CHAPTER 1: HER

It has been five years since she last saw him. It was supposed to be their perfect day, filled with joy, laughters and love. Instead, it had been pain, screams and tears.

She didn't want to believe it at first. When Chief Brady called her, she thought it was a mistake. Her whole body and mind shut down. She was thinking thousand thoughts and yet only one: he was coming to her.

She had found her way to the car, which was supposed to take them after the wedding.

"It must be a mistake," she told herself but the driver's look on her said the opposite. She ignored it, "It is a mistake." When the car approached its destination, she could see the smoke of a fire disappearing in the sky by the car's window. She ran out as fast as possible.

Her limbs had never felt so heavy, not even in those nightmares that would wake her up at night, the ones where the people who killed her mother was running towards her (those people had lately started to wear Senator Bracken's face), the ones where she was stabbed by those same people (always wearing Bracken's face). Those nightmares where he had been there, standing right next to her.

"Need a hand?" he would ask her, extending his right hand and wearing his most beautiful smile.

When those nightmares had started after her mother's death, he wasn't there. She would wake up at night, sweaty and breathless, just after falling in a dark alley and being stabbed. Those nightmares would repeat themselves every night. He started to appear once she had read his books.

The first time, confusion hit her. He didn't speak nor offered his hand. But she had stood up after falling for the very first time.

It was a silhouette, but there was something about it. She couldn't make out a face but she knew it was him, or at least what his books meant to her. She reached for the silhouette and when her fingertips were about to touch the presence, she would wake up. She had been stabbed, again. Every night she would try to reach for the silhouette, make contact. Every night she would fail.

But it all changed when she met him (the second time). He was standing in the middle of the familiar alley, wearing the same clothes from their meeting (the first time). He watched her fall, observed like a scientist would his subject. It had pissed her off until she met his eyes. They were filled with curiosity. Like hers. Why her? Why him?

He didn't offer his hand back then and she would have never taken it anyway.

Today she would gladly tangle her fingers with his right now. But his silhouette was nowhere to be seen.

Picking up her wedding dress, she ran towards the origin of the smoke. When she laid her eyes on the burning car she knew. It was happening.

Tears covered her eyes as she fought to look up at the smoke. She collapsed on the hard floor, her wedding dress long forgotten. She tried to look up, tried to stand up again, grab his hand and stand up. There was no hand, no him. Only her. She closed her eyes and screamed until her lungs and throat couldn't keep up with her mind.

She had been stabbed.

She wasn't waking up.

The last time they were at their swing set, Bracken had set her up for murder. The time before that, he had proposed to her. It all felt like a decade ago, it was only half of it.

She heard the laughter of kids in the playground; some were running after others, some sat on the floor, making sand castles. She could see Martha and Alexis in the distance. They had been a huge help for the past five years. One had lost a son, the other a father. She could only imagine the pain the first had went through, she had experienced the loss of a parent like the second.

Martha had dealt with his death in a castlesque way. Cheering her and Alexis up whenever one of them would break down, by talking about him, remembering some of his most ridiculous adventures, repeating his best jokes, watching one of his favorite movies, or by not doing anything at all and just being there. She had been the strongest of all three.

Alexis had done the same for Martha and her after a while, when the anger was mostly gone. His daughter had been angry and Kate had been in the receiving end of that anger. But Kate knew too well that it wasn't her she was mad at, it was herself. She had been through this and had helped the girl the best she could. It wasn't her fault, but the one who forced the car out of the road and ran away. At the beginning it was hard, but then it got better, with time.

That time started when she learned about her pregnancy.

Twins, the doctor had said, wearing a smile on her face. Kate was smiling and crying. She couldn't tell which tears were of joy and which of sadness. She had promised not to let him do this alone; she never thought about making him promise as well. That day, it wasn't him sitting next to her, smiling and kissing her. She had lost her fiancé, her lover (she had called him this way that day), her friend, her partner. He wasn't there, he couldn't be there.

But her father was, holding her injured hand too tight (she had smashed a mirror only two days ago), his tears fell when he turned his eyes away from the screen and face her. His eyes were full of joy and the sun coming out of the window made the tears falling shine.

"It's okay." she repeated several time as she removed the tears from her father's cheek. She felt a hand on her knee and turned her head, she had almost forgotten about Martha and Alexis. Her (unofficial) stepmother was filled with joy and excitement. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen the woman with such a bright smile.

Alexis' eyes were focused on the screen, and she could tell the girl also had had the same thoughts as her. He should be here. The young woman turned to her and offered her hand, Kate held on to it tightly with her free hand as Alexis smiled at her. It wasn't as big as Martha's smile (which seemed to grow wider each second that passed) but it was there.

"We're gonna be okay," she whispered to herself. "We're gonna be okay." she said to her family.

