Feels Like Fate

A different twist on the discovery of Beckett's "stick man." Set Mid-Season 4. One Shot

Sitting in "his" chair beside Beckett's desk, Castle casually scrolled through the news feed on his phone as he waited for his partner to return from the bathroom so they could continue the investigation on their latest case.

As he was eating dinner the night before he received a message from Kate stating that a body had been found and he was welcome to join the investigation if he wanted to. As he never turned down an opportunity to spend time with her, he put his plate in the refrigerator and dashed over to find his trip well worth the while. Their victim, a man in his mid-to-late- twenties, appeared to have died from the slit in his throat, which was not all that intriguing of a case; however, the body had been discovered strung up under a fire escape by the wrists and ankles, almost like a marionette. Naturally, the writer was immediately intrigued.

After spending an hour surveying the scene and doing what they could to canvass the immediate area, the duo parted, planning to reconvene the following morning and begin their search for the killer. When he arrived that morning (with coffee in hand, of course), Kate informed him that they were building the murder board and he was welcome to help, but Lanie had not yet called with any details from their victim's body—nor had they identified the gentleman.

When Kate's desk phone rang, Castle craned his neck to look at the Caller ID display. Seeing that the call was coming from the morgue, he hopped out of his seat, snagged the phone receiver, and said, "Hello? Detective Beckett's desk."

"C-Castle!?" he heard the shocked voice of Lanie on the other end of the line.

"Hey Lanie; did you ID our vic yet?"

"Wha—why are you answering Beckett's phone?"

"She's away from her desk, but I know she wants to hear what you've discovered as soon as possible."

"Yeah well I think I should just call back."

"Wait, wait, wait!" he called out, hoping to stop her. "C'mon Lanie—you can tell me."

He heard her sigh heavily into the phone. "Do you promise to write down everything I say."

"Absolutely!" He picked up a spare notepad from the corner of her desk but did not see a pen in the immediate area. That was odd; Beckett usually had several pens floating around the top of her desk, but he saw none. Instinctively, he reached into his breast pocket to procure the pen he usually had on him, but found it wasn't there. "Shit."

"What was that?"

"Um nothing sorry—just grabbing a pen now. You can start talking," he said as he began to pull at the drawer on her desk, though most of them were locked.

"Okay, well the victim died of exsanguination as we guessed. His carotid was severed; he wouldn't have lasted long after that."

"Uh huh." Castle rolled his eyes when he found another drawer locked. Not sure what the hell was going on with her desk, he moved to the other side and began opening drawers. Finally, one popped open and he began to dig around for a writing implement.

"Now, as for the position he was in, everything I can tell indicates he was strung up not long after he was killed. And, honestly, I think you'd have to be looking for more than one person to have done something like that."

"Yep, I…" Castle's voice drifted off when he found not a pen, but something peculiar in Kate's desk drawer. He picked up the item and held it in front of his face to examine it. The five-inch-tall object could be best described as a stick figure—that was, a figure made out of sticks. With a smooth, flat stone for a face, the stick-man was bound together with bits of twine or rope. His brow wrinkled at he stared down at it, as it seemed a very odd thing to be in Kate's desk drawer. Stranger yet, the item seemed familiar to him.

"Castle!"

"Wha—ah—what?" he stammered when Lanie screeched into his ear.

"Are you writing this down?"

"Ah, yes, yes I got it. COD is exsanguination, posed after death, probably by two people. I'll make sure to tell Beckett."

"What are you telling Beckett?"

Castle's blood froze in his veins when he heard the detective's voice from behind him. He cursed under his breath and immediately hung up the phone without even saying a proper goodbye to the ME. Turning slowly, he plastered on his most endearing smile and gestured back towards the desk. "Uh, Lanie called and I just-"

"Castle!" She hissed as she rushed forward. He jumped slightly, startled by her quick movements. He wasn't sure what she was doing when she began reaching out for his left hand—the hand in which he still held the stick man. "Give me—stop—what are you—where did you get this?"

"Oh, see, um, Lanie was telling me about—and I couldn't find a pen—so I had to—why are all your drawers locked?"

