She can't get comfortable. The ache is dull tonight. Her room is humid and sticky. The ceiling fan is clicking too loud and her window open next to her bed isn't helping.
Kate kicks out the sheets again tiredly and slowly rolls onto her back, letting her head list off to the side and grabs for the bear mindlessly, pulling it to her side. She's tired, but she just can't get to sleep. Maybe it's the crickets outside, they're being noisier than usual tonight. Or maybe it's the rustling in the distance, the wind blowing through the limbs of the trees, making them creak. All the sounds of the woods are making her brain over-active. They're usually soothing. But tonight, they're just keeping her awake. She's supposed to be used to annoying ambient noise, she lives in the noisiest city on the planet.
Her chest and side are aching a bit, a dull pain that the pills won't help. It's not debilitating, she has to live with it for now.
For a moment, Kate gives up and opens her heavy eyes to the ceiling, letting her mind wander as she adjusts the bear in her side. She chuckles at the childishness of it, clinging to this bear as much as she has been. They wilt and die and I figured the last thing you'd want is another reminder of death, she recalls his words when he gave Sherlock to her at the hospital. It still makes her smile. She loves it because she doesn't have to force it, she doesn't have to pretend it makes her feel better for anyone else's sake.
When a small thought floats into her mind, her hand adjusts the bear again and her fingers pinch the bear's hand. "How do I..." she lets her eyes drift shut at the sound of his voice from the bear, "wait, like, now? Check one, is it... hello?" Sherlock parrots.
She thought she would have a hard time getting rid of him when her recovery started.
Kate squeezes her eyes and shakes her head, trying to force herself to sleep, not wanting to think about it anymore. But the sounds and noises of the woods are getting louder. And after a minute of hearing them get louder, she decides that the heat in the room is bearable if she can just get some sleep. With the dull ache still sitting in her chest, she sits up and reaches for the window to close it.
But her whole body jumps when the moonlight catches the beady eyes of a grizzly bear looking through her window.
Kate jumps back in her bed, her back slamming against her headboard, her body frozen with terror. Her hand fists Sherlock's leg as the bear huffs, fogging up the glass. It grunts as its massive paws crush the hedges below her window. Kate's heart is frantic, galloping up and down her spine. She can't even breathe. She's trembling as the bear's massive mouth opens and roves over her window, showing her its giant teeth while he scratches the glass with them.
The first breath she's able to release is nothing but a small gulp.
And she feels the life drain from her whole body when she sees the grizzly move to stand on its hind legs and put its gigantic paws and massive six inch long claws against her window, slamming it shut. At the thud of the window pane, she gasps in terror and yanks Sherlock to her chest. The bear stands against her window for what feels like a lifetime, moving his head around as if he's looking for a way to get in. Kate flutters her eyes closed, the dull ache turning into an intensely sharp pain in her heart when it won't stop slamming against her scar.
"Rwagh!" The bear roars from the other side of the window.
Her eyes sting as she feels a tear leak out onto her scared face. She's going to die here.
The grizzly grunts and falls back to the ground and quickly lumbers off. The crunch and the rustling of the foliage outside quiet down after another few long moments and Kate is finally able to feel her heart beat normally and she lets out a giant breath.
Drenched in a cold sweat, she stares into the darkness and admits to the terror, for once, doesn't fight it off and gives into it. She hugs Sherlock to her as tight as she can, pressing his hand when she closes her burning eyes. "How do I... wait, like, now? Check one, is it... hello?"
She listens for the roar, for the scratch of its claws, the gnashing of its teeth, but hears nothing.
So she presses his hand again. "How do I... wait, like now? Check one, is it... hello?"
She breathes in as slowly as she can and lets it out just as calmly. Her fingers are still holding Sherlock's hand, pressing his button as soon as it will let her. "How do I... wait, like, now? Check one, is it... hello?
After another few seconds, she feels the sting go away. "How do I... wait, like, now? Check one, is it... hello?"
Her eyes slowly adjust to the sun shining directly in them through the window.
Her tired body lulls her onto her back as she brushes her hair out of her face, her arm hugging Sherlock to her. It's not until her eyes look at the window and see the strange smear on the glass that she recalls the night before. As soon as the memory jumps into her mind, she snaps upright and checks outside.
Her caught breath lets out when all she sees is some smashed plants in the flower bed under her window. She would have sworn it was a dream if the smear from the bear's saliva wasn't still on the glass. Her heart rate simmering down, she feels herself still hugging the stuffed bear to her side. And when she feels his soft fuzz, her heart aches with a new pain she wishes she could make go away with the pills she needs to take before getting out of bed.
Her dad is supposed to leave back home tomorrow while she stays here to recover on her own. She's back on her feet for the most part. She can get dressed on her own now, take care of herself, make her own meals now. The wheelchair and the pitiful walker she graduated to soon after are both folded up and tucked away in the closet. All she needs to do now is put in the work and she'll be back to normal.
If she can get normal back. She's not even sure she knows what normal is for her now.
