Chapter Twenty-Five
Kate shook her head at him, her mind racing with the implication of his words and she knew it was more an unwillingness to believe he was stuck in Hell with her than her attempting to provide a negative response. She had to fight hard to tramp down the fear that came with any sign of hope on this day.
She didn't want to be so skeptical of any sign of light on this day, but she couldn't help it after the hell she had been through to get to this point. She couldn't accept so easily that the act of telling Castle had been enough to pull him in with her. It had to be something else. He had to have had a dream the night before that was playing hell on his mind because of her presence in his apartment so early this morning.
"You're starting to scare me, Kate." he spoke again, some determination filling his eyes as he took a step back towards her. "Tell me it's Wednesday." he told her, his eyes boring into her with intensity.
"It's not." she replied, her eyes wide with wonder as it seemed to be what she thought from the moment his arms wound around her and his breath washed over her neck. "It's Tuesday." she finally said, watching him for a reaction and filled with sudden hope for the surprise in his eyes.
"Are you sure?" he asked looking as if he suddenly didn't know what to do with himself. "So, yesterday was...?" he asked in a leading manner waiting for her to respond with something, but she wasn't sure what he was looking for.
It took her a minute to figure out that he wasn't asking for the chronology of days in a week. "Tuesday." she replied as if it were an obvious answer, though anyone else would have said Monday. The relief in his eyes was palpable and then she found herself crushed against his chest as he pulled her tightly against him.
"You have no idea how frightening that was!" he exclaimed, his tone a little too loud for their close proximity. "I thought we'd switched and 'm pretty damn sure you'd never believe me."
Kate had to laugh at that, though perhaps it was the swell of relief that filled her on what he said actually sinking into her mind. "Castle, what?" she couldn't find any other words beyond that and even if she had been able to she was concerned that she couldn't take a full breath from the force of his arms banded around her.
"I thought we must have made it to Wednesday."
Kate shook her head against his neck, "I woke up at home."
"And came here?" he asked, pulling back to look at her curiously.
"I needed my partner on this." she replied with a shrug, "Someone to keep me from doing something stupid."
Castle returned the tentative smile and leaned into her as if testing the water. He let his lips brush across hers momentarily. "We should go if we're going to try and get the drop on him." he said and Kate let her gaze sweep him briefly before she raised an eyebrow at him. Castle looked down with a small chuckle. "After I change." he amended, leaning forward for one more kiss before he turned as if to head off to his room.
"How?" she finally managed to ask when her mind started communicating with her vocal chords again. The question had him turning back towards her and returning in two short steps to stand with her again.
"How is any of this possibly?" he seemed to be asking for clarity and she gave a little nod of confirmation which he following with a shrug before a smile lit his face. He stared off for a moment as if contemplating an actual answer to her question.
The gleeful smile on Castle's face was disturbing as he seemed to finally understand that she was standing there, not because it was Wednesday, but because she had come over on another Tuesday morning. The knowledge that it was Tuesday, but this one he was being given the knowledge to see back as well seemed to impact him in an entirely positive way at the same time that it set her stomach in knots and her hands into tight fists at her sides.
When his gaze came back from thinking to look at her, he must have registered these negative thoughts because Castle took a small step back, holding his hand up as if to ward off something unpleasant. "Kate?" he asked, fear bleeding into the tone of his voice, "Are you messing with me?" he asked, taking another tentative step back, his brow furrowed in confusion, his eyes searching her face for a reaction. "This is a good thing." he tried to assure her, but the statement was weak and uncertain, more a question than a confirmation.
"Did you hear a word I said yesterday?" she finally managed to ask in disbelief. "There's nothing good about seeing so much violence. There's nothing, Castle."
"Hey," he remarked, his tone reassuring, "It's not the same now. You have me and we can do this, Kate. We can do this together." he gave her a reassuring smile, one that looked less ghastly than the grin she had wanted to knock off his face mere moments before. "We can do anything together."
Kate scoffed and managed the presence of mind to accomplish an eye roll. "For someone who makes a living coming up with new and interesting ways to turn a phrase, let me just say that was awful."
He ignored her glib response and started speaking as if she hadn't teased him at all. "Maybe this is the key." he remarked, the wheels obviously spinning in his head. "Maybe you're supposed to tell people and pull them into the bubble with you and once there are too many involved, the bubble will burst and we'll see Wednesday?"
