Good Morning! How are you? I hope you're all well and doing fine!
Today I'm celebrating again! Last time I posted, it was Stana's birthday... today it's mine! Yup the big 3-0! Ahhhh! Anyway, even though I'm the one getting older, I thought you were the ones that deserved something new... I didn't know what you already had, so I went out and got you a new chapter. I really hope you like it and that it fits, cuz there's no receipt... you can't return it!
So, I feel that I need to warn you right now about this chapter It is definitely NOT a fun, happy birthday chapter. It's HEAVY! If you thought Kate's revelation about Hope in chapter 8 or the fire/recovery was a lot, then you may want to prepare yourself for this one. In fact, you may need to go back and read the last chapter again so that you can smile and laugh, after reading this one. With that being said, let me remind you that I'd never do anything tooo awful to our favorite characters, even if it looks really bad at first. So please trust me that things will work out and get better. Also, even though this isn't a cliff hanger, it does end without true resolution, and I wanted you to know that I am over half way through the next chapter, and that I hope I'll have that up tomorrow... so that I don't send you into a weekend all bummed out.
Don't hate me... it's my special day! (smile)
I would really love to know what you think about this sub plot though. So please drop me a line! I need the feedback even more on these tough chapters than I do with all the fun fluffy ones.
I debated for a long time if I would put this in (I've been planning on something like this since about the time I wrote Rick's bday party), but after a lot of thought, I went with my gut... again. So here it is...
Disclaimer: Maybe now that I'm older and more responsible, they'll let me own a Castle character or two. I promise to feed and water them everyday and even take them for walks.
Chapter 36
The rest of July and most of August were exceptionally busy. Rick had to travel for work a couple nights a week during the entire time. Alexis got in as much family time as possible before heading back to California to finish her visit with her mother and then returning to school. Martha was traveling with an acting troupe for several weeks. Kate returned to the daily grind of the 12th, quickly resuming her usual destructive pace, as if she'd never been gone. And as Lanie and Javier's wedding quickly approached, they sucked all their closet friends and family into their frenzy of preparations.
On the last Saturday in July, Castle was in Seattle and Alexis was going to a girlfriend's birthday party, so Kate joined Lanie at her place for drinks and a girl's night of gossip and stuffing wedding invitations.
"So when do you guys move into your new place?" Kate asked her best friend.
"Javi's going to get his stuff in next weekend but we'll just slowly move my stuff over all the way up until the wedding."
"You aren't moving in with him right away?"
"No. His mother would probably have a coronary if we moved in together before the wedding. It's just better not to rock the boat, and that's fine cuz my lease isn't up until the end of September anyway."
"So, she doesn't know that you two... are... knockin' boots?" Kate moved her hands and hips in a sexy gesture to illustrate her question.
"Oh she knows! She just pretends she doesn't."
Kate laughed at Lanie's dramatic eye roll.
"What about his dad? What does he think about the whole thing."
"He bought Javier a pack of energy drinks and told him that he'd need them if he was going keep up with a woman like me."
"Shut the front door! No he didn't!"
"Yes he did! That man is a riot. He just says whatever comes into his head. No filter, whatsoever! He makes Castle look restrained! I'm going to make it Ryan's job at the wedding to make sure that man never gets a hold of a microphone!"
"That's too funny! Has your mom backed down from all her demands finally?"
"Sort of. She still gives me her opinion, even when it's not asked for..."
"Oh, so that's where you get it from."
Lanie shot Kate the look of death but then continued what she was saying. "...but I think she's finally realized that this close to the wedding I'm not going to suddenly change it all up. Thankfully Pam has been doing a lot of the communicating between us, so that's good."
"When's Pam coming into town?"
"Don't know yet. I love my sister to pieces, but I know she'll be staying with me, so hopefully not much more than a week or so."
"Don't talk like that! She's you sister, it can't be that bad!"
"Spoken like an only child."
Beckett stuck her tongue out in response.
"It won't be bad, and I am looking forward to her being here, but I'm still her baby sister, and no matter how how old we get, she always has a way to remind me of that!"
Kate nodded but since she would never personally understand, she'd just have to take her friend's word for it.
"Enough about me. How's life in Casa de Castle?"
