I cannot thank all of you who have reviewed, followed, and favorited this story enough. As a first-time Castle fic writer, your support, encouragement, and enthusiasm mean the world to me. I hope you continue to enjoy the ride.
In her line of work, Kate Beckett had seen many bodies on tables, but the sight of her own body on an operating table was disconcerting, to say the least.
She was slightly disoriented, and more than a little bewildered, as she stood at the head of the operating table on which her body lay, surrounded by machines, with a team of surgeons and nurses working on her and barking out more medspeak than she understood, despite her profession. But disturbing as it was, the fact that her body was on that table, and the machines surrounding her were beeping instead of sounding a flat monotone, while an entire team of doctors and nurses worked on her, meant she had to be alive. She knew that much.
It took only a second for her to realize that she was in the operating room alone. Well, her body was in this OR alone. Castle. Where was Castle?
"CASTLE!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, not caring if no one or the whole world could hear her. "CASTLE! RICK!" She turned in a slow circle, her eyes frantically darting everywhere for a glimpse of him, her ears straining to catch the sound of his voice or his footsteps, every sense heightened and attuned to him, willing him to give her some sort of sign that he was somewhere nearby. "RICK, WHERE ARE YOU?" she cried out. She put a hand to her forehead before blurting out in a panic, "Oh, God, please let him be here somewhere, in some other OR! Just let him be alive, please!"
Then she heard the most beautiful sound in the world: a wonderfully familiar, totally frantic voice screaming for her. "KATE? KATE! BECKETT! COME ON, BECKETT, ANSWER ME! WHERE ARE YOU, KATE?" The next thing she heard was a primal scream unlike anything she had ever heard before, a keening two-syllable wail of her name that sent her literally crashing through the OR wall as she followed the sound of Castle crying out in fear for her. "BECK-ETTTTTTTTTTT!"
"I'M HERE! RICK, I'M RIGHT HERE! IT'S ME!" she exclaimed.
He whirled around and took in the sight of her, then cried, "Kate! Oh, thank God!" as he reached forward and grabbed her, hauling her into his arms and hugging her as hard as he could, clinging to her tightly.
And she hugged him back as hard as she could and clung to him as tightly as she could, breathing in his scent and taking it as a good sign that she could not only inhale his scent but feel him, feel his arms around her, feel him molded to her.
"I thought I lost you," she whispered as she pressed herself against him, trying to get as close to him as humanly possible. Rick reveled in being able to feel her embrace him, and being able to feel her as he held her against him. Those five whispered words from Kate reminded him of a dark night when she had said those same five words to him, after they were separated by the Mob while trying to catch a killer, and they found each other again after Kate thought he had been riddled with bullets while sitting in what turned out to be an empty SUV.
Rick repeated the same four words to Kate now that he had that night: "No. No. Never. Never."
He pulled back to look at her, their arms still locked around each other, gratified to see her beautiful face but looking very disturbed as his gaze traveled down to the bloodstains on her shirt, peeking out from beneath her jacket. She drank in the sight of him just as eagerly, but visibly blanched at the hole in the side of his chest and the blood staining his shirt.
"You're being operated on too," Rick realized, his voice filled with palpable relief as he spied Kate's body on her own OR table through the window behind her.
"'Too'?" Kate echoed, finally feeling calm now that she was with Castle again.
Rick threaded his fingers through hers, much the way she had threaded her fingers through his the night she had come to his door soaked from the rain after nearly being thrown off a roof by Maddox and telling him that all she wanted was him, and they walked unseen several feet down the corridor, hand in hand. "I'm in there," he said. Kate looked in the OR window and saw Rick's body lying on a table identical to hers, surrounded by identical machines and with a similar team of doctors and nurses working on him.
"Caleb Brown shot you," Kate said tearfully, unable to bear the sight of her beloved husband's body on an OR table any more than the sight of her own body in the same condition, as she looked at Castle once more. "I heard you fall. I came out of our bedroom, and he was standing over you. He was going to kill you."
"You killed him instead," Rick replied. "And he shot you twice. I saw and heard you fall. I scooted over to you..."