Lost in her thoughts, she didn't hear the ginger woman sit next to her (on his swing).

"I'm sorry, you were saying?" Kate asked, realizing the woman had spoken.

"It's the swing set? Yours and dad's?" she wondered. Her hands were holding each cord as she was swinging slightly.

"It is," Kate answered. "How do you know?" she asked after a moment. To her knowledge, Castle had never talked about their swing set to anyone. Alexis pointed to the book Kate was holding. She had forgotten she had it in her hands. But she remembered the young woman telling her she wouldn't read the book either.

"Martha told me some of the best bits. And that the writer was good." she added.

"Well, I've learned from the best." Kate joked. She thanked Alexis as she left with a smile and a gentle touch on her shoulder. The sound of children running around and laughing was still loud. Alexis was walking towards the origin of the sound, to Martha specifically, to her kids, one of the few who traded running for castle sands. Hers. Theirs.

Martha nodded at her when their eyes met. The woman always understood her, like her son. Kate looked down at the book she was holding.

The nightmares came back after his death. They were essentially the same except for the way she died: stabbed, frozen to death, shot at, falling of a rooftop, drowned or burned alive. The stabbing was the most recurring and painful one.

He was there but had come back to his silhouette form. Just like before, even if she couldn't see his face, she trusted him. She reached for him. And just like before, he disappeared before their fingers could touch. Every night.

The silhouette stayed for weeks, never revealing itself to her. Those weeks were the darkest. Until one night, she had woken up breathless and sweaty one more time. One too many.

She had been frustrated and angry and had started hitting on things. Whatever she could find, whatever could assure her that one of her senses hadn't left her. But she didn't feel a thing. Everything she touched, she didn't feel. Martha had appeared by the door frame of her bedroom, worry in her eyes. She walked towards Kate in silence, took her hands and led her towards the bathroom. She didn't understand why until she looked down to their joined hands; she was bleeding. Martha removed carefully the few pieces of glass stuck. The mirror, Kate thought, this must come from the mirror. The two women didn't talk, each other paying attention to the other's hands. Once Kate's were clean and bandaged, Martha stood up and started to walk towards the door.

"I don't know what to do." Kate thought. The older woman who had reached the bathroom's doorframe stopped and turned to her.

"Do what, darling?" Kate had spoken out loud.

"He used to give me a hand. But now, he can't, he's not here anymore. I can't reach to him for help. I can't stand anymore." She could see that Martha was slightly confused by her words, but the woman walked back to her and crouched so her eyes would be at the same level as Kate setting on the edge of the bathtub. She took Kate's hands again.

"When did he give you his hand Katherine," As easily as Kate had been able to read Martha's confusion a minute ago, Martha saw hers. "The first time he helped you stand, how did he do it?"

This time Kate wasn't confused. She knew when. She knew how. She knew why. If the silhouette had taken his form the day of his book signing, it wasn't until later that he had offered his hand.

The first time was when he told her he had news about her mother's murder when she had asked him specifically not to investigate. That night, the nightmare had come, she had fell, she had stood up next to him, looked at his eyes and expected the knife to go through her at any second, as soon as their eyes would make full contact. The knife didn't come. Instead his hand extended towards her, shaking slightly, but determined. He didn't say anything. He looked at her. She looked at his hand, and stared back to his eyes.

She didn't take his hand that time. Then she had been stabbed.

Since that day, her nights had a new taste. They were filled with something new, something she never asked for and found herself craving. Something she was scared of: hope. After each night it felt less like nightmares and more like bad dreams. Each night, she would always get stabbed, but before that, he was there. As the months and years working with him went by, her dreams evolved. Every night he would reach for her, and she would reach for him. Sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow, which ended up in her death, and her waking up. But they were trying.

He spoke one night. "Need a hand?" he had casually asked her. It was the night after the bombing of the anti-Wall Street rally at the Boylan Plaza. By that time, his hand wasn't shaking anymore (it hadn't for a long time), that night, she could swear her fingers had touched his.

Martha stood up but Kate didn't let go of her hands.

"Thank you." Kate said, squeezing slightly the woman's hands.

"Anytime." And Martha left. Kate felt the loss of the woman's hands.

That night she didn't sleep. She needed the silhouette to take his form. She went to his office and looked for a book but couldn't find it. The office had always been his. It was sad without him, missed his joy, missed his life. Neither her, Alexis or Martha came in here too often. After a few minutes of searching she sat on his chair, frustrated. She knew he had a copy of it somewhere. She was about to leave when she saw it, right there on his desk, next to a framed photograph of him and Alexis at the park taken years ago, when the young woman had been just a girl. She took the book, "Heat Wave" the cover said. She opened it and read.

