Chapter Text
Hooves thunder against the frozen ground.
Katie Beckett digs her heels a little further into the horse's flank, her heart galloping wildly as they cut across the countryside, the skirt of her wedding dress billowing in the wind. The crisp air slices over her face, chapping her cheeks red.
"Katie!" a voice shouts in the distance.
She glances over her shoulder.
Not Katie—Kate, she reminds herself. She's Kate now—has to be.
She tosses a bouquet of red roses into the air behind her, scarlet petals landing in a gleaming white snow bank and trailing after her like a too-bright bloodstain as the horse races on and on. She turns forward, tightening her grip on the reins until all she can focus on is the rasp of ice-cold leather against her skin and the shock of adrenaline pumping through her veins.
Field after field, fence after fence, snow crunching underfoot—she just keeps running.
Rick darts out of his apartment building in the Upper West Side, trying to wave hello to his doorman and flag down a taxi while he presses his phone to his ear.
"Hey, Gina, pick up." He continues on down the street, eyes peeled for a new cab as he ducks and weaves through the crowds of pedestrians. "I have some column ideas I want to bounce off you."
He pauses, waits for the once-inevitable click of the receiver as Gina reluctantly answers one of his endless voicemails. Nothing comes. "Not there? Okay. Listen, I'm thinking of writing about those mind-numbing infomercials that are always on."
There's another beat of silence and Castle sighs. He used to love these streets, this rush—used to spend his afternoons perched on the edge of park benches, making up theories about every single passer-by with his daughter as they fed the pigeons together. His heart clenches at the memory and he swallows; shakes it off.
"What do you think? Good idea, right?" He finally pauses, ducking into an alley away from all the commotion as he takes the moment to consider his own pitch. Shit. "Boring, done to death, pointless," he realizes aloud, dropping his head back against the rough brick wall behind him. It sucks. Not just his idea, but all of this—his dead-end job as an second-rate opinion columnist, his life alone in a tiny apartment with a dog as his only companion, his ex-wife-and-now-also-boss who continues to ignore every single one of his increasingly manic phone calls. And well…he hasn't talked to his daughter or mother in five years. So, yeah…he's surprised he even made it out of bed today.
Castle takes a breath and forces his way back into the thoroughfare, holding the phone away from his mouth as he yells up at the construction workers who've been clogging this sidewalk with their scaffolding for months now. "If you guys are here any longer, they're gonna make you sign a lease!"
One of the guys—Conrad…if he remembers right—sneers down at him. (The guy thinks he's pretty funny.) "You should try a joke like that in your column."
God. Rick just shakes his head and moves on, forcing his way between two obnoxious hand-holders as he returns to the voicemail. "Okay," he tries, "I was thinking I might try to write about…"
He casts his eyes around, gaze landing on a fantastically wealthy-looking old woman as she climbs tentatively out of her limousine. She's covered in diamonds—naturally—and he smiles, spinning a yarn on-the-go now as he pauses for a moment to consider the would-be story.
"An underground diamond-smuggling ring. Mob-run, obviously, operating out of Brighton Beach and eventually making its way up to Manhattan's very own aristocracy."
He waits for the age-old spark of joy which used to come from pitching one of these crazy theories, and just finds the familiar dull ache of sadness in his chest instead. He's just not inspired anymore. And there's no magic—nothing.
"Gina? Come on—I know you're sitting there laughing at me. Pick up. I wanna run an idea past you."
Again he waits, feeling more and more like a fool as the silence is echoed back to him over the empty crackle of the line. Writer's block gets everyone eventually, he knows that, but—shit, he'd hoped he had at least a few more years of tabloid journalism in him before every single well of inspiration dried up. He misses the years he used to roll around in the mud, exposing the corruption that runs deep in the seedy underbelly of the city—a proper muckraker, the New York Ledger's all-star investigative reporter with a Pulitzer to boot. But he can't go back to that…not when it's the reason he lost everything.
"I just could use someone to toss it back-and-forth with for a few minutes, get the juices flowing. Help me," he pleads. (God, how pathetic it is to end a sentence with help me on a three-minute-long voicemail to your ex-wife?) He winces. Enough. Maybe this can be saved if he tries to sound like he has any semblance of a life outside of these stupid phone calls. "I have an hour and forty-seven minutes and fifty-two seconds." And then I have a meeting, he almost adds, but she'd see straight through him. "Hello?"
