Author's Note: Welcome to the Aftermath of "Knockout."
Diving Into It Together
Chapter 36
Ever afterwards, Castle had no very clear memories of the following minutes—hours—he didn't know. His memories of that time were a confused jumble of images, moments, a kaleidoscope of terror and trauma and choking panic. It was as if he were only half-conscious or existing in a sort of fugue state with less than half his mind present while the rest of him, the greater part of him, focused on Kate.
Someone—he never found out who—pulled him away from Kate and Lanie took his place, her trained hands feeling for Kate's pulse and trying to staunch the blood using Kate's gloves and then Lanie's own jacket.
Gripping Kate's hand while Lanie worked on her, refusing to let go of Kate as if by holding on to her he could physically anchor her to life.
Screaming.
A flash of red hair, Alexis's pale, terrified face.
Sirens.
"Beckett's down!"
EMT's loading Kate onto a gurney and into the ambulance. Struggling to follow only to have an EMT block him. "Let him!" someone barked out and the EMT gave way and he scrambled into the ambulance and latched on to Kate's ankle, the only thing he could grasp with Lanie and the EMT's starting their work to save Kate's life. He wasn't letting her go, could not let her go.
His eyes were burning with tears he refused to shed as he stared at what he could see of Kate's face through the portable ventilator covering her nose and mouth, helping her breathe. So pale, so… lifeless. He flinched away from the word.
"No, don't you do this. Don't you dare die on me, Kate Beckett. Stay with me…" he vaguely heard Lanie's half-chanting, half-ordering.
Kate Kate Kate Kate Kate, please Kate. Don't leave me, please. Kate, you can't leave me. Kate…
He couldn't breathe, felt as his lungs had collapsed. Which felt only fitting as Lanie was performing chest compressions and he tightened his grip on Kate's ankle and tried to will her to survive. Kate was a fighter, she was tough, had the indomitable spirit of a warrior. She couldn't—she wouldn't…
"We're losing her," one of the EMT's warned, his voice rising.
Castle choked back a cry. Nonononono, he couldn't lose her. He loved her, needed her in his life in a visceral, primal way. As if she were air and water and sunlight and he couldn't imagine life without her. Couldn't imagine living without her.
"Kate, no! Don't you dare die on me! Stay with me, Kate, or so help me, I will spill every embarrassing story I know about you to Castle," Lanie half-threatened, half-ordered, her voice cracking.
He almost fell over as the ambulance came to a jarring stop. And then the back doors burst open and he was half-scrambling, half-falling out as hospital staff took charge of the stretcher although Lanie refused to give up her position, pressing down on Kate's chest as if she could keep her alive with her bare hands. And he was running after the stretcher, the harsh, artificial light of the hospital, the white walls and floor of the long hospital hallway giving him an abrupt rush of vertigo even as his vision felt as if it were narrowing in only on Kate's terrifyingly still form on the stretcher.
Lanie gave way to the hospital doctors and the stretcher was being rushed past double doors that swung closed, blocking Kate from view, and he felt an immediate spike of panic as he lost sight of her, his legs suddenly feeling rubbery beneath him as he came to a stop in the hallway. His heart was racing, his pulse pounding in his ears, his cheeks wet with tears.
He belatedly became aware of Lanie standing just in front of him, doubled over as sobs shook her body.
He forced his feet to move the couple steps to her side and placed a tentative, awkward hand on her back. He and Lanie were friends—of course they were—but their friendship had never been a tactile one. He and the boys exchanged fist bumps or friendly elbows to the side but he and Lanie never had.
He focused on his hand, his vision briefly going hazy, as he realized it was stained. Kate's blood on his hand.
Shit.
He yanked his hand away and scrubbed it against his shirt frantically.
"Lanie," he choked out, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears.
"Oh God, Castle," she gasped. "She—what're we going to do?"
He flinched. "She's going to live," he stated flatly. She had to because the alternative was unthinkable, impossible. It could not be.
Lanie nodded and then kept on nodding as if she'd forgotten to stop. "She's a fighter," she managed to say.
Castle didn't respond, couldn't respond as his throat had closed up.
"Castle!" The boys came running towards them, followed immediately by Jim Beckett.
Oh god, Jim.
Javi immediately pulled Lanie into his arms and Castle gripped Jim's arms as the older man looked as if he'd aged 20 years, appeared frail.
"Where's Katie?" Jim rasped out.
"Still alive," he managed to choke out. At least, she had been, he thought his heart twisting sharply.
