"When it all falls, when it all falls down

I'll be your fire when the lights go out

When there's no one, no one else around

We'll be two souls in a ghosttown

When the world gets cold

I'll be your cover

Let's just hold

Onto each other"

Ghosttown by Madonna

Chapter 1

He was standing right there beside her and then he was gone in but a second, down hard and impossibly fast, his body left crumpled on the ground in a motionless heap as she struggled to overcome the instantaneous paralysis of her own.

Kate had heard the crack of it twice, first as the bullet exploded from a distant barrel and then as it collided with Rick's flesh and bone and collapsed him, the latter among the most horrific sounds her ears had ever experienced.

The sky above was cornflower blue and unblemished by clouds, the sun's caress gentle and warm on her skin. It was a magnificent spring day, the sort of day that made one forgive the arduous months of bitter cold wait for its arrival. In some cruel twist, it'd only been a moment before metal pierced their laughter that she'd thought she could hardly recall a day that'd felt as soothing to her soul as that one.

But then.

Though stunned by fear, Kate's eyes scanned the field around them. It seemed to go on forever, to have no beginning or end, no direction toward or from anywhere. And there was no one. They were two, alone.

Where had everyone gone? she wondered, and yet who was everyone? If they'd been there, she couldn't call up their faces. She couldn't hear their voices. Surely, they couldn't be the only ones in that beautiful place on that beautiful day. Could no one else see the sky, feel the sun?

She tried with all her might to rouse her muscles, but their control was no longer hers. Panic roared through her body. Who would help Rick? The grass once thick and green beneath his feet was now matted with a crimson pool of his blood, one that continued to grow with every blink of her eyes, one whose crawl she could almost hear in the deafening silence.

The gun's blast had frightened away the songs of the birds and the whisper of the breeze and replaced them with a palpable nothingness, save for the pounding of her heart and the desperate screams thundering in her head for escape, which her voice couldn't successfully capture.

Rick! Rick!

Again and again she tried and failed. Like her, he hadn't moved an inch. An image of her mother flashed across her mind then, not a welcome snapshot, not a happy memory, but one of her body, stabbed and slumped over in a filthy alley, her blood just as thick and red as Rick's, and Kate slammed her eyes shut in an effort to banish it.

None of it made any sense. It couldn't be happening all over again. The world wouldn't steal from her someone else she loved, not after what she'd already been through, not after what she'd found in Rick that she'd never found in another. She didn't deserve such pain, nor was her heart equipped for it.

A solitary tear escaped her closed lid and streaked down her cheek, but she couldn't wipe its tickle away. Like some children's game she made a wish on it, that when she opened her eyes Rick would be whole, unbroken, standing there beside her just as he had been from the beginning.

When she did, he wasn't. In fact, he wasn't there at all.

She was alone in that endless green field absent birds or breeze, beneath the sun of that cornflower-blue sky, but she found her hands coated with the rust of dried blood. Once more, she tried to scream his name and prevailed, at last. But there was only her cry, nothing more.

xxxx

Kate woke with a start, rattled by the nagging dream that now plagued her and uncertain of her bearings, though she quickly realized she'd simply fallen asleep on the couch again rather than in her bed.

That wasn't anything out of the ordinary in her new world-her new shot-in-the-chest-by-a-sniper-and-survived world-because as she'd come to learn, hidden away there in her father's upstate cabin for those thirty-six days, beds and couches and hours and minutes and day and night eventually became just words for someone with no real need to care.

Thirty-five days before, she'd thrown a single bag of clothes and books into her father's car and left the city for the woods. She'd told only him, managed to keep it that way for a couple of weeks until Lanie grew more insistent about a visit and could only be talked out of it by the truth. By now she was sure others knew, not that it ever truly needed to be a secret. Except, preferably, from the people who wanted her dead.

She pushed herself up into the corner of the couch, winced with the ache of her unintended haste and settled again. If only she'd thought to strap on her vest beneath her blues for her captain's funeral. How foolish of her not to realize how dangerous a cemetery packed with half of the NYPD in broad daylight could be.

Going on two months from that afternoon, it was still a fight to get from here to there. For a woman who'd for so long lived as though she was invincible, the weakness thrust upon her continued to go down about as well as a glass of nails. She hated it. She hated every damn minute of it.

With greater care so as not to pull at her scars, she used the band wrapped around her wrist, twisted her hair up on top of her head and secured it. For a moment she couldn't remember if she'd already showered or not. She ultimately determined she hadn't, but slid the information into the doesn't-really-matter column and moved on to her phone, which she found tucked beneath her thigh.

