If Ever I Fall
A Three-Shot
Written by: Caffinate-Me
For: Dtrekker
Edited by: Kate Christie
Lyrics from the song "When You Say Nothing At All", the Alison Krauss version.
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It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word you can light up the dark
"You know, when we first met I wanted to hate you."
Kate sighed at the silence that followed the statement. But she took it as a cue to continue on, to plunge forward, to say what she needed to say. She knew he was listening; he was always listening.
"You were so damn arrogant. A charming asshole."
She huffed out a laugh as she reached out to brush her hand through his hair, the ends of the short strands tickling her fingertips. It was time for him to get it cut.
"But you knew me right from the start. You read me like I could one of your books. Flipping through the pages of my soul, coaxing the words, the story, right out of me."
A soft smile graced her face as she traced her index finger down the smooth lines of his temple and into the prickly stubble that peppered his cheek. Her fingers wrapped around his jaw as her thumb caressed the darkening circle under his eye.
"See what you've done to me? My language never used to be this flowery before we met. You have me saying things like 'until tomorrow' and 'see you in the morning' instead of 'night' or 'bye'.
His words echoed in her head. "Everyday I bring you a cup of coffee just to see a smile on your face because you are the most remarkable, maddening, challenging frustrating person I've ever met and I love you…"
"It's true, you know. I knew you loved me before you told me, because of everything else. Small things. The flowers you brought me, and those presents— always something I wanted but had never said. The coffee... You were… you are a light. You saw me in the darkness, even when no one else did. You knew where I was hiding, you knew how to scale those walls, how to pull me out of my shell. You knew when to give me space and when to barrel on through. You had the right words…"
It was true. She had become entangled, forever entranced by his words.
"But my favorite words, Castle, were the ones you never spoke aloud. They were the ones you said with your hands, your eyes, your lips on my skin. The small sighs, the gentle caresses, a handshake… I could always hear you most clearly in those moments. And I know I am saying this really badly now, but this is a time when the words need to be spoken aloud, so I'm doing the best that I can."
She could feel eyes on her, silent, questioning. Trying to give her the space that she needed, she wanted, but still there, supporting, condemning, sympathizing, blaming her as she babbled on, attempting to make her jumbled thoughts into coherent sentences. There was so little time, but she had to say this, she had to.
"I can't explain it, I'm not sure if I ever will be able to— what I hear then. I hear everything and nothing at the same time. It's like a calm washes over me, and suddenly everything is right in the world. I can feel it, and it's so much more powerful than words. It's more powerful than that darkness that drove me for so long."
That calm guided her; lit the path.
"A beacon…"
Her eyes drifted down to where their hands were clasped on the sea of white. People were staring and she didn't care. She couldn't care, not now, because this was about them: him and her. No one else mattered in this moment. Not his mother, not his daughter, nor her father or their friends, all of whom were staring at them, at her; holding a collective breath.
Try as I may I could never explain
What I hear when you don't say a thing
"But as much as I love those moments, as much as I crave them sometime. Right now I need you to say something. I need you to look at me with those big blue eyes and form the words I need to hear."
A single hot tear fell down her cheek, burning a hole in the sheet next to where she held his fingers like a vise.
"Because the doctor is saying the longer you stay like this, the more unlikely it is that you'll ever wake up. And you have to wake up because I need to tell you how stupid you are for doing what you did."
She paused, to suck in a breath, because the tears were falling like rain now, leaving shining streaks down her face and it was becoming harder for her to breathe, but it was pouring out of her now, the words, the hurt, the anger, the pure, raw emotion; the dam broken.
"You're so stupid! I would have been fine. Look at me, I am fine."
Her free hand moved to scratch at the strip of white gauze wrapped around her arm, covering all the burnt flesh from her upper bicep to her wrist. It itched now, as it healed, and it would never be the same smooth skin it had been before, but it would heal.
"What kind of an idiot runs into a burning building, huh? Why would you do something like that?"
She was yelling now. People in the hall stopped to watch. More eyes on her, on them, but she didn't care. Because if her words were loud enough, then they would overpower the shrill beep of the heart monitor, and she could pretend that they were at home, in their own bed, and this was all a scene from one of his books that they were reading.
The cough crackled out of her chest and the hacking sound brought the nurse running. They had lectured her about not getting worked up, warned her that it would make it too hard for her to breathe. They had told her that she would never be able to do field work again because of it.
She waved off the nurse, who was trying to talk her into going back to lie down. She would be fine…
"But you know what I hear now, Castle? Silence. That's it. There are no unspoken messages, not even wordless platitudes, just nothing. And I need something. You owe me that. You promised me, Castle, you promised me words, an epic love story, one to rival the greats… You promised me always…"
Her eyes stung as she saw the flashing blue and red lights in her mind's eye, the smell of smoke once again filling her lungs. The morphine was beginning to wear off and she could feel the ache returning; it was becoming harder to move, to breathe, to hold her head up. Her entire body burned, battered and bruised. The cast on her leg felt like a dead weight holding her down. And suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to just float off on that cloud again.
Her voice dropped back down to a defeated whisper as she felt the tug on the back of her wheelchair and her fingers unwound themselves from his.
"Why, for once, couldn't you have just stayed in the damn car?"
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