This is my first fanfiction, so please be kind :). Set after 6x13. I know this first bit is short, but the next chapter will be longer!
She gasps. Jerks awake amid the leftover flashes of her dreams.
Memories.
Nightmares.
She tries to roll over, to get out of the panic induced sweat covered sheets which are tangled around her legs. She tries again to sit up, like she would've been able to before. But she doesn't have the same capabilities she once did. She is not the same person she was. The same badass detective.
Detective Kate Beckett.
Now, she is simply Kate Beckett.
She groans.
Using her hands she lifts and shifts her right leg over to the edge of the bed and out of the twisted sheets and comforter, after she slowly moves into a sitting position. Her left leg slowly follows her right and she reaches for her crutches leaning on her nightstand.
This is her new normal.
No longer can she roll out of bed after receiving a call about a dropped body in the wee hours of the morning. She has to slowly and carefully ease her weight onto her left leg and lean heavily on her forearm crutches (she had quickly realized the under the arm style were not going to work after she lost her grip on the handles and sprawled on the floor).
Three months in a hospital bed with the best doctors, nurses and physical therapists her fiancé could buy to help her had gotten her back the ability to walk, more like shuffle she thinks, with the use of crutches or another person holding onto her. She had been home for two months, had been fully living in the loft for two whole months.
This wasn't at all how she imagined moving in and living with Richard Castle. The love of her life. Their wedding had been postponed, but their relationship had actually strengthened. So much had changed, but she loved him even more after how he had been there for her.
But, after Black Pawn had threatened to take back the recent advance Castle had received if he didn't do the week long book tour, Kate was alone. Not actually alone of course, as Martha and Alexis both lived in the loft with them, the latter having moved back in after ending things with Pi. Lanie had also made a point to stop by in the two days Castle had been gone and check up on her, but with Rick gone she felt alone.
Neither of them had wanted him to leave, but Kate had ultimately made him go. Castle didn't care about the money, and neither had wanted the other out of their sight, but Castle needed to do his work, and it had killed Kate to tell him that. They had, all too recently been reminded how easy it was to lose the other.
Needless to say, the past five months had shaken them all.