A/N: Okay, I lied...one more twist. How many of you guessed this one? I tried to hint at it a bit, and I think some of you may have gotten it. I hope this epilogue ties everything up nice and neatly. :)
This story has been such a joy and pleasure to write! It's been, by very far, my most wildly popular story and I'm so immensely grateful. I have another idea I'm going to pursue. A 4x01 AU about what would happen if Kate was being honest when she told Rick she didn't remember her shooting. Going to go very AU with it. Be on the look out!
Her eyes lids feel heavy and tired when she tries to open them, like lifting lead weights. Her head feels limp and weak, her muscles so tired and numb she can't even move it from side to side. Her whole body feels this way. She just feels heavy and numb. She can't seem to remember anything besides the gunshot and the woods. She remembers her last moments, seeing Thomas on the ground with Earl jogging up to them.
There's a voice echoing in her ears, but she can't make out what it's saying. "I... heart, but we're here... I've been..." She manages to make out before the voice fades again.
She lets out a breath that makes her chest feel empty and tries once again to open her eyes without success after all she gets is the light shining through her eyelids. "She'll wake up though, right?" A little girl's voice asks, sounding sweet, innocent, and so darling. A voice that implores her to smile.
"She will, princess. Don't worry." She hears her partner say, the echoes of his voice fading completely as her senses start to filter back online.
"I miss her, Daddy." The little girl says in a sad tone.
She finally manages to crack open her aching eyes and sees Rick sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, clad in a casual outfit of a blue flannel shirt and jeans and a little girl with dark brown hair cut short near her neck sitting crossways in his lap. The little girl is in a pair of khaki capris, sandals, and a light green blouse. The mere sight of her is sending her heart strings pulling violently, not even aware as to why. The last thing her slow mind picks up before her eyes drift shut again is the little girl laying her head down on Castle's shoulder and him moving his arms around her.
"I do too, princess." She can even hear the heavy emotion thickening her partner's voice.
But the only thing her heart can seem to react to is the voice of the little girl, no older than six, sitting in his lap.
"But," he begins in a lighter voice, while her eyes are still unwilling to let her open them, "that's why I've been here everyday reading to her. Remember what the doctor said?"
"That she can hear us if we talk to her." The girl says in a sad tone. Her voice is making Kate's heart ache far too painfully, she just wants to scream at her own body for not being able to get up and hold her. "But if Mommy's asleep, how can she hear us?"
Mommy? The word resonates through her heart, giving her veins the first feeling of life in what seems like a lifetime. "She's not really asleep, Lily. Not like you and I go to sleep. She's just getting better. That's why I brought you and your little brothers to see her on Friday."
"Why couldn't we see her sooner, Daddy? Mommy's been here forever." The little girl sounds off as if she's pouting.
She can hear the moment when Castle chuckles under his breath. "It's only been two weeks, princess. But yeah, it does seem like forever without her, huh? Let me ask you a question, baby. Who's the strongest, bravest person in the world?"
"You?" The girl asks.
And she can hear Castle smile from here, "Besides me, Lily."
"Mommy?" Lily says, and it's this moment when Kate works up enough energy to crack open her heavy eyes again and sees the little girl looking up at Castle with her head laid down on his shoulder, with him looking down at her with a loving, almost fatherly smile adorning his handsome face.
"That's right," he answers back just as her eyes drift shut again. She can feel herself getting more and more energy, the weight and numbness slowly melting away the more the little girl talks. "But because of the crash, she needed help breathing. And she wouldn't have wanted you to see her like that. That's why I didn't want you kids to see her until last Friday."
"But you've been here, Daddy. You've been here every day."
"Mmhmm," Castle hums to her and sounds as if he's readjusting himself in his chair, "I've been reading her your Daddy's new story."
"Reaching Heat." The girl reads slowly. "What's it about?"
"It's about a brave police detective helping out her partner after he gets hurt. She helps him out and she finds the bad guy that hurts him, just like your mother does."
"Can you read it to me, Daddy?"
