A/N: This follows the events of 7x14 (Resurrection) and draws slightly from the promo for 7x15 (Reckoning) so I suppose this could be considered a tad 'spoiler-y' for some.
A massive thank you to the wonderful friend who read this over for me at one in the morning and helped convince me that this story wasn't a total disaster.
The video footage plays on a loop in his mind. Over and over again, the images of her face, of the pain flaring bright like a fire in her eyes seared into the backs of his own eyelids, tormenting him until he can't take it anymore.
"Castle, I'm tracing it right now," Ryan reassures him as he paces the room. He can't stop moving, can't stand still. If he stops he'll see it all too clearly. He'll see her face, the gag in her mouth to muffle her cries, her wide, terrified eyes filling with involuntary tears as Kelly Nieman takes a scalpel to the skin of her cheek, slicing through the flesh lining the defined bone. "We're going to find her. Just calm down, just-"
"Do not tell me to calm down," he growls, the ferocity of it silencing half of the bustling bullpen, but Ryan only nods his understanding and returns to the computer.
Tory and Ryan are working together to pull whatever they can from the video feed they received from an anonymous IP address only three short minutes ago. But each minute feels like hours and Beckett doesn't have long.
Jerry Tyson and Kelly Nieman have her. They don't have a single minute to waste.
He was never supposed to accompany Ryan and Esposito to the potential crime scene, Gates had forbid it, but nothing was going to stop him from getting to his wife and the boys had known that. It's why they hadn't even tried to stop him, not even when he raced past them in the deserted hallway and kicked down the door on his own.
The dilapidated hospital room is empty. It's been seven hours since they received the video and they had Tyson (or Michael Boudreau, as he's still claiming to be) in custody. They had him, even after Rick had his hands around his throat, and he wasn't going anywhere, but he wasn't talking either. With so few leads and resources to go on, the search for her had taken too long, a precious waste of hours that could have cost Kate her life.
The room is empty, abandoned and left to rot, but for a sole chair that sits amidst the rusted medical equipment that decorates the setting of Nieman's lair, where he wouldn't hesitate to bet she's operated on others. There's a body in that chair - an unmoving female figure he recognizes with a single, heart-sinking glance.
The shout of her name scrapes its way past his lips, the hoarse roar of protest filling the air as he staggers across the room to reach her, his heart tripping in horror at the sight of a sleek operating table pushed up against the wall, at the sight of blood. Her blood.
Castle nearly falls to his knees once he reaches her, his legs shaking so badly he's on the verge of collapsing as he stands before her lifeless frame.
"Kate, oh Kate, please," he chokes out, cradling her face in his hands, careful not to touch the incisions still fresh and weeping along her skin, trying not to sob at the feel of dried blood beneath his fingertips. "C'mon Kate, please baby, please don't leave me."
She's not moving, but she's breathing, he can feel her pulse thumping slow and weak where his index finger presses beneath her jaw.
"She needs a bus," he calls back to Ryan and Esposito, failing to realize Esposito is already there, freeing her hands from the plastic ties binding her wrists and the duct tape at her ankles, but there's already a paramedic rushing through, a pair with a stretcher jogging in behind him.
"Stay with me," he whispers, brushing his thumb along the bloodied shell of her ear. God, what did they do to her? "Please, just stay with me, Kate."
Her eyes flicker beneath their lids, a flame of hope in the darkness, and he clings to it, clings to it as he races behind the paramedics who transfer her out of the building, into the awaiting ambulance.
She wakes in the medical van with a start, her eyes wide and frightened, darting around the enclosed space until they land on him.
"You're okay," he chokes out the strangled promise, grateful when the paramedic inches out of the way to allow Castle to loom above her. "I've got you, you're safe."
But her eyes are watering, filling with tears as she shakes her head, muffled sobs building behind the oxygen mask. Panic crawls up his gut, sends nausea swelling through his stomach and seizing his lungs. Something's wrong, something more than the minor cuts marring her face and neck.
"Kate," he tries to soothe, stroking her hair back. "What is it? Are you in pain?"
She doesn't answer him, but the hand unattached to an IV drip is clawing at the mask and he fails to even consider asking the paramedic for confirmation before he's easing it away from her face. Her cheeks are still stained with trickles of dried blood, crimson tears that streak past her jaw, onto her throat that the paramedic had been attempting to clean away, and her flesh is still swollen, probably aching fiercely, but she pushes up into a sitting position on the gurney and surges for him.
