Chapter Twenty-Nine

Alexis felt like her mind was moving through cement.

And that slow, agonizing struggle between neurons and synapses was the only thing keeping the panic from completely consuming her.

She hadn't understood a single piece of the moment she'd woken up: what had happened to cause that catalog of pain across her body, why she was waking up in a hospital room with a tube down her throat, and why Kevin Ryan of all people was at her bedside, holding her hand and looking at her like he'd never been happier to see her.

All she knew was pain and confusion and the horrifying feeling of drowning on dry land.

She heard him speak to her again, the words sliding into her ears like a foreign code her brain had forgotten how to parse. She sifted through them, let her mind hold the shape of them, pull the sounds apart and put them back together like a puzzle game.

You are . . .

One of the nurses rushed in, and a smile spread across her face when she saw Alexis. She spoke loudly, her words seemingly measured. Alexis watched her mouth form words, watched the nurse gesture to her throat, conveying some kind of message about the obstruction that she gagged and choked on even as oxygen slid into her lungs. Alexis didn't catch what she said, didn't make room for it in her overtaxed mind. Her eyes slid over to Kevin again. A crease had appeared between his eyebrows as he watched her. She tried again to unravel that knotted string of syllables.

You are . . .

The nurse moved closer, and Alexis watched as she pulled a penlight from her pocket, clicking the light on and leaning forward to shine it in her face. It was then that Alexis realized she was only seeing through one eye. She tried to lift her hands to her face, but found her right arm meeting unyielding resistance. A cast. The sound of fear sliding up her throat was muted by the intubation. She jerked back from the nurse and her light, tears blurring her vision. Her left hand came up to her face, her fingertips just brushing against the tubing before being pulled away. Warmth enveloped her fingers as both Kevin's hands wrapped around hers, the comfort of the gesture erased by the sensation of being trapped. She locked her eyes on him as she tugged with what little strength she could muster, pleading to let her go. She heard that same phrase on a loop, each repetition breaking through the cement around her mind. You are going . . .

You are going to . . .

You are going to be okay.

Alexis had never felt less okay in her entire life. What the hell had happened to her? What the hell was Kevin doing here? Why couldn't she think straight?

Something soft and warm pressed against her knuckles, and she froze at the sensation of Kevin's lips dragging against her skin. His eyes were wide, almost tearful, like he wanted nothing more in the world than to comfort her.

And that, more than anything else, was impossible to understand.

Soon thereafter, a woman in a white coat had come into her room and, with the help of the nurse, she removed the tube in Alexis' throat and gave her a cup of water with a straw. Her throat felt raw and aching, but she was glad to be able to breathe freely. The water helped. Kevin must have been asked to leave the room, because the nurse had patted his shoulder and guided him out of the room, closing the door behind her.

The woman in the white coat began to speak to her, and Alexis found herself hanging onto every syllable, her one eye fixated on the shape of the woman's lips as she spoke, willing her mind to understand. Even then, she only got pieces. "Doctor Campbell . . . safe now. You were hurt . . . going to be okay."

That echo of the words Kevin had said to her had her nodding.

The doctor had then taken her through some kind of exam. It took Alexis a while to understand the doctor's commands and questions, but as the exam continued, she found her mind moving faster. And though every string of seconds it took for her mind to unpack those sounds and turn them into something she actually understood grew shorter and shorter, Alexis found herself growing more and more tired, like she'd been staring at case files for eight hours straight instead of following simple commands.

The doctor then took a seat at her bedside, a clipboard in hand. She smiled at Alexis. "Can you tell me your name?"

"A-Alexis Castle." Her own name sounded foreign in her mouth, like her tongue had forgotten the shape of it. Her voice was a whisper-rasp from the intubation.

"Good. What is the last thing you remember, Alexis?"