Kate had to still be alive. Surely he would sense it if… if anything happened to her. He would feel it, somehow, would sense the way his heart would shatter if he lost her, would feel the way his world would end. He couldn't believe that his heart would go on beating if hers didn't, not really. His existence might continue but he wouldn't live. He would go through the motions, make an effort for Alexis, but he knew—if Kate… if Kate didn't survive, neither would he. A vital part of him would be lost if he lost her. His life was in the balance too.
"Daddy!"
Castle jerked, turning away from Jim as Alexis and his mother ran in and Alexis threw herself at him. He caught her in his arms and then brought his mother in to the embrace as well, closing his eyes for a moment. His family.
He'd never wanted Alexis to be exposed to the darkness and danger in the world and now she'd seen someone she cared about get shot right in front of her. Oh god, he should never have let her come to the funeral.
"Where's Kate?" Alexis asked tearfully.
"In surgery," he answered, controlling his voice. He couldn't break down, not now, not in front of his daughter. He couldn't scare her more than she already had been.
"What the hell happened?" Jim demanded of all of them.
"Sniper rifle," Esposito answered gruffly and succinctly.
Jim flinched.
"Let's go find the waiting room instead of blocking the hallway like this," his mother spoke up and a wave of admiration and love for his mother's brand of strength momentarily broke through his haze of panic and grief. So overly dramatic in daily life but in crises, she had a way of keeping her head.
They moved as a group, Castle keeping one arm each around Alexis and his mother, while Ryan gripped Jim's arm and Esposito, naturally, kept Lanie with him.
They found a small waiting area with chairs and he ushered his mother and Alexis to sit down and then jerked his head. "I need to find a bathroom," he explained jerkily. "I—uh—I'll be back. Later."
He didn't wait for a response but fled blindly until he waylaid a passing nurse to direct him to the bathroom and narrowly managed to avoid crashing into multiple people and a wall or two as he rushed towards it.
He was trembling and now that he was away from his family, he couldn't hide it anymore. He almost staggered into a stall and collapsed on his knees by the toilet and just… fell apart. He dry-heaved over the toilet, retching up the contents of his mostly empty stomach, as ugly, ragged sobs shook his entire body. He was crying and choking and gasping for breath as if he were trying to insufflate molasses through a straw, in a paroxysm of emotion that racked his entire body. His brain kept reliving those last, fatal—he flinched at the word—seconds in the cemetery, the flash of light, tackling Kate. The blood on her glove, staining her uniform. Seeing Kate's shocked, terrified eyes. Kate's eyes closing. Her terrible, awful pallor, the blue-ish tinge to her lips testament to the amount of blood she'd lost.
Oh god.
He couldn't lose her. He loved her, needed her.
And he'd failed her. He choked again, having to almost stifle a cry of anguish against his arm.
Her blood was on his hands. Literally but also figuratively as well. He was the one who had started this. His own blind, reckless curiosity and need to know. He was the one who had pried into her mother's case two years ago. He was the one who had encouraged her to look into it again when she'd balked and kicked him out of the precinct two years ago. For the first time, he found himself irrationally regretting that she'd ever let him back in. If they had simply ended their partnership then, he would have regretted it but she wouldn't have opened up her mother's case again, would have been safe.
His heart hurt. He would never have been able to imagine regretting anything about knowing Kate, his partnership with Kate, but if it would have meant she wouldn't be fighting for her life now…
He suddenly remembered Kate's Valentine's Day message to him, what she'd written in the old copy of Storm Warning he had signed for her. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me and I'm thankful every day that you're in my life.
He choked on another sob.
Would she still say that now, when he hadn't saved her, hadn't been fast enough, had let her be shot?
He wouldn't even mind—not much—if she blamed him as long as she was alive to blame him, he suddenly thought and honestly meant it. His heart would break but whatever else, he needed Kate Beckett to be alive in the world. As long as she survived…
He wasn't sure how long he stayed on his knees by the toilet but eventually, he slowly, stiffly pushed himself to his feet, moving as if he had aged 50 years. Equally slowly, he made his way to a sink and started scrubbing at his hands to get the blood off. Kate's blood. He choked again and kept on scrubbing for far longer than necessary, until his hands were red and aching, but he didn't care, felt as if he might never get the blood fully off, just as he would never, ever forgive himself.
He lifted his head and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and shock broke through the mind-numbing fog of emotion. He looked like death warmed over—and then flinched all over again at the idiom, the terrible word.
