A Season in Hell


"Kate!"

Beckett jerked as if struck, the sound of her name bouncing through the quiet waiting room. Alexis was still there, despite her grandmother's constant nudging to go home, and Martha's mouth actually dropped open at the - at the indignity.

She was sure that's what it was.

Kate felt it too. How wrong it was to speak so loudly, to show off how grief hadn't touched you.

Josh was striding through the open doorway, and Kate hastily got to her feet, holding him off even as he came. "Kate."

"Josh-"

"Why the hell didn't you call me? I get a page from the ED about a cop and I go down there and it's your tag-along-"

"What?" she croaked.

"Richard Castle. I - shouldn't be telling you this. Violates HIPPA-"

"You were the one on call?" she got out, a cry coming out of her mouth. She saw Martha heading for them and she quickly grabbed Josh's arm, steering him towards the door and out.

Couldn't do this in front of his mother. Alexis. Couldn't.

Wasn't right. Felt very wrong. Everything felt wrong since she'd pressed her hand to his blood.

"Why didn't you call me?" he hissed. "I'm working on him and all I can think about is you and if you're safe, if you've been taken to another hospital-"

"What about Castle?" she cried out, clutching his arms.

"I don't care about Castle, here, Kate. I care about you. I got no call, nothing from you to say you're safe, to say don't worry. You knew I was covering the ED today. Not even a text?"

She had forgotten. Emergency Department was just the hospital, just Josh still in town, not - it hadn't clicked.

Everything had gone out of her head but Castle.

"You did the surgery?" she asked tightly.

"No. I did an emergency - no. No. You tell me why you didn't even bother to let me know."

She could see it on his face now. How had she missed it before? For all his bleeding heart compassion for third world cleft palates and hare lips, for epidemics and earthquake relief, Josh had none for Castle.

None.

Worse. Worse, Josh seemed to dismiss Castle outright. Tag-along.

"Kate." He snapped his fingers in front of her face. "Don't do that to me. You stay right here and talk to me. I deserve some answers. I've been calling you-"

"My phone died," she got out finally, frowning somewhere past his shoulder. She'd been sitting inertly for the last hour, no alerts, no news, just staring at the wall and absorbing his daughter's icy displeasure. She was numb down to her bones. "My phone died. I - have you seen Castle?"

"Would you stay on point?" he yelled. "I'm talking about you and me. If you can't be bothered to let me know-"

"I can't do this," she said stiffly, holding up her hands to ward him off. She found herself taking a step back, remembering suddenly how she'd told Castle one foot out the door.

"You better do this," Josh snapped. "I'm tired of this casual-"

"Me too," she said, nodding. "I'm tired. Tired of this." She gestured slowly between them. "Castle is important to me. You didn't come find me until-" She glanced at her watch and sighed. "Until you were off shift. You couldn't reach my phone, you apparently couldn't reach the Twelfth either, because they would have gotten word to me-"

"Right."

Kate snapped a glance to him, but bitterness lined his face. She took a breath, steel in her spine. "My partner has been shot. I don't know if he's going to make it through the night." Her fists clenched, heart twisting as the words left her mouth. "I can't deal with you right now."

"Deal with me."

"Can we just be done?" she said. Badly. She knew she was doing this very badly now, but she couldn't make herself care. "We tried. Didn't work. We're not cut out for this."

Josh's face clouded with thunder. He turned sharply on his heel and strode off, but then he jerked back around and pointed his finger at her. "You. You are-" His nostrils flared but he didn't say it, whatever he'd been about to say. He clenched his fists and shook his head. "I won't let you do this to me. Make me the bad guy. You want us to be over, Kate? Fine. We've been over. I came back for you. I came back for you. Lives - you can count the cost in people's lives. And that's on you."

And then he left.

She remembered how he cut short his trip in Haiti. She remembered the Dominican and the flight out of Myanmar, the clinic he didn't put on in Guatemala. Lives.

When she let out a breath and turned around, intending to go back to the waiting room - where she belonged and didn't belong - Alexis was standing there, arms crossed over her chest.

"That him?" Alexis said, her jaw set. But Kate wasn't stupid. She saw the blue filling the girl's eyes. Tag-along. She'd heard that too.

"No," Kate answered. "That's not him."

Not any more. Not really ever.


Beckett had sunk into a kind of no-man's land, zoned out, for the last hour. Josh's arrival had shaken her, but rather than rile her up, it had served only to sink her deeper. Nothing penetrated.

But there was always a breaking point. There had to be one now, here, something had to give.

It was Martha, apparently. She cleared her throat and Beckett glanced up, her gaze slow to focus. When it did, she saw Martha stroking Alexis's hair over her shoulder, combing through it gently, maternally. "You do him no good like this," she said.

For an instant, Beckett thought Martha was talking to her.

