4A/N: "Always" was perfect in so many ways. I loved the symmetry of using swings in the finale as well as "Rise," and so I had to write something like this.
Obviously, nothing is mine. Enjoy!
Swing Set Reflections
The rain cascaded around her as she sat in on the swings in the empty park. She let it surround her, fall on her hair, her face, her shoulders as she thought about all that had taken place in the past twenty-four hours. She had been simultaneously so close yet so far from finally catching the man who shot her. She'd been supported by her friends, dangerously dangling from the edge of a building, and had almost died. And she'd received clarity – her life priorities had flashed before her as she'd hung from that roof, and she'd realized that she didn't want to do this anymore. She was so caught up in the past that she hadn't realized the value of the people in her present day life. It wasn't that she was giving up on the memory of her mother, but she didn't want to remain overly focused on the past and ignore what was right in front of her in present day…
…Castle. He had told her that he loved her and she was ready to reciprocate. After nearly falling to her death, she knew that she had to do so. She couldn't even fathom another day without acting on her feelings. She wanted to be with him – right now, that was all that she wanted. She was tired of fears and walls and secrets. They had been her crutch for so long, but she was finished with them.
Her mother's case had been the most important thing in her life for so long, she reflected, still sitting on her swing, the same one where she had been when Castle had told her that her wall wouldn't be there forever. She wasn't getting any dryer sitting out here, but she didn't care, was too absorbed in her thoughts to be bothered by it. Her mother's case had been what drove her, sometimes to the point of complete consumption. Her desire to solve it, her grief surrounding the loss it brought – these were what her wall had consisted of, had isolated her from so many. She busied herself with these things rather than forming many close relationships. And then Castle had entered into her life and had slowly begun to help her chip away at this isolation.
The man involved in her mother's murder had gotten away, and she hadn't cared. All she could think about was the fact that she was about to fall to her death and she hadn't shown or told Castle how she felt. Once Ryan had pulled her to safety she knew that that had to be her future. She needed to go to him…
…even if it meant putting practically everything that she had known for thirteen years aside. She wasn't betraying her mother. She had taken her wedding ring off, at least for now, but she would always carry her memory in her heart. She would honor her mother's memory by fully living the life that she had given her. This was her new truth, her current guiding point.
She didn't know what she would do, career wise. She wasn't sure that she wanted to go back to the Twelfth, if Gates would even have her. It wasn't a matter of the faces there – Laine was one of her favorite people, and Ryan and Espo would always be brothers to her ; she just wasn't sure that, having turned over this new leaf, if investing homicides was what she wanted to spend the rest of her life doing, considering what the job had symbolized to her before. She didn't know what she wanted, but she had time to figure it out.
Finally grounded by these revelations, she rose from the swings in order to head to Castle's loft. He was her one constant, the only one she was sure of right now. He was her one and done, her future, her always.