A pool is a great place to think. 'Great place to turn introspective. After he'd been signed off on by the MEs -- a couple of bumps, some rope burns -- and checked on Ryan, Castle had made his way down to the pool for a good, long stew. The gate was open. Most of the deck chairs had been stored for the winter, but Castle had pulled a bench out from underneath a tarp, brushed the leaves from it, and planted himself at the edge of the pool. You could do a lot of thinking while poolside. In fact, pools -- and water in general -- had been a big part of his third novel, Storm Tide, and he'd logged a lot of hours sitting beside pools for research purposes. Granted, it'd been considerably warmer than it is now, and this place suffered from a depressing lack of romping, oiled Playboy bunnies but, then again, you can't always get what you want
( ... )
The moment the question leaves Beckett's lips, she's not sure if it was the right thing to have said. The tone that shapes it isn't potentially offending, but it's something that's been on her mind since the door gave way under her kick and Castle's name seized up in her throat. He'd been fine, he'd insisted, but she recognized a look of a different nature in his gaze even in the shadows of the motel room. She knew it all too well.
In the brief period of silence that follows, she laces her fingers together and squeezes, a motion meant to settle her nerves and the lingering course of adrenaline still hanging back in her system. She meets his eyes when he finally answers her, the truth so real that it makes it impossible not to lose herself in her own memories. She glances away, back and out to the water, the blue mirror that forms a perfect reflection of their faces above
( ... )
He doesn't know how she does it. He's tried to write it a hundred different times, in a hundred different voices; how she can steel herself against the disappointment and helplessness of a lost collar, an unresolved case. Sitting in his office with a laptop and a beer, he's tried deconstructing her thought process brick by mental brick. 'Never quite gets it, though. The shape of it is there, but he can never really write the look she gets at the end of the day, when all the shadows seem to come down around her when she has to send the file to the cold case cabinet.
Except now, he feels it too.
Her hand on his knee brings him back up from the dark. He looks at her. She's turned her face away, her lips hard and thin, but her fingers are five points of warmth that breaks through the cold barrier. She knows. She knows Tyson like she knows Coonan, the man who'd killed her mother; like she knows the hundreds of other criminals that got away with it despite her peerless experience and abilities. He thinks she has to be stronger than even
( ... )
There's understanding in her eyes as they drift away from his expression, but there's also determination. Tyson might be in the wind now, but she's not going to equate that to a loss. If anything, it makes her even more set on the idea of keeping this one on the backburner. She'd hoped to spare Castle from such an experience like the ones she's gone through too often to keep track of - but maybe it was almost unavoidable, given where he'd been willing to place himself time and time again. In the line of fire, flying headlong into danger
( ... )
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In the brief period of silence that follows, she laces her fingers together and squeezes, a motion meant to settle her nerves and the lingering course of adrenaline still hanging back in her system. She meets his eyes when he finally answers her, the truth so real that it makes it impossible not to lose herself in her own memories. She glances away, back and out to the water, the blue mirror that forms a perfect reflection of their faces above ( ... )
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Except now, he feels it too.
Her hand on his knee brings him back up from the dark. He looks at her. She's turned her face away, her lips hard and thin, but her fingers are five points of warmth that breaks through the cold barrier. She knows. She knows Tyson like she knows Coonan, the man who'd killed her mother; like she knows the hundreds of other criminals that got away with it despite her peerless experience and abilities. He thinks she has to be stronger than even ( ... )
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