A/N: This may not be 100% accurate as far as medical parts, research can only do so much good, so please, if something doesn't sound right or make sense, just let me know via PM. This message covers this chapter and next chapter. Thanks everyone, loving the support, you guys are awesome!
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The EMT tried to give Rome a quick check up, but it wasn't easy to do as Rome refused to let go of his dad. Even when Castle returned Rome's hearing aids to him, Rome was still pretty quiet, still refusing to let go of his dad's arm.
As they drove towards the hospital, the paramedic sitting with them was able to give Rome look over, and the more he examined the boy, the more concerned his face became. This was not lost on Castle.
"Mr. Castle, does your son have any allergies?"
"A few environmental and food, no medicine allergies," he answered robotically.
"He's extremely dehydrated Mr. Castle. He's got to see a doctor."
Rome began shaking his head violently. He was clearly trying not to cry and he was signing frantically even though it clearly hurt to do so.
"No, no, no dad, I just…I just want to go home, just take me home please. No hospital, please dad" he begged.
"Romey, you have to go, it'll be okay. I won't leave you I promise."
"This cut on his foot is concerning me. Rome, can you tell me how that happened?"
Rome was holding his dad's arm tight, he couldn't hear anything and had no idea the EMT had spoken, he was also feeling strange…a little light headed.
He couldn't concentrate on what was going on around him; he didn't even know his dad and the paramedic were speaking to him… until Castle nodded at the paramedic.
"Wh-what?"
Castle knew that tone; something was wrong. Despite his ordeal, Rome should not be this out of it; he had been pretty coherent inside the factory.
"Romey, are you okay?"
"Ye…yeah I'm fine,"
"Rome how did you hurt your foot?"
"I..." Rome thought about it hard "on the cage…I kicked it, something was sharp and cut my foot."
"Did anyone clean it for you?"
"I, er…don't think so, maybe I…. It was bleeding and… then it, er…um" he paused as if he couldn't think of the word off hand.
"Stopped?" Castle guessed and Rome nodded
"Yeah, stopped."
"Rome, who wrote Harry Potter?"
"Harry Potter? Um, uh, er," he was really hesitating on that, a question that he should have been able to answer without even thinking, the Harry Potter series was his favorite book series of all time, there wasn't any trivia about the series that Rome couldn't answer, and for him to not be able to answer the simplest question, something was really wrong.
"Uh, something is not right," Castle pointed out and the EMT looked at him, then at the monitor.
"Mr. Castle does your son have epilepsy?"
"No, he's never had a seizure in his life,"
"Rome," the EMT said when he was sure Rome was looking right him "son what's your dad's name?"
Rome's eyes went blank for a moment, like he was trying to remember and the answer wasn't coming to him
"Ri…" he managed to say before his eyes rolled up into his head, and his entire body began convulsing violently
"He's having a seizure!" the EMT shouted to his partner who sped the ambulance up "ETA?"
"Two minutes out,"
"Rome!" Castle yelled "Rome no, stay with me," Castle felt his chest tighten again, he had just gotten his son back he was not going to lose him again
"Mr. Castle, let me do my job," the EMT ordered Castle who reluctantly moved away from Rome.
"Come on kid, don't give in, fight…"
Rome's convulsions stopped, but when it did, the monitor the EMT had attached to Rome just in case, began beeping, before going flat line…Castle knew what that meant.
"He's going into cardiac arrest!" the EMT reported to the driver who seemed to step on the gas a little harder, the sirens seemed to be a little louder and more persistent.
"No!" Castle shouted trying to cradle Rome, parental instinct taking over common sense.
"I'm starting CPR!" EMT shouted as he tried to keep Castle at bay and give Rome CPR at the same time
"Can't you shock him or something please!" Castle begged
"Can you do chest compressions?" the EMT asked quickly and Castle nodded, thankful that Alexis had forced him to take the first aid course over the summer.
As the ambulance moved closer to the hospital Castle pressed down gently on Rome's chest, trying desperately to get his heart going. He just got his son back and he would not lose him again, especially not like this.
