(no subject)
Title: There's an ocean between where I am and where I want to be
Characters/Pairings: Castle, Castle/Beckett, Castle/Gina
Word Count: 798
Rating: PG
Beta: stardust_20, who is wonderful!
Spoilers: Through "A Deadly Game"
Summary: Castle reflects on his summer...
Disclaimer: I don't own Castle and will never make a dime from this. I wouldn't even want to.
AN: I wrote most of this before I started watching season three, but though this isn't the way things turned out, I still think this would have made sense. The title is from Flogging Molly's "Whistles the Wind."
Castle looks up from his laptop, out the window at the bright sun and cloudless sky of the day from which he's exiled himself. It's a stark contrast to the scene in his head and on his screen, where Nikki Heat is chasing a suspect through a rainy city night. It's harder to picture Beckett in a place like this - not for lack of trying, but these days he prefers to keep Nikki in the world he shared with her.
Outside, Gina lays face-down in a deck chair by the pool, wearing a bright red bikini with the top half untied. She's undeniably hot; even in the bitterest moments of their divorce he'd never tried to deny it. But her body is the result of sessions with a ridiculously expensive trainer and seems somehow much less real than Beckett's combat-honed form. If he were going to write her here - and by "her," he means Nikki, he tries to assure himself - the bathing suit he's been angling to see would be black and simpler than Gina's designer creation. And Beckett would command far more attention than Gina's look aggressively demands.
It's been four weeks, long enough to remind him why it hadn't worked out with Gina the first time, though he has no plans to kick her out. He knew what he was getting into when he invited her, and it has been pretty much exactly what he expected. They haven't discussed it, but they both know this reunion won't last beyond the summer. They've been down this road before.
He misses Beckett's capacity to surprise him, misses gradually unearthing piece after hard-won piece in the puzzle that is Kate Beckett, every one of which only leaves him wanting to know more. Nikki is fun to write in a way that Derrick Storm hadn't been for at least three books, but as good a writer as he is, his character will never surprise him as much as the woman who inspired her.
More than anything, he misses Alexis. Weeks later he still expects her to walk through the door, still turns to make jokes than he knows will inspire the sparkling eyes and patient smile he loves. This month has been bad enough; he doesn’t want to imagine that after another year, she'll head off to college, and he'll have to go weeks and maybe even a month or two at a time without seeing her. Phone calls with her are the best part of any day. He's disappointed when it's anyone else on the other end of the line.
But when it isn't Alexis, he feels an extra stab of disappointment that the caller isn't Beckett. He's started to call her several times but something always stops him. He doesn't know exactly why, but he has an uncomfortable feeling that she might not pick up her cell if she sees his name on the caller ID. He could call her desk at the precinct and for a moment he pictures her there, typing a report with one hand and holding a coffee cup in the other. But the figure of Tom Demming intrudes into this vision, sitting in his chair, gazing at Beckett like a lovesick puppy. Castle doesn't want to imagine talking to her with Demming in the background, listening to every word she says.
He looks back down at his screen, trying to drag his attention back to Nikki's chase but he just can't focus on her, can't pull his thoughts away from Beckett. Despite what some fans may think, the two are separate in his mind. He's never tried to make Nikki a carbon copy of Beckett; he couldn’t if he wanted to. He doesn't. There are aspects of Beckett that he'd never share with the world, that he's honored to believe most people don't see. He knows better than to think of those sides of her as his; these are things he doesn't believe she's intentionally shown him and may not even realize she has, and he knows she wouldn't thank him for incorporating her secrets into his character. (Okay, let's be honest, she'd kill him in one of the many ways she's threatened over the last two years.)
It's pathetic, but he even misses her near-daily death threats. He misses...well, he just misses her.
The hell with it. He's been her sort-of partner for nearly two years. He's been around far longer than Demming and hopes to be there long after Beckett has gotten tired of playing it safe with the robbery detective. (He replays that conversation in his mind far more often than he'd ever admit.) He reaches for his phone and dials the precinct.
She picks up on the second ring. "Beckett."