Lanie sent messages. Kate responded to most. Rick hadn't sent any messages. Sometimes she had to remind herself that she'd told him she would, that that was the way she'd wanted it. It made her feel sick. It made her feel angry. The damn dreams weren't helping.

It was years before the nightmares that came out of her mother's murder waned. Even now they flared up on occasion. Recently, her subconscious had decided to pull Johanna Beckett out of the game and substitute in Richard Castle. That wasn't a game Kate wanted to play. Unfortunately for her, whoever the game's referee was didn't seem to give a damn.

It didn't take a degree in psychology or a shelf stacked with books on the interpretation of dreams to understand. She got it. She knew what Rick had tried to do for her in the cemetery that day, what he'd been willing to do. What he'd had the courage to do. She knew it second by second, frame by frame. And yet she'd lied. More than that, she'd turned and run, like a thief in the night, left him to deal with the weight of the memories all on his own, because that'd been easier.

Now there was payback. Now when she closed her eyes there was blood, so much blood, blood spilling out of a heart that loved her, that she loved. And how she did. She'd never loved any heart more. But it had her frozen with fear, and alone.

There was a voicemail from her father. She called it up and listened. No matter what the words, his voice always brought comfort. He'd been borrowing a friend's car and driving up to see her every week or so with groceries and anything else she needed in hand. They'd always reminisce about years past, about times they shared there as a family. It was often exhausting, truth be told, yet, at once, a treasured light in the darkness.

He'd be up late on Friday he said. She needed her phone to tell her when that was. Two days. She'd have to make a list for the market, which made her realize she hadn't yet eaten, either. Sometimes she forgot to. Most of the time she just wasn't that hungry.

She boiled water for tea, gathered some fruit and crackers on a plate, and went outside to the deck off the back of the cabin to pick at it. She dragged one of the chairs from the pair there into the sunshine. Its warmth felt different than it did in her dreams, but she knew the dose would be good for her.

It was the only place she ever went. That was as far as she'd wandered since she'd been up there. Some days the walk felt like miles rather than steps, and wasn't that just the apt metaphor for so many things in her life at present. Work, love, any semblance of true safety and security were all at a finish line she couldn't see from where she stood. Everything seemed a question without an answer, an unlabeled map.

She changed her mind and set her hair free again, welcomed the breeze from the tall pines that surrounded the property's edge to have its way. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed the kiss of summer's mountain air until she met its acquaintance again after so long. It wasn't at all like that of the city, hardhanded and pitiless.

She adored those pines. When she was a young girl, her father would tell her bedtime stories of fairies that played among them, about how they would descend from the stars at night and flutter about the soft bows, their twinkling light visible only to those who truly believed. She still caught herself now and again, all those years later, staring out into the trees in the darkness with childlike hope. A part of her still wanted to believe.

She swiped a slice of green apple out from under a bee that'd attempted to claim it, swallowed it down with a pucker thanks to its sour bite, and pulled her phone from the pocket of her cardigan.

"Hey, Dad," she said with a smile in her eyes after he announced himself with a business-formal, "Good afternoon, Jim Beckett speaking."

"There's my girl." The attorney melted instantly into father. "How are you feeling today, Katie? You sound tired."

Kate shook her head. "I've only said two words, Dad. But I am tired. What else is new?" It was plain in her voice. She loathed how many ripples one tiny piece of metal had left in its wake. "I got your message."

"Good, yeah, I'm thinking I can be at the house by 8:00 PM. Maybe sooner if the weekend traffic isn't too bad. If you can send me a list sometime tomorrow of what you'd like me to bring up, I can get the shopping done then and save a stop on the way."

"I will. It won't be much. I still have a bunch of stuff from last week." She leaned her head against the back of the chair and shut her eyes. "How are you, Dad? What's been going on at work?" She just wanted to hear him talk, about anything at all, to be lullabied by his lilt.

Jim puffed out a half chuckle. "First of all, you better be eating. You know you need to keep up your strength. Second, you're already frustrated because you feel tired all the time, beautiful daughter of mine. Listening to me go on about this place sure isn't going to help change that. My work isn't nearly as exciting as yours. You'd be out like a light in three minutes flat."

Her bee friend buzzed by her ear and perked her up, her focus drifting out again to the trees.

"Dad, do you remember those stories you used to tell me about the fairies that would come down from the stars at night?"

A hush sat between them a moment before he replied.

"The fairies and their dancing light." She could hear the curiosity in his soft reply, knew his immediate inclination would've been to ask what'd sparked such nostalgia had he not instead found himself likewise lost in the sweet remembrance. "You have to believe, Katie."

Kate reached for another slice of the apple from her plate.

"I'm trying, Dad," she said.