CH11

Lanie had gone home to get some sleep, problem was she didn't get any. And now here she was leaving the morgue to go get some lunch. She wasn't supposed to be here yet but since she couldn't sleep Lanie couldn't think of anything else to do.

Lanie had talked Javi into going to lunch with her. "How's Beckett?" Was Espo's first question.

"Falling apart on me is what she is doing." Lanie was getting ready to cry again. "Javi I pushed and I teased for months to get Kate to open her eyes to see what Castle could do for her, and what happens?" Lanie saw this as being her fault.

"You didn't know this was going to happen Chica, it's not your fault." Espo knew it wasn't, besides he was still holding out that it wasn't even Castle in the first place.

"Then why does it feel like it?" Lanie had done all she could to get Castle and Kate together, and now it was destroying her best friend.

The rest of lunch consisted of how to get Kate out of the house and back into living her life and if Montgomery's two weeks was going to be long enough.

Espo went upstairs while Lanie went downstairs where she was intercepted. "Dr. Parrish, the two bodies you have been expecting have arrived and are inside." And he walked off.

Lanie started having trouble breathing. Castle and his publisher was here. Lanie started for the door and found her hand shaking as she was ready to push it open. Lanie stopped, not much got to her but walking in there suddenly had her scared.

Lanie considered having Javi come down and give her a push, then it occurred to her that what she was feeling was nothing to compared to what Kate was going thru. "Suck it up girl." Lanie tells herself and pushes the door open.

Inside she finds two tables with bodies that have cloths covering them. Lanie swallowed hard and pulled the cloth back. Female, somewhere in her 30's with blonde hair. "Publisher." Lanie guesses.

Lanie steps over to the other table and stands there starring at the body. With a shaking hand, so very afraid of what she is going to find Lanie pulls the sheet back.

Lanie instantly drops the cloth leaving the face uncovered and starts crying barely able to keep standing. Lanie just stares and cries heaping sobs that rack her body.

It takes a number of minutes. "Oh Castle, what are you doing on my table? …. You're not supposed to be here. You should be marrying our girl and having little Castle babies."

Lanie got to work. All she had left was to prove it wasn't Castle and was really someone else.

Cranal injury with a skull fracture with obvious injury to the temporal lobe and parital lobe. Right shoulder is shattered, right arm is broken in three locations with one compound fracture. Right lung was collapsed, 4 ribs on the right side are broken. Large intestine and small intestine damage. Right kidney is damaged beyond repair. Pelvis on the right side is shattered and the right leg is broken in four locations, all compound fractures.

Lanie took samples for DNA testing and took x-rays of his jaw to compare to dental records she already had.

Body weight closely matches Castle's last known weight as proved by his doctor. His eye color matches the color on record as does the hair color.

Lanie compared the x-rays with the dental records and thought they matched perfectly but she sent them to his dentist for confirmation just to be sure. It would take a few days to get any DNA results.

A quick blood test showed that the type was a match to Castle's that they had on record. It like the DNA would take a few days to determine if it was a match and was a family genetic match with Alexis.

Lanie stopped and went back to crying while putting her report together.

Several minutes later she took her report up to give it to Captain Montgomery. Lanie took a passing glance at Javi as she walked past.

Javi could tell Lanie had been crying, it told him what she had was bad news, but he still held out hope. Maybe they were happy tears.

Lanie didn't knock or announce herself. To be honest she didn't think she had a voice to tell him anything. Lanie just held her report out in front of her.

Roy started to take it by taking a hold of the end he had been offered and looked up at Lanie with his unasked question. Lanie could only nod her head as more tears started.

Roy took the report from her and placed his forehead down on his recently repaired desk. Roy had been holding out hope that it wasn't Castle either.

Lanie walked out without saying a word and walked past Javi and into the break room. Javi was right behind her. Lanie turned and found Javi right behind her with the million dollar question written on his face.

"It's Castle Javi." Lanie moved into his arms and started crying in earnest yet again.

Several minutes later. "Come on Chica, I'll take you home." Javi offered to get her out of here. Not that, that would make things better.

Lanie shook her head still in his arms. "I've still got a body." Meaning the publisher.

"It can wait, you've had enough for one day. Besides I need to go relieve Ryan and then you can follow me later tonight. … Go grab your medical bag and let's go." Espo started walking away with her, guiding her to the elevator.

