KT: come on, this is Ellie and I. What are the chances of this ending happily in any way, shape or form? None. There are no chances (which serves as your warning, people die). Working title for this was 'im calling this pasta because its happy like pasta. Why? Because there were so many comfort post-eps so we're ruining your happiness. Soz.

When his wife was at his side, she was also in front of him, marking out the horizon of his life. Now the horizon is empty: the view has changed."
― Milan Kundera, Encounter

It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish

He remembers her eyes. When he lies awake at night he remembers them. When he closes his own they're the only thing he can see. It used to be Tyson, and the only way he can scrub the image of him on that bridge, gun pressed to Kate's rib cage, was to open his eyes and look at her. Revel in her. The fall of her hair over her shoulders. The way her face would scrunch up when he kissed her nose. The 'I'm going to pretend I hate it but I not so secretly love it' look she gives him at least ten times a day. When she was half asleep, her hands fumbling in the dim light of dawn to pull herself closer just for those last few sacred hours of sleep. The way she would come part above him, under him, and around him. He can't see that any more. There's nothing except that room and those gunshots and the unnatural spasms of her body.

There was the way that when he had dropped to his knees in front of her, cradled her head in his hands, her eyes hadn't moved. They were stagnant, just staring. Staring at him, and through him, and he can see how scared she was. Had been. And he can't forget that. How eerily similar it was to three and a half years ago, to that same panicked look that kept him locked on her, that made him whisper words of encouragement, stay with me, Kate. Except then she was still alive. Then her eyes could move, tracing his face, the movement of his lips as he uttered words of love. This time though, there's no hope of saving her. There's no hope in the world any more, not now the light has left, not now the luminescent beacon of hope that made everything about his life brighter sits dead and heavy bound to a chair.

"Kate…" he whispers, lifting her head so he can find her eyes, but they're gone. He can't get them back. He can't get her back. Not this time. "Kate, please."

He can give her an endless number of apologies. Sorry for not getting here sooner. Sorry for not putting a bullet in Tyson's head when he had the chance. Sorry for disappearing for two months. Sorry for making her doubt him, to doubt their relationship, their future. None of them are good enough. But he'll keep muttering them regardless. Even as he pulls at the rope that bounds her arms, her legs, he whispers them to her. As he moves her out of the line of fire, he doesn't have to, the gun has been rendered useless, he murmurs all of his regrets even though they fall on deaf ears.

He shouldn't be doing this. He shouldn't because there's evidence and it's a crime scene and he shouldn't be touching anything, but he can't not touch her, can't help but pull her body from the chair and into his lap. His clothes are bloody in seconds. Her head falls against his chest in a move similar to those nights when she sleeps curled up against him, cold toes pressed against his calf. He's always making jokes about how she only married him because he's a constant hot water bottle. Now no amount of his body heat would ever suffice in keeping her warm at night. Nothing will.

The sound of plaster smashing makes his head jerk up, but it's just Espo and his fist making five, six, seven connections with a wall, his hand coming away scraped raw. Ryan just stands there. Shaking. He can barely keep a hold of his gun and has to jam it hurriedly into its holster before turning away, face pale. This is going to ruin them.

The unfortunate job falls to Perlmutter. Lanie can barely talk for her tears for close to an hour when she learns, can't stop her hands from trembling, and won't step in to the morgue whilst she's lying on that cold, metal slab. But Perlmutter, stoic, sarcastic, dependable Sidney Perlmutter, bites the bullet, and with an admittedly shaky demeanour steps in to the autopsy room. Castle didn't want to leave her. Couldn't face the idea of leaving her there covered in nothing but a blanket with nobody except the other dead for company. And he'd stayed there. Holding her hand. Cold, pale skin that no longer reacts to his own. Now clean. Too clean. Scrubbed clean with all sorts of harsh chemicals. And he'd stayed there in silence, with his dead wife, with three gunshots to her head, until Perlmutter had guided him out, for the first time, without with a sarcastic remark.

He'd paced for ten minutes. He doesn't know what he's waiting for because all he's going to find is gunshots. He sits in silence with Lanie for another thirty. He hasn't talked to anyone since they bought her back here. He should phone his mother, he should phone Jim. No, he needs to tell Jim in person. And he should make sure that Jim is okay. That he'll survive where Kate did not. He needs someone to survive this because he doesn't think he will.

Half an hour after that the M.E. is back. He doesn't look at Castle. But he does cross over to Lanie, and mumbles something that Castle can't hear. Lanie looks at him then. And she looks like she's going to cry again.

