Disclaimer: Not Mine!

Chapter 9

Of Requests & Honor

Rick had a lot of visitors over the first three days he was in the hospital, but on the second day he made a huge discovery. During Karpowski's visit he mentioned that the food was crappy. Ryan, the next person that came in. Had a bag of take out with him. As he ate his cheese burger he asked Ryan how he knew he wanted one.

"Karpowski told me that the food sucked, so I got this on the way over." Ryan said.

"Cool thanks. Now all I need is something to do. Any suggestions?" Rick asked.

"How about I bring you your laptop from home?" Ryan asked.

"That would be awesome, but you don't have to go all the way to my house to get it, I'll just call Alexis and have her bring it when my mother comes here later." Rick said.

"Are you sure because I could get it for you. It's no big deal, just say the words and I can have it here in twenty minutes." Ryan said.

"No, you don't have to do that." Rick assured him, but he was shocked by Ryan's answer.

"Yes I do. You don't know do you? It's a cop thing, if one of us are in the hospital the rest of us have to give them whatever they ask for… within reason." Ryan explained.

"What? What do you mean ask for?" Rick asked.

"Okay you know how at the beginning of the Godfather, Don Veto can't refuse a request on the day of his daughters wedding?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah." Rick said not following him.

"It's like that. You want food? We bring it. You want entertainment? We bring you Xbox. Hell I've heard roomers of cops asking for vengeance, and drug dealers going missing you know what I mean?" Ryan said conspiratorially.

"Wow! I had no idea. You said I can ask for anything within reason, what's off limits?" Rick asked. This was awesome, he had no idea that this went on.

"Well, um. I've herd about a guy getting shot and asking a hot chick cop for sex, that was an instance where his request was turned down, but I have herd about a guy asking for 'entertainment' and three working girls being sent up to his room. It also goes by closeness to the downed cop. You could ask any cop, like Karpowski, for better food, but you couldn't ask her for anything too big. Where as if you asked me, lets just say the sky's the limit. Same goes for Esposito, and I guess Beckett. The only other person you could make big requests of would be the captain. He looks out for us like a second father. You would make the revenge request to him." Ryan explained.

"So, I could ask any cop for better food?" Rick asked.

"Yep." Ryan said.

"And I could ask you to go in the other room and off the three guys that came in with me?" Rick asked in shock.

"Is that something your asking for, because I don't know if I could. Maybe Esposito would?" Ryan said shifting uncomfortably.

"No! I would never ask for stuff like that, but it's cool to know that I could. Well cool, and scary." Rick said mildly freaked out.

"Yeah, but it's like I said I don't know for sure about that part, I've only heard roomers." Ryan said.

"So I could ask you to go out and find me three busty blonds and you'd show up an hour later with the ladies? Wow. What if the person I want to make my request to doesn't show up here?" Rick asked.

"You could request an audience with them, and they have to come. It's an honor thing." Ryan said with a smirk.

"That is so cool. Request an audience… It's so formal." Rick said with a laugh.

"Well this stuff is old school. I think it goes back to like medieval times and stuff. You know? Like a knight wounded in battle? That's another thing, you don't get all this respect for stuff like crashing your car off duty, or shooting your self in the foot. This only goes for stuff like this." Ryan said waving to Rick in bed. " and you're going to get a lot of respect. You took down three killers, off duty, without a gun, and it was your first collar. Dude you have like the triple crown of being shot. I'm surprised that Martinez isn't here servicing you right now." Ryan said with a laugh.

"You mean that hot uni. Chick that's always hanging around the bullpen, even though she works narcotics? I thought she was after Esposito?" Rick said confused.

"No bro. she wants you. Esposito tried to put the moves on her and she flat out told him to back off. She said, and I quote, "she was waiting for you to stop chasing, The ugly giraffe, and come sample the Mexican taco platter" I'm telling you bro. that girl is on fire, and she's got that raunchy chick cop edge. You should definitely hit that if you're not with Shaw." Ryan said.