She blinked slowly, sinking back against the pillows. Images and the words to describe them came to her slowly. The parking garage at the precinct. "I… I don't know. I… I was working . . ." Her eye widened as she saw Seth standing over Javier, who was bleeding from a wound on his head. "My partner. He's hurt. We were . . . hurt. I thought . . . I thought . . . Was I hurt? W-where's Javi?"

Dr. Campbell patted her hand. "He's fine, Alexis."

"Can I—can I see him?"

"He's not here in the hospital. But he's going to be really happy that you're okay."

"What h-happened to me?"

"You experienced a trauma," Dr. Campbell said.

Alexis touched the bandage over her eye. "I can't see."

"You'll be able to soon. We had to repair your eye socket, but you're okay," the doctor assured her as Alexis felt the blood draining from her face. "You're okay now. And your eye is okay. Once we can take those bandages off, you'll be able to see again. There's no permanent damage. Okay?"

Alexis shook her head. None of this was okay. "I don't under…" She lifted the arm in the cast, then let her fingers sluggishly trail over her abdomen, where a warm discomfort throbbed with each heartbeat. "I can't remember? It hurts."

"I can give you something for the pain. But first I have some questions."

"No—"

"Alexis, I need you to answer these questions for me. Your body is hurt, but we're fixing it. And you're going to be okay. Now I need to know if your mind is hurt, too, okay? And if it is, I'll do everything in my power to fix it. But I have to know what's going on. And the only way to find that out is if you answer my questions."

Alexis blew out a breath, her throat tightening with the effort of holding back her tears. "Okay."

"Do you remember anything after your partner was hurt?"

She closed her eyes, her head already beginning to pound. She remembered getting up that morning, meeting Javi for their training sessions. Remembered calling his phone and finding him barely conscious. Remembered Seth lifting and slamming her against that stone pillar—then it ended. There was nothing else. Just an endless void. Seth… Seth had done this to her?

"No," the doctor said, and Alexis realized she'd spoken the question aloud.

"What?" That didn't make sense. If Seth hadn't been the one to hurt her, then— "Who?"

"Does the name Andres Moreno mean anything to you?"

Her body clenched tight at the name, but she didn't know why. Dimly, she heard the monitor speed up.

"Take a breath," the doctor said, waiting till Alexis relaxed to ask, "Do you remember him?"

"He's a . . . business owner. Restaurants." She shook her head. "I don't understand."

"You will soon. But let's not worry about that right now, okay? I have some more questions for you, and then we'll be done."

She shook her head again. "No. Tell me what h-happened."

"Since all of that is related to an ongoing investigation, Captain Beckett wanted to talk to you about that herself. I'm not supposed to get involved. But I do have other questions."

Alexis sank back into the hospital bed. She was so tired.

Dr. Campbell lifted up her clipboard and spoke again, but Alexis didn't catch the next question. She shook her head, blinking rapidly. "I don't… can you say it a-again?"

The doctor handed her the cup of water instead. "You're doing great. Just take a breath and drink some water. We're not in a hurry." When Alexis set the cup aside again, the doctor said again, her voice slow. "Do you remember your birthday?"

She thought hard about that one. Half of the equation rose to the surface of her mind with relative ease, but the other part was slippery. "The eighth."

"Of what month?"

Alexis looked around the room like she'd find the answer written on the wall. What month? She closed her eyes then, imagining chilled mornings, leaves turning yellow and red, pumpkins all around. Images came easily, one after another, one connected to the other as memories from various birthdays rushed in, but still the word eluded her. "It's… it's in the f-fall." She shook her head helplessly.

"November?" the doctor offered.

Alexis shook her head.

"October?"

The word snapped into place, the missing puzzle piece gluing all those images together and bringing new ones forward. "Yes." Alexis felt her face heat in embarrassment, and Dr. Campbell squeezed her hand.

"It's okay. You're doing great," she said again.

