She feels numb. It's an ache that permeates deep into her bones. It hurts. Everything hurts. People buzz around his Hampton's house, the house that was supposed to become their Hampton house. But she sits in a corner by a window still wearing her wedding dress, mindlessly twisting her engagement ring around and around and around. People have tried to talk to her, to comfort her, but she's in such a daze she barely hears them. She doesn't remember it being this bad when her mother died. She doesn't remember feeling like she's in a drunken stupor without ever having taken a sip.

It figures. They come this far, catch her mother's killer, get her marriage dissolved, find a replacement venue and wedding dress, all for nothing. She wants to scream at him what the hell kind of messed up fairy tale is this? What happens to the princess who doesn't get her prince? He's the writer; he needs to fix this. He needs to rewrite the ending. This is their love story, it can't end this way. It can't.

But far be it that she actually gets to be happy for once. Of course her greatest accomplishment, arresting her mother's killer, gets followed by her biggest heartbreak. Because she's not a princess. And this isn't a fairytale. It's a cruel joke, a horrible nightmare, and all she wants to do is wake up.

She wants to wake up in their warm bed at the loft, with him curled into her side. She wants to reach across him and kiss every inch, rememorizing everything she already knows. She wants to see his smile, hear his laugh, smell that scent that is uniquely his, feel him pressed against her. She just wants him. Always has.

Always. It was in her vows to him. And she'd bet anything it was in his vows to her. The fact that she was afraid of saying them in front of three hundred people three days ago seems silly now. She'd give anything just to be able to say them, to hear his, to be married to her best friend.

Her eyes burn from all of the crying. She feels like a fresh wave of tears wants to escape, but she has nothing left. She can't believe that he's gone. Why is he gone? How could he leave her like this? "I love you" was the last thing they said to each other. She'd be surprised if she was able to use that phrase again anytime soon.

"Kate."

She hears her name, but doesn't register the voice saying it. Doesn't care. All she knows is that it's not his. But then she's being shaken by the owner of that voice and she allows her eyes to focus on the person, on Lanie.

"Kate," Lanie starts again. "I just got a call from the morgue. There was no body in that car. He could still be alive."

Alive. Alive. He could still be alive.

"Are they sure?"

Her voice is hoarse and it doesn't even sound like her own. She still feels very far away from her body, from all of this.

Lanie nods. "They're sure. There was no body in that car when it was set on fire."

She's not going to get her hopes up. He could still be dead.

"Do you think someone took him?" Lanie asks.

They got Bracken. It's not him. Not unless he's calling shots from inside his holding cell. He would know the quickest way to hurt her would be to hurt him. But it's not Bracken.

The chilling notes from that flash drive they found in Kelly Neiman's office start playing in her head. Tyson. 3XK. She should have listened to him that day on the bridge when he tried to tell her that it wasn't really over. But she didn't and now here they are.

"Kate?"

"He's going to kill him, Lanie. Either way I've lost him forever."

"Who's going to kill him?"

"Tyson."

"Well, if you know who it is, let's stop him."

"I don't know where to start."

The numbness returns as Lanie starts ranting on about how she's Kate Beckett and if she can solve her mother's cold case fifteen years after the fact, she can do anything. But she isn't so sure what she's capable of, not without him.