"Castle!" she scolded, that time twisting the figure away from his grasp and bringing it close to her chest. "What the hell are you doing touching my stuff?!"

"I—I didn't mean to; I'm sorry. I was just looking for a pen and…where did you get that, by the way. It looks so familiar."

"That," she snipped as she wrenched open her drawer and lowered the stick man delicately inside, "is none of your-"

"The Brooklyn Bridge!" The writer gasped aloud when the nearly-forgotten memory popped to the surface. The act of Kate lowering the object into the drawer at the precise angle she had was the trigger he needed to remember. But—god!—was it possible?

Kate froze with her hand still dangling into the drawer. She rotated her body towards him slowly, inch by inch revealing her face behind the curtain of her hair. She swallowed hard and then croaked out, "What did you say?"

"Oh god." Castle clapped his hand over his mouth, transporting himself back over a decade. "And your mother…of course—of course!"

Kate remained so statuesque anyone looking over of them might have thought she was a mannequin. As it was, she barely seemed to be breathing. She blinked once. Twice. Then parted her lips but no sound came out for several seconds before she rasped, "You…that was you?" He bobbed his head with slight disbelief and she turned her gaze back toward the stick figure in the drawer, but only for a minute, because she looked back to him with a softened gaze. "Oh, Castle…"

He shook his head, feeling for one rare moment at a complete loss of words. "I…I know. I just…I can't believe it was you." Then he stepped back, scrubbed his hands over his face, and thought back to the moment almost exactly thirteen years earlier.

As a nasty burst of January wind bit into his cheeks, Richard Castle dipped his chin in hopes of shielding his face with the upturned edges of his coat. Okay so maybe walking across the Brooklyn Bridge the morning before snow was forecasted was not his brightest idea, but he needed an escape. He needed—for one of the very few times in his life—to be away from everyone, away from people, and the Brooklyn Bridge in the middle of winter seemed as good a place as any.

That morning Castle had woken up and had only managed to push himself from bed out of obligation to his daughter. He stood in the shower, letting the water run over his face, feeling strangely unable to tell if it was too hot or too cold. He was just…numb. The sight of his wedding band on his left hand made him simultaneously furious and irrevocably sad. Their relationship had never been easy, but he had tried. He had tried for over six years knowing full well that their marriage would never be one celebrated in the newspapers for reaching half a century, but because of their daughter he was committed nevertheless. He was committed—and what a fool he had been.

Castle couldn't even bring himself to look at the woman he once loved, still curled up in bed (of course she'd never get up early enough to make sure Alexis was fed, dressed, and ready before they needed to leave for school). He simply changed his clothes as quickly as he could then went into the kitchen to start on breakfast before he went to wake his little girl.

After he'd dropped his child off at her Pre-Kindergarten classroom, Castle kept walking. He didn't even bother to tell his wife he'd be gone longer than the typical twenty minutes. She probably wouldn't even notice or care. In fact, if she was awake, she was probably on her way over to see—

Well, he didn't need to think about that.

He walked and walked ignoring both the icy chill in the air and the ache in his feet until he saw a sign for the Brooklyn Bridge and moved in the direction of its pointed arrow. As he walked, he thought briefly about whether or not he had ever walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and wasn't sure that he had, even though he was a native New Yorker. He'd driven across it in a cab and it was possible that during his teen years he and his friends had made the hike, but he honestly could not recall, which further motivated his trek.

As he reached the midpoint of the bridge, Castle spotted a figure huddled against the railing and he stopped dead in his tracks. The person a few feet from him wore sneakers, jeans, a black winter coat, and a dark purple knit beanie atop their head—her head, he assumed, based on the chestnut-colored locks poking out from beneath the hat. She huddled against the side of the bridge, her head turned towards the water below, and he immediately felt all thoughts about his imploding marriage evaporate from his mind as concern for the stranger took over.

"Um, excuse me. Hi." He gave a little wave when the woman jumped and whipped her head in his direction. When he saw her youthful face, his concern amplified, for the girl barely looked older than sixteen. "I was just wondering: are you okay?"

"Yes." She replied, though her voice was so soft he could barely hear it above the sounds of the traffic and wind.

"Are you sure? You're, um, not thinking about jumping, are you?"