"I crawled to you and dropped my gun and took your hand."
"We laid there holding hands until we lost consciousness, I guess. Someone obviously found us and brought us here."
"Ryan," Kate said. "He was there. And Alexis...oh my God, Alexis saw us, Castle! And Espo was there, he told me you and I were both still alive. And I think Lanie was there? I don't know for sure. I was just trying to stay awake as long as I could in case I needed to be the one to call for help. Once help got there, all I could think about was you, that I had to make sure you were okay."
"I remember scooting across the floor to you, seeing you crawl to me, you took my hand and held on to it. It hurt to breathe, I couldn't make words come out. I just kept squeezing your hand whenever I had the strength and praying in my head that you'd be all right until I lost consciousness," Rick replied.
"I was trying to get my phone out of my pocket, and I got it but I dropped it, and I couldn't make my hand work to pick it up and call 911, and then they were there, Ryan and Alexis and Espo...and I think Lanie. I don't know how they found us, but I'm really glad they did, and they obviously got us here." She glanced around the hospital corridor, unable to look in the ORs behind her and Rick.
"Mother and your dad must know by now," Rick said. "They would have called them. We're in the hospital." He looked deeply into Kate's eyes now. "I do remember one very important thing: you told me to hold on."
"You said you were holding on...always," Kate replied, looking back into Castle's eyes just as deeply.
"You held on too," Rick said.
"I always will. When it comes to you...to us...I will always hold on, Castle."
"I will too," he vowed.
Kate released Rick then so she could take both his hands in hers, lacing their fingers together. "I can feel you," she told him. "I felt you when we embraced, and I feel your hands in mine now. I can feel you, Rick!"
"I can feel you too," Rick said. He squeezed her hands lightly, and she squeezed his hands back.
"That's gotta be a good thing, right?" Kate said. "We can feel each other." She didn't know or care if this was an out-of-body experience or what it was. At this moment, she wanted desperately to believe that she and Rick were not dying on those operating tables she couldn't bear to look at, because she'd lived life without him before, and that wasn't living. She couldn't do it again. She knew she couldn't. And she knew him well enough to know that he was having the same thought: that life without her was not doable, was not any kind of life at all.
Kate's eyes filled with tears then, and it was the look in those beautiful, wet eyes that made Castle feel pain in his chest that had nothing to do with the bullet he was not consciously aware was still lodged in there.
"Kate?" he asked anxiously, not letting go of her hands. He could still feel her, she could still feel him... Like she said, that had to be a good thing.
"It's my fault we're here," she said on a sob. "After you saved Alexis when she was kidnapped, I asked you to please not do anything like that again without me and you promised you wouldn't, and you kept your promise, but I didn't keep mine. I'm assuming we're alive, at least for now..." She flicked a quick glance over her shoulder at the adjacent operating rooms where their bodies lay but could not bring herself to look at Rick or herself on those tables again for longer than a millisecond. "...but this never would have happened to us in the first place if I had just let this go and walked away...if I had just been honest with you when I found out McCord and the rest of the team from the AG's office had been killed, and then if I hadn't gone poking around in the whole mess and made things a lot messier in the process, especially for us. I broke the very promise that you kept!" She was crying now, which is how Rick knew she was scared.
"Kate, that's not you. We both know that, and I wouldn't change that, or change you, for anything," Rick said firmly. "And you didn't exactly break your promise. You told me in your own time."
"I did break my promise," Kate insisted tearfully, "because I didn't tell you right away, and I should have. I've been trying so hard to break that instinct to keep everything to myself, and I was doing pretty well, or at least I thought I was, until Vikram and LokSat, and then I reverted to old behaviors and just... God, how could I have been so stupid and so selfish? I walked out on you, and I hurt you, when I knew...I knew all along that I could trust you! I've never trusted anyone the way I trust you, Rick, and I let my fear of losing you keep me from trusting you, and now I might lose you anyway, and it'll be all my fault!"
