Dear BeyondHope89: If you want a personal reply, at least turn PM's on first. Secondly, once the majority of my coursework and January exams have passed, I can get back to PM-ing people for their reviews. However while I can't, I make sure to at least acknowledge my (lovely) reviewers with thanks at the beginning since I don't have time to reply to everyone right now.
"Kate."
Everything is dark.
It swamps her, and she can feel it invading her mind, pressing down and down and down. One hand rises of its own accord and presses above her scar. But there's fabric between her and the puckered skin, so she finds herself scrabbling wildly at it without thinking, trying to find solace in the wound, desperate to feel the rough edge of it against her fingertips.
"Kate, you're going to hurt yourself."
There's feather-light touches trailing across her wrists, and then her hands are being lifted away from her chest without her permission. But she drags them back and curls herself tighter into her ball, into her own little world, into her darkness.
It's dark again and she loves the way that it surrounds her, the way the silence fills her ears too and there's nothing save for the sound of her frantic heart.
He leaves her because it hurts.
Castle stands at the doorway to their room and stares at a Kate Beckett he's never known before. She's tucked away from him, under the covers of their bed in the foetal position, face buried into her knees and trembling. But she jerks away at each of his touches, and he can tell by the faraway look in her eyes that she doesn't pay attention to a word he's saying.
So he leaves her alone to her mind that he'll never fully understand, can simply try time and time again and love her with all of his ink-stained heart.
"Castle."
She cannot make sense of the word.
But it rumbles through her throat, wraps around her tongue and leaves her mouth unbidden, but free. It sends this tremble down her spine, and her eyelids drift open for just a moment to find a brief flicker of light.
"Castle" She says again, and she sees words and kisses behind her eyes, but grief swallows her whole.
He comes back to her because it hurts.
It hurts to know that while he's receiving sympathetic hugs from his Mother and daughter, she's losing her grip on reality. So he presses a kiss to his daughter's forehead and tells them he's going to talk to Kate again. They don't say a word. They never do.
The door slides open smoothly and he slips in quietly, unnoticed in the shadows.
Things are different in the room now. Kate's pushed the covers away from herself, and they lay on a heap on the floor. She's uncurled from her ball, and that soothes the soreness pounding in his heart slightly, but she's gripping onto the pillow for dear life, face pressed into it as her body jerks over and over from the force of her sobs, muffled gasps echoing every now and then.
"Kate."
Her name is the only thing he knows.
So he sits beside her on the bed and strokes her back lightly, even though she startles at each of his touches like he hurts her.
Like he did this.
"Castle."
"Kate?"
Oh. Castle.
Her fingers throb with pain when she releases her grip on the pillow, turning slowly on her side to face him. His own face is streaked with tears as he watches her destroy herself, eyes shuttered and showing no emotion, as if he's afraid she'll take it all out on him. Again.
But, no, no she won't. Never again.
"Castle."
His name is her anchor.
He shrugs his shirt and socks off, slipping into the small space beside her, warmth from his body wrapping around her and she sighs, falling into him because she doesn't know what else to do. This isn't her. She isn't someone who relies on people; that advantage had been taken away from her years upon years ago. Until him.
It's new and it's strange and it still hurts, but not so much as it would if she were alone.
"I don't know how to do this."
"I know, Kate. I know."
Castle holds her until she doesn't feel real anymore.
The next morning- or, to be precise, three in the morning- she presses a soft kiss to his cheek and hopes he understands.
"I'm sorry." She tells him, just in case.
"Not your fault. Not anybody's fault." Castle replies, stroking her arm reassuringly. "You haven't done a thing."
"I blamed you."
"I understand."
"Do you?"
He stares at her strangely for a moment, and those eyes of his are still shuttered, and she hates him a little bit for that. He's not supposed to be the emotionally void one in their relationship. That's always been her. That's her right now. How dare he behave in this way, as if he thinks he has any right to feel sorry for himself? As if it's going to help either of them, or any of this situation.
"I do." Castle says slowly.
She sniffles, pressing her face into his chest, hiding. Because every time she closes her eyes, she sees Castle pull the trigger, and Kevin Ryan falls to the floor.
And she doesn't love him any less for it, because it wasn't his fault, not really, he didn't mean to pull the trigger; the suspect had ambushed him.
But he killed Kevin Ryan.
And she loves him all the same.
