sine timore

(English Translation: 'Without fear')

Disclaimer: I own nothing, otherwise this would've already been covered on the show. That said, please be aware of severe trigger warnings regarding self harm.

For Becca.

It starts when she's twenty-three.

Sometimes she laughs about it because it's so ridiculous. It's like a delayed reaction, of sorts. Her mother has been dead for four years and her father has been a wreck for the majority of that. And for four years she's been wandering around on this Earth feeling nothing short of overwhelmingly heavy with grief, barely making it through NYU and keeping her Dad alive.

She applies for the police academy the day she comes out of college. No point in putting off the inevitable.

It's hard. The academy. Grueling. She's never been unhealthy per se, but the sheer amount of working out she has to do is ridiculous. But it's good. It keeps her mind off of things. Her thoughts. But not for long.

She keeps looking for it. That escape. Something to help her get rid of not only the sadness but the aching anger she feels swelling within her, filling her to the very brim but never finding a way to escape from the trap of her skin. She thinks that maybe it will come when she graduates from the academy. Officially a police officer. But that doesn't happen. She simply stumbles through the anger back towards the place she used to call home.

"Dad?" She calls out as she arrives home, but she knows without a doubt that he's probably already passed out the couch. "Daddy?"

She passes through to the living room to find him slumped against the couch, empty bottle of brandy lying beside him, remnants staining the carpet. His eyes flutter a little, but when she touches his shoulder he makes no acknowledgement that she's there.

"Daddy?"

He snorts. It's almost mocking. That's what does it.

The anger bubbles and explodes in her veins, shimmering like gold dust but not yet gone. She grabs her drunken mess of a father and drags him into the bathroom, shoving him into the bath rough and turning the showerhead opposite on full blast, freezing.

Jim Beckett splutters awake, gasping. Breath mingling with the air and the water pounding against his skin. Clothes drenched. Wide awake. Eyes red with drink turning on her.

"Goddamn it Katie!" He yells, holding one palm up against the water.

She shuts the water off in one fluid move, muscles tightly coiled. "I became a police officer today." She tells him coldly.

The man wrinkles his nose at her, a chuckle escaping him. Says nothing.

Then he reaches for a half-empty bottle of scotch that's sitting in the bathtub, pulling it straight to his lips, taking a large gulp. She watches him, jaw slack, fists clenching. Shocked. Is there anywhere the man doesn't have drink?

"You're killing yourself with that." She tells him.

Her Dad shrugs. "Not got much to live for."

Her eyes sting with tears but she refuses to let them free. Closes her eyes. Counts down from ten. Opens her eyes again and he's drinking.

"That's not true. You've got me. Am I not worth living for, Daddy?"

Her voice is small and meek and she just wants her daddy to take her hand and tell her that she is everything he needs and that he is so proud of her and that he will get better.

Yet he ignores her, leaning his head back against the rim of the tub. She can't believe him- she can't believe any of this. Nothing makes sense. This isn't her life. This isn't the life she was supposed to have. Her Mom should be here- Oh, her Mom should be here. Her Mom should be here and she shouldn't be a god damn police officer, she should be working her way towards being the first female chief of justice and her Dad shouldn't be drinking himself to an early grave and telling her that she is worth nothing-

And she is just so angry that it all happens in flashes.

"Goddammit, Dad!"

Kate wrenches the bottle from his hands and lunges it at the opposing wall, not wincing at the loud smash it makes at it splinters into a million beautifully jagged pieces, spilling around them onto the floor. A display of glass fireworks.

Kate takes a step back to leave him, this stupid, ignorant version of her father that she doesn't want to be around anymore. Opens her mouth to let him know that she's moving out, but then something sharp digs into the heel of her foot.

She lifts the foot and grabs the small, sharp piece of glass from her skin. Watches the scarlet blood stain her white socks.

Her breath catches because there is something inherently beautiful about it that she cannot describe. Something that makes her feel wonder and awe and it is almost enough to conquer the darkness. Almost.

Her eyes flicker between the shard of glass and her fragile pale skin. There is a connection here and her mind is slowly trying to catch it.

It's the veins beneath her skin that help her connect the dots. Prominent. Pushing. Almost as though they're trying to jump out, escape her skin. Here, they say. Cut here, the anger is in your blood.

