On The Ground (Hedley fan fic)

part one

 You can't feel your heart beating

 When you're staring at it on the ground

You can hardly even see it through the ashes all around

You can't run like you're free when

 You can't give up what's got you down

                                                                                                      Lyric from 'Hiding Place', by Hedley.

Kate's not actually as okay as she'd like to be, as she's been pretending she is. Holding herself together through days of stress and worry. Being the strong one, trying to stay both positive and focused. Ending up feeling worse than useless, completely unable to help him. She lays awake in the empty expanse of Castle's bed as he checks for the fourth time tonight on his daughter, and she senses her iron-clad grip on control finally spinning away from her. Feels her determined stranglehold on 'happy' and 'relieved' and 'I'm just so glad' up and desert.

Scrambling she tries to focus again on the positive here.

Dinner at least was joyful. And Castle's quiet confession to his mother – about who really helped him (not Interpol), and why Alexis was the target. Well it made sense of the fantastical and it explained the leads she'd gotten and then been stuck on. But yeah - she did not see his father coming with this. Not at all.

She's happy for him, she is. Stunned, but truly happy that he knows now. That he has answers for some of his questions, even if he's always claimed not to need them. And grateful, she's grateful that this man did what he did and came through for her partner when he was needed the most. She's grateful that he cares, that he watches out, has always watched out for them in his way.

She's even thrilled that he has let Castle know that he got out okay.

But lying here alone in the dark she finds that personally she's still reeling from the echo of a gunshot down a phone line. Caught up reliving a moment when yet again it felt like her heart had just stopped beating.

And this time when she'd thought him dead instead of minutes it was hour upon hour of that feeling.

Hours when the clock ticked by mockingly as time continued its rampant march forwards, and dammit the world had stopped for her. It had ended. Ceased to be. And everything about the fact that she was still trapped in it and breathing was wrong somehow. Not the way it was supposed to be.

Because she should have been with him. That had been all she could think about. Damn fool that he was, she should have been there to protect him.

She'd spent the hours numb and wishing she'd just gotten on a plane. Not that realistically she could have gotten there in time and found him – but she couldn't get past the thought that he'd died, and she hadn't taken even the barest hint of action to prevent it.

She'd focused on the case. She'd stayed a cop.

She'd completely done the right thing, the sensible thing, the logical thing.

The only thing he'd let her.

And for hours she'd felt hatred towards herself for all of it. Despised herself for not seeing the warning signs in a timely enough manner that she could have forced him into taking her with him.

God, if he ever tries to ditch her again . . .

The brewing storm hits suddenly, and then she's drowning.