By the time Dr. Campbell wrapped up the questions on her clipboard, Alexis was so tired she could barely keep her head up and frustration had tears burning in her eyes. Understanding came easier now, though there were still long stretches of silence as she considered the doctor's questions. And she still had to ask her to repeat her questions.

But all the comprehension in the world didn't make up for the missing pieces. She couldn't remember where she lived, but she remembered her father's address—both in Manhattan and in the Hamptons. She'd forgotten her mother's name. She remembered bits and pieces from her case, mostly about Amelia Parry, but there was a void in her memory about anything related to her injury. The immediate past was the most noticeable piece missing, but from the doctor's questions, Alexis knew her recollection was flawed, knew that she was missing enough pieces to ruin the puzzle entirely.

Then Dr. Campbell handed over her clipboard and asked Alexis to write down her answers to those questions, to see if her answers might be any different. It took even longer for her to remember the shape of the words on the paper, but she found a couple of new answers. Harper. Her middle name. Her mother's maiden name. Harper. Meredith Harper.

Then the doctor grabbed a book off of the bedside table and flipped to a random page. She handed the book to Alexis and asked her to try to read the words on it out loud. Her throat went dry as she found herself mentally sounding out each word before attempting to vocalize it. Her headache worsened, and a sense of horror set in as she slogged her way through each line, the lines blurring every now and then. Her voice was raw as she sounded it out for her audience of one. By the time she'd finished her recitation, a mere page out of the entire book, tears had spotted the page.

"It's going to be okay," the doctor said again. She handed Alexis a tissue.

"H-how do you know?" Alexis asked.

"You've experienced an incredible amount of trauma. And that's why you're here. That's why you're having difficulty with memory and comprehension. But the brain is an amazing thing. Given time, it bounces back. You'll bounce back. And despite everything you've experienced, you can still read, you can write, and speak, and listen and understand what I'm saying to you. That's huge, Alexis."

Alexis nodded, too tired to argue. The doctor sighed, then patted her hand. "How's your pain? Can you give it a number?"

She considered the dull throbbing in her skull, the raw ache in her throat, the warm in pulsing in her broken arm and abdomen. "Seven."

"We'll see if we can make you a little more comfortable, okay?" She pressed a few buttons on one of the machines Alexis was attached to. "You should be feeling much better in just a couple minutes."

"Okay."

Then the doctor left, leaving the door open. Alexis heard her speaking in the hallway, every so often words like "trauma" and "memory" and "time" slipping through her ears. She thought she recognized other voices, too, but she was too tired to remember who those voices might belong to. She let her eyes fall shut as a gentle weight began to slip through her veins. The pain in her body eased and then she felt nothing at all.

When Alexis woke up again, her eyes locked on her father. He was hunched over in the chair next to the hospital bed, his head in his hands. It took a few moments of panic and disorientation for her to remember where she was, and how she'd gotten there. Or at least, to recall what the doctor had told her. There were a few pieces missing from her recollection, but the anxiety in her stomach seemed to remember things her mind didn't. She took a deep breath before letting her gaze settle again on her father, and in a knee jerk reaction, she found her good hand reaching for him. Found her weak body trying to lean forward and capture him in her arms. To find the safety and comfort that he'd given her for most of her life.

"Daddy?" Her throat was dry and sore with disuse, but she forced her cracked lips to form the word.

His head shot up, and she saw his eyes were swollen and bloodshot. His face was pale, and deep circles had been colored under his eyes, but his mouth split into a grin the moment his eyes landed on her. "Hi, pumpkin."

Before she could blink, his arms were wrapped around her shoulders, gently and carefully. Mindful of her cast and bandages and all the tubes and wires attached to her body. Her good hand lifted to wrap around his back. Her fingers gripped the fabric of his shirt as she buried her face in his neck and breathed in that scent that had meant love and protection for as long as she could remember.

