This is basically what you're getting because I can't make my follower count go up on twitter and I'm sulking about it. (also, p.s. sorry Papa!Beckett, I've made you seem like a bit of a bastard. I know you're not. I love you really).
Disclaimer: can I be part of the Bishop family as well as the Castle family that would be great
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there. I did not die.
Jim Beckett takes it like he should. He lets Richard Castle scream himself hoarse, even when most of the screaming is aimed at him. He lets him because he knows what it feels like. He knows what it's like to lose someone, to suddenly feel like you're missing an arm, or a leg. Maybe even both. Your world is so off kilter, and it doesn't make sense. Nothing makes sense, and the only way it can is to try and block it out. To try and ignore the empty hospital bed and the silent machinery. For Jim, it was constantly trying to find the end of the bottle, sinking into a routine of one drink after another, because as long as he had that drink in his hand he could forget about his wife's death, and he could forget about his only daughters determination to get the people who did it. And now, for Castle, it's screaming. Jim wouldn't change his decision. He wouldn't go back on what he did, even though he knows Castle hates him right now. Hell, even he hates himself. And honestly, he feels okay about it. Yes, he's lost his wife, and now he's lost his daughter, and he's about to lose the man who was more of a son than an in-law, nut he can live with that. It's been twelve years since he last had a drink, twelve years of forcing himself out of that hole. And it's all been worth it, if only it was to see Kate be happy again. And she was. She was so happy. She let go of her mother's death, just as he did, and it was all down to Castle. That an amazing, amazing man who forced himself into her life and stayed there and helped her, even though she didn't want it. Stayed because he saw the potential, saw what she could be without all the grief, pulling and holding her down.
Castle feels numb. He knows it's just a matter of time before his legs give up on him and he ends up in a mess on the floor. And he can't be a sobbing, broken mess on the floor of a hospital because any minute, any minute Kate is going to walk in through that door. Thin, and pale and frail, but she's alive and she's breathing and awake, and this horrible, horrible joke can just be forgotten. Because it has to be a joke. It can't be anything else. Jim Beckett, her own flesh and blood, her father, he's… he'd been away for a morning. A meeting that he'd been putting off for far too long, and Gina had promised that she'd keep it short. Promised that if it got past eleven then he could just walk, stroll or jog out of that room and she wouldn't chastise him. It's half eleven when he'd gotten back to the hospital and he'd gotten himself a coffee, had planned on drinking it in between reading to her. Only when he'd got there, he'd found the room, along with a solemn looking doctor, and a remarkably calm Jim Beckett. Kate's still lying in the bed, lifeless, just as he'd left her last night. Nothing's changed. Except the way that Jim is looking at him. Looking at him like … like… he's…
"Rick." Castle shakes his head furiously, feeling the anger and the confusion build up in his chest. No. No he wouldn't. He wouldn't. Not without talking to him first. He'd never dare. "Rick, I… I signed the papers." The coffee is a puddle on the floor, long forgotten by Castle who just stares at his father-in-law. The man can't be serious. He's having a laugh. "She's gone, Rick. I know you haven't given up on her, and I wish I could see a way out of this, I really wish I could. But the scans, they're coming back empty. She's just a shell. We're keeping her alive, but she's not coming back. You have to accept it."
"No." Castle moves, pushes past the doctor forcefully, standing in front of the machinery as if he has some hope of blocking them from it. "No, she – I know her. I know her and she wouldn't go – she'd put up a fight. Kate wouldn't just leave me. She's my wife, and she –" he sucks in a breath, tries to stop the onslaught of hysteria that's threatening to overwhelm him. "She's in there. I know she's in there, we just need to give her time."
"She's had time. It's been six months. Rick, you need to let her go."
"No."
"Rick, she'd want you to."
"You don't know what she'd want! You don't know!"
"She wouldn't want you to live with false hope. You're spending your life in this hospital room. When was the last time you spent some time with your daughter? With Martha? You are wasting your life away, and if she could Kate would be telling you to move on. Let her go."
He can't talk anymore. He can't. He can only stare dumbly at the man who has just signed Kate's life away. Without discussing it with him. He's just made his mind up and that was that. One scribble of his pen and he's lost his wife, his best-friend and his muse. That was it. Gone. "You can't do this." He bends over the bed, hands gripping the railing until his knuckles blanch. "You can't. Why couldn't you ask me?"
"Because I knew you'd take it like this." Jim replies, far too calmly and it makes Castle want to punch him. "You'd never have made the decision if it was you having to make it."
"It shouldn't have to be a decision!"
"I'm sorry, Rick. I really am. I know how you-"
"Don't tell me you know how I feel!" he shouts. "You don't! You have no idea!"
Jim's eyes narrow, fix on Castle. "My wife died, Castle. Katie's mother died. Do not think that I don't have just a small clue about this."
"You just signed Kate away! How is that the same!?"
Jim takes a deep breath, closes his eyes. "Say your goodbyes, Rick."
Castle doesn't talk at the funeral. He sits on the front row, eyes dull and dreary behind his sunglasses, too hot and uncomfortable in his black suit under the sun. He can't say a single word about Kate without his throat closing up, his mind going back to the way she looked before. The day before. The day before when they'd walked through New York City, hand in hand, letting the snowflakes fall on their faces. He's happy. He's so happy, and Kate's looking up at him from under those long dark eyelashes, her eyes dark in the winter night. She's alive, and warm and next to him and enjoying the fresh January snow, the magic of Christmas still bursting through their skin. And he can't go up there and even try because he's so damn scared of what's going to happen. The last time he was at a funeral it ended with an unanswered I love you and the never fading blood on his hands. And now he's at Kate's funeral and the blood is still on his hands.
Ryan gives a stirring speech, but Castle remains stony faced. Esposito, next to him has his jaw set, tears in his eyes but refusing to fall. Lanie is openly crying, her hand gripping Javi's like a vice. And Ryan, Ryan the glue that holds them all together so effectively is standing up there and talking about his wife, his Kate, who's dead. She's dead. She's gone. He's never going to wake up in the morning with her stretched out across him, eyes slow and so full of love in the morning light. He's never going to have a child with her. Never gets to laugh at how grumpy she gets, or how she'd take every opportunity to jump him. Never gets to sit next to a hospital bed and watch the tiny human wrap their fingers around her thumb. The thought makes him want to run. Makes him want to leave everyone here, frozen in time, forever in their funeral clothes, and just go. Somewhere. Anywhere.
He doesn't notice until he's getting back into the black car that's going to take him back to the loft. Not that he wants to. Anywhere but there, but there's no where else he can go. Everywhere else contains just as many memories, ones that were once happy but now they're just painful reminders of what he had, and now what he's lost. But there's a flash of brown hair – long, sensuous, a waterfall down the back – and he's halfway out of the car before it disappears. Into thin air. Just his imagination. That's all it is.
Every second it takes for the elevator to ascend is horrendous. It's slow and too quick, all at the same time. He wants to be inside and away from the world, and yet he wants to be as far away from this place as he could possibly be.
The key jams and he has to force it harder than necessary. The door swings open onto the dark expanse of his loft, except his kitchen is lit up. His kitchen is full of light, spilling out onto the surfaces, and, more importantly, onto Kate Beckett. Kate Beckett who he just buried.
