MAELSTROM

EPILOGUE – COMING BACK TO LIFE

A/N - Thank you, all, for reading, for commenting, and for your encouragement. I couldn't have imagined a better welcome! Hope you've enjoyed the ride. Thanks once more to 47alwayswriting, because she rocks.

Have a relatively short (for me, anyway!) epilogue.

Disclaimer - None of this is mine. Just playing surreptitiously in the corners of large sandboxes, hoping the big kids won't notice and come over to kick my arse.

The silence in his bedroom is profound after their third joining. Deep, but not awkward. They've exhausted all their words, cried all their tears, and made amazing love enough times to seal a new compact between them. And the storm outside has finally beat itself into oblivion; a steady drizzle falls and streaks the windows, but it's quiet and soothing. The storm has scoured the world, and her. It cleansed her soul, cleared her conscience and girded her loins. She'll forever be grateful to the memory of it; and a little sad to see it go.

She lies with her head on his chest, idly playing with his skin as he breathes heavily. He's falling asleep and she beams to herself, feeling the delicious lethargy in her own limbs.

Poor baby, I really knocked him out. Not to mention surprised him.

There's a smug (one could even say "Castle-esque") pride in knowing that she'd shown Richard Castle some things that he never thought were possible, let alone that they could happen to him. And now, he's utterly boneless and exhausted, and there's definite pride in that.

He's not quite asleep yet, though. "Mmm...wow," he murmurs. A slight shiver runs through her as his hand strokes gently through the mess that is her hair.

She sighs, her nose nuzzling him. "Yeah...wow." That's all she can manage. After all, it's been a long night. And sometimes eloquence isn't needed.

As she feels her eyelids get heavier and the blanket of sleep finally start to settle upon her, she hears his quiet voice again. Plaintive and questioning.

"Kate?" He almost sounds like a young boy.

"Hmm?"

"You'll be here when I wake up, right? This isn't some fantastic dream...?"

Her heart breaks slightly at the hesitancy in his voice.

"No, Rick. I'm not going anywhere. I'll be right here." She butterflies gentle kisses into his chest, to drive the point home. To reassure him.

"...good..." he whispers huskily, and with that, sleep finally claims him.

As she gazes at his sleeping face, she can't help but remember another time when she watched him sleep. They were over thirty-thousand feet in the air, and she was clutching a letter from a dead friend. All the while, she couldn't keep her eyes off the resting, boyish face of the man she still couldn't admit to herself, let alone him, that she loved so dearly. Like Mike Royce had said from the grave, she had fought it. Tooth and nail. In the end, the fight was for naught. It claimed her, and she couldn't be happier that she lost that particular battle.

She knows tomorrow there might be more questions, more fears. But it's better than being trapped in a prison of her own making, never letting anyone close.

She knows that she has months, maybe years, of damage left to fix. The wall she built irrevocably left its mark on her, changed her, and it's only because of the man she shares a bed with now that she can see a world without that wall in place.

The night they've shared has been fraught with tears, high emotion. But to counter that, it's been a night of tenderness, understanding, and sublime physical contact. And their shared night has begun to heal the wounds that he unwittingly opened so long ago - wounds which she then pried open even further. It has been a panacea for the searing injuries they've inflicted upon each other all these years. It has indelibly linked them in a way that cannot be easily undone.

It has freed her. In rejecting the prison that held her back – her obsession with her mother's case – for another prison – the arms of Richard Castle...paradoxically, it is freedom.

For the first time in what seems like a million years, she can see the possibility of life beyond her seething need for vengeance and justice. Beyond pain and loneliness.

Since that freezing January night, when she was still just a child, she's been more than trapped behind a wall – a part of her has been cold and dead inside. And she hadn't even realised how cold and dead she was until Richard Castle wormed his way into her professional life, and then her personal life. Roy Montgomery had been right – he was good for her.

More than good. He has become her lifeline. And as loathe as she is to rely on anyone, or depend upon anyone, she can't – and doesn't even want to – deny the need she has for him. Or deny the fact that he's helped her come back to life.

And she knows that she can't imagine her life without him in it.

It will be hard, adjusting to Castle in her life in this new way. She's under no illusions that it will be a smooth ride. But after everything they've been through together, she can't imagine them not doing this. Not trying.

As sleep creeps up on her, she almost unconsciously mumbles the words into his skin. He can't hear them, but he sure as hell knows the truth of them already, without needing to.

"I love you, Castle."

And outside, the maelstrom has finally ended. The rain peters out, and the dim light of dawn approaches.

I took a heavenly ride through our silence

I knew the moment had arrived

For killing the past and coming back to life.

Pink Floyd - "Coming Back To Life"