Chapter Text
Was this what it felt like to drown?
It felt like the air had been sucked from Kate’s lungs, replaced with harsh water, ripping her chest apart from the inside out. It hadn’t even felt like this when her dad died, his sickness giving her family at least a little time, a little expectancy.
Her grief had grown slowly but steadily as she watched her father lose his ability to play music, to speak, to laugh, to recognize his daughters as they said goodbye. Losing her father was and forever would be the hardest thing she had ever done but she knew what was coming. She could have never been ready, but she could at least prepare herself a tiny bit for the overwhelming pain and sorrow; she was already there. She was already in pain, she was already grieving the life that she was to lose.
But this, this was wholly unexpected and nearly knocked all of the air from her body. Just yesterday Nora was holding Kate’s hand in Central Park, telling her about how angry the birds were where she was from. They laughed as they watched tourists stop for pictures in front of the Blockhouse and stumble on the unsteady ground around the landmark. Kate had wrapped her arm around Nora’s waist as they walked the North Woods, kissing her gently under the arch just like she had all that time ago. They were happy, everything was perfect.
Today, Nora walked out the door without even a glance back as she shattered Kate into pieces. No warning, no expectation, not even an argument that would give reason as to why the woman she loved would throw her away. Gone. Nora was gone.
Kate had meticulously broken down each of Nora’s walls and as she did that, she forgot to keep Nora outside of hers. She had trusted Nora, let her in to see her inner truth. They found depths to each other that had never been touched by the light of day, understood each other so profoundly that there was no question in Kate’s mind that Nora was her future, her everything. But she wasn’t Nora’s. Her truth wasn’t enough, she wasn’t enough, the real her wasn’t enough to make her stay.
Never again.
Never again would she go against what had always come so naturally, hiding herself away, an enigma to those who seek. Deflect, reject, silence.
In three weeks she was going to audition for a role as Kate McKinnon and that was who she would become. No one was to know Kate Berthold, the sweet girl from Sea Cliffe who just wanted to be understood and told that everything would be okay.
Kate Berthold would never be seen again.