"Good! We have our moments, but since when have we ever not had those? I think if we ever stopped bickering, the world would probably stop spinning."
"Little fights are good for a relationship! Then you can have great make up sex!"
"Now you sound like Castle!"
"Well, when the man is right, he's right!"
"Please, for the love of everything pure and holy, don't tell him that. Sometimes I think if his head gets any bigger we'll have to get all the doors re-fitted!"
"You have to admit though, the man does have some good ideas! Like the boat trip on the third! I can't wait until we can all do that again."
"Yeah, that was awesome. Both the part you were there for and the part afterward!"
"Oooooh girl, I still can't believe that happened. I'm so jealous!"
"You should be! It was that good. We could have stayed there forever!"
Lanie smacked her friend on the shoulder. "Speaking of forever, your left hand still looks awfully naked, and I know it's not because he doesn't know what size ring you wear."
"We haven't even been dating six months. Don't you think it's a little soon for an engagement?"
"Do you really have to ask? I believe we've had similar conversations in the past. I don't know why you aren't already Mrs. Castle!"
"It's not because he doesn't want to ask."
"I know! Javi knows. Jenny and Ryan know. The entire 12th knows. Anyone who's read a Nikki Heat book knows. Hell, I'm sure the barista that fills his coffee order every morning has figured that out by now. He's never been subtle with how he feels."
"Wow! I feel like such an unfeeling witch, thanks!"
"Girl, don't give me that shit. You know what I mean, because you spent so long carefully avoiding it! But now you're together! You're in love. You live together. Why the holding pattern?"
"If I had to guess, he's just waiting for the right time. I'm not pushing him away anymore."
"So if he showed up right now at my door, got down on one knee and gave you what I can only assume would be a ring worth more than my annual salary, you'd finally say yes?"
Kate thought it over a second and shrugged, but couldn't stop her smile from showing. "Yes I would."
"Give me my phone. I need to call him. If he'll fly from Phoenix for sex, I know he'll fly from Seattle for an engagement."
"Lanie Parish, don't you dare!" Kate yelled and lunged for the cell phone on the other side of the table, but was a second too late.
"Girlfriend, he needs to know you're ready!"
"He already knows!"
"How can you be sure?"
"Because we talked about it."
Lanie planted her hands on her hips and stared at her friend from below a skeptically raised eyebrow.
"Spill or I'm calling him!"
"Give me your phone and I'll tell you."
Lanie thought about her options and then handed Kate her phone. "I want details."
Kate took the phone and slipped it in her pocket, before sitting down with her glass of wine.
"So you're familiar with all the medications I was on after the fire."
The doctor nodded.
"And you remember when we spent like, two hours filling that giant dispenser with all of them so I wouldn't forget to take any?"
Again she nodded.
"Well, while we were in Chicago I realized that my birth control pills had started a new cycle without me noticing, but I hadn't started my period yet, and I freaked out."
"Let me guess, you guys forgot that the pill might not work while on everything else and didn't use any other protection?"
"Bingo."
"So when we got back, I went to my doctor and had a bunch of tests run."
"Let me just stop you now. If you found out that you were pregnant three weeks ago and never told me, I'm kicking you out of the wedding."
"I'm not pregnant! I was just very late! Almost ten days to be exact."
"Stress?"
"Yeah. It hit me almost as soon as I was back in to my normal work routine."
"I'm not surprised. But now continue, I'm looking for the part where you talk about marriage."
"Anyway so when we were talking to the doctor, Castle pipes up and starts asking questions about us trying to get pregnant."
"Are you trying?"
"Right now? No. We got some info and my doctor gave me a scrip for pre-natals for whenever I want them, but that's what led to marriage talk. That night after the appointment we talked about when we might want to start trying and we agreed that we should be married first. He told me right then that he would be asking me soon."
Lanie squealed and did a little dance! "I am so happy! Look at you two planning an engagement and little Castle babies!"
Beckett blushed slightly and gave in to the giant grin bursting from her face.
"So when and where would you have the wedding?"
Before Kate could chastise her friend about her premature questions, her phone started playing "Fireflies", the song Alexis had added to her phone as her ringtone.
"Hold on, I gotta take this."
Kate switched on her phone and immediately heard someone crying. "Alexis? What's wrong?"
