A companion to Some piece of you.

"...and I cannot stop myself from constantly falling into you."

The moment his eyes dragged open Castle threw himself up and out of sleep, gasping and pushing as far back into the corner as possible. He'd curled up there the night - day, whenever it was he fell asleep - before, making himself as small as possible so that when his body finally gave in, when it let him down again and he tumbled into unwanted and unprotected sleep, his slack and useless body would be less of a target for whoever it was that waited on the other side of that door.

If she were here, if she were more than a voice in his head that he allowed himself to fall into for comfort, they'd take it in turns, sleeping in shifts, and waking up alone and unprotected wouldn't feel like a bereavement every time he suffered through it.

Castle drew in rough breath that made his chest ache and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. Re-adjust really, he'd been here long enough now that everything was repetition. Re-adjust, re-evaluate. Remind himself where he was and remember where he wasn't.

When his heart had ceased to hammer and his ribs had given up their fight to withhold oxygen from his lungs, bones cracking, Castle pulled himself to the wall, dug around in the lining of his jacket and pulled out the tiny piece of sharpened flint. It bit into his palm when he squeezed it, the sharpest edge occasionally drawing blood.

If she were here, there would have been comments about that tiny piece of stone, about its usefulness that resulted in an argument which would spur him into proving his point. The tone of her voice providing distraction enough to make him try harder each and every time he'd failed.

His head felt muzzy, eyes gritty with broken and nightmare filled sleep that left him walking on a narrow knifes edge between normality and a full blown meltdown. It was an edge he'd walked every day since they'd taken him and one he would continue to walk until that door opened and he saw her face.

It hurt, but he tried.

Tried a lot.

He tried and succeeded in marking another thin, jagged - and hopefully unnoticeable - line on the wall with the others. He gritted his teeth against the sound of stone on metal, the way it grated painfully through the nerves of his jaw, and the way one tore into the other and shredded in a way that spoke far too familiarly of tortures he feared awaited him if someone besides her opened that door.

It hurt, but he tried not to think about that either.

If she were here they'd find a way to muffle the sound so that it didn't tear shreds through their minds as they marked the time. If she were here, he'd have a partner, someone to bounce ideas off of and help him understand what the hell was going on. If she were here marking the time wouldn't hurt quite so much because it wouldn't feel like one more day he was forced to live without her.

With her it would feel like a countdown to escape not doom. With her, so much more of this would make sense.

Nine so far.

Nine thin, metallized drag marks on a wall that's not quite a wall but is definitely made of metal. Nine thin lines that he's not quite sure are days yet, maybe just segments of hours between the times he's awake and asleep.

But he's counting.

They are, so far, all he has to go on, all he has to work with. So whatever they are, be it days, weeks, months, hours - hell if they end up being years - he will count them, he will mark them, he has no other choice. Those tiny, hair width lines of rock over metal are the only thing that keeps him focused, keep reminding him he isn't where he's supposed to be.

With her.

They are not just lines; those little marks are his lifeline.

Those marks, and the way she rolls her eyes in his head, her voice at the back of his mind, refocusing him when he starts to drift; those are the things he clings too.

Wherever he is is sound proof, he'd exhausted his voice pretty damn quickly testing out that theory, and no matter how many times he screamed her name, no one came. He'd offered money and bribes, even threatened, thumping his hands against the walls of his cage, but no one responded. Nine little segments of time stretched out and still no one came.

There could have been a boat. Felt like one anyway and if she were here she'd help him see the right or wrong of that assumption, they'd work the limited evidence and figure out that the room had swayed and over the years he'd been in a lot of rooms, on a lot of boats, the motion felt familiar, the dip and tilt that sometimes made his stomach roll felt repetitive enough to be considered waves.

If she were here she'd notice the climate had changed too, from mild enough for rolled up sleeves to a bone deep cold that made him shiver.

Maybe north. Maybe Canada. Maybe just far enough out to sea for the oceanic chill to set in.

Either way, if she were here they would have huddled together for warmth, curled inside each others arms and whispered about ways to fix this problem. They would have concocted tales, mumbled ways to rewrite the story and change the ending and in the end do the simplest thing and give each other hope.

If she were here she'd make him keep his chin up and look for a silver lining.

If she were she would be the silver lining.

He'd been in the belly of the ship, probably below the surface. Deep enough to be a good way under water when the most violent shivers set in, his teeth chattering so hard together he was scared they might break. He tried not to think about that in too much detail now, his imagination far too likely to spin off into sea creature happenstances, or maybe just the horror of the boat capsizing with him so far down no one would have time to get him out.

If she were here she'd berate him out of it, or smile at his comic book theories. She'd remind him they'd almost drowned once before and he was the one who had saved them. She'd force him to think inside the box - yes, Castle, or boat - as she stepped out of hers and they'd work the combined area, looking for clues to come to some sort of common ground.

Thank god he was on land now. At least it felt like he was. He tried not to make assumptions, or jump to conclusions, wanting to be able to give her nothing but cold, hard facts. Castle tried just to remember details so that when she came - and she would come - he'd have enough to give her a solid lead. He wanted to remain her partner, be at her side as she took down the bastards who had done this to them, he didn't want to be a dead weight victim with nothing more to share than tales of a cold, dank room. He didn't want to offer up shadowed memories, blank faces and kidnapping scenarios that made no sense.

A case too close to home, with nothing but dead ends?

He couldn't do that to her. Not again.

Castle thumped the wall and growled in anger, forcing himself to his feet. Everything groaned and ached and was, in the end, secondary to the burning need within him to be useful. He went over the details again and again, something he made himself do every time he woke up, reassessing.

If she were here they'd share the burden and when he made it too much of an adventure in his head, she'd fire off those cold, hard facts and keep him on track. If she were here making it into a fantastically, dramatic tale of adversity overcome wouldn't feel childish. It would feel like them.

The last day or so had been steady, barely any movement and then none at all. Where darkness had once prevailed, there were now cracks of light giving away the change of hours, making it easier to keep track of how long he'd been long. It was always too long.

Though the evidence he gathered - boats and cold, and dank move-able cells - made little or no sense, he gathered it anyway, kept it, went over it with her voice in his head a flashlight, a laser pointer, a beacon of possibility in the darkness.

Kate.

If she were here, they'd talk about her dad and his mom and how hopefully they'd find some level of comfort in each other with their children missing. They'd talk about his daughter and the light would dim in his eyes enough that she'd have to bridge the distance and touch him. She'd see it and hear it in everything he couldn't bring himself to say, and when he'd get maudlin and talk about what might happen, she'd booster him enough that he'd reclaim his plaintive hold on hope. She'd smile and maybe kiss him, or just stroke his cheek in her hand and they'd nurture it between them and make plans for their lives beyond captivity.

If she were here she'd tell him that she wasn't giving up, that she wasn't backing down and she'd lift him up out of melancholy by reminding him of his own words and how they'd done the same for her.

"...You can't give up. That's the deal, if we want that happy ending, we can't give up."

His pacing ends and he finds the corner once more, touches the lines one by one and settles down in his make shift room, clinging to the memory of her smile. Castle closes his eyes to the tears in hers, feeling them at his fingertips as if it was only seconds, not days ago, that he'd brushed them away. He hears her voice when she said that was why she wanted to marry him. He touches another line and hears her say yes over and over again until it's the only thing left.

He sits and he waits.

That's the deal they made.

He's waited a long time for that happy ending. He's not giving up on it now!