Beneath the Sword
Disclaimer: I still don't own it, and I am back to being a poor student with bills, so I'm even less worth suing.
AN: This is a wildly different take on what would be 8x08 I guess. It was begun over the summer as a "What if" separation concept. Now very AU.
She looks fragile and pale and just...battered. The image is burned into his mind, swirling with his conflicted emotions. But, she's alive. Alive, but still unconscious. The doctors have said she'll be all right. He's shell shocked by most of what the doctors have said today, but the thing that overrides all of it is that Kate will be all right. His wife will recover.
Castle is so grateful for that, he aches with it. Keeps repeating the words to her, over and over, quiet and a little broken. She's okay. They're okay. He loves her and everything is going to be okay. He has the irrational hope that if he keeps repeating the words to her now, she might even believe them when she wakes up.
The only thing that he knows for sure is that he has finally convinced himself. That fact is ironic, because it has been his wish to avoid this very moment that has fed his anger and hurt over the past few weeks. But the sight of her like this has both broken and repaired something inside of him. Screw the whole damn mess. It's suddenly simple. He just wants Kate.
He can't stop touching her. That presents a set of challenges all on its own. He has to be careful, finding a way to hold her hand that won't cause pain to pulled ligaments and a hairline fracture. To stroke her hair without agitating bruised skin beneath. But he does it. Because when Kate Beckett wakes up, he needs her to know that he loves her.
"Everything is going to be all right, Kate. I promise. But I need you to wake up now. Please. I miss you."
He means every word of it. But he is still surprised when her eyelids flutter and he's suddenly staring into her clouded but beautiful hazel eyes.
The first thing she is aware of is a voice. Soft but constant, rising and falling with a one sided dialogue she can't quite decipher. Not the words, at least. Just a soft, warm cadence that she knows instinctively is Castle's.
Then she is aware of pain. She hurts. It isn't like the shooting, not centralized and overwhelming. It's more a generalized ache, a fog of pain. She has a fleeting thought of hanging off the side of a building, bruised from a lost hand to hand fight. For a moment, she wonders if she fell.
But memories quickly fall in place after that one. Three years since then. Three years with Castle since the night that she had been pulled from that roof and gone to him with a broken apology that had felt terrifyingly inadequate. And yet, as her eyes find his in the too bright room of the hospital for the first time, she feels like she is reliving that moment all over again.
"I'm sorry. Sorry, Castle. I -"
Her voice barely functions, and for moment she isn't sure he hears her. Her lips may be moving uselessly, voiceless. She tries to make the meaning clear in her eyes, just in case.
But when his blue eyes - she loves his eyes, she loves him - he's shaking his head and leaning in close.
"Shh...no. It's all right. Everything's all right, Kate," he says, his voice clearing.
Her throat is dry, burning. Her voice cracking. "Sorry, so -"
"Hey, no. Please don't cry. Kate, sweetheart you're going to make it worse." His fingers move gently, careful and tender as he tries to swipe at her tears. It makes the emotion swell, adds to her tears. She's been doing that a lot lately. Making it worse.
She sucks in a breath, realizes belatedly that Castle is still talking. That same constant, soft murmur she had woken to several moments before.
"I love you, Kate. I love you."
For the second time in her life, she thinks that those seven words might just save her. Might just save them.