Absorbed, Kate's trembling fingers grip the shard carefully, pressing against the skin but not pushing.

Coward. Coward! These voices in her head, have they always been there?

She cannot stand them and she cannot stand feeling so sad and so angry all the time, so for one foolish moment, she presses down and watches as the red blooms from the force of it. She's cut deep.

Kate holds her breath, already berating herself, what had she been thinking? Is she a fool? Who does stuff like that, anyway?

But as more of the blood runs free, the more she feels the anger seep from her. Slowly. And then all at once.

Her knees buckle beneath her and she only just manages to catch herself with a hand on the rim of the bathtub, slowing her fall. Sinks down to her knees regardless, clutching her wrist to her chest, dropping the shard of glass now stained with her blood. Her eyes stare forwards almost like glass themselves, seeing the nothingness. Because the anger is gone now and all she feels is empty.

"Now, what'd you go do that for?" She hears her Dad say in a mixture of anger and sadness, but she ignores him.

And she thinks that perhaps feeling nothing at all is better than the nightmares that keep her awake at night.

Royce catches her one day. Nobody ever has before. The sleeves of her uniform cover her wrists and no man has been close enough to her to notice, nor to care.

It's just- The day had been so stressful. It's not like she enjoys doing it. She hates herself all the more for being so weak. But she just needs a release and then she's holed up in the supply closet with a crooked paperclip, drawing the blunt thing across her skin again and again, hot tears streaming down her face.

And then he's there. Bursting in and falling silent. Makes her drop the paperclip in shock.

His face pales, lips parting. "Oh, Kid." He whispers, falling to his knees in front of her, drawing her into a hug.

She doesn't think she's ever fit into someone's arms so perfectly before

Royce leaves.

But then again, doesn't everyone?

She shoots her mother's murderer. He doesn't make it.

The blood on her hands isn't hers and for a while she sits back on her heels with the pressure of Castle's hand on her shoulder. She thinks it's enough. Until it isn't.

It's been years. Ever since she'd made detective, a lot of her time had been spent exhausting herself trying to get to the bottom of the murders of those she doesn't know; running through streets chasing suspects, yelling in interrogations, shooting more people than she'd be willing to admit. All the while juggling her mother's murder on top of that.

Of course, there are hiccups. Sometimes it just makes her feel better. Sometimes she's drunk. Sometimes she's almost tearing her hair out at three am wondering why she bothers with the world and its wild and terrible complexities at all.

But it's been a while since she's felt so compelled to. Since it's felt more than a release but a punishment.

You're an idiot. Idiot. Foolish, stupid idiot. You'll never catch him now. You don't deserve to, do you?

Kate drops the blade from her hand and sinks against the cubicle door, head thumping back against the door as the scarlet oozes everywhere. Five fresh cuts. Makes her inhale and exhale carefully, focused.

Kate closes her eyes, trying to block it all out. The voices. Because she knows soon she will have to go back out there and write up a report. Face the sympathetic eyes of Ryan and Esposito. And Castle- Castle will be there. She needs to compose herself for him.

But for now she just needs a moment to breathe and ignore the way it feels like her ribs grow smaller with every beat of her trembling heart.

It's never been about a man before.

But over the summer she learns the true extent of loneliness. It's funny, she'd never thought that she'd grow so attached to a man. Least of all one as annoying as Castle. Who, as she sits with the blade pressed against her thigh in her bed, is probably rolling between the sheets with his ex-wife.

It could've been you.

Somehow her mind clears through the fog and she launches the blade to the other side of the room, trembling at how weak she has become.

He says he'll be back in the fall and some part of her almost believes him.

Will had never noticed. Demming hadn't been close enough to ever know they were there. Josh sees. He refers her to a therapist. Makes her an appointment and everything, smiling at her with pitiful eyes as though she is a breakable thing. As though the intricate threads that make her have become knotted and all it will take it one string to be cut and she will fail to be anything at all.

She doesn't go to the appointment.

Some days she almost goes insane, after the shooting.

Her body is wracked with pain. It keeps her up at night with it. It won't allow her to move through the day for most of her time in her father's cabin.

Kate. I love you. I love you, Kate.

These are the words that she holds onto. She just needs to make herself better, she tells herself late at night. It's possible. It's possible and she will get better for him, for her, for them. She can be the person that she wants to be. That he wants her to be.