An unfamiliar girl's voice cracked in her ear. "Is this Kate?"
"Yes. Who's this? Where's Alexis?"
"I'm her friend Dani. I have Alexis with me. We're headed back to her place. Are you home?"
"No, but I can be there in a minute. Is Alexis OK?"
Kate began scurrying around Lanie's place grabbing her purse and keys. After hearing Kate's side of the conversation, Lanie was also grabbing her things including a medical bag she always kept handy.
The girl's reply was garbled and punctuated with static before disconnecting.
The two women looked at each other briefly before bolting toward the door.
"I'll drive. You try calling her back" Lanie ordered.
Kate called back repeatedly but it went strait to voice mail every time.
"Should you call Castle?"
"And tell him what?" Kate asked. All of her usual cool was gone, and in it's place was a frantic friend and "mother".
Unfortunately for both Kate and Lanie, two people who were all too familiar with what worst case scenarios looked like, their minds raced through years of suppressed memories and images.
Thankfully they made good time, and soon both women were tearing through the lobby of Castle's building, past the doorman, and directly to the elevator.
When Kate opened the door, she didn't know what to expect to see but it wasn't an empty room.
"Alexis! Dani! It's Kate! Are you here?" she called out.
A girl who looked vaguely familiar ran down the steps toward them. It was evident she'd been crying.
"Thank God, you're here. I didn't know what else to do!"
"Where's Alexis?"
"In her room."
Beckett looked strait into the younger woman's eyes with the same intensity that she did in an interrogation "What happened?"
Tears filled Dani's eyes again. "I think someone slipped something in her drink. She won't wake up."
Kate and Lanie shared a look laced with terror and concern, before racing up to the youngest Castle's room.
On her bed, Alexis was sprawled out, arms and legs in every direction.
Lanie immediately went to her side and began taking vitals before trying to rouse her.
Kate turned her attention back to Alexis' friend.
"Dani, this is very import. I'm not mad. You did the right thing to call me. But now I need to know everything. Don't leave out any detail."
The girl hiccuped and let out another sob before regaining enough composure to talk.
"So we were all going to our friend Christina's birthday party tonight, but when we got to her place, Chris's roommate had the stomach flu so we moved the party to Chris's boyfriend's place across town. Devin lives with like five other guys but they have a big place so it worked. Anyway, everything was going pretty well but then a couple of Devin's roommates came home and they were pretty plastered. They were super obnoxious. They were hitting on the girls and trying to cop a feel, so Devin and another roommate named Jon encouraged them to stay in their rooms and not ruin the party. They left and everything was fine for a while but then like after an hour they came back out and seemed to have sobered up so we let them stay. Then a couple of their friends showed up. Before long, there were a ton of people, and I only knew like half of them. Most of us weren't drinking, but I'm pretty sure a couple drinks got spiked."
"Was Alexis drinking?"
"Not that I know of. I mean, it's just not something that she'd normally do, at least, intentionally. As far as I know, she just had iced tea."
Kate nodded.
"Anyway the party was starting to get a bit out of hand, and Alexis wasn't feeling real great, so her and Paige, Cara and I were all thinking about leaving. Cara had been drinking a little, but not much so Paige took her home."
Lanie was still tending to Alexis when she interrupted. "You said Alexis wasn't feeling well. Did she say what was wrong?"
"She said she was feeling weak and light headed and kinda nauseous."
"OK keep going," Beckett demanded.
"OK, so Alexis was going to go back to one of the bedrooms to get our stuff, but not long afterward, someone shouted that the cops were there and people scattered everywhere. I couldn't find Alexis but I knew she wouldn't run, especially cuz she hadn't done anything wrong, so I went to go find her. When I went to the room where our jackets were, a guy I didn't know, came out looking all crazy and then ran out the back." Another sob escaped from the girl. "That's when I found her on the bed. I couldn't wake her up, and the little she tried to say was all slurred. I ran out to grab one of the cops that was supposed to be there, but apparently it was a false alarm, so I just helped her up as best as I could and got her in my car. She woke up a little in the car, and told me not to tell her dad. So that's when I found her phone and called you. It's a miracle I got her up here by myself but she was able to walk a bit if I guided her."
Beckett's nails dug into her palms as the story unfolded. She knew what she'd have to ask next.
