Chapter Three

He looks good.

He looks like he did before. He looks the way she wants to be able to remember him, healthy and alive and nothing at all like the last time she'd seen him - waxy and pale and caked in the thick layer of makeup that couldn't cover bruises that would never heal.

And before that - God. He'd looked broken. He'd been broken.

"I can- I- You're-"

She can't process words. Or the image before her. Or the thoughts that twist through her like a tornado, tossing everything about, a torrent of questions and exclamations and declarations and-

"Beckett? Beckett, are you okay?"

Is she okay? No. Not okay. She's not even sure she can breathe. Not while she gapes at him, waiting for the illusion to waiver, waiting for her drunken eyes to focus. But it doesn't. They don't.

"Kate?"

"You're not here," she says finally, walking past him - around him - into the kitchen, legs more shaky than they'd been walking up.

"Of course I'm here."

"No. You're dead, Castle."

"Yeah."

"I held your hand. I-" looked into his eyes. Clouded and dull. Dead. Not sparking with life like they are now. But she can't say it out loud, the words sticking in her throat. She can't tell him how she watched the life drain from his body.

And it's all in her head, twisted and drunk and angry and desperate but-

"Thank you," he says, his eyes turning soft. Knowing. "For not leaving me."

God.

Fuck.

She can't even-

-she can't breathe.

He waits a beat and then nods. Smiles soft. Lopsided. Like he did whenever he was trying to lighten her load. "But hey, you can see me!" he exclaims. "Do you know what this means?"

She looks away, can't stand the familiar blue of his eyes sparkling at her, the easy, practiced smile, the casual calm. Like he's real. Like he's not her mind's twisted, desperate attempt to make her world a little more normal.

"I'm going crazy."

"You're not going crazy."

"No. I'm drunk. I had too much to drink. I-" She glances back and he's right behind her, his warmth emanating through her clothes. She catches a whiff of his aftershave. It's so vivid. His scent.

It makes her stomach rebel, grief and hope and wretched pain twisting in her guts.

It's too much. She leaps back. Away from him. Needs more distance between this phantom and her delirious mind, her overwrought senses.

"Kate listen to me-"

"No. This isn't real," she insists forcing her eyes to look away. Anywhere but him.

"I don't know what's going on but-"

"Stop. You're dead. You're not here, you're dead," she says. She turns around to face the sink. She needs something to do with her trembling hands. Something. Anything. She reaches out and grabs a glass from her dish rack. It's cool to the touch, heavy in her hand. Normal. Real. She fills it with water from the tap and takes a long gulp. It doesn't help her rolling stomach.

She knows it's not real - can't be real - but seeing him, hearing him, feeling him this close, it hurts. He can't be here. Isn't here. Just a cruel spectre taunting her with what she doesn't have. Can never have.

"Kate-"

"Stop!" she shouts, clutching the kitchen sink as tightly as her eyes. Desperate words spilling from her mouth are better than allowing the tears to fall from her eyes. She's spilled too many tears tonight. She's running out. She won't waste any on her mind's vicious attempt to torment her. "Go away."

She doesn't notice the silence until it's blaring in her ears. Deafening. Devastating.

Slowly, she turns. She peeks warily over her shoulder, to the spot where he stood.

He's gone.

Because he was never there, she reminds herself.

Her breath leaves her in a shuddering gust and she stumbles numbly towards her room, careful to sidestep the spot beside the kitchen island where he stood. Didn't stand. Where she imagined him to.

She falls into bed, clings to her pillow, her lifeline as the room begins to spin. She closes her eyes, tries to steady the swirling sensation, the sick roll of her stomach.

The alcohol, she knows, will mean she won't dream and she's grateful.

Her waking moments are nightmare enough.

It takes a while but eventually her heart begins to calm, her breath evens out, her eyelids grow heavy.

She succumbs blissfully to blackness.

And in that moment, in her last jumbled thought before her mind goes dark, she finds herself wishing for another reprieve from reality. She hopes for another break from sanity, if only just to see him one more time, so very alive. Vibrant. The way she wants to remember him.

A/N - Apologies for the very long wait, someone took his sweet time writing his part.