The children ran to the table, laughing, their parents chasing after. Beckett lifted their little girl into the air. The two boys sat at their seats. They were talking animatedly... Castle looked at his wife, his children. He smiled.
Beckett grinned at something their eldest said, she looked to her husband. His smile made her heart flutter, that genuine love shining through. She reached out her hand to him.
He grasped her smaller hand in his own. They smiled fondly at each other, appreciating this small moment of happiness soaked in afternoon sunlight and children's laughter.
After everything they'd been through, they were happy and they were together.
Always.
Alexis jerked awake. Her heart pounded in her chest, her breaths were coming in short gasps. She looked wildly at her immediate surroundings. The sheets were tangled around her body, damp from the cold sweat she woke up in. The room was dark, the dull light of a streetlamp barely discernible behind the curtains.
She tried straightening out her sheets, measuring out her breaths, as she tried to remember what she was dreaming.
Dad. Kate. Late afternoon lunch in the kitchen. Children. Happy.
Suddenly there seemed to be no oxygen reaching her lungs as she gasped anew, choking on this void within her.
Dad and Kate with three laughing children.
Alexis remembers. That day, that terrible day seven years ago.
Walking into the apartment, calling out to her father about whatever stressful thing happened earlier, a small annoyance she could no longer recall. Panicking at the sight of a man, a stranger, slumped against the wall in the kitchen... Inching closer to the corpse... Calling for her father, calling for Kate... Stepping closer... And then seeing them.
Blood soaking the right side of her father's shirt, pooling darkly beneath him. The dull brown of dried blood covering Kate's abdomen stood out against her white shirt, the excess congealing in a small puddle next to her.
They were perpendicular to each other, their heads brushing against each other. They were holding hands.
Together. Always.
Alexis gasps in a shuddering breath, her lungs aching. Hot tears are burning rivers down her clammy cheeks. She remembers. Remembers screaming.
Her daddy was dead and so was his wife.
(She doesn't remember the neighbor coming in to investigate, finding her crouched next to their bodies, still sobbing. She doesn't remember Martha holding her close at the morgue. Doesn't remember Ryan and Espo pacing back and forth, not knowing how to react, or Lanie coming in with the autopsy report. All she remembers is the blood. Not the bright red blood of life, but the dirty brown that said there was no hope.)
Her dream mocks her. Happy children that they conceived, that they birthed, that they raised. Happy children laughing as they run through the kitchen their parents laid in, dying. Happy children that never existed.
Alexis cried brokenly, desperately. She turned over, trying to return to that happy place, trying to relive her dream. Trying to bring her daddy back.
Dad and Kate with three laughing children.
Happy. Together. And alive, so alive.
Always.