AU after 8x08.

No hope could have no fear

—James Thomson, "City of Dreadful Night"

X

Richard Castle tightens his grip on the cane. He skipped his last dose of Darvocet—he needs all his wits about him soon—and the pain is bad, radiating up from his knee and throbbing with every bump in the road. Out of habit, he glances at his watch, but it's frozen at 2:37 p.m.

"About ten minutes," says his father.

Castle nods, though he isn't sure if his father's taken his eyes off the road long enough to see. He should reply verbally, but it's easier when he doesn't speak, when he doesn't have to force words out through that ever-present strangling ache in his throat. The ache of sorrow too great for tears.

The street rolls on before them. It's late, nearly three in the morning, and the city is as quiet as it will ever be. About ten minutes until they get to the museum, and then with a few minutes' work, all this will be over. One way or another.

His father clears his throat softly. When Castle glances over at the man, he's startled at how much he's aged in the last two days. The silver-fox hair looks thin and bedraggled, and there are lines carved deep in the man's face. Castle's pretty sure he doesn't look much better. Probably worse.

"Richard." His father's voice is hesitant, and softer than Castle's ever heard it. "Whatever you're planning…you don't have to do this."

A reply seems necessary, so he does his best to get the words out. "What else can I do?"

"Come with me."

"Where?"

His father shrugs. "Europe's our best bet. I have the most connections there."

Castle is silent; his father seems to take this for interest. "We can start over. It makes sense. You're all I've got left. Son…please."

Castle knows this is a last, desperate ploy. The use of son is a giveaway, coming from this man who's only a father in the most tenuous sense. "I'm not changing my mind," he replies. "I have to—"

"Die." The word is said with scathing contempt. "And don't deny it. I know a man on a suicide mission when I see one."

"I'm sure it looks that way to you."

"Then what is it?"

There's no way to explain his plan. He's not even sure if it will work; it may well end up a suicide mission. But no matter what, he's a dead man walking.

As if to confirm this, his father says, "We're being followed."

"How big is our lead?"

"Five minutes. Is that enough?"

"It'll have to be."

"I can buy you some time."

"No." The last thing he needs is more blood on his hands.

They're silent for the rest of the drive. His father glances behind them from time to time; Castle keeps his gaze forward, focusing on what he needs to do.

X

He should have known it would end this way.

It had started to be fun, pretending that he and Kate were separated, sneaking off for trysts and laughing about how they'd pulled the wool over everyone's eyes. But they hadn't fooled the right people.

He never knew how LokSat found out. Maybe Vikram betrayed them; maybe it was something else entirely. At any rate, LokSat decided to make sure to take care of all loose ends…and a few others, for good measure.

In just a few hours' time: Ryan and Esposito perished in a car wreck; Kate was found in an alley, savagely beaten; a bomb took out the office of Richard Castle Investigations, and with it Alexis, Hayley, and his mother, who was there to bring by some cronuts. The bomb would have killed him as well, but it had gone off a few seconds too early, and the blast had only thrown him into a wall, giving him a mild concussion, wrecking his knee, cracking several ribs, and stopping time at 2:37 p.m.

His father spirited him out of the hospital as soon as Castle regained consciousness. Castle fought him at first. "Kate! We have to go back and get her!"

"We can't."

"But she's alive?"

Technically. In an irreversible coma and with a flat EEG. Whoever had beaten Kate had spent a lot of time on her skull, caving parts of it in, sending bone shards deep, turning the clever brain that had unraveled so many mysteries to useless pulp. But in one of those cosmic jokes that aren't funny, she was still breathing, and her heart was still beating, kept going by machines.

His father, ever the soldier, said they should take revenge, but Castle could find no heart for this. The old cliché was true: it wouldn't bring any of them back. And he had no idea on whom they'd exact revenge. Kate never had revealed the details of her LokSat investigation to him; every time he'd pressed her, she'd distracted him by ushering him into the bedroom (or the kitchen, or his office, or against the bookshelves) and fucking his brains out. As distractions went, it was sublime, and to be honest, he was tired of scratching and clawing and prying into her secrets. Let her have this last one.

No, he didn't want revenge. What he wanted was to rewrite the ending.

X

He tries to refuse his father's help; the older man is having none of it. "Let me get you in, at least. You can barely walk."

That's true enough, so he lets his father carry the necessary tools while he hobbles after, leaning heavily on the cane. It's a cheap aluminum thing, purchased in haste from a drugstore two states behind them, but it gets the job done.

As does his father. As the employee entrance door swings open, the alarm system deactivated, they embrace for the first and last time. It's awkward and hasty, with silence in lieu of many things unspoken. Then Castle turns and heads into the museum's dark and quiet halls.

He's done his research and knows exactly where he needs to go. First floor (thank God — his knee wouldn't handle many stairs). North hall. Pre-Colombian artifacts. And there it is, behind glass, the medallion that once sent him to a world where he had never met Kate Beckett.

He takes a hammer from his coat pocket, and in just three blows the display case is shattered and a siren whoops inanely into the night. He picks up the medallion. It's surprisingly cold to the touch, and heavier than it looks.

Maybe it's nothing but an old hunk of metal, and everything he thought he experienced because of it was the result of a bump on the head and too much coffee that morning.

Or maybe it can take him to a world where things end differently for them all.

He has to believe it. Because he knows—knows—that their story wasn't supposed to end this way.

X

He limps out of the museum. Behind him, in the first floor north hall, is a hammer he won't be needing any more, a pile of shattered glass, and a display case with one item missing.

Ahead of him is not the nondescript sedan he and his father arrived in, but a standard-issue black SUV (his least favorite kind of car). He can see a shadowy figure behind the wheel, and standing by the passenger door is a black-clad figure, an automatic pistol in one hand.

"Nice cane," says a voice Castle doesn't recognize.

Castle doesn't reply. He has nothing left for a last witty statement or even biting words of anger. He's focused on nothing but the artifact in his pocket, clutching it tight, thinking: Rewrite the ending. Change it for all of us. Take me to some time when I can change things for the better.

The black-clad figure raises his pistol to fire.

Castle smiles as two shots ring out.

To be continued…