Disclaimer: If I actually owned Castle, there would be no summer hiatus. And if for some reason there was, I certainly wouldn't have left everyone on so evil a cliffhanger. Actually... that's probably a lie. I enjoy writing cliffhangers. It makes me feel powerful. Anyway, back to the point. If I did own Castle, next season might really start this way. Since I don't... it probably won't. I also do not own the song "Run" by Snow Patrol, which is where the lyrics in quotes throughout the story come from.
Author's Note: This story is long. This author's note is going to be long. I know some people have told me before that they're actually interested in reading my random ramblings about how/why I decided to write any particular story. If this is you, keep reading. If not, or if you're impatient or short on time and just want to get to the story itself, feel free to skip the rest of the author's note. I'm positive it won't be all that important. And I hope you enjoy it!
In case you do like my ramblings... here we go. So, I've been hibernating a little bit since Monday and I haven't really been browsing , but I can only imagine how many stories like this have probably already been written. You know, imagining how next season will or should begin. I wanted to write this not because I thought it would be even remotely unique, but because I had to for my own reasons. To attempt to get my mind around the ending so I can maybe start thinking about something, ANYTHING, else. Particularly the other stories that I should be working on but haven't been. If you're waiting on Daylight and/or Here for the Story updates, I'm trying, I swear. I'll try not to keep you waiting too much longer.
I actually started writing an entirely different post-finale story (that I didn't much like and probably won't ever see the light of day...), but then at some point I heard the song "Run" by Snow Patrol and realized exactly what kind of perfection it would be for this kind of story. The song reminded me of Castle from the first time I heard it, to be honest... I think the first time I heard it was actually when I was writing the very beginning of "Daylight," and I thought it fit really well. Unrelated. Anyway. I've seen stories that are set up like this before, a line from a song followed by some writing, and then another line... but this is my first attempt at writing one. I did something similar with Daylight, but that's line=chapter, while this is 1-2 lines to a few paragraphs. Also, when lines repeated later in the song, I didn't repeat them in the story, instead I picked the place where I thought they fit best. So it's a bit different, but for the most part I think it turned out well. Anyway, if the whole concept is overdone and uninteresting, so be it, but as a story and as a whole I like it, so I'm posting it.
Oh, random side point: I thought about including Josh here somewhere, but I liked it better without him. Assume, if it bothers you, that he's out of the country somewhere and has no idea anything's happened.
Hope you like! :)
"I'll sing it one last time for you, then we really have to go. You've been the only thing that's right in all I've done."
"Kate, come on. Come on, wake up. Come on. I can't lose you. Not now. Not ever. Wake up." His mother had said it best. For someone who made his living with words, he had a hard time finding them when it mattered. Everything he said sounded so… stupid. He'd said the words that he'd needed to say, the words that mattered, but he hadn't had a coherent thought since. Not that she could hear him now anyway. But maybe, he thought, if he kept talking for long enough, maybe she would wake up. He wanted her to grab his arm with her customary strength and tell him to shut the hell up, that he was being annoying.
But it was Lanie's voice that interrupted his thoughts. Somehow, though, it didn't sound a bit like the Lanie he was accustomed to hearing. Her light, playfully mocking tone had been replaced by one that was harsh, all business. "Castle, get the hell out of my way."
He did, allowing the person with the medical training to take the reins, but whatever Lanie said, however she threatened him, he had no plans of leaving his detective's side. He backed off, giving Lanie the space she required, but took Beckett's hand and held it tightly. It was still warm, but its limpness terrified him. She didn't squeeze back, didn't try to make him let go… didn't do anything at all.
He was still talking. Just talking, spouting everything that came to mind. "Don't worry Kate, Lanie's here. She's going to take care of you. You're going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine. We're all here, the whole precinct. We won't let anything happen to you. It'll take a lot more than a little bullet to stop Kate Beckett. A lot more."
"She can't hear you, Castle," Lanie snapped. "Will you shut up?"