Rick shook his head vehemently. "You are not losing me, Kate," he insisted firmly, matter-of-factly. "And I'm sure as hell not losing you! This is not how we end! If anyone tries to take you from me, I'll fight every angel in Heaven and every demon in Hell to keep you right here, in my arms, because that's where you belong. And if they try to take me from you? Things are gonna get really ugly, really fast, because I'll fight just as hard to stay right here by your side, because that is where I belong. They've got to know that. They've got to know that one of us without the other just isn't any good."
"What if they don't know that? Or don't care? What if we don't get that choice, Rick?" Kate fretted. "All of the victims we've investigated over the years didn't get that choice. My mom didn't get that choice."
"We're not them," Rick replied simply. He looked into her eyes, into her heart, into her very soul, and she was helpless to do anything but stare right back into his eyes, his heart, his very soul."You are the strongest person I have ever known, Kate Beckett. But you don't have to be strong all the time. You've made me a stronger person. I would move mountains for you, Kate. Don't tell me that's impossible, because for you, I would find a way. I always have, and I always will. And we are never stronger than we are when we're together."
"That's true," Kate said, clinging to both Rick and his words, trying to find some measure of calm.
"As for you not telling me about LokSat right away, that's over and done with. You are long since forgiven," Rick continued. "And you reverted to those old habits because you were trying to protect me, the same way you've been doing since you handcuffed me to the police cruiser on our very first case, the same reason I didn't tell you about my deal with Mr. Smith, the same reason I waited so long to tell you about Hollander's Woods. If we're gonna talk about keeping things from each other, about breaking promises, those were two pretty big ones. Hollander's Woods messed up our original wedding plans and nearly got me killed."
"I'll give you Mr. Smith, but Hollander's Woods... Okay, you could have told me about it earlier, but you were a kid when that happened, Rick. And it was beyond your control. All that matters is that you came back to me, we finally did get Holtzman, and you lived. I forgave you for those things a long time ago."
"Just like I forgave you for not telling me about LokSat right away," Rick countered. The hint of a rueful smile crossed his lips. "Our learning curves aren't the greatest, but once we do learn something, it's there for keeps. We backslide once in a while because we're human, not perfect. I don't want or need a perfect Kate, because you, exactly the way you are, are perfect for me. All I want, all I need, is you, Kate. My you."
"And all I want and need is you, Rick. My you."
"You've got me," he said softly. "In fact, you're stuck with me for life." Kate was feeling better, but when she saw Rick's expression change to one of despair, she was confused.
"Rick? What's wrong?" she asked.
He ducked his head before looking back up into her eyes and answering her. "If it's anyone's fault we're here, it's mine."
Now Kate was really confused. "What?" she asked, because it was the only thing she could think of to say.
"This whole thing really started when you told me not to look into your mother's murder, and I did," Castle continued. "You told me you had put it behind you, and you had, Kate. You had. You weren't looking into it anymore. You said you didn't want to go down that rabbit hole again, and I promised you it would be different because we'd do it together." His face looked even bleaker now. "How many times have one or both of us almost died, Kate? And all because I had Esposito swipe your mother's case file for me and I gave it to my pathologist friend. I started the ball rolling with that single action, and it led to everything else that has come after, so this is on me."
"Rick, if it weren't for you, my mother wouldn't have justice! My father and I wouldn't have closure! We never would have found out who really killed my mom and why!" The desperate fear was back, ripping at her insides with mercilessly sharp claws. "Rick, please don't tell me you're sorry for that, because I'm not! Besides, when have you ever TRULY been able to talk me into or out of something I DIDN'T want to do?"
"Never," Rick replied instantly.
"That's right, never," Kate agreed firmly. "And please don't tell me you're sorry for everything that came after, because I'm not. Some of it, yes, the times that I... that both of us...were thoughtless and kept things from each other and hurt each other, but don't stand there and say that you regret us, because I-"
"Whoa, whoa, Kate, that's not what I'm saying at all!" Rick exclaimed, interrupting her. "I could never regret us! Aside from Alexis, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'm not sorry for any of it. I'm not sorry that I met you, I'm not sorry I helped you find the answers you needed about your mom, I'm not even sorry we had to fight LokSat, because in the end we did it together...although I would have written it that we didn't both get shot in the process."
