So this is a small Castle fanfic about 9/11 so I hope you all enjoy it.
Remembrance
It was the day that everyone remembered. It was the worse day New York has ever experienced. The eleventh year and everything has changed new technology, new lives, new crimes, same old remembrance.
Castle patted his pocket and realised he didn't have his phone. That was the one thing he forgot, he grabbed his wallet, his keys, but not his phone. He arrived at the sight where the two buildings once stood years ago until that fatal day. With Martha and Alexis on each arm, he knew that in exactly half an hour the dawn service would start, for the thousands that New York had lost that day. Tears stung at the back of his eyes, everyone thought that the eleventh of September 2001 was going to be a normal day; no one expected the attack to happen. The twin towers crumbled around them, the world trade centre was no more.
"I'm just going to quickly get a coffee." Alexis said through a yawn.
"I'll come," Martha piped in, "Do you want one?" she asked. He just shook his head and they left him to dwell in his own thoughts.
"Yeah, okay." He forced a smile. Martha gave him a reassuring hand on his shoulder and followed the young red haired towards the nearest coffee shop.
He stood there, ignoring everyone around him. That day was the worst day in his life, he thought he was never going to see Alexis again, watch her grow into the amazing young woman she is today. Since that day he is more grateful than ever with every day that rolls past.
He heard his name being called, but didn't react, images from that day running through his mind.
"Castle?" a soft voice called his name again and he felt a hand on his shoulder.
He turned his head to see Beckett standing there with a forced smile on her face.
"Hey," he said in a raspy tone. She could tell he was moments away from letting his tears fall, but he was holding them in.
"Hey, are you okay?" she asked with genuine concern flooding through her.
"Huh, yeah I'm fine." He lied, they both knew it.
She gave him her usual really look.
"It's… it's just today…" he said in barely a whisper.
She silently nodded, turning away to look at the ground. That day was hell and with her personal attachment to the disaster she definitely understood.
"Uh… Kate?" he asked hesitantly.
"Yeah?" she asked, looking back at him.
"This is going to sound stupid but… would you mind… just hanging around here with me?" he could feel his cheeks burning up from embarrassment of the question.
"Sure, Castle."
She looked at her watch, twenty minutes until the dawn service starts. "Where's Martha and Alexis?" she asked.
"Oh, they went to get some coffee."
"Okay, hey Castle?"
"Yeah?" he replied looking from the space in front of them, to looking into her green eyes
"I know this is a very emotional day and all, but you seem personally attached to all of it, I just wanted to know why?" she asked, wanting to know his story, and then she just might tell him hers.
"Oh, uh well I was… umm… I was meeting the British Ambassador, he was a fan and I had a little meeting with him and I was in the foyer… just getting ready to leave, when the towers started to fall, panic rose and I tried to run to the exit and I saw this little girl there, balled up under a table, she was crying and wanting her mom. I ran over to her grabbed her just as I pulled her away the floor above us collapsed." He said, barely above a whisper. Kate could hear the tears in his voice, he swallowed, took a breath and continued, as she stood there listening to him contently.
"The floors were just falling above us and I realised we weren't going to make it to the door so I stopped and covered her so she wouldn't get squashed and I would have had the impact, not her. When the ceiling hit me a pipe lodged itself into my side, she was unharmed, but scared."
"Castle…" Beckett said as a whisper of disbelief.
One perfect tear was rolling down his face as he was reliving the day.
"We…" his voice grew hoarse. He cleared his throat and began again, "We were trapped under the rubble for ten hours, I was slowly bleeding out and I was trying to calm the little girl down. I honestly thought I was never going to see Alexis, or mother again, little did I know we were the lucky ones. Some weren't recovered for days some weren't recovered alive."
He stopped and took an extremely shaky breath. "I just made it to the hospital, and they gave me several blood transfusions, luckily the pipe didn't do any damage to my organs."
"And what about the girl, and did she find her mom?" Kate asked.
"She's probably about seventeen now, close to Alexis' age. Her mom however, didn't make it. I would give anything to see how she's doing, but she won't remember me though."
"Castle, how could she not remember you? You saved her life. I bet her father was grateful." She said.
"I dunno, I was in a medically induced coma for three weeks from the amount of blood lost, so I wouldn't know." He said quietly.
"Well, I think you were amazing that day, from what I here, from your experience you were a hero, to that little girl." She said, flashing him a smile.
He gave her a genuine smile back, and then he asked her. "So why are you here apart from the dawn service, were you personally attached to the crash?"
She slightly nodded and pursed her lips, "Yeah, I was." She said looking up at him with tear filled eyes.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." He said quickly, not wanting to push her out of her comfort zone.
"No, it's alright. Well when I was in vice my partner and I was chasing this guy, he ran into the second tower that came down. I was slightly behind my partner that ran in there after him. I was just about to enter, and then I saw the plane hit it. I shouted at him to come back, but it was too late, he was nowhere to be seen. In minutes the building collapsed in front of me. I dug and dug but, I couldn't find him. Days later I found his body, blunt force trauma to the head, probably some rubble knocked him down, that's why when I moved to the twelfth, as a homicide detective, I didn't really want a partner. I didn't want to lose another one." She finished and like Castle, took a deep, long, shaky breath, as a single tear rolled down her cheek.
She quickly wiped it away, without him noticing. However, as she was looking ahead, she didn't realise he didn't take his eyes off of her.
"I'm not going anywhere." He said looking ahead at the sight they were standing in front of.
"I know." She said as she grabbed his hand and held it.
He gave her hand a slight squeeze as they stood there, until Martha and Alexis came back with coffees.
Undisturbed and quietly staring into space, in their own memories that day had given them.
It's the eleventh of September 2012, and every year there is a service for the thousands that died that year. But little did they know that every year since the attack, Castle and Beckett have been going to the same service, with their own memories. But this year is different, this year they're at the dawn service together, there for each other's remembrance.