Title: Good For You
Disclaimer: I've watched 10 episodes of Doctor Who in two days.
Summary: When the Dragon is slain, there's just a life to be lived. And sometimes there's more to learn in peace than in war.
Chapter 37:
"Thank you," she says smugly, taking the forty dollars with a grin.
Even Ryan is shaking his head. "Dude, come on."
"At least I had faith in you," he protests, looking the man over. Lanie's too busy waving her IOU around like a cheerleader to care. "Thought maybe you could use the money with Jenny—second honeymoon."
"And I don't need a second honeymoon?" Esposito asks, tossing him a glare.
"You'd need a first one, Javi," Kate says easily, laughing as he huffs and Ryan sniggers into his hand.
Castle smiles as she leans into his side, reaching across his body to steal a sip of his brandy. She smirks at him over the rim of the glass, all too aware of how hot she is when she steals his liquor.
"That is some rock," Esposito says as Lanie rejoins them around the bar.
"Gorgeous," Lanie agrees, taking Kate's hand to turn the diamonds into the low light. "You did good, Castle."
"I like to think so," he says as Kate smiles and nudges the glass into his chest.
He takes it from her and then watches as she and Lanie walk across the bar toward the bathrooms, dresses swishing along the backs of their thighs. Kate put on this amazing red number and has her hair all twisted up on her head. He's having trouble keeping it off his face; the guys wouldn't appreciate him throwing her down on the pool table.
"Dude, that's my woman," Espo grumbles, taking a swig of his beer.
"Was looking at mine," Castle replies distractedly.
"You guys are pathetic," Ryan decides as he hops up onto a stool.
Castle and Esposito share a look before bursting into laughter.
"Come on, Honeymilk," Esposito teases as he joins his partner at the bar. "If anyone's a lost puppy, it's you."
Ryan scowls into his beer. "You two are just as bad."
Esposito scoffs but Castle has to take pity on the man. "I'm a little pathetic sometimes," he admits.
Ryan gives him a grateful look as Esposito puffs up his chest. "I'm not."
"Oh really?" Esposito should remember that Ryan's got a bite on him when he wants. Poor guy. "Ryan, Ryan, make sure you've got a place for my cousin. Can't go alone if Lanie's bringing a doctor," Ryan mocks.
"Shut up," Esposito grumbles. "That was different."
"Really?"
"At least I don't check in with her every ten minutes," he argues, hunching his shoulders as they lean against the bar.
"It's sweet," Ryan rebuffs.
"It's a little sickening," Castle admits. "In the good way."
"Like you're not sickening," Esposito adds.
"We're adorable," Castle says impishly, putting on a fake Lanie that makes both men cringe.
"That's disturbingly uncanny," Ryan tells him as Castle's cell rings in his pocket.
Castle laughs and slides his thumb across his phone. "Castle."
"Hi, Richard. It's Jack Davenport."
Esposito and Ryan are messing around next to him, but Castle feels his stomach plummet. "Hi, Jack. Is everything alright?"
He hears his mother's boyfriend clear his throat across the line. "Actually, no, it isn't. I'm at New York Presbyterian. Your mother was just taken in."
Castle jumps up and stumbles a little, uneasy on his feet. "Um, okay. We'll, we'll be there—what happened?"
"Dude?" Ryan asks quietly.
"Beckett," he mumbles to them as he holds himself steady, a hand on one of the bar stools.
"Martha and I were out and she just kind of collapsed. She was breathing though."
"God. Okay, we're—Kate," he whispers as she comes up to him. "We'll be there in twenty. Where are you?"
"ER waiting room," Jack tells him as Kate runs a hand down his arm. "See you soon."
The call cuts out and he buckles for a moment. Kate's hand wraps around his bicep, her other at his back. "Castle?"
"My—my mother's at Presbyterian. She collapsed with Jack, I—"
"Rick," she breathes, but he has to shake it off, move forward.
"Taxi. Come on. We'll get a—"
"No way, Bro," Esposito cuts in, and he feels them all at his back, Kate guiding him up and out to the street, her hand gliding down to clutch at his.
