Castle let himself into the loft, a couple of hours later, frustration pouring off of him, and was intrigued by the absolute silence of his home.
Becca was his daughter, the framed sheet of paper in his wall safe- where she would never see it- proved that. That meant that she was about as hyper as he was; the loft was hardly ever silent when she was home.
"Beck?" He called as he hung up his coat. "You home, honey?"
"In here, dad." He heard her faintly reply from the direction of the downstairs bedroom, that she had commandeered when they had gotten home after their horrendous summer. It had been his, but her limited mobility meant she needed the ground floor bedroom and bathroom more than he did. He hadn't minded at all.
Rick made his way through his office and came to a halt in the bedroom doorway.
Kate Beckett was sitting on his daughter's bed, surrounded by glitter and sequins and stickers, his daughter propped up against the headboard, her back brace between them.
The grin on Becca's face made her father's heart glad. It had been a long time since he'd seen her this happy.
"Hey, kiddo." He smiled, making his way over to sit on the edge of the bed and kiss her cheek. "What are you two up to?"
"I transferred into the shower chair while Kate was making coffee and had a shower after physio, but my arms hurt and I got a bit stuck." Becca started, her author father having instilled the importance of the story in her from the moment she could form sentences.
Kate watched unobtrusively, but could still clearly see the fear that flashed in her partner's eyes.
"Did you fall?" He asked quickly, his body tensing, ready to jump to her rescue it seemed.
"No." Becca reassured him softly. "I'm okay. I didn't hurt myself."
Castle relaxed slightly.
"But I pushed the intercom button that you had installed and asked Kate to come help me."
The look of absolute gratitude and admiration Castle gave her, had Kate blushing as she dropped her gaze to her lap.
"She opened the door and threw a towel at me, told me to cover up." Becca giggled. "She then asked how she could help. I..." Becca dropped her gaze.
"Beck?" Rick asked gently, sliding his hand over hers on the mattress.
"She could barely hold herself up. She asked me to help her transfer but it was only her pride asking, we both knew she wouldn't be strong enough to hold her weight, even if I supported her arms. So I asked if she'd be okay if I picked her up." Kate filled in, remembering how embarrassed the girl had looked when she'd realised she couldn't do it by herself.
Rick looked from his daughter to his partner, smiling softly. Kate shrugged.
"I just put her in her chair and pushed her to the dresser. We realised pretty quickly that one, she'd need pain meds before she could do anything strenuous and two, she needed something soft and easy to get into."
Castle then noticed that his daughter was actually in one of his own button down shirts. He looked to Kate in askance, making her shrug again.
"I asked her where you kept the laundry, figured you wouldn't mind."
"Course not." He smiled and Kate noticed that he was slowly, gently, stroking his daughter's hand. It made her smile.
"I couldn't put my brace back on." Becca murmured. "It hurt too much and, I have another blister." She admitted quietly.
Castle sighed, making Kate's chest tight.
"Kate got my cream and put it on, gave me my meds, helped me into your shirt. We got to talking about how ugly my brace is."
The wry smile that crossed her partner's face had Kate thinking that this was probably a recurrent conversation.
"She offered to help me decorate it, so long as you wouldn't mind. She wanted to call and check." Becca giggled but Castle saw Kate's cheeks flush. She was trying so hard to not overstep boundaries and upset him, the first time she met his kid. He'd have to thank her later. "But I told her that you wouldn't mind, which is right, right?"
"You know, provided you don't break or damage it, I don't mind what you do, baby. You have to wear it. I want you to be comfortable."
"Exactly, so we started decorating it." His daughter smiled.
He looked down then, taking in their masterpiece. The plain tan brace was now almost completely purple along one side, sequins placed with such precision that they covered the entire area. Each gap in the middle of a sequin was filled with a tiny amount of glitter. Rick then noticed that the edges where white, and it seemed to fold over onto the inside of the brace.
"What's this?" He asked, stroking his finger across it to find it was padded.
"I had an ankle brace when I was younger for about a month. My mom padded the edges with medical dressings, it stopped the blisters at the edges. I ran to the pharmacy and bought some, figured it might help."
Rick gave her a look she couldn't interpret.
"I made sure she had a phone next to her and gave her my number. I walked fast. I was only gone ten minutes, tops." She defended.
Castle shook his head. "No, just, I'm not angry. It's just, that was really considerate."
Kate shrugged, feeling her face heat up when Castle smiled at her.
"Kate's really good at this too. She did all the sequins. She used a toothpick and everything. She's really creative." Becca gushed, making the older woman laugh.
"Just following orders, Little Castle." She saluted, causing Becca to laugh.
Rick shook his head. "Well, it looks awesome. But do you need it back on Becca?"
The little girl hesitated. "I don't want to put it back on tonight. It hurts too much." She murmured, not making eye contact with her dad. Kate subtly looked away, not wanting to get involved.
"Becca, you need to wear it. It's the only way you're gonna get better, babe." Castle reminded her gently.
"No." She replied stubbornly.
"Rebecca, don't start. You've clearly had fun with Kate, don't get like this now." Castle wasn't angry, but he was clearly frustrated. He could feel his earlier frustration returning, the emotion flooding his body.
"Please, daddy." Becca pleaded. "Just for a little while longer?"
He sighed softly. "Beck..."
"Kate and I ordered Chinese, I've eaten and taken my meds, it's nearly seven. How about I just stay here and put a DVD on? Then I can stay in bed, and I won't transfer, and I'll call you if I need to. I just really don't want to wear it."