She was shaking her head before he could even finish speaking. "What if that's not it and we just make people suffer with us for all of eternity in this day?"
Castle shrugged, "Would that be so bad?" he asked, his eyebrow quirked up in that way that made her think about exactly how expressive he often was with his features.
"Of course it would." she replied instantly, her fighting spirit back in full force and her anger driving her to squeeze her fists tighter, digging her nails into the palm of each hand.
'Think about it, really." he implored, his eyes flicking down to her hands as if he knew the damage she was causing, but was giving her the time to rein it in herself before he acted. "We'll never get old and we can do whatever we want without having to worry about tomorrow, because there isn't one." with another small teasing grin he added, "Plus, I can stop worrying about how empty the loft is going to feel when Alexis moves out.
She actually let her mind play with that thought for a moment before she felt the intensity of her glare ratchet up a notch and she was concerned at one point it might burn right through him. "Dammit, Castle!" she snapped, cutting him off just as he seemed about to continue, "Can you please act like a grown up here and help me fix this. There are things I would like to do with my life that take more than a day to accomplish."
"That's what you're not seeing." he replied, his eyes still twinkling, but the smile gone as if he finally realized the expression on his face was unnerving her. "It's not one day, it's a succession of the same day and anything that would take more than one day, we just remember where we left off and keep going."
"My mom's case?" Kate asked, more making the clarification of his statement than actually asking a question.
"Exactly," Rick replied, jumping on the train of thought easily enough. "How much further can we get when we don't have to worry that we'll piss off the wrong people and end up on the business end of a professional hit the way everyone seems to end up."
She stared at him for a long time, completely uncomprehending his logic, "How can you even think this is a good thing?"
His response was a shrug, but that stupid smile was still in place. "How can you not?" he asked and she remembered the most grating effect that youthful exuberance provided. "We've been given something that no one gets. Think about it."
"I have thought about it, but you're seeing this as some weird eternity, but it's not an eternity I want to live in."
"Maybe that's the point of the day, though?" he pointed out and she had to admit, she didn't have much to dispute that outright so she simply cocked an eyebrow to ask for elaboration. "Maybe you're supposed to seize the day, make the most of it, do all the things you've thought about doing but kept putting off for someday. Maybe this is someday."
"No." she replied, "No." she couldn't help but repeat herself in order to make sure he understood. "If that was true then this would have been over two days ago."
"Really?" he inquired, his own eyebrow crooking up to apparently mock her expression, "You've done everything you ever wanted to do?"
She scoffed, "Of course not, but you're not listening. I can't do everything in a day."
"Bull." he countered, feeding her the same exasperated tone she was giving him. "Tell me there's something on your bucket list we can't accomplish in a day."
"I want to see the world. Italy, France, Australia, go base jumping in the Grand Canyon, climb Mt. Everest. I plan to meet the little girl I sponsor in the Ukraine, ski the alps." she challenged him.
Castle smirked at her, "A private jet and a few hours we can see the world in a day. We might have to fly somewhere twice, but there's nowhere we can't get and we don't have to fly home."
She had to shake her head at him. The fact that he had an answer for everything made her even more frustrated with this line of thinking. It had her searching for things she'd never accomplish. "I want to throw out a pitch at Yankee Stadium and go to Disney World, finish raising a million dollars for the Boys and Girls Club, have my dad walk me down the aisle and buy a little house with a white picket fence. Wake up in it every day until we're old and grey and then eventually die there in my sleep at a very old age."
She spotted the twinkle in his eye at the same time his jaw dropped. "We can do all but the growing old part." he replied and then seemed to regain himself enough to get back to the casual flippancy of a moment before, "Getting old is overrated, anyway. Trust me."
Kate wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or cry when she replayed her statement and realized that somewhere in there she had used the word "we" as if it were inevitable that he would be the man with her through all those things. Though, thinking about it, she couldn't ever actually see herself in a little house with a white picket fence. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that her thoughts centered more around the apartment they had been standing in the whole time.
The more she let herself think about that, the less growing old with Castle, seemed like a plausible idea. Waking up every day with a view overlooking the best parts of the city, the most beautiful and majestic instead of the dirty alley and rundown building across from her apartment's window. It was that direct line of thinking that gave her the ace in the hole she needed to end this conversation. Her voice was quiet, because, despite all the conversations they had shared to that point, she felt uncomfortable with this one. It was a thought so private she hadn't voiced it with anyone in a very long time.