One corner of Kate's mouth twisted wryly. "This isn't one of your books, Castle." She hugged him again then, holding onto him as tightly as she could, and when she spoke directly into his ear, her words were full of all the love and desperation and fear she couldn't contain. "Don't leave me. I can't lose you, Rick. I can't go on without you. I know what it's like to live without you, and I can't do it. I can't."
"The same goes for you," Rick whispered in her ear as they held each other. "You can't leave me either. Neither one of is going to die. We're going to grow good and old together, Kate."
"Together," Kate echoed. She pulled back to look at him, framing his face in her hands, and he kept his arms wrapped around her waist. "That's the key, Rick. It's been the key all along. It's why we got LokSat, and why we got Coonan and Bracken and everyone that was involved in my mother's murder: because we did it together. That's what has gotten us through everything we've been through in the last eight years. We did it together...because whenever we didn't, the wheels came off the wagon pretty damn fast."
"Every time," Castle agreed, the shadows retreating from his eyes, and the timbre of his voice returning to its normal excited tone.
"So to get through this, we have to do it the same way we've gotten through everything else that's been thrown our way: together," Kate concluded.
"We do together very well," Rick replied.
"We really do," Kate agreed.
"So that settles it, then. We're not dying," Rick said firmly, matter-of-factly, as if uttering the words alone would make that outcome the reality. Seeing the flash of worry in Kate's eyes, Rick said, "Hey, we're not all those victims we've investigated, remember? And we're also not-" He stopped speaking abruptly, distracted by a sudden flash of long, dark hair that he caught sight of out of the corner of his eye. The figure to whom the long, dark hair belonged realized Rick had caught sight of her and froze, panic written all over her face like a flashing neon sign.
Frowning, Kate turned in Castle's arms to follow his gaze and see what had made him stop talking and put that look of utter befuddlement on his face. When she caught sight of the figure at whom Castle was still staring, her knees buckled, and if Castle hadn't still had his arms around her waist, she would have hit the floor.
Kate stared disbelievingly at the apparition standing several feet away from her and Castle, and uttered one word in a shock-filled, trembling voice: "Mom?"
Jenny Ryan arrived in the waiting room to no one's immediate notice, though she didn't take it personally, since both Kevin and Javier were on their phones, and Lanie was trying to console Alexis, Castle's mom and Kate's dad simultaneously and not doing a very good job of it, by the looks of things.
Kevin Ryan disconnected his phone a split second before he felt Jenny's arms come around him from behind. He turned his head to look over his shoulder. "Jenny?" he asked, confused. "What are you...where are the kids?" He turned into her arms, wrapping his own arms around her and resting his head on her shoulder as he gratefully accepted her hug.
"With my parents," she told him. They stood there holding each other for a long moment before Jenny drew back to look into her husband's eyes, neither of them leaving the comfort of one another's arms. "They're fine. But it's all over the news about Beckett and Castle, and I didn't know if you'd be here, but if you were, I knew you'd need me. And they'd need me. They were there for me when you and Javier were trapped in that building and I had to give birth to Sarah Grace alone in the back of that ambulance. Nothing could keep me from being here for them now."
"It's all over the news, is it?" Gates stood up then. "Someone opened their mouth who shouldn't have. Excuse me, everyone, while I go and take care of this to whatever extent I can." She then strode out of the waiting room briskly, ready to tear some heads off.
"Has there been any word on Beckett and Castle yet?" Jenny asked.
"Not yet," Lanie piped up from her seat next to Alexis, where she was holding the younger woman's hands in both of hers. "But operations like these take hours. No news is good news at this point, really."
"Perlmutter's doing the autopsy on the dead guy from the loft," Esposito reported then. "ID says his name is Caleb Brown."
"Karpowski and CSU have gone over everything," Ryan added then. "From the way it looks, Brown, or whatever his name is, ambushed them. He shot first, and based on the shell casings and where they were, and where Brown fell, he came at them first. He probably got Castle first, and that's when Beckett took him out, but he returned fire, wounding her as well." He paused before saying, "When we found them, her gun was beside her, and they were lying next to each other, holding hands."