Espo thought of texting Ryan the news but decided it could wait until he got there after dropping Lanie off and making sure she went to bed.

Two hours later Javi knock's on Caslte's door getting Ryan to answer.

From Ryan's point of view he could tell Javi had been crying. A trained special forces guy crying was not a good sign.

"Is there a beer or something?" Espo asks. Maybe it would dull the pain.

"Yea, there is some in the fridge." Ryan goes and pulls one out and sits it on the counter in front of Javi. Ryan looks at Javi questioningly.

"Lanie finished one of the bodies a couple of hours ago. …. It was Castle." Javi all but chugs his beer without ever taking a breath.

Ryan just deflates and manages to remain standing. He had secretly hoped it wasn't Castle either. But fellow cops wouldn't make that kind of mistake to one of their own, even if it was in another city. The blue wall rallied around its own.

Ryan decided a beer was a good idea and pulled one out for himself and another one for Javi. In seconds Ryan had half of his gone while Javi was just sipping this time.

"Now what do we do?" Ryan had lost people before, just no one this close before.

"Now? …. Now we help put Beckett back together and move on." Javi had done it during the war in the Gulf. He knew how to do it, just didn't mean he liked it any. "Go home and get some sleep Kev. Lanie will be here later to take over. The Captain is going to expect to see you there in the morning." Javi reminds him.

Ryan chugs what's left of his beer, nods to his friend and is out the door.

Espo leaves his beer and heads for the master bedroom to check on Beckett. Inside he finds Beckett and Alexis facing each other, but with a strangle hold on the other. From what he could see Beckett looked haunted and pale. Nothing like the Beckett he remembered.

Figuring that Martha was upstairs in her room he went back to sipping on his beer.

It was hours later when Martha came downstairs to fine Espo sitting on the sofa watching TV. Espo had only just changed the channel after checking on Beckett finding her and Alexis still asleep and still holding onto each other.

It broke his heart to watch the two of them suffer. Castle was a friend but he meant so much more to these two.

"Detective." Martha announces herself.

Espo jumps up and faces her. "Ms. Rodgers, can I get you something?" Maybe it was a chance to be useful.

"Would you like something to eat detective? I can order something be delivered." Martha offered. Something to take her mind off of everything, even for a moment.

"That's all right ma'am I don't mean to be a bother." Not that Javi wasn't interested in free food, but this was just different somehow.

"Perhaps you'll change your mind. Are Katherine or Alexis up?" Martha was going to order for everyone if they were.

"They're both still asleep, I just checked." Espo explains.

"Perhaps is just as well." Martha was hoping that sleep was healing them a little.

Martha pulled out her phone and ordered some Chinese food for herself and Espo.

After eating Martha excused herself and went back upstairs to her room.

Espo couldn't help but feel like he was sitting in a morgue. He was all alone and no one in this home was living.

Espo had just stepped out of the master bedroom having looked in on Beckett and Alexis. It appeared that they had moved a little. Probably gotten up and used the bathroom and didn't notice.

They were still in bed together just not wrapped up in each other's arms any more.

Lanie was at the door and let her in and filled her in on what had happened, asking if Lanie had gotten any sleep. Getting Lanie to only shake her head.

It wasn't just the loss of Castle that was hitting her, it was Beckett. Beckett was her best friend and until she could get Kate up and trying to fight for her own life, Lanie was at a loss.

Grieving needed time before moving on to the next phase of loss. None of them however were past the grief part yet.

Lanie finally caught Kate and Alexis awake, however all she managed to do was get them to drink some water before they latched onto each other again and laid back down in bed.

Lanie made each of them a sandwich and left it in their room for the next time they woke up. Kate was always thin but if she didn't start eating soon Lanie was going to have to do something drastic.

It was now two days later:

Lanie had finished her autopsy on Gina Cowell and determined that it really was her.

The blood test results were back and they matched those of Castle's they had on file. The first of the DNA test results would be in, in a couple of days.

Problem was in the last two days the knowledge of Castle dying had gotten out and there were enough paparazzi and real journalists outside the loft it was in danger of sinking. It was all Lanie, Ryan and Espo could do to get in and out of the building.

