Fate

"Oh God, Mr. Castle."

Everything is burning! His chest is being ruptured in two! How did his Beckett survive this? How can anyone survive such horrendous agony?!

"You saved my life. Why?"

That's right. This isn't his Kate. The shock made him forget for a precious moment, but he's alone here—without her.

His Kate would never have to ask.

"Because I love you, Kate."

When he says it there's a transposed moment of him leaning over her body while a different 'I love you' for a different world spills from him lips. This Kate's eyes widen as his words register and she seems to scoot closer to his mortal form as if wanting to believe that a stranger, because that's what he is to her in this world, could love her so deeply.

There's a weight to his soul that compresses his chest and he knows that it's the bullet that burned and burrowed its way into his body. He's gasping now, trying to get his body to continue to function while his lifeblood is sluicing from the rend in his flesh. He can't take much more of this Captain Beckett and how she's so much like his Kate; but with every slight, unknowable touch he's terribly reminded that he's about to die with the wrong version of his fiancée.

"Mr. Castle, no, please don't go! Stay with me."

He hadn't noticed that his eyes had closed. His breath was coming in short pants and his core was starting to chill. The amulet in his hand was starting to become too much of a burden to hold on to. He just needed that blue light. He just needed –

"Stay with me, Castle!"

Oh, it would have meant so much more coming from his Beckett. This Beckett is still too cold with him, no matter how positive things seemed to be going in the precinct and then at the bar. There is something there, some empathy as her fingers ghost his neck and upper chest as she assess him in his distress, but it's not the burning compassion that flares in his Beckett's eyes and he finds himself missing that most of all. It's time to just close his eyes and be swallowed by the accepted, calm dark.

Maybe he'll wake up in the right world.

Where his love awaits.

Everything is too heavy and he doesn't want to move, but there's a strip of light that's right against his eye lid and it's starting to annoy him. He lets out a grunt of pain as he tries to shift away, and his eyes bolt open on a heavy gasp as the pain in his chest flairs up.

Oh, God! He wants to just die. He needs it to just stop!

So much agony.

He slams his eyes closed again while he's trying to breathe through the pain and he can hear people talking and bustling around his bed. Something gets jostled near his arm and the relief seems to trickle through his emaciated bloodstream allowing him to settle and fall back into blissful darkness.

He dreams of grass that is too green, elephants with terrible secrets, and matching scars.

"I already called Mom, Grams. I'm not going back. I can't leave him."

He hasn't opened his eyes yet, too much work—they're too heavy, but he can definitely feel his daughter's hands clinging to one of his own. Her thin fingers quaking against his cool flesh. He curls his fingers around a few of her own digits and she squeaks with a start at his movement.

"Dad? Oh, Dad! You're awake!"

He has the strength to open one eye and give his lovely daughter a crooked smile. Anything to stop the tears that he can now see staining her face. His mother is right beside her and she's trying her best to withhold her own torrent of waterworks; her trembling bottom lip a dead giveaway.

"Hey, pumpkin."

The nickname seems to catch her by surprise, but then she's chuckling through her tears and an invisible weight seems to have been lifted.

It's been a few days of doctors, x-rays, blood tests, and police reports, but Castle finally realizes that he's back to where he needs to be.

Or, so he believes.

After being unable to fall back to sleep after a late visit with his mother, it dawns that he can remember writing Finite Laughter and pushing his daughter away to LA to be with Meredith. Yet, he can also remember bits of the other him. . .or the him that was? He isn't sure what to call the situation, but he can remember a different life with, then, detective Beckett and their happiness—and he wants that. So badly it aches almost as much as the hole in his chest.

He also remembers Nikki Heat. Oh, how he remembers Nikki Heat! It's only been three days, but he's already itching to get to his laptop to start diving into the story that already-is in another world. Is it plagiarism if another you wrote it? He'll deal with the semantics later, but he has so many questions to ask before he can really begin, and as he lays his head back in his hospital bed he hopes that Beckett won't mind him poking a bit more.

"I didn't mean to intrude, I just—I just wanted to bring these for Castle."

He stirs as he hears his daughter usher someone into his room while announcing that she's going to step out for lunch, and it takes much less of an effort to open his eyes and readjust himself than it did yesterday to greet his new visitor. When he opens his eyes he's greeted with a glorious smile and the most expressive eyes he's ever had the privilege to look into.

"Hey, Castle."

Her voice is so cautious as she sits in the chair to his left and places the arrangement of flowers near his bedside. There's a faint blush that's risen on her cheeks, and he reaches out to grab her hand that she's placed on his bed.

She lets him.

"Hey, Kate. I didn't think you'd come visit."

She chuckles and it's like renewed life to his shattered body. He needs this. He needs her. And it's all thanks to his other self for re-entwining their fate and correcting this world. Correcting such a grievous error that was McNulty getting the Tisdale case and not Beckett.

Because his life is so much more with her in it.

"Just thought I should stop by and grovel a bit. Try and convince you not to sue the state."

He chuckles in his throat, but even that's enough to upset his wound. His laughter turns to a grimace and she's there, stroking a reassuring hand up and down his forearm. So close to what he can remember from his other life.

"Is that the only reason you came to see me, Beckett? To beg on behalf of your bosses? Not even gonna get a thank you for saving your life?"

He says it with a smile because he can feel this connection too, and she's mirroring him with the most tender expression. So akin to the kind he can faintly remember from the life of his other self, and the glorious passion that is that Kate Beckett's love.

"I was actually thinking I could take you out for a drink, once you're done slacking in that hospital bed, as a thank you. Buy you your first round after you've recovered."

She's biting her lip again and her eyes are bright with hope. He maneuvers his left hand to clasp hers tightly, trying and failing to ignore the static spark against their contact. This is fate. Kismet—that his other self just happened to fall into this case and bring them together. Serendipitous—that his other self was able to work the case and meet her again, in this other world, where just last week they were strangers.

"I'd love to."

He sees the flash in her eyes as he drops the 'L' word again, already in so deep because of the fire he knows is in her soul. He won't prod yet, maybe call her in a few days when he gets discharged. Invite her over to watch cheesy movies with him or maybe even Nebula 9. He distinctly remembers an other-self memory about Nebula 9.

But, for now, he'll give her space.

Because he knows how much she's worth it.

And he can't wait to begin again.

Author's Note:

Perfect episode was perfect!

Thank you all for being so patient with me on my other stories, especially my multi-fic. I just started seeing a new therapist so I'm hoping that'll help me start moving my life along so that I can go back to being me again.

Thank you all so much.