I'll sing it one last time for you, but then we really have to go.
You've been the only thing that's right in all I've done.
And I can barely look at you, but every single time I do,
I know we'll make it anywhere away from here.
Light up, Light up, as if you have a choice.
Even if you cannot hear my voice, I'll be right beside you dear.
-Leona Lewis, Run (Snow Patrol Cover)
Kate rushed into the hospital, refusing to lose sight of Castle's blood-covered body. The paramedics were working intently on him, keeping him with adequate levels of oxygen, monitoring his blood pressure, and controlling his bleeding to the best of their abilities.
They also stabilized his neck with a brace, as well as his right wrist, which was clearly broken and in need of attention. She could also tell that his left leg was in very bad condition, it was severely broken, but there was no way for her to know just how bad it was.
She was allowed to sit next to him and hold his unaffected hand, but would have to adjust as they needed to move about. However, now that they had arrived, they were carting him off too rapidly, and they were telling her that she couldn't go with him.
"But…" She pleaded with an aid that came to stop her, "Please, he can't… I need to be with him. Please." Kate didn't recognize her own voice, which was drenched in pain and desperation. The nurses' aid took one look at the shocked woman, covered in her boyfriend's blood, and led her down the hall and up a flight of stairs.
The aide found Kate an old pair of scrubs and allowed her to wash up and change. She stared at her pale face and her wide, terrified eyes. The cool water on her face startled her out of her shock a bit, but everything still seemed to be moving in slow motion for Kate. She waited for this nightmare to pass, waited to wake up, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't.
The nurses' assistant simply sighed to herself. The poor woman was obviously in shock, and the least she could do was help her get her bearings a little bit. Besides, Lord knows that if that man was Richard Castle, which rumor suggested, there would be visitors. The least thing that anyone needed was to see the blood all over his shocked and terrified girlfriend.
Kate placed the deep purple scrubs on, thankful to be rid of her soiled clothing. She washed her hands and face, knowing that she didn't want a hint of his blood on her body when his mother and Alexis arrived. Oh, his mother and Alexis. Kate thanked the woman again, and allowed herself to be escorted to the proper waiting room.
Sitting in the empty room, she took a deep breath, attempting to steady her nerves. Somebody needed to tell them. She opened her address book and scrolled down to Martha, pressing send and waiting for the ring.
"Why hello, Detective Beckett, to what do I owe this pleasure?" Martha spoke in somewhat of a surprised tone. She honestly thought that this standoff between them would have resolved itself by now, but obviously not if Kate was calling her for information.
"Martha," Kate began, her voice shaking. That was all it took for the older woman to register that something was very wrong. "Martha, there's been an accident and Rick is in the hospital. You and Alexis need to come home." She spit it all out while she still could.
"Oh my God! Is he ok? What happened?" Martha questioned, alarm and panic filling her voice.
"He is being examined right now, but it looks like a head injury in the very least." Her voice was shaking under the strain of trying to hold it together, "We were just walking together Martha," Kate's voice broke, "we were at the farmer's market and a car swerved up onto the sidewalk and it hit him." There was still a tone of shock and disbelief in Kate's tone.
"Martha, I am so sorry, I couldn't get there in time."
"Kate, don't you do that." Martha's voice was strong, but there was a tremor, "We will have this conversation in person, but you are not to blame. You stay strong for my son!" She paused for a moment, trying to collect her own scattered thoughts before speaking once again.
"Alexis is out sailing for the rest of the day and I can't reach her. As soon as she gets back in, we will be on our way. Which hospital dear?"
"We're at Mercy West." Kate answered her, before adding, "Call the coast guard Martha, they should be able to radio whomever she is with."
"Very well, we will be there by this evening. If I can get a message to her boat, it will be sooner…and Kate, take care of my son."
After they disconnected, Kate was completely drained. She called one more person, Lanie. Once she arrived, she could help with sorting out other details. Kate had been sitting in the waiting room for less than 15 minutes when a young doctor entered the room.
Ms. Castle? He questioned her.
"No. My name is Kate, Kate Beckett. His mother and daughter should be here this evening."
She was about to admit that she was not family when the doctor spoke up, "oh yes, I see here. Katherine Beckett, you're on his list of emergency contacts." Kate was not surprised, as he'd listed her as an emergency contact after he'd been tied up by the triple killer; once it became apparent that he could be seriously injured.
The doctor spoke, "Can his mother or daughter get here any sooner? I've got some consent forms that need to be signed as soon as possible."