Still nothing. Castle heaves his second great sigh of the hour and snaps his phone shut, plastering on a smile as he approaches his favorite hot dog vendor in this whole city.
"Ricky!" the man greets, his accent thick. "When you gonna put me in a new article, huh?"
Rick shrugs helplessly. "Maybe when you start letting me eat for free."
That gets him a laugh, at least. "Never gonna happen. What's today's order?"
He pretends to consider—not that he ever needs to—and then makes the usual show of pointing to every single condiment on display, secretly delighted by each new guffaw he gets for his choices. "Ketchup, mayo, onions, mustard, ranch, and pickles, please," he says, loyal even after all this time to his go-to order.
"I keep telling you," says his vendor, "this stuff's gonna give you a heart attack."
Castle cocks an eyebrow. "Hopefully sooner rather than later. And hey—a frontline thinkpiece on experiencing cardiac arrest might actually give me something to write about."
Fuck.
He really is out of ideas.
Castle walks into The Old Haunt, crumpling the foil of his hot dog wrapper and wiping a smear of mustard from his mouth. Afternoon sunlight slants through the street-level windows behind him and casts an amber sheen over the place.
He makes his way over to the bar, planting himself—slightly surreptitiously—next to a suave-looking blonde woman in a dark blue dress. Just as he opens his mouth to introduce himself, a louder voice butts in from over on his left.
"I see photos of a lot of dead writers on these walls," says the voice—a man, it turns out, square-jawed and dressed a little too nice to be the kind of guy who often finds himself slurring words in dark pubs before night has even started to fall—"Got any living ones?"
Not a soul responds. Unperturbed, Square Jaw continues, his index finger tracing a wobbly line around the rim of his scotch glass. "Picture this, if you will. A small town in upstate New York, a sleepy little mountain town, and within that—a maneater…"
Right. Castle turns back to the woman, prepared to formally introduce himself and a little shocked to find her blue eyes already piercing his when he finally meets her gaze.
"Hi," he manages.
She just smirks. "Hi yourself."
"I'm, uh, Rick. Castle."
"I know who you are," the woman says easily.
"Oh. Right."
God. How is he back to being bad at flirting?
"Serena," she says at last, holding a delicate hand out for him to shake. "So what's in store for us in tomorrow's column?"
Castle swallows. She really does know who he is. "I don't know yet," he shrugs, playing for nonchalant as best he can. "I'm kind of a last-minute man. Ideas don't flow until an hour or two before the deadline, you know?"
"No," she says curtly. "I don't."
Right then. Serena No-Last-Name gets up and ambles over to the dart board, throwing two perfect triple-twenties before she turns to face him again. "This is very interesting," she says. He tilts his head. "You get your ideas for your column from life."
"I do?"
"You do. You head to a seedy bar, start up a conversation with a random woman, and try to get a rise out of her while you contemplate whether or not she's worth hitting on."
He balks. "I wasn't—"
"—Trying to get a rise out of me?" Serena raises an eyebrow. "Not yet."
"Maybe not ever. Can't hit on you if I've pissed you off."
She rolls her eyes and throws the third dart with barely a glance at the board; another perfect shot. Whatever. "That's flattering."
"No," he flounders, "you don't understand."
Serena makes her way back towards him and for a moment Castle almost holds his breath, but then she just grabs her bag and rifles through her wallet until she finds a decent tip for the bartender.
"I think I do understand, actually." She flattens the note onto the countertop and leans in a little closer. "No matter how this conversation goes, no matter how it ends, your bait-and-switch thing will inspire one of those potential bitter diatribes you love to write about other people and all the things they do to drive you crazy."
Rick swallows, taken aback.
"I don't write bitter diatribes about people...very often. I'm not some misanthrope."
"Sure. Only when the ideas aren't flowing, huh?" (She might actually have him there.) "Well, it was very nice to meet you, one-minute man."
And then she's gone.
"That's last-minute man," he tries to correct as the door swings shut behind her. "And it's the quality that counts!"
Everyone in the pub catches his feeble attempt at a comeback. Even LT winces, and he's been a bartender here so long you'd think he'd be used to this kind of thing.
"You know," LT supplies, "for a good looking man—you strike out a lot."
Castle just sighs. "Thanks, man."
"I've seen much worse." This addition comes from Square Jaw over on the other side of the bar, his voice so gravelly with the effects of his drinks of choice that Castle doesn't even pay him any mind.