Before he can ask, he's being hustled into the back of Ryan and Espo's cruiser. He sees Lanie jogging down the street toward her car while Kate gets him settled beside her. Esposito throws the gumball.
It's nearly too much. His mother is in the hospital. The sirens. The flash of the light. Everything is so loud, so startling. His mother. God, his mother.
He looks to Kate and finds her there, her fingers tight between his, determination on her face. "Jack said she was in the ER?"
"Ye-yeah," he manages.
"Be there soon," she promises. "Espo?"
"Goin' as fast as I can, boss," he grunts out, and Castle realizes for the first time that it's raining.
"Careful," he rasps out. "Alexis," he adds, because with the rain, and the dim night light, he sees visions—dual hospital beds, his family broken and bleeding. His mom. Oh, what happens if his mom—
"Rick," Kate says sharply, pulling him back out of it. He looks at her, suddenly lost. "Call her when we know what's going on," she adds, softer.
"Right," he says, nodding inanely.
She brings their hands up and kisses the back of his palm before looking out the window. He holds on, watching their hands as he tries to take in enough air to keep his head above water. He doesn't even know what's wrong yet.
But she's his mother. She's all he's got. She's in the hospital. And they were drinking, like nothing was wrong. If he'd been there—
"There's nothing you could have done," Kate says, and he gapes at her. "Just keep breathing. You got this."
He takes her hand in both of his and closes his eyes, leaning his head back against the seat. Nothing he could have done. He has to believe her. Has to. Because she's already lost her mother. And his is going to be fine. The world can't take Martha from him, from them, too.
All too soon, and not quickly enough, they arrive at the hospital. He opens his mouth to say something to the guys, but they just wave them in. He thinks Ryan says something to Kate—something about Lanie, and calling—but he can't hear, can only feel her hand in his as they jog toward the doors.
She leads him through—seems to know the hospital better than he does—and they come to the Emergency wing. He stalls, rocking back on his heels as they stand in front of the doors.
"Hey," she says softly, coming to stand in front of him.
He drags his eyes to hers, away from the white, sterile doors. "Kate," he manages.
She wraps her arms around him, her hand cradling his head, her other arm strong around his shoulders as he grips at her waist.
"She's gonna be okay," Kate whispers into his ear before pressing her lips to his cheek. "It's all going to be okay."
"You don't know," he croaks.
"If you don't believe in magic, you'll never ever find it," she says back, and he blinks as she pulls away. Did she just— "Now come on. Jack's waiting."
Bolstered by her faint smile and the glide of her fingers into his, he follows her into the waiting room.
"Jack," Kate calls softly, and the man in question lifts his head.
Hollowed out—he looks hollowed out. He stands, running a hand down his wrinkled jacket. "Rick, Kate," he offers as they reach him.
He shakes Castle's hand and accepts the hug Kate offers. Castle watches his fiancée. She's a champ, a superwoman here. How does she know? How stupid, of course she knows how this goes. Different circumstances, but sure. She knows. Oh, God, what if?
"How is she?" he asks, and his voice is hoarse, unsteady.
"They came out and said she's stable. We should be allowed back in about thirty minutes," he tells them.
"Stable," Castle repeats, sinking down into a chair as Jack takes a seat.
"Nothing else. I kept asking, but she didn't know anything else."
"Castle," Kate says gently. He looks up at her, battling with his head, always so good at spinning stories. "Alexis."
"Shit," he breathes out. "I—"
"I can call," she offers.
He opens his mouth to protest, but she's already got her phone out, Alexis picked out on her I.D. before he can get a word in. He slumps back and she reaches out to touch his cheek before moving away.
"What happened?" he asks, turning to look at the man beside him—his mother's steady boyfriend.
Jack sighs, his normally boisterous demeanor dampened and squashed down to this man wringing his hands, almost defeated. "We went dancing, had a few drinks—fun. Your mother is so fun, and full of life. And in the middle of Sing, Sing, Sing, she started gasping, and then collapsed. She didn't go fully under until the ambulance got there, but I—" he breaks off and scrubs a hand over his face. "I was so—she got so pale. I didn't know what to do."