He did with a sigh that he couldn't have controlled, but kept thinking the rapid string of semi-nonsensical blabber, concentrating on channeling good thoughts to Kate. He'd known her for so long that sometimes he swore they had some kind of mental connection. If ever there was a time to take advantage of that, it was now. Whether it made any sense or not, he didn't care. He tried.
But apparently Lanie even had a problem with internal channeling, because she soon interrupted that too. "If you're going to be here, at least make yourself useful. Take off your jacket and keep pressure on the wound. I need to check her vitals."
He didn't want to let go of her hand, but he did, and followed Lanie's instructions. But as her blood slowly seeped into his jacket, he continued his channeling. I'll stand with you, Kate. I'll always stand with you. You know, I used to think my purpose in life was writing. That was why I was here. To write. To entertain. To put my stuff out there for people to read. But I was wrong. It's you. It's always been you. You're my life. You're my reason.
"And I can barely look at you, but every single time I do, I know we'll make it anywhere away from here."
The color was starting to drain from her face, more quickly than he would've imagined it would happen, and he looked away, focusing instead on her hand, holding it again with his left as he kept compression on her wound with his right. He didn't want to see her like this, because he knew if he did he wouldn't be able to wipe the image from his head.
"I always thought I'd take a bullet, being a cop."
Every time she'd said something like this his heart had leapt, and some little voice inside of him had screamed, "no." He'd been in dangerous situations with his detective before. He wasn't so dense that he didn't realize that. In his time working at the Twelfth, he'd seen officers injured in the line of duty. He'd even heard of a few that were killed. Until Montgomery it had never been anyone he knew, but every once and awhile it would happen. A card would circulate for the family and he would always sign. Usually he'd get out his checkbook and offer a little something to help them along. In the back of his mind, he guessed he'd always realized that it could easily have been him, or one of his friends, but never, ever had he put much real thought into that possibility.
Beckett had. He realized this now. She'd gone to work every day knowing full-well that it could be her last. It wasn't something she'd dwelled upon, but it was something she'd thought about. The irony was that today, of all days, he doubted she'd even considered the possibility.
He started to picture those cards circling the bullpen, marked, "To the family and friends of Detective Kate Beckett," but the images made him feel like he might genuinely throw up, and he pushed them away with all the force he could manage.
Family. They were all here. They'd all seen it happen. Her work family: himself, Ryan, Esposito and Lanie. Traditionally, they'd have been labeled "friends," but they all knew that "family" was the more apt description of what they were to one another. Her blood family: her father. Esposito and a few other cops were holding him back. They couldn't have too many people in the way when the paramedics arrived, nor while Lanie did what she could in the meantime. His family, his mother and daughter. He didn't look for them, didn't even want to think about them now. What they'd seen, they shouldn't have had to. They were not a part of this, not in any capacity, and he hadn't wanted to bring them into it. But they were here, they had seen Beckett go down, and he would have to deal with the ramifications of that later. For now, he was focusing only on Kate.
He wasn't paying the slightest attention to what Lanie was actually doing. He trusted her. She cared about her friend, and he was sure that she was doing everything in her power to make sure that she was going to be okay. Instead, he went back to his thought-channeling.
Kate? Kate, you're going to be fine. Okay? Nothing bad is going to happen to you. You shouldn't be here, in this cemetery. It's not your place. The paramedics will be here soon and they'll take you out of here, and then they'll fix you up, good as new. We have to catch this guy. The guy who did this to you. We'll get him. We'll get him together. I can't do it on my own. I need your help. I need you.
"To think I might not see those eyes makes it so hard not to cry, and as we say our long goodbye, I nearly do."
The paramedics showed up both sooner than he wanted and not nearly soon enough. Logically, he knew that the sooner she got medical treatment, real medical treatment, by people with the proper equipment and training, the better off she'd be. But he also knew that the sooner they came and put her in the ambulance, and sooner he would have to leave her side, without any way of knowing when he would see her again. When, he told himself forcefully. Not if.
"Only one of you can come in the ambulance," an irritated EMT told them, looking around at the people who, despite their best efforts, were beginning to swarm.
"I will," Castle and Lanie said in unison.
