Title: Bulletproof Hearts and Hollow-Point Smiles
Rating: T
Summary: It's ironic, he thought – you never feel as alive as you do when you're about to die.
A/N: I apologize for the wait on this chapter; Life has been very busy, and unfortunately, leisure activities such as these will always come second. I'll work hard on preparing the next chapter for release in one week or less. Thanks for your patience, and I hope that you continue to enjoy it. This is a trek into uncharted territory for me!
Chapter 2
Kate slid into the retractable auditorium-style seat, her knees slanting to the side to allow the two medics passage through the cramped space. They were speaking to one another calmly, their voices resonating from the steel and plastic confines with a steady determination. She would never understand how they did it – how they could look at the broken and the dying every single day, and still respond with cool, collected objectivity.
She did that every day at crime scenes, she supposed, but this was different. These people were alive. They had families, hopes, thoughts, dreams...
Castle's body shuffled like a ragdoll, unconscious to the chaos unfolding around him as the gurney was again secured in the back of the ambulance. An EMT had placed a bag valve mask over his mouth and was pumping it steadily, the soft plastic of the clear nosepiece fogging with each forced exhalation. She glanced around his arm at the swinging ID tag. Roger Denton, Sentinel Ambulance Services.
Thank you, Roger.
The second EMT, obviously the lead paramedic and captain of the boat, slammed the back doors in unison. "Fire it up, Jonesy, this one's running towards the light!"
As if on queue, the driver, who Beckett could only assume was "Jonesy", activated the siren and pulled out of the alley, horn ominously blaring at the sidewalk gawkers blocking the exit.
The paramedic glanced at her before turning to the insulated cooler on the wall, undoing the latches with a soft hiss. He pulled out a clear drip bag, followed by a second that made her stomach turn. Blood.
"I..." she stammered, her eyes locked on the crimson pack, "I don't know what his blood type is."
His back was still turned as he busily set to work, hanging the two bags on a small metal hook above the cabinets. "It's alright, Miss. This is O negative, just to keep him with us until we have him into Mercy and can get him an exact match."
Of course it was. Come on, Kate, keep it together.
He handed the connector to Roger. "Start the intravenous; Continuous flow on that O-neg transfusion. Miss...Beckett, was it? What can you tell me about what happened here?"
He lifted her jacket from Castle's wounds where it had been ebbing the flow of blood and replaced it with gauze, using his hands to return pressure. Red droplets squeaked against the latex of his gloves.
She swallowed. Under the fluorescent lights, the wounds glared up at her, his skin raw and burned where the bullets had ripped through him. It reminded her of something that she'd see on one of Lanie's slabs.
"I wasn't there when it happened. I live nearby, and responded to the report when it came through on my scanner." Her words quavered, and nearly faded amongst the rustles and clinks of the two men working to stabilize him. "He's my partner, you know."
Looking over to Castle's face, she felt her throat close. His skin was pallid, interrupted only by the vivid contrast of occasional flecks of blood.
"He...I think he was shot twice, but it was dark. I couldn't tell. Probably a large caliber based on how much blood was on the ground. He was delirious when I found him, probably in shock. When -" The shriek of Castle's vital monitor sliced through her recount.
Kate's world stopped for the second time that night.
Roger grabbed the edge of the screen, turning it towards him as his eyes scanned the numbers wildly.
"Sir, look at his heart rate; He's going into VFIB."
"Shit...get the paddles and charge to 150. Jonesy, where are we?"
"45 seconds out."
He tossed the connector on the clear drip bag to Roger. "Dope him. He can't wait. We're going to have to toast him here."
Roger slid the needle into Castle's arm with hurried precision as the nameless paramedic lifted the defibrillator paddles from their dock.
"We're starting him on a dopamine drip, Miss, to help stabilize his heart after the shock. But you might want to look away, all the same."
The paddles were on his chest now. Just like a movie, she thought to herself numbly. Just like all of those movies where a magical shock brings life back to the dead, and promises a happily ever after ending. But this was real.
"CLEAR!"
Castle's torso convulsed upwards as the paddles discharged into his body. Roger reported:
"No change, sir."
"Charge to 200."
"ETA 20 seconds, Brady."
Brady. That's one little mystery solved.
The defibrillator whined back to life.
"CLEAR!"
Esposito's chin dropped down to his chest, eyes closed as he lightly pinched the bridge of his nose. Four hours they'd been here in this alley, and there was almost nothing to show for it. There was nothing that he could tell Beckett that she wouldn't already know. Damnit. He opened his eyes.
The deep red puddle where they had found Castle had dried into a sludge and pooled neatly in front of the dumpster, dully reflecting the grey-blue chill of the impending sunrise. He heard the slow shuffling of feet next to him, but didn't bother to acknowledge it; He knew who it would be.
"That's a lot of blood, Espo. A lot..."
Ryan's voice trailed into nothingness as they stared down to the asphalt. His eyes were rimmed and glazed with a sleepless night and hours of forcefully restrained emotion.
"What if...?"
"Don't say it, bro. Don't even think it."
Esposito had turned away and was shuffling towards the crime scene tape at the mouth of the alley. Ryan swallowed heavily; He understood. What others mistook for passivity, he knew was pain. His friend was grieving – they all were.
"What I mean is...we should be prepared. You know?", he said quietly, lengthening his pace to match his friend's, "Just in case. For Beckett."
Esposito jerked the yellow tape over his head savagely, never breaking his forward gaze.
