A/N: This one's a bit on the sad side, folks. Not lots of tissues sad, but yeah, you get it. Major character death warning. Usual disclaimers, yadda yadda.
and i'll send you my words,
from the corners of my room.
and though i write them by the light of day,
please read them by the light of the moon.
gregory alan isakov
Today is Career Day.
He's a week shy of seven years old – a bundle of contained energy as he walks from his small desk to the front of the classroom. When the little boy turns and faces the group of people gathered in the comfortably large room, Castle feels the largest grin pull at his lips.
Brown hair falling towards his green eyes, the young boy looks every bit like his mother but he's all his father's personality. Castle can't help but think how many times Kate would sit and watch the two of them interact, shaking her head, wondering if she had any part in making the child at all.
The boy stands up on his tippy toes, lifts his arms up as tall as he can and places a photo of his mother onto the chalkboard with a magnet and Castle finds himself smiling back at his wife, all the while wondering how this classroom still manages to have a chalkboard. His smile widens; he knows that if she were here, she's be giving him that 'pay attention' look he misses oh, so much.
Castle shifts his position in his seat when his son begins to speak.
"My mom had two jobs," he begins, all strong voice and straight, comfortable posture.
The little boy shoots his father a quick grin and Castle finds himself missing her terribly, the ache in his chest growing as he thinks about how their time was cut short as his son babbles on about his mother.
Castle can remember it now, clear as ever.
The sun was shining so vividly that the baby blue of the sky seemed to shimmer in the afternoon light. She was in shorts and sandals with a simple tee hugging her abdomen, her fingers linked to his lightly, their arms seeming to sway lightly.
She had the weekend off – a very rare thing to come by – so Castle had made been blissful when he'd woken to find such a beautiful day waiting for them. They'd decided to spend the day exploring the city together, all three of them, when Jim had called, asking if he could take his grandson to the Yankee game.
Their day had turned into just being the two of them and he had spent the better part of it simply watching his wife and oh, how she glowed. She was simply beautiful. She'd always catch him, place a kiss on his lips and smile into it.
It had been a simply perfect day.
He misses her so.
His thoughts match up with his son's words and they smile at each other.
"So, my mom was a hero first, even before she died. She put away the bad guys, just like in my comic books! She saved people. Her first job was a hero."
He turns around to the chalkboard again and picks up the white stick that rests in the tray and draws on the board.
Wings. Small, white angel wings.
He's facing the class again, swiping at his left eye quickly.
"My mom has a second job now. She's an angel."
There are small mutters around the room, lots of glances from the other parents in his direction. He can tell that they're mixed with pity – most of them knew Kate, as she made an effort to be as involved with the school as much as possible. He knew that her friends from the school were missing her, too, in the six months she'd been gone.
When he's finished with his mom's career, he turns and takes the picture off the board, leaving behind the angel wings.
Castle takes his son out for ice cream after school. They do homework on the couch, play video games, get pizza for dinner. Soon, it's shower time and bedtime and then Castle's alone with his thoughts in the too-quiet loft and his heart aches for his wife.
He's finds he's almost envious of his son. While the young boy can go on and on about Kate, talking about how wonderful she was, how she always tucked him in just right, Castle can't quite do that. He can't talk about her. The words get clogged in his throat, stopped, choked on and just can't speak about her like she's gone.
He can't tell about how she died saving a little girl in the middle of a busy Manhattan street. He can't say that her favorite color was purple and when no one was looking, she would chew on the plastic ends of the strings that hung from her hooded sweatshirt. His hooded sweatshirt, actually.
He can't talk about how she always smiled in her sleep. How, one time, she'd been having a bad dream but he couldn't tell and when he leaned in to kiss her awake, she'd slapped him across the face. He isn't able to go over out loud how happy, thrilled, over the moon she was when she found out they were pregnant.
The tears are swimming in his eyes now as he looks at the dresser, thinking of how she would stub her toe on the leg of it almost every morning during the week-long power outage last summer it was torturously hot, cursing and swearing all the way to the bathroom. He just –
He can't talk about it. So, instead, he does what he does best.
He writes, of course. Their story isn't over yet.
In a comfortable chair in his room, tucked in by the window, he settles in with a blanket, a worn notebook and a pen.
He wrote stories for her, about her.
Now, every night, he writes to her.
Thoughts on this? :) Thanks for reading!