"What about when I want to have kids?"
That seemed to sober him immediately and the tentative smile that had been bolstered by her practically proposing to him and mapping out their lives as an old married couple fell away while concern scrunched the skin between his eyebrows. It seemed a very heavy silence fell upon them as her heart raced and her tentative words stood between them. After what felt a near eternity, Castle cleared his throat and met her eyes, his expression as uncertain and tentative as her was sure to be. "Do you even want to have kids?" he inquired finally.
"I just assumed I would." she remarked, hedging the topic a bit and giving him a little shrug. "You don't want any more kids?" she interpreted, from his stone silence and the inscrutable look on his face that was proving far from decipherable.
His eyes widened in surprise and he opened his mouth only to close it again when words didn't come to him. He repeated that a few times and then took a halting step back from her. She hadn't expected such a strong reaction from him in the negative. He had always been so good with Alexis that it hadn't occurred to her that he might think he's too old or that he was done raising his kids and then he wouldn't want any more. She had always assumed she would have one or two of her own kids someday, but was beginning to wonder if that thought was out considering the man she had fallen in love with didn't want to have any more.
She was surprised when he turned from her completely and almost called after him as he walked away from her again. This time, it felt as if he had gouged her through the stomach with a large knife and was twisting it as the torment rolled through her.
When he stopped and turned back a few paces away from her, she spotted the determination in his eyes before he even said a thing. "I'll just get dressed and we can head over to cut Kearns off at home."
Kate moved to the middle of the loft and dropped heavily onto the sofa as her eyes watched Castle's door close behind him. The spark of fire in his gaze, the way he abruptly changed his mind and shot off to get ready to play this one her way, might have been enough in days past for her to make the assumption that he was just trying to change the subject to buy himself some time to think of a way to let her down easy. Instead, having become so keyed into the moods and attitudes that he displayed in settings that were different than their norm, she knew immediately what his actions were.
She felt an unnatural sense of nervousness and an intriguing tingle through her body as she contemplated how they would accomplish that particular goal on the list. It lit a fire in her that burned up through her cheeks, dusting them with a subtle pink as she realized that his action wasn't a brush off, it was an agreement.
She had basically proposed to him and offered to carry his children, but instead of running and screaming from the room, he left with an intense fire filling his eyes and his spirit that she hadn't seen in him before. He wanted to catch Kearns and end this day so they could all move on. So they could move on together instead of apart.
She was so lost in her own world that she missed him coming out of the room and didn't realize he was ready to go until he stepped in front of her and blocked her entire line of sight.
"Ready?" she asked, because she couldn't think of anything else to say, though he was the one actually standing with his jacket in hand. He reached a hand out to her and she tentatively took it, letting him pull her to her feet.
They made good time in getting out of the building and on the road which left Kate gratefully for the small favor of having someone else living in her bubble with her for the first time in nearly a week. Not having to explain herself to him allowed them to spend the time in the car theorizing on the case and she was actually excited for the first time as she walked into that familiar brick building.
She should have known better than to get her hopes up. A few moments after her knock signaled their presence, the sound of glass shattering in the apartment gave away that Kearns was on the move and let her know that they were right back where they'd started.
"He's hitting the fire escape." she told Rick, gesturing back the way they had come even as she readied herself to burst into the apartment. "Take the stairs and cut him off at the bottom."
With one firm kick she was through the door as Castle took off at a run for the stairwell. Gun in hand, Beckett made quick work of reaching the room where Kearns had busted out the glass. Sweeping her weapon out first, she judged the safety in stepping out. Kearns had made it down a flight and a half of the emergency steps and she quickly followed after him.
Heart racing, Kate started to close the distance between them. She had a brief moment to realize that she had done it wrong again, before her eyes locked with her suspect's wild gaze for the shortest of moments before a wall of heat and pain engulfed her, followed shortly by nothingness.
Tuesday
6:22 am
After an abridged version of the previous day's conversation with Alexis, one that left Kate in a far lighter mood than the day before and seemed to leave Alexis more comfortable as well as less confused, Kate couldn't suppress her smile as she ventured into Castle's room.