"They're out of town, they'll be here as soon as they can. How is he?" The doctor considered her for a moment, before replying.
"We're not sure yet, we're waiting on test results, but he's definitely got some serious head trauma. I promise to let you know more when I do. In the mean time, the hospital is going to need to contact his attorney to determine whether he has a durable power of attorney."
The doctor exited the waiting room then, but was soon replaced by Lanie. "Oh, honey. How is he doing?" Lanie sat down next to her and held her hands, as Kate began to tell her the long story of what happened.
About 20 minutes later, middle-aged woman entered the room with the same doctor Kate spoke with earlier, moving towards her and extending her hand, "Ms. Beckett?" Kate nodded, "Yes?"
"We've been informed that Mr. Castle has arranged that you are the power of attorney in the event that his family cannot be reached."
"I'm sorry, what?" Kate wasn't sure she had heard correctly.
"We have obtained a copy of Mr. Castle's living will, and it clearly states that in the circumstance that his mother, Martha Rodgers, or daughter Alexis Castle, are both unavailable; the power of attorney on all matters shifts to you, Ms. Beckett. His attorney faxed over the form when we pulled his information."
She didn't really have time to process the information, as the doctor continued, getting to the point of his visit. "Ms. Beckett, preliminary scans show some extent of bleeding in the brain, located in Mr. Castle's temporal lobe." The doctor pointed to the side of his head. "There also appears to be a good amount of swelling there. Both of these conditions are life-threatening, and the longer we wait, the more damage we risk."
Kate was visibly shaken, his brain was bleeding and retaining fluid? Not his beautiful, brilliant brain. "So, what are you going to do about it?" She asked, trying to sound somewhat authoritative, although she felt like a frightened child.
"First I would like to go in and put a stop to the bleeding. Once we gain access, that should be fairly straight forward. Depending on how that goes, we may or may not need to drill a small hole, or perhaps insert a shunt to vent the pressure."
He gave her a moment to process the information before continuing, "the injury to his leg is also severe, he's got a grade III open tibial fracture and it needs to be repaired now to prevent infection, tissue damage and further bleeding."
At the look of fear in her wide eyes, the doctor could see that she was overwhelmed with information. He offered her his best reassurance.
"We simply will not know the extent of everything until we're there, but we're going to do everything we can for him." Kate nodded.
"Ms. Beckett, as Mr. Castle's power of attorney, your consent is needed on this procedure, as there are considerable risks involved when we're dealing with brain surgery." The doctor pushed his clip board in her direction,
"What are the alternatives?" Kate asked, not entirely comfortable with agreeing to brain surgery without the presence of his family.
"We wait for the blood to reabsorb, see that the swelling goes down. We place him in a comatose state and give the brain a chance to heal. The latter may well happen anyway, but you run substantial risk of substantially more brain damage by waiting and watching to see what the blood and swelling do."
Kate shook her head, "No. I'll sign whatever. You do everything to bring him back to us, and bring him back as he was!" The doctor nodded, "I will try my best." He handed her the clip board, showing her where to sign and initial.
The doctor turned to leave, but stopped shortly, "Oh, and Ms. Beckett, if any of the staff give you a hard time about getting information or seeing him, just tell them you're his power of attorney." He ripped a carbon copy of the form she just signed and passed it to her.
To think I might not see those eyes, makes it so hard not to cry.
And as we say our long goodbye, I nearly do.
Light up, light up. As if you have a choice. Even if you cannot hear my voice,
I'll be right beside you dear.
Kate Beckett kept vigil at his bedside. He was in surgery for what seemed like hours, although she later learned that the damage to his leg took longer to repair than the bleed in his brain. Just as the doctor indicated, he'd been placed in a medically educed coma to allow his brain a chance to heal.
"Is he going to be ok when he wakes up?" Kate asked nervously.
"We unfortunately will not be able to ensure that there hasn't been any long-term effect until he is awake, and we can gauge his functioning. For now we will have to wait and give his body a chance to heal."
Once they had him settled in his own room, Kate was allowed to go and sit with him. She looked him over tentatively, he was pale, lifeless, attached to tubes and surrounded by beeping sounds of monitors, as well as expansion and compression sounds of the respirator. A tear slipped down Kate's face. Too many tubes were hooked up to the man's body.
