Thanks to lvbnsb1 for the words, island, clever and falter. Yep, some more angsty for you!

Words: 972

Time: 2-1/2hrs

Revelations

Kate was mad. The three months of peace and tranquility she had accrued at her fathers
cabin had been used up in a ten minute argument she'd just had with him in her apartment.
Why did he come over? She told him not to come over, and why did he have to say those
things? They may be true, but they didn't help her, they only made things worse. She could
still hear his parting words echoing around inside her head.

"No man is an island Katie, try not to forget that."

What did he mean by tossing that oft quoted line from John Donne at her, especially after
she yelled at him to just go! And what the hell did Donne's line really mean, for that matter?
She couldn't remember. She'd read his essay in her college English lit class, but she never
really cared for 16th century literature. She found most of its writings tinted with whatever
religious furor its authors were lent. Damn stupid phrase. She wanted it out of her head.

Kate was always one to focus her rage, and right now John Donne became her focal point.
It took nearly a half hour but she finally found her old textbook in a storage bin buried in the
back of her hall closet. She opened the book to its appendix and quickly found Donne's name
and the essay she was looking for, Meditation XVII. She flipped to page 186 and started
reading from the beginning, stopping when she reached the words that had offended her.
She read them carefully.

No man is an island, entire in itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a
clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if
a manor of thy friend's or thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved
in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

Well shit. She thought she was being so damn clever. She was going to have a laugh and snub
her nose at her dad and at Donne's dated old world notions…but she couldn't. The words pierced
her heart instead; pierced it in the exact same place the bullet had, and made it ache. There in black
and white was confirmation of what she had suspected during her isolation at the cabin. She would
never be alone. The very fabric of her life was interwoven into the lives of her friends, family and
co-workers. Only now did she realize how her death would have ripped it apart. She could only hope
that her running away hadn't created a hole that was too large to patch. How could she have been
so stupid?

Her dad had shared more with her than that one line. He'd told her so much more, more than she
wanted to hear, but all that she needed to know. She now had two wrongs to right, and neither
would be easy for her to do. She reluctantly picked up her cell phone.

"Just get it over with." She admonished herself out loud.

She pressed the familiar number on speed dial and waited nervously for him to pick up. The sound of
his voice for the first time in months almost made her falter in her resolve.

"Kate, are you back?"

"Yeah, I just got back in to town a couple of hours ago. Could you come over? I mean, if you're not busy…with work."

"I'm free, I'll be there in twenty. I've missed you Kate"

"I've missed you too." What else was she going say over the phone, she did miss him…just not enough.

Her hands were shaking as she set the phone down on her coffee table. Her emotions were raw.
Her father's revelations about what he'd asked Castle to do had brought back the angry words that
she and Castle spat at each other in her apartment. She was angry at herself more than she was at
her father but she had lashed out at him anyway. She told him that she was a big girl and that he
needed to butt out of her life. She was stunned by his next revelation. It felt like she was the one
being shoved against the wall in the hospital corridor, it knocked the breath from her lungs and she
found herself struggling to breathe as her father repeated the accusations Josh hurled at Castle.
What breath she did find she used to yell at her father to shut up. It was all too much, but he had
one more thing to say.

"Rick's a good man Kate, and I know he's important to you, even if you don't want to admit it, but he
deserves better than you've given him and if you don't talk to him soon you're going to lose him forever."

She was a master at the art of avoidance and having the truth shoved in her face made her mad. Anger
was the only emotion that had comforted her for years. She couldn't deal with any other.

"Just go!"

She needed to apologize…to both of them. Her dad would accept it, he loved her unconditionally, and she
knew that…but what about Castle? Not a day went by since waking up in the hospital that she didn't see
his tears, hear him plead with her to stay with him and confess his love. His admission as she lay in hisarms
surprised her more than the fact that she was dying. She wanted to reply, but all that came out was a tear
as darkness obscured his face. Death had come so easy. So why did it have to be so hard for her to live?