2,498A/N: This is the insulin shot to counteract 'Candy's' sugar overload, if you read that one. Hang on people, the S6 train is leaving the station… ;)
"The furthest star in the sky,
Well that's the one that passed me by.
I tried to wish upon that star,
It didn't get me very far.
It fell on empty ears,
It fell on empty hearts.
And my dreams, they fell apart."
"The lights went out across the world
And your house of cards came tumbling down
Cause nothing stays and noting sticks
When you're rolling with the lunatics.
But my star in the darkest sky
Twinkles and watches while the other stars die
Upon your empty ears and empty hearts."
-Amy Macdonald, 'The Furthest Star'
Chapter 1: Fade To Black
"Javi, I can't come back. I have my work here and…" she sighs, lowering her voice. "We agreed on a break. I just—It's too soon," she tells him, embarrassed to admit what a screw-up she's made of everything; the fairytale romance so many people were gambling their happy ending on turned to ordinary shit by her hand.
She fell in love, she got the guy, he even proposed, put it all out there – whither thou goest - the whole nine yards. And she turned him down, asked for a break, packed up and left a couple of weeks later with her heart in her throat and his ring in her pocket.
"Kate, you're not listening to me."
"Javi, please," she sighs again, pushing a hand through her hair in frustration, not even pausing to ask why he needs her anyway. "Look, I have to go," she lies, using impatience and her job as a screen for regret and the truth – that she'd loved to give in, give up, come home.
But she's never given up on anything in her life before. Even when she chose Castle, she never really gave up. Except maybe now she's given up on the one thing she should have cherished more than anything, and she's still too stubborn to admit it.
"Tyson is back," he says stonily, pausing for the words to sink in, for the obligatory silence to fall on the line to Washington. "And he has Castle."
Her world shrinks to the size of a pinprick, everything else fading to black.
"He—? When? How long?" she stammers out, looking around the ops room for her colleagues, her hand in her hair again, fingers raking desperately this time.
Her hair is cut shorter, lying just on her shoulders. A practical change she told herself, when in truth every time she looked at herself in the mirror, saw those curls, the glossy length, she just saw Castle, saw him as clear as if her hair were a mirror – his lips on her skull, a hank of curls wrapped tightly around his fist as he made love to her, or that tender way he had of tucking a strand behind her ear, looking into her eyes and telling her 'Always'. She needed an escape from those memories before they drowned her, drowned her in every precious inch of love that she has lost.
"A couple of days. Maybe three at most," Esposito admits, sounding slightly embarrassed. "Martha was out of town. Alexis got a text cancelling dinner two nights ago. But we think it came from him."
"From whom? 3XK?"
"Yes."
"But, Javi, he's dead," she almost laughs, since it's ridiculous. It is ridiculous, isn't it? "Castle shot him. Multiple times. I was there. He can't be…"
Her mouth goes dry and she grips the edge of the desk. She remembers the expression on Castle's face when he looked over the precipice of that bridge, stared into the dark, swirling water, so sure…so certain that Jerry Tyson would be back. She had scoffed, gotten angry and walked away.
"We have a clear shot of him leaving the parking garage on Crosby Street. He was driving Castle's silver Merc. Another one of him entering the Holland Tunnel. Kate, it's him. I'm so sorry," he tells her, quietly.
"You're sorry?" she yells, panic rising like bile in her throat.
Several people look up, people she mostly doesn't know, heads rising to stare over their cubicles: regimented, impersonal spaces, barely a pot plant or a family photograph to differentiate one from the other.
Esposito rides out her anger, knows it mostly comes from shock and maybe even guilt. Castle's been coming in and out of the Precinct now and again, bringing coffee and donuts, Yankees tickets, even assisting with cases when Gates will let him. He mooches around the break room making Espressos, watching interviews through the glass, as if he can't bear to let go completely, as if he'll lose her for good if he stops showing up. Marching on the spot, keeping time like their love is on life support. Esposito watched him stare blindly at Kate's desk the first few times he came to visit, a haunted look in his eyes, until it wasn't her desk anymore and then he didn't know where to look.
"Who spoke to him last?" she asks, too worked up to even apologize, though her sane self knows this isn't Javi's fault. In fact, if it's anyone's fault it's probably hers.
"Rachel. She called him two days ago. He was helping with—"
"Rachel? Who is Rachel?" snaps Kate, and he hears the suspicion and hurt leaching out of her voice, panic too, and for a whole other reason.
"Rachel McCord. Your…your replacement. She and Castle were—"
"Were what?" whispers Kate, all out of breath, winded, as if she's just been punched in the gut.
She bites her lip and winces when she hears herself, hears the jealousy in her voice; jealousy she probably has no right to since she is the one who walked away; who walked away from Always.
