Another one (yes, yes I know) for the Awesome Ladies Ficathon. Prompt was "Kate Beckett; 'I have this breath/and I hold it tight/and I keep it in my chest/with all my might/I pray to God this breath will last/as I push it through my lips."
She has to do a double take the day he returns to the squad room; she's spent so much time seeing the ghost of him - and the scorched potential of what they left behind - alongside her own reflection that his actual physical form doesn't register for a moment.
She's in the break room when seconds turn to hours for an eternal instant, and she sucks in a ragged breath, the oxygen deprivation stopping her movements cold. The carafe is in mid-pour, and a single drop of coffee dangles off the chip on her mug.
And then she sees her profile in the stainless steel of the cappuccino machine. There are no unspoken truths or consequences laid there; no haggard lines deepened by the solitude of second-guessing. She's like the mug in her hands; there's a chink in her armor, but it doesn't render her useless.
Admittedly, it took her a long time to get to that Zen place, and it's an unfamiliar, rusted form of acceptance; one that can cut her when she's not careful. But she's never been one to bleed when she has an audience - and she sure as hell isn't going to start now.
Squaring her shoulders and expanding her lungs, she walks into the bullpen, a welcome back, Castle poised on her lips.