"I hate to ask this, but when you found her, did her clothes look rumpled or out of place?"
Kate's bottom lip was changing color due to how hard she was biting it.
The girl shook her head no. "I didn't notice anything like that."
"Thank you Dani. You did the right thing by calling me. Why don't you go downstairs for a while?"
Even though she was reluctant to leave her friend, she complied.
When Dani was gone, Kate shut the door behind her retreating form and looked at the medical examiner for answers.
"Right now, all I can tell you is that her vitals are good and she seems to be sleeping whatever it is off. I can't tell here, what she's taken, but from what Dani described, I've got a strong suspicion."
"Benzodiazapine?"
"Or something similar."
"Have you seen any signs of..." Kate couldn't bring herself to actually say what she dreaded the most.
"Well obviously I haven't undressed her, but she does seem to have some minor bruising on her wrists."
Lanie continued to look over the visible skin on the girl's arms and legs before lifting her shirt. There were a few red marks on her belly and sides but they could have easily come from Dani trying to pull her up to the loft.
Kate hung her head. "Please God, no!" she begged.
Lanie came around the bed and wrapped her arms around her dearest friend. They held each other for several long moments.
"What do you want me to do Kate? If she was a minor I'd take her strait to the ER, and maybe we still should. But if you want me to, I can keep treating her here and see what happens. I've given her something that will hopefully help her wake up soon."
Kate really didn't know what to do. She wasn't Alexis' mother, and she never thought she'd find herself in a position like this. She should probably call Rick, but she knew him well enough to know that he'd need answers immediately. Answers she couldn't give him. Hopefully in another hour or two she'd have something to actually tell him before he raced across the country to his daughter.
Before Kate could come up with an answer, Alexis began to stir.
Kate and Lanie went to either side of her. "Alexis Honey, it's Kate. Can you wake up?"
"Kate? Where am I?"
"You're home, Sweetie; in your room."
"What happened?"
"I was hoping you could tell me that."
"I don't feel good. I want to go back to sleep."
"Try to stay awake, Honey." Lanie encourage and handed her a bottle of water to try drinking from.
Still very groggy, it took both Kate and Lanie to help the teen into a sitting position.
Kate sat on the bed and smoothed the girl's long red hair away from her face. "Alexis look at me, and try to focus on what I'm saying."
Blue eyes that were an exact match to her father's, looked up at Kate from behind heavy eyelids.
"I think someone at the party drugged you. I need you tell me what you remember so we can help you."
"We went to Christina's place and then went to Devin's." Alexis half slurred her sentence as she began to doze back off.
Lanie patted the young woman's cheeks to try to rouse her. When she opened her eyes, Lanie forced her to drink more water while Kate kept trying to get information.
"Alexis, what happened at Devin's?"
"It got kinda out of hand, and I wasn't feeling good, so we were going to leave."
"When you went to get your jacket was someone in the room with you?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. I got really dizzy and sat down for a minute, and then..." Alexis struggled to bring back the foggy memories that swam through her head. "I don't remember."
The two friends shared another look over the red head between them.
Lanie had an idea to see if they could see any more signs without freaking the girl out. "Alexis Honey, lets get you out of your clothes and into some pajamas so you can be more comfortable."
She nodded but never opened her eyes.
Kate went to the chest of drawers and found a long night shirt, and then returned to help Lanie undress Alexis.
They slipped off her shoes and unbuttoned her blouse. Then Kate held Alexis up while Lanie pulled off the girl's cami and unhooked her bra.
In her line of work, Lanie had undressed more people than she cared to think on, but this might have been the most difficult time ever.
As they removed each item, the detective and medical examiner's carefully trained eyes roamed Alexis' porcelain skin for anything that might indicate an attack. When they didn't find anything they pulled the long shirt down over her head, and laid her back on the bed.
Kate stood back and practically bored a hole into Alexis skirt from her stare.
"I don't want to either, but we have to" Lanie spoke quietly.
"I know."
Kate rolled Alexis over to unzip the skirt and then rolled her back before they pulled the material down from her waist.
No bruises, no scratch marks, no blood, no rips or stretched out underwear, nothing that would indicate that anything happened. It was the best they could possibly hope for at the time. They rolled her again to make sure that her back half looked as unharmed as the font, and were relieved to find nothing unusual there either.