"No, I want to see if me and Jordan have anything going." Rick said "So any ways, back to what you were saying. Say I want Beckett to bring me a stake dinner in a sexy little red dress she has to do it?" Rick asked thinking about getting revenge for the bastard comment.

"Well I guess, the dinner for sure. If you ask her to bring you dinner she has to do it. As for the dress? It's up to her. But she should in my opinion. She was your partner, and it's not like your asking for sex. I say do it and see what happens." Ryan said with a laugh.

"I Don't know, I'm hurt as it is, I don't think she's above hitting a guy in a hospital bed." Rick said back. They hung out for a little while longer then Ryan left. An hour later Esposito showed up with a fancy Starbucks coffee for Rick.

After that Rick had all of his meals brought to him. Some of it was brought by Alexis and Kelly, they came to see him every day with his mother until she had to go back to L.A. But a lot of it was brought by other cops. He had coffee and candy brought in too, well until Alexis caught on and had them stop. It seams that Rick failed to mention that Caffeine was not allowed. He had Esposito bring him a copy of the crime scene photos. He got Ryan to bring him some DVD's to watch.

Jordan stopped by on the third day and spent most of her time cuddling on the bed next to Rick watching a movie. When Ryan came in to bring him some Mexican take out Jordan asked why. Rick told her about the request thing and she liked the idea. The FBI had something like that but only the downed agent's partner came by with stuff. They also looked after the downed agent's family, that's why she and Kelly spent the first night with Alexis.

"So, who came to see you so far?" Jordan asked when Ryan left.

"Ryan and Esposito stop by every day. Karpowski stopped by two days ago, and her team stopped by yesterday." He said as he eat his last taco.

"Beckett didn't show up?" Jordan asked surprised.

"Nope, and I don't think she's coming. We said some pretty nasty things to each other during our fight. I think she's never going to talk to me again." Rick said sadly.

"Well what did you say to her?" Jordan asked.

"Well I told her she was an emotionless, frigid woman… and I may have um called her a badge whore…" Rick trailed off

"What! First of all there called Badge Bunnies, not Badge whores. I don't like that word, and secondly how could you say that to her?" Jordan said shocked.

"Well I didn't use those words exactly…"

"What did you say to her Exactly?" Jordan asked.

"I said she only goes for guys with badges, I then tossed my badge on the table and asked her if I was… um I asked if I was fuckable now. So in essence I called her a badge wh... Um bunny, But in my defense she did start it, and she call me a bastard." He said.

"That was not cool Richard. I am surprised she didn't shoot you." Jordan said looking disappointed in him.

"It was not my best moment I admit. I don't know why I said what I said. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that we worked together for two years and she knows nothing about me, well that and the look on her face when she said I never had a chance. It was like I wasted my time on her and I needed to get back at her. I'm going to request her presence here on my last day if she doesn't show up before then. I'll apologize to her. Until then I'm going to let her cool off before I talk to her." Rick said.

"Good, I don't like it when partners fight. Even ex-partners. Your partner should be closer then your siblings, like twins. You should be able to go to them for anything. After you spend time with someone in a fire fight it forms a bond. You and Beckett had a bond, I've seen it. Even though your coming to work with me, you should still maintain that connection. Now it's almost time for me to go I have a meeting in two hours, and I have a lot to do before then. This book is for you, I want you to study it." She said as she pulled out a heavy book from her big purse and put it next to his bed.

"What is it?" Rick asked as he picked it up.

"It's the book I wrote on profiling, I'm using it for the class I'm teaching. I want you to joint the class that starts in two weeks." Jordan said as she sat back down on the bed with him.

"I've read it already. But the cover looks different." He said as he put the book down.

"New printing. So you've read it? When and what did you think about it?" She asked like she was indifferent, but Rick could see she wanted to know what he thought about it, just like he wanted to hear what people thought about his books.