"Excuse me," Jim Beckett said then, popping up out of his chair like a jack-in-the-box. "I need some air." He abruptly left the room. Alexis, Lanie, and Martha looked after him worriedly.
"Someone should go after him," Alexis said. "Gram?"
"Are you sure, darling?" Martha asked anxiously.
"Yes," Alexis replied. "He shouldn't be alone right now."
"All right, then, everyone, if you'll excuse me," Martha said before hurrying out after Jim. She paused just long enough to call over her shoulder, "But one of you come and find me if the doctors come out and say anything at all about Richard or Katherine!"
After Martha's departure, Alexis gently removed her hands from Lanie's and scrubbed them over her face before looking up at the clock on the wall. "We're heading into hour three," she said.
"That's completely normal for this type of surgery," Lanie hastened to assure her.
Alexis leaned back in the uncomfortable hard plastic chair, pushing her hair out of her eyes before staring at the opposite wall, unseeing. "They both have to be okay. They can't live without each other. I've seen them both try, and I've seen them both fail. When Dad was missing that summer..." She trailed off.
"We remember," Esposito said quietly. He, Ryan, and Lanie exchanged looks as they remembered Kate's behavior those awful two months that Castle was missing. They had thought she was a woman possessed, and obsessed, over her mother's case, but her quest for justice for her mother didn't hold a candle to all the things she had said and done when searching for, and believing in, Castle when he was missing, and when he returned with no memory of where he'd been or why, what he'd done or who was involved.
"And I knew when Kate just disappeared and they were trying to sell that separation that they were lying," Alexis continued, drawing everyone back to the present. "I've watched them for eight years; we all have. Every person in this room knows that my dad and Kate would follow each other to the gates of Hell and back. The only reason she left was to protect him, to protect us. And it didn't take long for them to be back in the thick of it together." Alexis looked away from the wall then, and shifted her gaze around the room from person to person...Lanie, Esposito, Ryan, and Jenny, each in turn. "They have to live...both of them," she said in a steely voice that brooked no arguments and would have made even Deputy Chief Gates sit up and take notice. "There is no other alternative here. Their story does not end this way. It doesn't. It just doesn't!"
Everyone was silent for a long moment, and then Esposito spoke. "You're right," he said. "Absolutely right. Beckett and Castle...they're fighters. They have always fought for each other harder than anything else, and they'll fight for each other now."
"They have to," Alexis whispered. "I can't lose my parents. I don't know how Kate survived that. I couldn't." Her voice broke on the last two words, and she was on the ragged edge of control now.
"She didn't really survive it until your dad came along," Lanie said. "She was just existing, not really living. He got her to live again. Of course, she had to be stubborn about it for the first few years."
"Castle was pretty stubborn himself," Ryan reminded everyone, since they all had stories about the early years of Beckett and Castle's partnership, when they all saw what Beckett and Castle themselves refused to admit to one another.
"Not as stubborn as Beckett," Lanie challenged.
"Is anyone as stubborn as Beckett?" Esposito asked rhetorically.
"We all saw it before they did," Lanie said. "Thank God they finally saw it too."
"Even if we didn't get invited to their wedding," Ryan murmured.
"Kevin," Jenny gently reproached her husband.
"I'm just saying, they were at our wedding. Castle was an usher at our wedding. All we wanted was to be there and see them get married," he said.
"You're just still disappointed you and Javi didn't get to sing your song," Jenny lightly teased.
"Wait, you really wrote a song for them?" Lanie asked, surprised.
"Yes," Esposito said. "We did." He looked at Ryan then. "When they're back on their feet again, maybe we should reconsider never letting that song see the light of day," he said.
"It is a hell of a song," Ryan agreed.
Alexis was fighting hysteria in a way she hadn't since she'd been kidnapped years earlier. Suddenly, out of nowhere to everyone else, she blurted out, "We'll have a party at The Old Haunt when Dad and Kate are up and around again. It can be like the wedding reception you guys didn't get to be there for." She looked at Ryan and Esposito then. "And you guys can perform your song if you want."
