Unfinished

Part 1

A flash of light. And then there was a searing deep pain in her chest. She fell.

She remembered that.

Falling.

The world started to shrink all around her.

Her vision blurred.

And then he was there, hovering above her, tears in his eyes, pleading, begging. Desperate.

She was losing what little strength she had left, the tug of unconsciousness gripping at her with clawed fingers, pulling her down, but she summoned all her willpower that remained so she could focus on him.

On Castle.

He bowed his head, tears now leaking down his cheeks.

Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate.

And then the darkness took her.

Kate hung in the void of darkness for what seemed like forever. She didn't know how long it had been, but soon a sharp, high-pitched single tone penetrated her consciousness, and with great struggle she dragged her eyes open.

It was too bright to see at first, but after a moment or two, the shapes and figures started to come into focus. She was in an operating room, and doctors where huddled over her… wait… that wasn't right.

But it was.

What?

The sharp single tone was coming from the heartbeat monitor. She was flatlining.

She watched in utter horror and devastation as the doctors worked valiantly to revive her.

How? What?

Kate didn't understand how this was possible. How could she be seeing this? Was she having some sort of out of body experience?

She didn't know how long the doctors worked, but then they just stopped. Someone shut off the heartbeat monitor and the flatline tone abruptly ceased, plunging the operating room into a terrible silence. One of the doctors glanced up at the wall mounted clock and called time of death.

"What!?" Kate hissed out, shock bursting through her as she watched the doctors and nurses step back, shoulders slumped in defeat, revealing her bloody body. A ghastly wound marred her chest, and surgical clamps where still in place, holding the cut open.

Letting out an almost mournful moan, Kate reached up and touched her own chest, utterly baffled and confused. She felt solid enough, and her hands weren't covered in blood when she pulled them back to check. Shaking her head in disbelief, she stared down at the improbable sight of her own lifeless body on the operating table.

"What… what's going on?" she asked out loud, a hint of panic in her voice.

Yet none of the doctors or nurses seemed to hear or see her as they went about their tasks. It was frustratingly perplexing. Kate just stood there and watched, completely at a loss as to what was happening or why. And then one of the nurses reached up and shut off the bright lights over the operating table, but the room somehow stayed brilliantly lit.

She didn't realize it at first, but that was when time seemed to suddenly stop and stand still. Her focus was elsewhere. Kate couldn't drag her eyes away from the lifeless form on the operating table. It was her. Her dress uniform tugged open to reveal the bloody and damaged white undershirt, which was torn apart to reveal the naked pale skin beneath. Reluctantly, she moved her gaze up to the face and she saw herself, vacant eyes staring into nothingness.

Kate shuddered as if a sudden coldness swept over her.

A doorway of light that wasn't there before suddenly manifested right in front of her. She startled back, feeling a tight grip of fear. From within the white unknown a shadowy form started to coalesce, emerging as if breaking through the calm surface of a lake.

It was a woman with eerily familiar features, as if this was someone she knew or had known. There seemed to be a glowing aura of bluish light around her as she entered the operating room. Blinking, Kate took a step back as she studied the new arrival. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing her double. A twin. The woman looked so much like her. But… no… she wasn't her. There were small differences: Her hair was darker. Her nose was slightly smaller. And her eyes were a different shade of hazel.

And then it hit her.

Like the bullet that had killed her.

"Mom?" she nearly sobbed out.

The woman who appeared to be the same age as herself nodded.

"Yes. It's me, Katiebug."

And it was. But wasn't. Yet… that was her voice. That was the voice of Johanna Beckett.

"I… I don't understand."

"I know, sweetheart. I know," Johanna Beckett said, moving closer to her. "I didn't understand it either, when my time came. One moment I felt a hot sharp stabbing pain in my side and then when my eyes opened again, I was standing in that alley over my body."

Kate shook her head. "I'm… I'm dead?"

"Yes," Johanna nodded. "I'm sorry."

