Here be Dragons!
Chapter 39
Rick couldn't let go but needed to let go. Because he had Lockwood's wing he couldn't fly and because of the speed at which they were both rocketing toward the ground Lockwood couldn't right himself to attack Rick. He was along for the ride.
Kate was just gliding along trying to follow. "Let go, babe! Please let go." Her heart was never going to live through this if he didn't. …And soon.
Rick waited and waited and saw the ground getting closer and closer. Oddly they were right back at the airport and its various hangers for planes and helicopters.
He wondered if they both crashed and died while crashing into one of these hangers if it would look like one of those spectacular explosions you saw in all those action movies. However, he really wasn't all that interested in finding out.
Amazingly Rick saw a huge blast of fire going past him up into the air. Looking up behind him he saw the Red Dragon's head was breathing fire on him. Yet he didn't even feel the heat from it which was something he didn't understand.
Then his Dragon explained something to him. "I'm immune to fire? …You picked a hell of a time to tell me." Okay, maybe crashing wouldn't kill him if they blew up. However, hitting the ground at this speed was going to break every bone in his body.
Now while one might think that all this took a long time, it actually didn't. Okay, having Lockwood breathe on him had taken a few seconds but the rest had barely taken half that time.
Still Rick waited since he had a plan and since his Dragon wasn't telling him he had lost his mind, he went with it.
Kate was starting to lose them. She didn't dare go down at anything approaching their speed and just looking down made her neck hurt. She circled and got lower.
Rick was sure he was waiting too long, but Lockwood needed to not get back up again. Maybe he wouldn't die but more likely he would. Then Rick let go, spread his wings wide, and tried to level out before he hit the ground. Problem was he was still heading down but he needed to give his wings some lift so he raised his head and tried to get his rear legs to go down.
All Kate could barely see was that both of them were basically in the same amount of space and still going down.
Rick wasn't paying attention to Lockwood any longer. He was just trying to pay attention to not crashing into the ground.
Lockwood saw the ground coming up fast and was doing what he could to get this damn Gold Dragon to let go of him. Except he was being dragged behind it as it had its wings pinned to its side and plummeting toward the ground.
Still he managed to orient his head and inhale before breathing out a breath of fire. He knew nothing about a Gold Dragon save that his Dragon hated it with a passion unrivaled against anything he had ever experienced before.
He was amazed that his breath hit the Dragon though it didn't seem to react to it. He knew for a fact that various things like even concrete walls would be reduced to dust and rubble. And yet he got nothing.
Then finally the Gold Dragon let go of him and while he did reach out to try and grab hold of the Dragon, he missed and kept tumbling. But he knew something this stupid Dragon apparently didn't. Lockwood began flapping but then suddenly roared in pain. Part of one of his wings was broken right at the elbow. Still he needed to flap or he was going to hit the ground and break far too many bones to survive.
Through the intense pain Lockwood flapped to get air under him and it was actually working. He was slowing down while that stupid Gold Dragon just kept gliding straight down. However, the pain was almost causing him to black out.
"Come on, come on." Rick needed to level out because the ground was coming up fast. Then just as his rear legs were about to touch ground he did and flew straight into an open hanger that had a little single engine plane inside it. He crashed through it, sending little pieces flying everywhere. Then out the other side. While the plane was thankfully made of lightweight aluminum and even whatever the hanger was made of almost equally weak. But the steel supports holding the whole thing up? Not so much. That part hurt.
Lockwood landed and was pretty sure he just broke both his rear legs doing it. At least he was alive. What he didn't know was what happened to that damned Gold Dragon that had caused this.
Angry didn't describe what he was. Furious didn't begin to describe it, either. His blood was boiling and he wanted to kill everyone so he picked a hanger, breathed on it, and was rewarded with seeing it blow up spectacularly.
Kate had lost them until suddenly something blew up and there, not far away, was the Red Dragon sitting on the ground. Her Dragon had an answer for that.
Kate didn't know how it had survived hitting the ground that hard from that high up but her Dragon was in charge and dove down until Kate was wondering just when her Dragon planned on stopping.
To her horror, it didn't. It crashed onto the Red Dragon which hurt like hell. She watched as her head got closer and closer to the neck of the Red Dragon. Then she was biting it again as hard as she could. She actually kind of liked hearing it roar in pain. This was followed by her shaking her head for all she was worth and suddenly she wasn't biting the Dragon any longer. But her mouth was full of something.
Kate's Dragon spat it out and bit the Red Dragon again. She shook her head and came away with another piece and spat it out.
She was ready to go in for another bite when the Dragon began to disappear and just a few seconds later she saw Lockwood in human form, his head barely hanging on. She sat there looking down for a couple of minutes just to be sure.
"CASTLE!?" She got up and turned to look around. Except that caused a lot of pain. Then her heart soared when she spotted him walking this way. She was up and running, ignoring the pain in her neck.
She had no idea how to talk like this so she growled a little and rubbed her head up against his even if that did hurt.