But Esposito, who Castle hadn't even noticed coming in their direction, spoke to them both with resolution. "Let her dad go. We'll follow."
"Sir, let go," another paramedic told Castle, whose hand was still firmly clasped around the detective's.
He nodded, softly kissed her cheek, and then did let go, although he hated doing so.
As he watched them load her into the ambulance, he felt tears pulling at his eyes. He tried to fight them, not only because he was surrounded by everyone he knew and cared about, but because there was no reason for them. She was going to be fine.
"Castle," Esposito said sternly, yanking him out of his zone. "Let's go."
He nodded tersely and started to follow the detective back to his car. But he passed his mother and daughter on the way, and stopped for a second to toss his mother his car keys. "Go home," he told them.
It was Alexis who protested. "No, we're coming with you. We want to know that she's okay."
He turned only to his mother. "Go home," he said firmly. Then he spoke to both of them again. "I will call you as soon as I know anything."
Martha nodded, which was all he needed to see. He took off following Esposito again, who had nearly reached his car with Lanie. "Ryan?" he asked as he caught up.
"Taking Jenny home and meeting us there."
He nodded and got into the back seat, allowing Lanie the front. It seemed right to get to sit next to the person you loved at a time like this. He wished he had that same privilege.
"Light up, light up, as if you have a choice. Even if you cannot hear my voice, I'll be right beside you, dear."
"How bad was it, Lanie?" he finally got up the courage to ask once the three of them were seated in the waiting room.
"She was shot," she said, expressionless. "It wasn't good."
"But, I mean, is she…" He couldn't bring himself to ask the question that was really on his mind. Is she going to die? "She'll be okay, right?"
Esposito was watching his girlfriend as carefully as Castle was, silently awaiting her response. She closed her eyes for longer than a standard blink. When she opened them again they were clear, but still mostly empty of expression. "I've had some training, but I'm not an expert on the living. I guess you can consider it a good sign that I really don't know."
"Not even an idea?" Esposito asked gently.
She shook her head, shrugging. "Anything I told you would just be a straight-up guess, and you can do that for yourselves."
Silence descended around them. He wanted to say something, to at least keep a comfortable conversation going, but once again he couldn't find any words that seemed to fit. He knew that both Lanie and Esposito cared about Beckett a lot, that they desperately wanted her to be okay just as he did, although he couldn't help but feel that no one could possibly care as much as he did. He kept that thought to himself.
Soon though, he was plagued with another thought that he wanted to keep to himself, but couldn't. It wouldn't stay inside. It seemed to leak out through his mouth. "It's my fault," he breathed.
Lanie just glared at him impatiently. Esposito raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"That she got shot. It's my fault. I saw the guy, but I couldn't warn her in time."
"If she were here," Esposito began, "I know exactly what she'd say to that. It's not your fault, it's the fault of the jackass that shot her."
Castle nodded resolutely. He was right. In fact, as Esposito said that, he could hear Beckett's voice perfectly, and see with it the face that he wanted to remember. Beautiful. Strong. Ready for anything. Not the pale, empty face of the woman they'd put into the ambulance. He focused on it, held it in his mind. Tried not to picture her unconscious in a hospital bed. Not altogether successfully.
He wanted nothing more than to be with her, beside her, holding her hand, even if she didn't know it. He hoped they'd at least let her dad stay with her. If he couldn't be there with her, he at least wanted to know that she wasn't alone.
Silence had descended on the waiting room again, and a quick glance showed him Lanie's head resting on Esposito's shoulder, his arm around her. He'd never felt so alone in his life.
"Louder, louder, and we'll run for our lives."
As soon as Jim Beckett entered the waiting room, Castle was on his feet. "How is she? What happened?"
He shrugged, looking utterly exhausted but not much of anything else. "She's in surgery."
Castle sighed heavily and nodded. "She's strong," he assured the older man, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. "She'll pull through."
Jim nodded and sat down next to Castle, joining the cloud of silent apprehension.
