"You'll never be alone,
I'll be with you from dusk till dawn,
I'll hold you when things go wrong,
I'll be with you from dusk till dawn,
Baby I'm right here"
-'Dusk Till Dawn' by Zayn feat. Sia

She's standing on the podium, her heart in her throat as she delivers her speech for Montgomery. The sun is piercing through the starched fabric of her dress blues, sweat trickling down the back of her neck to dive down her spine, and her voice threatens to tremble with every word. But it's almost over. Her captain's burial is almost complete and then she can go home and… and try to heal, to grieve.

Because the battle may never end, but she needs to rest before she cracks.

Kate sucks in a breath, delivers the line Montgomery shared with her, the valuable words about the luck of finding someone to stand with you. She never would have bought into the notion before, always preferring to make her stand alone, but as she glances over to Castle… she decides that maybe she doesn't want to be so completely independent anymore.

After the funeral, after she feels at least a fraction more stable, she'll talk to him. Not about the hangar, Montgomery's death and the gut-wrenching remorse that comes with it is still too raw, but about them. About what she said the night before, about how they were over.

Kate returns her gaze to the crowd, fellow officers, police chiefs, Montgomery's family, and tries not to look at their faces as she prepares to wrap up her eulogy.

"Our captain would want us to carry on the fight," she begins, but her sentence never finds completion. "And even if there is-"

"Kate!"

She doesn't have the chance to look, to process, only hears the shout of her name from Castle's mouth before he lunges for her.

The bullet hits in the same moment that he does.

They slam to the ground. Castle tries to brace her body for the impact, his arm digging into the middle of her spine, but nothing could stop the rush of air from abandoning her, emptying from her lungs.

Castle pushes up on an elbow, but wavers, his arm buckling and their chests meeting as he collapses back down to her.

"Castle," she chokes. Her arms are uncooperative at her sides, but she's able to bend an elbow, hook a hand to the crook of his. She can barely breathe, the hot spill of liquid drenching her uniform. "Rick."

He lifts his head, blocks the unforgiving glare of the sun, and meets her eyes.

His skin is so pale, bloodless, and she squeezes his bicep with fingers that can barely feel.

The world is in chaos around them. Screams of panic, shouts of their names, frantic movement everywhere. But in the space between them, it's quiet, peaceful.

"I'm sorry," he rasps, his fingers twitching at the back of her skull. She didn't realize he's been cradling her head, didn't register the soft pressure of his thumb at the sensitive skin behind her ear, until now.

"For - what?" she gets out, blinking to ward off the multiplying black spots forming along the edges of her vision.

"Think it got us both," he wheezes, squeezing his eyes shut. Her brow furrows, not comprehending. "Bullet, Kate. Tried-"

"No," she whispers in horror, all she can manage. Her lungs are caving in between them. "Just me. Please-"

His forehead falls to rest against hers with a finality that reverberates through her bones.

The pain blooming through her chest is unbearable, the weight of Castle's body atop hers the only thing anchoring her to consciousness. But she can feel him threatening to slip away.

"Stay with me," she breathes, her eyes fluttering shut.

She feels the pained release of his exhale against her cheek. "Always. Always gonna be with you."

But it sounds less like a promise and more like a goodbye.

"Castle," she whimpers, trying to tilt her chin, be closer, but she doesn't think she's succeeding. She can't feel her hands anymore, her feet, everything going numb.

"I love you." The last thing she feels is the stroke of his thumb behind her ear, caressing her skin. "I love you, Kate."

She drifts away before she can say it back.

The first few times she wakes, it's to bright lights and searing agony that courses through her entire body, foreign voices and needles in her arms, wires twining around her. She doesn't know where she is, only that he isn't here, that amidst all of the pain surging through her veins, she's more acutely aware of the harsh emptiness in the middle of her chest.

She can't determine if it's because the bullet shattered her heart, or if it's because he took it with him when he left.

The first time she wakes with any semblance of coherency, her dad is at her bedside, stroking the hair back from her forehead.

"Hey sweetheart," he whispers, his thumb shaking as it sweeps along the corner of her eye. "You're okay."

Her lips part, but nothing comes out. Her mouth is so dry, her throat like sandpaper. Her dad notices immediately, rising from the chair he sits in to reach for something. He returns with a styrofoam cup and a straw that he positions at her chapped lips.

"Slow sips, honey," he murmurs and she cautiously takes one, winces at the spill of ice water down her throat. But the bite of the cold softens, soothes as it slides down her throat to spread through her chest, extinguishing some of the fire that lives within her ribcage on the way down.

"H-happened?" she gets out.

Her dad eases the straw from her lips, returns the cup to the small table at her bedside. The solemn expression on his face rips a stitch of worry through her stomach.

"You were shot at Montgomery's funeral, Katie," he begins to explain, but she doesn't need to hear anymore. All she needs to know is-

"Castle?"

Her dad's solemn expression turns to a grief that spears through her, sends what must be left of her heart sinking.

"He tried to get to you, tackled you to the ground," her dad relays, directing his gaze to his lap. "He reached you in time, but the bullet… it went through Rick, right into you."

She swallows hard even though it hurts.

"Where is he?" Her dad won't meet her eyes. "Dad."

"The bullet just missed your heart. Rick's body shielding yours… the doctors say it softened the impact, saved you from the worst of it. You'll heal-"

"But Castle?" she repeats, her voice breaking over his name. Her eyes are stinging by the time her dad finally lifts his.

"He didn't make it, sweetheart," Jim whispers, looking so heartbroken for her. "They tried everything, but he - he died on the grass."

For a long moment, it doesn't make sense. She can't manage to comprehend her father's words, what they mean.

He didn't make it.

Always gonna be with you.

He didn't make it.

I love you.

He didn't make it.

The stinging in her eyes worsens, her bottom lip starts to tremble in a horrible way that she can't control, and her chest spasms with the sob that tears from her mouth.

"Katie," her dad tries to soothe. She hates for him to see her like this. Even after her mother died, she refused to break down in front of her father, to let him witness the visceral anguish that so quickly consumed her. He had enough of his own to deal with. But now… her grief is like a beast ripping through her and there is no stopping its rampage.

She can hear the faint sound of beeping, a heart monitor picking up speed, can hear her father's soft pleas for her to calm down, to breathe, hears the door to her room swing open. But it all sounds so far away, as if she's underwater and sinking fast. Drowning, she's drowning.

Kate.

She sifts frantically through the sea of unfamiliar faces, seeking the source of that voice. Castle's voice. He's here, she can feel it.

She's going crazy.

You have to breathe, Kate. You have to.

"Can't," she wheezes, jerking away from the doctor shining a light in her eyes. When the blinding beam of it dissipates from her vision, she finally finds him, standing behind her dad with that bright blue worry in his eyes.

She sucks in a breath.

"Good," he murmurs, but he's so far away, standing too far away. "Again, Kate. You have to keep breathing."

"Castle." She doesn't see who administers the dose, but knows the moment a fresh wave of morphine floods her bloodstream, already pulling her down. "Come back."

"I'm not going anywhere," he promises, drifting in a little closer, but staying along the sidelines, out of the way. Still too far away. "I'll be right here."

It's the morphine, she tells herself as her eyelids begin to fall on their own volition. Morphine and trauma and everything else that causes hallucinations. But even once her eyes slip shut, she doesn't stop hearing his voice in her head, telling her to keep breathing.