He splashed some water on his face, getting rid of the tell-tale tear stains. He could not let Alexis see him like this.
Alexis. Jim. His mother.
He focused on the three of them. He could not break down, not again. He had to stay strong. For Alexis. For Jim.
Oh god. His heart twisted. What was his own devastation compared to what Jim must be going through? He still had Alexis but Jim had lost his wife and now his daughter—all Jim had left—was fighting for her life.
He had to be there for Jim. If—if anything happened, he would look after Jim. Kate would want that.
That thought finally had him stiffening his spine, abruptly ashamed of himself. He'd been selfish, indulged in his own emotions for long enough.
He had already failed Kate once. He wasn't going to do it again. And he could not fail Alexis.
He dried his face and hands and took another minute to compose himself, steady his breathing. In and out, in and out. It was something Beckett did and he wondered with another sharp surge of grief if she had any idea how much he'd learned from her, how much he'd changed because of her.
And then he returned to where his family—all of them—waited, slipping into the seat between Jim and Alexis and wrapping his arm around Alexis.
He felt Jim's glance and met the older man's eyes, dry-eyed and stoic, albeit pale and haggard.
"Kate's going to make it," he managed to say, his voice gravelly. Damn it, Kate, don't you dare make a liar out of me. Please, Kate, you can't leave me, can't leave your dad. "She's the strongest person I've ever met," he added, although he wasn't able to keep his voice from cracking. It might be true but it didn't take a genius not to realize that human strength could only do so much against a bullet to the chest.
Jim let out a shaky breath and he nodded but didn't speak, looked as if he couldn't speak.
No one said anything more, only settled in to wait.
The hours dragged by like years, centuries even, and Castle's only real conception of time passing was measured by when they each shifted, changing position as their bodies stiffened up from sitting in the same position in the hard, uncomfortable hospital chairs.
The waiting room was a neutral, even sterile place, no outside windows to give any indication of the passing hours. There was a TV mounted on one wall set to CNN but the volume was muted and a corner of Castle's brain could only wonder at why it was even on, because he couldn't imagine anyone sitting in that room waiting to hear news about a loved one and caring at all about what was going on in the rest of the world. He certainly didn't. As far as he was concerned, the entire universe had narrowed down to the waiting room and to whichever operating room Kate was in right now. Nothing else mattered.
Esposito and Ryan slipped out to take phone calls at one point and he lurched to his feet, heading out to join them just outside the waiting room. News, they would have news about the shooter.
"What is it?" he demanded tersely, although he kept his voice low.
"Nothing," Esposito growled. "The guy got away. He left the gun—a Mark 11, modified sniper rifle, favorite of Special Forces—behind but he got away. We're trying to get prints off the gun but no one saw nothing in all the chaos and the cemetery doesn't exactly have security cameras."
"What about before the entrance, the roads leading up to the cemetery?" he asked suddenly.
"We've set people to going through footage of any cameras in a couple blocks of the cemetery but it's a long shot," Ryan answered, his voice more savage than Castle had ever heard it.
Shit, the shooter was still out there. Whoever he was.
Castle needed to arrange for security for if—when Kate was out of surgery.
"Okay," he clipped out, controlling the urge to slam his fist into the wall, mindful of the fact that he was in full view of everyone else.
He and the boys returned to their seats, resumed their vigil.
Another eternity—or so it felt—later, Ryan stood up and paced restlessly around the waiting room, glancing at his watch. "It's been six hours now, damn it!" (He'd never heard Ryan come so close to swearing. Ryan looked like hell on a bad day, pale, his eyes red-rimmed and his hair disheveled.)
Six hours. What did that mean? No news meant that Kate was still alive, still in surgery, right?
He turned to Lanie. "Lanie, you have any idea…"
He trailed off, not even sure what he wanted to ask. Lanie looked up from staring at the floor as if the secrets of the universe were written on it.
"Someone would have told us if—if anything happened," she clipped out, tersely.
"So it's… good that we haven't heard anything," his mother ventured.
Good—what did that even mean right now, he wondered a little hysterically. There was nothing good about this. No news only meant that the worst hadn't happened. Yet.
He inwardly flinched and shut his eyes against the tears that threatened, clamped his mouth closed against the sobs.
"Yes, it's good," Lanie answered quietly.
Kate, please, you have to fight. Stay with me, Kate. Don't leave, don't go where I can't follow. I need you. Please, Kate.
A sudden thought had him leaping to his feet some time later and going out to find a nurse.
