a.n. See below for my thoughts. This is the end of this story, so enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle.

xxxx

Forty-Two Years Later…

Kate Beckett knelt down beside the grave of her recently departed husband, tears running down her cheeks. They'd had a beautiful life together, and she wouldn't have traded it for anything, but losing him still hurt more than she could ever imagine. Even the pain she thought she felt after their first attempt at marriage paled to this. She knew this time his death was real. There wouldn't be another second chance.

Richard Castle. Loving friend, father, husband. So read his headstone. He was her best friend. He was the father of her children. He was her husband. He was her everything. As she knelt down on the ground where he lay, she thought about their life together.

After marrying, she decided that she no longer wanted to work for the NYPD. He was more important to her than the job, so she had resigned. At that point she had no clue about what she wanted to do with the rest of her life except that whatever it was would include Richard Castle. What ended up happening still surprised her even now forty years later. She had written and published her first book before their first anniversary. Like her husband, she loved mysteries and crime novels, so she wrote what she knew. As it turned out, she was really good at it, and even gave the Richard Castle name a run for its money in terms of fame and fortune.

Not long after her first novel had been published, she had found out she was pregnant. To her horror (or so she later claimed), she found out that it was twins. Twin boys to be exact. When she gave birth, both boys looked like carbon copies of their father, and as proven later in life, had his penchant for mischief as well. They named the boys James and John, and they had loved and raised them together, just like Kate had always wanted.

She had given birth twice more, both times to girls (Mary and Sarah).

Overall it was a great life. They'd had their ups and downs, but nothing drastic. The hardest day was just a year before when they'd discovered that Rick had lung cancer, and that it was inoperable. They had held each other for days and cried at time lost. It wasn't until several days after the diagnosis that Alexis had come to them with her young son and told them that they were wasting time and that they should live and love for whatever time Rick had left.

They'd spent the final year of his life living life to the extreme in true Richard Castle style. They traveled, and experienced things that they had always put off in favor of other things. They had done that until he was too weak to continue on. It had broken her heart to see her strong, loving, amazing, extraordinary husband brought down by a terrible disease.

When he had passed, she had only just managed to keep herself going. Only knowing that he would want her to continue on had kept her going. Their life had been great, and she wouldn't trade it for anything. She'd made the most of her second chance, and she was proud that she had done so well.

That didn't mean losing him wasn't the hardest thing ever. It hurt her in ways she had only felt once before in real life (and once in a dream). She missed him. She loved him so much. She vowed to join him soon. He had promised her always, and even if she had to storm the gates of Hell, she would make sure he kept that promise.

xxxx

a.n.2.

Okay, that the end of this one. I planned on this being a dream from the beginning. Now that it's written out that way, I hate it. I despise everything past chapter twenty one. So I will be writing an alternate ending that picks up there and carries on. Not sure when I will do this, but probably towards the end of 2016. If you liked how this version ended, good for you, and you can ignore the alt-ending/sequel. If you didn't there's hope.

I learned many things writing this story. The first thing is that I really need to keep a track of my tenses. I started out in present tense and switched to past tense sometime around chapter five. I've never claimed to be a professional writer, so I guess it's okay, but it bothers me nonetheless.

Second, I learned that I need to do a better job of keeping track of what I've written when I do a huge story like this one. I do okay with stories that are around 10-15 chapters, but this one was bigger. It made it so I couldn't remember what the hell happened back in chapter 10, which made it much harder to write.

I also learned that it is extremely crucial for me as a writer to not get constrained by false promises. By that, I mean that I shouldn't make a promise of a scheduled update and then feel terrible that I couldn't keep it. Most of the time it doesn't matter, but this story ended up being really popular, and I felt beholden to give updates in a timely manner, when I shouldn't have. I don't get paid to do this, and I only write for my own pleasure. I had no real reason to feel pressured (I didn't even get pressured from reviewers, it was all put upon me by myself). That rush to get the next chapter out, caused me to burn out on this story and rush the ending. The fact that the second chance was a dream might not have been so terrible if the end of that dream hadn't been so sudden. But by the time I got to writing more of this story, I was just happy to end it, no matter how crappy it turned out.

Finally, I've learned that I can't write a case-fic to save my life. I'm just not good with coming up with unique details. I'm much better with relationships, romance, and (of course) angst. It's why I enjoyed Castle so much more when there was a good relationship component to each of the episodes (end of season 3 and all of season 4). I've never been in it for the cases. Without the romance between C&B, Castle is just a mediocre crime procedural. The characters are what makes it great.

So what's next you might ask? I have another Castle story that is a quasi-rewrite of my old story Someday that will be started in the next couple days. I'm already several chapters into the rewrite. I also have a story called Love Conquers All that is in progress here on this site. Beyond that, my interest in Castle is minimal at the moment.

Thanks to everyone who has read this, left a review, favorited or followed it. This was by far the most popular story I've ever written. So thank you. I hope you're not as disappointed in it as I am, but even if you are, I hope that you at least got some enjoyment of it. Watch out for the alt-ending sometime later in 2016.

Until next time.