Thank you to all who are reading, reviewing, following this story. And a special shoutout to two groups of people with whom I can't directly communicate through this site: the guest reviewers, and those who are reading and/or following but not leaving reviews. I thank you for the support, and the inspiration, and hope that you have enjoyed what has happened so far, and will enjoy what is yet to come.
Also, things were getting a bit long, so only Gina appears in this chapter, but Meredith reappears in the next chapter.
Kate awoke slowly. She and Castle were crowded into her hospital bed together, but she found the tight quarters reassuring, his warm, solid presence pressed against her reminding her all over again of both how much she loved this man, and how close this last close call had been. No regrets, Mom, she thought, reaching out carefully to brush her hand through Rick's hair.
Unbidden, memories from years past came to her then as she looked at Castle, still asleep beside her...she those times she was so afraid of her true feelings for him, the times when she wondered if she would ever be unafraid enough, feel like she was unbroken enough and ready enough, to be with him...and wondering if he would still be there when and if she got to that point.
"This isn't about your mother's case anymore. This is about you needin' a place to hide, because you've been chasing this thing so long, you're afraid to find out who you are without it."
"You don't know me, Castle! You think you do, but you don't!"
"I know you crawled inside your mother's murder and didn't come out. I know you hide there, the same way you hide in these nowhere relationships with men you don't love. You could be happy, Kate. You deserve to be happy. But you're afraid."
"Castle, wait."
"I did. Three months. You never called."
"Look, I know you're angry-"
"You're damn right I'm angry! I watched you die in that ambulance, did you know that? You know what that's like, watching the life drain out of someone you...someone you care about?"
"I told you, I needed some time."
"You said a few days."
"I needed more."
"Well, you should have said that."
"Castle, look, I couldn't call you. Not without dragging myself into everything that I was just trying to get some space from. I needed some time to just work through everything."
"Josh help you with that?"
"We broke up."
"So why'd you guys break up?"
"I really, really liked him. That wasn't enough. After my mother was killed, something inside me changed. It's like I built up this wall inside. I don't know, I guess I just didn't want to hurt like that again. I know I'm not gonna be able to be the kind of person that I want to be, I know I'm not gonna...I'm not gonna be able to have the kind of relationship that I want until that wall comes down. And it's not gonna happen 'til I put this thing to rest."
"Well then, I suppose we're just gonna have to find these guys and take 'em down."
"She's an uncooperative, cocky, stubborn know-it-all!"
"But she is good at her job?"
"Well, Castle seems to think so."
"And that bothers you."
"Yes, of course it bothers me!"
"Why?"
"Because...he's supposed to be..."
"Be what?"
"My partner! I mean, he's supposed to be on my team, he's not supposed to be all smitten!"
"Why is it complicated?"
"You know why it's complicated."
"Only what you've told me."
"Kate. What are you really scared of? That he won't wait for you...or that he will?"
"I'm telling you, something happened. Something changed. It's been weird between us lately."
"'Lately'? Kate, it's been weird for four years!"
"No! This is different. He's different. It's like he's pulling away."
"Well, can you blame him? He's probably tired of waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"What do you think? The guy is crazy about you! And despite your little act, you're crazy about him! Oh, what, was that supposed to be some big secret?"
"Yes!" Pause. "No." Pause. "Do you think he knows?"
"You remember how he used to be, girl on either arm? You really don't see that guy too much anymore. Why do you think that is? He's waiting for you!"
"Yeah, but Lanie-"
"I know. You're dealing with stuff. But you cannot ask him to wait forever. Unless, of course, you're okay with him pullin' away."
"What if it doesn't work? What if it ends up like you and Javi?"
"Well, at least we gave it a shot. And so it didn't work out. So what? Now we can move on...give or take the occasional booty call."
"I just, I don't want to lose what we have, you know?"
"Girl, please. What, exactly, do you have, really?"
"A friendship."
