A/N: The response to the first chapter was wonderful! Thank you to everyone! *Insert big, awesome Castle Fandom hug here*. Review and make me smile, please.
. . .
The ambulance flies through traffic, weaving through the intertwined streets of New York City, but she wants it to move faster.
All she can do is watch the scene play out before her; the frenzied beeping of the heart rate monitor, Lanie's voice as she barks orders to the less experienced EMTs and the complete and utter lack of noise from the usually annoyingly talkative writer. His face is pale; a sickly grayish blue color. An oxygen mask covers most of his face and she can imagine him sitting up and throwing it off of his face with an inherited dramatic flair and saying, "Just kidding!" and she would yell at him, then wrap him in her arms and threaten him so that he would never leave her again.
Beckett is yanked from her reverie by the sound of loud, frenzied beeping coming from the monitor, followed by a desolate, continuous whine.
Oh-
He's flat lining.
All of the air in her lungs vanishes and adrenaline burns a jagged trail through her veins. Someone has to do something; someone has to do something-because she can't do anything.
"Lanie-," she cries, "help him, please!"
Lanie doesn't even glance at Beckett; she just entwines her hands together starts chest compressions. "Come on, Castle," Lanie mumbles, eyeing the heart monitor.
Kate runs a bloody hand through her hair before she pulls it back and glares at the fluid. Beckett slides forward, maneuvering around the medical team until she finds Rick's hand and grasps it firmly, like it could anchor him here. As the blood dripping from his chest onto the floor slides around her shoes, Kate closes her eyes and begs to anyone that's listening to save the man she loves.
. . .
When they finally, finally, get to the hospital, she follows the gurney until it disappears through the doors that lead to the operating room. She stares after him for a moment before hears a familiar voice call, "Lanie, how is he?"
Beckett turns to see Ryan and Esposito barreling towards them. Javier goes to his girlfriend and embraces her.
"Beckett?" Kate raises her head to look at the Irish detective. His voice is laced with concern.
"I'm fine," she says flatly, "where's the sniper?" The question surges up her throat with an anger she didn't expect.
Ryan and Esposito share a brief look.
"In the wind," Esposito replies firmly.
"What?!" She hisses.
"We sent out a team to canvas the cemetery and we're pulling surveillance footage from all the security cameras from the area," Ryan says.
"If this guy is smart enough to escape unscathed from a funeral full of cops then he's smart enough not to get caught on camera," Kate answers loudly.
Esposito walks over to the brunette detective and grabs her by the shoulders, "You can't think like that. We'll get this son of a bitch, but you cannot think about what we don't have." Beckett's mouth forms a tight line and glares at him until he takes a step back. She doesn't need this right now. What she needs is something that's going to tell her who shot her partner. Closing her eyes, she takes a few deep breaths and when she opens them again, she sees her father. Martha and Alexis are trailing behind him.
Oh.
Her dad moves to her quickly and wraps her in his arms, "Katie…"
"I'm okay, Dad." She wishes she wasn't. She wishes she had been quick enough, so that it could be her on the operating table. She would trade places with him in a heartbeat. But, really, did anyone have to have a bullet in their heart? Why can't everyone be safe?
Alexis' teary voice tears through the hallway, "Where's my dad?"
Beckett pulls back from her father to find Alexis and Martha staring at her expectantly. Kate barely knows how to calm herself down, how is she suppose to comfort these women who love him, too? Esposito notices Beckett's hesitance and says, "He's in surgery. We don't know anything yet."
Alexis turns into the circle of her grandmothers arms. Her body shakes as she cries silently. Martha's face is stained with tears as well.
The group migrates to a hallway lined with chairs and they all sit down. The only noises are Ryan and Esposito's phones chiming reminding them about their lack of information, the buzz of the hospital and the sound of Kate pacing up and down the hall.
"I'm going to go to the bathroom," Alexis says to her grandmother, wiping weakly at the layer of grime that the tears left behind.
Martha rubs the young woman's back and nods. "Alright, sweetheart."
When the younger redhead is out of sight, Martha looks up at Beckett. The woman seems to be completely oblivious to her surroundings. She's been walking back and forth through for at least an hour, wearing the same expression; a mixture of fear and desolation.
Finally, the actress breaks the silence. "Kate, darling, sit down. Pacing a hole through the floor is not going to help Richard," she says softly.
Beckett's chest constricts at the mention of his name because she can remember the way he can enter a room, smiling brightly, his eyes alight, the way his says 'Hi, I'm Richard Castle' with confidence emanating from every pore in his body-
It's too much.
Martha is looking at her expectantly, so she sits down next to her.
"I don't know what to say."
The detective turns to Martha, her brow furrowed slightly in a silent question. The older woman inclines her head toward the space her granddaughter had occupied minutes ago.
"I can't tell her that everything is going to be okay, that she's going to see her father again because, well, I don't know the answer. I just don't know," the actress finishes with a flourish of the hand that lacks its usual vitality, her voice breaking and a fresh wave of tears shimmering in her blue eyes.
Both of them are at a loss for words, so the two women envelope each other in a hug; and it feels so motherly, something that Beckett hasn't been connected with in such a long time, that a tear she cannot hold back slips from her green iris. Castle has always been the best with words, anyway.
