stay is a sensitive word.
we wear
who stayed
and
who left
in our skin forever.
- Sojourn, Nayyirah Waheed

Set in a world where Castle was in the car in 7x01, thus died before they could get married. Filling a prompt from the castlefanficprompts blog. Only, altered so it is only Espo who goes to her.

The morning is cold for late May, he thinks, as he weaves through the graves and a small breeze curls around the back of his neck. It's a practiced route, now - he follows the small path round to the curve of the right and takes a left at a large oak tree, trudging across the uneven ground until he finds the right grave.

It's a habit of hers. One he'd thought she'd given up.

The first time it had happened, it had been three months after. She'd left the precinct in the middle of the day, when Gates had told her that they no longer had the funding nor the time to continue looking into Castle's homicide. She'd left her cell and her bag at the precinct and, two hours later, hadn't returned to collect them, so he and Ryan had sought her out. Without her keys, wallet or phone she couldn't have gotten far. It had only taken them forty minutes of driving around to realise where she could be.

It had happened almost weekly after that, until a month later Ryan had cornered her at the precinct and lectured her on the dangers of her habit, that she had more than just herself to think about. She'd been five months pregnant, and constantly on edge, and had walked out after throwing harsh words in his face. The next day she'd called to apologise to Ryan and took five days off from the precinct.

She hadn't fallen asleep there again.

But now, as he stands beside her, he sighs. He should've known this would happen. The minute Martha had called him, at 3am, with the sound of Matthew's crying in the background and the words Katherine still hasn't come home tumbling from her lips, he'd known exactly where she was.

Her hand rests on the grass in front of his headstone, her forehead pressed against the marble, even in her sleep. It's nighttime, but the light pollution allows him to see the jerky rhythm of her breathing as her chest lifts and deflates irregularly. She must be freezing - she has no coat on, just a t-shirt and jeans and dirt has smudged itself against her chin.

Esposito lowers himself onto the ground beside her, shoulder bumping against Castle's headstone as he lifts Beckett's hand to hold between his own. The skin is as cold as he'd expected.

"Kate," he calls softly, and she stirs, her hand flexing in his. "C'mon, Kate. Time to wake up."

Her eyes flutter open reluctantly, hazy, but then her hand grips his tightly.

"Rick?"

Her voice is low and disorientated as she pulls herself up to sit, forehead creasing when she frowns at him and blinks a few times. He swallows past the lump in his throat.

"It's me, Beckett. Esposito."

With her free hand, Kate rubs at her eyes, and he can see the red imprint of the grass she'd been laying on on her cheek. The hand falls away and he sees the light in her eyes chase after it when she registers who's really sat in front of her.

"Espo?"

"Martha called me," he tells her, and she tries to retract her hand from his but instead he pulls her other one into his grip, rubbing them between his own to warm them up. He's sure her fingers must be numb with the cold, if the rigid state of them is any indication. "Said you hadn't come home."

Kate stares at their hands. "Time s'it?"

"Almost half three in the morning."

Kate nods, biting her bottom lip.

"Mrs R was really worried," he tells her.

Kate only meets his eyes for her next question. "Is Matthew okay?"

"Of course," he answers immediately, omitting his knowledge of her son's cries. "Matthew is fine."

"I didn't mean to fall asleep," Kate tells him, defensive. "I'm - "

"I know. I know, Kate."

He releases her hands when she tugs them away again. One falls limply into her lap while the other reaches out, her palm brushing his shoulder as her fingers trace Castle's name. The tears are instant and dewy in her eyes and he doesn't say anything. He knows. It's been a year since Castle's death, since the day they were supposed to get married. A year since she'd ruined her mother's dress in the mud and the water and burned the tips of her fingers reaching through the fire for her husband's dead body. The precinct had been quiet today, solemn for their fallen comrade, and Beckett hadn't made an appearance. Not that they had expected her to.

"We came here together. Martha, Alexis and I. Left Matthew with a babysitter at home. Because, I can't - Javi, he can't just think of his dad as a grave."

The words scrape against her throat as she says them, the raw sound hanging between them and he ropes an arm around her shoulder until she's leaning her forehead against his neck. Her body shudders as she begins to cry and he closes his eyes. It's almost too much for him. He can't even begin to imagine what it must be for her.

"Martha and Alexis left. I told them I'd be home soon. But... I can't leave him. Not like this. I don't sleep right without him close to me. I don't do anything right without him close to me, Javi."

He doesn't offer her words of comfort. He just holds her, rocking back and forth under the stars by her husband's grave. Married or not, Castle was supposed to be her husband - and he will always think of them as such. She still wears his ring, like she used to wear her mother's. He thinks, maybe, this one won't ever be taken off and put away for good in a jewelry box.

"How is it fair, Javi?" She asks through tears. "I finally caught Bracken. I was getting married. I was gonna be happy. But now - Castle's gone and I don't know why or who did it and I've failed him. I've failed him - "

"Woah," he stops her, gripping her by her shoulders and pushing him away so that she meets his eyes. "You have not failed Castle."

"I can't - "

"You're not Wonder Woman, Kate. And I'm sorry, I know it hurts, and I know you can't accept this but: You might never know why. You might never know who killed him. But that is not failure. You have a son. Castle's son. And in spite of all of this, that little boy is happy, because you kept yourself healthy, you looked after him, loved him. And I know Castle would be proud, Kate. So proud."

She wipes her blotchy cheeks with the back of her hands, chest erratic as she struggles to control her breathing. He's glad that this part of Manhattan is silent, that they have their own bubble, here, like this.

