AN ~ A little flash of fiction for my s6 finale feels! THAT WAS VERY MEAN. BAD ABC. BAD. I don't write for Castle usually but wow. Not okay.

Happy Endings

"This is she."

Tinny little words on the other end of the line make Beckett's heart slow right down.

Mrs Castle, they say, because that's what she is on his phone contact now, I'm afraid there's been an accident.

Lanie barely has time to blink. All of a sudden Beckett has dropped the phone and is careening out of the room faster than her stilettoed legs should be able to carry her. Without question, Lanie sprints after her friend, leaving Martha to pick up the abandoned handset. As she leaves the room, she hears a gasp, and her own heart starts to constrict.

They run through the house, and a few of the guests gasp, ask questions, look around, shocked.

Esposito and Ryan, Jenny at his heels, follow Lanie as fast as they can, but Beckett is already in her car when they burst out the front door, all in a heap.

"What is it?" Ryan asks, as Beckett speeds off.

"It's Castle," Lanie chokes. The hospital hallway comes rushing back to her, watching the dying Beckett be raced away from her at the speed of light. She's so proud of Kate. So damn proud that she'd let go the monster that had been haunting her for ten years; that she'd committed instead to keeping that loveable idiot in line. She remembers how happy – how damn ecstatically beyond-all-reason happy – Beckett had been taking about their wedding. Lanie had cracked many a warning about how that doey-eyed love of theirs was going to make Lanie puke.

An image flashes to her head of Castle laid out on her examining table and her head starts to swim, spots appearing in the sky before her.

Esposito puts an arm loosely around her, and when she leans into the embrace she can feel his shoulders shaking. Esposito looks at Ryan, whose eyes are already rimmed red and teary. Jenny wraps her arms around her husband, and Ryan kisses the top of her hair, and leaves his lips there as tears slip down his face.

I'm just nervous about saying my vows in front of all those people.

In the middle of the road, miles away, Beckett stares at the burning wreck until her eyes start to burn. She wraps her fists in her skirt until the material pricks her skin and she tries not to think of his face until she can't any more.

We can't give up, he'd said. That's the deal. We want the happy ending, we can't give up.

Mrs Castle, I'm afraid there's been an accident.