Unbroken Promise
A/N: This is it, the final chapter. I hope you enjoy it and I did my best to make it good. I hope it brings everyone closure and that you will like it!
I wanted to make this story longer but realized I had lost the inspiration for it. I had this chapter written a while ago but wanted to leave me a chance to write more beforehand but it never happened.
I hope you enjoy this final chapter, if not I can see what I can do.
Cheers and thank you to everyone who's reviewed/favorite/followed I love every single on of you!
"Dad?" Jonah walks into his dad's study. "Can I ask you a question?"
Rick looks up from his computer screen and smiles, "Sure bud, what's up?"
"Is mommy a spy?" Jonah asks seriously.
It's when Jonah is six that he begins to test his imagination. He would go around creating new and impossible scenarios. Kate would tell Rick that it was become of him if their child had such a developed imagination.
"If you wouldn't talk to him about all the fantasy stories involving ninjas and aliens, he wouldn't have this huge imagination." She had signed to him a few nights ago.
"You and your logic. Having an imagination is awesome." He told her.
Castle got up from his chair and made his way to his son. "Now, Jonah. Why do you think your mom is a spy?"
"Maybe she can actually hear us and she was sent by the CIA and she's a spy and she tells them everything we tell her." He explains.
Castle tries hard not to laugh but encourages him to continue. "Maybe one day she will tell on us and we'll get in trouble."
"Is that why you move the phone cord before going to bed?" Castle asks.
Jonah nods, "That way I'll know if she went to make a phone call while I was sleeping."
"Well, I can promise you Jonah that I'll be on the lookout for any spies but I can promise you that your mom isn't a spy."
Jonah understood after a few weeks that his mother was just his mother, a retired NYPD detective, not a spy. He kept moving the phone cord just in case but he never caught his mother in action. That's when he abandoned.
A few months later, Kate is in the kitchen doing the dishes while Jonah is up in his room playing and Castle is trying to write. The phone rings but Kate doesn't hear it. Castle picks up from his study and comes out to meet his wife out in the kitchen.
He stands next to her and taps on her shoulder. She turns around and she gets confused when she sees him, grinning like an idiot on the phone.
"They've put me on hold." He says. "But you got it Kate. Your next for the implants!"
She's shocked, she never thought she would get it but she did and it was amazing. "Really?"
Castle nods and she hugs him, her hands going around his neck. She places a kiss on his lips and smiles.
Kate begins the process the next month. She comes in for extensive evaluations. She begins with the hearing aid evaluation, the audiological evaluation and the otological evaluation. It takes her a few weeks to get them completed.
"Mom?" Jonah signs one evening when they're all in the living room.
"Yes?" She signs back.
"Does it mean that you will be able to hear?"
Kate gets up from her seat and comes to sit next to her son. "We hope it will work. But that's the goal, yes." She signs to him.
"It's going to work mommy. I know it will." He leans his head on her and she brushes her hand through his hair.
They bring Jonah to school the next morning, picking up Skylar on the way. Her parents were having personal problems and had asked if they could bring Skylar to school at the same time. Jonah loved having his friend in the car in the mornings.
"Have a good day kids." Castle's sitting in the passenger seat.
"Bye Mr and Mrs Castle!" Skylar waves to them.
"Bye mom!" Jonah says. "Bye dad!"
They wait until they've walked in the school before Kate starts the car again. Castle looks at her and signs, "Can I drive?"
"Not a chance." She laughs and drives off.
They head to the hospital for Kate's appointment. They can't wait to get all the tests over with; Kate just wants to hear again. They check in the front office and make their way to the waiting room.
Kate hated this part: coming back to hospitals. It reminded her of all the pain hospitals had caused her. When she'd gotten shot, when Castle had been poisoned during one of their cases, her accident.
They get called by a doctor a while later and they make their way for Kate to get her CT Scan done. One of the steps before getting her implants done.
They make her lie on the table of a large donut-shaped machine. Once the preparations were done, they begin the procedure.
It takes approximately 8 minutes before Kate is able to get out of the machine and leave the hospitals.
The following week, Alexis comes over to visit her baby brother.