Getting takeout delivered had become impossible so each of them had started bring food for everyone in with them. Only problem was Kate and Alexis were still not eating and still in bed together.

Naturally one of the paparazzi went one step too far when Espo was coming in one day. Espo took it as an assault on his person and had the guy with a bloody nose down on the concrete just outside the front door.

This action brought cruiser after cruiser to the site. Naturally the paparazzi guy claimed innocence and wanted Espo arrested or suspended.

Captain Montgomery put an end to all of it. He had the paparazzi guy placed in lockup for 24 hours while the entire 12th precinct started digging into his past.

After they finally found what they wanted Montgomery had him arrested and the following day half the police force was out and surrounded the Castle loft forcing everyone to back off far, far away.

Naturally the journalists started fighting back with lawyers, however all that started to slow down as each paparazzi or journalist tested the limits and found themselves arrested and had their entire lives inspected until they found something.

The next day the area was clear of paparazzi, journalists and police.

Back in Chicago the guy who had hit Castle and killed everyone in the taxi had been held for 24 hours while they worked out if he should be charged.

Video of the intersection showed that the taxi driver had clearly run a red light. A very late red light. If there had been a car in front of him he would have rear ended it and not continued into the intersection.

The taxi had been hit by a large delivery truck which had clipped the rear right side where Castle had been sitting. This action spun the car 180 degrees only to be hit by a large 4x4 Dodge Ram crew cab. This strike also hit the same place and did still more damage on Castle's side.

The Dodge Ram then forced the car into a car sitting at the right coming from the other side. The driver had mistakenly shoved his foot down of the gas instead of the brake. This crushed the car from the other side.

A taxi that was entering from the opposite side of the first truck and the Dodge swerved to avoid the first truck and slammed into the rear of the taxi forcing it off the car it had been forced into by the Dodge.

Everything was on video. The accident, what all the civilians in the area did, when the first police cruiser arrived on scene. The first fire truck and ambulance. Everyone got to watch them use the jaws of life to try and pry the car open to get to its occupants.

Everything! The next fire truck, two more ambulances, several police cruisers, finally followed by tow trucks to haul the affected cars away.

The intersection had been closed for hours while they mapped out everything and talked to everyone in the area.

On behalf of the Castle's, lawyers sued the taxi company and the taxi driver himself, even though he had died in the accident too.

It wasn't any more fun for the drivers of the delivery truck, Dodge Ram and the car that had slammed into the back of the taxi.

The press and paparazzi were all over them. At home and at work. "How did it feel to kill Richard Castle? Did they know he was in the taxi? Did they strike the taxi on purpose? Had they ever met Richard Castle? Had they bought any of his books?"

It was weeks before they were finally left alone, however by then their lives had been changed. The press had seen to that.

One day Martha caught Katherine stepping out of the bathroom. "Katherine dear, please eat something." Martha was worried about her, they all were.

"I'm not hungry Martha." Kate responded. All she wanted to do was go back to bed. Castle was gone and there wasn't any reason to eat.

"Katherine, PLEASE!" Martha tries again. She doesn't have much to bargain with her to get Katherine to eat. At least she didn't think so. Martha feared even mentioning her sons name would only solidify her refusal to eat and wither away, until she joined Castle in death.

Kate however only ignored her and laid back down in bed and tried to go back to sleep. There was nothing else left to do. Kate had given her heart to Castle and now he was gone and so was her heart.

Martha was up and she shooed all the others out and told them to go back to their lives. Martha was in charge now.

Martha was having a little better luck with Alexis, she had at least managed to get her up and eaten something. However she went right back to bed with Kate. Her father was gone and Kate was disappearing with him.

Then one day Martha got a call from Steve, Castle's lawyer. He wanted to go over Castle's will with them. Her, Alexis and Kate were the only ones listed.

This woke Martha up and now she had something to work with to convince Katherine to get up out of bed.

The day before Steve was to arrive Martha had literally dragged Kate up and out of bed and escorted her to the kitchen where she got Kate to eat something.

Martha bargained with Alexis to help her with Katherine. Steve was coming to discuss Castle and Martha wanted them to all be there to listen.

Martha was praying that Steve had something that would pull Kate out of her pit of despair. "Please Richard, Katherine needs you one last time." This had to work, it had to.