Decisions and Dominoes Chapter 12

The tight-knit group of friends didn't miss the relevance of where they stood gathered together. The hallway outside the emergency room suite where Castle was being treated was the same one where they had waited for word on Beckett when a sniper almost took her life over two years before.

Kevin had slid down the wall and was resting his head in hands covered in Castle's dried blood. He was clearly traumatized. He had been the one to press his hands over an unconscious Castle's wound desperately trying to staunch the overwhelming flow of blood that had continued to drain freely through his fingers no matter how hard he pressed.

Espo paced an eight foot patch of floor staying close to Ryan; his empathy for his partner's emotional state amplifying his own.

Alexis and her grandmother stood huddled together. Silent tears of anguish streamed down Martha's face as she stood with protective arms around her sobbing granddaughter.

Gates talked urgently on the phone part way down the hall to someone who was apparently questioning her about the incident at great length.

No one was talking, but the voices in their own heads were continuous and overwhelmingly loud.

"Javi!" Lanie was running toward him from the far end of the hallway. He walked to meet her and took her in his arms for an embrace that was a comfort to both.

"How is he?" she asked apprehensive to hear the answer.

Javi ran his hand over his face and shifted uncomfortably trying to manage his emotions, "It's bad, Lanie. He's lost a lot of blood. He was unconscious when we found him and, uh…ummm," Javi had to stop for a minute.

Lanie's heart was breaking as she watched a tear slip down Javi's face, "What else, Javi, tell me."

He swiped angrily at the tear, "He was… he couldn't breathe. I think the bullet hit a lung."

"But he was breathing?" Lanie clarified.

Javi nodded, "Yeah, Yeah..., he was when they took him from the loft."

Lanie glanced over at Kevin who was still against the wall; head in bloody hands, "Is he okay?"

Javi didn't know the answer, "That's all Castle's blood, but he hasn't said a word since we got here."

"I'm going to go over and see about little Castle and Martha," Lanie rubbed Javi's arm as he nodded his understanding.

As Lanie moved away from him, she heard more people arriving from behind her. She turned and saw that it was Jenny and that Allie was with her. She figured that when Kevin called Jenny and told her about Castle, that she must have called Allie. She decided that she would let Espo deal with their arrival.

Seeing Alexis so distraught was more than Lanie could stand and as she took her into an embrace, her own tears broke free. Lanie and Alexis had formed a sincere bond while she had been interning at the morgue. Working with her had been pivotal in Lanie's transition from seeing Castle as just Kate's boyfriend and a famous playboy mystery novelist, to a guy who was a great father and man. Alexis was an exceptional person, and Lanie knew that Castle was largely responsible for that.

After a moment she pulled away taking Alexis' face in both of her hands, "You listen to me."

Alexis stopped sobbing and nodded, but tears were still streaking down her cheeks.

"Your dad is the strongest man I know. He's a fighter and he doesn't give up. Not when he has a shot. He got here alive, Alexis, so he has a shot," Lanie put every bit of conviction she could muster into her words and they seemed to work, at least for the moment, because Alexis took a deep breath and stopped crying.

Lanie then took a moment to comfort Martha, but she turned around when she heard Alexis announce in a voice filling with controlled indignation, "No. No. She can't be here."

Everyone in the hallway followed Alexis' steely gaze to where she had locked on to Kate who had been stopped by Gates from getting any closer to the family of friends holding vigil. Even Ryan, who had been immovable from his slumped position against the wall stood up and took a few steps toward Beckett. Jenny, relieved that Kevin had finally responded to something, stood beside him and held supportively on to his arm.

Gates realizing that the group appeared mobilized by Kate's presence told her, "Beckett, I don't know if you being here is such a good idea; particularly after what happened at the station today."

Kate's expression was desperate, "I just have to see if he's okay, Sir, please."

"Agent, this isn't about you," Gates' voice and face were pitiless. "What you are doing now is trying to help yourself and that's not fair to all those other people down there who are here for him. And you need to realize that these are not your people anymore. Your people are back at the precinct, which is where you should be right now trying to hunt down Tyson. That's how you can help them. That's how you can help him."

Kate looked past Gates to all the faces that were staring at her. She couldn't believe the mammoth wall that stood between them. A wall she had built decision by decision to keep anyone from getting too close, until one day, the day she walked away, they all stopped trying to get over it or through it or under it. Instead, the wall that Kate built had come to serve a new purpose; it protected them from her.

In that moment of self-realization, Kate turned back the way she came.

"Beckett, wait!" Alexis called to her striding forward separating herself from the rest of the group, but each of them instinctively moved toward the building confrontation.

Kate stopped and waited letting Alexis take the lead. She pulled up barely two feet from Kate, "What are you doing here?" Her voice was demanding without a hint of insecurity.

Kate was taken aback by how much she sounded like her father when he had asked her that exact same question, "I had to come, Alexis. I love him."

Kate's use of the word love seemed to trigger Alexis. She didn't yell, she didn't cry, and she didn't rant, but she did have something to say, "Whatever you think you gave my dad, it wasn't love. You never had the intent or the commitment to truly love him. He was never your first choice when there was one to be made when you were together. And the times that you did choose him, it was always as an after thought. I was just a kid, but I couldn't understand why he let you jerk him around over and over again. I kept telling myself that he must've seen something in you that I didn't. Now I know that he allowed himself to be deceived by his love for you, and you took what he offered and used it as means to keep him from seeing what you are; selfish and unable to commit to anyone other than yourself."

Kate's legs felt weak under her, but she remained immobile knowing that she owed Alexis the opportunity to finish, "I'm asking you to leave my dad alone; leave my family alone. He doesn't need your pity or your presence. He's spent these last few months in perpetual motion trying like hell not to get sucked in by the devastation you left behind when you decided that some stupid job in DC was more important than he was. So please Agent Beckett, do what obviously comes the most easily to you; leave."

Alexis turned away from Kate and back into the arms of her grandmother. Kate's eyes briefly met Martha's and the disappointment, fear and pain that she saw there was scathing and intensely accusatory.

Kate looked into all of their faces – Javi, Kevin, Lanie, Alexis, and Martha and was overcome with the weight of self awareness; she had broken them with when and how she left. She had been blinded by her own ambition and fears and therefore hadn't seen or considered theirs. And most damning of all was what she had done to Castle.