Dead - 1

The beginning and the end

Rick was getting dressed and had reached an impass. Then Alexis walked in, knowing her dad was running late. She took both ties out of his hands and gave him back one of them. She was right, of course. "What would I do without you?"

"Go naked." Alexis grinned and patted his shoulder. "Grams and I will be out front waiting should you decide to join us." She couldn't resist poking him. "Or do you need me to tie your tie also?"

"I can manage fine, thank you." He wasn't that incompetent. He was capable of tying his own tie. Alexis smiled, happy that she'd gotten her dig in and left the bedroom.

Rick was looking in the mirror and had his tie in two hands when suddenly he was somewhere else. He wasn't surprised and had long since gotten used to it.

The space he was in was void of anything. There was literally nothing for as far as the eye could see. Actually if he could see beyond that there would still be nothing and he knew it.

Suddenly his charge showed up. Who it was was a great surprise and yet not really that great a surprise. It was also a satisfaction that he was here. Rick smiled though he tried to hide it.

"Castle?" Tyson hadn't expected to see him so fast. He looked around and then at his hands. He was slightly annoyed that the weapon that had been in his hand a moment ago was gone. Then he pressed a hand to his chest where he had been shot.

"Confused?" Rick knew he was just like all the others.

"NO!" Tyson wasn't going to let him win or think he was smarter than he was.

"Liar." Castle was the master here and he knew Tyson, like all the others, had no idea where he was. "This way, Tyson." Rick started walking and didn't look to see if the killer joined him. He was actually silently hoping that he didn't.

Tyson saw literally nothing else. The house he had been in was gone. The desk, the monitor, everything except for Castle. Odd...he was dressed in different clothes. How he had managed to do that confused him for now.

He began walking to catch up. "Wondering where you are?" Castle questioned and smiled a little.

"No." Tyson was betting it was a hallucination or a dream.

"Nope, not a hallucination and not a dream," Rick suddenly informed him. Tyson's eyes widened with a touch of horror. He was off balance and a little shocked. "Care to guess again?" Rick was sure he would never guess correctly.

Tyson looked up at him a little confused. What he needed was an advantage. But he didn't know what was going on. He needed time to plan everything.

"You don't have the advantage here and you have no need to plan anything," Rick said smugly, then smiled.

That had Tyson stopping where he was. What Castle had just done was impossible! However, Castle didn't stop walking and he had to run to catch up. He still looked around to try and find something. Anything that would help him. He needed information so he could plan what to do next. His plans hadn't included this, whatever this was.

"Feeling a little lost?" Rick smiled a little wider. "Better stick close or you'll get lost here…forever." He actually gave consideration to leaving him here for a moment, though he also knew better than to try.

"So where are we?" He was smarter than Castle. He just needed a little information to prove it, again.

Castle chuckled lightly that Tyson thought he was that smart. "It's called the Void."

"Void? Between what and what?" It looked empty but that might be just how it looked. Then he inhaled and sniffed. He literally smelled nothing.

"The Void between where you were and where you need to go next." Rick didn't need to look to know that he was confused. "You're dead, Tyson, and this is the place between your old life and where you need to go."

Suddenly Tyson's chest hurt – it hurt a lot. He pressed a hand to his chest and actually stumbled a little.

"Remember now?" Rick smiled since he knew what Tyson was experiencing.

"This isn't about me, is it? This is so much more than that. This is about you. Your inadequacy. All the games, all the manipulation. After I screwed up your plans, you needed to prove that you were smarter than me. You needed to know that you could control me."

"Well, you're here."

"You know, I've written characters like you. People so psychopathic, so narcissistic that they believe that they can't get caught. Because they're smarter than everyone and they need to prove it. That's your story, Jerry. Why you did everything. You needed to prove it. So I let you."

"What do you mean?"

"It was the only way to find you. I needed to find you so that I could find her. But the truth, Jerry, the truth is I lured you here. To watch you die. …Are we clear?"

"Clear about what?"

"Then take the shot."

Suddenly the pain in his chest intensified to a point that he groaned from all the pain.

"You're dead, Tyson. That was your life flashing before your eyes. Your very last moment in life. You might want to relish it. Take it and make it yours because it's all yours." Rick kept walking.

Tyson had stopped again. He doubled over and was bending down, holding a hand to his chest in an effort to make the pain go away.

"Whether the pain goes away is yet to be determined," Rick said. Tyson opened his mouth in shock yet again. Castle seemed to know everything he was thinking. It was impossible though.

Still Castle wasn't going to get the better of him. He might not have a weapon but he was betting he was in better shape than Castle was, so he rushed him. And went right through him like he didn't exist. "Remember I told you this was the Void, Tyson." Rick stopped and smiled at him as he stood there gaping at him.

"This way." Rick started walking again.

"And if I don't?" Tyson wasn't going to let him win. He just needed to figure things out.

"Then you will remain in the Void forever." Rick smiled at him and kept walking.

Tyson began walking but stayed behind him so that Castle couldn't see him. Tyson offered his take on where he was. "So if I'm dead, is this Limbo?"

Rick shook his head. "Limbo is actually a place. This is the Void. It's nothing. Limbo is something, this is nothing."

