After The Crash
Until the day the ocean
Doesn't touch the sand
Now & Forever
I will be your man
Richard Marx: Now And Forever
"God damn it Castle I thought you were dead!"
Kate was gripping Rick's shirt poking him sharply in the ribs after he had walked up behind her, placed a hand on her shoulder and whispered in her ear.
"I really liked that car."
Kate slapped him in the face, recoiled in horror over what she'd done, then came on again, pummeling him weakly on the chest as the tears finally came.
She had gotten the call about the accident, commandeered the limo and drove here. When she had come running from the car as fast the train of her mother's wedding dress would allow she had been assaulted with the image of Rick's car on fire.
The same car she had ridden in the first time he had brought her to the Hamptons. The car who's windows she had stared out from in wide eyed childlike wonder at the grandeur of his home on Long Island. One of the few times she had allowed herself to be a passenger.
She had looked into flames and thought her life had been tossed into the fire with him, too. She had finally freed herself of the shackles of her mother's murder. Finally peeked out from behind the walls she had built around her heart, brick by brick, stone by stone, since her mom had died. That she'd been given a brief glimpse of the rest of her life stretching out before her...only to see it snatched away at the last moment by an uncaring, unsympathetic universe.
A solemn vow never to love anyone ever again on the tip of her tongue.
But before the shock wore off, before she could process anything, he had come up behind her and wrapped his arm around her and tried to make a joke about the damn car.
The sting of her open hand connecting with his cheek had made it real, though. Made the fact that he wasn't dead, the fact that he was standing right in front of her, real for the first time since she had arrived to see his burning Mercedes. That he really was standing right in front of her nursing the red mark on his face from where she'd slapped him.
"Oh God Castle...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry!" she blurted out, her eyes welling over with tears as she began to break down.
She cupped his face in her hands, letting herself be wrapped up in his embrace for the first time since he showed up, finally certain it was really him. Not some cruel hallucination, like the one she'd had hanging from the side of that roof two years ago. This time it was really him.
"I thought you were dead, Castle..." she whispered as the tears fell and he held her.
"And miss our wedding, Beckett? After everything we went through the last couple days? The last five years? Not a chance in hell." Castle whispered into her hair. "I wouldn't dream of letting the universe do that to you twice."
In spite of the tears flowing down her cheeks Kate looked up at him and rolled her eyes.
"I'm so glad that you're okay, that you came back for me." She whispered as he held her.
Rick smoothed her hair and held her tight, tucking her head under his chin, whispering the only word he could think of that could possibly make things better.
"Always."
*Author's note* For MsMorg...on her birthday.