"How are you gonna get your dad and Beckett to agree to a party in their honor that's basically a second wedding reception?" Jenny asked.
"I am my father's daughter," Alexis replied. "And Gram will help me out. She loves parties, and she'll love being able to get involved in this one. Maybe it should be a surprise. Or no, that's probably a bad idea, considering they'll be coming off months of recovery and physical therapy, right?" She looked at Lanie then.
Lanie, knowing that Alexis was probably still in some kind of shock, knew she had to tread lightly here. "I think keeping the surprise out of it would probably be best, yes," she said.
"Except for the song, if you want to do that," Alexis said, looking to Ryan and Esposito once more. "That can be the surprise part of the evening. But the rest of it, Dad and Kate will know about, and they'll go for it. We deserve a party. We need to celebrate the end of all of this mess. They did have a nice wedding and a quiet reception, but I know they really wanted all of you there. It was just so spur-of-the-moment. They'd waited long enough, all their big plans...well, you know what happened there. They just didn't want to wait anymore. So, yeah. That's exactly what we'll do. We'll have a party for the family...for our whole family, because that's what you are to Dad and Kate, every one of you: family." She paused. "And you're family to me too, really."
Lanie and Jenny had to hide their misty eyes, and even Ryan and Esposito were visibly affected by the way Alexis was trying so hard to keep herself together right now. They knew she was clinging to the idea of this party like a lifeline, and they all silently agreed in that moment that all of them would do anything to support her, because she was right: they were Alexis's family, just as much as they were Beckett and Castle's family.
"And you're family to all of us," Lanie said thickly. She coughed, clearing her throat. "Sorry. I have a frog in my throat."
No one called Lanie out on her obvious lie.
Esposito, however, did offer to make a coffee run, and Ryan went to help him, leaving Lanie and Jenny with Alexis. "It's gonna be a great party," Alexis told Lanie and Jenny.
"Of course it is," Jenny said, getting into the spirit, knowing how terrified Alexis must be, remembering her own terror when Kevin was trapped in that building with Javi and had actually called her to say goodbye while she was in labor with Sarah Grace.
"We'll never get Kate drunk enough to dance on the bar," Lanie said, also trying to get into the spirit. "Castle, on the other hand..."
Alexis managed a short bark of a laugh. "Dad wouldn't need to be drunk to dance on the bar," she said.
And while she made tentative party plans with Lanie and Jenny, Alexis was silently willing her father and Kate to make it through surgery and live long lives so that she could throw this party for them. It would be a celebration of so much more than their marriage.
It would be a celebration of their lives...of their life together.
A life that simply had to continue beyond today, and beyond these hospital walls.
Martha found Jim sitting in the hospital chapel, staring up at the large wooden cross on the front wall. She sank down beside him, not speaking. But she didn't have to, because he spoke first.
"My wife Johanna was a lawyer," he said, "and so am I."
"I know," Martha replied quietly.
"That was supposed to be a safe profession," Jim went on. "But she stumbled across something that ended up getting her killed in an alley. Katie was going to be a lawyer too, until Johanna died. Then she became a cop. One of the most dangerous professions there is." He was staring a hole in that cross. "We grieved separately and in different ways. I dove into the bottom of a bottle and stayed there for five years, and she...she tried to find her mother's killer and almost got herself killed in the process. I've been here once before. I wasn't stupid enough or naive enough to think I wouldn't be here again, but she wasn't actually shot in the line of duty either time. And today, they went into her home." He clenched his fists in his lap. "They went into her home, and they shot her husband right in front of her. And that was really stupid, because Katie will fight to the death for Rick every single time."
"As Richard will fight to the death for her every single time," Martha replied, inwardly wincing at Jim's turn of phrase. "But no one has said they're dying."
"They're critical," Jim argued.
"Critical is not the same as dead!" Martha shouted, not caring that they were in the chapel. "You and Johanna raised a strong, stubborn fighter of a woman, Jim. And she's not just fighting for herself in there. She's fighting for Richard too, and for their future."
Jim bowed his head for a moment before looking up again and looking over at Martha, sitting next to him. "I at least knew what I was getting into because Katie chose to be a cop for a living. You didn't sign up for any of this with Rick."