A phone rings somewhere below and LT passes him a quick wave before he dashes off to answer it. Rick grabs Serena's magazine left behind on the bartop and starts leafing through it, intrigued by the photo on its cover of the self-alleged Fist of Capitalism and the kind of person she must be if she actually enjoys this drivel. It takes him a minute, but he eventually realizes that the man at the bar is still just staring at him, waiting for a response he really isn't sure he can be bothered to give right now.
"I said," enunciates the man, "I've seen much worse."
Finally, Rick looks at the man with no small amount of reservation.
"Excuse me?"
"The brush-off. The rejection."
Castle huffs as he gets up and moves to the dart board. It wasn't a rejection. Just…an abrupt end to the conversation. He tugs Serena's perfectly-aimed darts from the board and lines himself up, just about ready to launch a triple bullseye when Square Jaw pipes up again.
"I've witnessed far more treacherous and nefarious exits than that. At least she castigated you in private."
Rick narrows his eyes. "Not as private as I thought."
The writer turns slightly, giving the Square Jaw his back.
"LT," he calls, deliberately directing his attention elsewhere, "you got any napkins?"
LT swings back into the bar with a knowing grin. "Writing or wiping?"
"Give me a pen."
LT procures a pen and cocktail napkin, but it turns out that even having the materials in front of him does nothing to banish the writer's block from his brain. Square Jaw gets up and wobbles towards the dart board out of the corner of Rick's eye and he tries his best not to let it distract him.
"Ah, come on." The man tosses a dart hard at the board, missing entirely and somehow managing to hit a patch of drywall at least a foot from his original target. "For the record, I'm on board with your diatribes. People deserve it. They love you, they hate you, they're hot, they're cold, they're high, they're low…"
Rick finally looks up from his writing with a sigh. "They're up, they're down," he finishes. "Look, as fun as it is making this list with you, I've still got a column to go write."
"But you don't have any ideas!" the man whines. "And there's this girl I know you could write about."
Castle raises a bored eyebrow, sliding a five across the bar to LT with a quiet thanks.
"Rick here doesn't need any new ideas," LT argues—which isn't strictly true, but he appreciates the defense.
Square Jaw is undeterred. "She likes to dump grooms right at the altar." Okay, that gets Castle's attention a little bit. The man smirks a little, drawing out his dramatic pause before he finally speaks again. "They call her The Runaway Bride."
Both Rick and LT turn and stare.
"She's performed the travesty seven or eight times," the man slurs. "Right at the altar—she turns around and runs like hell. Just bolts right out of there."
Rick turns on his heel and heads for the door. Seven or eight? This isn't decent material. He needs…something, but he's not sure this is it.
"Plows down the aisle," continues the drunk guy in question, "knocking old ladies out of her way like the running of the bulls in Barcelona."
"Pamplona," Castle corrects under his breath.
"And guess what?"
Rick sighs. "I give up. What?"
"She has the next victim all lined up. She's twirling another body on the spit as we speak."
Rick stops in his tracks and turns back around in spite of himself.
The man smiles, triumphant at last. "Imagine if you will, a sleepy little mountain town in upstate New York…"
Castle kicks his feet up onto his desk and adjusts his laptop, humming along to the Coltrane drifting from his cassette player. The screen glows as his fingers fly across the keys.
When he finishes a paragraph and discards another ink-filled napkin of notes from his pile, his dog, Royal, trots right over in search of head scratches. Rick grins despite himself and obliges, carding his fingers through Royal's golden fur as the retriever nuzzles into him further.
"Sorry, boy. Have I not been paying you enough attention?"
Evidently not, judging by the frantic tail-wagging going on behind his chair. Royal is his only real companion these days and the last living creature left on Earth willing to live with him. That depressing thought jolts Rick back into the writing grind…he really needs to make this deadline—the last thing he needs right now is more death threats from his ex-wife.
"Hey, here, listen to this," he says to Royal, scrolling back up to the top of his document.
"Today is a day of profound introspection," he starts, "for I have been accused of using this column to direct bitter diatribes at anyone and everyone. This uncomfortable accusation has plunged me into at least fifteen minutes of serious reflection, from which I have emerged with the conclusion that, yes—I traffic in pessimism and negativity."