. . .
Sometime later- an hour, maybe two; she hasn't been counting- a young, blonde woman in scrubs walks around the corner. The first couple of times this happened, the entire team jumped out of their seats, eyes wide and hoping that there would be some news. The employee would usually be looking for another family or just walking by and the anxiety just continued to increase, so it's nothing unusual when the woman nears them.
"Family of Richard Castle?"
His family, from the precinct and from home, surrounds the doctor.
"How is he?" Alexis demands, and the blonde woman finds seven pairs of eyes staring back at her, all of them radiating the same question.
"Mr. Castle is still in surgery. Dr. Kovacks is still trying to remove the bullet; it grazed his lung and lodged itself in his heart. It's a very complex surgery. Mr. Castle has lost a lot of blood. He's required multiple transfusions."
Martha gasps, struggling to take in all of the information. "Oh, God, is he going to be alright?"
The doctor's face is masked with a well constructed expression of pity and apprehension. "It's too soon to tell. If he survives the surgery he will most likely live. The operation will take another couple of hours at most. Maybe home of you should head home and-,"
"Not a chance in hell," Esposito says, moving back defiantly to sit in his chair.
The woman simply nods, promising that there will be another update soon and leaves. As everyone else returns to their seats, Beckett remains standing. She is so trapped in the thought that he is still alive that she doesn't notice that her hands are shaking.
. . .
"I need coffee. Does anyone want anything?"
A chorus of 'no, thank you' spills from everyone's lips, so Kate begins her search for the cafeteria. Despite the alarming amount of signs telling her where it is, it feels like she's wandering in circles. She cannot help but think that if Castle were with her now he would make a game out of this-a mix between a scavenger hunt and something completely his own. It makes her smile.
Her mind wandering, she can't help but think that this feeling of confusion and loss of direction will linger if he doesn't make it. What if he doesn't make it?
Trying to remember the doctor's words, she reminds herself that there is a chance. She repeats the words in her mind like a prayer: there is a chance. They have a chance.
After eventually coming to her destination and getting a much needed cup of coffee, Kate heads toward the elevators.
"Kate?"
She turns, and Josh Davidson can tell by the diminished look in her eyes that something is wrong.
"Kate, what's wrong?" He comes toward her, his attractive features laced with concern.
Oh, right, she forgot that he works at this hospital. "Josh, I…"
He rests his hands on her shoulders and she tries not to get irritated by the way he examines her like she's a patient. He uses his hand to cradle her chin, tilting her head towards him.
"Is that…blood in your hair? And on your hands?"
She slips out of his grasp and breathes around the heavy sadness wrapped around her ribcage. She unconsciously raises a hand to touch her hair, but she sees the red stains on her hands and folds her arms across her chest.
"Yeah…Castle, he, uh…" she doesn't want to say it out loud, because that makes it real. It means that he actually might die today. "Castle got shot today. At Montgomery's funeral," she rasps. The feeling of Josh's arms around her startles her. Constrains her. She hates it.
"I'm sorry, Kate. I know he means a lot to you." She can hear the disappointment in Josh's voice, and she can't tell if it's because Rick got shot or because Castle means so much to her.
She pulls away from him and before her brain has even processed the words, they're out of her mouth, "We're done, Josh."
The doctor looks taken aback, "Kate, you're going through a hard time. We can talk about this later, but right now I think-,"
"Stop," she interrupts sternly, "I know what I'm doing. I'm done. I can't do this anymore."
Josh opens his mouth like he isn't done talking, but she is, so Beckett turns around and walks away. She wishes that it didn't have to happen this way, but she knows who she wants now. It had to be done.
. . .
After a trip to the bathroom to scrub away his blood from her hands and attempt to scrape it from her hair, Kate returns to the hallway where her friends are waiting.
She sits down and places her elbows on her knees, then rests her head in her hands. She's so tired. Montgomery is dead.
Dead.
The thought hasn't really sunk in yet, not even after the funeral. It is going to be awful walking into the precinct and not seeing him working diligently at his desk.
Rick could be dead soon, too.
Forcing her fatal thoughts as far back into her mind as she can, Kate closes her eyes and lets everything except the pounding of her heart melt away.
. . .
"His blood pressure is dropping! We need to recover the bullet."
"I know, I know. There's so much blood-sent an intern down to the blood bank."
"Doctor, I think I see the bullet. I might be able to-,"
"He's going into V-fib! Get the defibrillator-,"
"Oh, God, there's so much blood, we need more suction."
"Everybody, just stop what you're doing…"
. . .
"Are you here for Mr. Castle?"
Her head snaps up and there is a tall man with a strong jaw, about her father's age standing in the middle of the hall carrying a chart in his hand.
"Yes, yes, what's going on?" She asks, ignoring the desperation in her voice.
"Well, the surgery was difficult. His heart stopped twice. He's a very lucky man. He's going to need a lot of physical therapy, but he pulled through."
Exclamations of happiness echo around her, like a collective sigh of relief. A breath is finally released, and tears of joy spill from her eyes freely.
