Title: Heart
Disclaimer: Whoever owns them, owns them! If I did, I most certainly wouldn't just be writing the fanfics!
Author's Note: This idea came to me last night in a dream, so I thought I would put it into words. Please let me know what you think…and if you think it's worth continuing. Reviews are like chocolate cake to me! NOTE: This story has been re-uploaded to reflect some slight changes I made to the story.
It had been a long, hard case to solve, but they'd finally done it. A murderer was in the back of a cruiser and on his way to a jail cell because of Detective Kate Beckett and Rick Castle. The partners couldn't help but feel a bit victorious at this, their banter echoing slightly off the surrounding alley walls. Yes, it had been a long day, but in the end, it had turned out to be a good one.
"So, what do you say we go down to the Old Haunt and celebrate another good case closed because of solid teamwork?" Castle asked with that usual smile of his that had Beckett responding in kind with a smirk of her own.
"Sorry, Castle, but sleep is a bit higher on my list tonight."
"Ah, come on! You know you wanna!" he practically begged.
They came to a stop at her car, where she shook her head with a now exasperated smile. She met his eyes and then looked away with a chuckle. "You're impossible, you know that?"
"I try," he shot back leaning into her slightly, a habit she'd recently noticed he'd been doing quite a lot.
She watched him for another long moment before finally sighing. "All right, Castle, but I can't stay out all night. I've been up for nearly forty hours—"
The next events happened in a matter of seconds. Castle glanced sideways just briefly as something seemed to catch his eye, that playful look turning to curiosity then to dire concern in a matter of milliseconds. He stepped toward her, hands pushing her away from the car.
Two gunshots rang out loudly in the small alleyway, followed moments later by the all-too-familiar sound of a bullet hitting flesh and also shattering glass. Beckett, having been thrown off balance, landed hard on her shoulder. She felt a crack, then shooting pain down her arm, but forced herself to ignore it. She heard someone hit the pavement nearby and focused in that direction.
"Castle!"
His blue eyes met hers. She'd never seen such seriousness in those eyes. It didn't belong there. She was only dimly aware of the high alert of every cop in the area, of the scuffle that quickly took place as an officer wrestled the gunman to the ground, or much of anything else, for that matter. She made herself crawl the short distance to the man who had just saved her life.
The bullet had hit him nearly square in the chest. He clutched it tightly, but that didn't stop the blood from pouring out between his fingers and onto the damp asphalt. This was bad. This was very bad. After quickly radioing a 10-13, Beckett tossed her handheld aside and helped him to put pressure on the wound. There was so much blood on him, on the ground, on her, but she didn't care. The only thing she cared about, she realized as he held her gaze solidly, was that he was still alive and stayed that way. He was her partner, her friend, her... She didn't even really know what he was.
Then it got more terrifying. Those eyes, growing more and more serious by the second, began the slide closed. His hand began to grow slack in hers. "No, no, Castle! You stay with me. I'm not letting you go anywhere!" she told him firmly, tears streaming down her face. "You hear me?" His eyes opened slightly, as if he somehow managed to hang on to consciousness just for her.
The paramedics arrived, forcing her away from him momentarily, but as they wheeled him to the ambulance, she promised, "You're gonna make it through this, you hear me?" His only answer was that unyielding gaze before he finally gave into the pain and whatever drugs they might have given him on the spot and lost consciousness.
They rode together. Beckett winced at the pain in her shoulder from every bump as the EMTs fought to save Castle's life. There was so much blood. She couldn't stop thinking about how much blood had been left at the scene and how much he was still losing. That thought made the ride go so quickly that before she could really process what was happening, the paramedics had whisked Castle away to an operating room and a doctor was looking over her shoulder. Even hours later, her arm in a sling, Beckett still could not quite comprehend the events of earlier that night.
She came back to the world as Alexis shifted in what had to be an uncomfortable position against Martha's shoulder. The older woman met Beckett's eyes silently, her own full of worry and doubt that her son would live. One bullet had just nicked a vein near his heart and lodged there. The other had missed him entirely, shattering her car's front driver and passenger windows and lodging in the brick wall at the scene. Castle's doctor said he could make no promises when he'd talked to them last, and that was three hours previously. To put it mildly, all three of them were quite possibly facing one of their worst fears come to life.
Beckett knew she was. Worse, the adrenaline from the shooting had long since worn off and the pain medication paired with that was making it hard to concentrate or even stay awake. The cup of coffee she had forced down earlier hadn't really helped, and she wanted so badly to sleep. The thought of Castle kept her from that temptation, however. She couldn't leave now—not when every moment could be his last.
She was starting to drift when she heard her name.
"Kate," the man said again.
Her eyes fluttered open. It was Josh. Josh. Without a word, she stood up and threw her good arm around him. He hugged her back gently, as if afraid she might break. She felt the warm moisture on her cheeks again as she had many times in the past several hours. Pulling away, Josh looked at her with worry in his eyes. "Have you slept at all?"
She shook her head. "I can't. What if there's news?"
Josh looked down, back up at her, then to Martha and Alexis. There was. "Ms. Rodgers, your son just came out of surgery. We finally got the bleeding stopped, and he's stabilized, but he's not out of the woods yet. There was some to his left pulmonary vein, but at this point we're more worried about the blood loss he's incurred. Other than monitoring him, all we can do now is wait."
"Thank you, doctor," Martha said softly. Alexis, who was now wide awake, held her grandmother's hand like a three year old at the supermarket.
"Thank you, Josh," Kate told him. "You have no idea how much this news means."
Josh nodded. "Now, will you please go home and get some rest?
She had to admit that forty-eight hours of no sleep was beginning to catch up with her, so she nodded. "You know, right before… Rick was trying to convince me to go down to the Old Haunt for a drink. If I'd have just said yes and not tried to argue, he have might be okay right now."
Josh said nothing to her comment. He just shook his head and repeated, "Go home and rest," before walking briskly back down the hall from which he'd come.
"He's right, dear," Martha told her. "You really should get some rest. And don't try to blame yourself for this. You told me yourself that he pushed you out of the way. If you'd said yes to his request right off, you might be the one in there right now, and not him. He probably saved your life."
Kate nodded and thanked her, realizing that this is almost exactly what she'd done when her mother died. The "what ifs" had nearly driven her crazy back then, and if she kept doing the same thing now, it wouldn't be much different. Bidding them farewell, she called a cab and headed home.
Thirty minutes later, key turning in the lock, it really hit her. The man she had begun to consider a friend had taken a bullet for her, literally. What if he never made it through this and she never got to thank him? What if she never got to look into those eyes again or see that smile? What if she never had that chance to tell him how she really felt about him? Or what if he survived? What would she do then? She slipped inside her apartment, allowing the door to close. Setting the deadbolt, she slid down to the floor, where for the first time in the nine hours since Richard Castle had saved her life, she completely lost it.