I know it has been a long time, I am very sorry. Hope you guys are still hanging in there. As always, reviews are welcome.
Chapter 12: To Double Down
Beckett turns over to her other side, at the sound of her phone ringing. She squints at the bright light that her phone projects, trying to read the name of who's calling. When she is finally able to read it, she quickly answers it, "Alexis? It's two in the morning. Is everything okay?"
"Were you sleeping?" Alexis asks. She sounds embarrassed, but desperate at the same time.
"No, I'm awake." The line is quiet for a second. "Alexis, what's wrong?"
"I can't sleep."
"I know."
Alexis quirks, "Huh?"
"It's two AM."
"Right," Alexis says, sheepishly. There is another gap of silence, before Alexis admits, "I had a nightmare."
At first Beckett is taken aback by this. A twenty year old, twenty some odd blocks away, is calling her at two in the morning because she had a nightmare, but then she remembers she had plenty of nightmares at her age. She never called anyone about any of them, but Alexis is different. Alexis is more open. "Um…"
"I know I'm being a baby."
"No, you're fine, but why did you call me? Where's Martha?" She feels guilty for somewhat pawning her off to someone else, but on the other hand she has no idea what to do.
"She's already so worried, but she doesn't want me to worry, so she tries to stay positive. She means well, but…" Alexis stops.
Beckett pulls herself up on the couch so she is sitting up. "Okay, well I'm here. Do you want to tell me what the dream was?"
Alexis hears the uncertainty in her voice, but goes on anyways. "No…" There is a bit of a whine to it and the silence that proceeds makes Beckett think she just wants her to be on the phone, not necessarily talking.
"What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to say that it's okay. Dad, you, Lux, you're all going to come home. But I don't want you to say it in an automatic way, to comfort me. I want you to tell me because you know," Alexis says sounding more and more tired with each request.
Even with the clear uncertainty in Alexis' voice, Kate is glad that Alexis seems to be holding out hope. Kate is, or at least she is trying to. After the FBI, and even Esposito, chalked up Castle's disappearance to him backing out of their wedding, she has sometimes felt like the only hopeful one left.
Kate gently, puts her head in her hand, "Alexis, I can't promise you any of that."
"I know," She can hear Alexis has lied back down, her voice slightly muffled in a pillow. "I'm sorry, Beckett."
"What are you sorry for?"
"I've been so angry at you for trying to solve your mom's case and dragging my dad into it, but I-I understand." She is so quiet and muffled at the end Beckett can barely hear her.
"Alexis is that why you called me? You thought that I'd understand?"
There is only silence in response.
"Alexis? Alexis are you there?" She asks in a hushed voice, so if she is asleep she won't wake her. Beckett sighs, "Good night, Alexis," and hangs up.
…
Reading had become completely out of the question. Beckett needed some way to pass the time, but reading. A) She was too tired to read. B) She used to try to read at night, but Castle would review everything she read, which sometimes pissed her off, but now reading just leaves this empty feeling in her heart. So instead of reading, she drums her fingers against the kitchen counter as she waits for a kettle to warm up water for tea. Coffee was also out of the question. She absent mindedly watches the kettle, before thinking to herself, I'm actually watching water boil.
Her attention breaks from the kettle when there is a knock at the door. She gently walks over to the door. When she opens it, her dad smiles a calm closed mouth smile, "You called," he says.
She smirks as she walks into the apartment, leading him into the kitchen, "I texted you, asking if you were busy today."
He shrugs, "Same thing."
"Not really," she counters, though obviously happy to see him.
He emotionlessly remarks, "I haven't seen you in a while."
Six weeks to be exact. She sighs, "Yeah well, I was working a lot, then-"
"Was?"
"Yeah, I'm taking some time off." She had decided to use her built up vacation and sick days, because she was coming home from working some homicide case, to working on Castle's case, to sleeping, than starting over the next morning. This caused her to never see Lux and never sleep. The kettle slowly starts hissing. "For Lux," she adds.
"That's good," he says.
She scrunches her face as she turns off the heat on the stove. "Yeah, I'm not so sure. She doesn't really seem to care."
"She's sixteen," he points out.
"Yeah," she says unsatisfied.
"Speaking of, where is she?" He says turning his head around, taking a quick look for her.
"She left about an hour ago to go shopping for school supplies."
"Really?" he says, sounding a bit surprised.
Kate smirks a bit, biting her lip, "Probably not, but she's a big kid. She'll be fine." She goes to grab a mug and offers, "Tea?"
"Sure, what do you have?"
"Caramel and Peppermint," She says, knowing those are bad choices.
"Peppermint," he says furrowing his eyebrows, "Do people really want caramel tea?"
She pours the hot water into the two mugs she set out, "People who really want coffee."
She turns her back to him to get the tea. He scrunches his face a bit, "You know that deli near my old firm."