"I know."
Kate sat in an empty corner of the surgical waiting room, her knees pulled to her chest in the uncomfortable wooden seat. She knew that she must look pathetic, alone and coiled up with her red-glazed eyes and stained clothing, her face that of a little lost child.
No, she thought. Not a child. This is the face of a creature who has just lost everything.
She closed her eyes and lowered her forehead to the cool denim covering her knees, uncaring of the thick dust and dried blood that still smudged them. She knew that she should be going home to her apartment to change and at least make an attempt at some rest; He wouldn't be out of surgery for at least another two hours, and she couldn't let him see her like this if he made it out to the recovery ward.
"When,", she thought to herself fiercely, eyes pricking with another threat of furious tears at her own slip, "WHEN he makes it out to the recovery ward."
The pads of her fingers brushed absently against the cuff of her shirtsleeve, which had crusted over with Castle's blood and her own pained tears hours before. When the ambulance had arrived in the emergency bay, he was lost to her in a sea of brightly colored scrubs and piercing voices as he was briskly wheeled away to the restricted depths of the surgical wing. Foggy memories of crying out to him replayed in her mind as her fingers tightened around the crimson-stained fabric. The paramedic that they called Brady had held her back, his grip on her arm firm yet gentle.
"Let them go, Miss. We did what we could – he's in good hands now. Let them do their jobs."
Not long afterward, she finally let go. In the silence of the northwest surgical stairwell, her lungs and eyes burned with sobs as the consequences of unrelenting adrenaline and bound emotion crashed to her shoulders.
Control was something that they had unknowingly perfected together, tweaking and adjusting until they had reached a blissful equilibrium in their relationship's balance of power. Together, they silently loved and protected; they teased and quarreled – but always with the understanding and promise of another tomorrow. Of another morning coffee, another meaningful glance, and what she had always hoped was another step towards what might be a promising future together.
But there was no control now. There were no promises. He had been carried away from her, and she had been left alone, covered in sweat, blood, and the hollowing sorrow of reality. He was in their hands now, and she was utterly useless to him. She had failed him.
Kate's head jerked up at the familiar voices floating to her ears from down the hallway. She swiped at her eyes and hastily smoothed her creased t-shirt before rising from her chair to face them. Her eyes widened as she exhaled her words, inwardly wincing at how desperate and small she sounded.
"Javi! Kevin! I didn't know you had cleared the...area...yet."
Her words had slipped as she noticed the two redheads, protectively flanked by her friends.
'Crime scene'...come on, Kate? As if they weren't distressed and shaken enough as it is.
Esposito's features darkened almost imperceptibly before he regained his composure and gestured for them to sit.
Beckett and Ryan shared a glance as he cleared his throat. "We did what we could. CSU is finishing up with collection right now – everything double- and triple-checked, just like we knew you'd want it."
He shot her a shy smile, exhaustion clearly evident in his voice and features. She didn't expect that any of them would be getting any rest for awhile.
Esposito chirped into the conversation, obviously straining to sound lighthearted and reassuring for Castle's only family:
"We found these two lovely ladies coming out of the cafeteria on our way in. Have you two been here long?"
Martha smiled at him, patting his knee softly before wrapping an arm around her granddaughter's shoulders.
"Kate called us about three hours ago. We rushed right in, obviously, but he had already been...taken away. Just like Richard, you know, always disappearing in a knick of time."
If her comment was an attempt to alleviate the heavy tension in the air around them, it had failed. The blue of her eyes shone brilliantly against the red glaze, betraying her lack of sleep and what Kate knew was crying, hidden from the watchful eyes of the teenager seated next to her.
Beckett surged with emotion. This woman had raised Castle – her Castle - from an infant, imparting her cryptic wisdom, deviance, and no small appreciation of drama onto him. For as much as she feigned exasperation at his antics, he was a man with an incredible wit, drive, and capacity for love that she had never witnessed in another – and it was all due, at least in part, to Martha. Strong, crafty, endlessly loving Martha, who even now as her son's life hung in the balance, restrained her emotions in the name of Alexis' comfort.
'Admiration' did not even skim the surface of Kate's appreciation.
Alexis leaned into her grandmother's shoulder, her icy blue eyes – just like her father's - staring listlessly at the thin, worn carpeting. Beckett cleared her throat uncertainly, leaning her elbows forward on her knees as she struggled to find the words that the girl needed to hear.
"I...how are you doing, Alexis?"
'How are you doing?' Really, Beckett?
The girl stilled, but her eyes never left their spot on the floor. Moments passed, none of them entirely certain of what to say. A frigid hiss broke the silence.
"My dad is being sliced up by a bunch of strangers who are trying to remove bullet fragments from his stomach, most of his blood volume is clotting in an alley somewhere, and from what I can tell, you guys don't have any clue who did it."
Thick stillness filled the air, its occupants either stunned or disheartened into silence.
"The doctors said that 'they didn't know the extent of the damage', but I saw the HR and grief representatives hovering around like vultures. I saw how they looked at us, and how they whispered. I probably won't have a dad by this afternoon."
"How do you think I'm doing?"
Alexis stood abruptly, brushing her grandmother's arm away before wrapping herself in her arms and stalking to the stairwell door, throwing it open and disappearing inside.
Beckett's head – and heart – dropped.
"Damnit."
Weary hands scrubbed over her face as she let out a quavering breath.
Damn.