We Won't Ever Give Up

Her hands shake like the flames consuming her fiance's car, violently and completely out of her control. She couldn't stop them if she tried, if she focused intently on keeping them still. As if trying to repeat the actions of the fire playing in her mind as her eyes remain focused on it, her hands shake, nerves and fear and pain and grief making her nerves act all on their own, making her whole body quiver and threaten to fall under the weight suddenly returning to her shoulders.

For years, she's held this weight. It's the weight of grief, constantly dragging her down. It's the weight that used to make tears spring to her eyes at random moments of the day, a simple 'school crossing' sign sending the tears streaming down her face. It's the weight that used to make her struggle for every breath, made her fight to want to breathe any longer. It's this weight that she almost crumbled under, that sent her dad to the bottom of the bottle, that almost made her take her own life on a few occasions.

This weight, she's only just lightened it immensely. Two weeks ago, she slapped handcuffs on Bracken's wrists and escorted him into a police car with millions of people watching. Two weeks ago, the weight went from a blue whale to a Great Dane—because her mom is still gone, and she will forever grieve for her, but having justice for her makes it a lot easier. Two weeks ago, she slipped her mom's ring off the chain she barely ever went more than eight hours without and set it down in the jewelry box with her parents' picture slipped into the lid, ready to take what was once a lifeline, but became a noose over time, a promise that was so consuming it choked her, and she put it away so she could breathe again.

And now...now her fiance might be dead, and she might have to take the chain back out a slip a new, different ring onto it, his ring, because she'll have to find justice for him. Richard Castle doesn't just drive into a ditch. So, if he's dead, afire in that car, there's no way this was some random accident, swerving to avoid an animal or a sudden turn taking him by surprise. If Castle's dead, this is a murder, and that she knows. They have too many enemies, too many people that want them dead, for this to be some random, freak event. He promised her always, and he wouldn't ever give that up by being a stupid, reckless driver. Of that, she's almost a hundred percent sure.

The tears are rolling down her cheeks now as it hits her like lightning that he might be dead. That she might never, ever see his face again. Not even laying on the morgue's table, like so many others get to. Not in a casket—Caskett, she clearly remembers the day he named them that—like she got to see her mother, the stab wounds covered, her face as beautiful as ever. No. Because now, if he's dead, he's been burned, cooked, to an ugly, black crisp, unrecognizable and certainly not the man she loves.

She feels her knees quiver beneath her at the thought of him, her almost-husband, dead, burnt and lost in a pile of metal, a death trap. A new set of sirens sounds suddenly in the background, loud and intruding on her moment of grief, a honking horn that cuts through her thoughts. Loud like a gunshot that sounds at a crime scene before they get there, that takes the victim's life in the blink of an eye, it cuts through everything she's holding onto, the little self control that's allowed her to hold herself upright.

Before she can really process anything, she's on the ground, her knees screaming in protest as they come in contact with the hard, black pavement beneath them. Her hands fall in front of her, the small percentage of her weight not resting on the heels of her feet resting on the heels of her palms instead. The white dress, the tulle and lace so beautiful and intricate yet simple and traditional all the same. the gown that once belonged to her mother crushed between her palms and the filthy ground. And only for a split second does she feel bad for ruining the gorgeous gown that once belonged to her mother. She's too distracted by the waving of the flames to really care about the delicate material being fisted between her fingers.

This is not right. Their special day was supposed to be just that: special, magical even. And for someone who doesn't believe in magic or perfection, just the fact that she thought so highly of the now non-wedding is saying a lot. But Castle—oh, Castle—has taught her to believe, has held her hand through all this and showed her that magic can exist, that they are magical. And she believed him.

This isn't magic, though. This is far from magic. A flame is far from magic, even though it may look like it could be magical. A flame can be mesmerizing. She's gotten lost in them herself, sitting in his arms in front of the fireplace in his loft. A flame can do incredible things, can have incredible effects on the human body. Flames have had that very effect on her, scattered across the bedroom and lit, the dim lighting making the whole room flicker with their uneven glow. But now, now she sees flames from a different perspective, completely different. This isn't the magic of the fire at the tip of a birthday candle flickering wildly in a gentle breeze. And this isn't the magic of a campfire as it waves from it's pit, it's uncontrolled heat turning marshmallows a beautiful golden brown.

Right now—as the brightness of the flames threaten to blind her, the horrifying image of them threatening to be the only thing she sees for weeks, months even, every single time she closes her eyes—now, she sees the flame for what it really is. It's hot, destructive and deadly. Fueled by the oxygen that she's desperately trying to gasp in, they could very well of taken her fiance from her, the same way they almost took Ryan and Esposito about five months back. Now, they're the one thing she wishes she'll never, ever have to see again.

A gush of water sounds suddenly from behind her, the powerful, white jet of water hitting the flames, cutting through the petrifying image before her, making her suddenly blink, moistening her burning eyes. She can hear a man screaming, loud and clear. And another one blows a whistle as he attempts to direct traffic down the usually rather empty highway, blocked by the intrusion on the right lane. She tunes all the noises out, though, as she watches the spot where the white of water meets the orange of flames, a sharp contrast that she wishes would just go away. She just wants the fire to be put out.

If he's in the car, he's already dead. Of that, she is more than sure. Nobody survives a fire like that, so small, so hot and so limited. By now, anyone and anything that's not made of metal has burned to a crisp, has become a large pile of black ash. Except for him. If he's in there, the body is probably still at least somewhat intact. She's seen enough dead bodies, enough burnt ones, to know that it takes a lot to completely incinerate a human body, especially the skeleton.

