Disclaimer: Castle and all of its characters belong to Andrew W. Marlowe and ABC Studio Productions. "How to Save A Life" belongs to The Fray. There is also a quote from "The Grey". "The Thin Blue Line" belongs to Joseph Adam Day.
Step one you say "We need to talk",
He walks, you say "Sit down, its just a talk."
He smiles politely back at you,
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right.
Between the lines of fear and blame,
And you begin to wonder why you came.
Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend somewhere along in the bitterness,
And I would have stayed up with you all night,
Had I known how to save a life.
When you get to the New York State Police Academy, the instructor tells you three things;
First, you are in for the hardest eighteen weeks of your life.
Second, I am now in charge of everything you do. You do not so much as cough without asking my permission first.
And third, you are going to become New York's first line of defense, and you should endeavor to be worthy of such honor.
They don't tell you that you'll spend eighteen hours a day in a sweaty precinct, working your ass off from dawn until late into the night. They don't tell you about the ridicule that you and your brothers will endure day after day from people who see you as nothing more than a nuisance to their daily living. They don't tell you that, no matter how many times you scream freeze!, the suspects will always run. They don't tell you what having to dodge bullets behind a cruiser door does to your mental health.
But, the biggest thing that they fail to mention in standard training is what it feels like to have the man you trust with your life, your best friend's last breath exhale against your cheek. They don't tell you what it's like to have your partner die in your arms.
I was twenty-nine years, eleven months, and twenty-nine days old when Javier Esposito was shot in a 'routine' questioning of a victim's family. My partner, the man that I was supposed to be protecting, was shot because of me. Today, he gave his last breath. His heart pumped the last burst of blood through his body. Today, my best friend died.
Let him know that you know best,
Cause after all you do know best.
Try to slip past his defense,
Without granting innocence.
Lay down a list of what is wrong,
The things you've told him all along.
And pray to God he hears you,
And pray to God he hears you.
Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend somewhere along in the bitterness.
And I would have stayed up with you all night,
Had I known how to save a life.
Three days earlier...
I sat in the hospital waiting room for hours, not looking at anything in particular. I didn't really see the doctors rushing from room to room, but I knew that they were there. My hands were sticky with the dried remnants of his blood. I couldn't look at the crimson staining my pale skin, but I couldn't bring myself to wash it off either.
When they doctor had shoulder his way out of the OR and come to talk to us, the only words that I caught were "not much time", "say your goodbyes", and "I'm sorry". Sorry? SORRY? What right did that rat bastard have to play God, and decide that Javier couldn't be saved?
I remembered telling him as such before shoving past him and sprinting down the halls, praying that my feet wouldn't slip out from underneath me. I could hear Beckett and Castle behind me, telling me to wait, but what the hell did they know? I needed to see him.
I burst through the door to his room, locking it behind me, and strode purposefully to his side, ignoring the pleas to 'open up' and the pounding of their fists against the door. I had a bone to pick with my partner.
He wasn't awake, probably a side effect of the surgery, or at least that was what I told myself. Truth be told, he probably wasn't going to wake up. Monitors and tubes were connected to every available point of entry and the angry red skin around that puckered around the incision mocked me.
"Shouldn't have let him push you out of the way." They taunted.
"That bullet was meant for you, Detective." They cried. I felt anger boiling inside me as I moved to pick up the chart on the foot of his bed. I flipped through it until three letters stopped me dead in my tracks.
D.N.R.
I couldn't breathe. The room felt too small and my lungs felt too big for my chest. Javier had signed his own death certificate without even the slightest thought about how it would effect anyone else. I couldn't believe how selfish that bastard was.
His chest rose and fell as though he was breathing, but I knew it wasn't him in there. They'd patched him up as best they could, but Javier Esposito had stopped being himself the moment that bullet had torn through him.
"How could you do this to me?" I whispered, my voice sounding foreign even to my own ears. "That bullet was heading straight for me, and you pushed me out of the way. You're a moron, you know that?"
I shifted to look out the window, watching the small outlines of citizens bustling about as if the entire universe hadn't just imploded upon itself. My hands were shaking as I raked them through my hair, the dried blood catching the strands and tugging them gently.
"You can't die, Javi. Before..." I sucked in a ragged breath. "Before we became partners...friends, I was so low. I never told you this, but...the night before they transferred me to homicide, I tried to kill myself. Downed a bunch of pills, drug a knife down any part of my body that I thought would work. Of course, I was too much of a bitch to do any of it worth a damn. Didn't cut deep enough, didn't take enough pull to do anything, but I guess that's beside the point. Being partners with you reminded me of how many different ways that I could be useful to someone, somewhere."
He didn't say anything. His eyes didn't open. He just breathed slowly in cadence to the machines beeping in tandem with his heart.
"I told you everything, but I couldn't tell you that. I couldn't find a way. You wouldn't have understood. You would have been pissed at me. I know you would have." They sad chuckle that escaped my throat was wet with unshed tears. "I...Javi, I can't lose you. You gotta fight, you're my best friend. You're the strongest man I know. Please don't do this."
The tears were flowing freely down my cheeks by the time I turned my eyes skyward. I reached inside the collar of my shirt and clutched the Saint Michael pendant that I always wore. When I spoke, my voice was strong as I screamed to the sky.