"I read it when it first came out like six years ago, and I thought it was total shit." Rick said.

"What!" Jordan yelled "I will have you know that this is the best book…" She trailed off when she saw Rick laughing at her. "That was not funny. Not funny at all." she said as she hit him in the arm Rick pulled her back down next to him and hugged her.

"I'm sorry, but I owed you for calling my books crap at the PTA meeting. If you want my honest opinion as one author to a another? I thought it was very informative, but a little hard to read. It was like a grad school textbook, you know? Full of information, but if you don't have a background in criminology it could feel like it was written in another language. I think it works as a training guide for agents, and cops, but if you ever want to rewrite it I would be happy to help you make it more readable to the rest of the world." He said reassuringly.

"Well I would like you to read it again anyways. Also when you get out of here and they clear you for work I want you to come into the office. We will lock down a desk and a schedule for you. Then we'll put you through your first round of testing to see where you are at this point so we know what classes we need to enroll you in." Jordan said.

"What classes?" Rick said.

"Well all junior agents are tested every month to see if they are improving then we put them in classes to help them with the stuff they don't know." Jordan replied.

"But I thought that agents learned everything at Quantico." Rick said confused.

"No that's just to get agent status. Think of it like this, going to Quantico is like going to college for your bachelors degree. You knew nothing before then, and after you come out you know some stuff. You know the basic rules, you know how to question a suspect, you can fire a gun, that kind of stuff. Then you become a junior agent and are assigned a field office. When you arrive at the field office you're assigned to a senior agent in the discipline you want to work at. Like profiling, or kidnapping, or bank robberies. Now if you have some experience already, you come in as a Junior agent, like you did. As a junior agent you attend classes taught by special agents. Think of it like grad school, because that's what it is. You study the craft with real agents in your field. The classes are very hard and small in size, so that means the instructor will pick on you a lot. You'll be studying profiling, but if you lack some skills we assign regular field agents to help you with it like a tutor. You will be tested twice a month, a written test to see if you know the laws and rules. Then there's a practical portion, that test day is long. We test you at the range, the obstacle course, and we put you in a mock situation." Jordan explained.

"So I'm going to be constantly tested?" Rick half wined.

"No you big baby. The tests are two and done. Like lets say you take the test I gave you at the range, if you can pass that twice you never have to take it again. Now that doesn't mean you can't take the class on gun handling, it just means you don't have to. The same goes for any of the other tests and classes." She explained as she got up and straitened her skirt.

"Are you going?" He asked with a pout.

"Yes, I have to go to a department meeting. I'll see you day after tomorrow though, and I want you to tell Beckett your sorry. That was not nice, you make up with her, just not too up you get me?" She said as she bent down and kissed him passionately.

"Oh I understand." He said as he caught his breath. "I'll see you later." He said as she walked out of the room.

Over the next two days Rick's steady flow of visitors slowed down. The girls still came every day to see him, and Ryan and Esposito stopped by to drop off food, but everyone else stopped coming. Jordan came over on Thursday and spent the three hours she was their cuddled up to Rick. For the first time since high school she remembered how much fun making out could be. Rick even managed to grope a boob until she took his hand away. "If you want to go there you need to buy me dinner first. Plus It's time for me to go. I have to teach a class in…" She looked down at her watch and her eyes got big. "Crap on a cracker I'm late!" she jumped off the bed and scrabbled to get her shoes on, as she buttoned her shirt.

"What time is your class?" Rick asked as he handed Jordan her jacket.

"In a half an hour, but I have to collect my books from my office and that DVD, and um?" She looked around for her bag franticly until she spotted it on one of the chairs. "Speaking of books did you read the one I dropped off?" She asked as she looked herself over in the mirror in his small bathroom.

"Yeah, I skimmed it for the buzz words to see if I remembered it. Than I went back and reread it. It's just as dry as I remember it." Rick said with a laugh.