"They were working on a case. We'd hit a roadblock. Guy found dead inside one of those moveable library storage stacks. The killer left a bunch of clues. Notes he mailed to the victim's wife. Coded notes and Gates thought—"
"Coded?" asks Kate, still hearing 'she and Castle' reverberate round and round in her head, fighting to drown out the refrain.
"Dewey-whatsit thing," he mutters, distractedly, as Kate picks up the sound of a phone ringing in the background and someone who could be Ryan talking to Esposito.
"Dewey decimal system?" asks Kate more loudly, demanding his attention.
"Yeah, that's it. Castle said you'd know," he blurts, almost smiling at how well the guy knows her, still convinced these two are meant to be, but trying not to interfere for all he'd love to.
"It's him, isn't it?" she says then, the pieces clicking into place.
"Yeah, I'm afraid the security cam footage proves it beyond a doubt, Beckett. Guy didn't even wear a disguise. No ball cap, no sunglasses, nothin'."
"No. No, not the footage," she cuts in, shaking her head and dragging a notepad towards her. "The case Castle was working with this…this…"
"Rachel?" supplies Esposito, wondering if she's actually forgotten the female detective's name already or just can't bear to say it.
"Yeah. Coded notes? The library classification system? That's right up his alley and he knows it would be right up Castle's too. Dammit!" she exclaims, thumping her hand down on the desk, raising more stares from the peanut gallery, the ops room seeing more action and more passion in the space of a five minute phone call than it has in weeks.
"What? You think he set us up? Lured Castle with this case?"
"Makes sense. What was he working on when he went missing?"
"Eh…Rachel?" Kate hears Esposito hiss, his hand only partially covering the mouthpiece.
She hears a young, female voice, guesses Brooklyn, maybe Queens. Her brain is trying to supply her with an accompanying picture, but she battles against it, since petite, busty blond seems to be her brain's default setting whenever she thinks of Castle and other women, and she quite honestly couldn't bear it if that were the case.
"Castle called to say he'd cracked it. He'd cracked the code. He arranged to meet Rachel at the New York Public Library. Kate, he never showed up."
Kate has a vision of her partner sitting at a long wooden table amongst dusty bookshelves, light streaming in behind him, his face hidden by a navy ball cap, on the run from the police all because of Jerry Tyson, and then she feels his arms around her, tightening; feeling like home. 'The first time that I cuffed you…'
"What if Tyson bugged the loft again?" she says, trying to ignore the swell of emotion.
"What if the sweep missed a bug from the first time? What if he's been listening in all along?" suggests Esposito.
Kate does not want to even consider that prospect, so she forces it out of her mind.
"Talk to building management and call Eduardo. Ask him about any maintenance they've had done lately. Any unfamiliar contractors, workmen, delivery guys, strangers, visitors who've been in and out of the building. Eh...there's a camera in the lobby, Javi. Covers the front door. Pull the footage for the last week. And get CSU over there. We need to know if the locks were forced or tampered with. Look for any signs of a struggle, collect prints and DNA. We need to find out if he was taken by force. And Espo, if this really is Tyson, look for clues. Expect them. This guy likes to taunt us. We know that already. Likes to show off how clever he is, that he's one step ahead. You hear me?" she asks the silence on the line.
"Beckett," he says, quietly, gently, to halt her flow.
"Yes?"
"We're already on it."
"Right," she says, a little sheepishly, catching her breath, the heel of her hand inexplicably pressed to the scar between her breasts; a scar she hasn't thought of in so long. "Teaching grandma to suck eggs," she concedes, ducking her head in embarrassment.
"It's okay. I know how you feel. We're all worried. That's why I called you. Thought you'd want to know."
"Thanks. I appreciate it."
And though she genuinely does appreciate the call, it only serves to highlight how estranged she's become from these people that CSU would hear about her partner's…former partner's disappearance before she does.
"That and…if it is kidnapping then it's Federal, right. And given he's a serial…thought you might be able to grease some wheels for us, speed up the process, get us the best."
"Email me everything you've got," she replies instantly, glad of the direct request, since it's not exactly her area. "I'll talk to my boss, pull a team. Listen, I'll call you back," she promises, reenergized by being needed, being included, asked for her help.
Esposito thanks her and prepares to hang up.
"Espo?" she calls into the phone, not wanting to sever the friendly connection just yet, not ready to return to ersatz, sanitized, Government civility, civility than verges on froideur.
"Yes?"
"You have to find him," she forces out, pressing her fingers to her lips to hold the rest back.
"We'll do our best. You know we will, chica," he promises, wishing he could give her more.
Ten minutes later Esposito's phone rings.
"Detective Esposito?" he replies brusquely, the receiver tucked into his shoulder as he continues to type up an email.
"Javi, it's me. I'm coming home," says Kate, short and sweet, and then she hangs up.
A/N: Appreciate your thoughts on this one. Liv