She tries desperately to push those images back, images of his body turned to ash, only his bones remaining in the metal frame of the car, images of a body being incinerated in the fire that consumes his car, the flames flashing before her eyes, illuminating the white of bones like the intro to an extremely creepy horror movie, or maybe the end scene. But the images stay, when she keeps her eyes open various bones flash in the flames that are visibly shrinking under the effect of the water. When she closes them, the images are much, much worse, more gruesome, based on the crime scenes she's been to...and the ones she's only ever heard about.

A sob slips from her between her lips, strangled in a her throat and finally released. Her eyes refocus on the spot where white meets orange, where water meets fire. She focusses on that, the tears streaming down her cheeks as she watches all too intently, yet somehow, she doesn't feel like she's watching closely enough. And the tears fall from her eyes and roll down her cheeks, some continuing their journey as they roll down her chin and the sharp lines of her neck, others falling down onto the white gown beneath her. Her arms continue to quiver under her weight, fisted fingers struggling to hold her up as the sheer fear and pain of this moment renders her a puddle of emotion, a pile of shaking limbs on the rough road beneath her knees.

A sudden hand on her shoulder makes her jump—even though she's not sure whether it's just been placed there, or if it's been there the whole time and she's only now realizing it. The fingers press the intricate, scratchy lace that covers her shoulder more firmly into her skin, but she doesn't really care. It's counteracting the numbness that has apparently taken over her, and is reminding her that there's more around her than the car, the fire, the water.

"Oh...Kate," says Lanie from behind her, words soft and sympathetic. Like a switch has been flipped at the sound of her own name, her elbows give out and her weight falls onto her forearms, like a messed up attempt at the child's pose. Her fingers form even tighter fists around the thick skirt of her dress, stained with dirt and ash, no longer white like it used to be, no longer a souvenir from a beautiful day, but one from a day gone totally wrong. It's no longer elegant and simple, beautiful like the love that she and Castle share, but is now covered in layers of dirt and ash and tears and sweat, the evidence of the obstacles they've avoided and overcome, the ones yet to come.

Her gaze tears from the fire in the ditch, slowly being put out by a strong, constant flow of water, it's strength diminishing, it's destructiveness already having done it's job. She looks down instead, at the swirls of black and beige and the slight hints of yellow where the sweat from her clammy palms has made stains. Darkened spots mark the areas where her tears have fallen, wet the material with their saltiness, the taste unpleasant, the sight even worse. The dress is ruined, of that she is sure. No one will wear it again. She wants to take it off.

This dress...her mother wore it on the happiest day of her life. But as the fire burns before her, the heat radiating off of it and warming her tear-stained cheeks and burning eyes, the happy memories of her parents' joyful day are forgotten, replaced. Now, the dress will no longer remind her of her parents' magical day, the day they embarked on a lifetime together, a stepping stone in the journey that brought her life, the one that taught her that love is real, no matter how cruelly it can be ripped away. Now, the dress is darkened, both literally and figuratively, by her day gone wrong. The dress that was once white, a symbol of purity and love, is now stained in black and brown, a symbol of pain, fear and grief.

Lanie's hand squeezes her shoulder, and she hears the rustling of material as she kneels down next to her, the white fabric being stained even more as her weight presses it down against the pavement. She leans into her friend's touch, the hand that's helped her through so much, the hand that's part of the reason she was supposed to be married today. It's the hand of the person that has guided her into her lover's arms, that has taught her lessons that hold wisdom someone who has never been in a committed relationship shouldn't have. Lanie helped get her to this moment, and right now she doesn't know if she's still supposed to be grateful, like she has been for the past two years, or not.

"Kate…" her name slices through the air again, through the quietness of the world around her as she gets lost in her thoughts. Lanie's voice is soft and soothing, yet holds pain and sadness that she can't quite hold back. It almost reminds her of the way she was with her dad back when he was an alcoholic, trying to convince him everything would be okay even when she didn't quite believe that herself. She knows that tone. She's used it way to many times.

"He can't be dead, Lanie!" It's practically a shout, yet is ragged and chocked on, strangled and rough and not very convincing at all. She's not even sure she believes it herself. That fire was raging—even though now, when she looks up, she sees that it's almost completely put out—and she doesn't know how long the car was burning in the ditch before she got here. If he was in the car when the fire lit, he's dead now. If he's still in the car, it's as a charred corpse. She just doesn't want to believe he's in the car.

"He might not be, Kate," she whispers, her hand falling from her shoulder to settle over the lace that covers her back, her shoulder gaining a little relief from the scratchiness on the intricate pattern, her back pressing into it as she heaves for every breath. The tears have almost stopped, her eyes practically dry from the ones already shed and her refusal to close them, even to blink, more than absolutely necessary.

The images that play behind her closes eyelids, that flash as if someone flicked a flashlight over them only to plunge them back into darkness before she could fully comprehend them, scare her more than real life does right now. And that says a lot, considering her fiance's car is a black crisp in a ditch—the fire is finally gone and men are running into the ditch to check the damage, to see if someone's in it. She can't watch, and tilts her head downwards again, staring down at the stained white material as she waits to here a loud voice boom through their surroundings, echo in her head, haunt her for days, weeks, months...possibly years to come.

When it does, it has her scrambling to her knees, her eyes welling with a new round of tears, the mistake of closing them mixed with the newfound information from the cop down in the ditch. The salty liquid falls from her eyes before she even has the chance to think of holding it back, and she feels the acid rising up her throat as waves of nausea hit the walls of her stomach, like waves that wash up and hit the sides on concrete bridges with a powerful crash. They're uncontrollable, like the way she loses her lunch on the pavement nearby, the disgusting mixture of acid and half-digested food barely missing the material of her gown, leaving a horrible taste in her mouth, one to accompany this horrible memory.

There's a body.