Her gaze drifted back to the body lying on the operating table, staring back at her with blank, empty eyes. She suppressed the scream of horror. Swallowing it down, Kate jerked her eyes back to the ethereal being that appeared as Johanna Beckett would have in her early thirties.

"You… you don't look like you," Kate blurted out, needing to focus on something else besides her apparent death, and not wanting to acknowledge the reality that she was now some sort of ghost or spirit. Denial was an old and dear friend to her. "At least, not how I remember you? You… you look like me. But not."

"This is how I was when I was around your age; when I met your father," Johanna explained. "I don't understand it myself, but we appear as we see ourselves." She shrugged, a graceful motion of her shoulders. "It's fluid. Depending on who we're with. Our mindset. It really doesn't make that much sense. It… it just is."
"There… there are others?"

Johanna gestured back to the doorway of light that wasn't there but was. "Yes. I… I don't know what to call it: Heaven. The Great Beyond. The Everlasting. The Other Side. But those we loved in life who crossed over before… are there. My father was the one to greet me when it was my time."

"Grandpa Joe," Kate whispered out the name of her beloved grandfather who used to entertain her with his magic tricks.

"He appeared to me as I remembered from my childhood, young and vigorous and oh so happy," Johanna confirmed with a vibrant smile on her face. "You see, loved ones are sent to help with the crossing."

"Oh," Kate furrowed her brow, resisting the urge to glance back at her dead body. "So… um… what happens next? Do I follow you into the light or something?"

"Yes," Johanna nodded. "But not yet."

"Huh?"

"Oh, sweetheart," Johanna sighed, her beatific expression dropping. "You're not ready to move on. You have unfinished business."

"Unfinished business?" Kate frowned. "Like… finding your murderer?"

Johanna gave her an apologetic look. "I don't know, Kate. I wished I did, to help you crossover, but I just don't know. It's different for each of us. There's a reason there's all those sightings and hauntings. For some it's a great struggle to move on when things are left unfinished."

"But… how can that be fixed if… if I'm dead?" Kate questioned.

"I don't know," answered Johanna. "I know. It's frustrating. The logic doesn't make sense. But it is what it is. I'm guessing that at some point you'll just know."

Kate mulled that over for a bit, before glancing back up at her mom. "Did you have unfinished business?"

"Yes and no," Johanna sighed again, this time with some frustration. "It's complicated."

A word Kate knew all too well.

"Okay," she said when she realized her mother wasn't going to elaborate further. "So… what do I do?"

"I'm sorry, Kate, but I don't really know," Johanna answered, flashing her another apologetic look. "All I know is that when you've achieved whatever it is your soul needs to achieve to feel at peace, the gateway will appear again and you'll have an opportunity to crossover and move on." As she said this, Johanna seemed to drift away, floating towards the doorway of light that wasn't but was.

Kate felt her eyes begin to water as Johanna moved further away from her. "Mom!? Wait! Don't go! I… I need you."

A sorrowful look passed across the young Johanna Beckett's face, and within seconds she'd transformed into the Johanna Beckett that Kate had known, just as she had looked before she'd died on that cold winter day.

"I'm always with you, sweetheart," Johanna said. "Life never delivers anything that we can't handle. I have faith in you, my beautiful daughter." And a look of pure joy and love overtook her face. "I love you."

"Mom!" Kate cried out, reaching for the fading figure, but then she was gone, consumed by light, and the bright blinding light vanished.

Sobbing, Kate collapsed on the floor, curling into herself. How long she stayed like that, she couldn't say. But when the grief eased, she realized that when the gateway had vanished time had resumed. She watched, in a mix of fascination and horror as her dead body was shrouded and prepared for transfer to the hospital morgue. She idly wondered who'd perform her autopsy.

And then she heard a loud commotion from somewhere not far. Picking herself up, Kate followed the sounds of the disturbance. It was odd, walking amongst the living and them not seeing her. She came to the swinging doors that led the out of the surgical wing, but stopped, not yet ready to test the reality of her undead state and discover if she could pass through solid objects like ghosts did in movies and TV shows.