He walks through the main office of the Ledger the next day, reading out the finished result of his last-minute efforts—this time to Paula.
"But how can one blame me when every time I step out my front door I'm met with fresh proof that there's nothing to live for?" he recites. "It's as if today's members of society know how to do nothing except fit into the archetype of their choosing. The drunkard in the bar, the seductress in the dark, the rowdy builders on your morning commute. The world is entirely too prescriptive. Everything's too noisy. Everyone's always in a hurry. No one just…talks anymore."
He gets a look from Paula which clearly suggests that Rick does a little too much talking, and he huffs before continuing.
"To be fair, this way of living isn't exactly new. Every country in the world now is predicated on a system that tends to work best when people aren't wasting time with personal conversations, and life itself would probably be a little easier if so many people weren't so terribly affected by foot-in-mouth disease. One woman in particular, though, has reportedly been spending so much time running that she hardly has time in her life to do any talking at all."
He keeps going as they stroll into Gina's office and she raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow, snapping her own newspaper open, and picks up the article exactly where Rick left off.
"But perhaps, in fairness to everyone, I do need to broaden my horizons—find the silver lining in all this," the blonde drawls. Paula hands her a file and she accepts with a nod, but she still hasn't taken her eyes off the page. If Rick didn't know any better, he might actually say she sounded a little impressed.
"But where's the silver lining in breaking hearts?"
People are still reading his article out hours later, dozens of copies of the Ledger open to his column as LT delivers the final few sentences of his introduction.
"Life certainly does have its archetypes, and people sure do find ways to fit into them, but here's one that I've never thought to consider in an article before—the maneater. Like the Furies in Ancient Greece, Kali in Indian mythology, Ragma in Indonesia…"
Square Jaw—whose name is Will, it turns out—comes back from the restroom, eager to sit and listen along.
"And in Serenity Falls, New York, where she helps run the family law office, she is known as Miss Katie Beckett. AKA—the Runaway Bride."
Kate stares up at her bike's undercarriage, motioning wordlessly for a wrench as she tries to get to the bottom of the rattling noise that's been bugging her all day.
She hears a metallic clatter as someone—Lanie, probably, because Maddie hasn't looked up from the paper in the past hour—searches through her toolbox for the right thing and drops it into her palm.
"And in Serenity Falls, New York, where she helps run the family law office, she is known as…the Runaway Bride." Maddie stops reading. "Woah."
"What?" Lanie asks.
Kate hears the rustle of paper and tunes them out as she tinkers away at her engine.
"What is unusual about her," Lanie murmurs, "is that she likes to dress her men up as grooms before she devours them. She has already disemboweled six in a row by leaving them at the altar…God. I can't read any more."
"And her ritual feast continues as she prepares to make a sacrifice out of the seventh fiancé"," Maddie continues with a quiet gasp. "So all bets are on, and we just hope that this boomerang bride isn't honeymooning with Las Vegas odds makers because many predict that this girl is out of the race…before the coffee cools."
Kate finally slides out from under her bike. She wipes her hands on her overalls and gives herself a once-over in a wing mirror, noting the flecks of engine grease smeared across her forehead with a wince. She's wearing a red bandana in a misguided effort to try and keep her hair looking presentable but it seriously isn't working—errant wisps still hang low across her face and her curls are, as ever, spilling wildly over her shoulders.
She leans over to get a better look at the paper. "What are you guys reading?"
Both of her best friends immediately clam up, Maddie quickly attempting to hide the paper behind her back and sort of just mashing it into Lanie's side instead.
Kate arches an eyebrow and Lanie audibly gulps, nudging the blonde next to her.
"You tell her," Lanie whisper-hisses.
"No, you tell her," Maddie protests.
"No, no. You're her oldest friend," Lanie insists.
Kate studies them both, bewildered now, and more intrigued than ever.
Maddie snorts. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"You've known her since forever," Lanie argues. "I've only been around the past couple years."
"Will you just give it to me?" Kate demands finally, holding her hand out for the paper.
Maddie sighs and hands it over with a grimace. Kate flips to the front page of the New York Ledger—oh, hey, her mom used to read this newspaper all the time—and lifts her brow at the blaring, capitalized headline: THE RUNAWAY BRIDE.
She skims her eyes over the article as her friends watch, both visibly petrified—and then she laughs—a loud guffaw.
Maddie and Lanie both appear a little incredulous. "What's so funny?"
