Family Ties - A Castle fanfiction

Chapter 19: Waiting And Healing

The next morning dragged by.

The new DNA samples had been sent for identification and come back negative - whoever the Wolf-Man was, his true identity remained a mystery. CSU had swept the room in the Rift top to bottom, every carpet fibre checked, and the mass of data was being processed. Ryan's search for rifle registration and stores selling rifle silencers had turned up no pursuable leads.

Leslie and Castle were discussing writing methods when Beckett brought over three mugs of coffee and a sulking attitude.

"CSU sent the results back. They got fingerprints -"

Leslie and Castle perked up.

"- but we have no idea who they belong to."

Leslie and Castle slumped.

"So where to from now?" Leslie asked, taking a hesitant sip of coffee and putting it down when it scorched her tongue.

Beckett shrugged, sitting in her desk chair and drinking from her own mug.

"We need to find out who this guy is, so we're sending the fingerprints and DNA records to wherever we can to try and track him down. Now, we just have to... wait."

Leslie made a disappointed noise that may have been a sigh. She drew her necklace out of her shirt and flicked open the locket. Beckett leant over.

"Is that new?"

"Relatively," Leslie answered. "Mum and dad got it for me for my birthday last year. I think you were working."

Beckett felt guilt twist in her stomach. She'd missed a lot of family events because of work. Now she was wishing she'd tried harder to make time for them.

"What's in it?" she asked Leslie.

Leslie took off the necklace and handed it to her. Holding up the open locket, Beckett's breath halted with emotion.

There she was, with her mother, father, Connor, Alison and Leslie, who had been only eleven years old at the time. On the opposite side was a photo of Connor, Alison and Leslie with Alison's parents.

Beckett felt tears building behind her eyes and handed the necklace back to Leslie, who replaced it around her neck and looked at the photographs fondly, her own eyes misting.

"I miss them," she whispered, and there was such sadness in her voice that even Castle felt his heart break for her. "I wish..."

Leslie trailed off, closing the locket and clasping it securely in her hand, biting her lip in an attempt to control her tears. Beckett placed a warm hand on her shoulder while Castle hovered awkwardly.

"I want to see them," Leslie said suddenly.

Beckett stared. "What?"

Leslie took a deep breath. "I want to see their bodies. Mum and dad." She met Beckett's eyes with a savage determination. "Just once. Before -" her voice hitched. "- before the funeral."

After baring her thoughts, feelings and worries to her grandfather last night, Leslie had found a new bravery in the face of her parent's death. But something felt missing, incomplete, a mistake uncorrected or a sentence unfinished. This is how to fix it, said the thought circling in her head.

Castle was miming 'bad idea!' at her from behind Leslie's back, but Beckett took one look at Leslie's eyes and knew she had no choice. When Leslie set herself to something, she didn't give up.

And maybe, Beckett thought, this is the kind of closure she needs.

So Beckett stood, held out her hand - which Leslie took - and walked with her down to the morgue.

Lanie was surprised to see them, but when they asked to see the bodies, she didn't hesitate, seeing the same expression in Leslie that Beckett had.

Leslie became aware of her heart, fluttering in her chest while her breathing shallowed and her head throbbed with her pulse - her warning signs for fear and panic. Holding Beckett's hand tightly, she managed to stay still while Lanie drew out two silver tables, the large objects lying on each of them covered in a crisp white sheet.

Even though they were clearly body-shaped, Leslie didn't comprehend them as the dead people they were. Under the sheets, they were just objects, nothing special.

Her heart beat faster.

Lanie pulled back the sheet, revealing the face of first the man, and then the woman.

For a moment, Leslie's mind hit a wall and all she felt was confusion. This wasn't them, was it? These weren't the people who she'd shared stories with, had dinner with every night, who'd told her bedtime stories and bought her books and kissed her goodbye before school every morning - were they?

Reaching out, she brushed each of their cheeks with her fingertips. Their skin was icily cold, lifeless. Their eyes were closed. Not sleeping. Not resting.

The reality hit her like a freight train.

They were gone. Really, truly gone. Wherever their souls had ended up, they weren't in these bodies.

My parents are dead.

She cried, but didn't sob. It was too painful - a grief so deep, so real and so violent it defied sound. Tears slid down her cheeks silently as every raw wound of the last four days was slashed open, spilling blood and agony through her until she couldn't stand.

She barely heard Beckett and Lanie's words as she fell to her knees, pain lancing her injured leg, crying without a sound.

Arms encircled her and she leant into them, grateful that she didn't have to shoulder the pain alone.

She was lifted into a chair, somewhere people said her name, but Leslie could only hear the rush of thoughts in her head, made clear as glass by the pain deep inside her.

They're dead. They're not coming back. You're on your own.

A jacket was hung around her shoulders, warm hands held hers.

Dead. Dead and gone. But no. No, I'm not alone.

Bit by bit the pain faded, absorbing into her breath to be dealt with and expelled. Gradually Leslie found herself no longer deep inside herself, but in a clean white room, seated in a hard metal chair. The air was sharp with the scent of sanitation and chemicals, but, breathing it in, it felt more like a place for the living than the dead.

A brown leather jacket was hanging around her shoulders, emanating a small amount of residual warmth from – from who?

Beckett's face came into focus, worried grey-brown eyes framed by her pale face and bronze hair tumbling to her shoulders. Her hands were holding Leslie's, clasped at her knees.

"Leslie?" she asked hesitantly, and her voice was like a bolt of lightning. Everything, it seemed to Leslie, was suddenly freer, brighter, more alive than it had been before. Still sad, but the sadness was lifting.

"Leslie?"

Drawing another breath of the sanitised air, Leslie sought her voice.

"Thankyou Katie," she finally whispered. "I... I think I needed that."

Beckett's worry changed to melancholy happiness. "Me too."