Waking is still the hardest part. There are nights filled with nightmares and pictures of dread, where she wakes to a world that is not better. And there are nights filled with dreams that show her the life she could have led, the person she could have been and she wakes up to all that she is, and more importantly to all that she is not, and the world is still hollow and it hurts.
She wishes to shower with hydrogen peroxide in the mornings sometimes, hoping that maybe it would bleach away the scars and leave her stripped of the pain. And sometimes she hopes she'll just disappear if she curls into herself tightly enough.
She stares at the ceiling for a couple seconds, taking measured breaths that don't reach their whole weight until she can sit up, lift both feet out of bed and onto the cold floor to get up, jaw straight and a firm hold onto her heart.
The session passes by swiftly and the words hit her as softly as the rain and afterwards she is not sure how time still moves when it doesn't even affect her anymore.
She gets up from the hard seat of her chair, eyes and mind set on the door, a quick exit, every muscle screaming, "flight."
"Kate," she hears someone calling for her and she is astounded that it still carries through to the outer edges of her awareness.
It's him. Of course it's him.
She half turns to him, not sure whether to make a run for the door or accept her fate and stay, and looks at him.
"I know we didn't really start off good last week, with the tea and all, but hey it can only get better right?" He shrugs adorably but she thinks that he knows nothing. It can always get worse. And when there is rock bottom then there is still a whole abyss underneath that and maybe it just never ends but she doesn't want to tell him about falling and never reaching the ground and so she just offers him a tight smile and moves over to the table.
He offers her an already poured cup of tea and she accepts it.
"So how was your week?" He asks.
"Splendid," she doesn't particularly like the strain on her voice or the snippy edge to it but she can't prevent it anymore.
He furrows his brow as he looks at her and she softens her voice as she goes on, "why don't you tell me?"
He nods for a while, eyes set on hers, "touché."
She smiles a little and lifts the cup to her mouth. The tea smells like fruit and roses and like candles her mother used to light in the bathroom and for a second she loses her breath.
"Why don't we agree to never speak about these things?" He tears her away from whatever was taking hold and she manages the flutter of a smile, the soft curl of a lip; a cursive line saying much more than her words ever could.
"Because we're talking so much," her voice is still breathy but holds a playful tone now.
"We will." He says with absolute conviction.
"Right, I don't see it," she purses her lips and her eyebrows raise and she almost feels like Detective Beckett again, teasing Esposito for his oh so subtle crush on Lanie.
"Oh you will," he wiggles his eyebrows, "so what are we going to talk about?" He asks then.
She just rolls her eyes and shakes her head but he seems unfazed and just grins.
"Okay, Doctor Who it is."
She finds a new kind of normal in these sessions. It's weird. She expected therapy to make her feel abnormal, pathetic even, but she finds she actually looks forward to the sessions now. It's not that she can actually bring up the courage to speak. It's not even that she finds solace in other people's stories, in the fact that there are others sharing at least a tiny fragment of her pain. No, it's mostly the routine, and the fact that she has somewhere to go and something to do.
And on nights when she is lying awake and her mind is brutally honest she accepts the tiny part of herself that tells her that he is part of her normal too. He and his ridiculous stories of time travel and bow ties and what even else. He and his ways of making her feel not quite so alone in her mind all the time.
She usually wanders through New York for hours after the sessions. Sometimes he manages to sneak up next to her and join her and she pretends to be annoyed. A necessary charade. She doesn't exactly know why though.
And some days she wanders off alone, through the streets, passing people she'll never know. She has started to dread the sound of her closing door. The inevitable prison of her apartment, where the ghosts are alive and she hates that she can't manage to just make them go away.
She hates that she has trapped herself within the physical confines of her body and that she can't just shed all these layers to become whole again.
It's almost the end of the sixth month when Dr. George brings it up. She asked him a while back whether she'd be cleared to go back to duty any time soon to which he replied, "I think you still have some work here." She hadn't asked again.