She leaned over and placed a kiss on his forehead, taking his hand in hers and lacing their fingers together. His other hand was secured in a cast, fingers to elbow, the doctor indicating that the bones in his wrist and forearm were set and should heal with time, but it was likely to be a long road ahead for his leg injury. "Your mom and Alexis are on the way Rick. I wish you could be awake to see them, but I understand that your brain needs to rest."
She simply held his hand to her lips, inhaling his scent to find that most had been replaced by sterile, hospital smells. "Castle, I'm so sorry. Why did we have to be at that farmer's market? Why didn't we just stay in bed?" She spoke, her voice a broken whisper.
"Two months with you, just two months Rick, it's not enough. One lifetime won't be enough, but two months, not acceptable, Castle. You've got to pull through and return to us, to me." The tears were stinging behind her eyes again. "Until you do, I promise I'll be right beside you. Please don't make me wait forever, because I will."
She cleared a bit of the sadness from her tone, changing the subject, "So your mom and Alexis should be arriving in a few hours. It would seem your daughter has been having a blast in the Hamptons, and is out and about sailing. It makes communication tough, but they'll get through."
As if on cue, the phone rang,
"Martha?" Kate spoke, recognizing the number, "yes Kate, I got coast guard to send a message. She just got back. We should be there within 3-4 hours depending on traffic."
"That's great." Kate spoke.
"He's got a room now, 1225, and is resting." Kate began, but was interrupted, "that is wonderful, so the procedure went well?" After Kate signed the paper she called Martha back with the details, afraid she'd done something wrong. However, the older woman agreed fully with the decision.
"Well yes, but you'll need to warn Alexis. They've educed coma, just to allow his brain to heal." Martha understood and had every intention of giving all of the information to Alexis.
Kate returned to her seat beside Rick, lacing their fingers again. "I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to keep us from them after this." She smiled at him, as if he'd answered her, "I know, I know, you've been telling me that we need to tell people since May, and I agreed to let you."
She smiled through her tears and added, "You better not have done all of this to out our relationship, Mr. Castle." She spoke warningly, with a hint of humor.
The feeling soon passed and was replaced with sadness again, "Rick, you need to pull through because I haven't said it yet. You've said it plenty of times, but not me. Rick, I need you to wake up so that I can tell you how much I love you. I need you to know that I don't want to spend another night apart from you. I don't want to wake another morning and not be in your arms. Your arms are my home, Rick."
There were tears streaming down Beckett's face now, "Yeah, I said it. I love you. I want to have your babies, and I want to grow old with you, and you're not even awake to gloat. I love you Castle. Please," She kissed his knuckles, "be ok so that I can see the expression on your face when I tell you how over the moon in love with you I am."
The warm hand on her shoulder startled her awake. She looked up suddenly to be met by both Martha and Alexis, who had finally arrived. Their things were settled in the corner, flowers set up for Rick, and areas of his private room set up a little more, observing the changes to the room led her to wonder how long they'd been there while she'd been sleeping, her head was on the side of his bed, cheek against her hand, which was currently clinging to Castle's as if it were her lifeline.
"You made it." Kate spoke the obvious, unsure what to say. "How long have you been here?"
"Oh, about 25 minutes." Martha told her before adding, "we spoke with the doctor on the way in and he updated us." Kate nodded, wiping the sleep from her eyes.
She looked from the older woman to the younger one, she could see the track marks of recently shed tears. Somehow, they'd come in and had their moment with him, and she'd slept through it! Incredible! Alexis' eyes were bloodshot, but she was breathing normally and busy at work making the room feel homey.
Kate wasn't sure whether she should stay, or go and give them privacy. The thought of removing her hand from Castle's seemed unthinkable, but his family was here now and maybe they wanted her to leave. She wasn't sure what to say, but then a question occurred to her,
"Did you know that he'd listed me as a potential power of attorney?" She asked them.
Both red-heads looked at her and nodded affirmatively, completely unaffected by the knowledge of Kate's role. Beckett was thoroughly confused,
"When did this all happen?" Martha looked at her in surprise.
"Darling, he added you as an alternate agent a while back. His lawyer instructed him to give you copies of the documents, didn't he?" Kate shook her head, she certainly didn't know about it.
"Well," Martha began, "Thank you for being here for him when we couldn't be."
The three carried on in companionate silence for some time. Kate shared what she knew about his condition and Martha shared the doctor's updates. They discussed that there would be no way to tell about his functioning fully until he was brought out of the coma, but his recent scans looked good and his brainwave activity appeared to be functioning normally again.
There was little anyone could do now, but wait for him to come back to them.