Her mind becomes aware of the soft fuzz she's petting with her thumb and she looks down, bringing Sherlock up to sit on her lap. This stupid little bear has been attached to her since he gave it to her. And now that her dad's leaving, she'll be left more alone with her thoughts than she was before.
"You know what we are, Castle? We are over!" Her words violate her conscience.
She thought they were okay. She thought he knew she wanted to forget about it all. He even seemed his normal self at the hospital. He even said he'd call her! Sherlock's small, black, plastic eyes bead into her's as they sting with emotion. "I didn't mean it, Castle."
She pinches is hand. "How do I... wait, like, now? Check one, is it... hello?"
Kate rolls her eyes to herself and shakes her head, leaning back against her headboard. "If I knew you were actually going to listen to me, I never would have said it."
This is why she doesn't want to be left here alone. But a small part of her wants to be here alone for this very reason, to be left alone with these thoughts, to let them consume her until she's lost.
She closes her eyes and leans her head back against the headboard and thinks of him. But after a moment, she hears the branch of a tree rustle and the loud smashing pop of a glass bottle breaking apart just outside. She leans forward to look, but all she can see is the limb of the tree marking the tree line of the cabin bobbing up and down. Deciding she has to check it out, she yanks the covers off, with Sherlock buried underneath the covers, quickly downs her pain medication and stands up.
Slowly, she drags herself around the cabin, checking the rooms in her pajamas until she sees the sliding glass door out to the deck is open and her dad is standing on the railing looking out onto the woods in a pair of jeans, hiking boots, and a flannel shirt. She steps through the kitchen and puts her hand on the sliding glass door and leans out. "Dad?"
Jim turns at the sound of his daughter's voice and smiles warmly. "Hey, sweetie." He says happily. "You're up pretty late."
"Yeah," she starts worriedly, looking around the deck in search of anything out of place. "I had some trouble getting to sleep last night. Is..." she trails off as she paces across the deck toward her dad, seeing a picture laying on the railing, "is everything okay? I thought I heard something break."
"Fine, sweetie."
Kate drags her feet over to the railing and looks to the cap sitting down next to the picture. And when she recognizes it, her heart turns cold. Her hand reaches up, almost trembling, and she takes the familiar black cap in her thumb and forefinger. "Dad..."
"Katie..." he tries.
"Dad, this is your brand." She eyes him with a hardened brow. When she sees his eyes close and his head list off to the side, her heart breaks. "No, Dad, I can not have you fall off the wagon again. I thought we beat this!"
"Katie!" Jim says, putting his hands on her arms. "I'm fine... really. I opened it, but it was only to pour it out." He says and motions to the moist puddle of soil in the flower bed on the ground next to where he's standing on the deck. "Okay?"
Her heart falls back into her chest as relief slowly washes through her. "Dad," she starts, putting the cap down, "why would you even think about this?
His eyes turn heavy and one of his hands fall off her arm. "Truth is, Katie, it's been..."
"Been what, Dad?" She almost pleads with him.
"Been really hard watching you go through all this." He says honestly, a dark pang of hopelessness seeping into his gaze. She looks over at him and hears him out, having no idea how this was affecting him. He's always been so reserved. "I bought the bottle a few weeks ago and it's been staring me in the face ever since."
"But..." she lets the words fall on a hard sigh. "But you never drank?"
"Not once," Jim replies sternly.
She breathes another hard sigh, believing him. He wouldn't be this upfront and non-defensive if he had. He'd have thrown her off if he actually drank from that bottle he tossed into the woods. "Dad, why didn't you ever tell me that you were thinking about drinking again?" She tries to pull some talk out of him.
Jim laughs softly, "I didn't want you worrying about me on top of recovering from a gunshot, that's why." Kate sighs again, shakes her head, and steps into her dad's side as he turns to face the woods again. And now that the fears of him falling back down the rabbit hole are gone, she looks at the picture again. A familiar picture that she sees every time she goes into her bedroom.
She smiles and takes the tatters and wrinkled photo in her hand. "I have this picture at home."
Jim smiles with his daughter and rubs her shoulder. "Your mother was a beautiful woman."
Kate's memory floats around her mother. It's rare when they share memories of her. A joined pain that neither one of them like to remind each other of. Her mother loved it up here. "I miss her."
Jim's heart tugs. "So do I, sweetie."
She lets her heart wander. And when her eyes look away from the picture and stare off into the woods of the late morning, she can feel her dad's eyes on her. She has another few weeks to speed along her recovery... then she gets to go back home. Back to her job, to the precinct, back to her apartment... to a new captain. It's overwhelming just how much of everything she'll have to get used to when she thinks about it all at once. And her partner...
She kicked him out. He listened to what she said that night and he actually left.
He abandoned her.
"Katie," her dad starts suddenly, pulling his arm off of her and leaning against the railing next to her, "did I ever tell you why I started drinking?"