But even as she's feeding herself these half-truths she's second-guessing herself. Can she? Can she really be better? Does she want to be? Will he still want her if it takes forever?

For the first month he doesn't call. Her body recuperates and destroys itself all over again. Her mind takes a battering. Her heart disappears. Every night she traces the puckered skin between her breasts as though it is a talisman.

For the second, he texts. Asks if she's well, if she's doing okay. Tells her he misses her. Soon, when it's clear he won't receive a reply, he simply updates her on how he's doing. Sends her pictures of he and Alexis eating a ridiculous concoction of food, pictures of smiley-faced pancakes, the image of the sunset from his window. As though he knows exactly what she needs: To be reminded that life does go on and sometimes it is beautiful.

For the third, he calls her. Every day. She doesn't answer. Her father notices but never says anything. She lies beneath the stars at night and wonders if Castle's staring up at the same ones.

She is wracked with guilt. Coiled with anger. Frustration. Love.

It starts out simple. One cut to the bottom of her forearm, red a contrast to the white scars on her skin.

It should be simple. She is leaving in a week. Headed back to normality.

But then it isn't simple. She does it again. And again. And again and again and again.

Kate stands and stares in the mirror, watches the way her thin body bleeds, cuts and scars littering her all over, wrists and arms and chest and stomach and thighs and ankles.

She almost believes herself to be the most beautiful wreck she has ever seen.

Doctor Burke doesn't force her to talk about it. Sometimes, it'll slip easily into their conversations, but he doesn't push. It's harder for her to talk about it than she had ever truly thought it would've been. Then again, when she had first done it, she had never imagined it would become so addictive. She hadn't imagined that her fists would curl and her skin would vibrate with need, becoming jittery at work, craving to see the release of blood. She hadn't imagined it would become a punishment. She hadn't imagined she would hate herself this much. She hadn't imagined she would be so ashamed of her body.

Then again, she hadn't ever imagined she'd lead this type of life at all.

Glass shards surround her and her skin bleeds steadily, curls hanging in front of her eyes, gun clasped like a precious thing in her hands.

She breathes unsteadily for what seems like days. Curled in a position that will surely give her cramps, staring into the dark void of her apartment all night and waiting for the monsters to come and get her. Watches it happen again and again in front of her eyes.

The gun falls from her hands and the glass slides across her skin. There's so much blood she think she might die. She doesn't think she'd mind awfully if she did.

Stay with me.

Tears leak from her eyes before she can stop them, hot and angry and embarrassed.

Oh Castle, this is the only way I know how.

Castle doesn't question the bandage on her wrist.

But he looks at her at the end of the case and promises her always, leaves and takes all of the air from her lungs with him. Damn him. Damn that man and his sentimentality and the way he makes her feel as though maybe she could have happiness, if anything she's ever done in her life means that she's ever once deserved it.

Later, she will go to Burke, and as she tells him she wants to be more than who she is-

She thinks of the way his eyes soften and crinkle with his smile, the way always sounds on his tongue and almost makes her wonder how it would taste if she'd just cave in and try.

It's hard. Going cold turkey.

She roams her apartment, clutches knives, razorblades, scissors, needles, paperclips, earrings. Anything. But not once does she cave in.

She reads more than she ever has and sleeps a little lighter.

It's hard.

But it's possible.

Castle leaves her.

He actually leaves her and tells her that it's over and it all comes crumbling to her feet, what she's done, how foolish she's been, that it's all her fault.

Her heart melts into her veins. She lies there that night wide awake, vibrating with want.

But if there's anything she owes him, it is this.

Resistance.

Acceptance.

Always.

The first time, the scars escape his notice. Everything is hard and fast and desperate and she thinks she probably scars him with her fingernails as they dig harshly into his shoulder blades and she cries don't stop don't stop don't stop please stay into his shoulder.

Then there is their moment of silence, him lying above her, her pulling him down and breathing quietly. Allows a few tears to escape her closed eyelids, nose buried into his shoulder, tongue darting out to taste the sweat that gathers in the slope where his neck meets his shoulder.

"Kate…"

His voice is harsh, rough. Tired from everything, she supposes.

He pulls back and notices the tears glittering on her cheeks. His face crumples.

