She is a mess of unruly brown curls and brightly inquisitive hazel eyes. Her alabaster face is adorned with delicate salmon pink lips that curve into a multitude of different expressions, favoring ones of thinly veiled amusement or frustration more often than not. She was willowy and tall, her dancer's legs stretching out towards the ground from the short torso whence they came.
But those eyes would never be bright again, never catch the light again. Her alabaster skin turned a sickly morbid paper white, pallid and almost luminous. Her lips, never to move again, nor twitch in annoyance, nor gently curve into a crooked smile. Those legs would never dance again, never be overcome with the music again. They would never even walk again.
You killed my daughter rang out in the woman's head from her place beside the cold girl.
You killed my daughter, relentless, unforgiving, determined to drive her out of her mind.
You killed my daughter!
Why couldn't you have killed me as well?
She fell on her knees begging, pleading for there to be even one more shallow breath left in her to make that slender sternum rise and fall one last time.
The hazel eyes on that woman's face, one and the same as those so recently extinguished, they shone with tears she would not allow herself to shed. One of her scarred, calloused hands still clung to the milk-white hand that rested, limply, on the sheets that darkened in comparison to the girl's complexion.
That hand was unmarked, unmarred, save for the small callouses one her fingers left by her years of playing steel guitar and the instinctive, almost claw-like curvature of her hands that was proof of the time she had devoted to saxophone.
It was unmarred, untainted. She did not have the scarlet stains on her hands, stained so very, very deep that years of desperate, fervent scrubbing could not get them out. Those scarlet stains only tainted the hands of her mother.
So why was she the one to go instead of the woman herself? Why would this world take everyone from her but not save her by killing her as well?
Her mother, in the alley, when she was nineteen.
Captain Montgomery, that night in the hangar, when they had finally made their stand against Hal Lockwood.
Then her father, in his home, the night before her wedding day.
Martha, at the junction of 47th and Lex, just as she was coming to the loft on their second wedding anniversary.
Esposito, in a bomb scare turned all too real, two days before the girl's fifth birthday.
Jenny Ryan, going the way so many women had gone before, leaving Ryan behind with their firstborn son, ten year old Devon, and their newborn daughter, Jennifer.
One by one, her family died out, leaving them rickety and damn near broken. All that was left was the shattered remains of what used to be NYPD's best team and their solid family.
Now, they had a hardened Gates, heartbroken Lanie, overwhelmed Ryan, and the Castles — Rick, Kate, Alexis, Judith, Laura and Edgar.
But then they had to take away both Rick and Judy in one fell swoop.
A shooting at the girl's elementary school had murdered three: Castle, Judy and one other parent among all those who had been there for career day. Kate had been three feet from the entrance of Marlowe Prep's elementary section when she heard the all too familiar pop of bullets being fired in the school and took off running into the building while calling dispatch.
But she had done her job, she had gotten people out, focusing on calming down the shooter once most of the building was clear. She was numb for a moment, only caring that she had to make sure that the majority of the people were safe. It was her, once again, retreating into her cop instincts.
The shooter had been a disgruntled high school student who had been expelled from Marlowe Prep. He wanted his revenge and his two cents worth heard. Instead, he got two, now three, counts of first degree murder over his head.
Judith Johanna Castle had been nine. Nine. There was so much left in life she hadn't even heard about, let alone done.
She would never celebrate a double digit birthday, never grow up to go to middle school, high school or college. Never win the awards she could have won. Never get her first job and be so excited over getting her first paycheck that she would call her parents to gush about it, as Alexis had done. Never discovered what her life's passion was. Never grow up to find the Castle to her Beckett, or the Beckett to her Castle. Never have a family like her parents had.
Never, because of the one bullet that had ripped right through her temple.
And because Castle was gone as well, Kate was left to raise five year old Laura and three year old Edgar alone. Alexis was twenty eight. She had her own life. She could not be expected to be a crutch for Kate. And their team was so very broken now, how were they going to survive?
Javi's death had hit them like a boulder had been dropped on them. No matter what, Castle and Beckett had truly become mom and dad to them, somehow. They had lost a son and saw another lose his wife.
Now Beckett had to make sure Ryan kept it together while trying to keep it together herself. Lanie would help, so would Gates, but their family was broken beyond repair.
It was no longer the ripped tapestry that could be sewn back together. It was tattered now, shreds remaining and huge pieces gone forever.
She hurriedly clawed the tears that threatened to fall from her eyes. Her throat was raw from the anguished, inhuman sound she had let out when the bodies had been wheeled past her.
What was left of them somberly stepped into the room, Gates with Edgar in her arms and Laura at Lanie's side, while Ryan carried Jen and let Devon hide behind him.
Oh, Devon.
Relatively close in age, and so, close as friends, Devon was probably lost. Devon had loved Judith. There had been a half-joking bet put on whether he would finally as her out when they were older. He had experienced death once before, but that was easier to explain away. He loved Jen more for that.
But this? When Devon and Ryan had been in the exact same building, one door away? How could she explain that out of all the people in the room, it had been Castle and Judy?
"I'm so glad you're okay, Dev." She quietly whispered to the boy.
She looked at Ryan, and as he returned the same mournful gaze she had seen back when Jenny had just passed, he passed his daughter to Lanie before opening his arms and enveloping the slim woman with them.
"You were right, Kevin," her voice hoarsely ground out, "I never did understand back then, but I sure as hell do now."
"Mama, shto happened to Judy and Daddy?" Laura gazed at her and asked in a near silent voice.
"Don't mix your languages, Laura Elaine. I'll explain what happened when you get older, all you need to know now is that there are bad people in this world, and sometimes the good people get hurt trying to stop them, and then they can be hurt so bad that they die. Your daddy died a hero, and your sister died a brave little girl."
Those eyes, the very eyes that stared at her from Laura's face, they were Castle's. no doubt about it. It may have been that Laura looked far more like Kate than she did Rick, but those eyes were all his.
Edgar squirmed in Gates' arms clamoring for his mother. She silently thanked Gates, who nodded on acknowledgement as she gently handed Edgar over. The boy buried his face in her neck and wrapped his arms securely around her neck. He was scared.
And rightly so. They all were.