"You got her here," Castle argues. "And I can't thank you enough for being there with her."
Jack shakes his head and meets Castle's eyes. "I care very deeply for your mother. I might—I'm—"
Castle chuckles and holds up a hand. "She should hear it first."
Jack laughs and nods, relaxing a little. "Spoken by the voice of experience?"
Castle looks over at Kate as she wanders the room, speaking to his daughter, calm and collected and extraordinary. "Spoken from more than one major misstep," he decides.
Jack smiles and sinks in the chair. They fall silent for a minute and the light seeps out, darkness creeping in. His mother, what's wrong with his mother? He twists his hands and feels himself biting his lip against it—a habit he's surely picked up from Kate.
"You doing all right?" Jack asks as Castle lets out a ragged breath.
Castle laughs hollowly. "No, but I better get there."
"She's a big girl," Jack says after a moment.
He nods and they sit for a minute, quiet in worry. "But she doesn't need to see this. And," he takes a deep breath and stands as Kate comes back to him, murmuring a goodbye to his kid. "And, we should, do—coffee? Do you want coffee? Kate, Jack?"
"Alexis says she'll be here in 20, if she can make traffic. And coffee would be great. Want me to get some?" she asks.
"I'll go," Jack says quickly. "There's a café a few halls over."
Castle watches him go and sighs, sinking back down onto a chair. He runs his fingers through his hair and squeezes his eyes shut. It smells like a hospital, like last summer. But his mother hasn't been shot, and Kate is warm and strong beside him—stronger than he is.
"Alexis was calm," she tells him, like she knows what he'd ask if he could push past the panic clawing at his throat. "Have they told you anything?"
He shakes his head and feels her hand glide over his back, a steady weight. "What do I—" he breaks off.
"You wait," Kate says gently. "And you hug your kid."
He nods slowly and glances over at her, this pillar of strength and comfort. He feels like he's being ripped apart but for the hand on his back. "Thanks."
She smiles and leans down to press her lips to his forehead. "In sickness and health."
(…)
"Daddy," Alexis breathes as he crushes her to his chest.
"She'll be okay," he murmurs, locking eyes with Kate over his daughter's shoulder. If she believes it, he will too. He has to. "She's stable."
"She was breathing and beating when we got her in," Jack adds from their left.
Castle kisses his daughter's forehead as she pulls away, eyes so wide and terrified. "Are you okay?" he asks, looking her over.
She's still panting, a little rain-damp, and it doesn't look like she'll catch her breath any time soon. "I just want—I want to know what's going on," she gets out, and there she is, his serious, too-grown daughter, hiding in this frightened girl.
"We will, soon," he says as he guides her into a chair.
He sees Kate walk toward the nurses station. Jack passes him a bottle of water and he hands it to Alexis, watching as she rips the top off and takes a ragged sip.
They're rather alone in the waiting room. A couple in the corner is rocking a distressed looking baby, the father wearing a bathrobe over boxers and a white shirt, the mother with a parka on over a teddy. Castle watches as the man wraps his arm around his wife, cradling the baby's head against her shoulder as they sit there, quiet and desperate.
"Castle."
He looks up and Kate is standing there in front of him, her hand light and gentle on his shoulder. He hums his attention up at her and she smiles.
"They said someone should be out in about ten minutes to take us back. She's okay."
He lets out a breath of relief. Okay and healthy are separate things, but here's confirmation again that his mother is alive. Thank God she's alive. "Hear that, Pumpkin? She's okay."
Alexis nods weakly and Jack slumps in his seat. Kate rubs his cheek and then sits beside his daughter, taking the girl's hand. Castle watches as Alexis lets her head hit Kate's shoulder, closing her eyes as Kate adjusts to get her arm around the girl. She whispers to his daughter, things he cannot hear, and he tracks her eyes to the couple in the corner when a nurse comes through the doors to usher them in.
They run, the baby cradled between them.
He looks back at his fiancée and finds her eyes. It could be them in a few years. Alexis snuffles on her shoulder. Maybe it is them already, just a different them.
(…)
Angina.
