Rise (Part IV)

Kate set aside the journal after a few moments, returning it to its place on the night stand. It was the last letter from that summer and they needed to be done for the night, but as she replaced the book she was struck with a sudden thought. Wordlessly, she slipped out of his embrace and climbed out of bed, flinching slightly as her feet came in contact with the cold floor.

Castle's response was immediate as he reached out, tried to catch her around the waist, but she was too quick. "Kate..."

"No, I just..."

"Kate, come back, please."

She turned and pressed a kiss to his lips, silencing him. "I'm not going anywhere. There's something I want to show you."

She crossed to the dresser, opened the same wooden box from which she'd recently retrieved the letter from Royce. Kate extracted a different sheet of paper this time, replaced the box, then made her way back to the bed, stopping as she approached to squat down and retrieve a novel from the collection she kept in her nightstand. She set the book next to her pillow, slipped wordlessly back into bed, into the cove created by the side of Castle's body.

He was regarding her curiously, eyes deep blue and questioning.

"I wrote this that summer," she said tentatively, holding the paper out to him. "I never had the courage to send it, but it's for you."

He took it tenderly, unfolded the page to see line after line of her familiar scrawl. "You're sure?"

She nodded, leaned closer. She never thought the day would come when Castle would actually read this but, given the circumstances, it seemed right to share it with him now. "Yes."

"Okay."

Dear Castle,

I miss you so much.

It's been so long since I've seen your face, heard your voice, laughed at one of your jokes. I don't think I realized how much light you brought to my life until you weren't here by my side. And I know for that I have no one to blame but myself.

But there are some things that need to be done alone, for whatever reason, and for me this is one of them.

That doesn't stop me from missing you, though.

That's the first reason I'm writing to you today. I've never been one to write letters, especially letters I'll never send, but you've told me before that writing is a good way to sort out feelings, so I'm giving it a shot.

I think you figured out long ago that I'm a fan of your books, but I've never told you just how true that is. My mom loved your books. She owned every one you'd published at the time, and they were always among her favorites. I never used to read them, always rolled my eyes every time she started talking about how great they were, or that a new one was being released.

But after her death, when I was going through her things, I found her collection of them. I took them home with me one day, because I thought it might help me feel closer to her, and I ended up reading the first one in a single night. And it helped, not only because I was reading her old novels, but also because in the end, justice was served.

I was falling apart, Castle. My dad was already drinking and I was trying to keep both of us afloat, but I was drowning too. And I was furious; at the man who destroyed my family, at the world for making my life so unfair, at the cops who wrote the case off as random violence. Even back then, before I joined the academy, I didn't believe them.

Your books gave me hope. They renewed my faith in the good of humanity, in the fact that at least in that fictional world, the guilty were punished and the innocent were given closure. They reminded me that it wasn't over, that I could fight back, and maybe someday I too could have the same ending.

Why am I telling you this now? Because even though you aren't here, your books are, and they're helping me get through each day. When I'm in pain, feeling helpless or angry, when all of it just gets to be too much, I read your books. I brought quite a few of them with me. My link to the real world, I guess you could say. My link to you.

I haven't seen you in almost two months now, and I'm sure you hate me for not calling almost as much as I hate myself for being too cowardly to do so. I could give you a million excuses for my decision, but they probably wouldn't help.

The truth is, I lied to you, and I don't think I can face that just yet. But I can't face the truth, either. I told you I didn't remember the shooting. Sometimes, I still try to convince myself of that fact. But I do remember it. All of it. I haven't told anybody. I've tried to bury it, hide it away in the box of things that I don't want to deal with, but I need to let it out somehow, which is my real reason for writing this letter.

I heard you, Castle. It was the last thing I heard before I passed out, the first thing I remembered when I woke after surgery. Along with your books, those three words are giving me the strength to fight through this because I know that wherever you are, whatever you're doing, you're somewhere out there, loving me.

And that makes all the difference in the world.

I broke up with Josh. I couldn't keep stringing him along. You were right when you said I was hiding, that I wasn't truly happy. I didn't want to hear it, but you were right. We broke up the day I left the hospital. There were a lot of reasons, some of which you already know. But there was another reason, too.

It wasn't right for me to be with him when my heart belonged to someone else. To you.

Someday, I hope I have the strength to tell you this. Someday when I can stand on my own two feet again, when I'm not haunted by pain, by this case, by almost dying. When this case has been wrapped up and I can stop hiding behind the hurt and grief and loss and fear. Someday soon, I want to be strong enough to let myself love you, and to let you love me too.

So please forgive me, Castle, for not calling you, for avoiding you, and for lying to you. I know I've made some bad choices amidst all of this, but I want you to know that I'm trying to do what is best for us in the long run. I'm trying to do whatever it takes for me to be whole again, for me to be deserving of you, and for me to be stable enough to allow us to have the chance we deserve.

I promise you one day I will tell you this in person, but for now this will have to suffice.

I miss you.

I love you.

Kate

There were tears in his eyes when he finished reading, and Kate reached up gently, caught the few that had escaped. She leaned in, pressed a kiss to each cheek, directly over the trails left by the moisture.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"For what?"

He held her closer, bodies fully aligned. "For sharing that with me."

"Does it help?" Kate asked hesitantly, curious to know if her letter did for him what his have done for her. "Knowing, I mean."

He nodded against her. "It does. And in retrospect, it all makes sense. The whys, you know?"

"I do know," she answered honestly. "It's what every one of your letters has shown me."

Castle kissed the bare skin of her shoulder, tongue slipping out to taste her skin.

She hummed softly, nuzzled her nose into his neck.

"Why the book?" he asked after a moment, reaching over her to pick it up, turn it over in his hands.

"Open it," she said softly.

Castle flipped open the cover of Storm Break, unsure of what he was looking for. He didn't have to go far, though. There, on the very first page, was his signature.

To Kate,

Never stop fighting.

Richard Castle

"I... I signed this?"

"Yeah."

"I don't remember."

Kate cupped his jaw, looked at him so tenderly that his heart skipped a beat. "Rick, it was twelve years ago. I looked a lot different and I was one of a thousand people you met that day. I don't expect you to."

"Yeah but..."

"Barnes and Noble in Union Square." She silenced him with an answer to his unspoken question. "Two thousand and two. I waited in line for hours."

"I wasn't... was I an ass to you?"

She shook her head. "You asked me my name, smiled at me. Said thank you."

"Good."

"It helped," she added softly. "Your words."

"It did?"

"Never stop fighting," she murmured. "Yeah, it did."

"I never knew," he said softly, eyes still fixed on his own handwriting.

"Never knew what?"

"Why my books helped you so much. I just thought you read them because you liked them."

She smiled gently. "Well, there's that too."

"Yeah but," he paused, searched for the right words, "knowing that our words help people is the ultimate reward for an author. The fact that you were one of those people and that my words were able to reach you during the hardest time of your life... it makes every late-night last-minute scramble to meet my deadlines worth it."

Kate removed the novel from his hand, folded the letter neatly inside the front cover, deposited it on the nightstand, then settled back into his arms. She kissed him softly, just once, then snuggled into his warm embrace.

"I love you."

There will be a companion one-shot of sorts to this chapter. It's a random spinoff that popped into my head while I was writing this chapter and it's not necessarily canon with the story I've created here, but it's related. Long story short, if that sounds like something you might be interested in, keep an eye out for it in the next day or two. Or, you know, put me on alert. Something like that.