Slowly more people began to filter in from their group, first Ryan, who took a seat across from his partner, and then what seemed like everyone else from the precinct, certainly every other cop who had been at the funeral. Part of him kept expecting the captain to walk in, and every time he did he was faced with the realization that most everyone here had already lost one friend, and all were now hoping against hope that they wouldn't lose another.
It was this way for hours, his thoughts racing but the world around him crawling. People were filtering out, back in, and out again all the time, and it didn't take long before Castle quit bothering to keep track of it. The only consistencies were himself, Ryan, Esposito, Lanie, and Kate's father, none of whom moved. Another thing he could count on were the "How's Beckett?" texts he was getting from his daughter every hour, which he always had to answer the same way, an increasingly more painful and difficult to type, "Don't know."
Some of the cops that kept filing in and out stopped to talk to Ryan or Esposito, and he was asked several times by acquaintances and total strangers whether he needed anything. People kept offering to bring him food and drink, which he always politely declined. There was nothing in the world that could look even remotely appetizing to him right now.
Finally, after a length of time that Castle couldn't have begun to determine, but long enough that all but the five of them had left, a man wearing scrubs and holding a clipboard appeared at the door. Jim was immediately on his feet, but the other three had apparently fallen asleep. Castle nudged Esposito, who was sitting beside him. "Hey," he murmured, "Guys. Guys. Get up. Someone's here. Looks like a doctor."
By the time all five of them were on their feet, Castle and Jim alert as ever, the other three a little groggy, the man with the clipboard had come over to them. He consulted his clipboard. "Family and friends of Katherine Beckett?" he asked.
All five nodded. "What's the news?" Jim asked.
"I'm one of her doctors, John Fowler." He sensed their collective impatience and moved on past the greeting quickly. "She's out of surgery. We were able to remove the bullet. She has two broken ribs and she's lost some blood, but other than that there was no internal damage. She'll have to take it easy for a little while, but there's no reason she shouldn't make a full recovery. She's very lucky."
"Oh, thank God," Lanie breathed, throwing her arms around Javier. With Lanie in one arm, he used the other to give a grinning Ryan a quick fist-bump. "Can we see her?" Jim asked, and Castle's relieved thoughts stopped mid-stream as he awaited the doctor's response.
"She's sleeping now, but one of you can go in," the doctor granted with a nod.
Before they had any time to debate who that might be, Jim was out the door. But none of the other four were the least bit upset by this, not even Castle. As much as he would've loved to see her, to see with his own two eyes that, if nothing else, she was still Kate and still breathing, it was her father's right more than it was his.
"It's late," Ryan said, clapping Castle on the back. "Now that we know she's okay, what do you say we call it a night? We'll come back tomorrow when we can see her."
He shook his head. "You guys can go, but I'm gonna hang here."
Esposito eyed him. "Come on, bro, you heard the doc. She's gonna be fine, and she's asleep now anyway. What do you think you're gonna do here? Don't you want to be with your family?"
"They can survive without me for a night. What if she wakes up and she needs something?"
"There are doctors and nurses here for that," Ryan pointed out. "Plus I don't think her dad's going anywhere."
"That's right." He turned Ryan's point around and used it to enforce his rather than disprove it. "He's still here. What if he needs something? You guys go, but I'll stay. Hold down the fort, you know."
The two detectives knew Castle well enough to realize they weren't going to get anywhere with him, and exchanged a slightly defeated look. But Lanie's response was different. She fully picked up her head for the first time since the doctor's announcement and gave Castle a very watery smile.
He frowned. Lanie had been incredibly stoic all of this time, ever since the funeral. He knew she was worried about her friend, but she'd betrayed almost no emotion, and she certainly hadn't shed any tears. Now that she knew Beckett was going to be okay, it seemed like a very strange time for the waterworks to kick in. "You okay?"
She nodded. "Yeah yeah, I'm fine." She took a deep breath. "I'm great."
He still didn't understand. "Lanie?"
The M.E.'s watery smile broadened. "She's gonna be okay, Castle. She's gonna be fine. She has her dad here, and you, and she's gonna be just fine."
Castle smiled. So they were tears of relief? That he understood. "I'm glad too. You guys go, have a good night. I'm going to go try and track down some coffee. I'm sure I'll see you tomorrow."