"No. What you and I have is a friendship. What you and Castle have is a holding pattern. How long can you circle before the fuel runs out?"
"How does somebody put something like that behind them? He's gonna need therapy."
"It helps. First he won't be able to deal with it. It's gonna take everything that he's got just to put one foot in front of the other and get through the day."
"I didn't know you were seeing a therapist."
"Yeah, well, I didn't wanna make any excuses. I just wanted to put in the time, do the work. But, I think I'm almost where I wanna be now."
"And where is that?"
"In a place where I can finally accept everything that happened that day. Everything."
"I think I understand."
"And, um, that wall that I was tellin' you about? I think it's coming down."
"Well, I'd like to be there when it does."
"Yeah, I'd like you to be there too."
Kate looked at Rick, sleeping there beside her. He had been there when the wall came down, taking the hand, and the heart, she offered him and holding fast to both, keeping them, keeping her, safe and loved through everything that happened, a gift for which she would forever be grateful and in awe, and he had given her his hand and his heart in return, and she would always hold fast to them and keep them, and him, as safe and loved as he kept her.
No sooner had she arrested Bracken and finally put her mother's murder to rest once and for all than Rick went missing on what was supposed to be their wedding day. They got that figured out, and then LokSat landed in her lap...their laps, because of course, he wasn't about to let her go it alone.
For so many years, her mother's murder had defined her, Kate thought. It informed her choices, made her who she was…and gave her that hiding place that Rick had mentioned when they had that fight when Lockwood was gunning for her.
But Kate Beckett was done hiding. She had no need to hide anymore. Rick had stuck by her through all of it, kept coming back even when she had (foolishly, she now knew) tried to push him away, even when she convinced herself that it was for his own good, his own safety.
Somehow, she, the one who thought she had to go it alone after losing her mother because the thought of loving anyone else as much as she loved her mother only to lose them too was too painful to bear, had learned that going it alone was the last thing she wanted, or needed.
Then she remembered something Captain Montgomery had said to her at the precinct shortly before everything went down at the hangar, the way he had sacrificed himself to save her life, and taken out Lockwood in the process.
"I could have kicked Castle to the curb years ago, any time I wanted to. Only reason I kept him around this long was because I saw how good he was for you. Kate, you're the best that I've ever trained, maybe the best that I've ever seen. But you weren't having any fun before he came along."
Montgomery had been right.
Everything Kate thought was lost to her forever when her mother's casket was lowered into the ground was returned to her a thousandfold when Richard Castle came into her life and refused to leave.
And now, the dragons had all been slayed. The future was theirs to decide. Wherever they went from here, they'd be going together...no secrets, no lies, no misguided sacrifices trying to keep each other safe.
For everything she didn't know right now—where and when and what her next professional endeavor would be, how long it would take her and Rick to get pregnant, what kinds of choices they'd be faced with in the coming weeks, months, and years—what Kate Beckett knew, without any doubts, was that she could handle anything life threw at her because no matter what it might be, Richard Castle would be by her side through whatever it was.
And that was more than enough.
"Usually I'm the one watching you sleep." Castle's gruff, sleep-roughened voice broke Kate's reverie. She looked at him looking back at her, all sleepy blue eyes with crinkles at the corners and the trace of a smile playing on his lips.
"Well, it's about my turn to watch you sleep, then, isn't it?" she replied. "How are you feeling?"
"A little sore, but otherwise great," he replied. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I just had major abdominal surgery yesterday. But you're here, and we're both gonna be okay, and we'll take the rest as it comes," she said.
"You looked pretty deep in thought there. Good thoughts, I hope?" he asked cautiously.
"Not thinking so much as remembering. Remembering how close I came to not having this...not having you, having us."
He hated the shadows he saw in her eyes. "I never would have let that happen," he swore. "This...us...we were inevitable, Kate. I would have worn you down eventually."
