A/N: I had to do a Crazy Eyes interaction with Josh. It was just begging to be written, and like Castle, I can't say no to Kate when she gets a certain look in her eye.
As usual, this being a Crazy Eyes-universe story, the standard disclaimer applies: please don't take anything you read here seriously. It's in the Humor genre for a reason, folks. Think of it as Kate really letting her inner Nikki Heat run the show.
This takes place in early Season 4, just after the shooting.
I don't make any profit, don't sue, yadda yadda yadda.
Crazy Eyes and the Hospital Staff
In a cold, sterile hospital room, a lonely man kept his vigil over the critically wounded woman resting in the bed. The surgery had gone as well as could be expected and now all he could do was keep watch for any sign that she was back. Normally so strong and vital, she looked frail and weak while various and sundry machines worked to keep her alive.
Then it happened.
One of her fingers twitched ever so slightly. Her breathing started to come more rapidly. Her leg moved under the covers.
"Kate?" he breathed with his heart hammering in his chest.
"Castle?" her voice was barely louder than a whisper but to his ears, it was musical. She was back.
His face split into a grin so wide it almost felt as if it would break in half. "Yeah, baby, it's me."
"What happened?" Kate asked, her voice getting stronger.
He took a deep breath. "You were shot while giving the eulogy at Montgomery's funeral. The bullet pierced your pericardium along with your lung but I got pressure on the wound and you hung on until the ambulance arrived. You flatlined twice on the drive here, but they were able to bring you back. Surgery took about eight hours, but you made it through with flying colors."
She rewarded him with a weak smile. "Ok. Great. These drugs are really something. I'm going to go back to sleep now. Will you be here when I wake up?"
Castle returned the smile and caressed her cheek. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise."
She yawned and closed her eyes again.
When she woke up again, she heard voices talking in her room. Her police training kicked in and despite being awake, Kate kept her eyes closed to learn as much as possible from people who thought it was safe to talk in front of her.
She recognized one of the voices as her boyfriend. Fighting the smile that happened whenever she saw or heard him, she marshalled all of her meager resources to continue feigning sleep.
The second voice was female. Far from the serious tone she would have expected a nurse giving bad news to Rick would speak in, this nurse was almost lighthearted. At one point, she even giggled.
Oh HELL no.
The nurse was probably some sick, twisted, depraved fangirl who had waited patiently for Rick Castle's muse/protector to be stricken down to make her move. The slut probably even watched the news for Kate Beckett obituaries. Now, with Kate weakened by a gunshot wound to the chest in a hospital bed, the skank was going to try to take her rightful place with the hottest, sweetest, sexiest man alive, Richard Edgar Castle himself.
As she continued to emerge from her drugged sleep, a sound came to Kate's ears that she never thought she'd hear: Richard Castle being charming to another woman! He laughed when she did, sympathized when she mentioned some stress at home, and speaking in a calm, soothing voice during their entire conversation.
As a wave of devastation swept over her as her heart broke. He was going to leave her. This wonderful, sexy, thoughtful, caring, sweet, articulate, and gorgeous man was going to break up with her for the first slutty nurse that swung her hips in front of him. A solitary, traitorous tear leaked out of the corner of one eye, but she fought the sniffle.
When the nurse tittered again and Castle responded with a deep chuckle, she had enough. Hoping the gesture seemed genuine, Kate blinked her eyes theatrically and moved her head. "Rick?
He was at her side in an instant, caressing her forehead with one hand and stroking her forearm with the other. The concern in his touch warmed her heart, but it couldn't completely erase the frisson of fear tingling down her spine or the heavy ball of dread that took up residence in her stomach when he flirted with the Nurse Skankalot.
"Kate? How are you, sweetheart?" His eyes gave him away. She could always read him like a book, whether he was stressing the latest deadline from Black Pawn, though after Gina's…untimely passing…they gave him less trouble about those, or if he was planning a surprise for her, or if he was ready for another round between the sheets. Nothing but concern for her well-being shone out of his expressive cobalt eyes right now. The nurse might as well have not even been in the room, until she came over and started examining Kate herself. She tried to give the woman her best death glare, but the shooting which weakened her must have affected that too, as the nurse just assumed she was hurting. "How much pain are you in, Detective Beckett?" she asked.
"No pain," she grunted weakly, pretending to be much weaker than she actually was as one of her eyes twitched, "I was just marveling at the size of the balls you hide in those tight little scrubs."
