As promised. Hope I can wrap this up before Monday. Having a little trouble with the ending and there are at least 2 more chapters…
Detective Kate Beckett fell to the ground, her head smacking against the floor.
Castle moved stealthily into the room. He hardly remembers thinking about it. He hears the junkie say, "You're pretty," and watched him move closer to Kate's crumpled body. As the kid brings the gun up in an attempt to fire a round into her skull, Castle comes in from behind him and swings the crow bar underhanded, hitting the arm holding the gun. The weapon fires a round into the cinderblock wall as the junkie lets it fly into the air.
Rick remembers getting hit by something. He thought it was a piece of cinderblock flying back. He hardly noticed. The junkie seemed to have a grip on the crowbar, but Castle jerked it back causing the kid to shriek in pain. Rick then hit him in the head to incapacitate him. Once the kid was out of the way, Rick grabbed the gun and slid it down the darkened hallway. He turned his attention to Kate.
"Kate, KATE! Can you hear me?" He kneels by her body and gently rolls her onto her back. Rick can hear Ryan and Esposito yelling, but they still sound very far away. Kate's head is bleeding, but Rick is more concerned with the hit she took. He slipped his hand in between the vest and her shirt, hoping that those were regular bullets and not cop killers. He can't feel any wound. Thank God. But then he also realizes that he can't feel her breathing either.
He looks at her face and notices a blue tinge around her lips. Oh. God.
Castle places his ear over her mouth. Nothing. Shit! He grabs her wrist and searches frantically for a pulse. After a few seconds that feel like hours he feels a very faint, slow pulse. "Breathe, dammit!"
He had heard of this before, while researching a book. Occasionally, the force of the bullet hitting the vest not only knocks the wind out of someone, but also stuns the diaphragm, and breathing stops.
He tilted her head back slightly to open the airway, all the while trying to avoid the large, oozing scrape on the side of her head. As he leaned over her face, drops of blood, his blood, fell into her hair. That was his first indication that he might be injured. With his right hand, Rick pinched her nose closed. Quickly running through the CPR checklist in his mind, the checklist that he's had memorized since before Alexis was born, he placed his mouth over hers and exhaled.
He turned his head to see if he could hear the air flowing back out of her mouth. Because of the bullet-proof vest Kate was wearing, Rick could not see the tell-tale sign of her chest rising and falling. As he placed his mouth over hers again, he heard Esposito and Ryan running up.
"Castle! Are you okay? What happened to Beckett?" Ryan was asking questions so fast he wouldn't have heard an answer if one had been given. "Where did all of this blood come from? Whose gun is that? Is that guy dead?"
"Ambulance is on its way, Castle." Esposito remarked. He walked over to the kid lying on the ground and started to check him out. The guy was out cold, but had a pulse and was breathing. He had a head wound that was bleeding like a, well, like a head wound, and he had a nasty gash on the underside of his right forearm.
After Castle's third breath into her lungs, Beckett coughed and moaned and coughed some more.
"Oh, thank God." Castle heaved in a sigh of relief. Absentmindedly, he grabbed her hand and squeezed. Kate's head began to turn back and forth and with a loud groan her beautiful green eyes rolled open. It took several minutes for her to come around fully, but she was moving and her eyes kept opening, which Castle, Esposito and Ryan all took to be a good sign.
She had a tough time focusing. Kate saw a lot of red, a lot of blood she realized. "What happened?" her words slurred as she tried to assess the situation.
"Take it easy," Castle said softly, "An ambulance is coming." He can hear the sirens getting closer.
"I think I'm okay." She stated, taking inventory of her extremities. She had a terrible pain in her chest and a matching one in her head. The right side of her body, particularly her shoulder, arm and hip throbbed a little, but none of these injuries seemed serious. She rolled a little to her left, towards Castle, and tried to push herself into a sitting position with her left arm. "You're bleeding, Castle."
A wave of dizziness overcomes her and she sways. Rick steadies her and moves to lay her back down on the floor.
"Whoa. Why don't we just take it easy and lay here until the ambulance gets here."
"Castle, I'm fine. Just a little dizzy." Beckett says as she lies back down. The last thing she wanted was to be seen as weak by her fellow officers.
"Well, seeing as you weren't breathing two minutes ago, I'm going to wait and hear a professional say that your fine." The blood from Castle's head is showing no signs of stopping, and since he's sitting up now, it's starting to get in his eye. He grabs the sleeve of his jacket with his fingers and presses it to his head.
All of the sudden, people flood into the hallway from the stairwell. Paramedics, firemen, patrolmen and Montgomery enter the scene with purpose. As Ryan and Esposito give the captain their version of the story (for what it's worth), the paramedics rush to Beckett, Castle and the junkie.
The kid was quickly examined and then loaded onto a stretcher and wheeled out of there.
The medic that was inspecting Castle opened his case and pulled out a stack of gauze pads pressing them to his head.
"Ouch!" Rick muttered.
"Do you know what hit you?" the medic asked.
"I think it was a piece of the wall over there. It happened when he fired the gun and the bullet hit the wall."
"I don't think so. The cut is very deep. It was caused by something bigger and heavier than a piece of cinderblock. Anything else you can think of?"
"Well I was holding a crowbar, but I'm pretty sure I didn't hit myself with it. Maybe it was the gun when it flew out of the guy's hand."
"Either one of those would fit," the medic answered. "We're going to take you to the hospital. You're going to need stitches."
Beckett was listening to the conversation Castle was having with the guy working on him while the two paramedics checking her out were taking her pulse and removing the vest. She was trying really hard to put things together, but she was having a hard time remembering anything that happened. The last thing she remembered was telling Castle to stay in the car, and him telling her he really needed to pee. Something told her that she shouldn't kill him for leaving the car.
As the female paramedic checked her pupillary responses, she asked, "Do you remember what happened Detective Beckett?"
"No. No, I don't. The last thing I remember is being in the parking lot."
"She was shot." Castle interjected. "The gun was close, and she was shot in the chest." His voice wavered a little and Kate had goose bumps. Shot?
"When she fell I heard her head hit the floor. She was out cold and she wasn't breathing." Castle continued. Kate's eyes widened as she began to realize the seriousness of what must have happened.
"So she lost consciousness?" the male counterpart working on Kate asked.
"Yes."
Esposito, Ryan and Montgomery approached Beckett and Castle as they heard the direction of the questioning.
Esposito interrupted, "When we got here the perp was out, Beckett was unconscious, and Castle was doing CPR."
Kate thought she was going to be sick. "CPR? What the hell happened?"
The paramedic looked at Castle. "She wasn't breathing?"
"No."
"Did she have a pulse?"
"Yes, faint and slow, but there."
"Did you do mouth-to-mouth?"
"Yes" Castle sounded like he was taking a polygraph test.
"Did you perform chest compressions?"
"No."
"About how many breaths did you give her before she started breathing on her own again?"
"Maybe three, maybe four. No, three,"
"Did she regain consciousness right away?"
"Yeah, I think so."
Wide eyed, Kate listened to the whole dialog. There was no humor in Castle's voice. He had saved her life at least once today. She caught his gaze as they were putting her on the stretcher. She saw a whirlwind of emotions in his eyes. She hoped he saw the gratitude in hers.
"Sir, let's get you on the ambulance." The paramedic helped Castle up and they slowly walked toward the staircase. Captain Montgomery stepped up next to Rick.
"You okay?"
"No. No, I'm not. That's the scariest shit I've ever seen. She was almost killed. Right in front of my eyes."
"Esposito and Ryan are going to need your statement at some point."
"I don't think I can give it right now."
"Understandable."