Now that they both felt a bit better, they pulled a blanket up over the sleeping girl.
"Since we didn't see any signs of anything, I'm willing to wait a little longer before taking her in to the hospital. If we can wake her up in a little while and get her to talk more, I'll reevaluate things then."
Lanie nodded.
"Why don't you go down and get an address for the party and description of the guy from Dani, and send her home. Then can you call Esposito and get him to look into things for me?"
"Sure. I'll be right back. Call me if she wakes up."
Dr. Parish left Beckett alone with Alexis. She stood for a while just staring at the girl, drowning in a flood of thoughts and emotions. After a little while, Kate sat back down on the bed and pulled Alexis into her arms. They stayed like that until Lanie returned a half hour later.
Lanie brought some cool damp cloths with her and began to wipe Alexis' face, causing her to stir. At first she moaned and just tried to turn over, but then with alarming speed, sat up and vomited all over the bed.
The retching seemed to bring her fully awake and after she was finished, Lanie removed the soiled bedding while Kate helped her change into another night shirt.
"Kate why do I feel so sick? I felt fine earlier."
Kate took Alexis' hands in hers and gave them a gentle squeeze. "Sweetie, your friend found you passed out at the party and brought you home. We think, that maybe someone slipped a roofie in your drink."
Lanie came back just in time to see the stunned look on the the teen's face. She looked like a scared little girl instead of the confident young woman she'd grown into.
A large tear fell from each of her blue eyes and rolled down her cheeks."Was I raped?" she whispered.
"We don't know. Right now, if you want my honest opinion, I don't think so. But something happened, and you should be checked out just in case."
"I don't want to go to the hospital! I don't want to be checked out! I just want to be left alone."
"No. Lanie and I will stay with you. And we can stay with you at the hospital too."
"If you don't think anything happened why do I even have to go?"
Lanie stepped in as a doctor now instead of a friend. "Honey, an internal exam can tell us a lot more. It can tell us if something happened, and if it did, we can collect evidence to get the guy. You should have it done, just in case."
Alexis was completely sobbing now and buried her head into Kate's arms.
They didn't try to comfort her or offer platitudes, they just let her cry, knowing it was important that she work through this.
After a while, Alexis sat back up and turned to the ME. "Lanie, you're a doctor. Can you just do the exam here? If you find that something really did happen, I'll go to the ER. But I don't want to go if I don't have to."
Lanie looked at Kate for permission.
Kate turned Alexis to her so that she could look her in the eyes. "Maybe we should call you dad, and talk to him."
"No Kate! Please? This will kill him. He'll fly back here and demand all sorts of tests and then take to the streets to kill the guy. I'm nineteen, I'm an adult. I can make my own decisions."
Silence fell over the room as she considered the girl's words.
"If Lanie finds something, you promise you'll go to the ER?"
"Yes."
"And after we know what's going on, one of us will talk to your dad? He needs to know."
"After we know, I'll call him."
Kate stared at the girl, thinking it over one more time. "Fine. If Lanie can do the exam here, it's OK with me."
Within twenty minutes, the guest room, where the lighting was better, was set up for the examination.
Alexis, wrapped in a robe sat on the edge of the bed and looked around nervously.
Lanie had a pad of paper, a pen, her bag of supplies and several items from Kate's crime scene kit spread on small table. "Are you still sure you want me to do this?"
Alexis nodded.
"OK, I'm going to have to ask you some questions first. Don't be embarrassed, just answer me honestly. I promise there is nothing you can tell me that I haven't heard before, and I won't tell anyone. I'm here as your doctor and I am bound by confidentiality."
Again Alexis nodded, then looked to Kate who was leaning on the door.
"If you want me to leave so I don't hear your answers, I will. But if you want me to stay I promise I wouldn't say anything to anyone, even your dad, unless it was absolutely necessary in catching this guy."
"I want you to stay."
Lanie began the list of questions covering everything from Alexis' last period and GYN exam, to her sexual history, and then to the events of that night.
As Kate listened, she knew the girl was telling the truth, and was relieved to find that although she was a fairly normal teenager, that she was probably one of the most chaste and well behaved college girls in the entire city.