"Good I have three more for you to look over." She said as she looked in her bag and pulled out two small hand books and a huge tome. "The two small ones are rules and guidelines for agents and basic procedural guidelines for questioning suspects. The big book is what they use for the class on Criminal Psychology. I want you to enroll in both classes too. It will make you a better agent." she handed him the books.

He looked at them. "I've never read these, this should be fun." He said as he looked at the agents hand book.

"They're better written then mine, so it should be entertaining as well." She said sarcastically. She then bent down and gave Rick what she planned on being a quick kiss. Five minutes later she stood up gasping. "Wow! That was hot." She looked at her watch, "Man I'm late, but now I don't want to go… shit. I have to go, but I swear if those winy little ivy league shits gives me a hard time today I'm going to shoot them. See you later Rick." She said as she rushed out of his room.

Later that day Rick got a visitor he was not expecting. He was reading the Agents rule book when someone closed the door to his room. He looked up and saw detective Tom Demming standing by the door. "Of all the people I expected to come here, you were not on the list. What do you want Demming?" Rick asked as he put down his book, and openly stared at the green and purple bruise on the other mans chin. Man, I really got him good, he thought

"Trust me this is the last place I want to be." Tom said as he subconsciously rubbed his bruised chin.

"Yeah seeing the guy that kicked your ass must be hard. Why the hell are you here Shlemming?" Rick asked sarcastically.

"I Came to talk to you about Kate." Tom said.

"What about her?" Rick asked.

"She's not doing too well. She came over to my apartment the night you got shot. She was ranting about you. Swearing your name up and down." Tom said as he sat in one of the chairs.

"Wont you sit down," Rick said sarcastically. "I'm glad that I can provide her with an outlet to vent her rage. Why should I care?" Rick asked with indifference.

"Well she was ranting for a while, then she got a call from Ryan, he told her you were shot, and that you got the guys responsible for the pop and drops." Tom said.

"How did she react to her being wrong and me being right?" Rick asked victoriously.

"She dropped the phone and ran to the bathroom, she then spent the next ten minutes throwing up. She then cried herself to sleep." Tom said sadly.

"What? Why?" Rick was shocked.

"I think a big part of it was the fact that the last thing she said to you before you were shot were words of hatred. I think she thought that you were going to die and she was not going to be able to say goodbye. She has a huge fear of people she loves dying on her." Tom said.

"Yeah she does. Well I guess she does like me after all. What else happened? You wouldn't have come here if that was it." Rick said as he sat up in bed and faced the other man seeing for the first time an ally instead of a foe.

"She's depressed, she went home, and hasn't come to work. She won't take visitors, not even me. The only person she talked to on the phone was Ryan, and that was to ask about you. He said it sounded like she was drunk. I'm worried about her. Esposito said she was like this after you left the first time so I was hoping you could talk to her. Call her, or request a meeting with her. Maybe if she sees you she'll snap out of it and go back to living her life." Tom said.

"First of all I didn't leave the first time she through me out. Second what makes you think talking to me will do anything? For what it's worth it could make her worse. The last time I talked to her I said some pretty bad stuff." Rick said.

I don't know, but I've run out of ideas. I'm asking you to talk to her, if you want to be respected as a cop then you need to help your partner. She's hurting right now, and I know you can't leave that bed yet, but you need to help her." Tom said as he paced the room in front of Rick's bed.

"Okay, I'll do it, but I make no guarantees that this will work." Rick said as he picked up the phone by his bed and punched in Beckett's number. Four rings later he got her voicemail. "Beckett, it's castle you get your ass to the hospital, and come see your wounded partner. I'm not taking no for an answer, this is a formal request." He hung up and looked at Demming. "She didn't pick up her phone so I left a message. But I have another idea." Rick picked up the brown paper bag off the floor that his Chinese takeout came in. he ripped off the front and tossed the rest in the trash. He then looked for a pen. "Hey Demming, you got a pen?" He asked. Demming pulled out a gold pen and handed it over. "Nice pen." He said as he wrote on the brown paper.

