Come by fire, come by rain,

Come by boat or come by plane,

You are all I can't replace,

How I long to see you again,

Just tell me I'll be seeing you again

- Come by Fire by Sara Jackson-Holman

"Kate?"

Alexis laid a soft hand on her shoulder, gently swept the limp hair from the side of her face.

"Kate, you should eat something. You haven't eaten in days…"

"I'll throw it up," she rasped, curling her knees to her chest, closing her hand around the chain at her neck, slipping her index finger into the ring there. She hadn't been able to keep anything down since… since her wedding day. She was tired of trying.

"Maybe I should wash the bedding, you know? We have that detergent you like that-"

"No," Kate snapped, a little too sharply, and immediately shot his daughter an apologetic glance. "I'm sorry, Alexis. I just - he was - it still has-"

"I know," she said quietly, taking a careful seat at the edge of the mattress. "Still smells like him."

Kate nodded dully, digging her nails into the pillow beneath her cheek. It would be three weeks on Sunday. She needed to wash the sheets.

She couldn't wash the sheets.

"Can I stay with you awhile?"

Kate rolled over, onto her back and opened an arm to his daughter without hesitation, wrapped her up and gripped her tight when Alexis laid down next to her on the bed and curled into her side. They did this sometimes, just settled down in Castle's bed and held each other together for a few minutes. She had never been very close to the girl; they got along, they had shared smiles and laughs every now and then, before, but she had never truly known where she stood with Alexis the majority of the time. But after Rick had… after they had lost him, fiancé and daughter clung to one another like lifelines.

"It still doesn't feel real," Alexis whispered suddenly, her head on Kate's shoulder.

"Sometimes I pretend it isn't," Kate admitted. "Sometimes I pretend he's just away on a book tour and that he hasn't had a chance to call."

"Me too."

Kate bit her lip, because she didn't want to cry, not right now. She had never been good at pretending. She was no longer good at compartmentalizing either. Her thoughts were elastic, rarely allowed to stray for long before snapping back to him and what had happened. He was dead.

A sob got caught in her throat, and then another, and she had to lift a hand, cover her mouth to muffle them. Alexis didn't speak, knew the words were useless, but clutched Kate tighter as her own tears began to drip onto Kate's neck.

Castle was dead.

She made herself shower later that evening, because even if she didn't know what day it was and couldn't keep anything in her stomach, she still felt the need to be clean. He wouldn't want her rotting away in his bed, especially not in front of his mother and daughter. Of the three of them, none were okay, who knew if they would ever come close to the adjective again, but at least Alexis and Martha were trying. Kate just… Kate should be good at this, she thought, she should know how to handle death gracefully, but she didn't. God, she didn't. The only thing she knew how to do was curl into a ball and stare into space all day.

It was losing her mother all over again. Maybe it was worse.

She made herself shower, but it was a harrowing process, standing in a secluded space surrounded by his scent and memories of what they had done against the tile walls. She always ended up sitting on the cool floor, letting the scorching water burn her skin as it sluiced over her numb figure and soaked her unwashed hair.

She could barely remember his funeral. All she could remember was the relentless stinging of her eyes, the constricting pressure in her lungs, and frantic pound of her heart. She'd eventually had to walk away in the middle of his daughter's tearful eulogy, stumbling through the grass, through the maze of tombstones until she finally collapsed against one. Her father had been there within minutes, pulling her into his chest and holding her through the worst of her sobs, rocking her slowly when she started chanting her almost husband's name in disbelief, gasping again and again that this couldn't be happening. He wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead.

"Oh, Katie," her father had whispered into her hair.

Crying in the shower was always the easiest.

Castle was dead.

She went to his visit his grave every other day. It probably wasn't healthy, but for some twisted reason, she felt closest to him there. Alexis and Martha rarely attended with her and she was secretly grateful. She would be even worse off without his family, it helped to have them keeping her afloat, but there were times when she just wanted to be alone with him.

"Hey Castle," she croaked, her vocal cords scratchy from disuse.

She never knew what to say when she was here, a fierce part of her still refusing to believe he was dead. They were supposed to beat the odds, they had done it so many times before, how was she supposed to believe this was any different? His body had been incinerated in the crash, a sure sign of death everyone had accepted, but the lack of physical evidence had only fueled her desire to believe he was out there, waiting to be rescued or fighting his way back to her.