Rick just hung his head from his position next to Kate's bed. The poor nurse stood there with her mouth flapping open. "What - what did you say?" she leaned in closer to Kate, taking the opportunity to bend over far more than was actually necessary on the off chance that the gorgeously handsome author would stare at her ass. It also distracted her from the fact that Kate, after wiggling it quietly and squelching grimaces brought on from the pain, had disconnected the IV from her hand.
In a move so fast that Rick would later swear he didn't actually see it happen, Kate lashed out and wrapped the IV cord around the nurse's neck, pulling tight. This time the death glare was more potent. "I may be weakened from a gunshot, but I can still take care of slutty nurses that flirt with my man in front of me." she tried to growl, but with the way she was wincing through the pain her sudden exertion caused, it came out as something closer to a wheeze.
It didn't matter. Kate's pressure on the nurse's windpipe was more than enough for someone who wasn't expecting the attack. After a few seconds, she gave up the struggle and slid to the floor.
The commotion brought a middle-aged brunette nurse running in. When she saw her colleague slumped lifelessly on the floor, she ran to her side. After checking for signs of life, she looked up at the other occupants of the room. "What happened to her?"
Thinking quickly, Kate pretended to look distraught. "She was looking over something on the machine here, but she got distracted. When she turned, she slipped and the cord got wrapped around her neck. We tried to help her, but it must have caught her just right and she was gone." It was an Oscar-worthy performance, complete with sniffle and fake tears.
With a nervous chuckle, Rick jumped up and gently stroked Kate's forehead. "It was terrible. I just hope it won't upset you too much for your recovery. Is there anything I can do to help with this poor woman?" he asked the new nurse, gesturing to the one on the floor.
"You're so lucky to have such a wonderful, devoted, sweet boyfriend," the nurse told Kate when she caught her breath again, "I'll call the right people and they'll take care of poor Suzy here."
Kate's gaze softened as she turned her most grateful smile on the man in question, "Oh trust me, I know just how amazing he really is," she declared softly.
Thrown off, the nurse just stood in place, trying to regain her equilibrium. She checked her watch and looked at Kate's chart briefly. "It's too early for another round of morphine, so I'll…I'll just give you a mild dose of Valium to calm you down," she said as she took a syringe and injected a small amount of clear liquid into Kate's IV bag before reconnecting the drip.
Rick watched and waited, but the death glare didn't waver a bit. If anything, it intensified. The hapless nurse made the mistake of looking to Rick for some kind of reassurance or help with Kate's ire, but especially with the adrenaline of a previous kill coursing through her veins, the action served the same purpose as a red flag to a pissed-off bull.
"Hey! I'm over here, you slut! I'm the damn patient, not that preposterously hot man in the chair," she protested, though her head increasingly seemed like it was balanced on a Slinky and her voice changed in intensity the more she spoke, "if you have something to say, you damn well can say it to my face!"
The poor nurse only grew more flustered at the verbal onslaught. "I, I don't understand! It's like the Valium had no effect at all! She should be practically asleep by now, not almost lucid."
"HA!" Kate laughed harshly from her bed, "Ricky, you sexy hunk of man, did you not tell her who I was?"
"I told her your name, and everyone in the hospital knows you're the detective that was shot at the funeral, but as for your history on the force…It, ah, didn't come up, Kate," the man in question replied cautiously.
Somehow, Kate could put more meaning into an eye roll when she was high as a kite than she was sober, but her speech grew more and more impaired as her diatribe went on. "I, you rid…ridic…redonkulous excuse for a nurse, am not only the youngest fem…fema…lady detective in NYPD history, I was also the first lady dective in Homicide. Do you have any clue how many horse tranqs the Mounted Unit pranked me with when I got started?" she paused as an idea occurred to her, "Mounted Unit…hey Rick! Let's lose the audience here and I'll mount your unit!"
He could either be embarrassed beyond all comprehension or he could find the humor in watching his drugged-up girlfriend verbally eviscerate a helpless nurse. Unsurprisingly, Castle chose the latter. At least in her condition she can only verbally eviscerate and not physically eviscerate the poor woman, he thought wryly. Rather than put his head in his hands and groan, as was his first impulse, he just sat back and laughed at Stoned Kate.
Kate turned back to the nurse who just was totally out of it by this point in the conversation. "Anyway, the point is, I once had so many horse drugs in my coffee before some shooting contest with the pony cops it could have killed a bull elephant, but I stayed awake and won that fucking shooting challenge! Fucking mounted cops," she grumbled.
"Um," Rick started cautiously, "are you sure you won, or did you just hit someone downrange by accident and they just declared you the winner to get the contest over?"