He found a nurse's station and headed to it. A nurse on duty, a matronly-looking women who looked to be about his age looked up. "Yes, sir, can I help you?"
"I'm here for Katherine Beckett," he managed to answer. "She was… she was shot. In the chest. I just… does she need blood? Can I donate? Her family—we're all here. Can we do anything? Does she need something? Is there anything we can do?" he blurted out, somewhat less than coherently.
He would donate blood, would donate his kidney, his liver, his lung—hell, he would donate his heart if it would save her life.
The nurse's expression softened with professional understanding. "If a patient needs blood or a transplant, someone would be in touch with you. I'm sure the doctors are doing everything they can for your wife."
His wife. His throat, his heart, his chest, everything seized up inside him at the words. Oh please, oh please, let them be true one day.
He couldn't speak, only nodded his thanks, and then made his unsteady way back to the waiting room.
His heart clenched as he saw that Alexis appeared to be crying, her face buried in his mother's shoulder while Lanie had moved to sit beside her, her hand patting Alexis's knee.
Three women. For a split second, he was reminded of the Three Fates who decided when a man's life would end by cutting a piece of string and then he blinked, his exhausted mind returning to reality and he hurried over to Alexis.
Lanie vacated the seat and he took it, sliding his arm around Alexis's shoulder so she turned towards him. He wrapped his other arm around her, resenting the arms of the chairs that made the position awkward. He pressed his lips against her hair and thought about the night when Alexis had broken up with Ashley a few weeks ago, the way Alexis had turned to Kate for comfort. Kate was family now. God, what would it do to Alexis if Kate—if anything happened to Kate?
Nothing was going to happen, he told himself firmly. Kate was going to be fine. She was. She had to be.
He hoped. Prayed.
It was hours—years—millennia—before a man in doctor's scrubs appeared in the waiting room. "Family of Katherine Beckett?"
He and Jim both jerked to their feet, taking a few steps forward, Castle trying not to stumble since his legs had stiffened up. "Yes," Jim answered.
Castle couldn't speak. He tried desperately to read the man's expression. He wasn't shaking his head or giving them pitying looks. Was he? He couldn't tell. The man looked tired but his tanned face was otherwise inscrutable.
"I'm Dr. Davidson, the trauma surgeon on duty," he introduced himself.
Castle barely heard. What the hell did he care what the man's name was? "How is she?" he croaked out almost before the man had finished.
"She's out of surgery and we've gotten her stabilized for now."
"For now?"
"During the surgery, she experienced cardiac arrest and…"
He could have sworn his own heart stopped, a strange buzzing sound filling his ears. He was peripherally aware of seeing Jim sway and only barely managed to fling an arm around Jim, catching him before the man could collapse. "Jim!"
Jim leaned against him for just a second before he straightened up, his jaw setting in a way that was very reminiscent of his daughter. "No, no, I'm okay," he managed. "How's Katie?"
"As I said, she's stable right now," Dr. Davidson repeated more gently. "We were able to get her heart beating again on its own. The bullet nicked her pulmonary artery but we repaired the damage to it. We're going to keep her sedated and intubated and monitor her very closely for at least the next 24 hours to make sure that she doesn't experience any additional incidents."
Incidents. God, medical jargon sounded so bloodless, a distancing mechanism, he supposed in a corner of his mind, rather like police speak.
"Will she be all right?" Castle asked impatiently.
"If she makes it through the next 24 hours without incident, she'll be pronounced completely out of danger. As it is, she's young and in excellent physical condition otherwise so we're optimistic about her chances of making a full recovery in a matter of time."
Oh thank God. It was Castle's turn to sway a little, feeling dizzy in the rush of soul-deep relief. She was still alive, stable. Not entirely out of danger but stable, out of surgery. She was alive. And the doctors were optimistic about her making a full recovery.
"Can we see her?" Jim asked.
"For now, I'm afraid we can only allow family members into her room and no more than two people at a time." Dr. Davidson looked at Castle. "Are you the husband?"
Castle inwardly flinched, opening his mouth but his voice failed him. He was Kate's boyfriend but the word felt… if not quite wrong, still inaccurate and definitely inadequate. Neither he nor Kate tended to use it except teasingly and it just… wasn't enough. Certainly not now, not anymore. Kate wasn't only his girlfriend; she was his… touchstone, the center of his world. But there was no way to explain that and he knew enough about the legalities to know that being a boyfriend didn't count as family.
