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Fandom: Castle
A/N: Found on my hard drive. Not sure why I never posted it. Thru Castle 3.24 – Knockout.
Disclaimer: Castle belongs to people who are not me including Andrew W. Marlowe and Disney-ABC.
Summary: Castle stands to your right and the shot, when it comes, is a very loud crack splitting the afternoon's quiet. You look up because it is so out of place, so unexpected, but you will not remember this and you will not remember falling.
You won't remember this.
Not the noon time sun directly overhead or the over saturated blue of the sky and and how the daylight is so clear and almost too bright in that blinding way that's equal parts shock, grief, and bleached out California sunshine. Later, after, when you try to snap all the pieces of your memory together, what little you do recall won't make sense because how can the day be both so very vivid and so monochromatic all at once.
Maybe you will remember the coffin, the flag draped and tucked across the polished mahogany curve of the lid. Perhaps, you will remember the drums and the bag pipes. But then again, maybe you won't. It will feel distant and out of focus like a ghost memory that could belong to a myriad of other days. Any number of funerals that you've sweated through in your dress blues where all you really recall is the lonely, solemn sound of Taps and the pristine whiteness of your gloves.
Castle stands to your right and the shot, when it comes, is a very loud crack that splits the afternoon's quiet stillness. You look up because the sound is so out of place, so terribly unexpected. You will not remember this and you will not remember falling.
Someone says your name and when you blink Castle is leaning over you. Of course he is. Castle is always there. Where else would he possibly be? Only … he was to your right, wasn't he? And now you're on the ground.
Your name on his lips is as unexpected as the gunshot because he calls you Kate and not Beckett.
“Kate. Kate. Please. Stay with me, Kate. Okay. Stay with me.”
All you want is to say yes, okay, but you don't.
Castle says your name and it's a prayer and a wish and a denial for everything that is about to happen next. But you won't remember that. You won't remember the sound of your name in his deep, resonant voice.
“I love you. I love you, Kate.”
There is a buzzing in your ears and his voice, threaded by screams, fades out.
Then Lanie is leaning over you. She straddles your body and tells you not to die. She pushes against your chest and holds you in place with her hands pressing in Castle's I love you so that it seeps in around the bullet.
“Katie,” she says, her voice loud and insistent. “Stay with me, Katie.”
Lanie calls you Katie and you almost don't recognize your name. You hear your mother's voice and your father's because Katie is who you are to them. Katie is the girl you are in the dark or curled up on the shower floor or waking from the dregs of a nightmare that you can't recall.
“She's my friend,” Lanie says and her voice is edged with panic. She's about to get stubborn you think and maybe that will be enough. Maybe Castle's love and Lanie's insistence will save you. Maybe the blood loss won't matter or whatever it is inside you that has been broken. Maybe. But you are a realist and maybe sounds like a fairy tale.
Then the weight of her is gone and another pair of hands are pushing against your chest, pressing your life back in. And that makes sense, too, like Castle's face over yours, blocking out the blistering sun and telling you things that you're not sure you want to hear. This is not a job that she can do. As much as you want her to stay with you, hold your hand, she cannot save you. Lanie cannot save you and Castle cannot love you. It's almost unfair for them to try. How are you supposed to die with your name in their mouths and the burden of them weighing you down?
They want you to live, but isn't it a little unfair of them to ask?
If you survive this. If you make it to the end it won't matter because you will not remember this.