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Kate was in an ambulance with a serious neck injury. Rick was next to her, sitting there with his arm in a sling. She could barely talk and had been told to stop trying. However, she kept her eyes on Castle the entire way until she was taken away from him.
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Kate woke up and saw Rick looking down at her. "Hi." Her voice sounded like hell but she was alive.
"Hi." Rick smiled wide and leaned down to give her a quick kiss. "The doctor said you shouldn't talk. You had reconstructive surgery on your neck. Nothing too serious but I hope you like Slimfast shakes for the next couple of weeks." Rick watched her make a face of disgust.
Rick kissed that face away. "Before you start trying to talk like the doctor says you're not supposed to, Lockwood is very dead. His head was hanging on by a thread. Roy's alive and I'm pretty sure he saw us shift." Rick listened to her groan.
"Couldn't be helped. At least he's not dead. Espo tells me Roy's the third cop." Rick watched her try to nod but it hurt. "Just blink once for yes and twice for no for now. Can you try that?" Rick asked her and saw her blink once.
"I'll try and sneak in a computer later so you can type what you want to say. Maybe a program to turn it into a voice if I can find one," Rick offered.
"Roy?" Rick asked and saw her blink once. "Espo and Ryan were the first to show up. They arrived with police cruisers and ambulances and even fire trucks. Of course one of the hangers was on fire so that's a given.
"Right behind them were the FBI. At the moment your ex-boyfriend is in charge again." That had Kate groaning again.
"None of us have access to Roy so we don't know what he's saying, if anything. Based on what I heard he knows who's in charge of all this." Rick watched her blink once.
"Yeah I'll admit that's a twist I wasn't expecting. I mean he's Captain of the 12th. How did he make it that far? Raglan and McAllister are basically nobodies." Rick didn't get that.
"You're only allowed one visitor at a time and Alexis, Mother and your dad are out in the waiting room. You up to a visit?" Kate smiled, blinked once, and watched him leave.
He was soon replaced by Alexis who looked like she'd been crying a lot and was ready to start again. Kate reached out a hand to take hers. "Dad says you're not supposed to talk. I'm just glad you're going to be okay. I don't want to lose a mom." Alexis couldn't keep it in any longer and began crying. Kate pulled her down to her and let her cry on her shoulder.
It hurt Kate's heart to hear Alexis crying but yet she wasn't supposed to talk. Bending her head to kiss her head hurt but she did it anyway.
Alexis was back up and wiping away tears and sniffling loudly. "Roy, your boss, was behind this?" Alexis had pumped her dad for all she could get out of him no matter what it took to get it. "I always thought he was a nice guy." Alexis couldn't believe she could be duped that easily.
"It's still four weeks until your wedding. One of us will be here every day until they release you," Alexis said and Kate blinked twice. Alexis needed to go to school.
"Until you can talk again you don't have a say," Alexis advised her. Kate drummed her hands on her body, wishing it was a computer so she could tell Alexis not to do this.
"I'm going to go get Grams." Alexis leaned down to kiss her cheek and felt Kate try and kiss her back.
Moments later Martha walked in. She looked normal but Kate could tell she had been crying, too. It hurt so much that she had done this to everyone. Her mother's case was taking a new toll on her soul. "You and Richard really know how to scare us, Katherine." Martha took her hand in both of hers. "I hope it was worth it. Your dad's out there ready to have kittens."
Now Kate felt really bad. He had lost his wife and just about his daughter. Still she knew it had to be done.
"Just get better. I want those grandchildren you promised me." Martha leaned down to kiss her cheek and left so Jim could come in next.
Kate watched her dad walk in. He looked like shit and she began to cry. She had hurt him and that hurt had its own pain. Kate opened her mouth to say sorry, except her dad put his finger over her mouth. "The doctor said don't talk, so if you do something that causes you to stay in here even longer I'll spank you," Jim said to her and that did it for Kate. Now she really was crying.
Thankfully for both of them Kate got tired and fell asleep. Since he was the family member the doctor only talked to him. Kate wasn't technically married to Rick yet and having it all planned didn't count apparently.
"She's going to be drinking a lot of shakes in her future. The sound of her voice might change but I doubt it, though. She's going to need to rebuild her neck muscles but otherwise she should be fine. Her cervical vertebrae aren't damaged nor is any cartilage, tendons, ligaments or anything else that should affect her long term.
"I'm told there's a wedding in about 4 weeks. She'll be fine by then if not a little stiff in the neck. She should even be on solid foods by then. She's lucky, the damage could have been much worse. Right now we just need to watch out for infection. I'm guessing that she will be with us for the next week.
"Based on the number of people in our waiting room it looks like she'll have support when she's released," the doctor mentioned.
"So much so that she'll start to complain," Jim assured him.
"All of you are free to come back tomorrow but only one at a time. I don't need her to start thinking she needs to talk." That said, the doctor walked away.
Jim promptly went out to the waiting room and told everyone out there which was pretty much everyone in Kate's life.
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The very next morning Kate was awake and waiting on Rick to show up when Will Sorenson walked in. He was not who she wanted to see at all.