"Hmmm, that would explain all the screaming and yelling. I just thought they were happy for me. They couldn't exactly get me in trouble for it either, since they drugged me before I started shooting," she mused as the nurse looked on, horrified. "Anyway, seriously now. You can't expect to give me a little pansy drug like Valium and expect me to fall asleep, you poor, deluded bitch. It would take a LOT more to knock my tight ass out, especially when it would leave you alone in here with my sexy man over there" Kate finally finished.
Frightened by the almost tangible malice coming from a seemingly-wounded patient, not to mention the casual way she discussed and threatened violence, the nurse made quick work of the rest of the exam, showed Kate how to use the self-medicator, and practically ran out of the room.
Castle finally found his voice, knowing they had to talk before the drugs sent Kate to sleep. With a put-upon sigh, he looked up at his girlfriend, "Kate?"
"What was it, Rick? Does she have less baggage than me? Was she cuter? Were her tits bigger or her ass tighter?" Somehow her voice seemed to have lost all its previous bravado when she asked the question.
Putting aside his amazement at how quickly she was sobering up - she really wasn't bullshitting about her tolerance. Note to self: never EVER try to drink Kate Beckett under the table - his eyes got huge. "Are you kidding me? You're lying there with a hole in your chest and you're getting defensive because of that?"
"You were flirting with her right in front of me! I was awake; I heard the whole thing!" Damn it. Do NOT let him see you cry, Beckett! Something hot and wet slid down her cheek. Well, fuck me sideways. There are the tears anyway.
Seeing her distress, Castle took pity on her and held both her hands in his. "Kate," he breathed in what he hoped was his most calming voice, "I promise you, what you thought was flirting was just me getting information."
"What?" she sniffled.
Rick smiled gently. "Absolutely. They wouldn't tell me anything about your condition since I'm not part of your immediate family. The doctor who saved you, while I owe him for that, is a real douche bag when it comes to rules and policies."
"So you weren't going to leave me for some hot, slutty nurse?" Hope grew anew in her chest, and the heavy ball of dread in her stomach started getting lighter.
"Kate! Of course I'm not going to leave you for some random woman! You're more than I could have ever asked for. I just flirted a little so she would tell me what happened in surgery and the details of your prognosis," he continued soothing her worries away.
Still unsure, she looked up at him with traces of ear still in her eyes. "And you're sure it wasn't because you liked her rack or her ass better than mine?"
Castle actually laughed out loud at her fear over something so trivial, but when he saw her fear was real, he took a deep breath and kissed her forehead. "I promise you: no one in the world has a better rack or more perfect ass than you. You're absolutely wonderful just the way you are."
He could tell when she gave up her struggle against the pain and just relaxed into the bed. Her eyes were still crinkled around the edges, but the frown wasn't as intense. "Castle? she asked with only a slight grunt.
"Yeah, sweetheart?" he responded softly as he stroked her hair.
"Thanks. You're one incredibly sexy man," she said this last with lust somehow foreign to her weakened voice.
With his jaw flapping but no sound coming out, Castle did the only thing he could think to do. He leaned over and kissed her forehead to distract her as he pressed the self-medication button before sitting back and watching her drift into sleep.
Several hours later, Castle was happily typing away on his laptop when Kate started to stir again. "It's lucky for you that you sex me up so good, Ricky boy," she almost whispered.
"Why is that, my dear?" he answered with half his focus on Jameson Rook and Nikki Heat's latest exploits.
"You fucking drugged me! If I wasn't trying to heal a hole in my fucking chest, you'd be handcuffed to a goddamned bed right now," Kate warned him, eyes shooting daggers.
Castle winced. Seeing it before with the nurse was one thing, but even when it was just the two of them in the room, drugged Kate had even less of a verbal filter than normal Kate. "As much fun as that sounds, I just wanted to make sure you weren't in pain."
"That's bullshit and you know it," she kept grumbling with a stream of invective that made his eyes widen.
Seeing how she kept wincing and reaching for the bandages around her wound, he decided to take drastic measures. He affected a higher voice than normal and started singing:
"Everything I do, I do it for you,"
When Kate groaned and rolled her eyes as he knew she would, he gave her another kiss and hit the medication button again. "You son of a…" her outrage at his action cut off mid-curse and she slid into slumber again.
Another few hours later on, Kate felt herself pulled from the sweet painless embrace of sleep. Without opening her eyes, she took stock of her situation. The constant, steady beeping of her heart monitor, along with the slightly painful pressure in and on her arm from an IV reminded her that she was still in the hospital.
With some concentration, she was able to recall the last thing that happened before she fell asleep. The sharp inhalation she heard from across the room told her that the person responsible for her two naps was likely still in the room.