This couldn't be how they ended.

But when she had showed up at the station, prepared to make an attempt at opening an investigation, Gates had gently, but quickly shut her down.

"He's not out there, Kate. I know you want to believe there's a chance, but the car exploded due to mechanical troubles in the carburetor and-"

She had stormed out before her superior could say anything else. She would find him herself. Unless… unless she really was as pitiful as she must appear to everyone around her. She was hoping for him to come back, waiting for him to return, but what if she was waiting for something that was never going to happen?

What if Castle was really and truly dead?

Kate crumbled to her knees in front of his gravestone, felt the grass staining her jeans as she sat back on her heels.

Thunder rumbled angrily in the distance, she felt a raindrop land on her cheekbone, and she almost released a chuckle, because how fucking appropriate.

"Don't be dead," she whispered, stroking her thumb along the platinum band still firmly in place on her ring finger. "Please, Rick."

Her hand shook when she lifted it from her lap, placed it on the cool stone and traced her fingers along the perfectly carved inscription of his name.

Castle wasn't coming back.

The raindrops steadily began to multiply, turning his tombstone slick and causing her hand to slip downwards into the muddying dirt. She curled both hands into her chest, pressed her fists against her sternum to keep it together because she could feel herself falling apart.

She should get up, she should go home, but the rain was picking up in its intensity, drenching her shivering frame, and she couldn't find the will to move. The jagged edges of her grief tore too sharply at her, ripped apart her insides, and she was forced to double over just to breathe. The feeling wasn't new, but time made it no less agonizing.

The thunder crackled louder, closer this time, and even through her squinting eyes, she could see the lightening illuminating the cemetery ground. This wasn't safe, sitting out in the open while a storm was raging around her – at least last time she had been in a park with trees as cover – but who cared? Maybe being shocked with a lightening bolt would awaken her senses.

"Kate."

Her brow creased, the voice saying her name sounding far away and distant through the sheets of rain, but distinctive. It was in her head though, all in her head, she had heard his voice before when it wasn't really there. But then a hand flattened over her shoulder blade and she jerked, tumbled over into the mud.

Shit, she was seeing things.

Castle knelt over her, tried to gather her up in his arms, but no, no, no, he wasn't real. She was hallucinating and she stumbled away from the ghost above her, knocked her shoulder into his tombstone and hissed at the flare of hot pain that spread along her bones, but still scrambled to her feet. She needed to go home, back to the loft, out of the cemetery, but the shadowy figure persisted until one of his hands was on her face and the other was splayed at her back, attempting to draw her closer.

She tried to see through the rain, but the droplets made her lashes heavy and the man before her was wearing a hoodie. He quickly pushed the hood of his jacket back, revealing himself and even through the downpour, she could see the prominent features of the man she loved.

"Castle?" she breathed, her head moving from side to side in disbelief. "No, no-"

"Kate," he said her name firmly but with choked desperation in the single syllable. "Kate, it's me." His arms – strong, familiar arms – banded around her body, sealed her to him. "It's me, love. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I-"

A violent tremor clambered up her spine, rocking them both, because it was his voice. Castle's voice in her ear, rasping out words she couldn't understand, and she shakily lifted her stiff arms from her side, placed them at the base of his spine before slowly allowing her palms to travel upwards, her hands buzzing with electric memory of how it felt to touch him. This was real.

She lifted her eyes, greedily absorbed every detail of his face.

She never thought she would seem him again.

Kate surged forward, captured his mouth and clutched frantically at the front of his hoodie, her nails clashing with the clamped teeth of the zipper. He kissed her back, his response instinctive and frenzied and dizzying. Their teeth clashed and she tasted copper where she bit his lip, but she wouldn't stop, couldn't even bear to think of stopping.

Her hips canted forward, crashed into his, and he jerked, his roaming hands clenching at her shoulder blades.

"Kate-" He tried to gentle her with soothing fingers at her biceps that attempted to pry her away, but she mewled her protest, the sob building in her throat, because he was alive and she would be damned if he tried to stop her from being assured of that. "Kate, love, please. Just let me get you out of the rain."