It's at the end of the session and Norman has just finished talking about fearing a relapse. He asks whether they know how to deal with it and oh god, she wishes she did. She wishes she could give him some kind of solid advice but every word would be hypocrisy because some days she still feels it overwhelming her as well. She usually steps under a cold shower and lets the ice pricks pelt onto her skin until every corner of her is numb. Sometimes she goes for a run or does push-ups until her heart is the only sound in her mind and the only thing she longs for is air. But sometimes she still lies awake at night, and everything is just too much, too little and the sobs that shred her stomach have her aching and longing for just one sip to make the noises stop. Everything
just stop.
She's surprised to find Castle speaking up then. He is the only one except for her, who still hasn't shared his story and considering that he is a bestselling novelist, who tells stories for a living she is kind of surprised.
"I surround myself with people, who care whether I have a relapse or not, people I love."
Well what if you don't have those people?
Norman seems to have the same question and for a while they discuss methods to avoid succumbing to alcohol and numbing the pain.
The clock strikes the full hour but instead of asking what they took from this session as he usually does, Dr. George pulls out a piece of paper from the bag under his chair.
"Seeing as we have been meeting up here for almost two months now, some changes are in order." She is still impressed at how deep a voice can actually reach. "I have observed different stages of improvement, as far as I can even evaluate this," he takes a small break to smile at every one of them, which would be annoying if he wasn't looking so sincere. "And seeing as some of us have found it more easy to share than others I wanted to try another approach that has proven to be quite effective in previous groups as well."
She doesn't like this. She is sure she is not going to like this.
"Don't get me wrong, this is not at all mandatory. Just like you being here is not at all an obligation you have to meet. I just think some of you could really benefit from this."
"I will separate you into groups of two that will meet for one additional hour each week. You can schedule this hour at any time you want and talk about anything you want, whether it's the reason you are here or cooking tips," he glances at Anna and she blushes a little. "Depending on how well this works out we can switch partners after a couple of weeks. Maybe one or the other will be able to open up better when only speaking to one person instead of the whole group."
"How will we pick our partner?" A woman she is pretty sure is called Caroline asks.
"I have made a list of people I thought seemed to fit. We will try in this constellation and see whether it works out."
Everybody nods in silent agreement and so Dr. George proceeds to explain how this could strengthen their bonds and give them an individual person to talk to, someone who will understand.
That's where he is wrong though. No one will understand her pain. Each pain is so different. Each pain is felt differently, dealt with differently and she doubts that she will find someone, who will understand the depth of her fears or the self-loathing. She doubts she'll find to someone, who will tell her, "yes of course I know what it feels like when you just want to shred your skin and tear it apart, to finally, finally escape." She doubts she'll find someone, who will know what it feels like to think, "I don't want to be this, but this is all I am", every single day until the thoughts seem to set fire to her paper body. She knows this won't work. She knows no one will be able to make it better. People aren't meant to fix people.
She startles out of her thoughts when Dr. George starts reading the names.
"Katherine Beckett and," she already knows before he speaks the second name, "Richard Castle."
Their eyes meet across the circle and his seem to hold as much apology as relief and she finds that she herself is something akin to grateful that it's him. Not that it matters.
They both head straight for the door with a symmetry to their movement that neither one of them notices. They stroll down to the exit in silence, neither one of them sure on how to address this and so they eventually end up standing on the pavement rather awkwardly.
"So are we going to do this?" He caves first and breaks the silence. He moves right to left with his feet, small steps and shifting hands and there is a kind of vulnerability in his eyes and a softness to his words that makes her chest clench uncomfortably. This matters to him.
"I don't know," she shrugs, "although I guess it would give us some bonus points with Dr. George if he knew that we at least do this part of therapy right."
He smiles a little at that and nods, "Okay so when?"
"Friday?" She asks, "do you know Remy's?"
He smiles at that with an excitement that would be fitting had she told him they'd meet on the moon for this. But she finds herself involuntarily smiling back at him.
"It's a date." He is overly eager and she just shakes her head, eyes rolling. A trade mark move when it comes to interactions with him it seems.
"Five pm alright with you?" She asks and he nods.
"So I'll see you there," she says and turns around on her heels to make her way back home.
"Until Friday, Kate," she hears him calling after her and she smiles although there is no one to see it.
AN: I'd like to thank every single person that left a review or words of encouragement on other pages. I was so nervous about this one (still am tbh) but everyone was so kind and supportive and it really means a lot to me. I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well :*