"Excuse me, who showed up at whose door That Night?" she asked. He couldn't keep the smile off his face when he heard the smile in her voice, and saw it playing on her lips.
"You showed up at my door," he replied. "One of the top five greatest nights of my life...so far. And you're in four of the five."
"Alexis's birth," she said, instantly realizing the one greatest night of Castle's life that she, Kate, was not a part of.
"Yeah," he replied.
She grew serious again. "Thanks for never giving up on me."
"You never have to worry about that happening," he vowed.
It was then that Kate finally noticed they weren't alone in the room. "Castle," she said. He sat up and looked around, seeing his mother stretched out in his empty hospital bed, and Alexis slumped in the visitor's chair.
Rick reached out and gently touched Alexis's knee. The action caused her to jump a foot in the air with a strangled yelp and then fall on the floor next to the chair.
Kate was in the process of reaching for her call button when Alexis came up on her knees next to the chair, waving her hand. "No, really, I'm fine."
"You don't look fine," Rick said, looking at his daughter critically.
"I didn't sleep very well last night," Alexis admitted.
"She had a panic attack." Martha was awake now, slipping on her shoes and getting out of the empty hospital bed.
"Gram!" Alexis exclaimed.
"They have a right to know, honey," Martha said stubbornly.
Alexis looked back to Rick and Kate as she levered herself back into her chair. "Look, I'm going to talk to a therapist about it, hopefully later today. You guys have enough to worry about with yourselves right now, you don't need to worry about me too."
"That's not the way it works, pumpkin," Rick replied. "You'll be my age, and I'll still be worrying about you. It comes with the territory."
"Alexis," Kate said then, and Alexis, Rick, and Martha all three turned to look at her. "There's something you need to know. You and Martha." She paused for a beat at their expectant looks, then continued, "I'm leaving the force."
Alexis looked confused. "What do you mean, you're leaving the force?" she asked.
"I mean I'm not going to be a cop anymore," Kate replied. Alexis's eyes grew wide, and her hands flew up to cover her mouth.
"What are you going to do if you won't be a police captain anymore, Katherine?" Martha asked, looking and sounding as confused as Alexis.
"Well, that is yet to be determined," Kate replied, threading her fingers through Rick's as she met his gaze for a moment. "But we have time to figure that out. We have time for a lot of things, and first on the list is our recoveries...otherwise known as how we'll be spending our summer vacation."
"We have really got to start doing better things with our summers," Rick said, catching Kate's eyes then.
"Next summer we will, I promise you," she told him, since she already had very definite ideas about what she wanted them to be doing next summer.
"Katherine, dear, you're not just leaving the force for us?" Martha asked, motioning between herself and Alexis.
"No," Kate assured her mother-in-law. "I'm leaving the force because it's time. There are other things I...Rick and I...want to do, and the NYPD doesn't figure into those plans."
"You're really leaving the force?" Alexis asked, her hands having dropped from her mouth back to her sides, though she was still looking at Kate in wide-eyed shock.
"As soon as I can get to a computer and a printer, I'll draft my formal letter of resignation," Kate replied. "There'll probably be some red tape at 1PP, but my mind is made up. I'm done."
"We're done," Rick corrected her. "I'm also giving up the PI agency. But Nikki and Rook will keep fighting the good fight, and we don't need to be at the precinct for that."
"Richard, darling, we all know it stopped being about the books years ago," Martha said dryly.
"Hey," Kate said, seeing that Alexis had tears in her eyes. "Alexis, are you okay?"
Alexis nodded furiously. "For so long, I thought that being a cop was the most important thing in the world to you. I didn't think you'd ever give it up until you had to...when you were, like, seventy." She had tears in her eyes now.
"For so long, being a cop was the most important thing in the world to me," Kate replied. "But I found something...no, someone...several someones, actually...that are a lot more important to me than the job could ever be. It's just time."