"How long did this take you?" Kate manages between chuckles. "I mean, where'd you get this done?"
"Oh, sweetie…" Lanie looks overly sympathetic, and Kate has to give her props for her acting chops. Oscar-winning performance, really. She whacks her friend in the shoulder with the paper, still laughing a little as she shakes her head.
"I should disinvite you! And why'd you say seven times? It's only been three."
"Uh, Katie—" Maddie starts.
"—Kate," she quickly corrects.
"Right, sorry. Kate." The blonde swallows. "Listen, you told us no bachelorette jokes, so we didn't…"
She trails off and Kate registers a faint sinking feeling low in her chest. "You know, now would be a good moment to tell me this is fake."
Her friends just look at her with matching somber expressions.
"It won't be funny if you drag it out," Kate warns weakly, staring them both down as a cold pit of dread starts to form.
No response. Lanie glances nervously at Maddie.
"Alright," Kate tries, still regarding her friends warily. (This can't be real.) "Well... I mean, I can find out. Real newspapers smear—phony papers don't."
She brushes the paper against her work apron with an anxious swallow—leaving a thick, dark smear of ink right over the face of the article's writer until all she can see is his smug smile. Kate reads the byline, fury boiling in her veins.
"Okay—who the hell is Richard Castle?"
Kate tries to dispel her anger the best way she knows how to—with a punching bag. It's past midnight and she's still up kickboxing, beating the shit out of her old leather bag that she should really just staple this Richard Castle's face to.
She finally stops, entirely worn out, winding the bandages from her hands and dropping them into the trash as she yanks the damned article off the wall where it'd been pinned up for motivation. Kate drops heavily into the seat at her desk and flicks off the radio for good measure before she grabs a pen and a pad of paper from one of her drawers. If this jackass really thinks he can just make up these lies about her with zero consequences, then he's got another thing coming.
"Dear Editor…"
Rick slots his headphones into place as he sets off on the walk to work, pressing play on Gina's five minute voicemail with a grin. He bets she's pleased—his article is the talk of the town—and he's seen firsthand how sales of the Ledger have spiked in the past week.
"Rick," she starts, the word a little more clipped than he would have predicted. "What the hell were you thinking?"
Right. Okay, then.
"The girl from your article is pissed. She's so mad that she wrote a letter to the editor—that's me, you asshole—ripping the whole piece apart. You wanna hear it? No? Too bad, because here it is."
Gina clears her throat passive aggressively and Castle winces, keeping the voicemail playing mostly out of horrified curiosity than anything else.
"Greetings from the sticks!" she recites. "Perhaps you believe that a rural education is focused mainly on hog calling and tractor maintenance rather than reading. Why else would you print a piece of fiction about me and call it fact?"
Castle crosses the road, dodging taxis as he goes. A woman smacks him with a newspaper once he reaches the sidewalk and he throws her a bewildered look.
"What was that for?!"
She doesn't say a word, just unrolls the paper and points at his article with an accusatory look. (Guess she's not a fan either—join the club.)
"I suppose Mr. Castle was too busy thinking up slanderous statements about how I dump men for kicks to bother with something silly like accuracy in reporting. Which is understandable, because with a 'maneater' like me on the loose, who has time to check facts?"
Dear God. He pauses the voicemail once he approaches his favorite hot dog stand and lets out a morose sigh. The vendor hands Rick his usual order with an encouraging smile.
"On the house today."
But even all the free hot dogs in the world can't abate the growing sense of dread in Castle's chest as he approaches his office building. The Ledger's loading docks are busy like always and he waves at Nicky, one of the regular delivery boys, as he reluctantly presses play on the rest of Gina's diatribe.
"That's why I was surprised to find Mr. Castle's editor was a woman. Call me a sentimental fool, but I sort of hoped we 'maneaters' could stick together."
As he boards the elevator and it steadily rises each level, the weight of his dread sinks him further and further down.
"Anyway, I'm just dropping you big city folk this little note to say that I have thought of a ritual sacrifice that would satisfy my current appetite: Richard Castle's column on a platter. Yours truly, Kate Beckett. P.S.—I have enclosed a list of the gross factual misrepresentations in your article." Gina pauses for effect and he can almost feel the heat of her glare. "There are fifteen."
Shit.
The elevator doors ping open and it sounds a little like a funeral bell. He works his way through the bullpen and down the hall to Gina's office—nobody smiles. Nobody even seems to want to look at him in case they manage to catch his curse.
