Hi there!

Prompt: 6X23 continuation... I was all up in the feels tonight and I'm not sure why. But this was the result. Hope you like it.

I'm in the process of writing requests. I promise, they are coming! Thank you for being so patient with me!

As always, I cannot say thank you enough for being so lovely towards my stories.

Enjoy!

I guess it's finally time for me to write this. I never thought I would, but I've been in denial this whole time. Burke told me I should do this as a way to "cope". I didn't have the heart to tell him that coping only works if you plan to get over it. My plans don't include that.

You've been gone for eight months now. It's been hard, harder than I ever could have imagined. Some days are better than others, but none of them are good. I guess you could say the latter half of this stretch of emptiness has been easier. Am I coping? Never. Am I just becoming number? Probably. Either way it still sucks.

Nothing could ever be as bad as that first night. They finally got me out of the hole and away from the car. It took three firefighters and a hysterical plea from Ryan to coax me out. They shuffled me into the back of the car; the car that we were supposed to ride in together after the ceremony. You had insisted we go to a different section of the beach for pictures, hence the car. We were going to be alone, as it should have been, with the photographer. That part always made me laugh.

We finally got back to the house and all of the guests were gone. Every single happy, smiling face that had been patiently awaiting our special day had vanished into thin air. No one wanted to deal with the heartbreak. But it was easy for them to run. They could run. I couldn't. Yeah, they would be sad for a while, shake their heads at the mention of your name, and whisper an empty sympathy directed towards all of us. But eventually they would move on and you would be a memory to them. Not to us; your family, your precinct family, me.

I had slumped up the stairs and into the guest bedroom where your mom and Alexis were. They were sitting on the ottoman, broken in each other's arms. I stood in the doorway, a soggy, tear-stained bride. One, shared look between the three of us and they knew I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to be held in an embrace. I didn't want to be given the opportunity to hurt.

That night, I laid in bed and the entire world came crashing in on me. The silence was unbearable. My chest grew so heavy that I couldn't breathe, the air in my lungs and the blood in my veins like fire coursing through me. I was heaving for breath and instead of trying to calm myself down, I was thinking of you. The only thoughts running through my head were of your car in the hole that ought to be hell. That damn hole that I stood in, with some hope that if you were inside, I could get you out. I'm not a superhero, though, I just play one at work. It didn't matter; you weren't in there.

Alexis must have heard me because she was in bed next to me, holding her arms around me. I let myself cry. I let it out because she was one of the few people that knew exactly what I was feeling. She understood. So your little girl held me as I cried when it really should have been the other way around. But she's strong, obviously stronger than me. We had never been particularly close, but I could never thank her enough for the comfort she gave me that night. You raised an amazing woman.

Eventually I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up the next morning alone. There was a split second where my brain let everything go, but then reality came crashing down around me. The sun shining through the window meant that you had been gone for over twelve hours. Twelve hours of unknown for you. That twelve hours quickly turned into these eight horrifically painful and lonely months.

I realized that I had been in denial this entire time, thinking, praying, hoping, wishing that we would find you. Until now.

They found your body today.

They're not completely sure it's you, but all of the signs are there. They know the remains are male. Tall, broad, just like you. Dental records aren't back yet, but I was told that they were a good set of teeth. Well taken care of.

So this is why I finally decided it was time to write. I have to say goodbye.

I never wanted this to come, yet I am struck with an emotion I'm not sure I want to admit even to the paper. I'm relieved. You deserve this closure. You deserve to be laid to rest in the right way. You didn't deserve to die. A man so good and kind and wonderful like you never would deserve this, but you, so sweet and genuine and whole deserves to be remembered and honored properly. You deserved a proper end to your story.

I am so, so sad. There's no other word to describe it. I'm sad because you're gone. I had hope before that we might get you back; that's what we had been trying to do all of this time. But now, you have to stay gone; this is the only time I didn't want to find any evidence. I didn't want to solve a case this way.

Now, I have to wear a black dress and walk down the aisle and watch the people closest to us cry and grieve and be sad. I have to listen to people close to you talk and tell stories of the good ole' days. Then I have to watch as they lower you into the earth and you become one with it. I have to accept the apologies of your family and let them see me cry. Because let's face it, I'm past hiding my tears from them. There's too much pain to conceal. And then when it's all over, I have to come back here and be alone. I don't want to do that. God, I don't want to do that.

But before any of that, I need to say thank you. I need you to know that I am forever grateful for everything you have done for me. Thank you for the opportunity to become something more than myself when I was with you. Thank you for making me immortal through the incredible Nikki Heat. When a writer falls in love with you, you can never die; right? How different I wish that sounded now. Thank you for taking the time to help me break away from Beckett and become more of Kate than I had ever known. Thank you for being there. Thank you for showing me what it was to love and be loved. Thank you for all of the opportunities to laugh. Thank you for the smiles in the morning and the kisses at night. Thank you for the coffee. Thank you for promising me always.

I will miss you more than you will ever know. You're not someone easily forgotten; just the way you like it. I promise to carry you with me for as long as I live. I'm a one writer girl. I'm a one and done.

Goodbye, my lover. Thank you for the eternal love.

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xoxo