"Castle," she moans, her voice like sandpaper as he catches her by the wrists, tries to keep her from hurting herself, but he can't resist the chance to have her in his arms. The paramedic gives them a disapproving glare, but doesn't stop Rick from easing onto the edge of the gurney she's still strapped to and wrapping her quivering upper body in his embrace.
"You're okay," he chants, rocking her back and forth as she rests her head to his clavicle, her breaths coming in quiet, broken whimpers against his throat. "You're safe, you're safe, you're safe."
It's all that matters.
In the hospital, she fades in and out of consciousness as the doctor patches up the wounds on her face. They aren't severe, not as damning as they could be. There will be scars, minor and hardly visible, but she "got lucky" as the doc had so cheerfully announced upon inspection. She would heal.
But her face was not the only piece of her that suffered.
"Castle," she rasps, blinking past the effects of the pain medication she had been dosed with in the ambulance. Rick darts up from the plastic chair pulled up close to her bedside and snags her trembling hand. She hasn't stop shaking since they found her. "My stomach," she croaks, earning not only his, but the doctor's full attention.
The older man shares a concerned glance with him before placing a gentle hand to Kate's abdomen, watching her wince with pain and clutch Castle's hand until her knuckles blanch. He can only watch with barely suppressed horror as the doctor lifts the edge of Kate's t-shirt, easing it upwards to rest at her ribcage and revealing a mural of purple and red blotches that consume her lower body.
"They said - said I would live," she gets out, staring up at him with a new wave of tears glistening in her eyes as his own begin to sting. "But it was his idea to - Tyson knew it was the end for him, for Nieman. He knew you'd find them eventually, find me. He wanted to take away one last thing."
No, no, she can't be-
"I wasn't pregnant," she whispers, her bottom lip starting to tremble. "But now, I don't think I ever will be."
Castle's knees crack when they hit the floor.
They head straight from the hospital to the precinct immediately after she's discharged. Kate can barely walk, her bruised hipbones throbbing with every step, and he can see how it grates on her nerves, but she doesn't fight him when he wraps a tentative arm around her upper body to take some of the weight off.
She gives her statement, solemn and professional, and Gates is radiating with concern by the time Kate reaches the end of the horrific tale of surgical incisions that were never put to good use and a single beating with a steel pipe that finally broke her. There isn't much they can do tonight. Nieman and Tyson are in holding, guarded heavily, and they won't walk away unscathed this time, he'll do everything in his power to make sure of it, but neither will his wife.
Gates touches his shoulder when the two of them rise from the chairs in her office to leave, gives him nothing more than a silent, knowing look that he nods in response to before walking with Beckett out into the hall, towards the elevators. Her face doesn't crumble until the doors slide shut, but she valiantly bites back the emotion, pinning her lip with her teeth, blinking away the tears that never stay at bay for long.
They had done an intensive exam at the hospital, an ultrasound of her abdomen and pelvis, and there was no permanent diagnosis, but as far as the doctors could currently see, her ovaries had suffered severe bruising and internal bleeding.
"It doesn't look good," the doctor had said, trying to be optimistic, but the regretful sympathy in his eyes had said it all.
She keeps it together through the elevator ride, through their unsteady walk through the lobby, even on the ride home in his town car. But once they step inside the elevator of his building, she slumps against the wall and presses the back of her hand to her mouth. It isn't enough to conceal the sob that rips its way from her throat.
He slaps his hand to the emergency stop button and catches her before she can drop to the floor, cradles her against his chest as she falls apart.
"They were going to have your eyes," she chokes, clutching to the back of his coat as the force of her cries shake them both and his heart shrivels into a broken thing beating ragged and sharp against his ribcage. "I wanted them to have your eyes."
Castle buries his face in her hair, kisses the band-aid covered flesh beneath her ear, and allows his own tears to soak her skin.
Kelly Nieman puts up one hell of a fight, hiring the best lawyers money could buy for both herself and Jerry, but it isn't enough. The evidence can't be disposed of this time, no trick cards are left to be played, and the charges stick. Nieman and Tyson are in custody and they aren't going anywhere.
The news brings him relief, but it's short lived, nothing worth celebrating. The damage has been done.
