Beckett and Esposito entered the ER at a run. They found Castle almost immediately. He was alone on a wooden bench, leaning his head against a wire rack of latex gloves and neatly sealed packs of gauze. The other visitors were giving him a wide berth.
"Castle!" Beckett called. He didn't look so bad. A little out of it, but who wouldn't be? It wasn't until they drew nearer that she realized the blood on his earlobe was just a precursor to the streak on his neck and his hands. Even his shoes. "Castle," she said again as she knelt in front of him and placed a hand on his arm, trying to ignore the stiffness of the maroon fabric that shouldn't have been so dark across the shoulders and at his cuffs. "Hey, look at me." She moved her hand to his cheek and turned it toward her. "Castle!"
He jolted slightly and turned his face toward her, his eyes finally gaining a bit of focus.
"Kate?"
"Hey," she answered with a smile. "You okay?"
Castle shuddered and ran a hand through his hair, wincing as it caught in a tangle, pulling free a few strands flecked in brownish red. "He, uh...he saved me," Castle said.
"Way I hear it, you did the saving here, bro," Esposito said. His voice was low and breathy, his eyes red-rimmed and puffy.
"Maybe," Castle muttered. "He's in surgery right now..."
Beckett moved to sit next to him on the bench. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders, once again trying to ignore everything that was wrong. Esposito stood, shuffling his weight from foot to foot. With a cough, he caught Beckett's eye. Do you need me here? His look said. Can I go?
Beckett nodded almost imperceptibly and turned her attention back to Castle as Esposito disappeared around a corner.
"It should be me in there," he said. His voice was far away.
"Castle-"
He shook his head, silencing her objection and reached into the gap between the rack of supplies and the bench. When his hand emerged, it held his own kevlar vest. A streak of red slashed across it, as if some overzealous copy editor had decided the word WRITER didn't really need a T or an E, after all.
"I don't understand."
Castle tapped his finger next to the I. She leaned forward and squinted until she saw it - right next to a lone red spot (Ryan's thumbprint, she thought before she could stop herself) - a small dimple in the vest's outer fabric that seemed to turn the letter into a sick lowercase.
"Castle, that 's nothing," Beckett said. "It could be from anything - a pebble that got kicked up somewhere, or-"
"He stepped right in front of me. Just before it happened. I was-"
"Castle," Beckett said. "That's not possible. The angle alone...and these are bullet-proof vests,"
"Bullet-resistant, you know that," he interrupted. "Ryan definitely does."
"Castle, stop," Beckett said, almost hating herself for the touch of edge that creeped out at the man responsible for dragging one of her detectives out of harm's way. "Are there armor-piercing bullets? Yes. Did our shooter have them? It sure looks like it. But - ignoring everything else - do you know what kind of ammunition it would take it go through two layers of kevlar and still be intact to hit the next person in line?"
"Do you?" Castle asked.
His words threw her. Quietly she stared at him before turning away.
"What's done is done," she said. "We can't rewrite the past or wish it away or wake up from it. All we can do is hope and pray for the best."
He nodded and leaned into her, holding her hand in the quiet moment. He barely noticed when Esposito returned with a janitor in tow. It was only when Esposito called his name - twice - that he looked up.
"Ed here says there's a locker room with a shower in the basement, if you want to use it." Castle stared numbly at him until Esposito reached out a hand. "Come on, bro. Let's get you cleaned up."
The basement was a dark place with cement floors and walls. Pipes snaked along the ceilings, and the rumble of an industrial dish washer could be heard well before they passed the door to the steamy, damp room where a handful of workers dumped trays, sprayed pots and pans and fed them into the stainless steel machine.
The locker room - if you could call it that - felt small. Barely big enough for Castle and Esposito to stand in. A handful of lockers lined one wall, some padlocked, some not, and a folding chair sat in a corner beneath a rod that held a few jackets hanging limply from wire hangers. Beyond them were two toilet stalls, a urinal and one shower. A claustrophobic hole in the wall lined with tile and separated by a vinyl curtain.
Esposito left, and Castle stripped, draping his clothes over the folding chair. He was careful with his shirt. There was a part of him that wanted to rip it off, giving not a thought for the buttons or fabric, and throw it into the trashcan. But he couldn't. Because, sure, maybe the shirt was ruined with stains that would never come out, but he'd seen some amazing feats at the hands of his cleaners. It was stubborn, maybe it was stupid, but he clung to that shirt, refusing to give up hope. Because once he started down that path, he didn't know if he'd be able to stop. He had to believe that everything would be okay.
In the shower, the cold water stung like needles as it hit his skin. A hand pump full of green goo jutted out from the wall. Combination shampoo/body wash. He gave the lever a few pushes and watched as the soap squirted into his palm. For a moment he watched it drip down his fingers in slimy streaks and felt like a creature from the B-movies he watched as a child. With a shake of his head, he pushed the thoughts away and rubbed his hands together until the soap morphed into a surprisingly thick white lather.
He closed his eyes and brought the foam to his face. It smelled faintly of mint and aloe and was oddly comforting as it washed over him. With the water finally warm, he stuck his head into its stream, letting the drops wash away the soap and grime. He pumped more of the soap into his palm and started on his hair. It was stiff at first, but as he ducked his head under the stream and massaged the soap into his scalp the task became easier. He was beginning to feel almost human again when he opened his eyes.
A dollop of suds had curled around his wasn't a pure white like shaving cream. It wasn't dyed a shade of pink befitting a piece of cotton candy fluff - either he could have handled, though one would have been a much more comical discovery. This was shades of a rusty brown that slowly devolved into a frothy puddle before swirling down the drain.
It looked exactly like what he imagined dried blood reconstituted in soapy water would look like. Ryan's blood.
His hands shook, and a queasy feeling began to overtake him. Gasping for breath, he leaned forward, cranking the handle of the shower all the way to the right and stood unmoving, his hands pressed firmly against the wall as icy drops of water fell around him. Shaking, he concentrated on one tiny breath at a time until the sick feeling began to fade. He'd been around death before. Plenty of bodies at the morgue - not to mention bloody, gruesome crime scenes themselves. But this was different. This was his friend's blood circling down the drain.
The door to the locker room swung open and Esposito's voice filled the small room.
"Yo, Castle. How's it going in there?"
"Fine," he answered. He tried to keep his voice as normal as possible despite the shiver that had overtaken him. He turned the faucet back to the left and waited for the water to warm again.
"I got a towel and a scrub top for you," Esposito continued. "Best we could do on short notice. Want us to call your place? Have Alexis or your mom bring a change of clothes?"
"No!" Castle exclaimed as he stuck his head out from behind the curtain. "Do you have any idea how much that would freak them out? Scrub's fine." He smiled. A fake smile, but a smile nonetheless and Esposito didn't seem to notice the difference. "Maybe I'll write about doctors next."
"Yeah, okay. And I've got a bag here for your other shirt, if you want."
"That's great, Espo, thanks."
"You okay to find your way back upstairs?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'll find you guys."
Esposito nodded and left. As the door swung closed, Castle turned back to the shower. Keeping his eyes on the tiled wall in front of him, he pumped the soap dispenser one more time, ran his hands across his body, rinsed and left the confining space behind. Sure enough, a folded beach towel and a plastic-wrapped hospital shirt were sitting on the chair near the lockers.
The thin towel had a mustachioed man and his race car emblazoned across its middle. Someone had written the name "Ed Mitchell" near the hem with permanent marker in small block letters. A sarcastic comment on NASCAR fans tried to enter his mind, but a memory pulled ahead and pushed it away.
"Ed here says there's a locker room with a shower in the basement, if you want to use it."
Ed was the hospital janitor who didn't have to tell them about this locker room for workers who didn't have access to the ER and surgical staffs' shower rooms. He was the man who certainly didn't have to loan Castle a soft towel that smelled of floral home detergent rather than a scratchy hospital towel. Who cared if he spent his free time watching cars drive in circles? Castle quickly pushed all those thoughts away and focused on drying off and getting dressed.
Most of his clothes were okay to wear again, and when he was in them, he turned to the wrapped shirt Esposito had left. A sticker in the corner had a barcode and price list of $15. He wondered if Ed had "liberated" the shirt from a storage closet or if he or someone else had picked up the tab. Castle vowed to find out as he tugged at the plastic, stretching it until it gave way with tear. The synthetic fabric felt strange against his fingers. Almost like a cheap dress shirt that had been overly starched. The creases from where it had been folded stubbornly hung on as he shook the shirt loose and pulled it over his head, but he didn't care. At least it was clean.
Finally, he turned to his own shirt. Carefully, he lifted it with his thumb and forefinger, held it far from his body and depositednit in the bag Esposito had left. He couldn't bring himself to touch it further.
He had almost made it back to the ER waiting room when he heard a woman's voice call out. He stopped just shy of turning the corner, peering around it instead.
"Javier!" Jenny Ryan ran through the doors and straight into the arms of Esposito. For a moment, he looked shocked at the contact from a woman who never seemed to think too much of him, but soon he brought his arms up and held her tightly. An almost physical weight could be seen lifting from each of them. Castle watched as he led her to a row of plastic chairs, sat down with her and began to explain what had happened, never once letting go of her hand.
Castle steeled himself and stepped around the corner. She didn't notice him at first - maybe it was the medical top - but as soon as she registered his face, she was out of her chair. She threw her arms around him, squeezing tight as she kissed his cheek. He could feel the tears clinging to her eyelashes.
"Thank you for getting him out of there," she whispered. Castle didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to do, so he just stood there, trying to exude a comforting presence and feeling like he was failing miserably. Thankfully for him, Beckett showed up next, balancing two cups in each hand.
