He has her pulled against his chest tight like he's afraid he'll lose her again if he leaves her alone. She doesn't mind; she welcomes it actually. The need to have him against her proves to her that she's still alive. He'll never have to read the note she wrote him and tucked away with her blood. He'll never have to know what it's like living without her.
For now.
The thought makes her chest ache.
He's already passed out, a soft snore escaping him. But she's wide awake, her adrenaline still too high, her mind still swirling with everything. Vulcan. Bracken. Her mother. She can feel her recent happiness being stripped away as the rabbit hole opens back up again. It's not over. It's never going to be over. Not until one of them is dead. And she's not going to be the one to kill a senator.
Oh but she could. And God, she wants to. There's nothing she wants more than to put a bullet in that bastard's thick skull and end all of this. She just wants it to end. She wants her life back, her life with Castle. She was on the right track, she'd stopped digging, she had left it alone for almost a year now. But he's made it personal again. And she'll be damned if he wins this next election using his dirty drug money. The money her mother died for. The money she almost died for.
How did her mother's case become her case? How did she end up this way, with a bullet wound on her chest because of the same man who had her mother killed? When she started digging, she had no idea what she was getting herself into. She wants to take it back. She wants to reprimand Castle more for digging behind her back that first year instead of welcoming the evidence, the challenge. She needs the invisible target to be removed from her back.
She needs to live.
She can feel a sob forming in the back of her throat, but she closes her eyes and tries to swallow it. She doesn't want to wake Castle up, doesn't want to play a round of "are you okay?" right now. Of course she's not okay. She almost died, again, because of that same stupid case.
Her thoughts drift over the past couple of months, trying to calm herself down, when the flash drive they found at Kelly Neiman's office crosses her mind. She'd forgotten about that. Yet another person who's after her, someone else who wants her dead.
She finds herself wishing that she'd just stuck to the law school thing instead of this. She'd still be in California, probably, without the snow and constant near death experiences. Without Castle.
She closes her eyes again, instantly hating the thought of her life without him in it. He made her whole again after her mother's murder had torn her apart. He made her laugh, and smile, and love. If she had become a lawyer, she never would have met him. Okay well, besides at one of his book signings. But she wouldn't have had him following her around like a puppy until she eventually fell in love with him.
Her partner. His muse.
She feels another sob trying to break free, and this time she can't stop it. She hasn't cried about this yet, hasn't clung to him and bawled like she was so sure she would when she saw him again. If she saw him again. But the sobs never came. She was just numb. Numb from the ice water. Numb from the realization that Bracken was involved.
She hasn't let her tough exterior break yet. But it does. The sobs wrecking through her body, until they jostle Castle awake.
"Hey," he almost yawns, wiping at her tear-stained cheeks. "Hey, you're okay. I'm here."
He thinks she was having a nightmare; that she was actually able to fall asleep.
"It's never going to end," she tells him. "I have to kill him, it's the only way."
The hand draped over her torso laces through her fingers, while the other tangles into her hair.
"You're not Elena. You're not a contract killer, a murderer."
"Aren't I? I've killed before."
"In self defense."
She doesn't respond, just lays and listens to the sound of his breathing in her ear.
"What happened today, Kate?" he asks softly.
"I told you what happened. Vulcan water boarded me."
"And that's it?"
She almost wants to laugh. He makes it sound like the hell she went through was nothing.
"Well he also gave me this lovely cut on my forehead, if that's what you're referring to."
He leans over and places a kiss to the wound, causing her to let out a sigh.
"Hey look, I didn't mean to make out what happened to you to be nothing," Castle starts. "I just want to make sure he didn't do anything else to hurt you."
She turns in his arms, burying herself in him.
"You know everything," she says, softly.
His grip tightens around her, and she squeezes him back, just wanting to get lost in his embrace.
"I don't want to lose you," he says into hair. "Watching you get shot three years ago –"
"Has it really been then long?"
"Just about."
She hums, as one of his hands move to trace her scar.
"I thought I was dead," she confesses, when his hand stills over her heart. "I couldn't breathe anymore and I just…passed out. Next thing I know I'm in a forest in the middle of nowhere with a gun to my head. And all I could think about was that stupid font that we were never going to decide on. Or that dress I was never going to wear or the venue we were never going to pick."
She shakes her head, and his grip on her hair at the back of her skull tightens.
"I've gotten so wrapped up in the wedding planning and actually being happy for once, that I had forgotten that all of this…it's still out there. That people still want me dead. That Bracken has all of the power again. And as much as I want to go back to picking out flower arrangements with you and acting like none of this ever happened, I can't do that."
"What are you saying? You want to postpone the wedding?"
"God no. I want spring. Spring and that stupid font I was trying to persuade you on for the save-the-dates. I'm just saying that I don't know how much longer I can live like this, looking over my shoulder for him. I need to find evidence."
"Where are you going to start?"
"I don't know."
"Kate, I can't just sit back and watch this thing consume you again. You nearly fell off a building last time. I know it's hard for you, but you have to let it go. If you leave him alone, he'll leave you, us, alone."
"So what, I just let him become the next President of the United States?"
"Well, I'm sure as hell not voting for him."
She laughs at that, readjusting her head against his chest.
"Maybe we should tell Gates everything. We've earned her trust now. She could help us," Castle suggests.
"No, I don't want to burden her with this. It's bad enough that you, Ryan, and Esposito are involved."
"What, you think you could do this all by yourself if we weren't? You'd have been dead years ago."
"Thanks for your vote of confidence, babe."
"We're a team, Kate. We'll figure something out together, the four of us. Promise me that you're not going to go off chasing dragons again by yourself."
She looks up at him and cups both sides of his face with her hands. "I wrote you a letter saying goodbye today. Telling you that knowing you was the greatest thing to ever happen to me and that I love you with all of my heart. And I am so glad that you do not have to read that letter. And I hope that you never do."
He bends his head to kiss her and she kisses him back, thinking about how she thought she'd never get to taste him again.
When he pulls away he asks, "Is that your way of telling me that you promise?"
"I promise. I want to make it to all of our wedding anniversaries."
He smiles. "How many are we going to have?"
"Depends on you. You're ten years older, you'll probably die first."
"Not with your track record, I won't."
She smiles, curling back into his side. "We're going to find the loose thread in Bracken's scheme, and then we're going to get our happily ever after."
"Oh how cliché of you," he laughs.
"Yeah well, it's been a rough day."
He holds her until he drifts off again. She fights off sleep for as long as she can, fearing the nightmares that await her on the other end, her PTSD which is bound to resurface. But she finally gives in knowing that her future husband will be there for her when it does.