"What?" he croaks, his voice raw. "What is it?"

They both look like they would prefer to hold whatever this is back. That whatever this new information is, it's only going to make things worse. He can't think of how this can get any worse. How can it be worse when his wife is dead? Lanie pulls her chair over to him, holds both of his hands in hers. "Rick… Perlmutter… he's not going to do a full autopsy. We know… we know what the cause of… death was, and Kate, she doesn't deserve to be cut open and examined. Not like that. But he took blood, he wanted to test it for what they sedated her with."

"What did you find?" he asks looking up at the other M.E., but Perlmutter refuses to answer, won't even look him in the eyes.

"There were elevated levels of oestrogen, progesterone, oxytocin, and prolactin. They're all hormones, and with those four, at that level… Castle, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, but Kate, she was…"

"Lanie, please."

She squeezes his hands tighter. Looks him right in the eyes, and somehow, with a steady voice, she utters three words he never thought he'd never want to hear. "She was pregnant."

He didn't think there was anything left in his stomach. Not after he lost its contents moments after Ryan had finally persuaded him to let go of her body and he'd stumbled away into the corner and retched until he thought he was empty, but he barely reaches the trash can in time. He didn't think it could hurt any more. He didn't think that the knife that's been twisting and twisting in his heart for the past two hours could get any heavier, or any sharper, but now it feels like there's two. One for his wife, and another for the child he's never going to meet.

There were supposed to be three. A boy, the eldest, full of adventure, and then twins. A boy and a girl because then everything is even. They were supposed to make a family. A future. Together. Now he's not altogether sure he has one.

Words don't come easily to him, after. The loft is too big and empty and quiet and sometimes he still hears her bright, unashamed laughter curling around the doorways. The space she's left behind is vast, suffocating.

His mother and daughter eventually arrive home. He's stupid – he should've called them. But ever since those words – about Kate – about the – the –

He still can't process it. Moves into the front room when he hears his now smaller family arrive back from Europe. Esposito, or Ryan, or maybe even Gates, must have told them to come back. It's still not safe – Tyson's still out there, somewhere. Nieman too. But maybe he could use the company.

"Richard, thank God you're alright," his mother says, gripping him in a hug that he's too weak to respond to. He spots his daughter frowning, eyes scanning the apartment. His mother pulls away slightly to look up at him when he says nothing. "Darling?"

His daughter moves forwards, stops beside her grandmother.

"Dad," she says quietly. "Where's Kate?"

The tears spring to his eyes then. Don't escape, but he barely holds them at bay. He raises a hand, strokes his thumb across his daughter's smooth cheek; Kate will never know this feeling – the soft skin of a new born, of your child, the way they flesh out and mould into their own person and you're given the miracle of witnessing it happen. She'll never know that lightning strike love that hits every time you look at your child.

Had she known? Before – had she known she was carrying their child? Is that why she'd mentioned it, broached the subject; had she known?

Some part of him hopes she did. As agonising as the thought is, he hopes she knew. That she had plans for them – for their future, before Tyson had cruelly ripped that future away from them.

"Daddy?"

Alexis's eyes are wide, blue. Scared.

"Dead," he rasps, and immediately Alexis falls into him, wrapping her arms tight around him while a sob chokes his mother's throat. "She's dead."

He knows he should be looking for Tyson. But everything feels empty.

Nurses and doctors crowd around him until he finds the hallway that's blissfully peaceful. He pauses in front of the window to the room, presses his hands against the glass, bones aching and trembling.

Rows and rows of new born babies are there before him, tucked away in this small wing of the hospital. Mazes of pink and blue and cream. Little limbs squirming and eyes wrinkly and feet small and hands even smaller – he thinks their child would've been born big; they're both tall, limbs long. She probably would've been ready to kill him during labour, until the baby had been born and the peace had set in.

One of the nurses enters the room, scoops up a little cream bundle of blankets. He stares at the baby, the dark hue of its skin, the hands that curl into tiny fists, its puckered little mouth.

"Rick."

He tears his eyes away to the man who stands beside him, hands in his pockets. Jim Beckett looks ten years older than he did so little time ago, the grief of losing both his wife and his daughter tattooed into the lines of his face, curling around the downturned edges of his lips.

"Jim."

