Twice in a Lifetime:
Prologue: In an Instant
Disclaimer: Castle does not belong to me.
Author's Note: This is only my 2nd fanfic ever. Please review! Constructive critiscim is welcomed! The idea and some of the beginning events of this story comes from the old television show Twice in a Lifetime. Enjoy!
It's utterly amazing and completely terrifying how much your life can change in an instant. Kate Beckett learned this truth at nineteen when in an
instant she went from a college co-ed without a care in the world , to a broken young woman with a burning need for justice and a hole in her heart she
knew would never heal.
Over time, on the job, Kate learned to be prepared for anything. The adrenaline kept her on edge and kept her sane. If you were ready for anything
then nothing would catch you off guard and sucker punch you. At least, that's what she thought; until Captain Montgomery sprung an exuberant writer
on her and in an instant her whole life tilted on its axis once again. Although lately she'd been wondering if Castle really had turned her life upside down,
or if he had simply made the world right side up again. It took almost three years for Kate to notice that Castle had forced her back into the land of the
living. It had been so long since anything had made any sense to her but whenever Castle was around he had a singular way of making her forget, for at
least a moment, that she was damaged. He kept her on her toes, but he also kept her grounded, refusing to let her slip back into the darkness that had
consumed her after her mother's death. No matter what he was always right there, standing beside her, helping her to stand tall.
Which is why it must be poetic justice that it was Castle who tackled her to the ground, yanking solid ground out from under her feet and crushing
her under his weight. The heat from the bullet seared through Kate's chest, stealing the breath from her lungs as her mind sluggishly tried to catch up
with the fact that two seconds ago she had been giving the final eulogy for her beloved Captain and now she was dying in the bright sunlight, while
Castle held her tight…begging her to hang on, not to leave him, whispering those three little words that changed everything, or at least would have
changed everything had she not been bleeding out in the grass, incapable of processing the depth of the emotion those words invoked in her soul, and
uncertain if it was the searing pain of a gaping bullet hole in her chest that had her gasping for air or the crippling emotional ache of knowing that she
would never get a chance to say these words to him no matter how much she might want to. The world went dark, just for an instant, and then Castle
was gone and she was in an ambulance surrounded by frantic EMTs and a terrified Lanie, and she tried so hard to keep her eyes open, because if she
was going to die she wanted the last thing she ever saw to be Richard Castle, but she couldn't fight the darkness anymore, and she could barely hear
the frantic beep beep beep of the EKG and then she couldn't hear anything at all. And the soul of Katherine Beckett left her earthly body flat lining in the
back of a New York City Ambulance and in that instant she was gone.