Or Down Will Come Baby, Cradle and All
Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or any of its affiliated characters.
Summary: Tragic AU of "Target", set one year in the future.
A/N: F*CK THIS LEVEL OF FEELZ! I AM NOT OKAY. NOT. OKAY.
He only battled her for four years. Only four of the years it took her to grieve, to heal, to let go of losing a part of herself. Even now, she wasn't really recovered.
He only saw four years of the pain, of living with the day to day reminders of tragedy, of knowing that a single sentence could send you spiraling back down the rabbit hole before you knew you'd fallen.
She tried to tell him.
She tried to tell him it was only the tip of the iceberg. Every time he reassured her that he would love her no matter how broken she was, she tried to tell him he didn't get it, but he refused to listen.
He had to believe in the power of love.
She gazes down at the blurry bundle in her arms now; an innocent life whose image is already clouded by tears, and wishes so desperately that he were beside her now.
Johanna Alexandra Beckett.
The name runs bittersweet on her tongue.
The most wondrous and beautiful piece of her life, and yet this tiny creature took away everything she'd tried so hard to hold on to for the past year.
Everything about her baby girl reminds her of him.
Ironic, considering that's why he left.
He couldn't do it. She'd held out hope, but she knew it was over the moment she told him she was pregnant.
He tried. She had to give him that. He'd been there for every doctor's appointment, moved her into the loft, given her everything she could possibly desire as her body struggled to create their tiny little miracle.
Then they found out it was a girl.
His eyes darkened and he couldn't even look at the sonogram. Kate knew then it was lost cause.
Now it was just her and the bundle: alone in her apartment. Forever. She hated thinking that way, but it was hard for her too, and god dammit, couldn't the universe give them a break?
They weren't even together for a year before Alexis was killed in a kidnapping gone wrong.
Castle was understandably desolate, but she promised to help him through. She promised to stay by his side. The first few months were absolute hell and torture, but they were making progress. He was eating again within a week, and while he still couldn't talk to her, he was willing to let her in in the darkness of his room at night; drowning his sorrows in her body, allowing the physical to do what the emotional could not.
She considered getting an abortion.
She woke up screaming the morning of her appointment from a nightmare of Alexis taunting her for throwing away yet another chance at a family with her father and she threw up and didn't leave her bed for the rest of the day.
Now she looks down at the baby in her arms and she feels sick that a part of her wonders whether it was worth it.
No, she chides herself, a small smile gracing her lips. It was completely worth it. Nothing would ever come close to the love she felt for this tiny human. Castle was right.
In a horrid twist of events, now that she held her own child, she understood why Castle would never recover from losing his. She didn't think she ever could.
The tears flow freely down her face as she cradles Johanna, imagining a life that could've been.
"I love you, sweet heart." She whispers. "And I will never let anything happen to you."
Well, I now hate everything. *Not really, I just have a lot of unresolved feels* Please review, and I apologize for all the sads!