They buried her partner a week after she was released from the hospital.

The nightmares started soon after.

White gloves passing over a folded flag to a broken man she doesn't recognize. A shell of the man her husband once was. A man trying to hold it together for the two kids falling apart in his arms. The two kids that would never see their mother again. Their kids.

It jolts her out of sleep. Leaves her heart pounding in her chest, an almost welcome sign that she is still alive. She's still here.

For now.

She's seeing doctor Burke again, but it's different this time. She doesn't have the drive anymore. She isn't itching to get back to the precinct. Her priorities are different. Her priorities shifted when she became a mother.

She needs to be around her daughter. She needs to be around her son. Her son who has refused to leave her side since that day in the hospital. He cries about "the bad men". He begs her to stay. So she does. She holds her daughter, keeps her son snuggled in right next to them, and she allows the world to stop. She lets herself have these moments, moments she would have denied herself three weeks ago. She soaks in everything she almost lost, everything they almost lost. When she feels her sons breathing even out and his grip loosen on her shirt, she cries.

That's how Rick finds her when he finally emerges from his office. She's been forcing him to write because god is her son just like him. He clings, and he worries, and she loves that about him. But he has deadlines and the stress is evident all over his face.

Kate shifts her daughter in her arms and manages a futile attempt to wipe the tears that don't seem to stop anymore. Castle kisses the top of her head and uses his thumb to brush away more of her tears. He untangles their sleeping son and easily pulls him into his arms. "I'm going to take him to bed and get a bottle started for Lily so we can put her down."

They retreated to their bedroom once both children had been tucked into bed, Kate held tightly in Ricks arms. Her fists grasping at the back of his T-shirt while her tears soaked the front. He let her cry, whispered incoherent words of comfort and love while he let his own tears fall. He startled when she spoke. Her shaky breath reminding him just how much his wife had changed in the last couple of weeks. "I can't go back, I don't want to go back. Rick, how can I look my kids in the eye and tell them I love them more than anything but not enough to remove myself from that danger? It will never be safe. I will never be safe. I'll only be safe if I walk away." Her tears had finally stopped, she untangled herself from the man who gave her a reason to live and watched as his blue eyes processed everything she confessed. Rick forced himself to sit up and pulled her back into his arms. "Kate, I don't understand." She could see him working everything out in his head, building a case. She knew he would try to find a solution. She didn't need one, she already had it. "I guess I just don't understand what's so different this time? After Montgomery you were ready to jump back in. I know things are different now that we have Reese and Lily, but this isn't the first time we've almost lost you since Reese was born" he questioned her, allowing her the space she needed to think through what she would say next. Kate let out a strangled breath, nervously twisted the wedding band on her finger and dropped eye contact before managing to whisper the confession that had been haunting her. "Lily. Lily is the difference, Rick. I just… while I was bleeding out in that warehouse, all I could think about was her growing up without me. All I could think about was how selfish it was of me to put myself in a position to where my daughter would have to grow up without a mother." He was thankful she was no longer looking at him, his anger evident in his facial expressions. He reminded himself of the sleeping children in the next room, willing himself to find some ounce of calmness. "Was Reese just not as important to you then? How many times did you almost not make it home to him, to us, before Lily arrived? Did you not think about how he would have to grow up without a mother?" His tone raised and Kate flinched letting her thoughts stumble out of her mouth, "How could you say that Rick? How could you ever question if I thought he was any less important? I didn't get it. I didn't get it before, not until Lily. Not until I made the connection". She was sobbing now, Ricks face softened as he lightly grasped her chin, pulling her face to look at him. "What didn't you get, Kate". He questioned. "I thought… I thought that if anything happened to me, he would be fine. He would have you and he would be okay. I love Reese more than anything, Rick. I would give everything for that boy. I hate myself for not putting it together, I hate that he worries if I'm going to come home or not because I didn't put it together until now." She pulled herself out of his hold and fiddled with the corners of their bedspread, her anxious movements mimicking how her son pulls at his baby blanket when upset. "I know what it's like to be a daughter who has lost their mother. To live through her missing your wedding, the birth of your children, everyday life. She's been gone longer than I knew her and I still wish I could call her every day. I thought I was going to die and all I could think about was how I was going to force Lily to go through all of that. Losing my mom broke me, it broke my dad. I can't do that to you. I can't do that to Alexis, or Reese, or Lily. Our kids deserve more than that, Rick. I want to grow old, I want to sit around a room with our kids and grandkids and tell them how much I love you. How our family was always my priority. Always." Rick wrapped her in a tight embrace, held her close as the sorrow overtook her body. He whispered I love yous as apologies echoed through the room. His tears fell freely as he watched his wife, his partner, finally succumb to the grief that had been suffocating her for years.

He held her for hours, watched as she drifted in and out of sleep, his fingers tracing circles methodically over her back. He allowed his lips to curl in a slight smile as she sighed into his touch. When a deeper sleep pulled her back under, he let himself relax, let himself follow her.

Another nightmare forced Kate into full consciousness. Her head throbbed. She was exhausted, she was broken. She reached for her husband, only to be met with the warm, still sleeping body of her toddler. The alarm clock on the nightstand confirming her assumption that her husband was up feeding their daughter.

She ran her fingers through her sons hair. She allowed the world to stop. She allowed herself time to study the boys features. To trace her finger over his cheeks, watch his eyelids flutter, watch as his mouth twitched into a smile, his dreams much kinder than the ones that plagued her. She stayed that way until Rick walked into the room, bottle in one hand, their daughter in the other. Kate held her hands out for the baby, craving the comfort of having both of her kids next to her. He handed over the baby and placed a light kiss to Kate's lips.

He slipped out of the room, only reappearing after he managed to make two cups of coffee and gather his laptop, which was tucked tightly between his arm. Placing the cups on the nightstand, he slid back into bed and pulled open his laptop. He wanted to take full advantage of the silence in hopes that he would be able finish the last chapters needed to meet his deadline.

She watched him write. After the baby was fed and lulled back to sleep soundly in the spare bassinet they left in their room. She studied him. His blue eyes tired, the stubble on his chin slightly turning gray, his warm hands bringing life to the characters he wrote about them. This was all she needed. Her life with him and their kids. His smug tone pulled her out of thought, "Beckett, didn't you say it was creepy to stare?" Her heart fluttered and her lips cracked into her first honest smile since before the warehouse.

He closed his laptop and threaded his fingers through hers. "So, Mrs. Castle. Where's our next adventure taking us?"

She bit her lip out of habit and watched his face for any reaction to what she was about to say next. She was a mother. Her priorities had shifted.

"I think I'm going to run for Senate"

A/N: I can't decide if I want to continue this and go through their life as Kate runs for Senate or just call it finished. What do you guys think? Either way, thank you for supporting this story and breaking me into the castle FanFiction world