Her brow wrinkled as though he'd suggested she might flap her arms and take flight instead of jump off of a bridge, which was something that many desperate people did every year. "Um, no. Why would I jump?"

He shrugged, feeling a bit sheepish due to the conclusion he'd jumped to. "I dunno…you are on the Brooklyn Bridge in the middle of winter."

"And so are you."

He opened his mouth to respond, though he really had no rebuttal so he shrugged. "Fair enough. I'm not here to jump either. I just…I guess I just wanted a place to think."

She nodded and took a half step back from the edge of the bridge. "Okay. I'll go over there."

"No—I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—oh. Here." He noticed that something dropped to the ground and reached down to pick it up at the same time as she said, "I got it," but the item had fallen closer to his feet than hers so he was able to pick it up. Holding it in his hand, Castle was not exactly sure what he had. The object was constructed from sticks, twine, and an oval-shaped flat rock. It kind of resembled a doll, but yet at the same time seemed too crude an object to be carried by a young girl wearing a designer coat.

"What's this little guy?" he asked, holding it up.

She shrugged and scuffed the toe of her right shoe across the concrete. "I dunno. My dad and I made him yesterday. At the beach. May I have it back, please?"

"Sure. Of course. Oh hey." He gasped when their fingers touched during the pass and he could feel how chilled they were. "Do you need gloves? Because I-"

"No, I have them, I just…" her voice drifted off with a shrug and she pulled the stick object back into her chest where she continued to rub her thumbs over its smooth rock "head."

Castle watched her for several more moments before saying, "So…you were at the beach? In January?"

Again, she shrugged. "My dad suggested we go out to Coney Island after my mom's funeral, so we went."

Castle winced at the word "funeral." God, how terrible for this young girl to have lost her mother so young! Now the fact that she was standing on the Brooklyn Bridge in the middle of January made a bit more sense. It seemed they had similar desires to be not at home. "I'm very sorry about your mother; yesterday must have been very difficult for you."

"Actually." She lifted her head and gave him the smallest of smiles. "It ended up being okay. I mean, how often are you ever practically alone at Coney Island? Plus, when we made this little guy it was almost fun. We were laughing. And then…" Her gaze drifted off towards the river and when she looked back at him she looked so broken it took most of his self-control not to reach out and hug her.

"This morning when I got up, she wasn't there. She's never going to be there again and I just…I couldn't be in that apartment."

"I understand that completely. It's…it's how I ended up here, too."

Her brow rose notably. "Your mother died too?"

"No, no—sorry. I mean: I understand the feeling of not wanting to be in your apartment. I left because…" He huffed out a breath and shoved his hands deeper into his jacket pockets knowing that the first time he said it aloud to another person made it real—undeniable. "My wife is cheating on me."

Her brow fell as her expression melted into one of sympathy. "I'm sorry. When did you find out?"

"Last night. I've suspected for a while, you know? Late night phone calls, unexplained disappearances for hours at a time, the way she just—sorry." He quickly apologized when he realized he was talking to a high schooler about things she had no way of relating to. "Ah, last night…last night I heard her on the phone with him while she was trying to put our daughter to bed."

The girl cringed. "You have a daughter?"

"Yeah. She's five."

"Well…I'm really sorry about your wife."

"Thanks. I, um, think I'm going to keep walking but just so you know: things will get better. Might not seem like it now, but they will."

With that, he moved to walk past her, but she stopped him by calling out, "Hey." When he met her eye she said, "They'll get better for you, too."

He gave her a small smile, said goodbye, and then tucked his face down into the open collar of his coat as he continued to walk across the frigid bridge.

Castle had stared at his partner for the better part of two minutes, but still could not believe the unexpected and, quite frankly, amazing discovery he had just made.

From Kate's wide-eyed expression it would have been clear she felt similarly, but then she said, "I can't believe that was you."

He nodded and skimmed his hand over his jaw. "It's...I thought about that girl every time I drove over the bridge. I wondered if-"

"Hey Beckett, I—oh, sorry." Detective Ryan quickly apologized and stepped back when he realized he'd interrupted a conversation.

