AN: This was originally a tumblr ficlet in response to a prompt, but I enjoyed how it turned out so much that I decided to share it on here.
She wakes in the darkness, the world around her nearly pitch black. Soft light creeps under her door from the hall, but doesn't stretch nearly far enough toward her bed. To her left red lights blink on a machine. Red. The color of blood. While the red of the lights is brighter than the darkness of blood itself, she still gets stuck on the concept of it.
The blood had been on his hands. Her blood. Castle's hands.
Dick Coonan had shot her and Montgomery had shot him shortly after. She doesn't know what happened after that, if he lived or died, only that she had lived. It's almost poetic when you think about it, herself shot by the same man who had taken her mother's life. But instead of bleeding out alone in a dark alley, she'd been kept alive at her own precinct, the writer's hands grappling to apply pressure to her wound.
Her thoughts are being torn in several different directions and she's not sure if they are what woke her up or if it's the pain that blossoms from her chest. She wants to know what became of Coonan and his answers to her questions that he very well may have taken to the grave. She wants to lay here and ponder the significance of nearly dying at the hand of the same man who had killed her mother. She wants to know why Castle had taken it upon himself to try and stop her bleeding with his bare hands. She wonders where her dad is.
Beckett presses her head harder against her pillow, staring up at the dark ceiling save for the blinking light of the smoke detector. Also red. Sleep won't come easy for the rest of the night. She fears it might not ever again.
The pain in her chest is throbbing and she eyes what she assumes is a morphine drip to her left. She could push a button, call a nurse, ask for an increase in the pain meds. But the moment she does that, the room will be flooded with light and she'll have to test the strength of her vocal chords. She knows that she should, knows that she should let some nurse or doctor working the night shift explain to her how her surgery went. But she's not ready to face the reality, to face the light.
She feels safer shrouded in the darkness, less vulnerable. It's just her in here alone with her thoughts, with her pain. The moment she starts getting answers to her questions, she fears her life may start spinning even further out of her control.
Beckett squints at the clock on the wall, unable to make out the hands and the time in the dark. Why can't that be illuminated in red light? She wants to know how much longer she has to fake sleep until her father or someone from the precinct comes to check on her. Her mind drifts back to Castle at that, wondering if he's included as part of "someone from the precinct." She doesn't know what he is to her anymore. He's still an annoyance, she knows that much, but he's also becoming somewhat of a friend. A friend who willingly put his hands in her blood to help save her life.
She wishes she could roll over to her side and face away from the door and the red blinking lights. Wishes the shades were drawn up on her window and she could look at the lights of her city instead. Wishes she could distract her mind from the worries and anxieties pulling her chest even tighter than her stitches.
She tests the mobility of her arm, lifting it off the bed and wincing when it pulls at her stitches wrong. Her hand reaches out to the bedside table anyway, groping around for the TV remote. Sure it will bring unwanted light into her room, but if she could just focus on someone else's problems, fictional or not, for just a few moments, maybe she'll be able to drift back to sleep. Her fingers curl around the device and pick it up. She finds the power button and winces as the whiteness of the screen hurts her dark-adjusted eyes. She keeps the volume down low, aimlessly flipping through channels, her groggy state of mind unable to focus on anything.
She finds the power button again and turns it back off, the last image from the screen of a woman drowning stuck in her mind. She tries to focus on that and not everything else as her eyes start to fight sleep again. But it's Dick Coonan's face that still haunts her in her dreams.
When she wakes again the room is filled with natural sunlight, streaming in from behind the still drawn shade. As she becomes aware of her surroundings once again, she notices a figure slumped in the chair next to her bed. And to her surprise it isn't her father, her captain, or one of the boys. It's Richard Castle.
She stares at him, waiting for him to look up and notice. When he doesn't, she gives in and tries at her voice.
"Have you seen my dad?"
Her voice doesn't sound like her own. It's hoarse, like she's been screaming at a concert for hours on end. Castle finally looks up at her, that goofy smile of his spreading across his face.
"Jim? He went to go get some coffee. I told him I'd hold his place for a while. Glad to see that you're awake."
"Castle -"
"You had to know I'd come check up on you. I mean, I saw the light leave your eyes for a moment there. It was pretty terrifying."
"Coonan," she rasps, trying to shift her body into a more comfortable position that she can't find. "Did he make it?"
His expression is the only answer she needs. He's gone. Her one piece of evidence. Her one link in the chain. She's back at square one and only has a bullet wound to show for it.
"The important thing is that you're okay," Castle tries.
"No," she says, shaking her head, not fully realizing what she's disagreeing with. "No, I needed him alive."
"He shot you," Castle says with a defensiveness to his tone she can't quite place. "Montgomery did what he had to do to stop him from hurting someone else."
"Someone like you?"
She sees the hurt flare in his eyes. Watches as his gaze flits to her morphine drip like he's trying to blame the drugs.
"Beckett, I know that he killed your mother, but -"
"What are you even doing here, Castle?" she cuts him off, pushing a hand through her short hair.
There's that hurt look again. Like she kicked a puppy. Good. Maybe if she keeps this up he'll finally leave her alone, go off and find someone else to be his muse.
"I was worried about you," he says softly. "I am capable of compassion you know."
"Look, the man who killed my mother tried to kill me and I still don't know who he was working for. So unless you have an answer for me, I really don't feel like chit chat right now."
Castle eyes her IV again before pushing himself to his feet. "I understand that you're upset right now, but you really shouldn't be taking your anger out on me. I'm not the reason Coonan is dead. You need a scapegoat. Fine, I get that. But if you want to blame anyone for this, maybe you should start pointing fingers at the man who actually pulled the trigger."
He turns to leave and she starts to realize that she doesn't want to be left alone with her thoughts again like last night. She at least needs to keep him here until her dad gets back.
"I'm sorry."
He stops and turns back to face her, his face softening. He takes a deep breath, like he's trying to calm his anger. "Me too," he says after a moment's hesitation. "I shouldn't have snapped at you like that."
"Why'd you do it?" she asks, hoping to get an answer to at least one of the questions that plagued her consciousness last night. "Why did you try to stop the bleeding?"
His shoulders lift in a shrug. "It's what you do, isn't it? Apply pressure to the wound?"
"Yeah but -"
"Deny it all you want, Beckett, but we're friends. And friends don't let friends die."
A small smile tugs on the corners of her lips. "Thank you."
He starts to respond when Jim gets back with his coffee and flocks to her side. Castle starts to bid his goodbyes and back out of the room. She swears she heard him utter "always" in response to her thanks before her dad started talking. Apparently he's not going anywhere anytime soon. And maybe, just maybe, she's okay with that.