"Kate." Will wasn't sure what kind of reception he was going to get. "I've been assigned to the case involving your precinct captain. If you feel up to it I have a few questions for you," Will told her and asked his first question.
Kate lay there and intentionally kept her mouth shut and glared at him.
Will tried to get her to cooperate. "I'm just doing my job here, Kate."
"Sorenson?" Rick showed up with a laptop in his hand. "What are you doing here?"
"My job! I need to get Kate's statement," Will stated and did his best Kate Beckett glare.
"Perhaps it would help if you talked to her doctor first. His orders were for her not to talk at all because of her neck wound. So unless you have her doctor's permission for her to talk, she can't." Rick glared right back at him.
"I'll verify that," Will told both of them and left.
"You saw something in that guy? He's boring and I'm talking about C-SPAN boring here," Rick commented and while Kate wanted to say something but she couldn't.
Rick moved Kate's adjustable table into place and put a laptop on it. "Now let's see if we can get you into more of a sitting position." It took some doing for Rick to figure out how to make the bed work.
Rick put pillows behind Kate then opened and turned on her laptop. "I found you a program. What you type will be voiced. It will use the speaker in the laptop and the battery will only last for about 2 hours or so." Rick turned it to face him so he could activate the program and spun it back to Kate.
"Give it a try." Rick stayed close and watched her lift her hands and type.
"I love you," was the first thing she typed and she watched as he bent down to kiss her and Kate held his head in place so she could kiss him back.
Kate asked her first question. "Where is Roy?"
"In FBI custody. Where, I have no idea. Sorenson isn't talking. It's like that Moran case all over again, if not worse." Rick rolled his eyes.
Kate asked another question. "How is Alexis, really?"
Rick stroked her hair. "Better now since she's seen you. When I got to her she was sobbing. I've never seen her so distraught before. She'd convinced herself that she'd lost both of us until I showed up then it was just you. Alexis loves you, you know."
"I love her, too." Kate told him what he already knew.
"There's one more thing that I asked the doctor to let me tell you." Kate sat there and waited.
"You're pregnant," Rick flat out told her and smiled wide at her.
"WHAT!" Kate literally said and sounded like shit.
"How long?" Kate typed.
"Somewhere between 7 and 11 weeks is the guess. They say you should be feeling morning sickness by now," Rick said.
"None. They're sure?" Kate questioned him.
Rick nodded. "Positive. You were or are pregnant when we attacked Lockwood."
Kate didn't answer. She wrapped her arms around herself and sat back. She had risked her baby that she had known nothing about.
He took her hand in his. "You and the baby are fine, Kate. Nothing's wrong, I promise. When you're up to it they can bring in an ultrasound machine and maybe get a picture. No heart beat yet, I don't think, but we can ask."
Kate reached out to the computer. "Now, please. I want to know now."
"I'll be right back." Rick leaned in to kiss her and left the room.
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Kate watched a technician wheel in a cart with a machine on it. Then she told her what was going to happen and what she could expect.
1. Measure the size of your embryo
2. Determine your estimated due date (EDD)
3. Determine viability, confirm a heartbeat
4. Check the pregnancy is in the uterus
5. Determine the number of babies
Then she asked Kate a bunch of questions just as Rick came back.
1. When was your last menstrual period (LMP)?
2. Do you have regular cycles?
3. Is this is a naturally conceived pregnancy? Or IVF?
4. How many pregnancies have you had? What were the outcomes?
5. If you had miscarriages, how far along were you?
6. How many children do you have?
7. Any past operations?
8. Are you taking any medications?
Then she asked Kate if there was anything else she should know. She was only a little taken aback that Kate was using a computer to answer her questions.
Kate strained to see what was on the screen.
"This is your baby. Head, body, legs, and the umbilical cord can be seen here." She used her finger to show each item. "This is your baby's heartbeat shown here."
Kate saw a number until she flipped a switch and suddenly a heartbeat occupied the room.
"What's that?" Suddenly everyone saw Sorenson at the doorway.
"Her baby and who are you?" the technician demanded.
"Sorenson, FBI," Will said.
"This is a private matter and you're not family, so get out," the technician ordered.
"What part of FBI didn't you get?" Will stuck his chest out a touch.
"And what part of private and not family did you not get? Now get out or I'll have you removed by force." The technician closed the door behind him.
"Some people just don't get the word private." The technician was pissed.
"I like her," Kate typed and watched the technician blush while Rick smiled wide and was thinking of giving her a nice big fat tip. Then he slid a hundred dollar bill as carefully as he could into her scrub shirt's pocket.
"Baby." She got back to her job. "So, what I can tell he or she is about 16 mm long so I'm going to put you at 8 weeks along. I'll give it to the doctor and he can tell you when your due date is." She cleaned the gel off of Kate's belly.
"Oh, here are your pictures." Her machine spat out four of them and she wheeled her machine back out, glaring at Sorenson who was just outside the door. He was a real jerk as far as she was concerned.
Kate beamed as she looked at the picture of her baby. Then she put it down.
"Where were we 8 weeks ago?" Kate was trying to figure out just where they were when they'd conceived their baby.