Oh... now I'm just spoiling you.
This idea popped into my head and I couldn't let it go. We're back to the angst people. Also, POV change.
Have I intrigued you? THEN GO ON AND READ IT (:
(also, I did proofread this... but it's also 1:30 in the morning and I'm going on six hours of sleep. I apologize for any mistakes)

Uranophobia – the fear of heaven

When Johanna Beckett was murdered, Jim Beckett felt a part of himself die. His wife was his entire world. They had been sharing the blankets and a shower, a pot of coffee in the morning and the daily paper for twenty years. He had built a routine around his wife. He had given his wife everything he had in him. He sent her flowers on a Wednesday because he could, gave her the right side of the bed because she complained she couldn't sleep on the left, and he had dinner ready and waiting for her on those nights when she returned home at some obscene hour during the night. He let his wife watch NBC rather than his preferred CBS and he conceded and took her out dancing when she wanted to go, even though he was known for his two left feet.

And that was only what he had done for her. In turn, she had done so very much for him throughout the course of their lives. He shined his shoes and ironed his shirts when he had an important meeting to go to. Johanna cooked him brunch every morning and let him take the first shower in the morning while she picked out her clothes. She'd make his favorite meal just because she wanted to and she let him watch his sports on the bigger TV in the living room when there was a perfectly adequate TV down the hall, just because the TV in the living room had "a much more sophisticated sound system." She laughed at his jokes when they weren't funny, and helped him see that you didn't have to be a good dancer to have a good time.

He had never met anyone that had fit so perfectly into his life the way Johanna had. Sure, they had their rough patches and there were nights when he ended up sleeping on the couch (only to end up back on the left side of their bed sometime later in the night), but they worked. He never imagined a life that didn't consist of waking up next to his wife.

And then, in the blink of an eye, she was gone. It only took five words that didn't even have the right to belong in the same sentence to sufficiently tear his world into pieces that he wasn't sure would ever be able to put back together again.

Your wife has been murdered.

Your wife… His wife. Murdered. Killed. Dead. Gone.

He hadn't even gotten the chance to say goodbye.

He had started missing her the moment he knew she was gone. He wanted her back in his arms. He wanted to see her smiling at him and hear her laughing as she told a story about something a coworker had done at the office. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, he wanted to hold her, and he wanted to kiss her. Jim wanted to go back in time and lock her in the safety of his arms and never let her go so nobody would have ever gotten the chance to take her from him.

But she wasn't ever coming back to him again.

Planning the funeral went by in a daze, and after everyone had left, he had excused himself and spent the night at a local bar. He drowned himself in his sorrow, letting the alcohol seep into his system to try and fill in the empty spaces that were left behind by the places that used to be filled with Johanna.

Everything hurt less when he was drinking.

But he couldn't hide himself from the truth for very long. He missed her terribly, and the only thing in the world he wanted more than another drink was to see her again.

Once he finally started to get his life back in order and stay sober, he began to have these dreams. One might call them nightmares. They consisted of nothing more than him sitting cross-legged in a pure-white room, with Johanna sitting right across from him. She had her eyes closed as if she was meditating, wearing the exact outfit that she had been wearing the day she had been murdered, her wedding ring still on her finger. But that was it. He couldn't talk to her, and he couldn't reach out and touch her. It was just him, sitting in the presence of the woman whom he had given his life to.

He woke up every night trying to remember what her eyes looked like.

Jim quickly determined that that was what he missed the most about his wife: her eyes. She had the most expressive eyes in the world; he swears on it. He could tell exactly what she was feeling just by the way her eyes looked. They shined with happiness, flashed with anger, and dulled slightly when she was feeling upset.

He would give anything to see her eyes again.

But after having nearly twelve years to think about it, Jim Beckett had begun to fear that day more than any other.

Jim knew what he would do when he saw Johanna again. He would run towards her and fall helplessly on his knees in front of her in pure happiness. The immense joy that he would feel would profess itself through tears of happiness that would fall to the ground by her feet. He'd kiss her hands, murmuring earnestly how much he loved her and how much he'd missed her. And then he'd stand up, look directly into her eyes with a gaze of love, the same look he had given her at their wedding, and then he'd kiss her long enough to make up for all the time they had lost since she had been taken from him.

But he was worried. He worried that instead of seeing love reflected in her eyes, he'd see anger, or even worse, disappointment.

He could imagine the questions she would ask that he would have no answers to.

How could you lose yourself so badly?

Why did you try to destroy yourself?

How could he have left their daughter to deal with everything on her own?

Kate. The knot that settled into his stomach every time the thought crossed his mind was enough to make him physically ill. Jim would never forgive himself for what he had done to his only daughter in the years following Johanna's death. He allowed himself to forget that Johanna was important to other people and that the loss of her life was undoubtedly going to affect other people. He had wallowed so deeply in his own grief that he was blind to everyone around him.

He had neglected his own child, the last physical link he had between himself and the love of his life. He had forgotten his own daughter.

Jim had forced his daughter, the little girl who refused to sleep with a nightlight and the teenager who bought herself a motorcycle against both her parent's wishes, to not only work to put herself back together, but also to help put him back together as well. On that cold night in January, his Katie hadn't just lost her mother; she had lost him as well. In a matter of hours, Kate had gone from being a semi-rebellious, normal, college student to an orphan. He left her to cope with the loss of her mother being brutally taken away from her so suddenly and watching him slowly fade in front of her eyes everyday as she picked him up off the floor and carried him to his bed.

He had seen her tears and he had picked up a bottle instead.

Perhaps he didn't deserve to see his wife again. Maybe the disappointment he'd see in her eyes would still be too much of a reward for a man who had done what he had because regardless of what he saw in her eyes, he would still be with her again. Dante's outer region of his Ninth Circle of Hell is reserved for those people who have betrayed their kin. Isn't that what he had done? Perhaps his fears in seeing Johanna again were completely unfounded because he had no chance of ever making it to where she was (for, if he was religious, he would have no doubt that his wife was in Heaven).

To see his wife again and be rewarded for letting their daughter down.

To be punished for his sins and spend an eternity never seeing her again.

Each thought terrifying in its own right, neither entirely fair, but both equally likely.

Johanna had a right to be upset and angry. She had every right to hate him for what he had put their family through when she would have counted on his to keep everything together.

Hell, he hated himself.

For all that he had done, he deserves to spend his eternity wallowing in Hell.

But the thought of never seeing Johanna again made his heart clench.

To spend an eternity in Heaven.

To spend an eternity in Hell.

He knew which he wanted, but he had been making his bed since he first picked up the bottle, and when the time finally came, he was going to have to lie in it.

Personally, I think I really like how this one turned out. It's the first time I've tried writing a romantic relationship besides Caskett and I don't think I did too terrible?
But what I think really doesn't matter does it? I want to know what you think (:
So... Love it? Hate it? Let me know what you think!