All three seemed to accept that, and finally they did leave. He'd been serious about wanting to get coffee, and even thought he might get a cup for Beckett's father as well, but before doing that he checked his phone, realizing that Alexis was overdue for her hourly Beckett check. He found that he did have a new message from his daughter, and wasn't surprised by what it said: "How's Beckett?"
This time he smiled, thrilled that he could provide his daughter with actual information. "She's going to be okay," he typed. "Go to bed. I'll see you tomorrow."
He thought about what Esposito had asked him. "Don't you want to be with your family?" His family was somewhat unorthodox, three members spanning three generations, all living under the same roof. But Beckett and his mother were friendly, and Alexis obviously respected and cared about her a great deal. It was almost as if she had become a part of his family.
Then he considered Kate and her father, their own little family unit, even smaller than his own. She had become a part of his family. Maybe it was time for him to become a part of hers.
"I can hardly speak, I understand why you can't raise your voice to say."
Castle was on his third cup of coffee when Jim Beckett reentered the waiting room. "What happened?" he asked, immediately on his feet. "Is she okay?"
He relaxed a little when Jim smiled. "Yeah, she's okay. She's awake, and she's asking for you."
His eyes widened, but this information didn't seem to process. "For me?"
The older man nodded. "You can go in and see her if you want."
He blinked. "I can?"
Jim literally pushed Castle toward the door. "Go. Room 104."
Her room wasn't far and he found it without trouble, but he hesitated for a second at the door, his heart racing. Why was she asking for him? Did she remember what he'd said just before she lost consciousness? He hoped both that she did and that she didn't. He didn't want to, would never want to, take it back, but now really didn't seem like the time to discuss it. And that wasn't the only reason he was nervous. He was about to be faced with the image he'd been trying to avoid: Kate alone in a hospital bed.
What are you worried about? he finally forced himself to think. It's just Beckett. And with that, he pushed the door open.
He actually smiled when he saw her. His writer's brain had envisioned the scene worse than it actually was. She was a little dwarfed by the hospital bed that surrounded her, and a little paler than she should've been, but she was Kate Beckett, exactly the same Kate Beckett she'd been before she was shot, and she was beautiful. "Hey," he said gently. "How you feeling?"
She met his eyes and smiled. "Okay."
He took the chair beside her bed where he assumed her father had been sitting. "Really?"
She shrugged. "Pretty well drugged. Can't feel much of anything."
He nodded. "I'm sure that beats the alternative."
She shrugged again, but then she smiled. "You look worse than I feel. You slept at all?"
"No. But I have had three cups of coffee. Taking a page from your book." He grinned.
She rolled her eyes. "You and my dad are both ridiculous."
"Hey, if you hadn't gone and gotten yourself shot, we wouldn't have had to act so 'ridiculous,' as you say."
She shook her head. "Please just tell me you got the son of a bitch that did this."
He sighed. He'd known she was going to ask this, but he wished she hadn't asked it so soon. He shook his head.
"He got away?" she demanded, more force behind her words than he'd seen her use yet. But immediately after, she sank into her pillow and squeezed her eyelids closed, and he couldn't tell whether she was in pain, she'd expelled too much energy at once, or she was simply overwhelmed by the news.
He covered her hand with his own. "I'm sorry," he said, intending both sincerity and sarcasm. "We were all a little focused on keeping you alive."
She didn't react, at all, which made him nervous. He squeezed her hand. "Hey. You okay?"
She opened her eyes again and looked at him with a kind of intensity he'd never seen before. Not directed at him, anyway. "He's still out there?" she breathed.
"We'll get him, Kate," he told her, tightening his grip on her hand. "We'll get him together."
"Slower, slower, we don't have time for that. All I want's to find an easier way to get out of our little heads."
She squeezed his hand back, which put him just a little more at ease. "We will," she said. "We have to."
He nodded. "We do."
She started to sit up further but grimaced, and he put the hand that wasn't holding hers on her shoulder to stop her.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
"Well, you said it. We have to get him. And you know the sooner we get started the better off we'll be."