He was still out and while she knew his alarm would wake him in a few short minutes, she decided not to wait and crawled into the bed beside him. Her good mood instantly vanished when Castle's eyes snapped open and he stared at her in disbelief for a long time before his arms reached toward her, grasping in a clumsy sleep slowed embrace and crushing her against his chest. He trembled in her arms as she returned his gesture and refused to let her pull away even enough to look into his eyes to try deciphering what was wrong.
His painful sounding gasps and the high whiny sound of his every breath were enough to have her concerned even before she registered the moisture building against her neck and shoulder where Castle had hidden his face. "Kate, that was. . ." his voice trailed off as he seemed unable to find the words.
Having lived it all before, it took her a moment to follow his thought process and determine that he was suffering through some of the intense feelings that had bombarded her on her first days through whatever this was.
Despite how she had intended for them to move as soon as Castle was awake to attempt the take-down again, she guided his face up to meet her gaze, "I'm right here." she assured him. "We failed again, but that just means we get another chance."
He shook his head, seeming ill-content with that reasoning. "What if next time there isn't another chance?" he asked after swallowing thickly several times as if he were unable to get his voice out.
"This time there was, let's just do it right next time and we'll be fine." she tried to soothe, but not knowing what might trigger the days to snap back to cycling as they were supposed to, she didn't know how to reassure him.
The responding expression that took him was enough to let her know that he understood her false promise for what it was and he wasn't happy about it at all. In a moment the expression was gone, followed shortly by his lips crushing against hers in a kiss full of desperation and anxiety that tasted of salty tears and fear.
She broke the kiss only long enough for him to pull her shirt from her and then she let him help her lose all track of time. There was nothing of the tender and gentle moments from days past. He was forceful, bordering on frantic as his weight pressed her into the mattress and his mouth plundered hers while his hands made quick work of what few garments stood in their way.
"God, Kate," he gasped as he pulled his mouth free from hers to breathe in several unsteady breaths as their bodies settled together, skin on skin. His weight on her chest was almost crushing, but the tremble in his voice and the unsteady shaking in his hands kept her from asking for any kind of relief from the force of him pushing down on her. When he propped himself up on an elbow against the mattress to look down on her, his expression was pained, as if the crushing weight had been on his own chest. "I don't ever want to do that again."
She understood. This was something she knew all too well and that devastation in his eyes was the reason that she hadn't wanted him to have to experience this day over and over again. His lips on her cut off her next series of coherent thoughts as he shifted enough to join his body to hers.
She wasn't sure who released the broken sob on the feeling of the moment of their joining, but she didn't care as they began to move together. It was a different kind of feeling as they shared in the desperation brought about by a day that was capable of cutting them so deep it was as if they were losing pieces of their soul to each day.
His movements were less confident than they had ever been, more moving on instinct than with purpose and his pace was just shy of punishing, his thrusts almost as sloppy and inconsistent as his ragged breathing. Kate forced herself to hang on, ride it out in silence, afraid she would say the wrong thing and only succeed in making it worse. She knew what this moment felt like and she was also too aware of how much it meant to be reassured in a physical way that the person you thought might be gone for good was still there to be in your arms.
He seemed to be trying to burn himself out, force his way past the emotional block that had been put in place when she'd died the day before. It was only a handful of strokes where their hips collided at a slightly awkward angle before he shifted to curl his hand beneath her knew. He pulled on her leg, guiding it up along his thigh until it was resting high on his hip.
He settled into the new angle and shifted before she felt the tension in his muscles ease as his lips caught hers and his pace slowed to a gentle rocking motion as if he were trying to savor the moment now instead of rushing through it. The change in position had her crying out against his lips and then it all fell away. She quickly found herself lost to sensation. Lost to the steady motion as if they were on a boat docked in the harbor. Lost in the gentle sweep of his hand along her thigh, as it came up to settle on her hip. Lost and desolate from the taste of salt as their tears mingled on their cheeks and infiltrated their kisses with a bitter reminder of why they were here in this moment together.
His pace picked up again moving from a slow rolling boil to a steady, vibrant pulse that left her gasping her way out of his kiss.
When they finally crashed back into reality, they were both more than a little breathless
By the time they managed to roll around to Kearns' apartment again, she was worried he would slip out the fire escape again. They had agreed that it would be best to try and nail down what probable cause they would use as a cover later so they could enter without announcing themselves.