Then Alexis started crying, and her dad, Kate, and Gram all immediately tried to comfort her, and she felt stupid and slightly embarrassed and incredibly relieved all at the same time. If Kate had gone back to the 12th Precinct, Alexis knew that her dad would have been right at Kate's side. And despite Kate's promotion to Captain, LokSat proved that trouble had an uncanny knack for finding the two of them.
Alexis had never doubted Kate's promises to keep Alexis's father safe and bring him home to them in one piece, and Kate had more than kept her word for eight long years.
But relief was coursing through Alexis's veins like adrenaline right now. As quickly as the storm of tears had come on, it stopped. Alexis wiped at her eyes and then laughed. "I really need some sleep," she said through a chuckle. "I'm getting seriously punchy here." She took a deep breath, slowly exhaled, and then smiled. "Don't worry, I'm still talking to the therapist. I'm just-"
"Relieved," Kate finished for her.
"Yes," Alexis replied.
"As am I," Martha admitted.
The door to the room opened then, and Lanie entered. "Is this a family only party, or can anyone join in?" she asked.
"You are family," Kate told her.
Lanie entered the room, but before she could say anything else, someone else spoke up from the doorway. "Thank God you're going to live to write another day!"
Five heads turned in unison to see Gina standing in the doorway, holding an arrangement of red chrysanthemums and pink carnations, and looking nosy.
"And what do you think you're doing here?" Lanie challenged her.
"I merely came to drop these off-" Gina began.
"Flowers aren't allowed in the ICU," Alexis said stonily, "and what part of 'leave and don't come back' did you not get yesterday?"
"-and to tell my side of the story," Gina finished stubbornly. "And that was yesterday."
"You don't have a side of the story, Gina," Rick said coolly. "You upset my daughter. That's all I need to know."
"The fact that you and Kate were shot was news," Gina said.
"You're really not helping your case here, Gina," Kate said, talking to Gina as if Gina were an uncooperative suspect in the box. "Fine, it was news. And okay, you, being who you are, felt the need to hold a press conference about it, despite not having any real news to share beyond the fact of the shooting itself. But holding that press conference outside the hospital, while Rick and I were in surgery, and getting into a fight with Meredith for allegedly trying to steal the spotlight from you at your own press conference, accomplished nothing but upsetting Alexis, and that's where you made your mistake, because when Alexis is upset, we, her family, are upset."
"Is that a threat?" Gina asked haughtily.
"It's a fact," Kate informed her firmly.
Ryan and Esposito arrived then, but couldn't get into Beckett and Castle's room because Gina was still standing in the doorway.
"You again," Ryan said. "What, you didn't get enough yesterday?"
"Is your crazy buddy lurking outside someplace too?" Esposito asked.
"Meredith is no friend of mine!" Gina exclaimed.
"And you're no friend to anyone here," Lanie retorted.
"I am Richard's publisher, and besides, there's no such thing as bad publicity," Gina insisted. "You're one of the top-selling authors on Amazon right now! Do you think that would have happened without that press conference?"
"I don't give a damn about press conferences!" Rick exclaimed. "I expect this kind of crap from Meredith, but you just proved I've been giving you too much credit, Gina."
"Don't you compare me to her! She was only out for herself! I did this for you, and for your career!" Gina bristled.
"And you just happened to get a good boost in business out of it," Kate retorted.
"The business world never stops, and you have to take every advantage to get ahead," Gina persisted.
"You did not just call my dad and Kate getting shot an 'advantage to get ahead' in business!" Alexis exclaimed angrily. "You know, there is such a thing as common decency! But then, I'm used to people who show common decency in their dealings with others because that's what I was taught to do, and that's the way my family and friends are. I guess that explains why you don't know anything about common decency."
"You watch your mouth," Gina hissed at Alexis.
"No, you watch yours," Alexis and Kate both growled at Gina in unison.
"Okay, this conversation is over," Rick said sternly. "Gina, leave. Now. Unless you want to be escorted out."