"Once he signed up for this with Katherine, it was inevitable that I, and Alexis, would follow along," Martha said. "My son had an unorthodox upbringing, to say the least. He brought his own baggage, his own demons, to his relationship with your daughter. But I have never seen him happier than he has been since she came into his life. Well, except for a few unfortunate incidents along the way, but as the Bard said, 'The course of true love never did run smooth.'" She reached out then, tentatively covering Jim's clenched fists with her hand. "I don't know if you're a betting man, Jim, but I'm a betting woman, and I'm betting on Richard and Katherine now more than ever. They will come through this. They will survive, and they will recover, and maybe one of these days, they'll even make us grandparents."
They both fell silent then, and Martha assumed they were done talking, but they made no move to leave the chapel. Jim finally broke the silence by saying, "I don't believe I've ever thanked you."
Martha looked at him quizzically. "For what?"
"For Rick. After we lost Johanna, I didn't think Katie would ever truly be happy again. And then Rick came along, and as the years have gone by, I've seen the change in her. The light is back in her eyes, and it's brighter than it was before we lost Johanna. She really loves Rick...the same way her mother and I loved each other. It's all I ever wished and wanted for her. Johanna too."
"Richard adores everything about Katherine, even when she's making him completely crazy," Martha said. "She's his...what was that expression he said she used? His 'One-'"
"'-and Done," Jim finished with Martha. Off her surprised look, he said, "That's what Johanna always said about me. That I was her 'One and Done.' She was certainly mine. And Rick is definitely Katie's 'One and Done.'"
"You know, Richard is not the only one who adores Katherine," Martha said. "If you're going to thank me for Richard, then I must thank you, and Johanna, for Katherine, both on my own behalf and my granddaughter's. I saw Richard through two disastrous marriages. Katherine is the one he was waiting for all along: someone who will not only fight with him, but fight for him, fight for them. That will never change. You don't know what a comfort it is to me to know that Richard finally has that, that he finally has Katherine."
"Rick's the best thing that ever happened to my daughter," Jim said.
"Then we're in complete agreement, because without question, Katherine is the best thing that ever happened to my son," Martha said.
They both fell silent once more, but not an uncomfortable silence, though it lasted several minutes.
Then Martha spoke. "They're going to need our help as they recover."
"Yes, they will," Jim agreed.
"You know, you're part of our family too," she said carefully.
"Well, I think Katie's been the one keeping me out more than Rick," Jim said, more than a little ruefully. "Not without her reasons."
"If I may, Jim, I think you have to take a page from Richard's book, no pun intended," Martha said. "Just keep showing up, prove to her that you're there even when she tries to shut you out and push you away by showing up even then, and she will eventually have to let you in." She paused. "At least, that's how Richard finally won her over."
"If you and Alexis can stand someone else around all the time at the loft, nothing will keep me away this time," Jim pledged.
"Please, half of the 12th Precinct is going to be coming in and out of there at all hours for the next several months. You will hardly be an intrusion. We're all family, Jim...including you."
"I guess we are, aren't we?" Jim mused.
"We are," Martha said firmly. His fists had unclenched under her palm, and she carefully removed her palm from his hands. Jim flexed his hands.
Jim looked directly at Martha now, his gaze as piercing as Kate's, though she had inherited her mother's eyes. "They both have to make it, Martha. One without the other...it just isn't going to work."
"They'll make it," Martha said. "They will. And speaking of that, we'd better get back. The others will be wondering where we went, and we might have some news soon."
"Good news," Jim said as they stood up.
"Yes, good news," Martha said, fervently praying that that was exactly what awaited them: good news about both Katherine and Richard.
God, not another tragedy, please. You took my wife. This is the second time my daughter's been shot, and now her husband has been shot too. I'm begging you, don't let Katie have to live through what I've had to live through since January 9, 1999. And don't let Rick have to live through it either. We can't lose them, Jim pleaded with the Almighty as he and Martha exited the chapel and headed back to the waiting room to rejoin the rest of their family while they awaited word on Kate and Rick.
