"I have been torn and twisted, lost in a fog I drifted.
I'm drowning in my wounds, can't breathe, suffocated
All my armor's fallen now, pieces laid on the ground."
-The Strange Familiar
It happens so fast she doesn't have time to think. One minute Kate Beckett is giving the eulogy at Captain Roy Montgomery's funeral, the next chaos breaks out around her. As she sits on the ground, with the head of her partner cradled in her lap, she tries to replay the last sixty seconds in her mind.
Standing at the podium, she repeated a quote once told to her by her captain. "There is no victory, there are only battles. And in the end the best you can hope for is to find a place to make your stand. And, if you're very lucky, you find someone willing to stand with you." As she stated that last line she turned to the one person she felt that way about, the man who had been by her side for three years now, her partner, Richard Castle. In the next moment she heard Castle calling; wait, no, he was yelling her name and then he tackled her to the ground.
Presently people all around them are screaming but the loudest sound is of the bullet, the sound on repeat in her mind, as it had entered, pierced his heart, and brought her world to a crashing stop. His head is in her lap and already the blood is coating them both, soaking through her pants and his shirt. She can't bring herself to do anything but hold him there, willing him to stay with her. Her shock is the only thing keeping her together and she hopes the paramedics will get to him in time. As she stares down into his eyes, whispering his name, she shouldn't be shocked by what she sees, but her breath catches nonetheless. There is no fear, no regret, only love.
That's the last thing she sees as he closes his eyes, that look of complete love that will forever be seared into her mind. As she feels his breathing slow, watches as he slips from consciousness, her whisper of I love you is carried away on the breeze. It almost shocks her as the words leave her mouth, the stark realization that she's said them out loud and that she meant every word.
And now the heart wrenching fear truly takes hold of her as she wonders if she'll ever get to tell him how she feels. Castle has been shot. This man, who has driven her crazy for the last three years, who has been by her side no matter what the situation was, who pushes back harder when she pushes him away, took the bullet that was meant for her.
He has saved her life in more ways than she has ever admitted to anyone, let alone herself, and yet this time it's completely different. He has a family and so much going for him in life and she's done nothing but push him away; it should be her lying on the ground but instead it's him. In this moment nothing else matters to her, all she sees is him and the sacrifice he has made for her. And it's in this very moment that those walls she had carefully constructed, and built up all those years ago, begin to crumble.