"Gift from my father when I made detective." Tom said absently trying to read what he was writing.

"Demming I'm making a formal request of you. I want you to take this to Kate's place and knock on her door until she opens it. Then I want you to hand this to her." He said as he rolled up the brown paper and used the sticky top part of the post-it note on his book to hold it together. He handed it, and the pen, over to Tom and picked up his book. Tom took the scroll and walked out.

Tom got off the elevator on the fifth floor of Kate's new building, and walked up to apartment 506. He knocked and got no response. He knocked again and still nothing. He pounded on the door "Kate it's me Tom, I need to talk to you. I have a um… scroll? From Castle that you need to read. Kate open the door. I think this is a request for…" Kate flung open the door and Tom finally got a good look at her for the first time in days. She looked like hell. She was wearing red flannel pajama pants and a big black t-shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. She had bags under her eyes and her skin looked dull. He looked past her into her apartment and saw it was a mess too. He counted six empty vodka bottles all over the place, and takeout boxes scattered in between.

"What do you want Tom?" She asked tiredly.

"I come baring a message." He said as he handed over the scroll. She pulled it open and found:

Detective Kathrin Beckett,

Your presents is here by formally requested at St. Mary's hospital, room 6034. To the bed of your wounded partner. Failure to adhere to this request will lose you all respect as an officer of the NYPD. You have six hours from the time of receiving this summons to make an appearance. After six hours a call will be made to detective Javier Esposito, to inform him of your loss of respect as a cop.

With regards,

Your wounded partner, AKA Castle.

She looked it over, twice. She was shocked, he was calling her out and if she didn't go he was calling in to question her status as an honorable cop. Who the hell told him about the request system? How the hell did he get this to Tom so he could deliver it to her? And where the hell did he get parchment! She took another look at it and saw a greasy stain on the back, she smelled it and got a whiff of egg roll. That made her smile. She than looked at Tom, he looked worried. She sighed, and looked at the clock on the wall. The note said she had six hours, that would be about seven o'clock.

She then looked at herself in the mirror by the door, and the sight of her appearance shocked her back to reality. "OH MY GOD!" She said as she looked at her appearance. She needed a bath, she then took a whiff of herself and rethought that last part, she defiantly needed a bath, or two. She then saw Tom and remembered that he was waiting for a response. "I except the request and agree to the meeting. Tell him it will take me all of the six hours to get ready, and that I will bring him cheese cake for dessert." She said to Tom. She then smiled at him "You've now seen me at my worst, you still want all of this?" She asked as she waved her hands at her self.

"Yes, but only if you never get this smelly again." He said with a laugh, he walked up to her and pulled her in close for a hug. "I've missed you Kate. I've missed you a lot."

"I've missed me too, god I need a bath. I'll see you later after I meet with Castle." she said. He went to kiss her but she backed away. "I haven't brushed my teeth in days, I don't even want my own tongue in my mouth right now. Lets call it off for the moment, but I'll stop by later." She said with a smile.

"Okay, I lo…missed you Kate, see you later." He said as he walked away.

Kate looked at her self in the mirror again and shook her head, "You need a bath. How the hell did you let your self go this far?" She asked her reflection. "Well lets get cleaned up." She said to her self as she headed towards the bathroom.

AN: Sorry it took so long to put this up, I've been swamped by the real world. It also took me a long time to put this together because my first outlines for after the shoot out are really weak and too buddy cop. So I've scrapped most of it in favor of a more upbeat plot line that takes Rick back to the classroom with other junior agents, and out into the field with Jordan and her team. Also more Rick and Jordan romance for those of you that have asked for it. New projections put this story at 40 chapters and very long. That would make this my first epic and I'm slightly scared. I might brake it up into a few stories just so it doesn't feel like a huge mountain. As always R&R, until next time, TBH