"He's her fiancé," Jim inserted and Castle's head jerked as he stared at him and sensed the attention of everyone else in the room swivel around to focus on Jim as well.
Dr. Davidson nodded. "Good to meet you," he said perfunctorily, addressing Jim now. "Mr. Beckett, you and Mr.—"
"Castle," Castle finally found his voice when Dr. Davidson hesitated.
"You and Mr. Castle may see her at this time but I'm afraid for the next 24 hours, her visitors will need to be limited to family members and in order to limit the risk of infection, visits need to be limited to five to ten minutes every couple hours." He glanced around at everyone else. "The rest of you should go home, get some rest."
He returned to addressing Castle and Jim. "Let a nurse know and she can direct you to the room where Miss Beckett is."
"Thank you, Dr. Davidson," Jim answered.
The doctor nodded generally to everyone and then left.
And the room abruptly filled with a rush of sound for the first time in hours as everyone seemed to speak at once.
His mother exclaimed, "Oh, thank God!"
"She's going to be all right," Ryan breathed.
"Fiancé?" emitted Esposito.
"Dad?"
Castle turned and tugged Alexis into his arms, smoothing a hand down her hair, and managing a small, reassuring smile, even though it felt a little unnatural after so many hours of stress. "Kate's going to be fine, see?" He looked up and met his mother's eyes. "Why don't you and Alexis go home, get some sleep? Call the car service. I don't want either of you taking a cab or the subway, not for the next few days." Not until the sniper had been found. He needed to arrange for additional security, his exhausted brain thought.
His mother nodded. "All right."
"But Dad…" Alexis balked.
"Get some rest, sweetie. There's nothing more for you to do here and it's late." He was sure it was, even though he had no idea what time it actually was. "I promise I'll call if anything changes and you and Grams can come back tomorrow."
Alexis nodded reluctantly. "Okay, Dad."
"Fiancé?" It was Lanie who asked it this time, the word, the question, cutting across the room as they all turned to stare at Jim again.
Jim met Castle's eyes. "It'll allow you to see her now. Boyfriend isn't enough, not legally. And Katie would want you there."
Castle nodded slowly, acknowledgement and gratitude in one. And again he had no words. Jim had lied to ensure that he could see Kate, would be treated as family.
"Okay, but don't tell Kate you got her engaged without her say-so," Lanie spoke up and for the first time in what felt like days, there was the faintest hint of humor in her voice.
Now that the doctor had pronounced Kate to be stable and said he was optimistic, it was as if they'd all been given permission to breathe, talk with the expectation that Kate would be fine. She wasn't out of the woods yet but she was stable—for now—and she was tough. Would never go gently into that good night.
Jim's expression eased a little. "I won't if you won't." He glanced around. "Like the doctor said, you should probably go home, get some rest. We'll call if there's any change and you can come back and see Katie tomorrow."
Esposito shifted, his expression darkening. "I don't know about you, bro, but home is the last place I'm going. Not until we catch the son of a bitch who did this," he growled, addressing Ryan.
"Right behind you," Ryan agreed.
Esposito was already heading out the room, radiating so much aggression that it boded no good for anyone in his path, but Ryan lingered, looking to Castle. "You'll stay with her," Ryan asked, although it sounded more like confirmation than a question.
Castle nodded. "I'm not going anywhere." He didn't think he would be physically capable of leaving the hospital. When he'd had to leave Alexis at kindergarten for the first time, he'd practically had a panic attack and hyperventilated right on the sidewalk the further he got from the building. Now, if he tried to leave Kate, he would likely collapse. No, he wasn't leaving. Was never ever going to leave Kate again, he thought without the slightest sense of hyperbole. (Not that standing with her this time had saved her.)
Ryan nodded and then left in Esposito's wake.
His mother and Alexis were the next to go, after he hugged them both, and Lanie accompanied them, after stern and repeated injunctions to both him and Jim to call if anything changed with Kate's condition and assurances that she'd be back in a few hours.
"Let's go see Katie, son."
Castle let out a shaky breath and nodded. God, yes, he wanted to see Kate. Needed to see Kate. Needed to see her the way he needed oxygen.
But for all that, he froze in the doorway of the room a nurse led them to as if he'd run into an invisible wall, his feet, his legs abruptly failing him. Oh god. "Kate," he breathed.
Jim, at least, managed to make it into the room before collapsing into the bedside chair.
Castle wasn't ready for this. Not that anything could have prepared him for seeing Kate like this.