Kate looks over, her heart wrenched with emotion. "I know why you started drinking, Dad. Mom had just died."
Jim shakes his head, "It... wasn't only that." He says in a heavy voice. "Katie... after your mother died... I began to think things. And I hated what I was thinking because I knew it was the part of me that she helped me overcome. I started to wish that I could... go back. I wanted to make it so I never met her in the first place just so I wouldn't feel that way. I hated the pain of losing your mother like that. And I drank so I didn't have to feel guilty for wishing the love of my life had never existed."
She'd be angry... if she didn't understand so much. Avoiding the pain of losing that part of yourself by wanting never to go after it in the first place. Putting up as many barriers and hiding behind as many excuses as you can just so it doesn't become what you dread to lose. Killing it before it makes you wish it would kill you to end the misery it caused.
"What changed?" She asks, her eyes staring hard out into the woods.
Jim takes a small breath before continuing. "Every day, I'd ask God to give me a chance to go back and make it so I never went to that stupid Christmas party with her. But then I started to realize that if I actually was given that chance, it might take away the pain, but... it would take away everything else."
"But you'd stop hurting."
"Katie, if I actually got the chance to go back, do you want to know what I'd change, even if I knew in advance how it was going to all end?" Jim asks his daughter, who looks back over to him after a pause, searching for his answer. "Nothing."
Kate's eyes hold her dad's for a moment, wanting to know why he answered so sincerely.
"It may stop the pain from losing her, but... think about everything else I'd lose. Like you, Kate."
Kate swallows and turns back to the woods. "But what if Mom never got murdered?" She asks, putting herself into context. "What if she just left? Would you change things then?"
Jim tries again softly, "Katie..." he didn't want to speak for Rick. He didn't want to say anything Rick might not mean or wouldn't want said. "Rick cares about you."
Kate stays silent, wanting more than anything to have it in herself to be furious at him.
"I mean... Katie, I was in the audience at that funeral when you were shot, and I don't remember seeing you past the time Rick tackled you, and I've been having a hard time coping with it." He says, taking the bottle cap of the whiskey in his fingers. "But Rick was by your side the whole time, from the moment they wheeled you into surgery."
Kate's eyes drift shut, thinking about everything her partner had gone through. She remembers how he is when things like that hit him in the face. He's not built for things like that. "You know, when John Raglan was shot in that diner, he was right next to me." She recalls. "When he saw the blood on my shirt, he thought I'd been shot. Dad, he had this... he looked like a ghost. He was always a little too fine around dead bodies, but... this time..."
He had to watch the lights go out.
"Dad, Castle and I had a fight." She admits, needing to tell someone. "The night Montgomery was killed, we had this huge blowout."
"About what?"
She shakes her head at her own bullheadedness. "He accused me of using mom's murder as an excuse to not move on. And I accused him of playing around in my life. I told him that we were over and I wanted him gone."
"But Katie... you said he seemed fine at the hospital. He's the one that gave you that bear I always see next to you, isn't he?"
"Yes," she nods, "so that means something changed. Something happened when I got shot that changed something between us and I can't remember what it is."
It's mostly empty. But then again it's a Tuesday and it's the middle of the day.
The voices of a few other tourists echos off the marble in the museum as his shoes squeak on the floor, approaching a stone bust in a line of others along the wall. He stares at it through his glasses and sighs. He's just wasting time before he picks a new destination. He knows that.
"Marcus Aurelius." A gruff voice says from behind him.
He turns and sees an older man with a white beard and short white hair standing behind him, standing about as tall as himself. The man is wearing a dark army green cargo jacket, a grey polo shirt, and jeans, much the same outfit he's wearing himself. He adjusts his glasses and straightens his shoulders, scratching his own light hair on his jaw before giving the man a nod silently and turning back to look at the stone bust. "Oh?"
"Mmhmm," the man says and takes a step closer to him. "Roman Emperor, considered a philosopher king."
He lets the words go between his ears, uninterested in conversation.
"Funny, you know his famous work 'Meditations' he actually wrote to himself. He ordered the works to be burned upon his death and ordered them never to be read."
"Let me guess," he continues, "they didn't listen."
"Nope," the man chuckles, "they found the work so compelling they felt it too good to burn." The man stays standing just behind him, and he decides to wait him out until he moves along to bother someone else. "Since is it possible that you may be quitting life this very moment, govern every act and thought accordingly." The man rattles off.
He looks over his shoulder and sees the man's eyes in a book, and watches as the man looks back up and presents the book to him.
"Quote from his book." He says and hands the book to him.
Castle takes it reluctantly. "Thanks, but I'm not really looking for answers."
"In my experience, kid," the man says and starts to turn away, "a man who's not looking for answers is looking for excuses." With that, the man takes off down the large hallway of the museum in a casual pace.
Castle shakes his head and lets the book fall down to his side. It might give him something to do on the next flight.
A/N: If I'd known you guys were going to use the reviews to debate with each other, I would have written something else. Appreciate the boost in numbers tho! C: