It's the instant that the words Richard Castle hits her ear that every nerve ending in her body stands up on end, her body erupting with a fear and adrenaline that she's only felt a time or two before. She whips off the covers from her body and stands up. "What happened? Is he okay?"
"Mr. Castle was brought in just a while ago and your number was the only one we could find listed in our records."
"What's going on, Katie?" Josh asks, still half asleep, from the other side of the bed.
She's already ripping a pair of jeans up her bare legs, ignoring him to keep pressing the lady on the other end of the line for information. "Just tell me what happened to him." Kate demands, pressing the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she dresses herself in a mad haste, her movements flustered and jittery.
"Ma'am, I'm sorry. All I know is that he was brought in just a little bit ago and was rushed into surgery. That's all that I-" Kate cuts off the line and shoves her phone into her back pocket.
The bedside lamp clicks on from the side of the bed as Kate is pulling a hoodie over her head. "What's wrong, Kate?" Josh asks, having leaned over to her side of the bed.
"Josh, I have to go. Castle's in the hospital." She says, quickly scurrying about to gather up the effects she needs, then pulling on a pair of running shoes.
"Hospital? Did they tell you what happened?" He asks, pushing himself upright in her bed.
"I don't know, okay? I have to go." She says, stopping herself from rushing out the door to move over to the other side of the bed and press a hollow shell of a kiss to Josh's lips. Without another word, she grabs her badge and gun from the top of her dresser, clipping them to her waist on her way out of her bedroom.
"Call me if you need anything." Josh says, sounding as if he's trying to be as sincere as possible.
"Yeah," She tells him as an after thought and hastens to her door, flinging it open and closing it, not even bothering to lock it behind her.
Once down to the sidewalk, she jogs to the road and flags down the first taxi she can, serendipity showing her some good graces as it stops in front of her just as she sticks her hand out. The heavy-set, scruffy looking cabbie moves a toothpick around in his mouth as she jumps in the back seat. "595 Broome, please. Quick."
She slams the door to the cab and he takes off, going the agonizingly normal speed of traffic. She hates sitting still right now. Her blood is rushing through her constricted veins, her breath feels as if it's only going down to her throat, not satisfying her body's needs, that it can't make it passed the lump lodged in her between her heart and her throat. Kate digs out her phone again and starts going through her contacts. She looks below Castle's name to see if she has anyone else's number, but wants to smash her phone with the mere grip of her hand when she sees she doesn't have Martha's or Alexis' numbers.
When she looks up through the window again and sees that they've only made it a couple blocks, she leans forward through the center window. "Could you please speed it up? This is an emergency."
"Lady, this is the speed I go. Same speed as the guy in front of me, got it?" He says in a low, raspy voice.
Kate's angry ignites like a flash fire, burning quickly in her system. "Would flashing my badge motivate you a bit?" She warns him.
The cabbie looks over his shoulders, "You got one?"
With her badge already in hand, she slams it against the plexiglass of the window.
The cabbie eyes it and gives her a single nod of his overweight head. "Alright, officer. Always proud to help out one of New York's finest." He says and jerks into the other lane and gives the cab a considerable boost in speed.
"Thank you." She mutters as she's flung into the back of her seat. After what feels like mere minutes, the cab's breaks squeal outside of Castle's building. Flinging the door open before she feels the momentum of the cab come to a complete stop, she's jumping out onto the street, tossing the cabbie a set of bills through the passenger side window. "Keep the change."
The cab takes off, but she's already running into the building and galloping up the stairs, taking them two at a time, as fast as she can. Why doesn't she have their numbers? What is she going to tell them? How will they react? What can she even say? What is she even doing? She stomps out the questions and doubts starting to cloud her mind as she turns into the hall and speedwalks down to his door, knocking with enough force to make her knuckles sting with pain. She waits, too long of a moment with no answer and no sound of movement on the other side of his dark red door. Impatiently, she knocks again, longer and this time, with even more force.
She didn't even bother to check the time, but she knows they're both probably in bed.
Just as she's raising her hand to knock again, she sees a light come on from under the door, then a split second later, the door is opening with a tired looking Alexis answering the door. Kate's heart stops briefly at the sight of his daughter, fear and an odd sense of guilt washing through her cold-sweat stricken body. "Detective Beckett?" The redhead rasps.
"Alexis," Kate begins with a still pounding heart and takes a small step forward, "I just got a call about ten minutes ago. Your dad's in the hospital."
The teen's entire demeanor changes in an instant, from squinty-eyed and tired to wide awake and utterly stunned and terrified. "What?!"
Kate puts a hand on Alexis' shoulder and pushes herself into the loft. Kate feels intrusive, a sense of shame at having to tell her this, her heart seeming to be coiled like an angry serpent, achingly around her heart. The hand on Alexis' shoulder seems more to steady herself than is it to offer pointless comfort. "Alexis, I need you to get dressed and get Martha as fast as you can, okay?"
"No no, wait- What happened to my dad?! Is he okay?" Alexis demands with her eyes already brimming with tears.
"I don't know, Alexis." Kate answers in as soothing a voice as she can manage right now that only sounds too dishonest to her own ears, keeping her hand gripping tightly on the girl's arm.
"Katherine," A soft voice comes drifting down from the top of the stairs. Kate looks up and sees Martha clad in a silk robe with her hair held back with a headband. "What's going on, dear?"
"Alexis, go. I'll tell you both on the way." She tells the teen sternly and pushes her toward the stairs. Alexis keeps eyeing her tearfully until she reaches the stairs and quickly darts up them. Martha looks dumbfounded as Alexis greets her at the top of the stairs. Kate can tell that Alexis quietly explained the situation by Martha's shocked exclaim from down the hall. Kate pushes a few stray strands of hair back into her ponytail and closes the door. "What the hell are you doing in Vermont, Castle?"
The sound of her own voice seems to spark something in her mind, a switch telling her to investigate. Her eyes dart aimlessly around the loft, thinking he should have left a note for them at the very least. Her legs carry her clumsily to the island on the counter, where she finds a small yellow sticky-note, reading 'don't wait up- Dad', lying next to a set of empty tupperware containers next to the sink. He didn't tell them where he was going? She asks herself, reading the note left on the counter.
Just then, a set of footsteps comes stampeding down the stairs. Kate turns to see Alexis dressed in a pair of jeans and a grey Marlowe Prep sweatshirt, while Martha is in a thrown together outfit of blue silk pants and a blue top. "Did he tell you where he was going?" Kate asks with the note hanging from her index finger.
Alexis looks back and forth between her and the note with a pinched brow, her eyes heavy set with tears. "No, he was here when I left for school this morning."
"We had assumed he was helping you with a case and would be home late." Martha says in an emotion-laden voice.
He didn't call or text them all day either, something must've happened this morning. Kate pushes out a short breath and flexes her spine, steeling herself while taking quick measure of the situation. I need to get them to the hospital, she thinks. "Is your car parked here?" She looks between the two Castle's.
"Y-Yeah, but..." Alexis says while moving around into the kitchen, "I did notice that the keys to the Ferrari were missing from his office."
"Can we talk about this on our way to the hospital, please!" Martha demands from the foyer, emotion soiling her tone heavily.
"Here, the keys to the Lexus are still here." Alexis says from the other side of the kitchen, holding a set of keys in her hand.
Kate rushes toward the girl, grabbing the keys from her hand and rushing out the door, leaving the two other women to follow her, Martha closing the door behind them. As they take the stairs down to the parking garage of the building, Kate's heart still fluttering nervously about in her chest like a swarm of attacking moths, her mind starts racing with theories that she can't afford right now. She knows in the back of her mind she needs a level head, for all their sakes. This is Alexis' father, Martha's son, their family pillar on the line.
But this is also her partner. Her friend.
She shakes away her burning eyes just as she's shoving the metal door to the parking garage open, the metal push handle clanging and echoing loudly against the concrete walls and cement support pillars. Alexis points them to the car, parked against the wall between the wall and an empty space where his Ferrari should be. Kate takes the driver seat, leaving Alexis to get in the front and Martha in the back.
"Alexis, I need you to look up Brattleboro Memorial Hospital and get me the address." Kate says to her passenger and starts the car.
"Brattleboro? Where's that? I thought you said he was in the hopsital." Alexis says, but pulling out her phone anyway.
"It's in Vermont." Kate clarifies, putting her hand on the passenger headrest and looking out the rear window to back up. She can see Martha look at her with fearful confusion.
"Vermont?!" The eldest asks.
"What is Dad doing in Vermont?" Alexis continues, pushing Kate for answers that she doesn't have and is nowhere close to getting.
"I don't know, Alexis." She answers, trying to calm herself as much as she can while she speeds out onto the street. While Kate makes a sharp turn, Alexis goes onto her phone to look up the address of the hospital. "Castle didn't tell you he was leaving?"
"Why on Earth would he be in Vermont without telling us?" Martha asks, shaking her head and leaning her hand against her head, as a frustrated mother would.
"Dad was writing when I left for school this morning. He didn't say anything to you, Gram?" Alexis asks as she turns around in her seat.
"No, not a thing, that irresponsible..." The grandmother trails off. "I left around nine this morning for a class and when I got home. Richard was gone, and I had assumed he was at the precinct with you."
"Is there any reason why he would go to Vermont? Did he have a book signing err... or do you have any relatives who live out there?" Kate asks, maneuvering through traffic to head north.
"No, we don't have any other family, it's just us. And he would have mentioned a signing outside of the city. He always does." Alexis answers.
As Kate checks the rearview mirror, she grips the woven leather on the steering wheel with white-knuckled anxiousness. She should have texted him this morning when he didn't show up. It's her own fault. She could have at least known about all this, maybe could have stopped him from leaving, or at the very least, could have known his motivation. She wasn't doing anything today, nothing important or anything that needed her dire attention. He knows he can always come to her if he needs help with something... doesn't he?
"Well, what about a case?" Martha starts spitballing, hoping to glean some answers as to her son's whereabouts. "Were you two working on anything that could have warranted this... flight of preposterous fancy?"
But she's hoping for answers that Kate doesn't have. "No, we haven't had a case in days. I-I mean..." Kate thinks momentarily, going through her own mental codex of memory, "I had a grandmother who lived up in Burlington, but she died seven years ago from leukemia." She thinks out loud. She's never mentioned her grandmother to Castle, though. Castle would only take the Ferrari if he was joy riding or he needed to get somewhere, really fast. And he wouldn't think not to leave a note for his family unless he thought he'd be back before night fall...
Or he just wasn't in his right mind.
"Was he acting strangely before you left? Did he do anything out of the ordinary that you noticed?" Kate asks, her mind working faster than she can keep track of.
"No, he was normal. He was already writing when I woke up. H-he uh..." Alexis starts, heartbreak starting to seed its way into her voice again the more she speaks, "he did seem distracted about something, but-but I thought he was just focused on writing." Alexis' voice is soiled with burning tears by the time she's finished with her statement. "What if he's dead? I didn't even get to say goodbye this morning!" The girl pleads.
I need you to promise me you'll look after Alexis if anything happens to me.
His words and serious tone ring clearly in her head, as if he's saying them right in her ear. So much so, it makes the strong grip she has on the steering wheel go slack for a moment before she shakes her head to focus back on the road. It's the one thing he asked for and was serious, the one thing he wouldn't let go until she gave him the answer he wanted. It was a test of just how much of a partner she had considered him to be. To always be there when they needed each other. It was easy to pass that test up until now. That promise was easy to make to him... then.
Alexis means everything to him.
Martha breaks her out of her thoughts with a soft reassurance, that only breaks Kate's stirring because she knows it won't do any good. "Sweetheart, it's going to-"
"I can't lose him, Gram!" Alexis pleads with tears streaming freely down her face.
"Hey," Kate starts in a soft, but firm voice, giving the girl a chanced glance as she starts crossing the bridge out of the city. "It's going to be fine, Alexis. The women that called me said he had just been taken into surgery."
"Well, did they tell you what happened?" Martha asks for the both of them.
"No... but," Kate emphasises over to Alexis, "I'm going to get us there as fast as I can, and your dad needs you to have hope... okay? Your dad had enough forethought to put me as his emergency contact, so once we get there, I'll find out exactly what happened. But in the meantime, I need both of you," Kate says, looking over her shoulder to Alexis and Martha, who are giving them their full attention, "to not lose hope. Don't even let your mind go there, alright? Just... say he's going to be alright."
Castle's family look between each other for a moment, wondering if she's serious. And she is. She needs to hear those words, she needs to hear them from someone other than the lying voice in her head that he's going to be alright. She needs to know.
"He's going to be alright." Martha says in a broken voice.
Alexis lets out a soft breath, trying with little effort to rid herself of her wrenched emotions. "He's going to be alright."
Kate grips the steering wheel tightly again with cold, sweaty hands, and says it to herself once more. "He's going to be alright."
A/N: Hope you liked this chapter. Let me know. :)