Little Warrior Girl

Disclaimer: I still don't own it, and they're way more evil than me

AN: Yes, this is a bona fide Dress!fic. Yes I know the topic of the dress is divisive in the fandom. But you know what? Kate loves it. And I decided to explore some of her possible thinking/reasoning.

As always for CB, but this time mostly because you didn't tell me I was nuts.

"She's a little girl, she's a tigress, and she's a warrior. She's insecure and she's indomitable. She's everything." — Stana Katic on Kate Beckett, Parade Magazine

It seems crazy to her, at first, to be doing this. Trying on some couture gown like the model that she never truly was in the middle of the day. She's on duty, she almost insists.

Except. She's got nothing on her roster right now, except maybe a bite to eat and a call to Castle about the appointment for the venue. Because the boys are running down leads, and things are at a pause. Not for long, not long enough to leave the investigation behind and join her fiancé as she'd like to. But, a pause none the less.

And Matilda King, a woman who deals in orders, not requests, is asking her. There's an odd kind of pleasure in that, to be honest. She's apparently earned an indelible place in the woman's memory with the word "No," and she has an almost perverse curiosity how the opposite answer from her would be perceived. She has the time, a little time. So, what the hell?

She says yes.

Matilda had been going on about fabric and this and that as she'd hurriedly retrieved the dress, Kate only half listening. But when she steps into the room to change, she realizes the one detail Matilda left out: it's a wedding dress. Well.

She slips into it, a bit amazed that it fits. It should have been intended for the model, and she knows she's fit, but her build is more strength and training, feels off compared to some of the waifs she sees in magazines, remembers from her short lived sojourn into this world. But it fits as if it were made for her body alone, startling her a little.

The fabric of the skirt rustles and whispers. She's always loved and hated that sound. Loved the beauty that often came with it, in the costumes of dancers, or historic gowns of another time. Things that felt like artwork, not just clothing. That had been what she'd liked about modeling, actually: the ability to put something on, and for a short time, be transported. To another time or setting or life. Escape and fantasy, as Matilda had said.

What she hated about it though, was that those long, flowing skirts were constrictive. Limiting movement. And too often belonging to damsels in need of rescue. She had wanted something different, as a child, she recalls as the skirt swirles around her feet. To be the princess who rescued herself.

This feels a bit like one of those mythical gowns, she realizes, looking down over the bodice. But it's - different - too. Matilda had said something about boullion lace, and it only now strikes her, the entire dress isn't the just grey embroidery she'd first though. It's silvery white, but overlaid with silver. Actual threads of silver, woven into lace that reminds her of maille, in a way. Some kind of delicate, feminine armor.

Oh, she likes that. Loves it a little, actually. And the sparkle of the thing, it's the kind that reminds her of fingering her mother's jewelry as a child as Johanna prepared for a night out. But that sparkle doesn't come from some kind of bead or sequin, some fragile glittering thing. No, it's crystal. Hard and sold and strong.

It's as she walks out to present herself to Matilda for the woman's inspection that she suddenly realizes she can walk easily. The skirt still rustles around her, but it's contained by the body of the gown, a sheath she'd mistaken for a panel until she'd put it on. The fabric swirls, flowing around her, but it doesn't constrict in that way she dispises. It submits instead, allows her a purposeful and sure stride.

She really, really likes that feeling. It's powerful, like mastering running in her heels. A refusal to surrender control or femininity, insisting on the ability to harness both, even in her male dominated field.

When Matlida draws the fabric back into a train behind her, she feels like a bride and royalty both. It sends a little thrill through her blood to the childish girl within her. This is a princess who could save herself, she thinks. A feminine warrior. A seeming contradiction of desires that she thought was unattainable in the form of a simple dress, but, yet her she is.

For a moment, before the mirror, the transformation, the fantasy, feels complete. And it washes over her. She's getting married. She and Castle. And she can't wait, she can't wait to marry him, because for the first time, she feels like a bride.

But then, she remembers where she is, even as she's running her fingers along the neckline, in awe of the elaborate feminine touch it has even as it hides her scar from view. But it's the thought of the scar that makes the first crack in the fragile bubble around her. That little imperfection that's a reminder of a larger horror. Can Matilda see it? Maybe it isn't hidden after all. She glances over, see the odd look on the woman's face, and begins murmuring apologies.

To her surprise, the older woman is reassuring and for an instant, the fantasy rises around Kate again. But then, in a single moment, something she said registers, and that bubble she's been feeling around her bursts completely.

"If I had a daughter," she had said, and it hits Kate full force after a momentary delay.

Her breath feels hollow, her mind filled with condemnation. What was she thinking? This isn't who she is, no matter how tempting the fantasy. Kate Beckett isn't this woman. Her mom is gone. She's alone before the mirror. She's not some fairytale bride, not really. She's just alone, in a momentarily borrowed dress that doesn't belong to her. And suddenly she feels, in a life that doesn't belong to her. Because her mom is gone.

Her mother is gone, and there is a killer out there taunting her with his freedom and his power. A man who had her shot, and would like nothing more to see her dead, buried beside her mother. How can she possibly be this person? Some self reliant princess she'd make. That childhood moment of fancy is dead. Just like her mother.

She's just a woman, alone, standing in someone else's dress. Alone in the mirror.

Her phone rings then, and it's him. It's Castle. She's not alone, she realizes, not completely. She has Castle. Now, if she can only lay aside this little daydream and get back to the plan, she'll be fine.

But, he wants to change the plan. A sudden opening, a spring wedding. Faster than they'd planned, and there is still so much - it's too much. It's all too much, and god, she just wants her mom.

She can't wait to marry him, but it all feels so impossible. So lonely and empty, suddenly.

She tells him no. She hangs up.

She just wants her mom.

When she stares down at the note in her hand, there is a long moment where she can't quite comprehend what is happening. And then, a rush of realization. She pulls the lid from the box, stares.

She bites her lip as she pulls it from the confines of the box. This is crazy. It's just crazy.

But the feel of it in her palms brings that feeling back. The contact with the soft fabric, the unexpected silver, and the strong, hard crystal galvanizes her. She can do this. This seemingly impossible, crazy thing.

She misses her mom, wants her here for this so desperately it makes her ache. But she's not alone. She has Castle, and her Dad, and her friends. Even Martha, bless her well intentioned, motherly heart. And she has a dress.

This unexpected, impossibly contradictory dress. A gown and armor both, fit for a bride who is part girl, part warrior. A princess who can damn well save herself, thank you, but would still like to dance at the ball, if you please. Rustling skirt and all.

She can do this, she realizes as a smile spreads over her face. She doesn't have her mom, true, but she has her loved ones, she has her own inner strength, and she has her wedding dress.

All she needs is Castle. Because they are doing this. She can't wait to marry him.