"Do something." I snarled, my eyes burning in rage. "Do something, you phony prick! You fradulent motherfucker. Do something! Come on! Prove it!" I roared, not caring how loud my voice was or that Castle and Beckett's voice had gotten louder in tandem with mine. "Fuck faith! Earn it! Show me something real! I need it now! Not later! Now! Show me and I'll believe in you until the day that I die!" I sobbed, the tears dropping onto my lavender shirt and my fists shook wildly as it ripped the pendant from my neck, the chain dangling from my fist. "I swear! I'm calling on you! I'm calling on you!" When there was nothing in reponse, I moved to the trash can and threw the pendant into it. "Fuck it." I snarled, moving to Javier's bedside and squeezing his hand tightly.
"Come on, man." I was hovering over his head, trying to get his attention and make him wake up when Castle, Beckett and the doctor entered the room. I couldn't say that I was suprised when they drug me out of the room and sent me home to get some sleep.
That night, as I tossed and turned, I had dreams stained with his blood and soundtracked to his screams. I could feel Jenny's hand on my back, pulling me close as I curled into her side, but it wasn't enough to ease my fears.
The next night, I couldn't bring myself to go home. I was at the hospital at the crack of dawn, and had to excersise a bit of force and a flash of my badge to get through the doors before visiting hours. I hadn't left his side since, but the sun had sunk down below the horizon again, and I was stretching out on the uncomfortable couch in his room. I laid there for hours, watching him, until sleep overtook me and I fell into another fitful sleep. That is...until his screams started at five o'clock the next morning.
As he begins to raise his voice,
You lower yours and grant them one last choice.
Drive until you lose the road,
Or break with the ones you've followed.
He will do one of two things,
He will admit to everything,
Or he'll say he's just not the same,
And you begin to wonder why you came.
Where did I go wrong,
I lost a friend somewhere along in the bitterness,
And I would have stayed up with you all night,
Had I known how to save a life.
The screaming was like nothing that I'd ever heard in my life. It was a mixture of an injured animal and the stomach-churning agonized cry of a man in real pain. I was by the bed in an instant.
He looked like a wreck, sweat beading on his forehead, and crimson blood staining his paled lips.
"Javi? Listen to me, bro, you're gonna be okay. You have to. You FIGHT damn it! You have to live!" The doctors swarmed around us, all of them checking the monitors. I vaguely heard one of them say "he's a DNR" before they stepped back, watching his body seizing wildly. I glared at all of them, my mouth hanging open. "What the fuck is wrong with you people? He's dying, and you're just standing here!"
"Detective, he has a DNR order. There's nothing more that we can do for him." I snarled my discontent before climbing into the bed, positioning myself behind him, wrapping my arms around his chest.
"It's okay, bro. I've got you. Everything is going to be okay." I whispered, trying to contain the tears in my eyes. His eyes opened, but there was barely a spark of the light that had once been him.
"K-Kev," He gasped, clasping my hand tightly. He tried to suck in gasping breaths, black blood tinging his teeth. "I'm s-sorry, bro."
"No, you don't need to say that. You can tell me when you get out."
"I'm not getting out of here, Ryan." He whispered, his eyes slipping closed as his breaths grew closer together. "A-and, Ry?" He coughed, his body quivering violently in my arms.
"Yeah, Javi?"
"I'm r-really glad that you're a pansy and couldn't g-go through with it." He grinned at me, causing a choked sob/chuckle to escape from my lips. Moments later he went slack in my arms, his last breath puffing out against my cheek.
I held him for longer than I can remember, his body going cold, and his muscles tensing, before the nurses came in to tell me that they needed to move his body to the morgue.
I slid out of the bed, gently lowering my partner's head to the pillow, and pulled the sheet over him. They wheeled him away as if he was another one of the victims at our crime scenes. They were treating him like he was just another DB. And it pissed me off.
But, I ignored it, chosing instead to walk the long trek from the hospital back to my apartment, climbing into bed with my wife without even bothering to change out of my clothes. She turned over in her sleep, wrapping her arm over my stomach, and laid her head on my chest.
I laid there for a while, not really wanting to sleep because I knew that there were nightmares waiting in the wings to overtake me and pry screams from my chest. It was only after I had counted the spots on the wood in the ceiling for the third time that I remembered the poem my instructor at the academy had recited on the third day of our training.
The Thin Blue Line just got thinner tonight.
With one officer less, the stars don't shine as bright.
When the call goes out for officer needs assistance,
You race to the scene, lights flashing in the distance.
As your brother in blue stares back up at you,
The blank look in his eyes, the tears on your face,
The heart sinking feeling, the emptiness inside.
You scream over the mic "Officer down!".
Can they hear me?
Where are the medics?
Why is it taking so long?
He can't die!
As the emotions drown out the surroundings,
As you choke on your own tears,
Now you begin to realize,
The Thin Blue Line just got thinner tonight.
I crawled out of bed and shuffled to the window, casting a glance toward the sky, surveying the stars that scattered across the velvety black canvas. The stars in New York City were never really that bright, but that night, it was like someone had turned off all the lights. I was twenty-nine years, eleven months, and twenty-nine days old when Javier Esposito was shot in a 'routine' questioning of a victim's family. My partner, the man that I was supposed to be protecting, was shot because of me. Today, he gave his last breath. His heart pumped the last burst of blood through his body. Today, my best friend died.
Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend somewhere along in the bitterness.
And I would have stayed up with you all night,
Had I known how to save a life.
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Much love, J. Rook