Prompt: she manages to say ''I love you'' before passing out in the freezer.

"Hey...w-we're not dead yet," Castle said, and she almost wanted to laugh at him. Just almost. The temperature was well below freezing. There was perspiration frozen to her brow. Frost accumulated on their clothes and in their hair. She couldn't feel anything anymore. Her limbs were dull, weighted down. Like the very blood flowing through her veins was slowly turning to ice, anchoring her to the floor.

"I just wish this was one of your books and you could rewrite the ending."

It was the pitiful hope of a dying woman. The this can't be happening moment where the mind resorts to different scenarios. A denial of her reality.

A wish for an alternate ending in which someone checks the freezer and finds them. Anyone. She didn't really care who.

Or maybe even a dream. Yes, not a dream but a terrible nightmare. It'd be an awful story ending the tale with such a trope. Castle would never write something so amateur. Not for them.

But if it meant there was no bomb, no freezer...

Not dying in Castle's arms with so many things left unsaid.

She'd take it.

"I'm s- I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"F-for being me. Going rogue. Getting you in-into this. If we hadn't g-gone rogue…"

"Shhh, Castle," she stopped him. He sounded so guilty, so ashamed of himself and resigned to his fate. She couldn't handle it. Not his apologies, his regrets. "Castle, no. Okay? Shhh."

She wouldn't let him blame himself for this. Her death. His.

None of it was his fault.

"You were right. We found the bomb. We were just too late, okay?"

He went silent, and she hoped it was because he'd found her words reassuring. The last thing she wanted was for him to leave this world feeling as though he failed. Her, his family. Everyone. His instincts led them in the right direction. They didn't lead them into the freezer. That was the bastards shooting at them, and who have now left them trapped for dead.

No. It wasn't his fault. He was a hero in her eyes.

He always had been. If only he knew.

She shifted beneath his arm, twisting despite her awkward, frozen limbs, and somehow found the strength within to lift her arm, draw it upwards across his chest. "Castle," she murmured, and by some miracle, her fingers cooperated, allowing her to reach out and caress his chin with her fingertips. She couldn't even feel the five o'clock shadow that had surely grown in since the morning. She was too numb.

"Thank you...for being there."

She'd have seen the small lift of his lips in a smile had she the strength to keep her eyes open.

"Always."

Everything was heavy then. Her body, her eyelids. They were running out of time. Time that, up until this point, she'd taken for granted. She was going first. She knew it, could feel it in her bones, in the sluggishness of her steadily freezing body. He was still shivering. Her body had all but given up in its quest to keep warm. He would outlast her. Maybe not by much, but maybe enough to save him. She hoped he did. Make it. He deserved to live on and be happy. Grow old, see his kid graduate high school, college. She'd get married and give him grand kids. He'd love that.

Maybe he'd even find the one for himself, remarry for keeps this time.

She could have been her. That woman capturing his heart, building a future with him. A happy life together.

It was too late now. Too late to give him that life. Her heart. But maybe she could give him one small, parting gift. Something she would now be living her final moments to regret.

She couldn't leave him yet. He deserved to know how she feels. Has felt. For so long now.

It was unfair of her to wait so long, to wait until this moment. Her death. But if this was the last moment they had together in each of their lives, she couldn't leave without him knowing.

"I just want you to know how much I love you," she confessed, her voice an airy whisper of a thing.

There. Now she could go. Now she was ready.

"You...l-love me?"

Castle tilted forward, inching his face closer to hers. She blinked her eyes open briefly, the tightness of his grip on her pulling her back from the brink.

"Cas - " She was breathless.

"Hey, Kate. Stay with me."

She could feel the pressure of his cheek meeting her forehead, the weight of him pressing into her with urgency. Holding her close.

He wasn't ready to let her go.

"Kate. Stay with me," he begged.

Bleary-eyed, she watched him in his panic. His breaths became faster, adrenaline pumping, giving its final stand. She'd all but collapsed into his chest but he was holding her up now, supporting her weight. He cradled her cheek in the palm of his hand, so gently she could cry.

"Can't do it, Castle," she lamented mournfully, voice breaking on each syllable. "Can't."

"Yes, you can. You will."

"Castle, don't - "

"No, I'm not losing you. We're not dying here, do you hear me? I'm crazy about you, Kate Beckett, and we're too good for deathbed confessions, alright? So you're not going anywhere. You stay with me."

It must have taken an enormous amount of strength to accomplish the feat, but he'd managed to scoop her up with his arms, settling her down across his lap. It gave her the chance to burrow closer to his solid chest, nestling skin on skin where her cheek met his neck.

Castle pressed his lips to her temple and, maybe it was her imagination, but it felt warm again, if only slightly.

"We're gonna get out of here, Kate," he asserted, though his voice trembled. From the cold or from fear, she couldn't tell anymore. Probably both.

"We're gonna get out of here, and we're gonna find that bomb, and everything will be different. We'll be different. You won't have to be alone anymore. I love you, and I'll be right here for you, whatever you need. Just don't leave me, please."

With everything she had left, Kate mustered up the last of her energy and lifted enough to press her lips into his. Everything was numb. Her lips, her skin, her muscles. She couldn't even taste him on her tongue. Her senses were failing.

"Okay, Castle," she breathed into his mouth, lingering only long enough to nudge her nose to his affectionately, to get the words out before falling back into his chest again. "Okay."

She holds out for him as long as she can, until everything at last fades to black.

After the EMT clears her with a blanket to-go, she wrapped it around her shoulders and hopped down from the ambulance. It was a miracle the boys had gotten to them in time, and really just a miracle they had found them at all. They got so lucky.

She could see Castle awake in the second ambulance now. From what she was told, they had to practically pry him away from her in order to treat them separately. Even while unconscious, he wasn't willing to let go of her. The only reason her condition hadn't progressed into fatal hypothermia was likely because of how he'd cradled her to his chest, giving her whatever warmth he had left until Ryan and Esposito found them.

Her unsung hero yet again.

She smiled the moment he zoned in on her over Ryan's shoulder, his movements clunky, slightly uncoordinated as he started for her. So exhausted from the ordeal, but alive.

They were alive.

"Saw your boy's back in town," he ventured cautiously, his shoulders hunched under his own blanket draped about his shoulders.

She hummed. "Yeah, he came back."

"So what does that mean to you?"

Looking back at the ambulance Castle had just exited, Kate caught Josh's eyes. They held a glance for only a moment before the doctor went back to chatting with the paramedic he'd assisted in treating her partner.

Turning back to Castle, she smiled, reaching her hand up to brush the pad of her thumb down across his bottom lip, his chin

"Not a damn thing."

His brow creased, nose scrunched in confusion. Apparently he needed her to spell it out for him.

"It's over, Castle," she revealed, giving him a promising look. "We're done."

When her words finally hit him, it's as if his entire being has cracked open, his guard falling down, his beaming smile ear to ear.

"C'mon." She nudged his shoulder, smiling fondly. "Fallon wants to debrief."

He trails after her, shoulder-to-shoulder, rejuvenated not quite yet in body, but in mind. Spirit.

"He's ready to believe us now?"