His Kate was a warrior, the strongest person he'd ever met. He knew, intellectually, that Kate was shorter than he was, not by much admittedly, and generally had a smaller build than he did. But he never thought of her as being weak or small in any sense. She had such presence, the force of her personality, that radiated out of her. She could—and did—intimidate hardened thugs who were almost twice her size.
Now—he'd never thought, never even imagined that Kate could look like this. It was just… wrong. Felt like he was seeing something that went against all the rules of nature, like grass that was hot pink or snow in the Sahara.
He'd seen her when she was sleeping and if he'd thought about it, he would have expected her to look as if she were sleeping.
She didn't. Not only because she was intubated, the tube emerging from between her pale lips and connected to a ventilator, an IV on one hand and a monitor on one finger, along with a couple other tubes, but also because she was too still, too limp, as if all her Beckett spark and intensity had been snuffed out. The steady sound of beeps from the heart monitor filled the room with a comforting rhythm, every beep seeming to say, alive. Alive. Alive. (It was the only reassuring thing about the room.)
She looked… small and weak and so fragile, three words that he'd never thought to associate with his Kate. She looked… If it weren't for the wires and tubes, she looked… dead, as if she could be in a coffin—he flinched away from the thought, everything inside him cringing. She was so pale, her hair and eyebrows the only thing adding color to her form. Her very lips were pale, although—thank God—no longer blue-ish in tint.
She was so still, unmoving. If it weren't for the steady beeps of the heart monitor, he couldn't be sure she was breathing.
All these machines hooked up to her, helping her breathe, giving her blood, nutrients, performing all the daily bodily functions that her own body could no longer take care of. It was terrifying and so very not-Kate but the machines were keeping her alive and that was all he cared about. Every reassuring spike on the screen of the heart monitor, every beep filling his ears with its metronomic chant—alive. Alive. Alive.
He clung to the word like a lifeline, as if it were a magic spell keeping him from going to pieces (and he honestly felt like it might be) and finally, finally managed to uproot his feet from the floor, move into the room and fall into the other chair beside Jim.
She needed to get through the next 24 hours before the doctors would pronounce her out of danger. Castle didn't even need to ask to know that neither he nor Jim was going to be sleeping or going more than 10 feet away from the room for more than a couple minutes at a time until those 24 hours were over. His mother, Alexis, Lanie, the boys—they all loved Kate but he and Jim were the ones who loved her most.
He loved her—and he'd killed her.
Her heart had stopped and the doctors, these machines, had brought her back to life. He had only let her be shot. He'd opened up her mother's case again, out of curiosity, his own wish to show off and impress the Detective who had already shown herself to be the most extraordinary person he'd ever met, his own arrogance, his wish to help her. He had opened up the rabbit hole and practically invited her to crawl inside. He'd gotten himself taken hostage by Dick Coonan and made Beckett shoot her best chance of finding out who was really behind her mother's death. And Coonan's death had awoken the Dragon.
He choked on rising bile. "I'm so sorry," he croaked and he wasn't sure if he was addressing Kate or Jim.
"Sorry? For what?"
He didn't look at Jim, couldn't look at Jim. This man, who had trusted him with Kate. Castle felt like a fraud. Jim needed to know.
"I did this. This is my fault."
Jim sucked in a sharp breath and lurched upright.
Castle went on talking, forcing the words out through a scratchy throat and a mouth that had gone dry. "I opened up her mother's case two years ago and I encouraged her to look into it again. I was the one who started this."
"Rick, no," Jim contradicted forcefully, his voice rising enough that they both automatically looked to Kate, although—of course, terribly—there was no response. Jim lowered his voice but still sounded authoritative, firm. "This is not your fault. You didn't know—you couldn't know what would happen. And I know my daughter and I'm pretty sure that even without you, she would have looked into Johanna's case again. Katie—" he choked a little on the name, swallowed hard, and then went on, his voice not quite steady, "she doesn't give up. She—she might have put Johanna's case aside years ago but I always rather expected her to go back and look into it again, when she felt… stronger. And John Raglan was the one who called Katie back in January that got this started; you had nothing to do with that."
That wasn't strictly true. Castle remembered perfectly well what Raglan had said in that coffee shop about Coonan's death getting people's attention.
"You shouldn't blame yourself, Rick," Jim went on, more gently. "Katie's told me that you… didn't let her drown in her mother's case. You saved her, Rick. You did. So don't blame yourself."
