Epilogue

It was nearly two full days before anyone knew that Kevin was back in New York.

For the most part, that was because practically anyone who mattered already knew that he had run off with station property and taken a flying leap into obsession— Though the fact that his cell phone had been left behind on the floor of a ratty motel room in South Dakota certainly hadn't helped. He had wondered idly, once or twice, whether the angel had seen fit to clean up the mess he had left behind. If not, Kevin was likely to suffer the natural consequences once someone discovered three bodies left in the motel room booked under his name. Not that it would have been difficult to establish an alibi, not when he'd been transported across the country faster than was humanly possible, but to Kevin it felt like such a distant, hypothetical, and ultimately meaningless concern.

The darkness was full of monsters. The world could end at any moment. Javier was gone.

Nothing he had once worried about seemed to matter as much as it once had in the face of those three facts. For the first two days—and the next two that followed them—Kevin hadn't bothered to leave his apartment, had hardly had the will to leave his couch where the angel had left him.

Jenny had been the first to learn that he was back, of course. On the second day, she'd opened his apartment with her key in order to— He really never found out, actually. Not that it mattered. The first thing that she had asked him was where he had been. What had happened. Over the past three months, there had been numerous times that he had been forced to deflect, dismiss, or redirect the questions she asked him. For the first time in their relationship, Kevin had seriously considered lying to her face. Given his options—silence, deception, or a truth that defied sanity—it had seemed by far the easiest choice he could make.

In the end, he had taken the middle road, and simply told her that he couldn't tell her. Admitting that, if he did, she would never believe him. She hadn't taken it well. In the end, it had finally devolved into that argument that Kevin had honestly always known was coming, but had never found the courage to face.

Though it hadn't been courage that got him through it so much as a lingering, disconnected terror that left him numb to almost anything else.

Jenny had left him in tears, and Kate had called his home phone less than an hour later. Her questions had been basically the same, though she worded them far more carefully. When he gave her more or less the same answer he'd given Jenny, Kate had accepted it much better, though Kevin knew well enough that she would never truly give up asking, not until she was satisfied. Her last words had been about the situation with Gates. The sooner he went in to plead his case, the better off he would be. He had already been placed on administrative leave, pending investigation of his conduct. At this point, he would be lucky to get off with a lengthy suspension—Gates could easily have his badge, if she wanted it—though Kate had gently suggested that he make a plea for medical leave.

No one was saying that he was crazy—not yet—but no one could argue that he had been in his right mind when he took off, either.

He got other calls over the course of the next week. A couple from Jenny, none of which went anywhere good, a handful from his mother who had started hearing things and begun to worry. A few from others at the station—many of which he'd failed to answer or simply hung up on in favor the gnawing, empty silence.

It was the very first day of his second week back that Castle finally showed up at Kevin's door. The writer arrived with Chinese and a bottle of scotch, and for the first time in their acquaintance he didn't ask any questions. He just talked. Castle talked, and let himself keep talking about whatever intriguing, amusing, or pointless thing happened to cross his mind. Oddly, Kevin found himself more than willing to let him. While it couldn't drown out his grief, his confusion, or the fears that continued to haunt him, it did manage to push them away from the forefront of his mind, at least for a little while.

Between the very welcome distraction and the soft, warm distortion of the liquor, Kevin felt closer to sane than he had in more than a month. And it occurred to him, in a way that was strangely comforting, that at least amongst everything else he'd learned, he had found the answers to all of his most important questions. He knew why his partner had left, and while he didn't know the details of the destruction his leaving had left behind, it was no longer so difficult for him to imagine. While he still didn't know exactly who the dead woman was, he had a solid theory about what she was, and what the reason behind her death had been.

Most importantly, he knew that Javier was alive, and while it was impossible for him to know with any certainty what Chazaqiel's intentions were, instinct—or perhaps something else entirely—was telling him that there was still hope. That there was still the chance that, someday, Kevin would get his partner back.

With those realizations came a strange, unexpected feeling of peace.

Kevin didn't know if he made some kind of noise, or if there had been some other outward indication of the shift his thoughts had taken, but after a while he realized Castle's voice had gone silent. Turning to look at him, Kevin saw the writer's eyes watching him with their usual curiosity, natural and undemanding. The quiet stretched out between them for a few moments before Castle frowned thoughtfully.

"Beckett told me what you said," the writer told him, neutrally, "Or, you know, what you didn't say."

Turning his attention back to the carton in his hand, he shrugged as if it truly didn't matter.

"Just saying...I have a very open mind."

And maybe it was the alcohol, just a little, but mostly Kevin thought it was the simple fact that it wasn't a question which finally moved him ask one of his own.

"What do you know about angels?"

The End?