She thinks about it then looks over her shoulder at him, "Zippy's, right?"
"Zelda's," He continues, as she puts the tea in his cup and pushes it in front of him. "Your mom used to bring me food from there during lunch if she knew she'd be working late."
"Yeah, I remember," she says.
"Well about three weeks after she died some of the office was getting food from there and asked if I wanted any. I hadn't set foot in the place since, but I didn't see why not. I ordered what she would normally bring me, but when I got the food it tasted like…" He stops, trying to think of how to describe it.
She looks down at her mug and quietly finishes, "Nothing."
He looks at her and gives her an apologetic smile.
…
Lux had only been awake for a couple of minutes, when she heard a phone ringing. It didn't take her long to know it wasn't her own. Not only was she looking at hers, but the sound wasn't even a ring really, it was more like a ding, a page. She gets out of bed and slowly walks across the bare floor to the living room. She follows the sound across the living room to an adjacent room. It was an office that remains shut during the day, but when Lux goes to bed Kate goes into this room.
Lux knew it was an office, but when she walks in she stuns at the organized chaos. For a second, she just gawks at the amount pictures, papers, and mugs that have collected in this room. She almost forgets the noise until it stops. She looks she finds Beckett's phone sitting on top of a slim filing cabinet, under the seemingly boarded windows. She goes to grab it, but then her own phone, in her hand, starts ringing. She frowns at the phone when she sees that Esposito is the one who's calling. She answers it as she continues taking in the room, "Hello?"
"Lux?"
"Yeah," Lux says as she starts fiddling with a piece of paper that seems to be stuck in between the shutters of the boarded window.
"It's Esposito," he says in a hurried tone.
"Yeah, I know," She says, unsure of why he'd be calling her, "but Kate's asleep." She says, as she pulls at the paper and the shutters open and shows the makeshift, but organized, murder board.
"It's about Castle," Espo says, trying to prove that she should wake Kate up.
Lux breathes, "I'll say," still referring to the board, then she snaps out of it, "Wait, what?!"
"They found Castle."
"What?" She quickly fumbles to close the board and then in a rush, she runs into the living room. Without questioning it, she jumps over the arm of the couch and onto the closest cushion and a sleeping Kate's shins.
Kate squints at Lux and grumbles, "The hell, Lux."
Lux sighs, trying to catch her breath, "They found, Castle."
Kate quickly pulls herself up. She reaches for her phone and when Lux gives it to her she pulls her hair back and quickly presses her phone to her ear.
While Lux watches Kate talk to Espo, they subconsciously and slowly pull away from each other. Kate, so she is sitting properly on the couch and Lux sitting on the arm of the chair.
"Okay," Kate takes a deep breath that makes Lux wonder if she's breathed at all in the last two months. "Are you almost here?" Kate asks as she gets up and goes to the bedroom.
Lux stays in her spot on the couch, as she listens to Kate yank open dresser drawers and ask about Martha and Alexis. Lux doesn't even realize she was smiling until it starts fading away. She gets a bit lost in wondering what upset her, until she hears a light tapping noise. She looks up to see Kate standing in the bedroom doorway, still with her phone pressed to her face.
"Get dressed," Kate says, smirking in a way that suggests that she is nervous but she is so relieved she can't help but smile.
Lux smiles, gets up, and quickly passes Kate, who walks over to one of the chairs across from the couch, "Where are you now?" She asks Esposito.
"I'm almost there, Beckett calm down," he says weaving through traffic.
…
When they arrive at the hospital, Espo tells them that Ryan and he will be back soon. They need to talk to the Coast Guard and find out where the dinghy Castle was found on came from.
When Kate and Lux get in the hospital, they follow a couple of sign directing them to the waiting room. When they do that, they turn a corner and almost run into Martha and Alexis.
"Oh my," Martha says, momentarily frightened by them.
"Sorry," Lux and Kate say in unison, to which Lux scrunches her nose at.
"Have you heard anything?" Kate asks, once everyone has settled from the startle.
"We just got here," Martha says.
Alexis adds, "They told me to wait here until they can have someone talk to us."
"Okay, then that's what we'll do," Martha says, trying to fill the silence. The three of them follow Martha to the corner of the waiting room.
The chairs in the corner meet in a right angle. Lux and Alexis sit in the center, so Martha and Kate take the ends. Alexis is, by far, the most anxious of the four of them. That being said, Kate's mind is racing so fast it seems almost overwhelming. It's like all the unanswered questions had become just words on the paper, with no meaning, but now they were all coming back with their full fleshed meanings and it was causing there to be complete madness inside her head.
Only a couple of minutes go by before a doctor appears in the waiting room. There are not many people in the waiting room, so he spots them easily and walks over to them, "Are you Richard Castle's family?"