"You gonna have your goon squad do it like yesterday?" Gina all but snarled at Rick.
"I'll get up and haul you out of here myself if I have to," Kate said.
"Yeah, right," Gina sniffed.
"Watch me," Kate said, throwing the blanket off and starting to try to sit up.
Everyone started talking at once.
"Kate, hold on a second-" Rick put a hand on her arm, not entirely sure if he was trying to help her stand or keep her in bed.
"Beckett, we got this." Esposito.
"Yeah, we do." Ryan.
"I've gotta get up today anyway," Kate said, putting one foot on the floor, with Rick still holding her arm with one hand, his other hand splayed in the middle of her back. "And this isn't my first time recovering from a gunshot wound to the torso. A walk down the hall is a good start, but I could get all of my PT for the day out of the way getting you out of the building, Gina."
"Are you crazy?" Gina asked, wide-eyed now.
"You tried to capitalize on a crime to sell books, and you think I'm crazy?" Kate asked. She put her other foot on the floor now and slowly, gingerly stood up, Rick still supporting her and then getting out of bed himself to stand beside her. "You don't know me, Gina. So you don't know how seriously I take the happiness and well-being of the people I love. You upset my stepdaughter, and you insulted my husband, both big mistakes on your part."
"You go, Kate," Lanie said.
"You stay out of this!" Gina ordered Lanie.
"She's my best friend, and part of our family. You don't talk to her like that, Gina!" Kate exclaimed.
"Being a cop, a civil servant, you don't understand how big business works, Kate," Gina said, speaking in her placating, condescending, serve-up-the-BS-with-a-snow-shovel tone. "Anyone in my position would have done the same."
Now Castle spoke. "Kate is a million times more intelligent than you could ever be, Gina. You upset my daughter, you insulted a dear friend, and now you're insulting my wife. You know, once, a sniper had a bead on Kate in a warehouse, and right before he could squeeze the trigger, I jumped on that son of a bitch's back and pummeled him in the face until he was unconscious, and my fist" here he held up the hand he had used to bash Lockwood's face in, "was my only weapon. Your verbal shots are making me as angry as the literal shot that scumbag tried to take at Kate that night, so I'm telling you for the first and last time to knock it off. You can say anything you want to about me, but my wife, my daughter, and our friends and family are off limits, do you understand that?"
"You nearly broke your hand on some thug's face?" Gina shrieked. "When was this, and why didn't I know about it until now? Now you're the one who's crazy! You need your hands to write, Richard!"
To everyone's surprise, Martha stepped forward then. "That's quite enough," she said, taking Gina's elbow firmly. "Gina, your presence is neither welcomed nor required here. All you're doing is bothering everyone. So take your Botoxed face, your lifted derriere, and your tucked tummy back to your Midtown office, and, as they're so fond of saying in my business, don't call us, we'll call you." Then, with a firm grip on Gina's elbow, she said, "Excuse me, everyone. I have some trash to take out, but then I'll be back."
And with that, Martha marched the stuttering, sputtering, outraged Gina, still holding the floral arrangement, out of the room, and the angry click of Gina's high heels and the fading sound of her screeching voice echoed down the hall as Martha physically removed Gina from the premises.
Everyone was silent for a long moment. Then Lanie spoke. "Castle, your mom is awesome!"
"She really is," Ryan agreed, looking a bit in awe himself at the way Martha had just handled Gina.
"That's my Gram," Alexis said proudly.
"My mother does know how to use her powers for good instead of evil," Rick mused.
Martha returned then. "My ears are burning," she sing-songed. "I don't think Gina will be back at the hospital, but I'm afraid you're in for a bad time the next time you have to talk business with her, Richard."
"That would have happened whether you escorted her out or not," Rick assured his mother. "And thank you for doing it. I was afraid Kate would rip her stitches kicking Gina's ass Beckett-style. Not that I wouldn't have enjoyed seeing that."