Recent years and their troubles aside, she knew her Dad loved her and amidst everything that was so wrong, this moment in her father's arms helped her feel like everything might be right again. She blinked back tears and held on tighter, that panic easing up her throat and escaping her lips in tiny gasps. She was broken in ways she didn't fully understand yet, but she was alive and her dad was here. She wasn't alone.

"I've got you," he whispered into her ear. "I've got you, pumpkin. You're okay. You're okay." He chanted the words almost, it seemed, to reassure himself as much as to comfort her.

After what felt like an age of allowing herself to fall apart, Alexis pried herself out of her father's arms and wiped at her unbandaged eye. He handed her a tissue from the bedside table, then wiped a few tears out of his own eyes. "You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice," he said.

"M-me too." She balled the tissue up and dropped it on the blankets in front of her. "How long—"

"You woke up for the first time yesterday," he finished. "I missed it. I'm so sorry I missed it."

"It's okay. I…" she grasped at the fragmented memories of the day before, of her exam with the doctor and the horror as she realized just how many pieces were missing. Even now, she couldn't recall everything the doctor had said and done. "Did the doctor . . . did she…" She found herself fumbling over the words, and her face colored as she tried to get her mouth to recall the shape of those unremarkable few words. "T-talk to you?"

"She told me about your memory loss, and how you're already showing lots of good signs for recovery." A smile tugged at his lips.

Alexis couldn't even try to mimic the expression. "That's good."

"Are you hungry? I can have someone bring in some breakfast for you."

She nodded, relieved to have something normal to do. Something to talk about other than how damaged she was. He stepped out into the hallway, and she blew out a breath. A dull pounding had picked up behind her eyelids, and her abdomen and arm were aching again, too.

Feeling more lucid than she had the day before, Alexis took a moment to assess her surroundings. She was in a small private hospital room with a chair and tables in the corner, a line of cabinets and a sink on one side, and a window just a few feet away from her hospital bed. Dull light was shining in through the curtains, and the digital clock on the table next to her bed read 7:13 a.m. It was morning then. She'd slept through the night.

She tried to sit up and gasped at the pain that shot across her midsection. Not for the first time, she tried to recall that catalog of aches and pains and compare to her her memories. She came up empty.

"Good morning, Miss Castle," a nurse said as she came into the room. "My name is Tori. Can I help you sit up?"

The rest of the morning passed in a blur. With the help of her nurse, she'd gotten out of bed and had made the exhausting walk to the bathroom where she'd changed her clothes and cleaned up. She'd then been seated at the little table in the corner of the room and given her breakfast. Alexis had found herself starving and had eaten all of it except the yogurt, which had a key lime flavor that she found she didn't like. When she'd asked her father, he'd informed her that she'd hated the flavor ever since she'd eaten a bad key lime pie when she was eleven. She'd completely forgotten.

After breakfast, she'd been given more pain medication, then nurse had checked her bandages and Alexis had discovered several large cuts on her legs and chest that she hadn't known were there. Again, she had no idea where they'd come from.

She was tucked back in her hospital bed after that, feeling clean, full, and medicated but no less anxious. Her father had stayed with her through the exhausting ordeal, looking just as anxious after being exposed to his daughter's trauma.

Just as she was about to tell him to go home and get some rest, there was a knock at her hospital room door. Captain Beckett stood on the threshold, a folder tucked under her arm.

"You're a sight for sore eyes, Detective." She smiled at both of them. "Do you mind if I come in and visit for a while?"

"Of course, Captain." Alexis' eyes slid over to her father, who watched the woman in the doorway with an expression that she couldn't parse.

"Dad, this is—"

"Hello again, Kate."

"Mr. Castle." Beckett nodded to him as she took a seat on the opposite side of Alexis' hospital bed.

"You two… you met?" Alexis asked.

Her dad nodded. "While you were still unconscious. Captain Beckett and I have had a lot of talks lately."

Alexis didn't know how what to think of that, but she had a feeling the development wasn't in her favor.

"How are you feeling?" Beckett asked.

"I've been better."

