Set 4x9: "The flickers of it change; sometimes Castle holds her together on the wavering grass as her life drains away, and she can't even find the strength to tell him that she loves him back. Other times the bullet hits him instead when he jumps to save her, and she can hear Alexis screaming high above the crowd when she looks down at his face, brave and giving and going."

AU: Kate Beckett was tall even in converse thinly-soled with wear; had an air of sophistication and age clad in ripped jeans and a worn leather jacket. Even now I blame my complete lack of any of these things on her natural grasp of them. The first time I met her was in an abandoned scrapyard when we were seventeen.

Castle writes Kate a letter, set season 7 episode 1: You're the only person brave enough to keep me sane through this. So from here in this damp basement smelling of rat pee and cigarette smoke, on the back of the slip of paper that holds my prepared vows, hopeful and simple in neatly typed print, but suddenly lacking truth; here are the things I thought I'd have forever to say.

Based on a tumblr prompt: AU Kate is a patient in a burn unit and Rick is her doctor.

AU: Kate Beckett is a defense lawyer at one of the top firms in New York City.

There's a heaviness that creases her features when she speaks and leaves her every word weighted, defensive. It brought her walls crashing down long ago, so she'd built them up with more than bricks and cement; she built them with every snide remark and every fire of her gun and every kind stranger she turned down.