Castle leaned in and kissed her crown. "Okay. Okay, baby. You put on a DVD and stay here and yeah, you can leave your brace off for the rest of the night. You're here tomorrow anyway so you can take it easy. You promise to call me if you need to move?"
"I promise." She nodded.
"Okay." Rick stood up and grabbed the laptop off her desk in the corner of the room. "Here." He put it beside her, picking up the brace carefully and putting it on the desk to keep it out of the way.
Once he had collected the few DVD's Becca had chosen and put them within her reach, he and Kate left the room, leaving the girl to it.
Rick led Kate out to the couch and let her sit down, before sinking into his seat beside her.
"You okay?" Kate asked softly.
Rick shrugged. "Meeting was tough." He murmured. "Gina's being difficult, says I need to have the next three chapters with her by the end of the month. I'm not sure she quite gets that my kid needs constant attention right now."
Kate debated the wisdom of bringing it up now, but her natural curiosity got the better of her. She wasn't sure, though, if Becca would get into trouble for telling her Castle's personal business, and she wouldn't drop her in it. "Surely she gets it more than anyone, being your girlfriend?" Kate asked softly.
Castle scoffed. "Not my girlfriend."
"What happened?" His partner asked, genuinely concerned.
She may have been ready to go away with Castle, and may have been crushed when Gina had turned up, but she seemed to make Castle happy, and that was what really mattered to Kate.
Castle shrugged, running his hand down his face. "We went to Hamptons, as you know, and Becca came with us. I was writing, pen and paper so I could be by the pool with them, while Gina and Beck messed around in the water."
Kate watched something akin to horror pass through her partner's eyes before they slipped closed.
"One minute, they were laughing and joking, and the next I heard Becca scream and something crack. Oh god Kate, that sound will never leave me."
Castle shuddered and Kate gently took his hand, needing to comfort him more than she needed her own boundaries right now.
"I jumped up and ran to her side. She was lying on the edge of the pool, her legs dangling in the water, her torso on the side. The base of her back had hit the pool's edge when she'd fallen. Gina got out the pool and came towards us, but I wasn't paying attention. Beck's eyes were rolling in her skull and her breathing was so shallow, Kate."
Rick swallowed, hard.
"I just wanted to hold her. To hold my baby, and make it all better, but Gina screamed at me when I tried to, told me I was an idiot, that I couldn't touch her, before leaving to phone for an ambulance. I had to help my child somehow, so I took her hand, and gently stroked her face, and told her it would all be okay. That everything would be fine, and that I would fix it. It sounds stupid now, but..."
"No, Rick. It sounds normal. It's exactly what any parent would have done in that situation." Kate murmured, smoothing her thumb over the back of his hand.
He shot her a weak smile before continuing. "Becca was rushed to the nearest hospital and taken for X-rays and scans and, I don't even know what. I've kinda blocked out everything but my little girl's face, to be honest. She was put on oxygen when we arrived, they said she was in shock, that's why she wasn't talking, was barely breathing. But they got that under control very quickly. I never thought any words would replace her first in my head, but hearing her tell me that it hurt was magic, when I thought I'd never hear her speak again. Gina and I argued the entire time we weren't in Beck's hearing range. I blamed her. Becca had been getting out of the pool, and Gina had thrown the beach ball, they'd been playing with, at her. Becca has my coordination, or lack there of, so when she tried to catch it, she slipped, and landed on the concrete edge of the pool. Gina said it was my fault for not paying attention, to which I replied that if she hadn't been riding my ass about the next chapter, I could have been. Kate, it went on all day."
Castle shook his head at himself, angry, even now, about how they'd handled themselves.
"The X-rays came back, and showed that Becca had a burst fracture dislocation of her L1 and L2 vertebrae. The bone fragments this had produced, had embedded themselves in the surrounding tissue. They'd severed two nerves, and had damaged a lot of tissues. But the dislocation was caused by her ligaments being torn. She needed major reconstructive surgery on her spine."
Beckett gasped.
"They were worried about cauda equina syndrome, so they had to operate immediately. I signed the papers then and there, and they rushed her in. Hours later, her surgeon came by to tell me that she was doing well. They had to operate on both the back and the front of her spine, meaning she had incisions on both her back and side, and that they had affixed metal screws and rods into her spine, to help it heal itself. She would be in a lot of pain and, once her break had healed- an eight to twelve week process- she would then need physio, to rebuild her muscles, and to heal her ligaments and soft tissue. This was right near the beginning of the summer and it took ten weeks for her bones to heal enough, for her doctor to be happy to let her start physio. She's had four of her weekly sessions so far, and is making amazing progress. But she needs the brace to help support her and the chair to get around. They hope, with her age and pre-trauma health, she'll make a full and quick recovery, but it could take a very long time for her to get back to normal. Gina couldn't cope. She only stayed at the hospital until Becca woke up from surgery, and then never came back. I called her with updates, but she asked how far I'd gotten on my book. My final straw was when she suggested I should get an at home healthcare provider, so I could 'get back to my job and stop playing nursemaid'. I'm not proud of how I did it, or what I said, but we were over by the end of that conversation."
Kate sat stock still, in absolute shock.
That poor little girl.
"Jeeze." She breathed.
Rick nodded. "Yeah, I know."
"How are you doing this all by yourself?" Kate asked, in awe of her partner.
Castle shrugged. "I love her. And it's not as though I have a choice."
Kate shook her head. "Surely her mom wants to help?"
Rick scoffed. "I've never even told her the story, but Becca was left on my doorstep, less than a day old. There is no mom, wanting to help or otherwise."
Kate's blood froze.
No.
