The sun made the water shimmer as Kate gazed at Ian playing on the sand with his children. Silent tears slid down her face hidden behind her sunglasses. Ian reminded her of Rick. Ian had the blue eyes and floppy hair of his father, but he was taller and not as muscular as Rick. She smiled as she watched him build sandcastles with Abby and Katie. Ian was a wonderful Dad. He had learned from the best of Dad's. He had learned from Rick. Rick… Kate missed him every day. It had been a year since Rick had left this earth. A year. To Kate it felt like a day or an eternity. She still felt the ache in her broken heart. She still felt the warmth of their love in her heart as well. She could close her eyes and feel his kiss, feel his arms around her. She would be in love with him until her final breath.
She had heard all her life about the heart being where love resided in your body. It never made sense until Rick. The first time she met him at a book signing (something he never remembered happening), she had felt the lust any woman would for a tall, ruggedly handsome man. She felt that lust for most of the first year of their partnership. Infrequently she would feel a small spark of warmth in her chest, just where her heart resided. He would bring her coffee or make her laugh. Or he would laugh that laugh that made his eyes crinkle and almost close. Then when she looked at him, she'd feel that spark. The spark changed after she shot Dick Coonan to save Rick's life. While she was showering away Coonan's blood, she was devastated by the thought of how close she came to losing Rick—her partner, her friend, her ? She had slid down the shower wall and sobbed at the possibility. When Rick arrived later with food, that little spark had become a warm glow around her heart. She still hadn't understood what it meant, but over the next two years the glow became a familiar presence in her chest. A presence whenever she looked at him. The lust was still there, but that glow was overpowering. She was in love.
They had had decades together, and the glow never left. She'd walk into the kitchen to see him stirring a sauce, and the glow would flare. He would wrap her in his strong arms enveloping her in his muscled frame, and her heart would catch fire. She'd listen to him reading a story to one of their children, and the flame would become an inferno. The lust was always there, always a lava pool in her loins. Lust doesn't keep a marriage together, only love can. The stoked flames in her heart, and in his, never went out.
When Rick had ceased breathing, she felt her heart break. The pain in her chest was oppressive. There were still moments when she felt she couldn't breathe from the weight of it. She was blessed to have her children and her grandchildren to give her a reason to breathe. At night, in their empty bed, the loss of her husband was agony. She kept his ashes in their bedroom. The kids didn't know she had the bag of ashes wrapped in one of his t-shirts. The kids didn't know that when the pain was unbearable, she would take the t-shirt wrapped ashes out of the stone box and sleep with him wrapped in her arms. She was like a child with a teddy bear. Her therapist said it was okay, that she wasn't crazy. If it gave her comfort, then she should do it. Being at their Hamptons home left her without that comfort. Her granddaughter, Abby, seemed to sense how sad Gram was. She brought her little 5 year old self into Kate's room and slept with her Gram. Abby said the house was sad without Poppa. They all missed Rick.
Abby ran up the beach to Kate, interrupting Kate's reverie. She climbed into Kate's lap, laid her head on Kate's shoulder and beamed up at her Gram. Kate hugged the little girl and inhaled the mixture of salt and sunscreen on her granddaughter's skin. One day Kate would be ashes in that stone box, ashes mixed with Rick's. She would be with her love for always, just like it should be. For now, she would be Gram or Mom. For now she would grieve with her heart broken and wait for her always to arrive.
A/N: I'll get back to Almost Morning in the Hamptons when life settles some more. Most of what I'm writing these days is too personal to become Castle fan fiction. This little drabble grabbed me and wouldn't let go.