Season Finale

Kate heard someone screaming but she didn't connect it with herself. It was just someone in the background and she found herself wondering what was wrong, why the woman was screaming. Esposito was at her side the minute she started screaming and was holding her up, trying to calm her down. Ryan wasn't sure what hurt the most: the screaming or the silence when Kate finally stopped and started rocking back and forth.

"Maybe we should call her dad?" suggested Esposito quietly to Ryan.

"We should take her to the girls. They should be together. Castle...Castle would want them together."

"As far as Martha and Alexis know, Castle is being a problem for the police. We can't tell them until we know for sure."

"Man, look at his car!" Ryan was keeping himself together for Kate but he couldn't look at his friend's car.

"No. Let her be with her dad, and we'll figure this out later."

Ryan didn't think Esposito was right, but he couldn't argue right then either.

"Kate, let's go sit in the car," said Esposito gently.

She allowed herself to be led docily away. Ryan followed at a slower pace, his phone in hand while he called Jim.

Kate came out of it a few minutes later. "I want to see Alexis and Martha."

"They don't need to know right now," said Esposito gently.

Ryan jumped in. "She's right, Javi."

"Javi, I know Rick better than anyone. He would want...The three of us need to be together."

Esposito was torn between helping Kate and keeping the girls safe. "Fine," he said finally.
*********
She walked inside the Hamptons house with them, seeing the arrangements for the wedding, seeing it the first time Castle had brought her there. "We really need to stop coming to this house," she whispered nder her breath.

"Pardon?" asked Ryan who was walking next to her.

"The first time Rick asked me to come here, he ended up coming with Gina. The first time we came here, a murdered man joins us in the pool. Now this. We really need to stop coming here."

"It does sound like this place is a bad omen."

"I want to go in before I see anyone," she said, avoiding eyes and questions, at least until she saw Martha, Alexis, and her dad waiting.

The boys nodded, taking her upstairs. Martha, Alexis, Lanie, and her dad waited together in what had been the room she'd gotten dressed in. She thought it was a good omen, wearing her mother's wedding dress.

"Katie, what happened?" asked Jim as he pulled her into his arms for a hug.

She nodded at Ryan who closed the door, giving them privacy, just the family, no wedding guests. "There was an accident."

"Is dad okay?" asked Alexis, sensing her new step-mum's worry.

Martha's hands went to her granddaughter's shoulders as Kate choked back a sob. "No, honey. He's...he's not."

"Where is he?" asked Jim as he tried to comfort Kate.

"His car...His car was on fire at the bottom of the ravine." She looked pale and Ryan wondered for a moment who would give out first: Castle's fiancee, his mother, or his daughter.

Alexis opened her mouth to talk, but fell backwards into Martha's arms instead, tears streaming down her face.

"I'm sorry, honey. I'm so sorry." Kate whispered, tears streaming openly down her cheeks.

"This is not your fault Katherine," said Martha gently.

"She's right, Katie. There was nothing you could have done differently." In fact, it scared Jim that his daughter could have been in the car coming back and be gone too.

"He can't have been in there," said Esposito half heartedly.

"Then where is he, Javi?" Kate asked, letting her dad lead her to sit near Martha and Alexis.

"I don't know. But, we will find him, I swear we will."

Kate wanted to believe with all her heart that Castle wasn't dead, wanted to say that she felt he couldn't be dead, but she knew firsthand, it didn't work like that, regardless of how close you were to the victim. Jim rubbed Kate's back and watched Alexis and Martha. He felt that they were his family too; they had been just moments away from becoming so. He had a responsibility to look after them just as Castle had always looked after his daughter. "I think the first thing we need to do is to tell people there won't be a wedding, not today. Then Lanie, would you mind looking after the girls? I don't know about these things, but maybe we could organize a group to go from the car out, look for him."

"I want to go," said Alexis.

Kate nodded. "We need to change clothes." She realized she still had her wedding dress on. She remembered Castle's words a few days before. "What's a great love story without obstacles? We'll find him. He'll be all right and we'll find him."

Jim nodded. "I have some for you in the car. I'll go get them."

Kate felt like the world was spinning. "Kate, do you want me to take care of the guests? It might be easier, less questions," Lanie volunteered, still wearing her maid of honor dress.

"And I can tell Gates, some of the others what's going on. They'll want to help search too." Gates more for Kate's sake than Castle's.

"Yes, thank you Lanie. That would be great Kevin."

"Javi," Kate looked around for her friend. "Can you check on anyone he and I might have..." She looked at Martha and Alexis and back to her friend. "Angered in the past? 3xK and Bracken especially. And a guy we just 'met'." She told him the mobster's name.

"Of course. I'll call if I find something."He walked away.

"I'm gonna go get changed," Alexis said, not really wanting to take her best man's dress off, not wanting to say that her dad definitely wasn't going to marry Kate today, maybe at all.

Martha kissed her granddaughter. "I'll be here if you need me."