"I—I wasn't fast enough, in the cemetery. I—I should have been faster." If only he'd realized what the flash of light was sooner, if only he'd been half a step quicker…
"No, Rick, you couldn't have moved faster than a bullet. No one can. And you tried to save her and… and that counts. And Katie's going to be fine."
He blinked. "She is," he agreed gruffly.
His eyes went up to focus on the screen of the heart monitor, watching the reassuring spikes measuring her heart beats. And then he scooted his chair forward so he could reach out and slide his hand into Kate's limp one, holding it gently.
"She's going to be fine," he repeated more quietly.
They were both silent for a long minute so the only sound was the steady beeps from the heart monitor.
"Katie won't blame you either," Jim told him softly. "She… she always says you make everything easier. You make her life better."
He choked a little. "She makes everything better for me too."
Jim didn't respond.
They both returned to watching Kate, keeping careful vigil over every spike on the screen of her heart monitor until Castle felt as if his heart, too, must have started beating in time with hers. He lowered his gaze to her hand, cradled in his, so still and so limp. It was odd to hold her hand when it was so unresponsive, to have her fingers not curling around his, but he took some comfort in the warmth of her hand, the warmth of life.
All too soon, though, the nurse entered the room, making a notation on the chart in her hand of Kate's vital signs, and then, apparently satisfied, turned to face them.
"Her vital signs are good and holding steady, which is an encouraging sign. I'm afraid your visiting time is up for now, though. You'll have to watch her through the window."
It almost physically hurt to slide his hand away from Kate's and walk out of the room but he managed it, helped only by telling himself it was necessary to make sure Kate recovered. For once in his life, he was going to follow every instruction he was given to the letter if it would ensure Kate's recovery.
Once they were outside the room and once more seated on the chairs in the hallway, the nurse turned to them, reaching one hand into her pocket. "Oh, yes, one more thing, I was told to return these to you. We needed to remove them for the surgery but you can keep these safe for her."
The hand Castle lifted to accept the two small clear plastic bags the nurse was holding out was shaking with a renewed swell of emotion. Kate's necklace with her mother's ring. Her dad's watch.
"Thank you," Castle rasped out.
The nurse gave him a sympathetic look and then bustled away.
Beside him, he heard Jim suck in a shaky breath. "My old watch," he husked and then, suddenly, terribly, he dissolved into tears, curling over his knees as his entire body shook with sobs.
Oh shit. After so many long hours of stoicism, the dam of Jim's emotions—all his fear and all his worry over Kate—had given way.
He shouldn't be seeing this, Castle thought. It was too much, too personal, too intimate. No one except Johanna Beckett and possibly Kate herself should ever witness Jim reduced to this, crying uncontrollably. It was terrible and uncomfortable and painful and part of Castle wanted to flee but he couldn't do that. Perhaps the only saving grace was that the corridor was mostly empty at that hour of the night with only a scattered handful of nurses, who were all well-trained enough (or too accustomed to seeing people break down) to be watching.
He placed an awkward, tentative hand on the other man's shoulder. "Jim," he began helplessly and then stopped. What could he say? He couldn't tell Jim not to cry. It was selfish and stupid of him to not want to see this. Especially after he had broken down just as badly hours ago. "Kate's going to be fine," he finally said gently, entirely inadequately.
Jim managed a nod and then lifted his head, visibly and audibly trying to control himself, giving a few hiccupping breaths. "I'm—I'm sorry. I'm all right." He scrubbed a hand down his face, trying to even his breathing, and then lurched to his feet. "I'll be right back. Excuse me."
Castle stood up and returned to the window to watch Kate, focusing on the reassuring spikes on the screen of the heart monitor. Please, Kate, you have to get better. For your dad, for me, for everyone. We need you, Kate.
Jim returned in a little while, composed again although his eyes were red-rimmed. "I'm sorry," he said again as he settled back in his chair.
Castle shook his head as he, too, resumed his seat. "You don't need to apologize. I—I broke down earlier too," he admitted.
"Has Katie ever told you about why she wears my old watch, Rick?" Jim asked quietly, breaking a brief silence.
He had a flash of memory of that night more than two years ago. The tears glistening in her eyes as she'd told him about what had happened to her mother, the rather wry smile she'd forced afterwards when she'd tried to joke, "So I guess your Nikki Heat has a backstory now." And the way his heart had clenched in his chest and he'd realized simultaneously that she was even more extraordinary than he'd realized and that he could really and truly fall for her. (He'd never thought he could pinpoint a time or a place for falling in love with her but now, it occurred to him that maybe, perhaps, that moment was it.) "She told me that it's a symbol of the life she saved," he answered, very softly.