Now that Alexis was much more alert, she remembered a point during the night when a guy bumped into her and almost spilled her drink but then tried to flirt with her.
Lanie and Kate agreed that this was probably the guy who slipped her the drugs.
"Do you remember what he looked like?" Kate asked, and began taking notes of her own.
"He was like my height, curly blonde hair, tanned, I think green eyes. He was wearing a red t-shirt. And he definitely had a Bronx accent."
"Did he tell you his name?"
Alexis scrunched up her face as she thought. "Maybe Brad or Brian or something. I wasn't really paying attention, cuz I wasn't interested in him."
"After you talked to him, did you happen to notice him again?"
"There was a lot of people there."
"I know, but think hard. Did you see if he was watching you or any of the other girls? Did you notice who he was hanging out with?"
Glimpses of the evening flashed through Alexis' mind. She felt like she should remember something else about him but it wasn't coming to her. Then she thought about his voice.
"I didn't see him again, but I did hear him. When I went to get our jackets and felt dizzy, I sat down and closed my eyes. I remember him coming in and asking me if I was OK. When I told him I felt sick, he said he'd go get my friends. That's the last thing I remember before blacking out."
Kate swallowed hard. Well at least they had a decent description. She couldn't wait to get her hands on this guy, and preferably they would be around his sorry neck.
Lanie had told Kate earlier that she'd kept a sample of Alexis' stomach contents to process at the lab. Hopefully it would let them know what kind of drug had been used. But now she wanted to draw some blood to test too.
After finishing with her notes and labeling the small vials of blood, Lanie told Alexis to lay back on the bed.
She did and then reached her hand out to Kate. Without any words being spoken they both understood, and Kate went and sat next to the girl who was almost a daughter to her.
Lanie put on her gloves and prepped a few items before beginning. "Try to relax, but let me know if anything hurts."
Kate watched Alexis' face through the entire procedure. She kept her eyes closed and her breathing steady, never even flinching. A few minutes later, the doctor patted the girl's knee and told her that she was done and could sit up.
Beckett helped Alexis into a comfortable sitting position and then wrapped her arms around the girl. In case the news wasn't good, she wanted her to feel her there with her.
Lanie stared into two sets of equally scared pairs of eyes. "Good news. I don't see any signs of assault."
Kate processed the news much quicker than the younger woman and began to cry tears of relief, and hugged the girl tightly to her chest.
Alexis was in a bit of shock and still sluggish from whatever drugged her. At first, Kate's tears made her think that she hadn't heard right, but after replaying Dr. Parish's words in her head, also felt the crushing weight of her worries lift from her shoulders. She returned Kate's hug and cried with her. Lanie soon joined them and wrapped her arms around both of them.
Who knows how much time passed with them this way, but after the tears slowed, Alexis asked Kate what they would do next.
"I think you should file a police report. Thankfully things weren't as bad as they could have been, but he still drugged you and from the look of your wrists, probably attempted an assault. The guys are already looking into any leads they can find at the house where the party was, based on underage drinking alone. If we can catch this guy, you may be helping other girls before they end up in the same situation or worse."
"Can it wait til morning? I'm still so tired. "
"Yes, but don't shower, and be careful when you wash your hands, we'll see if we can lift some prints off of your wrists."
Alexis nodded.
"One thing that shouldn't wait til morning though, is a call to your dad."
"I know. I just don't know what to say."
"Sadly, I've had to make much worse calls than this. If you want, I'll call him and tell him and then you can reassure him that you're OK."
Alexis shook her head in agreement and then dropped her gaze to her hands.
The silence in the room was deafening.
"Sweetie," Kate placed a gentle hand on Alexis' shoulder, "are you OK?"
"I will be. I mean I'm so glad that I wasn't... you know. But I still feel violated."
"I know, Baby, I know." Kate again wrapped an arm around the girl's shoulder and kissed the crown of her copper hair. "You know you can always talk to me or your dad about this, or anything else for that matter."
"I know."
"And if you don't feel like you can go to them, you come to me, Honey." Lanie added. "And if you want, I know a great counselor too."
"Thank you guys. For everything."
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A/N So are you going to flog me for putting Alexis... and everyone else, through that? I hope not. I'm actually pretty happy with how it came out, all things considered.