Note from Logan: This started as a three sentence AU meme on tumblr. Paula, who prompted it, said she'd like to see more of the universe I came up with in those three sentences and because I was rather fond of it, I expanded it.

"I want you here. I don't care if it's a hundred degrees or every blade of grass dies. Without you, none of that matters to me." -Kami Garcia

He can't help but think of T.S. Eliot at times like this.

He read the poem while at Edgewyck and pulled apart the stanzas for Mr. Harris-Schmitt and then tried to make sense of the pieces for that final paper.

This is how the world ends
This is how the world ends
This is how the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

He didn't really get it until this all happened.

Though, he'd have to disagree with Mr. Eliot on the last line because now, unlike the poet, he has first-hand experience.

The bang came first. Loud and rattling everything in the city and completely unpredicted. A painting fell in his bedroom and he heard dishes shatter in the kitchen. The electricity flickered and he remembers being frustrated with the disruption to his writing sprint as the screen went black for a moment. Then everything around him was pitched sharply into darkness. The kind that doesn't happen on Manhattan or within miles of the city.

The whimpering came later. It filtered in through the glass panes of the apartment from the street below and from the neighbors across the hall and from the transistor radio he found in the second drawer of his desk.

The whimpering still comes.

He takes a deep breath, trying to focus himself enough to come up with a plan.

His mother and daughter aren't home, weren't home when it happened, and he struggles to begin accepting that this might mean they're gone from him. In the oppressive darkness, there's no way to find a match to light that candle of hope.

Which means he also needs to acknowledge that Kate Beckett is also lost to him.

The thought makes him grip the gun a little tighter. He found it on the top of their bureau, safety on and magazine loaded, and he is so thankful that she forgot her second piece at home in her rush to get out the door on that last, bright morning.

No. She's still alive. Somewhere.

He just needs to find her.

Castle pushes off the bookshelf - he thinks it's the bookshelf but can't be sure - and walks slowly toward the front door. His feet bump into furniture as he feels his way through his living room. The moonlight provides enough illumination so that the shadows dance along the walls and on the ceiling as he gets to the front door.

He hasn't been outside the loft since this all started. The fuzzy, static radio has been reporting hordes of unfriendlies in the streets, ransacking apartments and stores and he hasn't wanted to risk it. No choice now.

Even if he can't find Kate, he needs food.

Readjusting his grip on the gun and checking to make sure his phone, useless as it is, is in his pocket, Castle opens the door.

The hallway is empty and quiet. The groaning continues but after days, it has become background noise, easily ignored as he makes his way down the hall toward the stairs. It takes nearly half an hour to clear each level of the stairwell before he gets to the lobby.

Here, the moon reflects off the marble floor, highlighting the dirty shoeprints that crisscross the lobby area. The vase of flowers typically on the security desk is smashed, glass scattered. He finds a shoe and a pair of pants in a corner.

It's disconcerting. And the sounds of the dying and the unfriendlies is louder on the street.

Castle tucks himself back into the shadows to figure out his route uptown. The subway system has to be down. He wants to shy away from Midtown with the tourist areas, the places where there would be more chance of him running into unfriendlies.

He starts toward Sixth Ave, staying to the edge of the sidewalk with the gun resting against his thigh. The breeze whips at him, brutally cold despite the heat wave still lingering into the start of autumn. He longs for a heavier jacket than the dusty green coat he managed to locate in the closet. Nothing for it now but to keep moving.

He nearly makes it to the intersection onto Greenwich before he encounters a cluster of unfriendlies. A group of four in deep grey uniforms with guns sweeping a path in front of them. Castle doubles back, ducking into the darkness of a shop entrance and praying they walk the other way. The footsteps get closer and he stops breathing.

The men pause at the end of the street. His hand tightens on the gun at his side, finger on the trigger. They talk, a garbled language through the devices attached to their helmets, before turning north up Sixth.

Castle huffs out a quick 'thank you' to the universe, waiting a minute to get back onto Greenwich. The apartments and storefronts are dark. It's eerie to not see anyone like him, running toward and away from. A window shatters overhead and he jogs to an awning to escape the rain of glass that is immediately followed by a scream that echoes off the brick. Like the city has been transported back to post-Sandy.

He fights the urge to run up and help the person. Fighting the savior complex that normally has him jumping in front of bullets and running into burning buildings and lying to his best friend for a year. Instead, he pushes off the wall and gets to Eighth Ave. The whole length of the street stretches up in front of him, intimidating and far, far too long.

Only forty blocks to go.