Martha and Alexis stand up. Lux goes to stand up, but Kate catches her arm to keep her seated. She glares back at her in confusion.
"Mr. Castle is doing fine."
Martha sighs in relief. The doctor continues, "He has some injuries due to exposure and dehydration, but other than that he'll be just fine."
"Can we see him?" Alexis asks still very antsy.
"Yes, of course," the doctor shrugs, looking down at Kate and Lux somehow knowing they are part of the group.
The four of them gather their belongings and follow the doctor as he weaves them through the hospital, which feels like the longest trip ever. When they turn the last corner, the doctor walks slower, giving them room to pass him. Alexis and Martha run when they see Castle, Lux nervously and slowly makes her way to the room, but Kate slows down when she sees him. In fact, she comes to a complete stop.
The doctor turns to Beckett. He gives her an apologetic smile, which she is really starting to hate, and takes a few paces towards her. "He's resting. Will be for a while," he says it like he's trying to reassure her.
"I'm fine, I just never thought I'd see him again," She finishes with a small short lived smile, which he takes as a thank you and disappears down another hall. She slowly walks the rest of the way to the room. She opens the door as quietly as she can.
Alexis stops talking and greets her with a smile.
"What are you guys talking about?" Kate asks, walking to the other side of the bed.
"He's not awake," Martha says.
"The doctor said it may be a while," Kate reassures.
…
Kate had traced the lines on Castle's palm several times and now is just rubbing her thumb in circles around his hand.
At some point, Alexis had fallen asleep, her face in his other palm. Martha is sitting in one of the three chairs in the room and Lux is sitting on the windowsill.
Kate smiles at the sleeping girl then looks at Castle, "She's a good kid, Castle." Martha smiles at the words.
Lux lightheartedly says, "What about me?" She worried for a second that it didn't come off well, but Kate and Martha both let out soft laughs.
"You're a good kid too, Lux," Kate says.
Kate turns back to Castle, ruffling a part of his hair, brushing it away from his face. When she does it, she can't help but look at her watch.
It has only been twenty-five minutes, but out of the corner of her eye she sees Ryan, Espo, and Lanie gathered in the hallway about twenty-five feet away. Espo looks angry and Lanie is taking it, listening. Ryan is listening too, but looking back at Kate.
She looks at Martha, who has noticed them as well. Martha looks back at her and softly says, "Go."
Lux leans forward to see what they are talking about and stays that way, even after Kate leaves the room.
Kate approaches the group slowly, knowing that they are probably talking about Castle. They must've been doing exactly that, because Ryan nudges Esposito to turn around and face her, when she gets earshot distance from them. When all eyes are on her, she raises her eyebrows in amusement and gestures to Lanie, "Can you do me a favor?"
"Sure, how is he?" Lanie asks, turning more towards Beckett.
"He's stable, but still unconscious."
"What can I do?"
"I need you to take a look at him."
Lanie looks at her, less comforting and more snarky, "You do know that living patients aren't my thing right?"
"No, Lanie look, I don't want you to treat him. I want you to look at him as though it was a case, see if you can find any evidence of where he's been and what he's been through."
Lanie nods, "I'll see what I can do."
Beckett looks back at the room and Alexis is still fast asleep, "But not right now."
Lanie follows her gaze and smiles an understanding smile, "Is she asleep?"
"Yeah," Beckett says, letting out a little smile. Lanie is the only one Beckett told about Alexis' two in the morning phone call.
Beckett turns to the boys, who are both looking to see what they were talking about. They both startle a bit when Beckett's attention is on them, "None of us knows the truth about Castle. Not yet." Ryan nods accepting the light reprimand. "And Espo, you know what if you're wrong then he was a victim."
She takes a moment, before asking, "Did you find anything new?"
"Thanks to the help of the Coast Guard, we were able to find where the dinghy came from," Ryan says, after taking a quick glare at Javi. He gives him an opening to jump in but, he doesn't so Ryan goes on, "We tracked it to a property registered to a Henry Jenkins."
"Okay," Kate says.
"We thought you might want to come with," Espo offers.
Kate suddenly looks less confident, twisting her fingers, "Yeah, one sec." She turns away from them and goes back into Castle's room.
Martha looks up at her when she comes into the room.
"They've got a lead," she says.
"You can go," Martha says sensing that she wanted approval.
Kate glances at Castle for a second, "Call me if anything changes?"
"Of course," Martha says.
Kate goes to turn back, but her attention catches on Lux. The girl has been watching her for the last few minutes, silently observing her. The way she's looking at her, it's like she's holding Kate in place.
Lux nods not in the most convincing manner, "I'll stay here. You go." She must know she's lacking confidence, because she adds the smallest bit of a smile at the end.
Kate smiles back with just as much confidence, before leaving again.
I hope you guys liked this chapter. I plan on the next chapter being super small so I should have it done soon.