"Sure, princess. Go tell Mommy you love her and I'll read you a little bit, okay?"
Kate's breath locks inside her chest as she hears the girl slide from Castle's lap and land on the linoleum floor with her sandals sending a loud slap across the room. There's a moment in Kate's mind when she wonders if the girl is coming over to her bedside or perhaps another bed in the room, preparing her heart for whatever feeling is to come if it's not her the little girl is going to see. But as the sound of the little girl's flip flops get louder as they cross the room, her heart shoots up into her throat. She can feel the little girl's eyes on her as she lay in the hospital bed.
The world seems to stop for a second before Kate feels a warm, loving, small set of fingers wrap themselves around her right palm laying down against the sheets of her bed. "I love you, Mommy."
It's with those words ringing in her mind that her body fills with energy and she takes the girl's hand, enveloping it with her fingers.
The girl gasps loudly, "Daddy! Mommy grabbed my hand, she's awake!"
The sound of the wooden legs of the chair skidding across the floor sounds from across the room. She can feel the presence of her partner at her bedside in an instant, still holding onto the small hand for dear life. "Kate, honey? Are you awake?" He asks her, putting his much larger hand on her right shoulder, his thumb softly petting her arm.
She finally opens her eyes fully to the brightly lit, sunny room of the familiar looking hospital. But the first thing they fall upon is the beautiful little girl holding onto her hand with a huge smile spreading across her beautiful face and her light hazel eyes sparkling with love and excitement instantly feeling her heart connected to her. "I know you, don't I?" She rasps in a weak voice, the corners of her lips wanting to spread into a smile.
"Yeah, Daddy wouldn't let us come and see you for a whole week, not until Friday. But he's been here every day, reading to you from his new story." Lily quickly raddles off.
And Kate's mind is sending flickerings of images into her brain, things that she feels are so familiar, they're precious memories but feel as if she's seeing them for the first time. Of this little girl as a tiny, newborn infant, of the moment when she's set into her arms for the first time, of falling into her arms after her first steps. But it all feels so unfamiliar, all at the same time. Still, Kate soon feels a soft, tired smile lifting the corners of her mouth, her eyes not being able to tear themselves away from this little girl, Lily.
"Kate? How are you feeling, hun?" Rick asks at her bedside, putting his other hand on Lily's back.
But she lets him go unanswered, still holding onto Lily's hand and gazing at her beautiful face. This is the little girl he was talking about, the little girl he dreamt about, the little girl that he said was their daughter... her daughter. Kate gives Lily's hand a soft squeeze and runs her thumb down her wrist. "You're even more beautiful than I imagined." Kate says to her.
Lily's smile softens into slight bashfulness as she blinks up widely at Kate. "The doctor told us that you could hear us even though you were asleep. Could you hear us, Mommy? Jake and Reese didn't say much, but I did."
Kate's heart soars as her mind starts letting the pieces fall into place and starting to let the fog clear. "My little Lily." She says in an emotionally strained voice, still hanging onto the girl's hand. "You have your grandmother's hair, you know that?"
"Uhm..." Castle starts next to her and takes his hand off her shoulder, putting it down onto Lily's and leaning down close to her, "Lily, go find your brothers. They should be with Alexis, okay?"
Lily looks up to her father with a smile and takes her hand back, but Kate's smile vanishes as she looks between the little girl she feels she just met but already feels so connected to and the man standing next to her, whose sending her off. "No," Kate begins, "no, no, wait!" Kate weakly demands and pushes her hand off the bed.
Lily turns back around and steps back up to her bedside with a soft smile.
Lily's smile sends her mother's heart fluttering wildly inside her still heavy chest, and she puts a hand on her daughter's cheek, softly cupping the girl's perfect face. The fog seems to clear for a moment as she looks into Lily's eyes. "Be careful, okay?"
"Okay, Mommy! I love you!" Lily exclaims and spins around, starting to skip toward the door to her familiar looking hospital room. "Mommy's awake!" The excited little girl shouts as she jumps in the air halfway to the door, reaching for the ceiling as she does. Lily opens the door and walks with child-like speed down the hallway.