He nearly falls over with relief as the doctor smiles at them—an older guy with spectacles and a waning head of hair. Dr. Smith, he said, maybe. He's too happy, too relieved to let the connotation chill him.
Alexis and Jack stand on either side of his mother, who is still asleep, but slowly coming to. He glances at his daughter, who has tears running down her cheeks, and catches her eye. She beams at him, laughing a little.
Jack—Jack just looks at his mother, so much wonder, relief, and latent terror on his face. Is that how he looked with Kate last year, watching her before she woke?
"Castle," the woman in question murmurs, pulling him out of it, where they stand at the foot of his mother's bed.
"And she'll be fine?" he repeats toward Dr. Smith. Kate's hand squeezes around his. So she noticed too.
"Completely. A radical diet change and some more regimented exercise and she'll be just fine. I'll send you home in the morning with a packet and a recommendation. We need to keep her over night."
"Of course," he says slowly.
"Visiting hours?" Kate asks quickly.
"We can let one of you stay; if it's you, Mr. Davenport, just have Mr. Castle sign off on it. The rest, unfortunately, need to leave by eleven. If she has questions tonight, you can call me back. We'll give her a run down in the morning when she's a little more with it."
They nod and Dr. Smith gives them all a smile before leaving the room. Eleven. That's in twenty minutes.
Kate's arm wraps around his waist and he sinks back against it, tossing his arm over her shoulder as he lightly touches his mother's foot, anchors both.
"Dr. Smith," Kate whispers, her lips against his shoulder.
"Only good Smiths, now," he whispers back.
She smiles. It's brittle, but they're there. And His mother will be okay. She'll be fine. Just angina. Scary as hell angina, but she's fine. Sallow cheeks against white pillows, her red hair vibrant against the gloom—his mother is going to be fine.
Martha stirs and slowly comes to. "J—Jack?" she asks.
"Right here," Jack says softly. "You're okay."
"Hospital?" She blinks around, notices Alexis. "Alexis, dear, what are you?"
But she's lost to the gentle hug from his daughter, broken snippets of "You're okay. Thank God," floating back to them.
"Richard, Kate," she adds as Alexis releases her. Jack still has her hand and has taken to kissing it while he watches her, smiling.
"Hi, Martha," Kate says, leaning into him. "Good to see you awake."
Martha nods and then meets Castle's eyes. He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't. How can he tell her how much it means, how scared he was, how much everything—she is everything and all he had for so long. How can he explain that?
"You're pale, kiddo," she rasps.
He laughs. "Yeah. Very dramatic of you, mom," he manages.
Kate pinches his side, at the ready to reprimand, but his mother smiles, her eyes softening and crinkling as she looks at him. "Sorry, Richard."
Kate gentles at his side as he smiles at his mother, his grip on her foot stronger now. She wiggles her toes with a laugh and he relaxes. Finally, he relaxes.
Jack explains what happened and Alexis fills in the bits he forgets while Castle and Kate just stand there, watching. Martha touches Jack's cheek, rubs her thumb across his lips as Alexis sinks into a chair at her side.
His mother is okay. She's going to be fine. She's going to be just fine.
"It's eleven," Kate tells him gently.
"I'll stay," Jack says immediately. "You need to sleep," he adds as Alexis tries to protest.
"I could hide," she says meekly.
"No, no, kiddo. You go sleep and go to your classes tomorrow. Then come and have dinner with me," Martha placates, squeezing Alexis' hand. "Richard?"
"Come on, Alexis," he agrees, motioning her toward them. "Mother, I'll be—"
"We'll be," Kate interjects.
"We'll be back when you get discharged," he amends, squeezing Kate's shoulder as she rubs her hand along his side. "You're sure, Jack?"
"Just give me permission with the desk," he says easily, pulling up a chair beside his mother's bed.
"Will do," Castle promises as Kate takes Alexis' hand. "Sleep well, mother."
"You too," she offers, tired and sickly, but bright. She's still full of life, full of kick.
He gives her a last glance and then guides the rest of his family out of her hospital room. Kate practically has to drag Alexis out. He gets it. He does. His mother is more of a mother than Meredith ever was, and he can see that Alexis is shaken.