The nurse exits the room and moves past them, cooing to the baby when it lets out a small cry. Everything in him feels wrong. He wants to pull everything out, his organs, his muscles, every last piece of him and rearrange them in the form of her. He would give anything for her to be alive – to switch places with her. He doesn't know how to do this on his own. How to live knowing that Kate and their child have been killed all because he'd been too slow to figure out who the real triple killer was all those years ago.

"How did you do it?" He grits out. "When your wife was killed – how did you find the strength to go one?"

Jim's eyes are hollow. "Katie. She – she pulled me through everything."

Castle's eyes slam closed, the cool glass against the pad of his fingers his only source of relief.

"You have Alexis, Rick," Jim says, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You still have your daughter. Don't throw your life away."

The tears are hot and instant and shameful. His cheeks burn when he turns to Jim, curling his hands into fists.

"She was pregnant," he tells his father-in-law, watching the way the man's face drains of colour. "Kate – she was pregnant."

Jim's jaw goes slack. "How – How long?"

"I don't know. I don't even know if she knew," he rasps, and it's too much, standing here with his dead wife's father talking about his unborn child, it's too much and he needs her; needs the brightness of her smile and the melody of her laughter and the reassurance of her touch. He just – he just needs her.

"I'm sorry, son," Jim says, turning towards the window again. His eyes are mute. "She would've been a great mom."

The words strangle him. Too many visions of Kate with a baby, cooing and rocking and just smiling –

"Yeah," he croaks. "Yeah, she would've."

There's silence then, and the rows of babies before him blur into shapeless objects.

Perlmutter doesn't move when he walks into the morgue. He simply follows Castle's request with a sigh, pulling Kate from the cold, cold place they lock the bodies and revealing her to him for the fourth time since it happened. Last time he'd asked, Lanie had intervened, had said it won't make things any better. His growl of I can't even bury her and bring her peace because she's evidence, had stopped her argument soon enough.

How is he supposed to do this? How is he supposed to leave her on her own?

The M.E. walks away, allows him time. Her skin is pale and cold against his fingers as he drifts them along her collarbones. She's all cleaned up, the fresh bullet holes the only painful reminder of what really happened here (but he still feels it – the stickiness of her blood on his hands, it burns and itches and keeps him awake at night).

He reaches under the sheet, cradles her hand and lifts it to his lips. He doesn't know how to let her go.

"I'm sorry," he whispers into her skin again. "I'm sorry, Kate. I'm so sorry. I'm so – "

His throat closes then, tears blurring his vision. She's dead. She doesn't know he's here, doesn't know what he's doing, won't ever respond. He'll never see her smile or hear her laugh or feel the warmth of her touch again.

Slowly, he lets her go, tucking her hand back beneath the sheets delicately. She's dead.

His hand cups her cheek, thumb stroking beneath her eye. He'd do anything for them to open again.

"I love you," he finally says. "I miss you so much, Kate. Already. I miss you all the time."

And of course, there's nothing but the sound of his hitched breath and leaking tears to fill the space between them.

Gates comes to him when they catch him. Some part of him knows he should hate himself, that he accepted defeat too quickly, crawled into the rabbit hole of grief and laid there waiting for Tyson to get him too so that this whole nightmare would be over. But Esposito and Ryan track him down, find Nieman already dead at his hands, and Esposito doesn't hesitate to put a bullet through that son of a bitch's heart.

It should make him feel something.

It doesn't.

"Mr Castle," Gates says quietly, sat beside him on his couch, where just days ago Kate used to sit or lay with him, laughing and talking about inane things. "It's over."

"He's really dead," he echoes.

Gates nods once, long and slow.

"You and your family will be safe from now on," she says softly, and it burns, burns brighter than the scotch he'd drunk just ten minutes before. "Tyson and Nieman aren't coming back."

"Can I have her?" He blurts out. "Kate – now that he's – and she's not – evidence – Can I have her back? Can I bury her?"

It might be the drink making his vision blurry, but he thinks he spies tears in her eyes.

"Yes. Yes, of course you can."

Relief settles on his shoulders, yet it still weighs him down. He runs his hand across his face, feels the stubble catching on his palm. It's over. It's over, and she's gone, and he couldn't save her, and he's alone, and there is no future for them, and there never will be.

"Your wife was one hell of a detective, Mr Castle. An even greater woman. It was a privilege to have known her," Gates says, and he feels a weight on his free hand, looks down and sees Gates's hand covering his. Beneath her skin he can still make out his wedding ring sitting on his finger. Idly, he wonders where Kate's is, if it's in evidence, bagged away, just some part of an equation.

"Yes," he rasps. "It was."