Kate's eyes remain glued to the door as it slides shut. Once it latches back into place, she sees her partner moving next to her bedside, leaning back down close to her. "Honey, are you okay?" He asks in a far more loving tone than he was a second ago.
She looks back up to him, her head still limply leaning back against her propped up hospital bed... in a room that looks far too familiar from a world she isn't even sure is the real one or not. And given a second to take everything in, she looks down to herself, seeing her left arm in a dark blue sling, her shoulder feeling stiff and swollen, her left leg feeling heavy and weak, her ribcage aching and pinching, and her head feeling limp and lopsided as it sloshes from side to side.
But as she looks back up to him, her eyes fall upon his hand as he reaches up to brush his fingers down her cheek. Reacting quickly, she reaches up and takes his left hand, quickly finding his ring finger with her thumb and forefinger, pinching the warm, platinum ring adorning his finger. Once she sees it for herself, everything starts to click.
It wasn't his dream.
But her's.
"You weren't the one that was dreaming, were you?" She asks him as his bright, sparkling blue eyes haze with concern and confusion. Rick carefully entwines his fingers with her's as she's looking around the room, the same room she clearly remembers visiting in Brattleboro, time and time again as she was waiting for him to wake up. "It was me."
"Honey, you were in a-"
"Car crash." She finishes. "But..." She says and looks around the room again until she remembers Lily sitting in his lap, "it was you."
"Kate, what's going on? You remember me, don't you? You remember Lily?" He asks in a tight voice, his eyes starting to glimmer as he reaches up and cups her cheek.
Her eyes drift shut at his contact, leaning herself into his touch and covering his hand with her's. She lets herself revel in his familiar warmth and an overwhelming about of love for a long moment before she opens her eyes again, the lines connecting her heart and her mind when she looks into his eyes at how much she loves and adores this man, hopefully her husband. "We're married, aren't we?"
"Y-yes, we're married. Going on eight years now."
"The case, with..." She begins before trailing off, letting the fog clear from her mind, "you were reading to me."
"Yeah, I've been going nuts worrying about you. I've been narrating a new book idea for the past two weeks. They had you on a ventilator for a little over a week but I didn't want the kids seeing you like that. But they managed to take you off ventilation and we've just been waiting now, so..."
"Last Friday... that's when..."
He wasn't the one dreaming.
He was the one dose of her reality. He didn't glimpse into a future or another universe that wasn't really theirs. He was the one voice in her dream that was right, reminding her it was a world she had built. A world she had built around his words and his story. All the times she spoke to the doctor about his injuries wasn't about him, but her. All the casework and the talks with his family, filtered into her mind and put into her dream by a fantasy her mind had built. A way for her body to help heal itself while her mind goes somewhere else.
She looks around the hospital room again before she falls upon him again. "We're in Brattleboro, aren't we?"
"Yeah, we spend the summers up here, remember? You were visiting your cousin upstate and you rolled the Lexus four times after you swerved to miss a deer in the road. The doctor said we might have to worry about some memory problems, but I didn't think it would be this-"
"What are you thinking reading our six-year-old daughter one of your novels, Rick? She's six." She softly scolds in a tired voice, her mind coming back to itself.
He pauses and stares at her before his face melts into a bright smile and cups her cheek again, everything coming back to her.
It's then that the door flies open and her boys come flying in. "Mommy!" They shout in unison with bright, open smiles and sparkling baby blue eyes, her two miniature versions of their father running up to her bedside, leaving Alexis to stand in the doorway with a loving smile as she watches it all unfold.
"Hey, gremlins!" She greets them both as Jake is the first to come to bedside, leaving his brother to come up behind him. She reaches over the railing and puts her fingers against Jake's cheek. "I had a dream about you, baby bear." She says to him.
"Yeah?" Jakes asks.
"Did you dream about me too, Mommy?" Reese asks after his brother.
"Yep," Kate says with a smile as her eyes drift over her family. "About all of you."
END