Paula rounds the corner right as he does. He takes his headphones out. "Shouldn't you be upstairs where the cool people are?"
She hardly ever comes to this floor except to catch up with Gina—Paula works at Gentleman's Quarterly, six floors up. All three of them formed a sort of strange mutual friendship that managed to remain intact even through the divorce, but the fact that she's here right now…can't be good.
Sure enough, Paula whacks him in the side of the head with a newspaper right as he opens his mouth to greet her.
"Rick," she grits, "what the hell were you thinking?"
"Funny," he says. He presses a tentative hand to the spot above his ear where not one but two people have smacked him with a rolled-up copy of the Ledger today and throws Paula a weary glance. "Gina asked me the exact same thing."
A stony silence fills the office. Castle sits in front of Gina, drumming his fingers nervously against his knee as Paula perches on a ledge behind her.
"Fifteen factual misrepresentations in your article. You know what happens when this gets out?" Gina puts the letter down and takes off her glasses, staring him down.
He chuckles wryly. "It's a funny letter. I like her. This Katie—"
"—Kate," his ex-wife corrects. "She made that very clear."
"Vast arsenal of rapier wit—this Kate."
Gina crosses her arms. "I left four messages—you don't return my calls."
"So? I never returned your calls. Even when we were married. And what's Paula doing here anyway?"
"Gina asked me to come down to offer moral support," Paula supplies, shrugging.
"And? Gina knows me. She shouldn't need moral support for a conversation with her ex-husband—"
"—It's for you, Rick," Gina interrupts, tilting her head a little in an expression he might once have called pity if he didn't know any better.
He blinks. "What?"
"Journalism lesson number one: If you fabricate your facts, you get fired."
His ex-wife pushes a new letter across the desk for him to read—this one from the Ledger's legal team. Castle picks it up and skims over the main body, making sure to maintain a poker face even when he hits words like misinformation and litigation and…shit. Termination.
"Lesson number two," he intones. "Never work for your former spouse."
Nobody laughs.
"That's got nothing to do with it. You cooked this story up and you know it," Gina argues.
"I didn't cook up a story. I had a source."
Gina just scoffs. "Someone reliable, I'm sure. A booze-hound in a bar."
"In vino veritas?" Paula tries. It's a feeble attempt to defend him, but he appreciates the gesture.
Not that it works. His ex-wife shakes her head, tapping Kate's letter with a manicured red nail. "No. This is journalism. Vincit omnia veritas or you get fired."
Rick shrugs. "Don't knock drunk guys in bars. Drunk guys in bars are good. It means they're not driving."
Again, his joke doesn't land. Her desktop clock ticks in the silence and Castle swallows, continuing.
"Besides, I'm a columnist. This is what columnists are supposed to do. This is what you like. We push, we stretch, we go out on a limb. That's what makes me good!"
"No, that's what makes you unemployed." Gina sighs, softening a little as she studies him. "Come on, Rick. You know better than anyone that playing with fire in this industry gets you burned."
He stiffens. "That's different. You know that's different."
"Maybe," she acquiesces. "Investigative journalism and opinion columns are two different worlds, you're right. But either way…"
"I just write the stuff," he defends. "You're the one that serves it up. Then and now. I wouldn't even be writing this column if you'd been a good enough editor to stop me five years ago."
His words are deliberately barbed and regret flickers in Gina's gaze—but it's no use.
"And now we both know better," she manages finally, her voice quiet. "So I have to draw the line this time. Besides, Miss Beckett sent us this list—our lawyers say it's actionable."
She hands him the list in question—fifteen factual misrepresentations, just like she said.
Rick scoffs, but the bravado sounds fake even to him. "I don't know, Gina. Are you firing me as my blood-sucking editor, or my blood-sucking ex-wife?"
"Don't make this harder than it has to be."
"Nobody's gonna notice if you put me on sabbatical for a few months and then rehire me. Why not just consider my wrist slapped and call me when you feel I've served my time?" He's close to pleading now, but he leans in anyway, plastering on a smirk that nobody in the room believes. "If it makes you feel any better, I'd be happy to let you spank me."
He really has to stop trying these jokes out. The silence is getting deafening.
"I'm sorry, Rick." To her credit, she does sound genuinely apologetic. "This is permanent."
