But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.'
- As I Walked Out One Evening, W. H. Auden
Warning: Character death. Also, I promise I still do not own Castle in any shape or form.
Everything eventually ends.
It's an unspoken truth traded amongst the shadows of human hearts. She's known it since nineteen years old, when her mother's life was taken for reasons she still finds incomprehensible.
Death is inevitable.
She faces murder on the streets every day, humans turning on others. It's not always murder, but it's always death. One moment, a person is alive, brimming with hopes and dreams. And then they are not. And that is that, and that is sad. But it is acceptable.
Grief never does quite fade away.
The ring she wears around her neck is rusted now. The watch on her wrist always stuck on 4:32pm, the day it had stopped working. The photo of him in her wallet dog-eared, faded over time. Like his smile. The slow, diminishing echoes of hope all stolen away, even in the brightness of the sun.
And love?
Well… That's the biggest question of them all, isn't it?
Their heartbeats were mismatched long before the darkness swallowed them whole.
She remembers lying against his solid warmth in the dark, palm pressed flat on his chest.
He stares back at her, lazily tugging a hand through her hair, all post-coital glow and gooey eyes. Their hearts should beat as one. She always thought that they would. He's her one and done. They're what fate and the stars and any other force he's ever believed in were made for.
Beneath her palm his heart is sluggish in its movement, relaxed.
Her heart flutters wildly with all of the trembling words she's too afraid to say.
They're on the couch when the ground-breaking news comes.
Her muscles are wound tight, coiled so harshly that she thinks she will never be able to move again. Castle has been by her side all night as she's paced, cursed, waited. For the result. Silently praying, their last thread of hope, their mantra: Please no. If there is a God, please don't do this.
And then-
He wins.
And Bracken is president.
Sometime before mismatched heartbeats, there was the way that their fingers never quite fit together properly.
They could hold hands, of course. His dwarfed hers and for a long time that had been enough. Because before him she had been sharp around the edges and in his hands she was nothing but slow, soft lines and she loved that feeling. Almost like she was complete.
But when she tries to lace their fingers together as she rises above him, her movements are jarred, and he doesn't notice because he's too busy attaching his mouth to the curve of her neck and making her eyes roll into the back of her eyes as sporadic bursts of light explode like fireworks on the fourth of July before her.
Perhaps he does notice, but keeps quiet.
And maybe they're not fireworks, but a star imploding.
Her Dad joins her Mom in the ground and she stands dressed in black by his grave, and she misses him already, but her parents were always meant to be together. She cannot fault them for that. If this is how it works, then so be it.
But she is so achingly alone amongst the chill of November leaves. The crowd disperses, old friends of her father, Esposito, Lanie, Ryan. The clouds above her open and she finds herself walking away with hailstones burning her skin.
Castle opens the door when she arrives soaked to the bone. His eyes are sunken now. Where is the nine year old on a sugar rush? She wants him back.
Their mouths touch once, softly, barely. She pulls away and apologies. "This is over." He had told her, "Whatever this is, it's over."
"My Dad is dead." She says, monotone. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come. I didn't know what else to do, I don't have anywhere else to go."
Her heart is bleeding from her eyes and she expects him, almost wants him, to push her away. Just so she can fight for something. For him.
But his grip on her is so fierce and they come together again without any resistance, two forces driven towards each other by, if not love, their desperate, lonely souls.
Bracken had been all smooth talk on the television, crowds screaming his name. America's brand new hero. Until it was time to hate him.
Castle's hand had been still on her back.
"Kate." He whispers. "Kate, this doesn't mean-"
"It's over." She says, figure relaxing as she slouches back on the couch, closing her eyes. "I'm never gonna get him."
"I'm here."
"I know."
"And we can fight this. Together, right?" He sounds so hopeful.
Her hands rest over her eyes and then slide way. Slowly focusing her tearful eyes on him.
This is not when the cracks begin to show. Even when the shock registers in his eyes as she simply stares. These are not the cracks, because they were here before. This is simply acknowledgement.
This is everything.
Castle's mouth falls open once, twice.
"I love you, Kate."
"I know."
"And it's enough?"
But Esposito's already calling her cell and she turns away from Castle, phone pressed against the shell of her ear. Just so he cannot see it. The answer to his question. Written in every weary line, curve, swell of her body.
It's not enough.
It's not.
Their mouths are connecting and his tongue twining with hers, and she has never been kissed so thoroughly, not even by him, not with such fierce passion nor lust, with a sharp edge of sadness. Sadness overcome by anger, his fingers bruising her hips, his teeth marking her skin, drawing blood. Gasps. Dizzying thoughts. Pounding heart.
She presses her palm against his chest and there it is. Just out of time.