"Come on Doc, you can do it, fight this, come back to me, come back! Rome, please, please don't leave me Doc, I just got you back."
Xxx
After the ambulance took Rome away and after Beckett headed to the 12th with M while Ryan and Espo followed CSU into the factory. They had a strong case against M, but Beckett wanted no loopholes. All the evidence the boys could find would be used against M.
Beckett wanted the case to be solid and get M the maximum amount of time for what he had put Rome, the Castle family, and the team through.
The first stop for Ryan and Espo was the room Ryan and Castle found Rome in. Espo swore under his breath when he saw the small dog crate, the cut zip-tie and what really made him gag a little, remnants of blood on the bottom of the crate, left over from Rome's wounded foot and wrists.
"This jack-hole really had him in a dog crate?" Espo asked and Ryan nodded.
"Yeah, how sick is that?"
As Espo looked closer, he spotted something at the bottom of the cage. He snapped his fingers and gestured for the CSU guy to photograph the crate as he donned gloves. When the CSU guy finished with the pictures, Espo reached in and took the photo out. It was a picture of Rome and Alexis smiling happily at the camera, Alexis was hugging Rome tight and tickling him a bit to get him to laugh.
Again Espo swore under his breath as he handed the picture to Ryan who carefully put it in an evidence bag.
"Didn't Castle say M swiped some things from the loft?" Espo asked and Ryan nodded.
"Yeah Rome's stuffed animal and some photos, a picture of Rome at karate and a Christmas picture. We found the stuffed animal, that freak left it in the hallway for us to find. Probably trying to scare Rome even more, but I don't see the pictures anywhere." The partners exchanged a look.
"Dude does that mean he's got other pictures of the kids?" Espo asked rhetorically, they exchanged a look and headed out of this room and down the hall following the light.
The floor was covered in trash, needles, and other debris. Both detectives had to sidestep a few times to avoid stepping on any unpleasant items.
As they moved down the hall Ryan's flashlight caught the wall and he elbowed his partner
"Javi look at that," the two detectives stared at the wall, seeing the exact graffiti that Rome had drawn for them in his clue. It was all over the walls; the same tag over and over. "That kid is seriously scary good. I thought big Castle was observant, mini Castle is even more so."
"We must be going the right way; I bet Rome saw this at some point. There's an exit just down the hall, Rome must've tried to escape and saw this and realized he WAS in the Bronx." Espo theorized, Ryan was about to reply when he saw a door that was partially ajar.
"Here check this out,"
Espo covered Ryan as he pushed the door open.
It was an office of sorts and pristine compared to the rest of the factory and certainly compared to where M had kept Rome.
The thing that caught their eyes first was the large cardboard cutout of Castle himself, before either detective could comment on that, the photographs caught their eyes, hundreds of photos and newspaper and magazine clippings.
Rome was in most of the pictures, circled with a red marker but there was picture of the entire team as well, everyone from Castle and Beckett, Alexis and Martha, to Ryan and Espo, even Captain Montgomery and Lanie, all going about their business unaware that they were being photographed.
The photos of Rome were clearly a mix of ones taken recently and ones that clearly came from the loft.
There was Rome and Alexis sitting on Santa's lap. He looked to be about one or two and Alexis about five or six. There was the whole family at a book launch; Rome couldn't have been more than six. Then there were picture clearly from Marlowe prep, taken in parts of the school no one but a student, faculty, or parent would have access to and the partners knew these were taken by Carlson.
"Think we can add stalking onto the charges?" Espo said thoughtfully
"Onto Carlson at least," Ryan replied. "He may have been too weak to oppose his uncle but he knew what he was doing. It's no excuse."
There was a knock on the doorframe as one of the CSU guys came in.
"Uh detectives, we found something you might want to see." He said carefully.
They were about to follow him when something caught Esposito's attention. It was on M's desk, he walked over and lifted the folder up, inside was two drawings. Vastly different from the clues Rome had been drawing these were older and clearly done with care and precision.
