But you'll fight and you'll make it through
You'll fake it if you have to. . .
You'll be positive though it hurts.
-Rilo Kiley
He half-listens to the two surgeons who have brought them to this family conference room, a chamber of bereavement and final prognoses. He hears: She's come through the surgery; she's stable for now. He stops hearing anything after that. He is cascading relief, awash in trembling, hysterical relief. It leaks out onto his face; he has to keep swiping at his cheeks because Alexis is looking at him horrified, thunderstruck, and he knows he needs to man up, get it under control for her, but God, he's just so relieved, so overwhelmingly relieved.
It's just him, Alexis, and Jim in the room with the two surgeons. Jim is making notes; Rick has a bewildered instant of wondering if there is information he's missing, but it gets washed away by the waves of gratitude that roll through him.
At a lull, he asks, "When can we see her?"
They hedge. They hesitate. His relief stutters, but they are just trying to caution him about her condition, her frailty, that she may look nothing like what he expects, she may look quite bad. Kate's been placed on a ventilator to keep her breathing while her body recovers from surgery. The tube down her throat may look unnatural, but she needs it. She may wake here and there, but she won't be truly conscious. He can talk to her, he *should* talk to her, they encourage it, but don't expect her to follow or remember a conversation.
Visitors are limited to 15 minutes at a time at the top of the hour. One at a time. Time your visits carefully because the floor nurse will not allow you more time. When she's more stable, then your time may increase. No way of knowing right now. Go home, get some rest, come back in the morning.
"No."
The two surgeons leave; they don't even bother to address Castle's denial. They have seen this; they doubt him. Well, too bad, because he's not leaving. He's not leaving her here alone.
"Alexis, take Kate's dad home, will you?"
Jim is dead on his feet, has been for the last couple hours (they all have), and he puts up a struggle, but it's weak and half-hearted. "Rick, you should get some sleep too. She'll need you-"
"I'll sleep here, Jim. I'll be fine."
Alexis throws him a look of her own, mixed with something he doesn't recognize, but takes Jim by the arm, guiding him out. He thinks maybe that look was surprise.
Castle rubs a hand down his face and plans his attack.
He's got a cot and a nice spot right beside her bed; he's breaking all the rules, but the nurses have signed copies and at least thirty minutes of straight-out, no-holds-barred flirting from him. The cot is too low, keeps him from seeing her, so he sits on it and leans against the bedrail, his chin on the crook of his arm, one arm through the railing up to his forearm (as far as he can push it through) holding her hand.
She's cold. He's not allowed to add blankets; he's not allowed to touch the tube or the tape even though it's chafing the delicate skin around her mouth. He's not allowed to disturb the nurses when they are on rounds; he can't go roaming the halls for the doctor. He can press the call button for the nurse if Kate looks like she's in distress, but they warn him: they can always tell when a patient is in distress. In other words, it is highly unlikely he will ever be calling them.
This is fine with him. He is allowed his laptop so long as he disables the wireless network feature; his cell phone is completely turned off. This is fine; he uses the document program anyway, no need for internet right now.
He strokes the top of her hand with two fingers, coasts along the highways of her veins. Her left hand has an IV attached; it's strapped to a foam board with clear surgical tape to keep the lines clear. The rhythmic breathing machine sounds like something out of Alien or a B-grade science fiction movie. Loud, clunky, like it's a car from the late 80's and needs replacement parts badly. It pushes air into her lungs and her chest puffs strangely, an awkward rise, and then a slow collapse back down. But she's breathing.
She's breathing.
He takes a breath as well, as if in sympathy, and discovers that it's nearly impossible to not breathe with the motion of the machine; it's hypnotic and he's had a hell of a long day. He can barely keep his head upright perched on the railing at her side; he lets his cheek come into contact with the cold plastic rail, watches his fingers skimming her hand.
A map of skin under his fingertips. The ocean of open pores, the island of a freckle, the ridged land mass of a knuckle. He's never seen anyone so colorless. Even the dead bodies he's seen, they've got splashes or purple or black, garish red, fading pink, that particular shade of deadly green. She's alive, she breathes, but it's like she's withdrawn to protect her vulnerable insides, pulled all the blood out of her extremities, retreated.
The gown is loose over her collarbones, dotted with some faded yellow pattern. The starched sheets are the same white as the gown, the same slack white as her skin, tinged by a strange yellow. Bruises of blood pool under her skin, the fingerprints of trauma. Her eyes flicker every so often, but she doesn't wake, is not even close to consciousness; it is just the random firing of her doped brain. The tube keeps her mouth open, her lips tight across her teeth, and he doesn't like to see it.
His fingers get caught on a knuckle; he rubs the strange flake of skin there, like a leftover scab, the last healing of a papercut. Where it should be that healthy, new pink, it's tinged a blue-brown. He can't get over the stranger in this hospital bed, the way her body moves without her, the way this unfamiliar skin has draped over the frame of the old Kate Beckett. Those are her bones, but this is not her body. It is graceless and unnatural.
But she lives.
He spreads his hand over hers, engulfing the strange little thing, hiding it, and closes his eyes. The cold of her skin, at first, leaches into his. And then his own blood asserts itself, rushes to all those contact points of skin on skin, begins flooding her hand with warmth. This makes him feel a little better, the idea that in some way, he can take care of her.
For now anyway.