And then Alexis tried to shrug her off. "Gram-"

"Alexis," Martha said, a kind of warning, ungentle, already moving to stand. "Shower, dinner, some sleep." She held her hands out to the girl.

Alexis took one but shook her head. "I'm not hungry." She flashed a look to Beckett, but Kate kept her eyes averted, pretended she wasn't listening. She had no say in this. Any of it. She couldn't even offer advice, because she still hadn't been allowed back to see him - she didn't know if Alexis could leave with a clear conscience. Neither woman had shared the details of their fifteen minutes, and Beckett had been left in the dark.

She wasn't sure if that had been a unanimous decision on Martha and Alexis's parts, or if a doctor or nurse had made some kind of official family-only decree. Either way, Beckett felt it the same.

Jagged. Rough.

Her breaking point was close. She knew it; she could sense its approach. It was going to be ugly.

"No, I'm not hungry either," Martha sighed. "Of course not. But sleep. It's late. We'll need rest for tomorrow."

"I'm not sure how much I can sleep," Alexis hedged, but she was on her feet now, standing undecidedly before the chairs. "What if he needs me?"

"You know he'll be in and out of it for a while," Martha soothed. "And visiting hours don't start until tomorrow at ten. Then we can really see him. Stay in there with him."

"But I could - I could just be here," Alexis said. Her voice was very small. She sounded like Kate felt.

"I know, darling," Martha murmured. "But it doesn't do any good."

Alexis shot another look to Kate, and then crossed her arms over her stomach like she was trying to hold everything in. "I don't want to be away for long."

Beckett closed her fists in her lap and took a breath, let it out again slowly with something like relief. They would go; Martha would take her home, take care of her. It wasn't okay, but it was progress.

"I'll set an alarm," Martha said. "We'll come back early." Martha tugged and the girl came, hesitating but doing as she'd been told. Martha ushered Alexis towards the open door of the waiting room, smoothing her hands down Alexis's arms.

As they left, Martha shot Kate a staying look with no small amount of command. So of course Beckett absolutely couldn't leave.

Not that she possibly would. But now she had orders. Be the one to stay.

She should search for a phone cord. That was paramount, with the case ongoing and the boys working through the night, no doubt. Time to get up, get out of the chair, out of the waiting room now that the eyes of his family weren't on her, judging, finding her lacking.

She stood and paused in the open doorway, watching until the elevator opened and swallowed the two women. When she finally stepped out into the hall, it felt like passing through cold wet cobwebs, dewed by night terror, clammy fingers brushing across her face.

She found it hard to breathe. She was moving from waiting room to pacing purgatory, that was all.

Beckett stalked the long hallway back and forth for two turns until she could finally push herself past the first junction and down to the nurse's station. It dawned on her as she approached that she was still in her dress uniform, but it immediately garnered attention. The middle-aged woman standing before one of the computer stations stopped what she was doing and came around.

"Are you okay, ma'am?"

Beckett blinked, slow to comprehend, and then she held up her pone. "I was wondering if I could borrow a charger? I need it for work," she tried. Her voice sounded strange. Raw.

"Of course. Janey, see if you can rustle up something. We're always finding cords and stuff left around here." The nurse was friendly, straight-forward, not a lot of fuss. "We'll get you charged right up."

"While - while I'm here?" Kate started. "Are there any updates on Richard Castle?"

There was a fast glance between the nurses and Beckett felt distinctly the stiffness in her dress uniform and where the blood had dried against her thighs. She should have changed first. She should have gone home herself and showered and gotten a handle on all this - all this terror rolling in her guts.

"Okay, ma'am," the nurse said quietly, taking her arm. She reached for Beckett's phone and slid it from Kate's fingers without her even protesting. "Leave this here. Janey found a charger. Janey?"

The phone was passed over the nurses' counter and a smiling woman took it; Beckett could see her plugging in the phone. The screen lit with the red of the low battery.

"All right, Officer-"

"Detective," she croaked. "Beckett."

"Detective Beckett?" Another look around that Kate couldn't identify, but Janey gave a short nod in return and now Beckett was being led farther away. "All right, Detective Beckett, if you'll come with me-"

"Where?" she said, her heart flipping strangely. "Where are we going?"

"Just to the staff bathroom. It's okay."

"No, I'm-"

"I'll scrounge you up some scrubs - pants at least. Walking around here like that." The nurse was shaking her head even as she led Beckett down the hall and through a doorway. Glass windows on either side showed the kitchen table, a fridge, and Beckett realized she was in a staff break room.

"I couldn't possibly take-"

"Yes, you can. And when you change and clean up, I'll take you to his room."

Beckett stopped dead.

"While your phone is charging," the nurse said with a short nod. "I'll come get you when it's done - so whatever time that gives you. Good amount, I would think, seeing as how it was so dead."

She had to breathe to speak. "Thank you."

"I'll find you something to change into. Be right back."

Kate fumbled at the buttons of her dress jacket, her hands shaking, everything shaking.