Both detectives recognized the drawings even though they had never seen them before.
They remembered Castle explaining how two of Rome's sketches had gone missing in April; one of his grandmother acting on stage and the other the cover for a graphic novel for Derrick Storm.
Espo and Ryan had found the missing drawings.
"I want to keep these as evidence" Ryan explained "but as soon as we've got M down for the count I want to get these back to Rome."
Espo nodded and watched as the CSU guy bagged the drawings.
"Be careful with them," Espo instructed. "They belong to a very talented artist who will be very happy to have them back."
"Will do detective" the CSU guy replied he nodded to the doorway "I can come back and get all of this, you guys really need to see what's down the hall."
As they followed the tech, the partners once again watched where they stepped.
"Javi you realize that Rome must have walked this thing barefoot. He had no shoes on when Castle and I found him. M took his shoes and socks."
"Think the blood in the crate means he stepped on something?" A horrified look passed between the two, immediately Ryan was on the phone calling Mercy hospital.
"This is Detective Ryan of the 12th a kidnaping victim Rome Castle should've been brought to your hospital in the last fifteen minutes by ambulance." Ryan waited for a reply and nodded "yeah that's him I need to speak to his doctor or a nurse handling his care." Ryan sighed and Espo waved his hand waiting for a reply. "They put me on hold."
A few seconds ticked by and still no one picked back up. Ryan stopped walking as they neared the room the CSU guy wanted them to see.
"Well?" Espo asked impatiently
"Still on ho- yeah this is detective Ryan I was one of the officers that found Rome. We've got Crime Scene in the factory where we found him, this place is littered to the ceiling with broken glass, trash, and needles, he was barefoot when we found him and we found blood where the guy was keeping him." Ryan paused and nodded "he did, okay, you're sure?" he nodded again "okay we just wanted to be sure you guys knew. How is he?" Ryan's eyes went wide and Espo waved his hand for Ryan to explain "okay, thank you ma'am."
"So?" Espo asked hurriedly
'Rome's foot was cut on the crate, he managed to tell the paramedics that before he had a seizure and stopped breathing."
Espo's eyes went wide
"Damn, is he okay?"
"They got him breathing again, he's in with the doctors right now, the nurse couldn't really tell me much else, but she said they would run some extra tests on him just in case he did step on something in here." Ryan explained taking a deep breath "man I hope Castle is doing okay."
"His son was kidnapped and held for a week by some psycho publisher, I doubt he's okay Kev."
"I just mean, we got Rome back, it's something."
"Sure it's something, but what kind of shape did we bring him back in? I mean look at what this M guy put him through, it's going to be tough for that whole family to put this behind them."
"You don't know the half of it detectives," the CSU guy who had been so insistent that they follow him gestured for them to keep going. He pushed open a door that led into what was probably a kitchen at one point, but all the room had now was a table and a sink.
The door locked from the outside, but it was what was on the floor that really made both detectives' blood run cold. Shackles attached to a ring on the floor that was just the right size for a small ten year old.
"He kept him chained up in here?"
"We found traces of charcoal on the table, the kind used by artists." The CSU guy explained
"This is where M made Rome draw the clues," Espo sighed as he looked around the bare room. "That poor kid," just then Espo's phone began to ring, he glanced at his partner and picked up. "Esposito," he said "Beckett, yeah we've got the CSU guys going through this place, you're not going to believe it when we tell you. He did? What's he playing at? Yeah no, I got it, we'll be there soon." Espo hung up the phone and looked at his partner "Becks wants us back, M confessed to everything, said he didn't want a lawyer just laid everything on the table and confessed."
"What's he up too?" Ryan asked and Espo shrugged
"Who the hell knows, in a way it's probably a good thing, means Rome won't have to testify, just got to hope that whoever the judge is, they give M the max and then some."
Ryan nodded, both partners thinking the same thing, no punishment would be enough for what M had put Rome and the Castle family though.
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