"It's not-" She hurries to explain, but only winds up stumbling over her words. "I'm so- It's… I'm happy, Castle. With you. Here."

He nods slowly, accepting her jumbled words. His thumbs sweep the hollows of her hips and that's when he notices. She feels it, with her palms pressed against his spine, the way he stiffens, frowning.

"Castle." She protests weakly as he pulls away from her, but makes no move to stop him.

He tugs the sweat-soaked sheets away from their bodies and reaches over to turn on a lamp. Suddenly, she is grateful for the bruises that Maddox had given her. They make the scars seem less in their number, make the majority of them seem shades lighter than their swollen red, their ghostly silver.

Plenty of men have seen her bare skin before. But none of them have seen her like this. And the way Castle's eyes roam her skin, sweeping here there and everywhere as though they simply cannot drink it all in at once, she realises that this is why it's different with Castle. Because this is where she learns. This is what it feels like to truly be naked, to be vulnerable.

"Kate…" He reaches out and traces one of the rough, raised lines by her bellybutton. "Kate, is this…"

Kate swallows, hears it echo through the room, can't tear herself away from his horror-filled eyes.

"Castle." She whispers, fingers reaching up to trace his lips. "Tell me you love me."

"Tell me this isn't what I think it is."

Kate trembles as his hands roam her more thoroughly, sweeping across the scars on her arms, the backs of her thighs, the few on her ankles. Nobody has ever touched her like this before.

"Castle." She whimpers, wiping at her tears. "I can't… Please…"

Castle's eyes soften, hands wrapping around her hips, stroking the interrupted skin there.

"I love you." He tells her with the ferocity of an exploding star.

"Even… Even when I'm so broken?" She asks, ashamed at how tiny she sounds, how vulnerable he has rendered her.

He presses his forehead against hers, pushing her down into the mattress. "In every version that you ever have been and ever will be."

"Oh, Castle. Castle, you… You sweet, sweet man." Her whispers are mad and broken, fingers stroking over his rapidly cooling skin, moisture collecting in the corner of her eyes.

Castle watches her, blue eyes piercing into her heart.

"How did I not see these? Before?"

Kate can't believe he's almost blaming himself for this. Her heart almost breaks free of her chest at the very notion. This man has done nothing but right by her this entire time, how dare he think such foolish thoughts.

"Wore a lot of long sleeves." She tells him, thumb tracing the shell of his ear, the warm light from the lamp filling the shadows on his face. "Most of them are faded. Some have even gone. Nobody had ever noticed before, Castle. Nobody but you."

Castle shudders, eyes falling closed. She cannot get a read on him.

"But- How- You've worn next to nothing, and I've never seen-"

"I always did it in places easily hidden. Until the shooting." At her whispered confession, his eyes open again. "And then I didn't care anymore because I was so broken already. I didn't care about a lot of things, most days."

Castle leans down and kisses the escapes moisture from her cheeks. He makes her tremble, arching for him even as he's pulling away from her once again, chasing his skin and his touch and his heart. She is terrified that once he pulls away he is gone forever.

"Do you care now?"

She frowns at him.

"Do you care about anything now? Anything at all?" He implores.

Oh, how can he ask such a question?

"I care about you so much I think it might destroy me."

His face presses into the crook of her neck, kisses her pulse softly. Lingers there.

"I'll never let anything hurt you like this again."

"Not even myself?"

Castle rests his head on one of her breasts and she cradles him there, running her fingers through his hair tenderly, watching him with love in her eyes. His fingers ghost around the gunshot scar there and listens to the terrified pitter-patter of her heart beneath her skin. Fingers slipping down to her wrist and staring at her terribly pale and thin skin, the blue and green veins beneath her wrists that are like the currents of life.

"Not even yourself."

Castle pulls his wrists towards his lips and never before has she been kissed so tenderly in her life.

"Beautiful." He whispers against her skin.

Something poetic lingers in her mind, about how she thinks that he amounts to more than every star in the sky or perhaps about how he fills her up and makes her whole, but then she forgets it because she is loving him with her mouth and tongue and hands and realises that time does not heal, scars do not always fade, that happy endings are a inconceivable idea.

But Castle isn't.

He is here- He is hers.

She breathes for the first time in thirteen years.