"I know you've just woken up and no doubt have bigger concerns right now, but I do have some questions about your most recent case that I hope you can answer for me. I'm sure you've got some questions of your own."

"Okay. Ask away."

"First, I'd like to tell you that we're all hoping for a full recovery and everyone at the precinct is thinking about you. Many of them have donated sick time to you so you can have more time to recovery without worrying about returning to work."

Alexis was touched by this. "Wow. I umm…. I am I allowed to return to work?" The question had been at the forefront of her shattered mind from the moment she'd seen her boss in the doorway. While Alexis was still missing some very important pieces, she remembered enough to suspect that she was in a world of trouble.

"Yes. We'll talk more about the specifics as we get closer though, okay? I'm told you've got a long recovery ahead of you, and that's where your focus should be."

Alexis nodded. "Alright."

"Alexis, I'm wondering if you can tell me about what you remember?"

Her heart sinking, Alexis did her best to describe what she recalled starting with finding Amelia's body and ending the day Seth had attacked her and Javier in the parking garage.

"And you don't remember anything after that?" Beckett asked.

"No."

The police captain opened up the folder and removed a large photo. "Do you know this man?"

The moment the photo fell in her lap, Alexis smacked it away, her heart racing. She heard the monitor beeping loudly. A phantom pain echoed in her thigh, sharp as a knife.

"Do you remember him?" her dad asked.

Alexis shook her head. "No. I—I don't understand. I don't know w-why I—" She found her breaths growing short, and her dad took her hand.

"Breathe," he said. "Just breath for a minute."

She sucked sweet oxygen into her lungs, not unaware of the pity in Captain Beckett's expression as she tucked the photo back into the folder. "W-who?" Alexis demanded.

"His name is Andres Moreno, and we have evidence that he assaulted you when he realized you were getting close to pinning him for murder."

"Amelia," Alexis said.

"That's right. And you don't remember him?"

"No. I don't remember . . . he did this to me?"

"Yes. But according to our sources, you met him a few weeks before he assaulted you. Before the attack in the parking garage, too. And you believed that he was guilty."

Alexis' heart sank. "I don't—" she blinked rapidly, acutely aware of her broken state. Her shattered mind. The fact that even as she blinked away tears, she only had use of one eye to do it. She shook her head.

"Honestly, Detective, I hope you'll forgive me for saying this, but not remembering what happened to you wouldn't be the worst thing in the world."

Alexis wasn't sure she agreed.

"Now, I've gotten an account of your involvement in this case, particularly where your off-the-clock behavior is concerned," Beckett continued. "Now that you've told me what you do remember, I'll make sure these pieces of your account are added to the case against Moreno."

"Does my account even count for anything?" Alexis asked. "I'm not exactly a…." she paused, trying to find the right words and coming up empty. "My memories can't be trusted." She didn't add the fact that Beckett probably didn't find her trustworthy after learning about what she'd done to find justice for Amelia.

Beckett's silence was answer enough. She cleared her throat. "We're all praying for a speedy recovery, Detective."

"I think it's time Alexis gets some rest," her dad said, his tone a little sharper than Alexis was used to. "I'll see you out."

After Captain Beckett said goodbye and Rick promised to be right back after swinging by the loft to pick up Martha, Alexis settled back against the mattress, her mind exhausted. She was in for a world of trouble. Even if she bounced back one-hundred percent, there was no guarantee that her career would recover.

She reminded herself that a murderer was behind bars now, but the consolation felt hollow. Nothing like how she thought she'd feel when she'd started hunting down Amelia's killer. Amelia was still dead, after all. Finding her killer didn't change that. And Alexis had almost ended up with a tag on her toe as well—

There was a knock at the door, and she saw Kevin Ryan on the threshold, a tupperware tucked under his arm. "Hey."

Her overtaxed mind froze, once again stuck on the impossibility of Kevin standing in front of her, seeking her company.

"Mind if I come in?"

