groundhog day

Still working through the songfics; I'm hoping the rest want to be short, too. Here's a double drabble for izhilzha, who wanted Castle, Beckett, #4, which was Cream, Deserted Cities of the Heart.

*
Upon this street where time has died.

The line ran over and over in Kate's mind as she lay in bed. Skip and repeat. She couldn't remember where it came from (Castle would know; it was the sort of thing he could pull out of that database of useless facts he called a brain) but she knew what it meant. Time had died for her when her mother had, and though she'd gone on -- and done plenty with her hours, when she allowed herself to think about it -- the second of Johanna Beckett's last heartbeat lingered, and Kate could be thrown back into it in an instant. Like that guy in that movie… ("Groundhog Day!" Castle crowed in her head.) She couldn't ever break away, because time was dead, and everything done since was an illusion, not just her accomplishments, but everyone else's too, everything she thought was real and solid and comforting.

The arm over her slid down to her thigh, caressing, and a sleep-saturated voice murmured "Nikki…" against her shoulder.

As she turned over to berate Rick for confusing her with a figment of his imagination, she wondered if maybe the clock had started ticking again.

Things to be done

Not that I am going to bore you with them. Just need to do some planning and (slow) scurrying in advance of Thursday's trip. Knee feels much better after yesterday's PT; I actually went straight down a flight of stairs instead of crabwise this morning! Of course one of our cars has chosen this moment to have a brakes crisis, but that could have been much worse (like, having them go out entirely while P. was driving on the way back from PA).

Since I still have to sit a fair amount, here and likely in California, I'll keep writing. There are two songfic prompts outstanding (though I will take more if anyone wants to offer them) and kivrin's will take thought since, oh dear, a more un-Peter Burke-like song I cannot imagine, but I like a challenge and I can always stand to think about Peter.

I have Aral's Conversations murmuring in the back of my head (I can't suppose that I will really place him over the Crown Prince's cradle humming "Unto us a child is born" but it's an interesting image to work with. And does suggest to me that the whole fic may end up being from his POV, which I wasn't expecting). But as I guessed, as soon as I started working on the "Sparrow" sequel (which doesn't have a name yet, though it will no doubt be bird-related) it became the dominant narrative in my head, and I've been adding to it in dribs and drabs that seem to have added up to 3000 words so far. At the moment I'm working in backstory that I thought up on the Walk of Doom last week, and then all I have to do, ha, is figure out how that coalesces with the other part of the plot. Harold may blithely toss in:

...he'd sensed the sudden alignment of gears deep inside the grand, floundering construct, the long-planned, madly-improvised brainchild that was Imperial Security. Simon Illyan's duty; the vainglorious compassion of the Machine; and his own fractured selfhood: they'd been bound to collide soon enough.

But I need to know how, exactly. It is an entertaining (if antagonistic) conversation to write, however.

Not that he'd been present at, let alone the subject of, very many interrogations, but he'd witnessed as many as he could stomach nonetheless, and most had a certain rhythm to them, to which a good interrogator could dance. Simon was dancing now, leading Harold across the floor. And... he hadn't been danced with in many years. It was a seduction he had little power to resist.

Heh. There's that dancing motif again. And no, I am not slashing Simon Illyan and Harold Finch. Not in the least. Nor Simon and John Reese, despite having started out the story with Simon noticing how much he likes to watch Reese watching people. Down, boy.

No idea when I'll get the thing finished, but at least it's well on the way...