893. Chapter 893

After Driven

Episode 7.01

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I've been driven to not own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

She could hear the girl crying, but in the dark she couldn't find her. She pulled out her flashlight which only provided a small pool of light around her. But, it was better than nothing.

"Katie?' Where are you?" The crying stopped for a second, then began again. She kept moving to where she hoped the sound was coming from. "Katie? Are you there?" The crying got louder. Then she saw something move in the darkness.

The girl was curled up in a ball in a corner. She knelt beside her. "Katie, it's okay you don't have to cry." She said as gently as she could.

Katie turned away from her, but very gently Kate Beckett pulled Katie to her feet and looked into her own nineteen year old face. "It's okay, Katie. Everything will be fine."

Katie shook her head rapidly. "No, it won't. He left us and now we're all alone and our hearts are broken."

Kate stroked the girl's hair. "Castle didn't leave us. He was taken from us. And we'll get him back. You'll see."

Katie pulled away from Kate. "Liar! We saw the video. He paid money to that man to destroy the car. He's left us."

Kate pulled her back into a hug. "We know Castle. He would never do anything like that to us. You know that!"

Katie kept crying. "No I don't. And you let him tear down our walls." Katie pointed to the bleak darkness all around them. "Our walls kept us safe. We would never get hurt behind those walls. I've had to build them back up all by myself because you won't help. Why won't you help?"

Kate smiled reassuringly. "We didn't let Castle tear those walls down. We helped him tear the walls down because we were lonely and eventually we hated being all alone. You remember that."

Katie shook her head vigorously again. "We were safe. No one could ever hurt us like we were hurt when Mom died. No one."

"But we were unhappy. We never had anyone to share our life with. We would never had had a family, children of our own. We've had fun, and we've been happier than we've ever been."

Katie began sobbing more.

Kate tried to pull her away, but Katie resisted. "Katie, come out from behind these walls. You know you want to."

Katie shook her head. "I'm so frightened. I want to stay here. Please let me stay here. Just let me stay here."

Kate Beckett sat bolt upright in her bed, automatically looking for Castle, but he was gone. She looked around and was still in the bedroom in the loft. "God, what an awful dream." She whispered to herself. "But I'm never going to lock myself behind those walls again. I've come too far, learned too much and have too much to lose now to ever go back."

She looked at the bedroom clock. It was almost five AM. She decided to get up and go to the precinct.

The mist was so thick that Kate almost felt like she had to push her way through it. She could dimly see ranks of high, thick windowless walls all about her.

"Katie?" She called and heard the word echoing. She kept walking, calling the girl's name and finally found her sitting with her back against a grey wall that reached to infinity. The girl's long, shapeless grey dress matched the color of the wall so well that Kate could hardly tell where Katie ended and the wall stopped.

"Why are you destroying out wall?" The girl demanded. "It keeps us safe."

"It doesn't keep us safe and we don't need to be kept safe from Castle. We've found him and we found that everything we thought had happened was a carefully constructed lie and the phony Henry Jenkins is the liar."

"Maybe." Katie shot back. "There is still a lot we don't know. We still need to be safe. Please, Kate, please don't destroy my wall."

"Katie, it's our wall and we've been hiding in here since we were nineteen. We're not nineteen any more. We don't need the wall to protect us. It doesn't protect us anymore. It's a prison now and we don't need to be in prison." She held out her hand. "Come with me, Katie. We'll leave the walls behind and find out what really happened to Castle and we'll be happy for the rest of our lives. You love Rick as much as I do. I know you do. Come with me."

The girl stood up and looked at Kate, then sat back down. "I'm afraid. I can't."

"Beckett?"

Kate's head shot up from where she'd been sleeping at her desk. Esposito was looking at her with concern.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine. I had a little nap and I'm fine. There are a few things I need to do and then I'll go home."

Espo shook his head. "Go home now. Go to Castle."

Kate nodded and stood up. "Good idea." She collected her things and headed for the elevator.

The walls were broken in many places and there was some sunshine coming through the clouds. She saw Katie leaning with her back against the wall, this time wearing a sky blue dress that showed her figure nicely.

"The walls are almost gone." She said, looking at Kate accusingly. "Suppose we need them in the future?"

"We won't. Katie, you love Rick. We both know that. You need to leave here. There's nothing here for either of us anymore. We're with Rick and we'll be happy."

"I do love Rick. I love him so much, it scares me sometimes."

Kate smiled. "Me too. But that's the price we pay for living outside of our walls. And it's a price worth paying." She reached for Katie's hand, but the girl shied away, and went to place where the wall hardly came up to her waist. "Suppose something happens to him in the future? What will we do then with no walls?"

Kate walked over and stood behind her, putting her hands on the girl's shoulders. "You're right. Something could happen to him. Or to me or to anyone we love. But if something happens, we will not crawl back behind these walls. We're a lot more than we were at nineteen. We know what love, real love is, and we can survive anything because we know that the ones we love want us to survive and live outside this prison of walls."

Katie nodded. "I want to believe that. I really do, but I just can't. I'll stay here for a bit more. Just a little bit, please?"

Kate awoke to find herself in the arms of her lover. By the tenor of his breathing, she knew he was sleep. She snuggled up against him and went back to sleep. Her dream no longer bothered her. She knew how it would end.

She smiled as soon as she saw the girl, standing in a field of flowers with nary a wall in sight. And she was wearing her mother's wedding dress and smiling.

"Are you ready to go?" Kate asked.

"Yes. I've decided that it is frightening out there beyond the walls, but that's where I want to live. You were right. We didn't build walls to protect us, we built a prison. We're better off like this." Katie gestured to the sunny, wall-less field around them. Then she twirled around, her dress flowing outwards and she laughed. "I'm ready. Thanks for your help."

She reached out and took Kate's hand, then the two women walked happily away.