Disclaimer: Surprise, surprise, I don't own Castle!
Author's Note: This is totally AU, where Kate had a daughter called Juliet with Josh Davidson.
My, dearest daughter, Juliet Davidson,
Now that you are going to college, I want to tell you a few things.
Sometimes we wait just a little too long. And it's too late. Too late to go back and right a wrong. Too late to save what's already lost. Too late to do what, in cursed hindsight, you realize is the right thing. Sometimes we leave the most important things until just a little too late.
Don't make the same mistakes I did.
Don't be so afraid of moving forward that you fix yourself in reverse. Don't follow logic, or reason, or fear; follow your heart. I have always had trouble with that. Don't live a life riddled with regrets and 'what ifs'. By now you've probably realized that I've lived long enough like that for the both of us. Take chances; reap the rewards and overcome the consequences. You are strong.
I realize that just commanding you is not enough. I can almost feel you reading over my shoulder as I write this, demanding "what proof do you have of that?"
Well, sweetheart, allow me to tell you a story.
It's not a happy story; it doesn't have a happy ending. You won't like it, but hear it out. It's real.
A few years before I met your father, I met a very different man. His name was Richard Castle, and he was unlike any other person I'd ever known. We met under unusual circumstances. The boys and I had a case; a dead social worker and a dead small claims worker. They had been killed just as Castle had written in his novels, and who better to assist in a copycat case than the victim of the copycat. Or at least that was how the Captain tried to sell it to me.
Richard Castle annoyed the hell out of me from the word 'go.' He frustrated me; he put his nose where he ought not to; he defied my every order. He dug into your grandmother's case, long before it was solved. Long before I was ready for it to be solved.
I sent him away.
He came back, and I didn't have it in me to resist him. I never could. We continued to work side by side; I saw something in him that I had never seen in a man before him, and never saw in a man after him. He was charming; he made me feel extraordinary like no other person could. He was brave; he never once diminished in the face of fear. He was kind; he was a brilliant father to his daughter and a wonderful son to his mother. He made me happy in a way that I hadn't been for far too long a time.
And for a while, it was perfect. Yet I never realized this at the time; that, Juliet, is the first lesson that I urge you to commit to memory: appreciate what you have, because in can disappear in mere moments.
I ruined it. I dated - another guy, whom I didn't even properly care about, and I hurt Castle. More so than he ever let on, I think.
He did too. He dated his ex-wife, replaced me with her.
He broke me, and it was essentially my fault.
But against all odds, Richard Castle returned. I was furious; how could I not be? He had walked off into the sunset, scattering the ragged pieces of me into the wind behind him. Yet somehow, we became closer than we had ever been. I began to recognize exactly what I had found in Castle those few years ago. And that, Juliet, brings us to the second lesson I want you to take from me: learn from your mistakes.
I didn't.
I dated your father. At first, it was great with Josh; he was everything that Castle wasn't. He was rarely there. He had, to be honest, a passing interest in our relationship. He and I were like parallel lines; we suited each other, and we were going in the same direction, but we never connected on a deeper level.
I broke Rick. I don't think that I meant to, however I did all the same.
Yet he stayed, vigilant at my side. All these years later, I still vividly remember how he stood by me, always.
He loved me, he told me, when I was shot.
I wasn't ready to hear it. I pushed him away, further away than I had ever pushed anyone before.
Rick had made me push myself further than I had ever thought I could; had made me more the person that I wanted to be than I had ever dreamt of being.
But I was too scared. Lesson number three Juliet: don't let fear drive you. I was too scared; I waited far too long to tell him that I loved him too.
He forgave me for all that I had done to him; yet I still didn't tell him that I loved him. He saved my life ten times; yet I still didn't tell him that I loved him. He caught the man who killed your grandmother; yet I still didn't tell him that I loved him.
I didn't tell him how much I truly loved him, cared for him beyond any level he had even known, until he left. Until he left the Precinct; left Nikki Heat; left me.
And you know what happened, Juliet?
He didn't believe me.
I was just a little too late.
This, Juliet, is the one thing that I want you to remember above anything else that I have ever taught you: don't leave anything until it's too late. Seize the day. Take chances.
Please.
I have never loved a man as much as I loved Richard Castle, and I will always regret that I never told him so. I beg you, sweetheart; don't make the same mistakes that I did.
Lots of love,
Mom.