And then it is fast and hurried and desperate in the hotel bed she's been sleeping in for the past two weeks because she cannot bear to go back to her apartment where her sheets still smell like him, clinging to one another as though it's the only thing they have. It is.
Esposito and Ryan tell Gates everything. Gates works an angle and they give her a new identity, a new start in life. Castle stands at the back of Gates' office when the agent hands her a whole new life in an envelope for reasons he doesn't quite understand.
"No."
"Kate." Castle steps forwards, eyes bruised with the shadows he's carried for all these years. "Your life is at stake here."
"But what's the point? What's the point of all fighting for something that's not really my life at all?"
She shoves the envelope into his chest. The paper crunches when he holds it there and in the corner of her eyes she sees the agent step forward. Probably scared for the life within the envelope. An address that isn't hers. A name that isn't hers. A life that she could never live.
"No."
It is her only answer.
Because love is not enough. But it's worth fighting for.
"You remember when I asked you where we were going?"
Castle keeps his back turned on her in the darkness of his bedroom. Clothed in the shadows of the night.
"Yes."
"I think I know now."
"You have known for quite some time." It's a sneer. He hates her for this.
Kate turns in the bed, naked and vulnerable, presses her body against his and drops a kiss to his shoulder.
"Yes."
When he doesn't answer, she says, "We're two different people."
"But we love each other."
Her breath hitches. "We both want different things."
She wants him to put a ring on her finger and she wants to wear a white dress. She wants a life growing inside of her. More than one. Sticky fingers waking her up in the morning. Beside him. Always.
He wants: Her. Things to stay the same. Suddenly, he is afraid of change, and he keeps his heart away from hers as he does so. She does understand. His dad was never there, his marriages failed- he has never known commitment because the past has never given his huge heart a chance.
So he lives in Nikki Heat instead. He lives in their stories. He is fooling himself.
But her heart is raw and exposed for him. Like it never has been for another.
"Is that so bad?"
Castle shifts slightly, turning to her and she studies the slight stubble that has grown because he's so tired lately. Despite this, in the pale moonlight, he almost looks like a child.
"I don't know, Castle." She answers. "But I know if we carry on like this, where we're going isn't pretty."
His lips barely ghost against her pulse point.
"I'd go anywhere, so long as it's with you."
"It's over."
It's a lazy Sunday and she's spread out on his bed, tangled in the bed sheets, still covered in a sheen of sweat as he climbs out. She can still taste his love on her lips as he heads towards the bathroom and stands in the doorway. Speaks those words she's been anticipating with a clench in her gut for so long now.
"This is over. Whatever this is, it's over."
Kate takes the envelope from Ryan and assumes her new identity.
Sophie Clarke is a temp. She drifts from place to place, never quite fitting in, never quite knowing who she truly is. She lives alone and doesn't attempt to make friends. There is ice in her heart and she refuses to melt. It is what makes her strong. It's what keeps her sane and it's what keeps her happy.
She almost believes herself, eventually.
Collapsing onto the bed with an arm across her eyes, she almost believes it.
Until there is a knock at the door and the first thing that crosses his lips is "Beckett."
The façade crumbles to ashes, as though it were never anything more than sand. All this time, she'd thought it a wall.
She drags him into the room with her fist, doesn't have the chance to ask him how he found her before he consumes her, like a drug to an addict, seeking ecstasy in his arms.
Instead she finds regret and goodbye and love all rolled into one.
In the morning, she sits with the sheets covering her body, masking the marks, at the end of the bed. Watching him until his eyes drift open.
"You can't stay."
"Neither can you."
Breathing is jagged in her chest, splintering her heart in two. But, oddly, free. It's okay to close her eyes and dream.
One of the bullets hits her father's watch.
Time stops.
So does she.
"Are we really so different?" Castle whispers into the darkness.
She doesn't answer.
"Will you wait for me?" Castle's hands trace up and down her spine. "You… I thought, when we got together, once I pushed you, once you stopped waiting, that we'd be on the same page. But I got stuck. I'm sorry."
Kate turns her head, watches him. The hotel room sheets now stink of him. She loves it. Loves him.
No, she wants to say.
"I'd wait a lifetime." She says anyway.
Because it all goes wrong, so disastrously wrong, they are able to solve the biggest case of the century.
It goes deeper than even she knew of. Jordan Shaw comes to her with information she didn't have before and together they collaborate to create a case against him. Bracken. The man with the poisoned soul. There is no way that she will let him run free and spread his immorality amongst society. There is nowhere for him to run.
Before the verdict, Shaw places a hand on Kate's arm, smiles at her. "We'll win. The case is rock-solid. I promise, Beckett."
