How can someone who wants to be loved, hate it when they're loved at all?

-Sarah Jaffe, Better Than Nothing

She watches him leave. She always watches him leave. It's always her that causes him to leave. And just as she wants to get in the last word, hurt his feelings - or profusely apologize - she looses the courage and instead . . . watches him walk away.

The door slams behind her and although she was expecting it, it startles her body into a slight jolt. Numb and somehow feeling everything all too strongly, Kate turns around and walks into her room. She walks at a slow pace, and even so, manages to bump into a few things along the way, her mind completely frazzled and empty, yet zapping with thoughts that she can't manage to slow down. Once she reaches her room, she sits on the edge of her bed, pulls her legs up and rests her head on her knees. She wants to cry and be angry, but at the same time she knows it's not his fault. He's the one who sticks around through thick and thin, who's always the one to hold her up when she's falling down. She's never asked him too, he just does it. He's relentless when it comes to her. And even though she knows how intense his feelings are for her, she still pushes him away. After everything they've been through, after everything he's said -

"I love you, Kate. I love you."

- he still stick around. He's still by her side. She tries to make him go away, to shield her heart from the inevitable, but he's like a puppy; forgets about the lashings and still followers her around like she's the only person on earth. It's inevitable, right? Given her track record with men, and him with wives, well, they don't seem like perfect candidates for one another. She throws herself into meaningless, loveless relationships, looking for something - anything - to feel that lonely void, and he's so quick to please that he'll put a ring on anything that stops him from being just as lonely.

Despite what she feels for him deep down, she know's that nothing good would come from being in a relationship with Richard Castle. He's settled down his play boy ways, but Kate's insistent that people never change. He's just trying to win her over, only to break her heart.

It's inevitable.

She wants to give in sometimes. Like now. When they fight over something so small, and he comes back with a bouquet of flowers and a cheesy joke. He's only just left, but she knows within the next day or so, he'll be back knocking on her door with an apology and a sad smile. And it's then that she wants to shove that guard around her heart down, grab him by the shirt and kiss him. Or take him to bed and let him get her out of his system so that she can go on living her life.

She drops her legs, lets them dangle over the edge of her bed, and she lays back. It's nearly dark out, so the small rays of the upcoming moon cast shadows over her ceiling and walls.

She wishes she could pick up the phone and call her mom. Ask her what she should do. Get the advice she so desperately needs, the advice only a mother could give. And then it clicks. She knows she has feelings for him, and that he's in love with her. But she pushes him away anyway. Because even if he doesn't break her heart, death will.

It took her mother away from her, and it was so close to stealing her father away as well. It's taken so many of her friends...

This wall that she's built around her heart isn't to keep love out - it's to keep death away. Because everything you love dies. Kate knows that first hand.

It's silly, she thinks. Of course death touches everything. That's inevitable.

I found this while cleaning out my fic folder. I don't remember when or why I wrote it...

Twitter: kateofthecastle