SPOILERS for Always
Castle. His name rings in her head over and over again. An echo of an echo, still reverberating through her system even though the danger has long passed.
He's with her in the precinct. As she's told to give up her badge, her identity, her whole being. And she does so with the slightest of smiles. This moment doesn't crush her the way she thought it would. It doesn't even hurt to part with these symbols of her life, her purpose. Because they aren't. Not anymore. She sees that now. These pieces of metal no longer define her.
And he's with her when she's packing up her desk. All the mementos of her life here, her second home, get tossed into a bag unceremoniously. But she doesn't dwell on them. His name still consumes her thoughts. There's no room for anything like nostalgia. No room even to consider what will happen to her without a job. Or Esposito or Ryan. Her mind is singularly focused.
In the elevator she breathes for the first time. The air fills her lungs with the crush of comprehension and she flounders for a moment. Everything is changing. It's terrifying and exhilarating and it clutches at her throat at the same time it warms her heart. There is more to life than this.
She leaves the precinct in a daze. She doesn't stop to admire the sight of it for the last time. She doesn't even remember walking out the front door. She just walks. Away.
Her feet carry her some place familiar. Through the pouring rain she moves in a haze. His name still teetering on the tip of her tongue. She hardly even notices the downpour until her hair is already soaked through.
It looks so different in the darkness and the fog, but she knows this is it. The swing set where she spoke about a wall. Her wall. And what it would take to get past it.
She'd been wrong. Because she hadn't needed to tear it down at all. The wall crumbled on it's own when he left, the foundation ripped out from under it by the void he left behind.
She didn't need her mother's killer. She just needed him.
She sits on the seat and she sways, and it's too much like swaying from the side of a building. It brings her back to that terrifying moment when she realized with a cruel clarity that she'd been wrong.
She almost lost herself. She caught a glimpse of the end, hanging from that ledge. And it wasn't the fall that scared her. Nor the promise of certain death. It was the thought of dying alone. Without him. Without ever being with him. With so many words left unsaid and things left undone.
"What do you want to do?" Dr. Burke's voice breaks through the haze with a clap of thunder.
She blinks. Wide awake for the first time since she went tumbling over the edge.
The walk to his apartment is both too long and too short.
She stands outside. Sopping wet. Dripping with rain and tears and the weight of thirteen years of torment and anguish soaked into her clothes. It weighs her down but she's so close now it doesn't matter. She can see his window through the torrents, a beacon calling her forward.
She doesn't know if they'll let her into the building, so she calls his cell.
It rings once, then jumps straight to voice mail.
Dread wraps around her gut. The cold feels colder and her heart races with the fear that maybe she's had one to many chances to make it right with him. That he's finally had enough.
But his name is still everywhere. He's still coursing through her veins and she can't leave now.
She spent thirteen years fighting for her mother. She's not going to give up on him so easily.
The doorman recognizes her. And she takes that as a sign that this is meant to be.
She's shaking from more than just the cold when she finally reaches his door.
"What do you want, Beckett?"
It's his voice, and it's Dr. Burke's voice, and it's her own voice melded together in harmony.
And the answer comes without a second thought. It's been ringing through her head all day.
"You."
A/N - Are we alive yet? Nope? Yeah, neither am I. Is it September yet?
Anyways, I wrote this with Andrew Belle's "In My Veins" playing on a loop. If you haven't listened to it outside of the clip used in the episode I highly recommend finding it on youtube. Thanks to dave-ck, fooxoo, and trinxy for the beta.
As always (tehehe) please review. I love to know what works and what doesn't, but you know the drill by now, even a simple "like" or "dislike" is very much appreciated.
Fight On and You'll Never Walk Alone