She didn't sleep that night or the following night. She read instead, read the story of how they fell in love. The third night was after she had learned about her pregnancy. That third night she had slept. That third night, the silhouette had taken his form.

When Lanie had asked her why she had wrote their story down, Kate had answered that she wanted Alexander and Lona to know their father. She didn't want to leave out any detail, she didn't want to forget.

It was a lie.

It is something that she had needed to do, just like when she had read his books to make him appear in her dreams. She had read all his books over and over again. But he wasn't offering his hand. If they were what triggered the silhouette to leave, what triggered his hand the first time hadn't been the books; it had been their partnership.

She couldn't have it back, as much as she need it to.

The idea came up one night, while talking with Alexis. She never told her about the nightmares but her (unofficial) daughter-in-law knew that some nights Kate would be reading in his office. One night, after putting the kids to bed, Alexis joined her. She was reading the last Nikki Heat book.

"I miss his writing." she had said, not expecting an answer.

"You look so much like him you know," the young woman pointed out. "He used to sit like you, legs crossed on the desk, book or computer on his lap. Whenever I would tell him that it wasn't a really good writing position he would tell me he didn't care as long as he looked cool." The women laughed together and Alexis continued "It didn't look cool though. He complained a lot about his back but still kept doing it."

"He didn't want you to be right. Again." Kate commented with a chuckle.

"I'm always right," the young woman said, "he eventually found that out when the chair broke and I found him on the floor. Since that day, he sat on his chair like a normal human being."

The two women laughed and shared stories. Eventually, exhausted, Alexis had gone up to her room and left Kate in the office.

"You look like him." she had told her. There was a time she would have taken this as an insult. This time was long gone, though. She took the laptop on his desk and opened it after removing some of the dust that was on it. The office gained a little of life lately, but his absence always felt heavier here. She was no writer that she knew. The closest she ever got to it was police reports and Nebula-9 fanfiction. What she was is a cop, a daughter, a mother, a muse. But she wasn't half of those things when she had met him, he had help her improve herself, become something new, a better version of herself. Maybe, in some way, he could help her deal with his loss the way he helped her with her mother's. Maybe writing down how they fell in love would make him give her his hand. After a few weeks it did.

The dreams had become less frequent then, but when they were there, he always extended his hand to her, worked together again to find a way out of the alley. They had found their old rhythm, their fingers brushing, touching after a few weeks. When she arrived towards the end of the book, she had grabbed his hand.

"Need a hand?" He had laughed like he used to as he pulled her out of the alley. She woke up. She didn't die. She felt it again: hope.

He had made her promise not to let him write a memoir. She had never promised she wouldn't write him one herself.

She ran a finger over the book's cover. It showed a man's silhouette, sitting on the chair by his desk (his legs on the desk, not in a normal human being way) with his hands joined in front his face. She never intended to publish it; she had always loved her privacy and wished on keeping it private. But she thought it was something that could surprise him, and make him proud. So she did it. The book had sold better than intended, she wasn't sure she was happy about it or not. The profit made out of it was given to the scholarship he had created in memory of her mother.

She looked up to see her daughter's eyes on her. When the little girl realized her mother was looking back at her she made grand gestures and asked her mother to join her and her brother. She could see the girl was screaming but she couldn't hear her over the noise of all the other kids laughing.

"I'm coming honey!" Kate screamed for her daughter to hear. When the girl's face grew a wide smile she knew she had been heard. The little girl turned back to the castle sand and destroyed a part of it. The part her brother had made. He didn't seem sad about it, instead he turned to her sister. Kate read her son's lips, he had asked her why.

She stood up, the book still in her hands and traced a finger over the title. She missed calling him that way. She left the book on the swing she had sat on. She looked at it one last time before heading over to her family.

"CASTLE" the title said,

"By Katherine Beckett"

They came back home without Martha and Alexis, who wanted to finish their afternoon shopping. Her "little lions", as she often called them, had asked to come home earlier than usual and she was happy about it. She loved spending time with them, watch them play, talk to each other. She felt grateful that it had been twins, that it had been their twins. Whenever the two would start to have a vivid discussion she felt like Ryan and Esposito must have felt while watching them theorize. They kept pushing each other's button. Sometimes she would just look at them and one would do or say something she would associate to her or him.

"Mom, I have a question." The boy said, raising his hand high in the air.

"Why are you raising your hand Alex?"

"Yes, why? We're not at school bro. It's Sunday, there's no school on Sundays." her daughter said, taking her brother's arm and putting it down.

"You can't tell me what I can't do, bro!" he told his sibling before turning back to his mother (she will kill Ryan and Esposito for making her kids call each other "bros") "Are we like him? Like daddy?"

She found two pair of eyes staring back at her. They had seen picture and videos of him; she had told them some stories, about how they saved people, how they saved each other too. She had caught the two of them reading his books in the office one day.