She hasn't spoken about Castle since it happened. Only in reference to his case. One morning he'd walked into the precinct and found his chair missing from beside her desk. The ring on her finger moved to a chain around her neck. When their victim's spouse had to be informed of their murder, she'd go on her own, and come back with a hard expression but vulnerable eyes.

He didn't think it would be like this.

Then again, he hadn't thought this would've ever happened at all.

"Can we just stay here a little longer, Javi? I just... I need more time."

He nods slowly. "Of course, Kate."

He moves to give her some privacy, but she snags the sleeve of his coat with her fingers and shakes her head. She settles against the headstone, hands flat against the ground and he wonders if it is a kindness to have what little had remained of Castle after the fire just six feet beneath her.

He sits by her knees and unzips his coat, passes it to her. She doesn't argue, simply pulls it on and drags her knees up to her chest, resting her chin there, and closes her eyes.

Esposito drops her back home a little before six in the morning. Light has broke out across the city in pale blue and he tells her to get some sleep, but instead, when she enters the loft, she heads straight for her son.

He's wide awake, but quiet. He's mostly always quiet, her son - she has to check him regularly, make sure he's not starving quietly or laying in a soiled diaper for too long, because he rarely alerts her to his needs. His silence is the complete opposite to his father. Too often, she's wondered if he'd be a little louder with Castle around.

She slips her hands beneath his small body and lifts him, walking back downstairs and to her room. Just hers, now. She'd bought new furniture for it, new wallpaper - made it as different to the room it used to be as she could. Everything reminded her of Castle, that he wasn't there anymore, that he no longer slept beside her.

When she settles in the bed, she lifts her legs up so that she can rest her son against her thighs, the back of his head touching her knees.

He watches her quietly with blue eyes, sucking on his own fist.

"I haven't told you about your daddy before, have I, Mattie?"

Of course, he doesn't reply. She lets her fingers drift against his skull, the thick hair there. Dark brown, spiking everywhere like Castle's used to when he first woke up.

"I'm sorry, baby. It just hurt too much," she pauses to swallow her tears. "But that was wrong of me. I know that now. I shouldn't have kept you from him."

Carefully, she reaches for the frame that sits on her bedside table, resting one of her palms on Matthew's stomach to keep him safe. She holds the photo up before him. One of her and Castle together, when they were still relatively new and hopeful. Christmas. His enormous Christmas displays in the loft around them. The photo had been taken by his daughter, who had only shown her father, until after his death. She'd printed the photo off for Kate, and she'd probably stared for too long at the photo of her and Castle pressed together in front of the Christmas tree.

"This is your daddy," she tells Matthew hoarsely. "We met at the precinct. He was a total jackass, but he still made me smile. Followed me around even though it drove me insane. He wrote a whole series of books about me, spun countless crazy theories about our cases, and mostly importantly he cared about me."

Matthew's fist drops from his mouth with a wet plop. Kate sets the photo aside and lets him take her hand, gnawing on her index finger with his gums.

"He stuck by me. He promised to stay with me always. Your dad made the happiest I've ever been, Mattie. He drove me up the wall half the time but it was a privilege to have been loved by him."

Kate pauses to thumb her tears away. It's too much, but she needs to let it out. She's never once spoken to her son about his father. Refused to let herself daydream about a version of reality in which Castle was able to hold Matthew, soothe him at night, poke her in the early hours of the morning and insist it was her turn to change his diaper.

"I wish we had had more time. Two years together - seven as partners at the precinct - was not enough. Sometimes, when I wake up, I forget. He's not there and I... I forget. I sit up and begin to wonder why he'd be awake before me. But then I remember, and it - it breaks something inside of me every time, Mattie. So I come to you, and I hold you, and you mend that inside of me. Because I do wish your father and I had had more time together. But I would never change one moment of our story. Not the arguments, the bad moments, the ones where I could barely fathom to look at him. Even those I would live all over again. I would never change one word of our story."

The baby's lids are beginning to droop as his mouth slacks slightly. She hangs on to their silent moment.

"It brought me you, baby. If I could go back, be with your father earlier, have more time with him... Mattie, I wouldn't do it. Because I wouldn't have you. You were a shock, your father and I hadn't been trying, and after his death I was drowning. But you're my life jacket, baby. You're everything."

She scoops him up with her hands beneath his armpits, blows a raspberry against his stomach just to hear him chuckle. It's almost like Castle's. That low, wide gut feeling that makes her feel empty creeps up on her at the comparison. She would never give up her son for Castle. It's a sort of guilt she'd never thought she'd experience. A kind of guilt that doesn't sit right.

She lays Matthew down beside her, head against against the pillow on his father's side. His lids finally close and she looks away, to the window, and can hear the traffic outside as the day begins.

"I miss your dad. All the time," she confesses softly, moving to put the picture frame back on her bedside table before slipping under the covers. "It doesn't get better. I don't really think it will."

Kate places her palm on her son's stomach and closes her eyes. She used to do this with Castle. When she'd wake first, a morning person, she'd rest her palm above Castle's heart and feel his chest rise and fall as his heart beat steadily.

"But I'm learning how to cope in a world without him. I make my own coffee, and let Ryan build the crazy theory, and then I come home to you. And it's okay," she says.

Matthew's chest falls steeply as he snuffles. It's a sound Castle used to make in deep sleep, and she'd tease him about it the next morning while he insisted that she snored. Her chest gets tight, but she relaxes it with a slow, deep release of breath in time with her son's.

"It's okay," she repeats. And in this moment it is.

The End