"Hey dad, hi Kate." She says as she walks in her old home. She hugs her father and her stepmother and laughs when she hears her brother running down the stairs.
His body collides with his sisters and she kneels down to hug him. "I missed you."
"I missed you too Lex." He nods. "Come and see what we did to my room."
Alexis gets dragged by her little brother upstairs and Castle moves to embrace his wife.
"We have amazing kids." Castle whispers but Kate doesn't hear or see him talk. She just looks up the stairs where Jonah had dragged his sister.
Alexis is a fully-grown adult by now and it scares Richard. He remembers having her around 24/7 in her small ginger pigtails running around. Now she was old enough to have kids of her own. She was still seeing Pi and Castle had to admit that they made a cute couple.
One day his daughter would get married and start her own life but for now, he was glad to see her enjoy life. She was a doctor and he was proud to say she was his daughter.
"Come on, let's go set the table." Kate signs and takes a hold of his hand to drag him in the kitchen.
"I see where Jonah takes his dragging from." Castle jokes.
Kate laughs and sticks her tongue out at him.
Her surgery is scheduled for June. She's nervous because she doesn't know what to expect. In a few months from now, one of two possibilities could happen. She would either hear again or it wouldn't make a difference but just amplify a few sounds around her.
The morning before she needs to go in for surgery, Rick and Kate bring Jonah over to Kevin and Jenny's house. They would take care of him until Kate's surgery was done.
"Plus, he hasn't seen Sarah Grace in a while." Ryan had said.
Now here they were with Jonah in the backseat and Kate in the passenger seat, nervous of how the next few weeks would go.
They had sat down with Jonah a few nights back and explained to him that the next few weeks would be very important.
"They're going to operate on your mom and when she comes home it will be very important to help her." Rick had explained. "They will put something in her ear to help her hear things but at first it won't be on."
"I will still be mommy's messenger?" Jonah had asked.
He had grown up as his mother's personal assistant. He would be her ears and speech when they would go out and he feared that he wouldn't get to spend as much time with her as before.
"Don't worry Jonah, you'll always be my little assistant." Kate signed to him.
"Promise?" He asked, tearing up.
"I promise." She moved and held her son in her arms.
They arrived at Jenny and Kevin's house and were greeted by Sarah-Grace. "Mom!" She yelled. "Aunt Kate and Uncle Rick are here."
Ryan comes in holding a toddler in his arms. Jenny follows and goes to the doorway. "Hey guys." She smiles.
Kate grins and goes to see the toddler in Kevin's arms. "Hello there." She whispers. The toddler laughs and wiggles his arms around.
A few years after Sarah-Grace's birth, Kevin and Jenny had decided that they wanted a second child. That's when Oliver Ryan was born.
"How is he?" Rick asks.
"Oh, if you guys want to switch, it would be our pleasure to take Jonah." Jenny jokes.
"Oliver is being a handful lately." Kevin fills in.
"Hmmm, we'll think about it." Rick pitches in.
"No!" Jonah exclaims, shaking his head. "Don't trade me!"
Kate laughs and signs to her son, "Don't worry kid, I won't let it happen."
They talk for a bit with Kevin and Jenny before saying goodbye to Jonah and heading to the hospital.
"I love you mommy." Jonah hugs his mom tightly and the goes to see his dad. "Take good care of her daddy." He whispers in his ear.
"I promise I will."
Meanwhile Jenny and Kevin are wishing Kate luck. "We'll bring him over when Rick will call."
"Thank you." Kate signs.
Kate gives her son one more kiss before they leave their friend's house and make their way to where they need to be.
"Lanie called this morning to wish you luck." Castle signs to her in the waiting room. "She said she was going to come as soon as she could."
It takes 3 hours until Kate is moved to the recovery room. She's lying peacefully in a hospital bed and Castle is by her side every minute until his wife wakes up.
She's in the hospital 2 days before she gets discharged. Jonah comes to see her on the second day.
"Mom can you hear me?" He asks as he sits on the edge of the bed.
Kate shakes her head, "Not yet bud." She signs.
"Oh." He tries to hide his disappointment. He was excited for his mother to hear him and he didn't want to wait.
"Are you in pain?" Rick asks her but she shakes her head.