"What, without the mud pit?" Lanie said. Ryan and Esposito choked on their laughs, and even Kate, Alexis, and Martha looked amused.
"Ha ha," Rick said dryly.
"You were the one practically salivating over the so-called Gina/Meredith catfight yesterday," Lanie reminded him.
"The Deep-Fried Twinkie vs. The Opportunistic Witch? Now that one, you could sell tickets for, Castle," Esposito said.
"Would you buy one?" Castle asked him.
"Sure!" Esposito exclaimed.
"Gina couldn't have a catfight without risking massive silicone rupture," Martha said, tsk-tsking. "If only I'd been able to escort her out by way of the plastic surgery floor, and show her a derriere lift gone terribly wrong."
Lanie practically hooted with laughter. "Mrs. Rodgers, you can be downright evil!" she exclaimed. "I love it!"
"All right, I've already had this conversation with Javi," Martha said, "so now I see it's time I have it with you two." She looked from Lanie to Ryan, addressing them both. "You're part of our family, Richard and Katherine's dearest friends, and we're going to be seeing a lot of each other this summer and beyond, so it's not 'Mrs. Rodgers' or 'Mrs. R..' Just call me 'Martha,' and I shall call you 'Lanie,' and you 'Kevin.'"
"Okay," Lanie agreed. "I'm not one to stand on ceremony, Martha. You're on."
"If you're sure," Ryan said, a bit uncertainly.
"I insist, Kevin," Martha said, firmly but kindly.
"Well, if you insist, then, okay...Martha," Ryan replied, although addressing Castle's mother by her first name would definitely take some getting used to for him.
Kate and Rick, meanwhile, had been holding a private conversation with their eyes. "We're glad you're all here," Kate said, "because we have something to tell you, and it's only right that you all hear it straight from us, and at the same time." She paused, then looked from Lanie, to Ryan, to Espo, to Castle, and back to their friends and colleagues. "I'm done, guys. I'm leaving the force." She paused to let the statement sink in, but none of the trio looked surprised by her news. "You don't seem surprised," Kate realized aloud as she took in the looks on their faces.
"We figured it out yesterday," Esposito admitted.
"We were just waiting to hear it from you," Ryan added.
"It's not unexpected," Lanie agreed. "I'll miss you two at work, though, especially when you're doing that thing you do, that mind meld."
"The 12th won't be the same without you guys," Esposito agreed, "but you have to do what's right for you."
"Well, you're not getting rid of us completely," Castle said. "You're our best friends. That will never change."
"Does that mean we can still call you when we get really weird cases?" Ryan asked, his eyes twinkling mischievously.
"Absolutely." "Sure." Rick and Kate answered in unison.
"You can call even if it's not a weird case, if you just need a fresh pair of eyes or two," Kate added. She paused for a moment, frowning slightly. "Well, unless whoever becomes Captain after me has a problem with it."
"We can keep it on the down low, like when Gates first came to the 12th," Esposito said.
"She somehow always knew we were up to something, though," Kate pointed out.
"But no matter how much she protested, she always let it ride," Ryan replied.
"That's true," Kate mused. "Still, we'll have to be careful."
"You taught us everything we know, Beckett. We can do careful," Ryan said.
"We'll miss you at the 12th," Lanie said, "but you gotta do what you gotta do. For so long, Kate...for too damn long...your life was all about the job. And then along came Castle, and you started having fun. You became...lighter, I guess, is the way to describe it—although even that was a slow process-because you had finally found a partner in every sense of the word to share the load with you, and to give you all the stuff you were missing out on, everything you didn't have and swore you didn't want."
"Is this the part where you remind me again of how much money you lost because nothing happened between Rick and me the first year we worked together?" Kate asked, but she was smiling when she asked the question.
