I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. (The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost)
She stays with him as he dies, the useless weight of her body fighting a battle that is already lost. Blood is like water, the liquid able to seep through the tiniest hole, remove its life giving abilities with a swiftness that makes her want to gag. There's no plugging the wound, no stopping the inevitable fingers of death when they grip at the writer's arm and give an insistent tug.
Kate works with death. Death has provided every success she's achieved in her adult life. Murder purchased her apartment, her wardrobe, her restored Harley with the custom detailing that she no longer has time to ride.
She's used to staring at lifeless eyes, to the stench of a decaying body, but she's not used to caring. Victims have yet to become meaningless numbers to her, but it's not often now that she sits across from a family and expresses sorrow for their loss.
This one is different. This is someone she knows, someone who wasted his last words professing his love to her when she couldn't even bring herself to use his given name in conversation.
For the first time in a long while, Kate sinks into her claw foot tub and cries when she goes home. Her apartment is a cavern of silence that only makes it worse, remorse and 'what ifs' lurking in the corners, turning usual shadows into the sort of demons that she'd long thought hidden away.
Sitting in a cloud of steam and lavender bubbles, regret and sorrow eat her alive.
The weather in Manhattan turns bitter overnight, frost blanketing the ground with the assurance that winter is but a few weeks away. Soon, the lingering fall colors will wither and the trees will stand naked, skeleton arms pointed towards a sky that will spend the next few months reflecting various shades of gray.
She dresses for both the cold and her mood; stark black sweater, dark grey wide leg trousers, hair up and away from her face. She doesn't linger with her morning coffee and the newspaper, no desire to read of the death of Richard Castle whether it be front page news or some footnote buried with the 'Weird News' and Letters to the Editor.
Either way, it's going to hurt and Kate can already feel the scars of yet another loss. It's etched onto her skin like a tattoo, up there with her mother and Royce. In some way she even holds herself responsible for Montgomery, though a car accident could hardly be deemed her fault.
It's just the pain of it. That's what she can never let go, why she pushes her detectives so hard. Everyone deserves justice and peace, families and victims alike.
The white lilies she purchases from the florist on her block cost double due to being out of season and prove cumbersome to safely store in her passenger's seat for the commute some eighteen blocks south. Part of her even rebels at the idea of intruding on family grief, yet another familiar feeling in a bevy of emotional horrors.
She could have had them delivered, sent a thoughtful card to express her condolences. She could so easily play the coward, ashamed to confront the family Richard Castle has left behind with his death.
She doesn't want to be a coward, no longer finds herself contented with compromise and ambivalence. If anything, his belief in her, that steadfast confidence and encouragement he offered without asking for any in return, has sparked something inside Kate that she thought long since gone.
Comfort is a fleeting idea, one that she's smart enough not to bother with. No one can comfort you, especially a stranger, when you lose a loved one. It's just a hole that gaps and hurts until, one day, you learn to function around the wound. Life keeps on going, people keep on living, and by virtue of being able to breathe, you are required and expected to do the same.
Kate is only kept waiting for a moment after she's badged herself past the doorman and located the apartment where Richard Castle once lived with his mother, Martha. And she steels herself for this mother and her mourning, terrified of how this eccentric woman will react to her being on her doorstep.
Her son died saving Kate's life and all she can offer her is an apology and a bouquet of flowers. It's woefully inadequate.
"Ms. Rodgers, I don't know if you'll remember me at all, I'm Kate Beckett…." she begins her speech as soon as the door has swung open, shyness and a little bit of shame demanding that Kate begin with her eyes on the floor. It's the tennis shoes that first make her stutter, the dark washed jeans that lie over them not matching any sort of outfit she could imagine the doyenne wearing.
Her senses snap to attention in an instant, eyes darting up to take in the red and black plaid shirt that is unbuttoned, the dark grey t-shirt that lies underneath. There's a lopsided smile, bright blue eyes that are twinkling at her with undisguised curiosity and interest.
There's no familiarity. He doesn't know her, she can feel it in her bones in an exact reversal of two days before when those eyes looked at her like she was his entire life. It's a surprise to discover that she misses it, that walled off portion of herself wilting just a bit with the realization and, a moment later, a slow burn into anger because this man cannot be here. He was shot, he died in front of her. She remembers every second of it, from the thump of his body to the ground, the metallic stench of blood, the whisper of a final breath.
Emotional whiplash tumbles over her, leaving Kate gaping at the writer for a full minute after he asks if she's lost or needs help. In that silence her mind spins in twenty different directions, crafting various scenarios based very little on evidence and instead on emotion and adrenaline.
"Yes," she growls, thrusting the flowers into his chest with enough force that Castle lets out a grunt of surprise, "You can tell me what the hell is going on."