After the previous night it didn't take much to convince Castle that it was a good idea to breach the perimeter of the man's apartment without warning. Foregoing the knocking for the first time, Castle stood impatiently beside her as she quietly picked the lock. Once they had secured entry, Kate and Rick shared a look before they ventured inside, carefully making their way through the now familiar apartment.
They did manage to surprise Kearns in his bed, but their entry was given away several steps from his door when a loud creaking in the floor signified their arrival. He had just leveled his gun on the door when they made it through.
"Put it down, Kearns." she insisted as her gaze swept the man and she noted that he was not wearing the vest of explosives as he had been every other time they had confronted him. Her confidence bolstered, she squared his shoulders as the suspect blinked the sleep from his eyes and watched her with the confusion of waking in a situation he hadn't been expecting.
"How is it," he began, his voice husky with lack of use and hair ruffled in a way that would normally be far from menacing, but his finger on the trigger of his weapon as he stared them down broke the image, "you can find me, but you can't find a few low-level thugs running rampant on our city streets?"
"You want to talk about the safety of the city as a whole, then you're going to need to put your weapon down." she replied evenly.
"I don't want to talk." he snapped, his voice rising menacingly. "I'm sick of fucking talking." His agitated state was translating into her being and Kate couldn't help but wonder how things would spin if the man in front of her managed to take her out right in front of Castle. Would it be worse than finding her burnt and battered body as he had the night before? Would he be as crushed as she had been on experiencing that herself?
She didn't give herself time to think on it. She saw the subtle shift in Kearns as he readied to fire and she let her finger pull against the trigger. She probably should have gone for a shoulder or non-lethal shot, but in that moment she had been too focused on what it would mean to Castle to live through what she had lived through herself and so she fired without really thinking about the impact of dropping the man right there on his sheets, dead from a shot to the head.
She didn't know if she could breathe through the sudden sweep of relief in watching the man for several seconds as he lay dead on the blood and brain-matter splattered sheets. It wasn't until she turned to meet Castle's gaze that she realized this may have been just as bad as letting him watch her die.
He had a look about him that spoke of his shock in the fact that she had done that. He was probably expecting a non-lethal shot as much as she had been. She couldn't help but feel the weight of her actions in the accusation in his eyes. It fell away quickly as he seemed to register something as he looked at her and a moment later she found herself wrapped in his arms.
Hours later, she still didn't know if she had taken the shot out of a desire to just be finished with all of this. Curled into herself in the corner of her couch, she stared into nothing. The knock on her door startled her out of her thoughts and she was both surprised and completely not, to see Castle standing there when she opened the door.
He practically fell into an embrace as he folded his arms around her and led her back to where she had been sitting on the couch. She let him settle her in his lap and it was a long time before either of them had anything to say. She wasn't surprised that he was the one to finally break the silence of the moment. "I know you didn't do that on purpose." he told her, though his whisper soft tone was almost lost even in the utter silence that surrounded them. "I know it, Kate."
She couldn't help the shudder at his total faith in her while she considered that she didn't have the same belief in her motivations.
"Shh," he started when she tried to speak up, though she was glad for the interruption since she didn't know what she would have said to him. "You need to accept that I know and not worry about your own doubts."
She shook her head and tried to push away from him, but he wouldn't let her go. "You can't." she protested weakly.
His chuckled was soft and felt almost out of place in the moment, but she loved the sound of it so much that she almost didn't care that it didn't fit with their conversation. "I saw your face right after it happened, Kate. I saw your surprise." he explained, pushing some hair behind her ears as he cupped her cheeks in his palms and looked into her eyes. "I should have realized it sooner, but all I could think was that I did that to you."
"You didn't." she found herself protesting immediately.
Castle shook his head to silence her, "My reaction this morning, having that meltdown." he shook his head as if exasperated with himself. "It distracted you." he explained, "You probably weren't even fully in the room with Kearns in that moment, were you?" He gave her a moment to respond, but she didn't know what to say. "Tell me that the only thought in your mind this morning was what shot you were going to take. Tell me that I wasn't in your head wreaking havoc on your sense of logic and reasoning?"