"I wouldn't say nothing happened the first year," Lanie replied. "You two were laying the foundation for what you have ultimately become." She wheeled on Ryan and Esposito then. "And no cute remarks from the peanut gallery!" she exclaimed. Ryan and Esposito put on their best innocent faces, and Castle's expression was remarkably similar to theirs, but none of the men said a word. "Work won't be the same without you two, but we're family. That won't change just because we're not working together anymore."
"That's exactly right," Kate said.
"You're still our best friends," Ryan said. "Nothing will ever change that."
"Definitely," Esposito added.
It was then that Espo, Ryan's, and Lanie's phones all started to ring. "It's the 12th," Lanie said, retrieving her phone first.
"For me too," Ryan said.
"And me," Esposito replied.
They each answered their phones.
"Esposito."
"Detective Ryan."
"This is Dr. Parish."
A moment of silence ensued while they all listened.
"I'm heading in right now," Lanie said, ending her call.
"Got it," Ryan said, ending his call.
"We're on our way," Esposito said, ending his call.
The trio looked at Beckett and Castle apologetically. They didn't have to say a word; Kate and Rick knew what was going on.
Kate smiled quickly, wistfully. "Get whoever did this," she told them.
"You know we will," Esposito promised.
"I'll be back later," Lanie said. "I can't say for sure when, but sometime later today, or tonight."
"We'll be here," Kate said.
"Call if it's a weird case," Castle reminded Ryan and Esposito.
"We will," Ryan promised over his shoulder as he headed for the door. "And we'll be back when we can," he added, referring to himself and Esposito.
Esposito paused for a second on his way out the door. "Everything okay?" he asked Alexis and Martha quietly.
Alexis looked from her grandmother to Rick and Kate to Javier. "Getting there," she replied truthfully.
"Good," Esposito said. "Catch you guys later." He looked from Alexis and Martha back to Castle and Beckett, then headed out into the hall to catch up with Ryan.
Dr. Gallison came in then. "Well, Captain Beckett, Mr. Castle, it's safe to say there's never a dull moment with the two of you around," he greeted them before consulting their charts.
Kate and Rick exchanged a look and laughed until they physically hurt and literally had to lean on each other just to remain upright.
When they recovered themselves, and the physical pain had begun to fade, Dr. Gallison said, "Well, Captain Beckett, since you're already on your feet, do you feel ready to take a walk down the hall?"
"Yes," Kate replied.
One of the daytime nurses came in to help Kate, even though she and Rick were both still standing following their confrontation with Gina. They made her take her IV and her oxygen tank, the same as Castle had done yesterday. Martha and Alexis moved to the side of the room closest to Rick's unused hospital bed, giving Kate plenty of room to make it out the door.
Castle was still standing by Kate's hospital bed, watching her slowly shuffle forward, limping slightly due to the pain in her left hip from the bullet that had been removed from there the day before, and, as he had done, using her IV pole as a way to keep herself upright. He wanted so much to go on this walk with her, but wasn't sure Dr. Gallison would allow it. God knew they had bent—outright broken—enough hospital rules already.
But Kate herself settled the matter when she reached the doorway and looked over her shoulder at her husband. "You comin', Castle?" she asked. Despite the pain moving through her torso and hip, the smile on her face was also in her eyes.
Rick grinned back at her, grabbing his own IV pole and oxygen tank. "Always," he replied before moving to follow Kate out the door of their room.
When they reached the corridor, and had more room to maneuver, they walked side by side, Kate reaching out on the third step to take Rick's hand in hers. And holding hands, with their other hands holding their IV poles, nudging the carts with their portable oxygen tanks ahead of them with their knees, Kate and Rick walked together down the corridor, the nurse following behind them, and Alexis, Martha, and Dr. Gallison watching from the doorway of their hospital room.
Before they had turned around to return to the room, Alexis was on her phone, and, after looking up the number, had an appointment for 2:30 that afternoon with the psychiatrist she had seen after her kidnapping a few years prior.