Luckily, a nurse was walking ahead of her and pushed one of the doors opened. Kate quickly ducked out behind her.

"Hey!"

Esposito's voice caught her attention and she darted in the direction it came from.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!?"

That was Martha. The shaky quality of Castle's mother's voice worried her.

Kate hurried around the corner and came to a skidding halt, finding a shocking sight. Castle was slumped against the wall, cradling the side of his face in his hand, while Josh loomed over him, fist raised. Esposito and Ryan were trying to control the situation, as Martha and Alexis were rushing to Castle's aid.

Josh shoved Ryan and Esposito back, growling angrily as he jabbed an accusing finger at Castle. "This is your fault!" he roared. "You did this!"

Castle simply looked away, his handsome visaged awash with grief and guilt.

No, no, no, Kate shook her head. Oh, Castle.

"You pushed her to look into her mother's murder!" Josh growled, his chest rising and falling as he seethed with anger. "She was shot because of you!" Tears began to roll down Josh's face. "She's dead because of you!" And then, before Esposito and Ryan could restrain him again, Josh punched Castle hard in the stomach, and the writer crumpled in on himself.

"That's enough!" shouted Jim Beckett, glaring daggers at Josh.

Kate's gaze snapped to her father, disheveled hair, eyes rimmed red with tears still being shed.

"Just stop it," his voice was a mixture of grief and anger. "You dishonor my daughter with your actions. She…," he choked on his words, but regained control, "She wouldn't want this."

Kate nodded. She wanted to reach out for her father, terrified what would become of him now that she too had been taken from him. But… she was also drawn towards Castle. And the pull was strong, almost impossible to resist.

Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate.

Oh, Castle. She wanted to touch him, ease his pain, but knew she wasn't there. Not really. She could only observe this scene unfold without impacting it at all. Was that her existence now?

"I know," Castle finally spoke. His words laced with shame and guilt, hollowed out by a profound sorrow and grief. He released a breath and met Josh's accusatory glare. "You're right. It's my fault. It's all my fault."

Josh let out a low growl of agreement, and then shrugged off Esposito and Ryan, before stalking away, leaving the rest behind as if they were nothing but an afterthought to him and his own grief. Kate didn't even bother to follow him, or watch him depart. And she knew why. She'd always known. He wasn't the one she wanted to be with. Never was. She didn't love him. She never did. She'd been scared of the truth, and now… now she'd never have the opportunity to right that wrong.

If only.

"Damn you, Royce," she mumbled, looking away from the tableau of her friends and family grieving her death. "You were so right."

"I'm sorry, sir," Castle muttered, glancing up at Jim Beckett. "I tried. I tried to save her."

Kate watched with an odd sort of fascination as her father placed a comforting hand on Castle's shoulder.

"I know you did, son," Jim said. "I know."

There was something there, like the two men already knew each other. Kate had seen it earlier, before Montgomery's funeral, before… she was shot.

"Forensics just got finished at the cemetery," Esposito interrupted, clutching his phone in a tight grip. He turned to Lanie. "I'm going to the precinct."

"Javi," Lanie said in a soft, pleading voice, her eyes filled with unshed tears. She reached for his arm, but let her hand fall away before she touched him. "We should go home, get some rest."

Esposito growled. "I can't rest. Not until we catch the son of a bitch who did this."

"Right behind you," Ryan nodded, wiping his eyes as he put on a brave face, stifling his grief.

Her two partners quickly moved away, hustling for the exit.

"We're fine," Kate heard Martha say to Castle. "Go."

Castle hugged his mother and then daughter, kissing her on the forehead, before darting off after the boys. Kate hesitated, drifting, wanting to remain with her father, but the urge to follow Castle, to go to the precinct with her team—her boys—was strong. When Martha moved to comfort Jim, and Alexis likewise, her decision was made. Her father would be in good hands, with people she trusted.

Kate nearly shouted for the boys and Castle to wait for her, but realized it would be a futile gesture since they wouldn't hear her. So instead, she followed, catching up with ease, wondering if this… finding out who killed her, was the closure she'd need to move on.