Kevin and Jenny brought Jonah back to their house and Lanie and Esposito came as soon as the others left.
"Hey girl!" Lanie smiles and goes to hug her best friend.
Javier pats Rick on the shoulder and suggest they leave the two to talk. "Let's go, the coffee is horrible. It's fascinating."
"So tell me, how do you feel?" Lanie asks. "Castle over there tells me you insist on being fine but you might not be."
"I'm scared Lanie." She admits. "I've lived in the silence and the quiet for almost seven years and I'm scared of what awaits me."
"It's normal to be scared." She whispers but Kate isn't able to understand.
"Can you repeat that please?"
"It's normal to be scared." She repeats a little more slowly.
"How are you and Javier doing?" Kate asks. "I know something's up. You're glowing and he just, looks like a little kid on Christmas."
"We wanted to wait a few months before announcing it." She says. "But I think you should know."
"What is it?"
"I'm pregnant." Lanie tells her friend.
Kate smiles and hugs her, trying not to get her arms tangled in her I.V. "Congratulations Lanie." She signs.
"Thanks." Lanie laughs.
Kate gets discharged the next day and comes in again six weeks later to get her implants programmed. For the next few weeks, they're programmed to recognize little sounds, just like her aids used to do.
It's weeks later that they announce that they're going to put her implants on for the first time since the operation. It scares her, she doesn't know what to expect when she's going to hear her son's voice for the first time. She's in a room with her audiologist and Castle.
They're adjusting the implants to her preference so the noise isn't too loud or too low. "I'm going to turn them on now, okay?" Her doctor tells her.
"Okay." She takes a deep breath.
At first, she doesn't notice the difference. Her audiologist adjusts the sounds and Castle is the first voice she hears in over 7 years.
"Kate? How does it feel?" He asks.
It takes her by surprise. She can hear him, loud and clear. She can hear his voice without looking at him. Her husband's voice, oh how she'd missed his voice so much. She puts a hand on her face as the tears stream down her face.
Castle gets up to hold her hand and she whispers, "Yes I can hear you."
She hugs him and they kiss before Castle talks to her some more, "How does it feel?"
"It's different then when I used to hear but it's perfect." She laughs, "I can hear myself and I can hear little noises."
They kiss one more time and she wipes away a tear. "I can't believe this is actually happening. I can actually hear."
They adjust her implants a little more with Castle (he's talking in different tones to make sure Kate hears differently).
She laughs, "I can hear myself breathe."
It's different, for someone who's spend their whole life without hearing, hearing for the first time is a new phenomenon. They've never actually heard the little things like the rain or music, but for someone who has heard those things, never hearing them again is scary.
But she's happy to hear again.
In another room, Jonah is sitting with Alexis and Martha. He understands the complex procedure his mother had gone through in the last couple of months and he knew that this would be the first time his mother would get to hear him.
It scared him.
"What do I say first?" He asks his sister.
"Whatever you want buddy." She replies. His grandmother leans in and suggests it be something memorable.
Castle walks out a little later and goes to his son. "Are you ready?"
Jonah nods excitedly and follows his father into the room he's just come out of. They wanted to make it special, Castle had excused himself to go to the washroom and Kate was not expecting the surprise that was awaiting her.
They open the door, something Kate can finally hear, but she doesn't turn her head around. Her audiologist shows her something on the screen to make sure she doesn't turn around.
Castle signs to Jonah to stay right where he was and to wait until he was seated before speaking to his mother. Rick does a thumbs up before walking, as normally as he can, to his chair. Jonah doesn't move right away, he's nervous.
"Hi mom, can you hear me?" It startles Kate. She doesn't expect it but the voice she hears for the first time can only belong to one person: her sons.
She cries: the tears fall rapidly as she turns around to see her son. She nods and puts her hands out to hug him. "Yes buddy, I can."
Jonah smiles brightly and hugs his mother, crying into her shoulder. "I love you." He tells her.
"I love you too."
Jonah pulls back a little putting his hands out for his dad, "Come dad."
They're together again. A happy family and they've made it through all their ups and downs.
"His voice is exactly how you described it Castle." She smiles.
Fin