Tyson and Rick just kept walking. "And here we are." Rick stopped. Tyson started looking and suddenly he saw a wall of doors. Each door was different somehow. Different wood, different color, different size. None alike.

He didn't understand how it suddenly showed up when before there had been nothing. Tyson actually chuckled. "I expected you to be taking me to the Gates of Hell." This didn't look like Hell to him, but then it didn't look like the Pearly Gates, either.

"This is where I take everyone, including you." Rick just stood there.

Tyson looked right, then left, then up, and then down. Somehow everywhere he looked he saw a door.

"Choose."

"What?" Tyson didn't understand.

"Choose a door. What's on the other side is your next life. Choose." Rick waved his hand at all the doors.

Tyson suspected a trap. "Choose, just like that?"

"No trap, choose. What's on the other side is your next life." Rick smiled that he had Tyson still a little confused.

"Just choose a door and that's it? What if I choose a door that leads me to Paradise?" His idea of Paradise, that is. Tyson looked at all of the doors.

"Then it does. …I see you've made your choice." Rick was happy that he hadn't taken forever to choose a door.

"What are you talking about? I haven't chosen a…" Tyson looked and all that was left was a single door. All of the others were gone.

It was a door. It looked totally unremarkable. It had two panels and it was completely yellow in color; it was just standing there. Nothing was holding it up. Even the door knob looked unremarkable.

For a door he had expected something more. He was Jerry Tyson, after all.

"Your door," Rick informed him and started to walk away.

"You expect me to just open it and walk through." Tyson would laugh if it wasn't so damn weird.

"What you do is no longer my concern. My job is to escort people who have died across the Void to their door. Go through the door or not. I don't care. Stay here in the Void forever if you like. There is literally nothing in the Void. No time, no space, literally nothing. Goodbye, Tyson, we will not see each other again." Well Rick hoped he wouldn't. It was just that when it came to death and his job, time had no meaning.

Tyson in his world wasn't dead yet, which for him meant they would be seeing each other again. He now knew how Tyson died and why, though. Tyson had shown him everything. Just that it also showed him that Tyson had taken Kate captive some how and that concerned him greatly.

Rick just kept walking. He needed to reach the other side so he could continue with his life. Provided that he wasn't instantly needed again.

Yes, hundreds if not thousands of people died daily and it was his job to escort each of them across the Void to reach the doors and their next life. It was just that time meant nothing in this job. Time was so fluid that Rick didn't have a concept of it.

Rick stopped since he really did want to know. He just stood there and wondered if he should turn around and look. But after the first few times he'd learned that he never saw the world that his charge went to. He had no idea where any of the doors led. But he was happy that he wasn't Death himself. He simply thought of himself as a guide. A tourist guide.

Rick chuckled softly and shook his head. He was a stinking tourist guide.

However, it did tell him that there was a life after death and that that life wasn't set in stone. Though technically he didn't know that. He had seen a lot of doors over the years and he had no idea which was his or if he even had one.

Did a tourist guide have a door? When he died, did he guide himself across the Void to his door or was he going to be replaced and someone else would guide him across this same Void?

Rick sighed and just before he heard the door behind him close, he could hear Tyson screaming. It sounded like a bloodcurdling scream. Like his very soul was screaming for all that it was worth.

"Poetic justice or just blind luck?" Rick didn't know but he was a little relieved that Tyson wasn't in Paradise. He began walking again until he found himself walking out of his bedroom where Alexis and his mother waiting for him.

~0~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~0~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~0~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~0~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~{o}~ ~0~

"Roy Montgomery taught me what it meant to be a cop. Taught me that we are bound by our choices. We are more than our mistakes. Captain Montgomery once tole me that for us there is no victory. There are only battles. And in the end the best we can hope for is to find a place and make your stand. And if you're very lucky, you find someone willing to stand with you.

"Our Captain would want us to carry on the fight. Even if there is–"

"KATE!" Rick ran as hard as he could and feared the worst as he tackled Kate to the ground. He'd heard the shot along with everyone else. The screaming around him was drowned out as he could only hear his own heartbeat.

"Kate, stay with me, Kate. Kate, I love you. I love you Kate." He watched her close her eyes. He just knew the guy he didn't want to be had come far too close to home. He had touched the woman he loved so very much.

Suddenly he hated his other job. He hated it with a passion. He knew what came next. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow or even weeks from now. Time meant nothing. He would see Kate again but not in a way that he wanted to.

~{o}~0~{o}~

"Kate, don't you die on me. Stay with me, stay with me." Lanie was riding the gurney as they wheeled her down the corridor toward an operating room. "She's my friend you understand me? She's my friend." Lanie needed to make this plain for everyone to understand.

"Then let us save her life," a man she didn't know but worked for the hospital told her.

Lanie stood there, knowing her life went into that operating room. She barely noticed Castle standing next to her. She didn't even notice all the blood that was on her. All of it Kate's blood.

~{o}~0~{o}~

Rick looked around. "OH, GOD!" He suddenly found it hard to breathe and didn't notice the tears that started to fall. "Please no, let it be someone else. Anyone else." He knew what that sounded like. He was asking for someone else to be dead. Not Kate.