Kate is on bed rest for the next few days and he stays with her, grateful when she wants him with her. The fear that she'll push him away always exists, even though she's proven time and time again over the last few years how strong they've grown together rather than apart, but he knows her, knows how she deals with pain of both the physical and emotional variety, and that usually includes recovering in isolation. But in this… they heal together.
She's able to walk without wincing within the next week, the bruises spanning from one bone of her hip to the other fading from a violent purple to a gentle green before her flesh returns to its natural shade of a golden tan that's still fading from the summer. The cuts on her face mend, the bright red lacerations easing into a pale pink, until eventually, the incision marks are nothing more than thin lines of rarely noticed raised skin only he can still find with the tips of his fingers.
They return to the doctor twice in the month that follows, but there's no hope in her eyes when the specialist checks her healed body for change. Disappointment still shimmers and her fingers still tighten around his when she's told, once again, that due to her most recent injury and other common factors that come with her age and medical history, she will likely never be able to conceive.
"I'm sorry," she had whispered to him after the doctor had given her the typical sympathetic nod and walked outside to allow them a moment alone. "I'm sorry there won't be a next time."
"Don't you dare," he had growled, but his bruised heart had sunken deep into his stomach as he rose from the chair in the corner of the room and came to stand in between her knees where she sat on the crinkling paper of the cushioned examination table. "Kate."
Her hands had curled in the opened edges of his jacket, hanging on to him, and he curved his palms over her slumped shoulders.
"I don't need a next time," he confessed, squeezing the delicate bones of her arms. "I just need you, do you understand that?"
Her lashes had been wet and her eyes had misted, but she had used her grip on his jacket to steady herself as she stood from the table and lifted on her toes to kiss his mouth. Sorrow had stained her lips; he kissed her until she tasted like the hope he still felt.
"Beckett?" he calls, poking his head inside the bathroom. She's curled up on the tile floor, her knees pulled to her chest while she rests against the wall next to the open toilet bowl.
"Castle," she groans in annoyance. "Get out."
He huffs and steps inside, watching her eyes roll before they flutter closed. She had bolted from the bed only fifteen minutes ago, startling him awake in the early morning hour with the quick jerk of movement, and through his clouded senses, he had heard the sounds of her sickness echoing off the bathroom walls.
"Was it something you ate last night?"
"I don't know," she mutters, wrapping her arms around her waist. "I've been feeling nauseous all week."
"I know, you didn't even want your coffee yesterday," he murmurs, crouching down next to her and easing his hand beneath one of hers, splaying it across her upset abdomen. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were pregnant."
Her eyes slit open at the words, and for a split second, he's worried he's hit a nerve. It's been months since she was diagnosed as infertile and they rarely talk about it, the discussion of children off the table completely, but she doesn't look wounded.
"Should I take a test?" she whispers, as if she's afraid to utter the words, as if she's afraid to hope for it. He is too. "I mean, we both know I'm not, but could it hurt to take one?"
He's out the door and strolling to the nearest pharmacy within the next hour, filling his small basket with three different brands of pregnancy tests and a bottle of medication for an upset stomach, just in case.
"There has to be something wrong here," she mumbles when each of the three thin plastic sticks reveal their results. All three tests display different variations of the same positive pink plus sign. "I know the doctors always said there was a slim chance, but I can't be pregnant, right?"
"We'll schedule an appointment with the specialist," he assures her, squeezing the back of her neck when she drops her forehead to the rounded edge of his shoulder.
"I just - what if I am and I can't carry it to term?" Kate breathes, staring up at him with wide hazel eyes flooded with worry. "Shit, Castle, I never should have insisted we stop using protection, this is all my-"
"Shh, Kate, whether you're really pregnant or not, we'll make it okay," he promises her, but his own stomach is twisted in knots, afraid of both potential possibilities. She could be pregnant, and due to her condition, she may lose the baby in the early stages and that kind of loss… god, it would devastate her in a way he can't even fathom to think about. But if she isn't pregnant at all, the small flicker of hope he can see hiding in the depths of her irises dying out under yet another smother of disappointment will devastate him too.
The doctor is able to squeeze her in for a brief appointment the next day.
They learn she's two months pregnant, the tiny life cushioned inside her stomach healthy and growing without complication, and he collapses onto the examination bed beside his wife at the grainy but distinguishable image of their baby on an ultrasound screen.
There may be a next time after all.