There was a tree a few yards away, a large oak with branches that fanned out like an umbrella. She tugged him towards it, but her arm stayed like a vice around his waist, refusing to relinquish contact. He could disappear at any moment. She didn't even care if she was hallucinating anymore; if this was what insanity brought her, she would welcome it.

Castle pressed her into the wide tree trunk, his body crowding, his large frame shielding her from the storm around them, and Kate threw her arms around his shoulders, turned her face into the cove of his neck.

"Where did you go?" she cried quietly into his slick skin, her arms locked so harshly her shoulders started to ache, but she couldn't loosen up. "Castle, where-"

"Tyson got to me," he explained roughly, his fingers digging into the small of her back. "I was on my way to our wedding-"

"I thought you burned," she moaned. "They said you burned."

Castle hauled her closer, her body lifting into his, the toes of her boots barely touching the wet grass. The force of his embrace was brutal and crushing and she couldn't breathe, but it was the best she had felt in weeks.

"Don't let me go."

"I won't," he swore, his voice a broken, grizzly thing that went hand in hand with what she thought would be her permanently ragged tone of speech. "Never again. I didn't want to leave you, Kate. My dad – he wasn't going to show his face, but he said he was going to just catch a glimpse of the wedding, our wedding. He had been following me, and when he saw Tyson slam into my car-"

"Your father saved you?" she breathed, weaving her fingers through the dripping locks of his hair. She owed Jackson Hunt the biggest thank you she could muster, but there was a small, stupid hint of envy and devastation – a foolish part of her that would always wish she would have been the one to save him – settling in the bottom of her heart. They were supposed to be partners. She had thought she had let him burn alive.

"I'm not supposed to be here-" Her arms instinctively tightened, one of her legs lifting to curl at his calf, and Castle squeezed her gently, pressed a kiss to her temple. "I'm supposed to be in hiding until Jerry Tyson is caught, but I've been trying to watch you when I can. You, Alexis, and Mother. I know you come here sometimes, and I hate watching you at my grave, but today I - when you were on the ground I couldn't..."

She palmed the side of his face, relished in the scratch of stubble abrading the clammy skin of her hand.

"Where's Hunt?"

"After 3XK. He's been attempting to track him… I've been staying in an apartment we found outside the city, laying low."

He had been in New York the entire time, so close. He had been right here. She wasn't sure if it the information made her feel better or worse.

"Please don't leave me again, Castle," she whispered, knowing the words sounded desperate and needy and so not her, but she couldn't lose him again. Not now.

"It's not safe for me to come back yet, Kate," he said sorrowfully. "Tyson could be watching you. I shouldn't even be here now, putting you at risk-"

"Take me to Canada," she whispered suddenly, turning her nose into the hollow of his cheek. He had lost weight and she feathered her lips over the protruding bones of his face. "Like last time, when we were running. We can run away, Rick."

He was still for a moment, considering it, wanting it, but she could feel the woeful protest rising within him.

"Or just come home. We've faced Tyson before, we'll do it again, together."

"Kate-"

"I'm not leaving without you," she stated earnestly, pressing the fingers at his back down into his trapezius muscle. "Can't."

She really, physically could not leave him. Every step would be torture that brought her right back to her knees. If she let him go now, it could be the end all over again.

"Just come home," she begged. "Call your father, do whatever you have to do, but please stop being dead."

His arms unwound from around her waist, his hands slid up her sides, skimmed the pillar of her neck, and came to rest at her jaw, tenderly titling her face upwards. She met his eyes, knew the need was pouring from her own, but they naturally fluttered closed when he slanted his lips over hers, taking all she would give before reluctantly leaving her mouth, tipping his forehead down to hers.

"Okay," he brushed the words against her lips.

"Okay?" she breathed, clutching at the fabric of his hoodie, a replica of the one she had worn in what felt like years ago, when they were running from a different threat entirely.

The threats never stopped, maybe they never would, but she wouldn't let the obstacles keep them apart. Not anymore than they already had.

He nodded. "I love you, Kate. I love you, and I missed you. So much."

She pushed up on her toes, kissed him again and again, the rain still pouring around them, dripping through the spaces between the leaves. They would leave once it stopped, head back to his home and hope it was the right decision, but for now, she would savor this wondrous moment of having him back.

A/N: This is a mess, but so was the season 6 finale. Thank you if you took the time to read it anyway.

Feedback is so greatly appreciated.

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