He stared at her, not believing that even Beckett could be this stubborn. "Not now!"
"Why not?"
"Oh, I don't know, should I start with the part where you're on serious painkillers or the part where you have two broken ribs and a gunshot wound?"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm fine."
There was an incredibly appropriate humorless laugh ready to escape his mouth, but he held it back. "You are not!" His brow furrowed with concern and frustration. "You will be, thank God, but right now? You're hurt, both physically and emotionally, whether you want to admit to either one, and you need to take at least a couple of days to rest and recover before you even think about going back to work."
"Castle, please."
But he refused to relent. "No, don't 'please' me. Don't. We thought we were going to lose you, Kate. Do you have any idea what that felt like?"
She got quiet. "Yeah, Castle. I think I have a pretty good idea what it feels like to lose a friend."
"Okay, then consider this for just a minute. Everyone who was here for you, who left the funeral and came here to the hospital, we'd all already lost a friend, and we were faced with the possibility of losing another. Yeah, your dad and I are the only ones who stayed after we found out you'd be okay, but I wish you could've seen how many people were here, just waiting for hours with bated breath. How many people you scared. No, terrified."
"Sorry Castle, it's not like I wanted this to happen."
"I know you didn't. I'm not saying you did. I'm just saying that maybe you owe it to all of those people to take it a little easy, and not rush back into work just because you think you can or you have to. Esposito, Ryan and I can start the investigation while you recover."
"Oh, hell no. If you three are gonna look for this jackass, don't think for a second you can keep me off the case."
He sighed. He'd hoped it wouldn't come to this, but it was clear that he had no option. "Fine. Esposito and Ryan can do it."
She stared at him, uncomprehending. "You'd stay off the case?"
"I don't like it, but if it's the only way to make sure you get the rest I know you need, I'll do it."
She frowned. "You will?"
He nodded. "I will. And as soon as you're ready, we'll be right out on the front lines again."
"I'm ready now."
"Which is why you don't get to make that determination."
"Then who does? You?"
He shrugged. "Yeah, me. And your other friends, and your dad, and your doctors."
She squeezed her eyes shut, realizing she was losing the argument. "You'll keep me off longer than you need to."
He shook his head. "Why would we do that? Kate, look at me." She cracked one eye open. "Think about it. We want to catch this guy as bad as you do, and we know you're the best detective in the city. If anyone can get him, it's you. And do you really think that anything is going to keep me off this case for very long? If I can't join the investigation until you do, don't you think I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you're back as soon as it's safe?"
"Have heart my dear, we're bound to be afraid, even if it's just for a few days, making up for all this mess."
She opened both eyes. "It's not safe," she sighed. "Castle, I got shot. There's nothing about what I do that's safe."
"Does it change anything?" he asked. He was referring, of course, to Beckett's getting shot. Clearly she hadn't heard, or didn't remember, the other thing he could've been referring to, what he'd said to her as she lost consciousness. She would've brought it up by now if she had.
"No… and yes. I always knew it could happen, and it's not like I'd quit my job over it, but… it's not like it was a gunfight. Someone targeted me. Someone tried to kill me. And when they find out it didn't work, they'll try again."
"So, you're scared."
"No," she answered automatically.
He raised his eyebrows.
"Well, yeah."
"You should be. I'd be worried if you weren't. Hell, I am. The idea of someone trying to kill you terrifies me. But that's exactly why we need to get back out there and keep it from happening."
She nodded.
"But not before you get better. In the meantime, I know some people who are going to want to see you now that you're awake. Ryan, Esposito, Lanie… I wouldn't let my mom and Alexis come here, but Alexis was texting me every hour to see how you were doing, and I'm sure they'd love to see you too, if you're up for it."
She smiled. "I'd love to see them."
"Great. Well then, I'll go call everyone. I'll send your dad back in, okay?"
He started for the door, but she stopped him. "Castle, wait."
Immediately, he turned around. "What's up? Do you need something?"
She shook her head. "I just… I just wanted to tell you…" She met his eyes. "I love you too."
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