Kate shook her head to him and promised, "No you're fine, Ryan. We'll, um," she turned towards Castle and continued, "we'll continue this discussion later?"

"Later." He agreed with a nod, for once tankful for the interruption; he needed at least a few hours to wrap his mind around this discovery. Then maybe—maybe —he'd be able to have an intelligent conversation with Kate about what it meant for them, and possibly even their future.

"Thanks for coming over." Castle smiled as he opened the door of his apartment wide enough to let Kate inside. It was late in the evening—later than either of them would have preferred. They had made good progress on their case that day, both identifying the victim and finding the murder weapon in a dumpster two blocks away. They had not yet nailed down who the killer was, though, but that wasn't surprising given how late in the day the ID had come through.

They parted shortly thereafter with tentative dinner plans, but Kate texted him an hour later saying she couldn't make it. Their plans shifted several times over the next few hours until the point at which Kate offered to scrap their meet up since it was nearing ten p.m., but he responded by telling her he didn't want to wait if she still wanted to come over as he believed their conversation to be quite important.

"Thanks for being patient about the schedule." She replied with a light laugh.

He brushed off her concern and led the way into the sitting area while offering her a drink. She declined and they sat facing each other on his couch. They were silent for twenty seconds before Castle broke their staring contest by saying, "So… crazy, right?"

She laughed and tucked her hair behind her ears. "Yeah. I feel like I'm still processing what it all means."

"I know. The thing of it is: I remember that day as being one of the worst of my life."

"Really?"

He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his thighs, trying to vocalize the feelings that had been swirling around in his mind for the prior few hours. "I knew Meredith was cheating—in my gut I knew—but I didn't want to acknowledge it. As much as I didn't want to be in a loveless marriage, the thought of ending it was also terrifying, so I ignored the signs and told myself I was just seeing things. Then, when I had confirmation, the next morning I just woke up...hollow. I second guessed myself thinking it was my fault; that I had failed. I know now it wasn't, but then it was so fresh and raw. My head was just swirling with these dark thoughts...divorce, concerns about Alexis - what if Meredith took her from me...all that. So I took Alexis to school and I just kept walking. I ended up at the bridge, still not entirely sure why, but…I guess I just needed something different."

"I get that. I... I thought finding out my mother was dead was the worst moment of my life, and it was, but that morning when I woke up… I didn't know it then, but it was the start of my father's alcoholism. I found him passed out on the couch, bottle on the floor in front of him. I started to clean up, but the apartment just felt so empty—loudly empty. Like it was screaming at me from every corner that she wasn't there. It felt crushing, so I wanted to be some place open."

He hummed as he shut his eyes and tried to transport himself back to that moment, but it was hard since most of it was a blur. He remembered the stick man well, but the face of that young woman… He hadn't seen it in his mind's eye in years. He struggled for several more seconds before giving up and shaking his head as his way of returning to the present.

"Since it was such a low point to me, I don't like to think about those times very much, with one exception: every time I drive over that bridge and pass by that spot, I thought about her—well, you. In my head, I'd assumed you were a high schooler because you looked so young."

"To be fair: you were only off by one year," she pointed out.

"True, but I wondered if you graduated, what you were doing, if you had found yourself in a good place again like I had... Then today, this afternoon, I thought about it more than ever." He paused so he could turn his body more towards hers and gaze into the lovely honey-brown eyes he'd come to know. "I thought about us—the us from right now—and how we met. We thought it was because of someone else's terrible day, but it turns out it was because of our own and...and somehow that just makes it feel like…"

He wanted to say the words; they were right there on the tip of his tongue, but he was too afraid to voice them aloud. Not for himself—he knew in his heart that they had a long, happy future together. He'd known it before, but that day's discoveries only solidified the notion in his mind. His fear was of upsetting her or making her run and hide away once more. They had come so far and made so much progress since they day they spoke on the swings. The last thing he wanted to do was force them to take a few steps back because he was too overzealous to keep his romantic observations to himself.

Much to his surprise, an amused smile crossed her face and she gave him a small nod. "Go on. Say it. I'm pretty sure I know what you're going to say so say it."

He held his breath for a moment, almost daring the words to come out, before he sighed, "It feels like fate."

