Solid Ground
by Lord of Kavaka is a Castle fic set during the fifth season, which sees Castle and Beckett crash-land on a deserted island while taking a flight home to New York. As they become the de facto leaders of the other crash survivors and try to find a way to call for help, matters are complicated when they learn that Senator Bracken had an agent on board the plane.
There is also a companion fic, Cold Cases: A Solid Ground Companion, looking at what the 12th precinct did while Castle and Beckett were missing, and a sequel, Solid Ground: The Return, which looks at Castle and Beckett adjusting to life back in New York after being rescued.
Solid Ground contains examples of:
- Closest Thing We Got: The survivors of the crash have to rely on paramedic Kimberly Watson for their medical needs even though there’s only so much she can do given her background. Despite the stress of the situation, Kimberly accepts her Castle-derived nickname of ‘Doctor Watson’ in good spirits, and announces her plans to go to medical school to officially qualify as a doctor after they are rescued.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Kate reveals that during her ‘wild’ phase after her mother’s death, she spent so much time partying and having random sex that she actually had to have an abortion at one point, dealing with it on her own because she didn’t even know who the father was.
- Deserted Island: For most of the fic Castle, Beckett and the other passengers are stuck on an isolated island with no apparent way to call for help.
- Due to the Dead: When preparing the guiding fires for the rescue boat, the survivors also create smaller fires for all those lost in the crash and their subsequent time on the island, but deliberately avoid creating fires for Bracken’s henchmen.
- Exact Eavesdropping: Castle and Robin find Bracken’s henchmen on the island just in time to overhear them talking about a possible hidden radio on another part of the island.
- If I Wanted You Dead...: While Castle doesn’t doubt that Bracken wants them dead, even after learning that he had agents on the plane, he helps Kate realise that Bracken wouldn’t have set up the plane crash to try and kill them as it’s too relatively random and the senator couldn’t guarantee they would die. Castle speculates that the original plan was for Bracken’s men to kill him and Beckett in a foreign country and stage it as a random attack, with the plane crash just an unfortunate coincidence.
- Imperiled in Pregnancy: Kate spends about a third of the fic trying to deal with Bracken’s latest hired killer while pregnant.
- The Mole: One of the survivors- specifically Trishana the flight attendant- is actually an agent of Senator Bracken; another survivor stayed in hiding from the rest of the group.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Castle unwittingly causes Robin’s death and his own capture by Bracken’s henchmen when he makes too much noise after overhearing them talk about a possible radio.
- Noodle Incident: Kate recalls being a rookie in uniform when 9/11 took place.
- Pregnant Badass: Even while pregnant, Kate is ultimately the one who kills Bracken’s henchman on the island, shooting him in the head with his own gun.
- Robinsonade: Castle and Beckett become leader of a group of castaways on a deserted island after a plane crash.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: To a point. Back in New York, while Alexis doesn’t ignore the rules, she does use her father’s contacts to ensure that more attention is paid to the search than might have been if anyone else had gone missing. Esposito also calls in some favours from his old military contacts to help with the search effort.
- Shout-Out:
- Castle refers to paramedic Kimberly Watson as ‘Doctor Watson’
- While speculating on what happened to Castle and Beckett, Lanie in particular makes analogies to The Blue Lagoon while speculating that Beckett will come back pregnant.
- Skewed Priorities: When Castle hears that one of Bracken’s henchmen on the island is just named ‘John’, he spends a few moments reflecting on how that’s a stupid alias where ‘Lockwood’ and ‘Maddox’ were at least cool.
- Undying Loyalty: Bracken’s agents are so dedicated to him that they’re willing to kill Beckett even when they’re on a deserted island with no guarantee they’ll ever get back to civilisation and it’s almost certainly irrelevant if the senator will ever know what they did for him.