"Hey guys, I picked up some coffee," she said. She had a look Castle recognized. That one that said "I'm barely holding on, and to counteract that, I've entered damage control for everybody else." He expected more coffee, magazines and crossword puzzles to appear throughout the night. Castle and Esposito each took a cup as Jenny moved her round of hugs Beckett's way and graciously accepted the third. For a moment, they sipped in silence, but soon the ER was inundated with people. Ryan's parents. His sisters, a couple cousins and their families. Not to mention a rotating sea of uniformed officers, coming and going in shifts to pay their respects. The crowd grew so large that hospital staff moved them to a private waiting area on the surgery wing.
Castle sat in a corner, flanked by a ficus on one side and Beckett on the other, like she knew he was trying to hide from the attention he had received from Jenny writ large. But even given all the people, the room was oddly quiet. So quiet that when his phone buzzed, a handful of people jolted.
Castle gave an apologetic grimace and excused himself into the hallway. The caller ID said "home" and as soon as answered, Alexis voice, panicked and high pitched sounded in his ear.
"Dad! We heard on the news Ryan got shot! Is everything OK? Are you OK?"
"Sweetheart, I'm fine," he answered. He didn't feel fine, but he kept his voice calm. As Alexis continued to pepper him with questions, a man squeezed by him and entered the waiting room. If his demeanor hadn't screamed doctor, the white lab coat and full set of scrubs that matched Castle's top left no doubt.
Castle listened to her questions a little longer and tried to answer them, all the while staring into the waiting room. He wanted to be in there to hear firsthand what was being said, but he couldn't just hang up on his daughter. Through the window, he watched the two faces he knew he could trust the most. Beckett was concentrating, taking in every word and filing it away. Esposito was expressionless, which was an odd comfort. Castle figured even he wouldn't be able to hide his feelings if bad news were coming. He turned his attention back to the phone.
"Did they catch the guy?"
"Honey, I don't know. I came to the hospital with Ryan and nobody's said anything about it yet."
Had they caught the guy? He hadn't given the suspect much thought since Ryan had been hit, and now found himself wanting to know more than ever. The doctor came out of the room and gave Castle a nod as he continued down the hallway. Beckett followed him out a moment later, and Castle rushed to wrap up his call with Alexis and crammed the phone back in his pocket.
"What's going on? Is everything okay?" he winced a little bit, realizing just how much like Alexis he sounded, and how being bombarded with questions had made him feel. But Beckett took it in stride.
"He's still in surgery-"
"Still in surgery? Well what was the doc doing out here?"
"That wasn't one of his surgeons," Beckett answered as she ran a hand down his sleeve and let her fingers curl slightly around his pinky. "He said it could be another 12 or 13 hours before we know anything, and they'd keep in touch with us over the phone if anyone wants to go home for a little while." He was about to object to the notion when Beckett carried on. "I think it's probably a good idea."
"A good idea? Why?!"
"Castle, look at yourself. You're a wreck!"
"I took a shower, I'm fine,"
"Castle." She took both of his hands in hers and stared into his eyes. "Let me take you home. You can see Alexis, get some rest, and if anything changes you can be back in a flash. Please?"
Castle dropped his eyes to the floor and nodded. They said a quick goodbye to the room - Ryan's mother squeezed his hand far tighter than he thought her age would have allowed - nodded at Esposito, and grabbed his bag before allowing Beckett to lead him out of the hospital and to a taxi waiting on the street. When she had called, he had no idea, but he was mildly surprised when she slid into the seat next to him.
"Just making sure you get there," she said as she patted his knee before taking hold of his hand again. They drove a few minutes in silence until Castle couldn't bear it any longer.
"You catch the guy?"
Beckett pursed her lips and looked down before answering.
"He didn't make it out."
"He's dead?"
"Yeah."
It probably shouldn't have been a comforting thought. Somebody - probably one of his friends - had to carry the burden of killing a man. And With no murder suspect to take to court, there were families who would never see justice for their loved ones - not the way it was supposed to be, anyway. But at the same, time Castle couldn't help but feel a little bit glad. An eye for an eye, after all.
"How many other people were there?"
Beckett looked at him quizically.
"What do you mean?"
"There was all that gunfire," Castle said. "No way it just came from one guy." Beckett nodded as if she were just remembering a piece of a riddle.
"Right. He was the only shooter-"
"Not possible."
"But he had other weapons set up on a remote and timer. They were all firing blanks, but we couldn't have known that."
"But Ryan..."
Beckett drew a breath. There was a slight shake behind it.
"He was the only one with live ammo. He took out...he fired, I don't know how he chose, but he fired and everything else was just to distract us. It was actually somebody from Port Authority that got him." The words tumbled out in a ramble that betrayed the exhaustion and heartache Beckett had been working so hard to hide, and Castle wrapped an arm around her shoulder and held her close for the rest of the ride home.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For what?"
"Never asking how you were doing."
Beckett let herself be drawn into him. She said nothing but didn't deny feeling guilty for not noticing that one of her detectives had been shot. Not that she could have or should have in that particular moment, but that knowledge did nothing to make her feel better. When they arrived at Castle's building she slid out of the cab and gave him a hug - different from the others he had received that night - before getting back in and heading to her apartment.
