Scars
Pairing: Castle / Beckett
Spoilers: Everything up until the current episode. Post-series fic.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything that falls under the trademark Castle. I've merely borrowed the characters for a few minutes and shall return them safely afterwards.
Author's Note: Huge thanks to Debbie. Without her time, patience and major editing skills this story was merely a jumble of words.
Summary: People say that when you sustain a wound, that the mental and physical scars stay with you for the rest of your life.
People say that when you sustain a wound, that the mental and physical scars stay with you for the rest of your life.
The mental scars diminish with time, whether it is through moral support of a personal network of family and friends or of a professional nature, and with each day your outlook becomes brighter and brighter. Well that's what you keep telling yourself anyway, because you think if you do not then you might start backtracking and fall down that rabbit hole all over again.
Even years later, as you trace an outline of where the scars cover your body, they represent a timeline of your life in terms of when things were good and when they were bad. A scar in your chest bone plus those near your ribcage remind you of just how close you came to death the day the bullet hit you. While the scars below your abdomen remind you of the ecstasy you felt when your life finally became complete as a family.
It's these memories that you cherish, regardless of how good and how bad they are. They are what make you who you are today.
He moves his fingers over her scars.
Each touch is always with loving and tender care.
The physical scars, that makes him never forget holding her the day she was shot, saying I love you for the first time and hoping it would not be for the final time. Followed by the relief his body felt when he heard she would be okay and then the frustration when she pulled away from him during her recovery period.
Then there were the mental scars. Those were the scars he could see registered on her face, as much as she tried to hide them, but ones she had to deal with on her own until that moments where her illusive wall finally came crashing down.
He kisses her below her abdomen and those are the scars that lighten his face any time he touches that area. These are the ones that brought them as a couple to a trio. Even though he had experienced fatherhood before with Alexis, the day their son had been born, after being told there were still a chance complications might arise due to her history, was one of his happiest he had ever experienced.
Suddenly all the bad experiences that they had shared together in the past had been wiped away on that day and provided them with this glorious moment that they would cherish forever.
And for that he was grateful, grateful she asked him at the bar that night to come in for questioning about a murder that took place. Grateful that over time their walls had been removed and the scars that they shared, instead of being a burden, had become a part of who they were today.
"Ugh, I really don't want to leave him," whispering to her husband as they look at their adorable son who had managed to doze back to sleep in his crib.
Today another mental scar would be added to her list of scars. It would be the day she returns to work on her own.
"Well they did tell you, you could have taken up my suggestion of not returning to work for another month and I would cover the leave for the force," he reminds her smirking, "but you were the stubborn one who decided before he was born that would not be a good idea. I wonder who was right now?"
She suppresses a laugh and leans into him and lightly presses her lips to his. "Okay I concede, you were right."
"Can I get that in writing? Or at least give me a minute to get my phone so I can record it," which results in his wife swatting his arm playfully.
She looks at their son and shakes her head as she asks herself how she managed to get this far in her life. How the physical and mental scars she had endured, the ones she had carried through her career and her personal life had now led to this beautiful child before them.
It was the image of herself and her husband standing by their son's crib that she would focus on today and any day when her heartstrings were being pulled like there was no tomorrow.
A cry is heard from the other room.
As he walks out of his office, he hears his wife's voice echoing the lounge room "Shhh, you'll be fine sweetie. Mommy will make it better real soon"
"What happened?" looking at his wife holding their son in her arms.
"He fell over and hit his knee on the chair," indicating to the spot which had become a favourite place for their fourteen month old son lately.
"Is he okay?"
"He's got a little cut on his knee, nothing a Band-Aid won't fix."
He takes that as his cue and quickly moves to the bathroom and grabs the first aid kit.
"Alright buddy, how would you like Bob the Builder to make your knee all better?"
Little eyes look up at his father with curiosity, as his crying starts to subside and is replaced by little sniffles instead.
The Bob the Builder Band-Aid is placed over the tiniest cut you'll ever find and then is followed by his father giving him a little kiss on his knee and then his forehead as he takes the child from his wife. "All better."
"Dada."
He gets up and wraps his spare arm around his wife and gives her a soft kiss.
"His first scar", he plainly states.
She nods.
But unlike the ones they had shared in the past, this first milestone that their son had just experienced would be one that he would not even remember, therefore somewhat easing the pain they might have felt at that very moment.
And for them, after all the scars that had been experienced in the past, they were grateful for that.