Again, I do not own Castle.
I had a little bit of writer's block when I started writing this chapter. I hope to God that this one came out okay. Any grammar mistakes are my own.
Esposito and Ryan rush out of the elevator and toward Lanie, Martha, Alexis and Martha waiting in the hallway. Esposito walks straight up to Lanie and hugs her.
"What have you heard so far?" Esposito asks he, still seeing the worry in her eyes.
"Just that they made it out of surgery. The doctor is supposed to come in and update us in a few minutes." Lanie tells them. Alexis who was seated in the chair by the door suddenly stands up.
"They won't tell us anything other than that they were shot." Alexis states as she stands in front of Lanie and Esposito. Ryan stands just behind everyone taking in the scene. Ryan's not really sure how they all got to this point? One minute they toasting victory and the next thing they know, they get a call stating that both Beckett and Castle were shot in their home? This nightmare should have been over. Just then a man in a white coat comes marching out of the double doors down the end of the hallway.
"Family of Richard and Kate Castle?" The doctor asks. The entire group turns towards the Doctor and Martha is the first to speak.
"How are they?" She asks. Worried all to hell. Also trying to figure out how in the world this could have happened. They were supposed to be safe.
"I'm Dr. Kovaks. I'm in charge up your son's care. He took a bullet to the upper, right side of the chest. Our main concern was the blood loss when he came in, but we got that taken care of. He is resting." The news of Castle's well being helped a little to calm the family's nerves, but they still needed to know about Beckett's condition.
"What about Kate?" Alexis was able to to get the question out how she wasn't sure. Dr. Kovaks looks at the group around him and then back to Alexis.
"Your mother's condition was a little more severe. The bullet that she took to the abdomen was lodged in her spleen and had to be removed. She too had a significant amount of blood loss and I was also worried about her heart since I treated her for a chest wound five years ago. She pulled through, but she's not out of the woods yet. We are keeping a close eye on her for the next for the next 48 hours. We are waiting on some routine blood work. But we are cautiously optimistic at this point."
Alexis is so relieved that they are okay that she doesn't even bother correcting the doctor about her relation to Beckett. She's just glad that they are going to be able to live through all of this.
"Oh thank God." Lanie finally breathes out. She keeps thinking that they can't keep scaring the hell out of all of them like this.
The look of relief that the group gives is enough for the doctor to breathe. He remembers this group from five years ago. The tension was high then as it is now and at least this time around Josh Davidson isn't here making things worse.
"Is there any way we can see them now?" Alexis asks the doctor. She knows that it's highly unlikely at this point.
"Not the best idea right now." Kovaks tells them, "I know that everyone wants to go in to see them, but they do need their rest." Ryan and Esposito nod at the doctor as he continues. Martha asks the doctor another question.
"Will the at least be able to be in the same room together?" She knows that if they can't be with them, that maybe at least they could be with each other.
"We are going to keep Captain Beckett in the ICU for now and hopefully we will be able to her and her husband into the same room sometime this evening. Right now they need to rest. I'll let you know if their conditions change." And with that Kovaks leaves. Martha thanks the doctor as he heads down the hallway. She turns to the rest of the group as Alexis stands next to her.
"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not going anywhere." Martha tells Alexis and the boys. Ryan and Esposito can hear the mix of terror, relief and exhaustion in her voice. Alexis paces and walks back to the boys.
"I don't understand how this happened? This was supposed to be over." Alexis states as she stands next to the two detectives. Both who want nothing more than to be able to put the pieces together and figure out what's going on.
"We're really not sure what happened." Ryan tells Alexis. As he's about to continue to reassure her that they will figure this whole thing out when he gets interrupted by Esposito.
"But unfortunately we're no longer investigating their case." Ryan knows that Esposito wanted to continue the investigation, but that he wanted to be here to.
"We weren't booted off the investigation, we're just not taking point on it." Ryan explains. He didn't know the Lieutenant at all, but he got the feeling that she wasn't going to shut them out on this. She knew that they really wouldn't be thinking straight and that they would be better off giving moral support to the family at the moment.
"Who's taking over then?" Alexis ask the boys. She wants to know what's going on and who is in charge at the moment.
"A Lieutenant Jo Holliday. She was brought in by Deputy Chief Gates." Ryan tells Martha and Alexis. "For all we know Gates just wanted someone from the outside to investigate this case." Alexis nods. She can under stand that Gates would want an outsider to investigate this whole thing.
