So this is by no means a happy fic and I apologize! You can blame the Cast Recording from Ghost: The Musical as I bought it and listened to it pretty much non stop for two days straight and THIS song just got stuck in my head. This is a one shot (doubt anyone would want it to continue) but I hope you read and enjoy it nonetheless!
Inspiration came from the song "With You" off the Ghost: The Musical Original Cast Recording and is sung by Cassie Levy. Link to youtube video (I suggest listening and then reading): www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=FG4EW-sZk2E&feature=relmfu
Katherine Beckett's gaze falls on the deep blue fabric of the button down shirt lying on the edge of the bed - her favorite shirt because of the effect on his eyes. Taking a shaky breath in, she tries to inhale deeper than the last one…tries to fill her lungs, her diaphragm completely. It does not work. When she breathes out, she is even more shaken than she ever thought possible, and she wrings her hands together in her lap. With every sound; a closing door, a cabinet shut too harshly, she startles slightly – always on edge. Kate never thought any memory would haunt her more than her own shooting…she was wrong.
She does not want to face how wrong she is. Something in her realizes she cannot even cry anymore. Somewhere in the past two weeks her eyes dried out, the tears replaced only with an endless void that grows deeper with each passing day. So she sits and just keeps reminding herself to breathe. In and out, in and out – over and over again - and hopes that one day she will not have to remind her body, to force herself, to breathe each morning.
The sound of the sirens ring in her ears. They always come back to her first; they were her first indication something was wrong. In an instant she returns to that day: Kate left the precinct late and had gone to get food while he went to a quick meeting at Black Pawn. They agreed to meet back at the loft, to have dinner together. Turning the corner to approach his building, she noticed the ambulance and the black and whites parked just down the street. Uniforms and paramedics running toward an alley near the end of the block, which ran along the back of one of his favorite bookstores.
Passersby were gathered around the alley as uniforms hung yellow crime scene tape up in an attempt to keep people at bay. Moving forward, the Detective is unable to keep her cop instincts from taking over. She could barely see the paramedics working busily on someone lying in the middle of the alley. She approached the uniform guarding the tape and flashed tin, declaring herself and her rank and asked what was happening. The man began to respond but she did not hear him – the only thing she could see was the glint of streetlights off the watch on the left wrist of the person in the alley. Kate knew that watch, had bought him that watch for Christmas. Her mind began to scream at her, that she was overreacting – how many people were there in New York City and how many of them had the same watch.
As if on cue, Kate noticed the paramedic performing CPR move just enough for her to see the face of the person on the ground. The bags of food fell from her hands and the breath rushed from her body. Her strained voice screamed his name as she ran under the police tape falling down next to him. His eyes were open and blinking, but unfocused and shifting constantly. A pool of blood surrounded him, soaking his clothes and matting his hair. The brilliance in his bright blue eyes began to fade as she held his gaze – her hands on either side of his face, as her voice admonished him to stay, to look at her. His eyes fluttered and finally closed, and then he was still.
In and out…in and out…
Kate's right hand surreptitiously falls onto her left and begins to run over and over the stone of the ring he placed there six months ago. Has it really been six months? She tries to smile at the memory of him kneeling before her, but cannot make herself do it and abandons the thought before she finds herself unable to move completely. It happens more often than she likes. The memories wash over her and pull her away and she thinks – just for a moment – that it is all a dream. Her phone will ring and he will be on the other end. The door will open and he will enter the loft, smiling at her. She will wake up with him staring at her in the relative darkness of the early morning, running his hand along her cheek, through her hair. With every ring of her phone, every time the door opens, every morning she wakes alone – she dies just a little bit more inside.
Gates tells Kate to take time off work, stating it is a requirement to have some bereavement time when an officer looses a partner. Kate fights, saying she cannot sit around and do nothing for two weeks. Allowing herself a rare moment of transparency with her boss, Kate feels the tears fall from her eyes as she shakily admits that she cannot sit at home because he is everywhere – but her boss insists and Kate finally relents.
Without the 12th to occupy her, Kate sits in the loft – on their bed – and waits for the moment when her body finally implodes from grief. Everything in her tells her to move, to get out and do something. Every time she leaves she finds her feet taking her to all the places they used to go – Remy's, The Angelica, a couple of the random coffee carts they frequented. At times she sits in the dark as the seconds pass and swears she can hear him speaking to her, his voice lilting off the very walls.
In and out…in and out…
Kate tries not to feel responsible. Everyone tells her it is not her fault and she nods and tries to smile and says she understands. Do they know that she is lying? Can they see she blames herself? He begged her to stop, begged her not to go further when things began getting dangerous…as more people connected with the case started to die. When they discovered the body of the man she now knows as Jeremiah Smith, he pulled her aside in the precinct and told her it had to stop. He told her this was the man who had told him to protect her…to keep her safe, and with him gone…who knew what would happen. She tried to stop, but somehow that night in the alley, they found him instead of her.
She keeps finding herself in his study sitting on the window seat writing – writing letters to him. He wrote to her…with his books, of course, but also little things just for her. He left her notes on the bathroom mirror, on her desk, on the kitchen counter in the mornings; sometimes only one or two lines others were six and seven pages. So she writes to him. Her own morbid diary and, once finished, she folds the paper and places it in the middle drawer of his desk and locks it away.
The knock on the door jostles her from her thoughts. Kate turns and sees her father's face peering back at her.
"Katie, can I come in?" she does not speak, simply nods and returns her gaze to the spot on the wall she has been examining but not really seeing for the past hour. She feels the bed dip and her father is sitting next to her, placing his hand on top of hers. His touch is warm and sympathetic, just enough love and tenderness – a knowing touch of someone who has lost love to violence. "Martha and Alexis are heading out…would you like me to stay for a while?"
Kate shakes her head almost imperceptibly.
In and out, Kate…in and out…
"Katie…" his voice is low and she barely registers it. The room is now only bathed in the light of the moon that sneaks through the blinds on the windows. She feels his hand reach up to move an errant strand of hair behind her ear.
"Dad…" In and out…in and out…
"I know, baby."
"Today is my wedding day…" Once the words finally pass the curve of her lips, she finds herself proven wrong as she falls into her father's arms, wracked with sobs and the tears she thought had long since dried.