Jim choked a little. "She did save me."
"She's good at that," he murmured, the ghost of a smile curving his lips. Kate had saved him too. Saved him from writer's block but more importantly, saved him from drowning in meaninglessness, saved him from loneliness. Because he had been lonely, lonely in spite of almost constantly being surrounded by people, lonely in spite of Alexis and his mother. Lonely and discontent too. He had told himself he was happy—and of course, Alexis did make him happy, always had from the first moment he set eyes on her in the hospital—but he realized now that, aside from Alexis, his life had been largely empty and he'd been discontented with his life. His flings, the parties he went to, his frivolity had been a façade, a distraction, and a search for more, a search for something he couldn't even put a word to. And he'd found that something more in Kate, at the precinct—had found a purpose, another home, a family, friendship and camaraderie of a sort he'd never known before, and love. Perhaps most importantly, he'd found the love he'd always dreamed of.
"Yes, she is." Jim let out a shuddering breath and scrubbed a hand down his face and it was a minute or two before he went on. "Johanna gave me that watch for our 15th anniversary. I loved it, wore it every day. And it meant even more after Johanna… died. I gave it to Katie the day I got out of rehab. It was… a symbol of my promise to her that I meant it, that I was really going to overcome my demons, stay sober this time. That I would stop letting her down."
Castle's hand automatically went to his pocket where he'd put Kate's watch and her mother's ring away. No wonder the watch meant so much to Kate. Not just a reminder of the life she'd saved but as a tangible, visible symbol of her father's return to the living. He was suddenly incredibly, ridiculously glad all over again that he'd managed to find and repair Kate's watch last year after her old apartment had exploded.
Jim pushed up the sleeve of his shirt a little, enough to show the band of his watch. "Katie gave this to me to mark one year of my staying sober." He straightened his sleeve again, curving his right hand over where the watch was as if to reassure himself that he still had his watch. And Jim didn't need to say anything more for Castle to understand that Jim viewed the watch Kate had given him as a talisman of sorts to guard against future relapses. And now, of all times, Jim was probably more tempted to drink—to drown his worry over Kate—than he had been in years, possibly ever before.
Not that Castle thought for a minute that Jim would relapse and it occurred to him that Kate's strength might be just as much an inheritance from her father as it was from her mother. Somehow, perhaps naturally, Castle had focused mostly on what Kate had inherited from her mother rather than her father since Johanna Beckett's death was the most formative event of Kate's life and as in almost any murder, a consideration of the murder victim's character was an essential part of solving the case. But for the first time, belatedly, he thought that Jim's character would provide just as much insight into Kate as Johanna's did.
He wasn't sure what to say. How did a person respond to a story so personal, so poignant? "Thank you for telling me," he finally murmured, entirely inadequately.
"Katie trusts you, Rick. She wouldn't mind you knowing."
Ridiculously, irrationally, he felt tears pricking at the back of his eyes at this statement. She trusted him—but he hadn't been fast enough to save her. She had listened to him about her mom's case but then he'd left Montgomery to die and Kate had been shot. He didn't know why she should trust him anymore.
But he thought it might kill him if she stopped trusting him.
He wasn't making any sense even to himself.
He heard Kate's voice in his head, teasing, you're frequently nonsensical, Castle, so what else is new? (His heart clenched. For the first time ever, it hurt to hear her voice in his head the way he so often did. Hurt because he didn't know if he would ever hear her voice again for real. Would Kate still have her Beckett snark and sparkle? He thought this tightness in his chest might never go away until he heard Kate tease him again, until he saw her roll her eyes at him again.)
"Kate would hate that we're talking about her like this," he suddenly blurted out.
Jim gave a huff that might have been laughter if it had been allowed to grow up. "She would. When she wakes up, she'll kick our butts for talking about her."
"As long as she wakes up…" he mumbled unthinkingly and then could have kicked himself for it.
Jim sucked in a sharp breath and then, almost in unison, they were both standing and going over to peer through the window into Kate's room, watching the reassuringly even spikes on the heart monitor.
"She's going to be fine," he said, yet again. And wondered how many times he would say that sentence before he could convince his heart to believe it.
"Yes, she is."
And he and Jim settled in for a long night of keeping vigil over Kate's beating heart.
~To be continued…~
A/N 2: Yes, it's Josh. I decided to let him keep his role in saving Kate's life since in this universe, Kate and Josh are total strangers so it doesn't matter.
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