Kate turns away when the verdict is reached. Blocks her ears but she hears it anyway. Guilty. Bracken is guilty.
It should feel better than this.
Her hand seeks the one that isn't there. She flounders for a moment, turning, wondering why he's not by her side as he always is.
And then she remembers all over again and nothing will ever be the same.
Castle begs her not to leave Sophie Clarke's life. But she doesn't want to be Sophie. She wants to be Kate Beckett, and she wants to be with him even though they've ended it three times already.
"I never should have gone in the first place," she argues with him. "I made a mistake. Let me fix it."
The lines of Castle's face are prominent because of another mistake entirely.
But he caves in anyway.
After Castle's funeral, she doesn't know where to go, so she goes to where she had always found solace. It's not until she's stood outside his door that she realises he's not on the other side. Neither is anyone else. It is empty. Almost like he hadn't even been here at all. He is being forgotten by the world and its inhabitants already.
Martha had moved away within two days. Asked Kate to take her things from the loft if there were any because Alexis, who had inherited three quarters of everything Castle had owned while Martha had the rest, was selling it. Instead, Kate had barged in and, at the sight of his things, the smell of him everywhere, and the books he would never finish- She had destroyed everything. Smashed plates and picture frames and ripped the bed sheets they'd once loved each other on.
Kate slumps to the ground in front of his apartment, head resting between her knees. Hiding.
He is not here.
If she closes her eyes tight enough, neither is she.
Kate wonders how Nikki Heat would've ended. In his books, Rook and Heat had thrown themselves into an engagement they weren't ready for and entirely wasn't them. But now there's no more Castle and no more words for either of them to hide in. Just her lonely imagination left to fill in the blanks.
They would've made it.
They should've made it.
If she were any less sane, she could almost laugh about it.
They're standing by her Dad's grave and she's Kate Beckett again. Castle holds her hand as she grieves.
And then he yells her name and pushes her down and she closes her eyes, waiting for it, the flare of pain rushing through her bloodstream, everywhere, all at once, swallowing her whole, heightened senses, so much pain it causes black spots to hinder her vision.
The bullet is meant for her.
The sniper misses twice.
The first time he skims her Dad's watch. Because Castle's already moving, all she gains is a sprained wrist.
The second lodges itself into the top of Castle's spine, killing him immediately.
They never even get a chance to say goodbye.
Sometimes, she thinks that she's going insane.
Or maybe it's the drink. Perhaps it's the loneliness. Maybe it's the outrageous situation. Because, really, when had her life become sniper rifles and shady government secrets, intent on taking down the president? When had she become the woman who suffers from PTSD so much that she has an anxiety attack every time she hears a door slam? When had it become acceptable to land on her father's grave with her dead lover in her arms, scarlet blood staining her forever, face permanently frozen in an expression of fear and nobility and love?
Other times she's brave. She can leave her new apartment and meet up with Lanie and smile and pretend to be okay. In these snapshots- and they really are snapshots because they are never truly whole- she is not insane.
In all of these versions of herself, she loves him.
Perhaps the thing that destroys her the most is when she gets home and finds the sheets no longer smell like him.
"Talk to me."
Castle stares back at her from across the hotel room as she pulls her clothes on; seemingly content the lounge in the bed. Like everything is okay.
"Words aren't enough."
Castle tilts his head to the side, appraising her. His eyes are darker than the night. His eyes are darker than hers.
"Okay." He says slowly. "And neither is the sex."
"No."
"Nor love."
"No."
"And this whole thing with Bracken?"
"It's not."
Castle stands, all broad shoulders and dominance he's never carried before. Eyes like ice when he speaks. Freezes her whole.
"Then what is enough, Kate?"
He grabs her wrist and pulls their chests flush together. A blush stains her cheeks easily because of what he does to her. Even now. After all this time, after all this tragedy.
Kate swallows, crumbling from the inside out.
"I just want us to have any other story but this one."
Something switches in his eyes and his mouth brushes her cheekbone. It's not even a kiss. It's a memory of one. She's already clinging to it desperately when he pulls away.
Their heartbeats finally match, she realises.
Kate slumps against his headstone, wet mud soaking her jeans, the full extent of April showers unleashing upon her.
Kate presses a kiss to the stone.
"I miss you." She confesses. Words. They are nonsense.
And they are both so blissfully still.
Dust motes swirl in the air and she remembers how he looked in the lazy morning light on their last day. The sheets had fallen on the floor at some point in the night, leaving him gloriously open for her eyes. Something innocent in his sleep. The man she fell in love with.
She hadn't wanted to wake him. But she had really wanted to go. Because time was catching up with them then and they needed to run before it swallowed them whole. Much like the darkness.
She should've seen that time had been closing in on them from the start.