When his words finally sank in and she gave herself a moment to think over what he was saying, the sense of relief was enough to knock the breath out of her. She had not wanted to turn into Kearns and having the logic behind her actions clearly pointed out was enough to remind her that she wasn't a sociopath. She hadn't gone there with the intent to kill him. It had been self-defense and if he hadn't been holding a gun on her, if he hadn't started to pull back the trigger, he would still be alive. If this was the end of the days, despite the fact that the Internal Affairs investigation was going to be a holy terror to get through on such shaky ground, she would be able to face whatever tomorrow brought her.
Tuesday
Boom! The apartment blows, injuring and killing several officers, and leaving Castle and Beckett to watch the fallout as they mourn the loss of not only some SWAT officers they had worked with over the years, but Ryan and Esposito.
Tuesday
Bang! A bullet ends Castle. This time, when he dies in her arms, she is there to comfort him and tell him she loves him and she'll see him tomorrow.
Tuesday
After making a bad joke about how he had never died before, so it was a good experience to have as he goes forward in writing murder mysteries, Castle and Beckett both perish in the suspect's apartment.
Tuesday
They capture Kearns; he is no worse for wear and stalwart in the interrogation room. He doesn't give them anything on the murders and refuses to confess despite the evidence mounting against him.
They feel pure, unfettered joy and relief on this day, as if they had finally succeeded and they fall asleep physically exhausted in Castle's bed.
Tuesday
After waking up alone and deciding she's had enough, they play hooky from the case and from work, talk Alexis into skipping the afternoon of school and take in a double feature at the movies. While they are catching a late dinner afterwards, they hear the news of the Italian restaurant being blown to pieces. The casualties are as numerous as they both remembered.
Tuesday
Boom!
Tuesday
Bang!
Tuesday
Boom!
Tuesday
Boom!
Tuesday
Every day, they get closer to each other as they feel themselves drifting further from the thing that will tie this up and let them go on with their lives.
Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday.
They were more than ready to move things to a new day for them as well as for everyone around them, but every day someone died or they caught Kearns and every day it started over again.
As a last ditch effort, they had taken to scouring the nightly news and looking for more than the Kearns situation to fix.
A small girl was hit by a car in the mid-morning traffic outside her school; they were there to stop it. They woke up on Tuesday.
A father of three was in an accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. They were there to distract the man from getting in his car just long enough to keep him from meeting that semi-truck. They woke up on Tuesday.
An apartment building burnt to the ground, trapping an elderly woman for long enough that the smoke inhalation left her in critical condition. They were able to get her out in time. They woke up on Tuesday.
Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday.
They became exhausted and worn down. The futility of it tugged at them. They had their first big fight complete with make-up sex against the door in Kate's apartment because that was as far as they made it before they lost themselves in each other.
While the days ate away at their spirits concerning the crime and criminal element Castle continued to talk Beckett into taking the occasional day off. On those days, they just let the chips fall where they might with Kearns and, tried to scratch something at least semi-local off Kate's bucket list. Castle wanted more days like that, but Beckett pushed them to keep going, keep searching for the answers.
Together they kept plugging along, trying to find some semblance of uncertainty in a day that seemed filled with the monotony of life without surprises.
Mild depression gave way to a new determination which eventually failed in a pile of desperate grief and frustration.
And while the nights kept piling up with memories she wouldn't want to lose, the mornings were spent mourning the fact that she would never wake up with him if they didn't make it out of this day.
Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday.
x.x.x
A/N: If you follow my Twitter, you know why this was late. I apologize for being so distracted with my new phone. I also made cheesecake for the holidays, testing a new flavor for next weekend. We're ready to go, and hopefully there is enough downtime while they are all cooking, for me to write whiling I'm baking the 60+ cheesecakes I need to make next weekend.
I'm taking a break from this (notice I didn't leave you all on a cliff?) because I have to write the long delayed epilogue to Retaliation and a few other things. I should be back before Christmas, but if not I hope you have a great one. I have 3 days off then another 2 for my birthday followed by three for New Years. Hopefully, with all the family stuff out of the way, I can get a lot done in that down time. I'm sure you guys can guess that we're wrapping things up on this one and getting down to the end.
Review that made my day: New Readers, I'm thrilled by all the reviews, but I find it fun to recognize who just joined us in our journey since I feel the most awful for them. We've all suffered the delays and weathered the progression, but think about having read everything up to chapter 22 or 24 and then find no end. That's tough. Then you have to wait with everyone else. That's so hard when you're so used to just clicking next and seeing what happens.
Thanks to everyone for reading.