AUTHOR'S NOTE:

This story takes place during Always – after they find out about the connection to Kate's mother's murder and to her shooting but before Castle comes to her apartment to tell her to stop. I guess it's sort of a different way the events of Always could've played out, if our team and the people behind Beckett's mother's murder had made some different decisions. I know that not even Andrew Marlowe would be cruel enough to do this to us (THANK GOD), but it's fun to write, and I really hope you guys like it.

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Marks of battle, they still feel raw, a million pieces of me on the floor

-Exit Wounds, The Script

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It doesn't hurt as much as you would think.

She should be in agonizing pain. She knows that. But as the man in the cliché black ski mask pulls the short blade from her back, all she can feel is numb shock as the words 'I've been stabbed' play over and over again in her mind. She almost wants to laugh – it seems ridiculous. If she had been stabbed, she would be in pain. And the pain is there; as she tumbles towards the ground, she can feel a mild stinging in her lower back. But it's like she cut herself on a rock. Nothing to worry about.

But the look on Castle's face tells a very different story.

Something to worry about, it says. Something to lie awake at night, staring blankly at the ceiling over. Something to make yourself sick over.

"Kate!" he yells, but it sounds like he's a million miles away instead of right there, kneeling on the sidewalk next to her, his hand finding her neck and cupping it, supporting her head. Just as it did nearly a year ago now. Just as it did during those awful minute in the cemetery when she lay on the ground with a bullet in her chest, in so much more pain than she was in right now.

Just as it did in those minutes she still hasn't told him she remembers.

He's thinking about those minutes, too; she can tell because as he brushes strand of hair out of her face with his free hand, as his sweet blue eyes flicker between her hazel ones and the growing pool of dark red blood on the pavement, as he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out his phone, as he stabs at the numbers 9, 1, and 1 with his thumb, he's muttering to himself – to her? – under his breath. "Not again," he's saying. "Please, not again."

He's pressing the phone to his ear with the hand that isn't underneath her neck. By this time, he's stopped looking at the pool of blood – because he's decided that it's not important, or because it's too much for him to look at without breaking down? Whatever the reason, his eyes are now fixed on hers, drinking her in because he knows now might be his last chance.

It's funny. Castle's voice is muffled when he speaks, like he's miles and miles and miles away. But she can still hear the tinny female voice on the other end of the line.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"I need an ambulance," Castle barks into the phone. "A woman's been stabbed." He rattles off the name of the street they're on and then hangs up. As he puts the phone back in his pocket, as his eyes search hers, she knows why. He doesn't want to be distracted. In these precious seconds, he does not want to focus on anything but her. Because he knows these precious seconds may be her last.

She's worried now. It still doesn't hurt, but she can see the fear on Castle's face and it's making her afraid, too. Between the fear and the pain and the despair and the desperation, he looks just as he did a year ago in the cemetery.

If he's that scared, she must be dying.

It's strange. She thought she knew what dying felt like. She thought it was a blur of extreme, mind-boggling pain, dark oblivion, and incomparable confusion, punctuated by bursts of sound and flashes of light, glimpses of the world beyond trying to pull her onward and the world she knew trying to pull her back. Death was a game of tug-of-war, she thought, played by two very determined parties, with the rope stretched over a bottomless chasm and Kate holding onto it for dear life – literally. Both teams fought their hardest; both wanted her for their very own. But in the end, she was the real star of the show. She could choose to hold onto the rope as friends and doctors fought to save her life. But if she chose to let go, if she chose to drop into that bottomless pit, it did not matter which side was fated to win, which team destiny was backing. If she chose to let herself fall, Death won by default.

This is nothing like that.

This is more like falling asleep after a long and tiring day. It's satisfying, relaxing, desirable. It's peaceful.

She wants to sleep now. Her eyelids are drooping, tugged downward by an invisible hand. But Castle's there, keeping her awake. He's stopped saying "Not again." He's saying the same sort of things he said to her in the cemetery. "Stay with me," is repeated over and over again. He wants her to stay with him. He wants her to stay awake for him. He doesn't want her to leave.

She can't help but wonder if he'll tell her he loves her again.

"Please, Kate," he whispers, caressing her cheek with the back of his hand. "Stay with me. You have to stay with me. The ambulance is coming. You're going to be alright. You just have to stay with me long enough for them to get here, okay? Can you do that for me?"

She tries to tell him that yes, of course – for him, she'll stay awake. For him, she'll do most anything. But she's gone temporarily mute and she can't make a sound. And then her eyelids are sliding down again of their own accord, and she tries to say no, she doesn't want this, she wants to stay awake for Castle, but she's no longer in control. But he's there, shaking her shoulder – gently, so gently, like she's made of china and he's afraid she'll break at the slightest touch. "Kate," he's saying, and there's panic in his voice. "Kate, come on, stay with me. Please don't leave me."

She won't leave him. She'll never leave him. She might as well saw off one of her own limbs. Or shoot herself in the heart.

"Please, Katie," he pleads. "Please."

Katie. He's never called her Katie before. She's always been Beckett, Kate in situations like these. Katie is a new one. If she had any control over her body, she would scold him for using the nickname reserved solely for her father.

"Katie, please!" He's desperate now, so desperate, and she thinks maybe he made the mistake of looking down at the pool of blood again. "Dammit, Kate, you have to stay with me!"

His hand is around hers now, and he's clutching it like a lifeline, as though he were the one dying instead of her. And even with her blurred, darkened vision she can see the look in his eyes, and she knows that's what he wants. If he could somehow make a deal to switch their places, he would. He would take a bullet for her. He would've taken this knife for her.

He loves her.

And it's so tangible, so obvious, so strong that she can practically see it radiating off of him. Submersed in the ocean of his passion, she can barely breathe; she's being smothered by the anguish of it, but it's his pain, not hers. On some cosmic level they are connected in a way that others would call impossible, but only because they do not understand – they have never cared for someone so deeply as to share this sort of bond. And it's a beautiful thing, but in moments like this it's horrible, because to say she knows how he feels would be a tragic understatement. She feels how he feels. She can see the pain in his eyes and she knows that if the roles were reversed, if it were him lying on the ground and not her, she would wish for nothing more than to switch back. She would want nothing but to take his place, because the pain of taking a knife to the back is far less than the pain of watching him take it.

Most normal people would think her crazy, but she knows better. She knows that on this day, she is the lucky one. She's bleeding to death on a sidewalk, and he's kneeling above her, completely unharmed, but between the two of them, she is the lucky one.

She can hear the sirens of the ambulance in the distance; Castle hears them, too, because he looks up, hope on his face, before turning his eyes back to her face.

"They're coming, Kate," he tells her. "They can save you. You just have to hold on until they get here. Just hold on."

She can hold on. For the man who loves her, she can hold on.

But she has no control.

She's fighting like she's never fought before but she has no control. She's falling towards blackness, and she can see Castle above her reaching out to catch her, but she can't even reach for his hand. She has no control.

She's not strong enough; her eyes are closing. She's dying.

"Just hold on, Kate."

She'll do her best.