"If you drug me one more time, I'm going to cut your balls off with a rusty butter knife and feed them to starving ferrets," she rasped out, feeling the pain of disuse in her voice.
"You can try, honey, but that'd be a tough job," said an amused voice which was much higher than she expected.
"Lanie?" Kate opened her eyes in surprise and confirmed the presence of her friend, "I thought Castle would still be here."
The medical examiner got up from her seat at the foot of the bed and after moving Rick's laptop aside claimed the closest chair, which had been exclusively Castle's until this point. "He was until about an hour ago," Lanie confirmed, "but his stomach was growling so loud I sent him to the cafeteria before it could wake you up. I think it was the first time he's left since you got out of surgery." Although her patients were usually beyond medical assistance, Lanie still had to maintain her certifications, so she volunteered periodically at a clinic. She put those skills to use here and gave her best friend a quick check, looking over vital signs and examining the wound itself to see how it was healing.
"I'm fine, Lanie, I promise," Kate shrugged off the extra attention before an idea occurred to her and her eyes grew wide in realization, "Hey, didn't you show me an article once about a happy attitude and good mood hormones helping patients recover?"
One of Lanie's eyebrows shot skyward at the random question, but she nodded. "Yeah, a few months ago I saw the results of the study. Happy patients recover faster, and endorphins help to dull pain in patients who have experienced some trauma. Why?"
Kate's answer got delayed when she saw the object of her question walk back into the room carrying a cardboard take-out container and licking his lips. It was hard to tell which action drove her hunger more, but the response was the same. She started salivating. "What, ah, what do you have there, sweetie?" she said with far more cheer than she felt.
"Oh this? Just one of the cafeteria's giant cinnamon rolls and some leftover sausages I couldn't bear to throw out from breakfast," Castle answered her in all innocence.
Oh dear God. The sniper couldn't kill me, but watching Rick Castle lick cinnamon roll frosting and devour hot sausages three feet from my bed will do it, she thought as her overactive salivary glands were complemented with a rush of heat somewhere south of her navel. Lanie and Castle both looked up as Kate's heart monitor started to beat faster. "Kate? are you ok?" the medical examiner asked.
She just waved her hand like a fan, trying to cool herself down in the suddenly much hotter room. "If you love me at all Rick, please get that food out of here!"
"What? You can't be serious! This food is sinfully delicious," he protested.
"That's exactly my point," she glared, "I can't have real food, and if you start licking frosting off your fingers, I'm going to be forced to try to do things to you that are not only illegal in about 38 states, but aren't exactly conducive to hospital beds or IV stands."
Now both of Lanie's eyebrows were skyward. "Um, Kate," she interjected to distract her friend while Castle moved to get the offending food out of the room, "you never got around to answering me before. Why did you ask about that study I read?"
Kate's answer was delayed a second time when Castle opened her room's door to dispose of the food and she saw the unfortunate nurse from earlier walking by in the hallway. "Hey nurse Skank-zilla!" she shouted, getting the hapless nurse's attention, "That's right, I'm talking to you! My boyfriend doesn't want you at all, especially when he can have me any time he wants! He even told me straight up that my tits are perkier and my ass is tighter than yours, so you can just keep walking, you hear me?"
Aghast, Castle slammed the door closed after mumbling a mortified apology to the dumbstruck woman in the hallway. He returned to the room with eyes the size of dinner plates before sitting down in the chair with an explosive sigh and rubbing his face in continued frustration at how intoxicants removed what little verbal filter Kate normally possessed. Now THAT is something I never thought I'd have to say, he thought ruefully.
Lanie looked as shell-shocked as everyone within earshot of the room, but she managed to get to her feet and after a gentle hug, told her friend, "Well, I guess I'll just leave you two alone then. Take care of her, and yourself, Castle," she said with a pat on the man's back.
When the door closed behind her, Kate got a huge smile on her face. "Want to know how you can make it up to me for flirting with that slut?" she asked, "Guess what Lanie just told me?"
With his face still in his hands, Castle spread his fingers apart to reveal an expression suddenly full of anxiety. "Something tells me I don't really want to know."
If anything her grin got wider. "Not only does a happy attitude speed recovery," her eyes were even sparkling by this point, "but releases of endorphins in the brain helps mask the sensation of pain," she declared.
"I don't follow," he answered warily, dropping his hands into his lap.
"Simple, silly. You climb up on this bed, losing your clothes of course, and help me release some endorphins. I promise you, my attitude will be much happier, so I'll get the hell out of here that much faster," Kate made her case.