She blinked at him for a moment. "Um, sure."

He took a seat at her bedside, in the same chair Captain Beckett had occupied. He set the tupperware down on her nightstand, and Alexis thought she could see chocolate-chip cookies inside.

Her caught her staring at the treats. "They're for you. Baked with love." He smiled, though it looked a little hesitant.

Alexis stared at him for what she was sure was longer than appropriate.

"Okay. Thanks."

"You're welcome. You look good. Better than yesterday. How are you feeling?" The words tumbled out so quickly it took her another long string of seconds to unpack their sounds and find meaning. The brightness in his eyes and the quiet desperation in his smile were painful to look at.

"Um, tired." She blinked, then let her eyes focus on the blanket covering her lower half. "Confused."

"The doctor said you had some memory loss."

She just nodded.

"But you remember me, right?"

"Yeah."

"What else do you remember?"

Her eyes flicked up to his at that question that everyone wanted an answer to, that impossible request that had her scraping the inside of her mind raw, and she blew out a breath. "What are you doing here, Kevin?"

He looked at her like she'd slapped him. "Where else would I be?"

"Living your life?" she said. "Away from me? Don't you . . . have work? Somewhere else to be?"

"Not right now," he said. "Look, I know I let you down. And every moment I spent trying to find you after Moreno took you, knowing that I might never get a chance to make things up to you. It just… it made me realize how important you are to me."

"You helped?" She shook her head in confusion. "You were there?"

"Javi and I found you. We were there when…" he trailed off. "I kind of wish I'd put a bullet in Moreno."

"Where is he now?"

"In jail, awaiting trial. We've got the evidence to put him away for a long time. Thanks to you."

"And this is-this is—where you want to be?"

"Look, I know we've had a rough go of things, and I'm sure I've disappointed and hurt you. I know I have. But I care about you. And if you'll let me, I'd like to be here for you. To help you."

"What does that mean? You want to get back together? I don't understand where this is coming from. You… you hate me. The last time we spoke—"

He took her hand, his skin warming her chilled fingers. "I'm so sorry. I don't have any expectations. I just want to help you. That's all."

"I don't want ch-charity."

"That's not what this is."

She sighed and pulled her hand away from his, overwrought by her visitors and their impossible questions. "Let me think."

He nodded, forcing something like a smile to his lips. Once again, the expression on his face was too painful to look at for long. "My number's the same, okay? We gave your phone to your dad, so you can call me if you want to."

"Okay."

He stepped away from her bed, but lingered in the doorway. "I just want to help. That's all."

Alexis didn't answer, and after four heartbeats she heard Kevin's footsteps retreating before the silence could stretch on any longer.

It was almost two weeks later when Kevin's phone pinged with a new text message. He'd been repainting his apartment, simultaneously trying to keep busy during his unpaid leave and trying to tackle the daunting task of making his apartment feel like a home.

The suggestion had come from a self-help book he'd picked up at the library. Six others of its kind were stacked on his nightstand, waiting their turn to empower him.

He was meditating. He was exercising. He was eating food that didn't come wrapped in foil, and he hadn't had liquor since he'd been on his assignment. He was deep cleaning his apartment and looking at furniture on craigslist. He was visiting his family and making amends and knee-deep in those goddamn books that talked about self-actualization and habits and mantras. And it helped. It really did.

But in the back of his mind, he was never quite able to escape all the things he wasn't doing.

He wasn't talking to Alexis.

He wasn't bringing her care packages.

He wasn't bribing nurses—or anyone—for updates on her recovery.

It felt wrong, not doing those things.

So when his phone pinged—his phone, not Fenton's—he just about upended a can of bright yellow paint in his rush to answer.

The message was short, and for the first time in almost two weeks, Kevin felt like he could breathe again.

Bring more cookies the next time you come.

Author's Note: Happy New Year! Thanks very much for your patience and for sticking with us. Please review!