"Go talk to the desk," Kate tells him gently, giving him a push toward the nurses station as she wraps an arm around Alexis.
He talks distractedly to the patient night nurse as he watches Kate guide his kid out of the wing and through the double doors to the waiting room. Once Jack's stay is squared away, he follows his girls out and into the chilly night.
Kate is already on her cell phone, calling them a cab as Alexis leans into her, her cheek pressed to his fiancée's shoulder. Castle walks over and presses a kiss to his daughter's forehead.
She opens her eyes but doesn't move. "She's okay," she tells him.
He smiles, trying to provide the comfort he used to give when she was little—when a kiss from Daddy made her indomitable. It doesn't work so well, but he sees her relax a little more. Could be the circles Kate is rubbing on her shoulder. Her bare shoulder. Shit, Alexis.
"Here," he says gruffly, pulling off the jacket he doesn't remember putting back on.
He and Kate get it situated on Alexis' shoulders. At least Kate is wearing a jacket, flimsy as it is. It's still raining, and the wind whips through their covered alcove by the doors. Her legs—gorgeous, mile long legs—must be cold.
"I'm okay," she promises as he moves to stand by her side, threading their fingers together. "You okay?"
"Of course," he says quickly.
But he's not, is he?
(…)
He shudders, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes as he bows over his knees. He has to stop. Alexis went upstairs after a long cuddle on the couch and two cups of cocoa. Kate is just in the office, calling her father to give him an update. Because they're at that point now; his mother is important to her father.
And he's in their room having a breakdown.
There are three of her boxes in the corner, two already unpacked and folded up in the closet. Her bedside table looks thoroughly used, the top of the bureau covered with her things—make up, hair bobs, a curling iron, straightening iron. Facets of her life are everywhere, mixed with his.
He's still crying. He can't seem to stop. He just—his mother. His only mother. His only parent. And she's mortal.
Stupid. It's stupid. But he always thought—so selfishly thought it was just Kate. That her mother was taken, and so somehow, he never thought his own could be. Disease, murder, accident, catastrophe—she could die any day. And she's all he has. Who is he, really, without his mother? What does he do if she's gone?
But she isn't. She isn't, and he has to pull himself together. Has to get out of this spiral that started with the phone call, and nose dived with Dr. Smith, and then went on and on into this—this pathetic man on his bed, grieving for a non-existent loss.
"Castle?"
He doesn't move, can't move. He just blows out a breath and orders his eyes to stop it, tells his heart to get over itself and just be happy. It should work like that.
He feels her hands as they card through his hair, the bump of her knees into his. Her lips press against his forehead and she stays there, breathing against him, bent over him until he lets his hands fall and looks up at her.
"She's okay," Kate promises, her hair down around her shoulders now, body relaxed as his hands trail over her hips.
She's alive, and his mother is alive, and his daughter is alive.
"Can you guys stop being in the hospital?" he beseeches.
She laughs, the sound a little broken, and finds his lips for a soft kiss. "Do our best," she says as they break apart.
Another tear falls down his cheek and she wipes it away as he snuffles. God, he hates himself like this. Weak—he feels so weak. "How do you do it?" he wonders, the question just falling out, defenses down, filter flimsy.
Because she can wake up each morning and put one foot in front of the other, and he can't even deal with his mother being just fine at the hospital with her boyfriend.
Kate hums and drags him into her for a moment, before pulling back. She reaches down and helps him out of his shirt, gestures for him to get out of his pants as she slips out of her dress. He slides into the bed as she lays the dress over the armchair by her side table. She reaches to the floor and tugs on a tank top before crawling into bed with him.
He opens his mouth again, suddenly so desperate for the secret—for the strength that gets her through each day. If he had even an ounce of it, maybe he could break himself out of the spiral.
But she says nothing, merely rolls him onto his side and then cuddles into his back, spooning him, her arms sliding under his pillow and around his chest. He covers her hand with his and feels himself take a deep breath.
Her lips tickle the back of his neck as she melds herself against him. "Like this."