burger joint they had arranged to meet, dressed in a black leather jacket and aviators. He is a walking cliché, but she felt the light touch of admiration pull almost imperceptibly at her chest. Clearing her throat to herself, she crossed the near empty street to meet the detective.

Castle came up to meet her with an infectious smile and showed her into the restaurant. She threw him a token smile, pretending his joy did not affect hers.

The diner was unironically American, and she surveyed the place in awe and amusement. He had taken off his shades and was looking at her when they shuffled into a red booth.

“I just have to say,” Castle began, “I’m sorry I haven’t looked into your mother’s case.”

A hot flush spilled on to her face at the memory of her rudeness. “I’m the one who’s sorry. You do not have any obligation to help me do anything.”

“Yes, I do.”

She hoped he did not notice the way her eyes widened gently at the lack of snark in his reply.

“Well, then, what are you working on?”

He grinned at her question. “We haven’t even ordered and already you’re digging for information. Are you sure you’re a novelist and not a journalist?”

“Well, you’ve read my novels, haven’t you.” It was not a question.

His cool charm was broken for the first time, like he was about to say something, but he reached for the menu at the edge of the table to fill the otherwise too transparent moment. And for the first time in their knowledge of each other, she felt that she had pushed back in response to his sequence of unobvious nudges.

He might not have realised this until now, but she had known from the beginning he was a fan. She had noticed that he immediately recognised her, which had surprised and flattered her, still surprises and flatters her. Beckett wrote a couple of bestsellers, sure, but she was no Stephen Cannell, and she was not usually stopped on the streets by people who recognised her photo from a book jacket.

Smiling triumphantly, she decided to let this one go; she would have plenty of other opportunities to hold this piece of leverage over him.

(Wait, did she just plan for long-term interaction with Detective Castle?)

“I highly recommend the Eggs Benedict,” Castle said, passing her the worn menu.

“At 1 pm in the afternoon?”

“Why, is there any other better time to be eating them?”

She would not give him the satisfaction of the sardonic “Uh, breakfast?” he must have been expecting, so she swallowed her words and perused the menu instead, casually biting her lip to stop the smile that threatened to grow on her face.

The waiter had just left after taking his order of breakfast for lunch and hers of the burger he insisted was “to die for” when she repeated, “So, what are you working on?”

“Young white male in his 20s, found poisoned in his apartment.” Castle said, eyes twinkling, as if pleased at her persistence. “It was probably the girlfriend.”

Beckett recoiled and frowned in mock disapproval, as if Castle had said something he was not supposed to.

“What?”

“It’s never the girlfriend.”

“Statistically, women are more likely to use poison than men.” He said pointedly before adding, “Not that that’s the basis of my entire investigation.”

“It’s the oldest trick in the book.”

“You haven’t even seen the case file yet!”

“You could show me.”

Castle opened his mouth before closing it almost immediately. He narrowed his eyes at Beckett. “Looking for a career in crime-solving, Beckett?”

Beckett shrugged, non-committal. “I’m just saying, detective.”

Castle leaned against the cushioned booth, as if suddenly seeing Beckett differently, like in a Picasso painting for a second time. He was amused. “Sometimes it’s just that predictable.”

“Says the man who eats breakfast at 1 pm.”

He said nothing for a while, but his eyes danced. The waiter then came around with their orders, and Beckett was glad for the moment to breathe. Taking refuge in her drink, she watched Castle over the rim of her plastic cup, as he cut his eggs expertly. Suddenly, she did not remember the truth that had been eluding her for years, did not remember the truth she came here to dig, but only saw the truth of their circumference, a cosy booth. It warmed her and it scared her.

She cleared her throat, before asking pointedly, “So, what makes a person choose a life of solving crimes?”

“An innate sense of justice.”

“Is that code for ‘I was bullied often as a kid’?” She said, teasing.

He shrugged in response, as she remarked, “How very Steve Rogers.”

Castle laughed, “More of a Batman guy myself.”

“A dark and brooding superhero with a tragic past. Huh.”

“What’s with all the questions, Beckett?” He looked so serious that she had to laugh, wondering about how much practice he probably had holding in a flood of laughter in an interrogation room. How is this guy a detective again? “Are you trying to make a muse out of me?”

Beckett let out a sound that was almost a snort, but settled on a scoff.

“I’ll have you know, I’ll make a wonderful muse,” Castle said, popping the last of his eggs into his mouth. “I was raised by an actress, so that guarantees material for childhood angst, not to mention the fact that people love reading about divorced people. This book will sell itself.”

“You have an ex-wife?”

“Ex-wives, two of them,” he corrected.

“Ah, and they say cops are married to their jobs.” Her tone was teasing, but her eyes were curious. Who was this man who was part warmth, part trouble? She was the novelist, but he had the story.

She decided to say, “There’s always a story, that’s all.”

He looked at her, “And what’s your story?”

The fact that Beckett’s story involved a cold case open on the detective’s desk settled on Castle like dust, except it surged and hit Beckett like vertigo. She felt a stab of guilt for having forgot about it for the length of their conversation.

What was her story? Her story was the one thing she could not pen; the more she wrote, the more distant she was from herself. She wrote to make up for the truth that wasn’t, the justice that didn’t prevail, the love that didn’t stay. She wrote because fantasy was her only tether to reality. She wrote to conceal parts of herself in the safety of fiction, so she no longer has to walk around whole in the world. She could never write her story.

Yet, if she were being honest, she had not forgot about her mom’s case, about wanting to forge a friendship with Detective Castle to track his investigation. It was just that Castle made it easy for her to feel that she might be okay with things again. It was new and it was scary; it was not words on paper, but flesh and blood.

“Beckett?” When she heard him, she realised a moment later that it was probably not the first time he called for her in the past minute.

They stared at each other, plates empty and banter lost.

Castle knew at that point that Beckett’s mother’s murder would be his only occupation for the next few weeks. He wanted to offer Beckett everything he understood in that brief silence she was missing, and even all else he could not understand, but he offered a joke instead.

“So, no to the whole muse thing?”

She blinked, disoriented for a second, before tucking her lower lip between her teeth, eyes like stars.“I have a strict rule about my muses: they need to have at least three ex-wives and a dislike of eating breakfast for lunch.”

“That’s too bad. It would have been great.” He smiled knowingly.