She didn't flinch at the term or recoil. Instead, she continued to look amused. Then, her expression grew steadily more serios and she turned her gaze momentarily to her lap. "I don't think about that day much either. Not even when I look at stick man, because when I look at him, I think about my father and I at the beach but... meeting you on the bridge that day..."

She trapped her bottom lip with her upper teeth and gazed at him curiously as though her brain was still trying to figure out the best way to convey what she felt. "I…I wasn't going to jump, that never crossed my mind, but I was in a dark, dark place. Talking to you helped me see that everyone struggles in different ways and that being sad was okay. I just had to keep going. And that's what I told myself. I walked home. Cleaned up the kitchen. Made dinner. Booked my flight back to Stanford. And it was hard—really, really hard—but I just kept telling myself: one step at a time, one foot in front of the other and soon it will get better.

"As for fate..." She paused as a wry smile crossed her face. "I think you know by now that's not really something I put too much stock in. Before we met, I never thought about it and if anyone would have asked me about it, I probably would have laughed. Fate doesn't involve facts or evidence. There's no way to prove or disprove it. But...somedays, especially right now..." She reached out, placed her left hand atop his forearm and brushed her thumb across his wrist in a way that made his heart soar. With a noticeable twinkle in her eye, she gazed at him and said, "It feels like the only way to explain this."

As his heart began to pound beneath his ribs, Castle's throat suddenly felt painfully dry. He swallowed hard, glanced down at her hand on his arm, and tentatively asked, "And… what's 'this?'"

"A partnership. A friendship. And this," she said just before leaning in and pressing her lips gently against his.

Their kiss was so brief that for a moment Castle wasn't sure if he dreamed it or not, but his lips still tingled where they had touched hers. He watched as her smile turned slightly embarrassed and her cheeks turned a pink hue; his heart flipped over in his chest for in that moment he fell in love with her all over again. Lifting up his left hand to place over hers, he began gently, "You know, Kate, the last time we talked, you said you needed time to-"

"No," she cut him off, her expression bright and confident. "I don't need any more time. How could I? It would seem this has been a decade in the making."

A happy laugh escaped his lips and he lifted his hand to cradle her jaw and draw her mouth back into his. She parted her lips and sunk against him, letting out a hum of delight at the first touch of their tongues. Her arms found his waist and she pulled them even closer together as they kissed again and again and—god, it was perfect.

"Kate," he sighed out her name, pulling back just enough to take a breath. Their noses bumped together and he saw her incredible smile. Immediately, only one thought was in his mind. He skimmed his hand down her back until he reached her hips, which he caressed gently. "Do you want to maybe-"

"No," she said, though her tone was not unkind. Still, his brow furrowed as she softened her comment with, "Of course I want to, Castle, but let's wait a little bit. Let's…let's finish this case and let the shock of all this settle in a bit more."

He pressed his lips together tightly, considering her suggestion and whether or not he wanted to press, but then he decided she was right. He knew whenever they made love it would be amazing, but the last thing he wanted was for their first time to be rushed so she could get home because of her early shift the next day. No—when they were together for the first time, he wanted it to be something they both savored to the fullest extent. "Okay. Maybe…maybe you could even take a day off and we'll spend it together."

She smiled immediately. "I'd like that."

"Me too," he agreed before giving her one more quick kiss. He then wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her in close, sighing as he rested his cheek against the top of her head. "Mmm guess this means I should go through your drawers more often."

She gave his chest a little shove and looked up at him with an offended expression. "No, it does not mean that."

"Why?"

"Privacy, Castle—perhaps you've heard of it."

He shrugged one shoulder. "Eh."

She grumbled and poked the center of his chest, accusing, "You're awful."

He knew she was teasing so he took no offense to her statements. He simply held her close for a few minutes until his gratitude and appreciation for their moment together overflowed his chest with joy and he gave her an extra little squeeze. "Just so you know: I'm glad I found your stick man. I'm glad I found you on the bridge that day."

She smiled, leaned her forehead against his, and cradled his jaw delicately with her hand. "Me too, Castle; me too."

A/N: Thanks for reading

Also i'm posting this for Lou's (InkyCoffee's) birthday so Happy Birthday Lou! :)