I'm now marking this fic as complete as I can't think of any more to add to it since starting heart so helpless. Sorry it's ending on a sad and rather morbid chapter. I was listening to sad songs and this happened, so.

Kate buries her down into the covers with a sigh, one hand curled around the cold spot beside her. She feels the cold seeping slowly into her veins, until they fill with ice, freeze her heart.

The hand uncurls, flexes, traces the shadow imprint of a long gone body she once knew better than her own.

In the darkness of her room, she's safe with her tears. They burn her cheeks but don't change the cold state of her heart; and for some reason, she can't bring herself to care.

Here are the three things that she remembers well:

The small curve of his smile when he turned to her, tongue peeking out with excitement as he thought of a new idea.

The three different shades of blue his eyes attuned to; darker when he was aroused or angry, light when he was happy and laughing, plain when his eyes shuttered close to sleep.

The blood on her hands was warm liquid, congested quickly, but it was not as large as the blood that soaked the floor of his apartment.

Here are the three things that she wishes she were able to forget:

The crimson stain that his blood had left on the plush flooring of his loft.

The pale and complete clamminess to his skin when she'd entered the loft to find him, dropping to her knees and hands staining with his blood, lips pressing against his and breathing air into his forgotten lungs.

The diamond ring in a blue velvet box she found in his drawer three days later, engraved inside with the word always.

When she wakes, she methodically showers, brushes her hair, dresses, pulls on the chain with two rings now, ignores the tightness in her chest and the empty space in her bed.

But as soon as she steps foot in the precinct, Captain Gates is already turning her away.

Kate goes home and lays down in the bed, stares at the ceiling until she's numb with it all.

Here are the three things she never witnessed:

The skip to his step as he'd sent her the text come over, Mother and Alexis are out and I promise a marathon- the dirty kind.

The absolute admiration in his eyes as he'd stroked her toothbrush that had made permanent residence in his house, residing right beside his.

The pain that flitted across his devilish features as the knife had struck him from behind, the way it made his knees buckle and he fell to the floor, reaching for the phone that was just too far out of reach as the knife once again struck him- to the heart.

Here are the three things she witnesses:

The paramedics arriving only to tell her that it's too late, that's he's gone, that he's never coming back.

The absolute agony in Alexis' eyes as she'd arrived back to the loft later the evening, finding Kate waiting with the earth-shattering news.

The box that had lowered to the hole in the ground, carrying his body until it was gone- he was gone, gone, gone.

"Do you think he'd hate me for it?"

Kate turns and her eyes settle on the sunken face of the young redhead, but they don't truly see. They haze out for a moment until she gathers her thoughts, pressing her hands into her eyes until she sees all-white.

"I don't know." She answers plainly.

"He loved you."

"He loved you as you were."

"I can't be that girl anymore."

"I know," Kate sighs, blinking against the whiteness she sees.

"Do you think I should do it?"

"He didn't love me for that, you know. He loved me for who I am. That was just a part of it."

Regardless, Alexis pulls on the police uniform and pulls her limp hair into a ponytail that Kate thinks is supposed to look professional. It just looks like a lame attempt of not looking like you break with every step she takes. Does her own hair look like that?

"This is just a part of me, now."

"Don't lose yourself to this, Alexis. He'd never forgive you. He'd never forgive me for allowing it."

Alexis tilts her head to the side, but Kate's eyes have already drifted away, as they always do nowadays. They find a small ridge on the opposite wall to study. Wonders how it got there. If he had anything to do with it.

"He'd never forgive me for letting you lose yourself to this, Kate. I suppose we're both guilty."

Kate lets her walk out the door and onto the streets of New York, a fresh new officer with a tragic backstory and a reason as well as a drive to be there.

Here are the three things she never learns:

The last words that had tumbled from his lips in his final moments. ("Oh, God, oh-")

The last thoughts that had jumped around in his brilliant mind as his eyes shut for the last time.

The last time his heart beat, whether she was still inside of it as he died.

Kate finds Alexis looking haggard, carrying a drunken Martha away from what they've dubbed "the drunk tank".

She offers her help, but the young girl moves on without a second glance.

Kate moves on in the precinct, back to her desk and the empty chair beside it. It's been untouched ever since.

Here are the three things she does learn:

The name of the killer was Marco Davis.

The weapon was a regular kitchen knife, winked at her as she placed it into an evidence bag.

The reason it all happened was because they'd arrested his wife two days before- a crime of passion, she supposes.

Unlike her Kate's dad, Martha does not make it through her alcoholism.

Kate keeps tabs on both her and Alexis throughout the years. It's easy because Alexis is determined to join homicide, and Martha is always being arrested and stuck away into the drunk tank.

Three weeks pass and Kate finds Alexis curled in a ball in one of the cubicles of the bathroom.

The tears in her eyes tell her everything.

Here are the three things she misses the most:

The way they made love, soft and sweet, fast and rough; no matter what, it was perfect, it was them.

The way he loved her at the pace she could love him too, never pushing but never relenting, his eyes reminding her of always.

The way her heart was secure in his hands, as she fell asleep in his arms and felt as though she were home.

Alexis beats her to youngest female detective by one day.

It's familiar to have a detective Castle at the precinct to work side-by-side with, but it's not the same.

When her lips find another's, she feels an overwhelming sense of wrongness and guilt.

But it's been eight years and surely, surely, her heart is allowed to move on at some point?

The guilt doesn't go away, so she pushes the guy away with a sigh. And she is sorry. She is. He's a nice guy.

He's just not the right one.

Here are the three things she will never have:

The over the top yet romantically sweet proposal, probably by a candlelit dinner or just out of the blue, because he had listened to her when she'd told Ryan women prefer intimate proposals.

The wedding and how perfect it would've been, how the butterflies in her stomach wouldn't leave her the whole day, especially as she pushed the ring onto his fingers with trembling hands and tears in her eyes.

The pregnancy, birth, and life of their child; a blue eyed son with her stubbornness but his smile as well as his thirst for life.

She loses both rings one day. On the job. Alexis is being held hostage by the murderer so she takes him down from behind, and in the midst of the struggle the chain tears away from her neck and falls down the drain on the road.

Alexis cries as much as she does, promises her that they'll find a way to get them back.

They don't.

"Castle." She sighs into an eager mouth ten years after it all.

The man above her stills, stares down at her with angry eyes that are the wrong shade of blue for her to fool herself this could've ever worked.

She doesn't judge him when he asks her to leave.

She sits by Castle's grave in the rain, closes her eyes and waits for it to wash her away, too.

Alexis pulls her act together. Becomes an amazing detective; better than Kate could ever hope to be. Marries a nice lawyer she meets during a trial and has three children.

They all have blue eyes.

It's a bullet that finally takes her.

And she is so, so glad when the pain overwhelms her and her eyes close.

She is so, so glad.