A voice he knew well called out. "Castle?" It had him cringing. His heart had stopped beating, he just knew it. He slowly turned to look. He didn't want to see her. Maybe it was someone who sounded like her. But it wasn't. It was Kate. His Kate.

She looked confused and she was looking around. All she saw was Castle. "Castle?" Where was she? What had happened? She was glad to see him, but why was it just him?

Rick tried to croak out her name, but he couldn't. His heart was trapped in his throat. He even knew what she was thinking, just like all the other people.

"What happened? Where is everyone?" She was at Roy's funeral so where did everyone go?

"Kate." Rick managed to get her name out as he stepped closer and took her by her shoulders.

He couldn't get the words out; he could feel his tears and feel his lower lip quivering. The pain in his chest was almost overwhelming. Kate Beckett, the love of his life, was dead and he couldn't do anything about it.

"Why are you crying?" Kate reached up to wipe away some of his tears.

"I…" Rick didn't know what to do. He had no one he could talk to about this. He had been given the job and he had never seen anyone ever again. Only dead people. He hadn't even ever seen Death himself, just his aftereffects.

Kate placed a hand on her chest since suddenly it hurt and the pain was only increasing.

Rick grabbed her hands. "No, don't think about it. Kate, please don't think." Maybe if she didn't remember. If she didn't see her life flash before her eyes, it wouldn't happen.

Kate started to remember. "I…I was shot."

"NO! It's just a bad dream. A nightmare." A horrible waking nightmare to be sure.

"You…you tackled me." Kate looked up at him, questioning him for an answer.

"Kate." It was useless. She was dead and he only had one thing he could do. He couldn't let her get lost here. Not here.

"You…" Kate remembered him saying something.

"Come on, Kate, this way." Rick put his arm around her, held her tight to him, and started walking. He knew just where to go and how to get there.

There was only one thing left he could do for her. Just one last thing.

"Where are we?" Kate didn't see anything or anyone except for Castle.

"This is the Void."

Kate didn't understand. She had never heard of anyplace called the Void.

"It's an empty place between one place and another. My job is to help people get across it."

That didn't make any sense to her. He was a writer, not doing whatever this was. "From where to where?"

"From…where you were to where you need to go." Rick just couldn't bring himself to tell her that she was dead.

"From Roy's funeral to where?" Suddenly Kate almost fell to her knees and doubled over in pain. It was severe pain, mind-numbing pain, and it was in her chest. She clenched her hand on her chest, willing for the pain to go away.

"It'll pass, Kate, it'll pass." Rick knew she was starting to remember and feel herself dying.

Rick really wanted to get this over with. He couldn't take it much longer so he helped Kate to stand up and start walking.

Kate looked at her hand but she didn't see anything. Somehow in her mind she knew her hand should be covered in blood. "I was shot…wasn't I?" She trusted Castle to tell her.

"Kate, please." He couldn't go through this again. He was still seeing all of it in his mind like it had just happened since it just had.

"We're here," Rick announced. Kate looked at him and then past him. All she saw was doors. Door, after door, after door. She looked left, right, up, and down. All she saw was doors. They all looked different.

"Where are we?" She had never seen this place before.

"Choose a door, Kate. The door you chose will take you to your next life. Choose wisely." It was all Rick could offer her now.

Kate looked at Castle and remembered. "I was shot." Her eyes grew wide. "I'm dead, aren't I? Aren't I, Castle?"

Rick's heart was already hurting. "Yes." Now it hurt even more. Was this what Kate felt when Johanna had been killed? Suddenly he didn't remember ever taking her to these doors. Time was such a fickle thing. He was taking Kate to the doors before he took her mother.

"What are these doors?" Kate didn't really understand. She needed for him to explain.

He didn't want to, he really didn't. But it was his job. "You died and it's my job to escort you across the nothing of the Void to here. You need to pick one of these doors. On the other side is your next life. This is what comes next after you die." Rick really did and didn't want to get this over with.

He knew that after she chose a door and went through he would cry, sob, for weeks, maybe longer. Maybe the pain of losing her would actually kill him and he could follow her through the door she chose and chase her down.

"Chose a door, Kate." Rick looked at her and wished with all his soul. In his peripheral vision he saw all the doors go away. He knew she'd chosen a door.

He turned his head so he could study it. Every last inch of it. It was a light beige and it had small handprints on the lower panel. Prints that a child would leave. Was this Kate's door when she was a little girl? It explained why she had chosen it.

"Castle?" She wanted to stay. She remembered something else now. It was just that it confused her a little. She needed time to understand what he had said.

"Step through, Kate." He needed to leave. He couldn't watch her die again. To leave him and live his life without her. He still had no idea how he was going to do that.

Rick began walking and couldn't look back. He desperately wanted to know, but just couldn't watch. He knew what the door looked like and hoped that would be enough for when or even if his time ever came.

Kate had figured it out and he needed to know while she could still tell him. "I love you too, Rick."

Hearing her, Rick fell to his knees and let his tears, pain, and sobs take over. Only Kate would tell him that she loved him when it was all over, with no hope for a future together.