It shouldn't have surprised him. Really, it shouldn't have been that much of a shock, but it hit him completely from left field, and his jaw dropped wide open. He wracked his brain for a logical way to refuse her request, knowing that sexual activity with a hole in her chest probably wasn't the best idea, but he came up with nothing.
Castle got up slowly, hoping she would be satisfied with something less than his full repertoire. Just as he cracked his knuckles to loosen his fingers up, the door to her room opened and a doctor came in. He managed to ignore Kate's muttered curse at being interrupted, recognizing the man as the surgeon who operated on Kate, Josh something. He was a fantastic surgeon, but something in his manner made Rick's skin crawl.
"How's the most beautiful patient in the hospital doing today?" he asked as he scanned her chart.
Rick's eyes bulged out at the blatant flirting while Kate just cocked an eyebrow.
"You're the doctor and you're looking at my chart. What the fuck do you want me to say that you can't see for yourself?" she shot back, still angry at being denied her first sexual activity in what felt like forever but in reality was only a week.
The doctor just flashed her what he thought was a smooth grin. "Well from looking at both chart and patient, I'd say you're fine. You're healing nicely, and your skin tone and muscle definition are almost perfect, given the injury. You should be out of here shortly and into physical therapy."
Kate looked up, hope shining in her eyes. "You really think so? I can get out of here and back to my life?"
Doctor Josh's grin widened even further. "Oh yeah. Actually, I was hoping that you'd be willing to go to dinner when you're released. You know, sort of a celebration for you getting out and a 'get to know each other' kind of thing."
That finally made Kate's jaw drop. "You're seriously hitting on me while I'm a patient in the hospital?"
For his part, Castle was outraged the doctor had the chutzpah to ask his girlfriend out while he was sitting less than ten feet from the both of them, but just as he was about to wade into the middle, he saw Kate's eye twitch. Knowing what that had always portended in the past, self-preservation won out and he sat back to watch the show.
Josh moved closer, folding one leg and sitting halfway on Kate's bed and ignored the writer in the corner. He'd heard something about the author who tagged along with the cops, pretending to help them and getting millions in royalties out of the deal. The guy was a nobody, certainly no one who did any actual good with his life. "Absolutely," he answered in what he hoped was his sexiest voice, "I have this great motorcycle, and I was thinking we could go to Le Cirque for dinner before heading out of the city to look at the stars."
She tried to hide her glee at the position the doctor chose to get into when he sat on her bed. The dumbass actually sat down directly over the rails that could either be swung up to keep people in the beds or swung down to help people ease out of bed. Throwing a ghost of a wink at Castle, she leaned over slightly and looked up at the doctor through lidded eyes. "While that does sound nice, there's a little problem. You see, I already have a boyfriend who I'm crazy in love with, and I think he'd have a bit of an issue with some random doctor thinking he could ask me out."
Undeterred, Josh pressed on. "Is he one of the most talented cardiothoracic surgeons in the city? Does he have a motorcycle as badass as mine?" he asked as he reached out and lightly stroked Kate's forearm.
"HE is one of the sweetest, kindest, sexiest, most wonderful men I have ever met, and he fills my every need. In fact, he was just about to fill a very specific need when this really arrogant prick of a doctor walked in and tried to horn in on his territory," Kate growled, "and since you're so obviously not getting the message, let me spell this out for you, Doctor Motorcycle Boy," she reached down, grabbed the rail, and yanked up. Her aim was true; the rail swinging into position connected solidly with the doctor's produce section, ensuring a significant drop in his future activity. He dropped to the floor with a thud, gasping in a squeaky voice that had Castle snickering even as he winced in male solidarity - the sound of the doctor's nuts getting crushed was audible around the room.
"I am already spoken for, and happily so," she continued, "and your advances are seriously unwelcome. Now get the hell out of my room before your fucking balls are the least of your worries."
When the doctor had struggled to his feet and limped out of the room, moaning the whole way, Rick turned to his girlfriend in wonder. "I've said it before and I'll say it again: you are extraordinary, Katherine Beckett."
She just smiled and reached a hand out for him. "Lock the door. I seem to remember you were about to start something very good, Mr. Castle?"
Nothing else interrupted them that morning, and when the afternoon shift nurses arrived, they saw a significantly more relaxed and happy patient.
A/N: Anyone else feel as sorry for the hapless nurse as I do? Nah, I don't really :)
Hope you enjoyed! Please let me know what you thought. As of right now, there is only one more Crazy Eyes story I can write before I get the Season 5 DVDs in September: Natalie Rhodes. I have a particularly twisted vision for that one, so when I get the time, Natalie will meet her untimely demise.
Cheers!