"What do you guys know about her." Alexis asks. If someone else is investigating her father and Beckett's shooting she want to damn well know everything about her.
"Not a thing." Esposito tells her. He's still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Gates brought in an outsider for this. He knows that they should be the ones taking lead on this.
"But that doesn't mean we're going to get shut out of this." Ryan makes an attempt to reason with him, but he knows that his partner is just trying to make sense of everything. Ryan looks around the hallway and notices that there are two people missing from their group.
"Where are Vikram and Hayley?" Ryan asks Martha and Alexis. The last he knew they both came here with Martha and Alexis.
"Vikram got called into the precinct. We thought you guys were the one that called him in. And Hayley said that she was going to get a cup of coffee." Alexis tells them she now realizes that Hayley should have been back by now.
"Okay then, we'll try to get a hold of Vikram at the 12th." Ryan tells Alexis.
"Okay, we're going to get to the bottom of this. I promise, stay here at the hospital. We're going to have a couple of uniforms posted outside their room. I'll feel better if you three stay in sight."
"I don't think that will be necessary." Hayley says as she's walking towards the group from the double doors the doctor just walked through. "It looks as though that this was the last of it." She tells them as stops in front of them.
"What makes you so sure?" Esposito asks her. He still doesn't know Hayley very well and he would like to what makes her so damn confident.
"Because everyone else that was involved with Lokstat are either dead or being arraigned as we speak. The fact that Caleb Brown came out of hiding to try and finish them off tells me that he was desperate enough to end the whole thing right then and there. It's over." She tells them. What she doesn't tell is who the source was that told her. The boys didn't know about Rita and it would take too much time and energy to explain everything to them.
"Did you get that info from Lieutenant Holliday?" Esposito asks her. Wondering how she was able to the information so fast.
"Who?" She asks Esposito. She only knows one Holiday and the last she checked she was Los Angeles.
"A Lieutenant Jo Holliday came in and took point of the investigation of the shooting." Ryan chimes in, the last thing everyone needs right now is Hayley and Esposito getting into it in the middle of a hospital. And something tells him that Hayley would win.
"Jo's here?" Hayley asks them. That was a surprise. But now she wonders who sent her in.
"You know her, Hayley?" Alexis asks. She knows that Hayley has a lot of connections, but it is always something when she can always get everyone a leg up.
"For a while now. She was LAPD" Hayley tells them.
"So what is she doing here?" Esposito asks her. Why in the hell is there an LAPD cop doing her in New York?
"I'm not sure." Hayley tells them. "But in the mean time, I will go with the boys to the precinct and you three should go get something to eat because it looks like it is going to be a while before Beckett and Castle are allowed any visitors."
"Right, okay I'll take you guys to Remy's. It right down the street. I'll tell the nurse to call me if there are any changes." Lanie tells Martha and Alexis. They both nods and make their way out of the hospital.
Hayley watches the three of them exit and them turns back to the boys. Esposito is the first to speak.
"What else do you know about Holliday?" Esposito stares at her, determined to get as much information as they can get.
"She was a Sargent with the LAPD worked under cover." Hayley starts, she also knows Holliday from her time in Navy's Counter Intelligence Unit, but the boys really don't need to hear that part. "Last I heard she was working she was working a deep cover assignment." It's that last thought that bothers her though. If she was here instead of out there on that assignment, something must have gone wrong.
"Any reason Deputy Chief Gates would send her to lead this investigation?" Ryan asks her. At this point he and Esposito will take all of the information that they can get about their new Lieutenant.
"Any case she works on gets wrapped up into a nice, neat little bow that cannot be undone. If your Deputy Chief brought her in, then it's because NYPD wants to make sure that this whole thing is finished. She's good. She's very good." She hopes she can persuade the boys to calm down because she knows if they piss off Holliday… Well she knows that Holiday won't just sit back and take it. She'll make their lives a living hell.
"You trust her?" Ryan has to ask. He and Esposito really can't take many more surprises.
"With my life." Hayley tells them. It one of the few statements that she makes in her life that is the absolute truth. "We should head back to the precinct and see what she has so far."
"Okay then." Responds Esposito. As far as he's concerned that answer's good enough for him.
"Let's see what what Holliday is willing to tell us about the investigation." Ryan suggests to the two of them. Hayley and Esposito both nod in agreement and the three of them walk out of the hospital.