They never asked, probably know that it was hard for her to talk about him but they just wanted to know him, and she wanted them to know him as well. As sweet and innocent those moments were, talking about him was one of the moments that hurt the most. One of the moments she also enjoyed the most.

"Yes, you do a lot. Both of you." she answered, not certain about how steady her voice sounded. It was the truth. Alex was the one who looked physically more like him (probably because he was a boy) but Lee (her name was Lona but she preferred being called Lee) had inherited his creative mind. And somehow, her daughter was also the one more down to earth than her brother (that she got from her mother). She never thought this could be possible but when she looked at them, she saw them in one body. They were two different versions of themselves together.

"Mommy, someone knocked."

"I don't think so I didn't he-"A knock cut her. The pair of eyes was looking at her. No, they were giving her the look (her look).

"A minute!" she screamed, hoping whoever it was they wouldn't mind waiting she put the knife she was holding out of the kid's reach.

Lee appeared out of her bedroom, she didn't see her leave, with two pairs of high heels, the ones she couldn't find for a week.

"Operation giraffe!" she screamed before putting down the shoes in front of her and her brother. They put the shoes on, Lona almost fell but her brother caught her arm to keep her steady.

"What are you guys doing?" Kate asked, pointing her index to her shoes.

"The other day, when someone knocked at the door, you didn't let us open the door" her son started.

"You said it's because we weren't tall yet." the girl continued.

"But now we are!"

"Like you!"

She rolled her eyes in amusement. They were looking up at her. She laughed.

"That's not what I meant and you know it. Lee, can you put those shoes back please? I've been looking for them for a few days."

The girl took her brother's shoes, and walked back towards the bedroom, not taking her shoes off.

The boy was extending his arm to his mother.

"You're five honey, I'm not carrying you."

"I'm technically closer to four than five. And you just said I'm not tall" the boy answered with a smirk. She was never going to get to that door. The person probably left anyway.

"Next time Alex," She promised the young boy, ruffling his hair and heading to the door. "I'm sorry for taking so much time, kids you know how it is." she said as she opened the door, looking down at her son trying to fix back his hair. She looked up to the stranger at her door only to see he wasn't a stranger at all. She was glad she hadn't carried her son.

Time stopped.

"My friend, have you heard of a shower?" the little boy said, he was holding his mother leg with one hand and pinching his noise with the other. She didn't smell anything. She had lost all her senses. All but one: her sight. She stared at the man's eyes. She remembered it more intense. He looked tired, scared, confused. But he didn't take his eyes off her. Her daughter ran to her other leg and held on to it. She pinched her nose.

"Sir, you smell bad, you should shower." the little girl said.

"I already said that!" the boy told his sister.

"Well I didn't know, I just got here and I don't have superfonic ears."

"It's 'supersonic' and no one has them. They're a superpower."

The twins were being them again.

"Well, I will one day." her daughter said. (Him)

"You just can't Lee. How do you even know about it anyway? Did you read my comics?" (Her)

"I might have." (Her)

"Awesome!" (Him)

They thumb shaked each other. Something they had come up with after Ryan and Esposito had showed them their handshake and had explained the importance of a bromance. The two little kids finding the men's handshake too complicated came up with their own. A simple touch of each other's thumb. They called it thumb shake. It was theirs only.

"Mommy… who's this?" the little girl said, looking up to the man.

She wondered how much time had passed since she opened the door; they had been staring at each other for quite some time now. But neither of them seemed to have had enough. And then he moved. He extended a hand to her. He was slow, his arm was shaking like she had never seen before (even more than it that freezer). He handed her something. She broke the eye contact and looked down. It was her book. It was their book.

She took it, making sure she didn't make contact with his fingers. She looked down when a tear escaped her eyes, falling on the cover. The shining tear was followed by another. She looked up to him again; a smile had appeared on his face, the confusion gone from his eyes. Her right arm reached for his cheek, she was shaking as much as him. She almost drew her arm back when her fingers were about to touch him. She didn't want him to go again, she wanted him to stay. Even if she could only stare at his eyes, as long as his would stare back at hers. But she didn't pull back. Her tears blurred her vision but not her touch. Her fingertips made contact with his raw beard and then his skin. He closed his eyes, taking in the feeling of her warm shaking hand on his skin. He breathed out at the same moment as her, they had been holding their breath all along. A laughter escaped her lips as she caressed his cheek with her entire hand, running her thumb across his cheek.

He had come back to her.

"Who's this?" the little boy repeated his sister's question. She knew who this was. And so she answered. She said that six letter words she thought she would never get to call him again.

"Castle."

Author's note: This was supposed to be a one-shot but I'm writing a second chapter. Stay tuned.