Disclaimer: DPB owns them. I should be so lucky.
A/N: Because there weren't enough post-Twilight fics out there ;o)
Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue
Thought I heard you talking softly
Duran Duran, "Ordinary World"
He expects her to haunt him – wants her to – because he hates the thought that she might spend her afterlife following Ari around. It's not that he believes in an afterlife, but if Kate haunts anyone, it should be him. After all, he is as responsible for her death as if he pulled the trigger.
He tells himself he loved her, but knows that's not true. He could have loved her, would have loved her, wanted to love her, but he thought there'd be more time.
On the really bad days, he wonders if she was taken away as a result of his failure to act. If God was testing him, and found his inaction displeasing. Of course, he doesn't believe in God either, but that's not the point.
He consciously looks for Kate in every woman he meets. The suspect in his last case could have been her twin, and he'd lost all objectivity. The woman wearing Kate's face has a heart of ice yet, despite the bullet wound in his shoulder, he still wants to believe she is not guilty.
Still, there's a part of him that thinks it would have been fitting to die at the hands of Kate's doppelganger.
Maybe this is her way of haunting him. He can smell her on his sheets, feel her on his skin, taste her in his mouth. He can't drink coffee anymore without seeing her smile. Sometimes he hears the echo of her laughter, but when he turns to look, she's never there. He doesn't care that it's morbid of him to have her answering machine tape. It's become a ritual: he arrives home at the end of the day, pours a drink, and presses 'play'. Hi, this is Kate. I can't come to the phone right now. Leave a message and I'll get back to you.
And every time he puts on Kevlar, he remembers how it failed her. In saving her life, it killed her. If she'd been on the ground, she might have had a chance.
She'd deserved a better death.
She'd deserved a better life too. One with a future that included marriage and children and growing old.
There are so many should-have-been's whenever he thinks of her.
Sometimes he dreams of her on the autopsy table, a hole in her forehead. Always, he wakes up in a cold sweat and wonders why this time he hadn't had a premonition her life was in danger. Maybe, he thinks, the warning was just a year too early.
Of course, he doesn't believe in premonitions either, but that doesn't stop him wishing he'd killed Ari when he had the chance.
He wants Kate to haunt him, because she deserves to be remembered. It surprises him to discover that pain doesn't last forever, that not all the memories hurt, and it's in this moment that he finally breaks down and cries for her.
He wasn't in love with her, but he wanted to be, and now he'll never know what it would have been like to love Caitlin Todd. He waited too long, and lost. He has all the time in the world to think about that.
Because he'd believed in Kate, and that belief had got her killed. So she'd damn well better haunt him.
I'll get back to you. Right, he thinks, in another lifetime maybe, if such a thing exists. Maybe in the next lifetime they'll get it right.
And what else can he do but carry on? He'll look for the ghost of Caitlin Todd until he finds her. In the meantime, he sits in his basement staring at his unfinished boat. He pours a drink, presses 'play', closes his eyes, and pretends she's there. Hi, this is Kate . . .