He takes a deep breath. "Hey."
Characters/Pairings: Castle, Castle/Beckett, Castle/Gina
Word Count: 798
Rating: PG
Beta: stardust_20, who is wonderful!
Spoilers: Through "A Deadly Game"
Summary: Castle reflects on his summer...
Disclaimer: I don't own Castle and will never make a dime from this. I wouldn't even want to.
AN: I wrote most of this before I started watching season three, but though this isn't the way things turned out, I still think this would have made sense. The title is from Flogging Molly's "Whistles the Wind."
Castle looks up from his laptop, out the window at the bright sun and cloudless sky of the day from which he's exiled himself. It's a stark contrast to the scene in his head and on his screen, where Nikki Heat is chasing a suspect through a rainy city night. It's harder to picture Beckett in a place like this - not for lack of trying, but these days he prefers to keep Nikki in the world he shared with her.
Outside, Gina lays face-down in a deck chair by the pool, wearing a bright red bikini with the top half untied. She's undeniably hot; even in the bitterest moments of their divorce he'd never tried to deny it. But her body is the result of sessions with a ridiculously expensive trainer and seems somehow much less real than Beckett's combat-honed form. If he were going to write her here - and by "her," he means Nikki, he tries to assure himself - the bathing suit he's been angling to see would be black and simpler than Gina's designer creation. And Beckett would command far more attention than Gina's look aggressively demands.
It's been four weeks, long enough to remind him why it hadn't worked out with Gina the first time, though he has no plans to kick her out. He knew what he was getting into when he invited her, and it has been pretty much exactly what he expected. They haven't discussed it, but they both know this reunion won't last beyond the summer. They've been down this road before.
He misses Beckett's capacity to surprise him, misses gradually unearthing piece after hard-won piece in the puzzle that is Kate Beckett, every one of which only leaves him wanting to know more. Nikki is fun to write in a way that Derrick Storm hadn't been for at least three books, but as good a writer as he is, his character will never surprise him as much as the woman who inspired her.
More than anything, he misses Alexis. Weeks later he still expects her to walk through the door, still turns to make jokes than he knows will inspire the sparkling eyes and patient smile he loves. This month has been bad enough; he doesn’t want to imagine that after another year, she'll head off to college, and he'll have to go weeks and maybe even a month or two at a time without seeing her. Phone calls with her are the best part of any day. He's disappointed when it's anyone else on the other end of the line.
But when it isn't Alexis, he feels an extra stab of disappointment that the caller isn't Beckett. He's started to call her several times but something always stops him. He doesn't know exactly why, but he has an uncomfortable feeling that she might not pick up her cell if she sees his name on the caller ID. He could call her desk at the precinct and for a moment he pictures her there, typing a report with one hand and holding a coffee cup in the other. But the figure of Tom Demming intrudes into this vision, sitting in his chair, gazing at Beckett like a lovesick puppy. Castle doesn't want to imagine talking to her with Demming in the background, listening to every word she says.
He looks back down at his screen, trying to drag his attention back to Nikki's chase but he just can't focus on her, can't pull his thoughts away from Beckett. Despite what some fans may think, the two are separate in his mind. He's never tried to make Nikki a carbon copy of Beckett; he couldn’t if he wanted to. He doesn't. There are aspects of Beckett that he'd never share with the world, that he's honored to believe most people don't see. He knows better than to think of those sides of her as his; these are things he doesn't believe she's intentionally shown him and may not even realize she has, and he knows she wouldn't thank him for incorporating her secrets into his character. (Okay, let's be honest, she'd kill him in one of the many ways she's threatened over the last two years.)
It's pathetic, but he even misses her near-daily death threats. He misses...well, he just misses her.
The hell with it. He's been her sort-of partner for nearly two years. He's been around far longer than Demming and hopes to be there long after Beckett has gotten tired of playing it safe with the robbery detective. (He replays that conversation in his mind far more often than he'd ever admit.) He reaches for his phone and dials the precinct.
She picks up on the second ring. "Beckett."
He takes a deep breath. "Hey."