Paula winces and glances away. He and Gina look at each other for a sober moment.
"If you go quietly, I'll get you severance pay," she murmurs.
He shakes his head, standing up without another word. He knows he mocks Gina's coldness, but he never thought she'd lose faith in him like this. She was there when Meredith left, when his family abandoned him—she was the only person who stuck around to help him get his life back in the aftermath of everything that happened five years ago. She gave him this job, gave him a second chance…and she really did love him. In her own way.
Blood-sucking ex-wife, maybe. But for a while, she was all he had.
"Rick?"
He reaches the door and turns around at the soft sound of his name.
"I'm sorry," Gina whispers.
Castle shrugs and offers her a small, sad smile.
"Me too."
He heads out the way he came in—down in the elevator, out past the docks. Fired.
God.
Rick scrubs a hand down his face and he's just about to head into a subway station when the sound of running feet behind him catches his attention.
Paula appears at his side, a little out of breath as she links her arm through his in a gentle show of camaraderie. "Oh, c'mon. You'll land back on your feet. You always do."
He shoots her a baleful look and she sighs, tugging on his elbow until he finally slows to a stop.
"Look. The Ledger may not want you anymore. But I really liked the Runaway Bride thing—and it got people's attention, right?" She leans in conspiratorially, nudging him a little. "Between you and me, my people at GQ care a whole lot less than your lawyers about sticking to the facts."
"What are you trying to say to me?"
"Vindication," she says easily, shooting him a sly grin. "How does that sound? A chance to prove that your theory was accurate, even if your facts were…less so."
"The real story on Miss Beckett," he fills in.
She nods, eager now. "All the gory details."
Castle considers the proposition for a few moments as they start walking again. "You really think this would work?"
"It wouldn't be a bad way to get you back into writing feature pieces again," Paula muses, shrugging a little. She's clearly been thinking about this for longer than just the last few minutes—but it's still tempting. "If she runs, then it's front-page gossip. All true. All accurate."
"You're right," he says finally. "There's a story here."
"There's always a story." She winks at him as they make their way through the turnstiles and down the steps towards the platform. "If you leave tomorrow for the hinterlands, you'll have plenty of time before her next wedding trot."
"Paid vindication," Castle grins. "That's what I call justice."
"Justice, yes. Paid…" she grimaces as the train pulls in. "I don't know. They like the idea, but my hands are tied with budget restraints."
"But I'll get my normal fee, right?" he narrows his eyes, turning to face her.
Paula just shrugs vaguely, a mischievous glint in her eyes as they step onto the train car together.
"You want me to do it for free?"
He gets an eye roll for that. "Don't say free like it's a dirty word," Paula chides. "Nobody ever paid Shakespeare to write a play and Plato never got a book advance—"
"—As flattered as I am by the comparisons, Shakespeare and Plato probably never had rent to pay. And a dog to feed," Rick counters.
Paula contemplates for a beat. Then—"How about this? If you take the job, I'll take care of your dog. He'll live like a king for as long as it takes for you to get this article finished."
He hesitates. "You hate dogs."
"Exactly. Shows you I'm committed."
Rick crooks an eyebrow. "It's gonna take more than that if you want me to drive that far upstate for some story."
"I thought you'd say that." She flashes him a wily grin, fishing a gleaming pair of keys out of her purse and tossing them at him. Rick opens his mouth to protest some more but it's too late—she steps off the subway right as the doors slide shut, smirking at him from the other side of the glass as he tries in vain to escape.
The train jolts, hydraulics hissing as it prepares to start moving again. Paula just shoots him a sardonic thumbs up, pointing at the keys now in his hand and shouting to be heard over the din of the subway.
"Take my car!"
Tires rumble low against black asphalt.
It's the next morning and he's punching the clutch in Paula's cherry red Ferrari, whistling appreciatively as the car roars into a higher gear and continues to tear down the endless ribbon of forest road. The crisp air slices over his face, chapping his cheeks red.
There's nobody around for miles.
Tree after tree, bank after bank—Castle shifts again just to feel the engine jump beneath him, tightening his grip on the steering wheel as he passes a sun-faded sign. Its design is ornate and tastefully done. Bold white letters sit proudly within a painted landscape of emerald pines and snow-dusted peaks; glittering waterfalls pool like liquid glass beneath the words he's been waiting for the entire drive.
Welcome to Serenity Falls