This chapter so did not end where I planned it would, but here it is anyways...
I'm so grateful for all your feedback, and if I had time to personally respond to all of you, I totally would. Thanks!
The lights are too bright. The sounds are muffled and his mind foggy, but most of all the lights blind him. A deep breath gets stuck halfway and turns into a cough, while concerned hands grip his. Where am I?
It feels like limbo, Rick muses, or whatever limbo could be reasonably assumed to feel like. Sensory deprivation. He can't feel anything but the small, warm hand in his. Finding strength somewhere deep down, he squeezes the hand a little tighter and hears a sharp intake of breath next to him.
One eye opens a crack. White walls, white curtains, white bedspread. The other eye opens and a forced, deep breath in ends in red hot pain.
"Daddy?" The scared voice brings him closer to consciousness. His eyes open completely and he looks around, dazed.
Rick swallows and pries his tongue from the roof of his mouth, attempting to articulate real words, "Alexis?"
His daughter stares back with tears in her eyes. "Are you feeling alright? Do you want some water, or food, or a nurse - I should call the nurse." She gets up, eyes darting between her dad and all the medical equipment nervously.
"I think - I'm good," Rick says haltingly. He tries to sit up, and finds himself unable to. "Could you maybe move the bed up?"
Alexis smiles for the first time in what feels like days, "Gram, he's awake!"
As Martha gets up out of the chair she's been dozing in and walks up to Rick's bedside, Alexis finds the switch by the side of the bed. A whirring electronic noise brings Rick into a semi-sitting position.
"What happened?" He asks groggily.
"You don't remember?" Martha asks, "You and Detective Beckett were out on one of those horribly, dangerous jobs and… " her voice falters, "you got shot."
His eyes widen from surprise, but not because he doesn't remember the shooting. He does. "I thought for sure I would've died," his hands travel over the bandages around his chest, "I can't believe I'm still here."
"You thought you would've died and you did it anyway?" Martha demands, "what is wrong with you?"
Rick says nothing and Alexis gives him a sharp look, "don't you ever do that again." She says sternly.
He smiles at her, the first sign of her dad again, and says sheepishly, "yes, dear."
After a few moments he asks, "Where's Detective Beckett anyways?"
Alexis and Martha exchange a significant look. Rick was supposed to ask about Gina, his girlfriend, the woman he apparently loved. Waking up from surgery, she was supposed to be the first one he asks about, the first one whose safety and happiness he worries about, after the two of them of course. So why, was the enigmatic detective his first concern?
"Outside in the waiting room," Martha admits softly. In fact, the detective hadn't moved since Gina's abrupt departure, "I'll go get her."
Rick nods thankfully, and Alexis sits down on the edge of her father's bed, "Can I ask you something? If you're not too tired…"
"Anything."
"Do you love her? Detective Beckett, I mean. Or do you love Gina?"
Through tired eyes, Richard Castle surveys his daughter. He's always been able to lie, to anyone. Through his books, in his relationships, he's always been able to lie. But not to Alexis. Not to Kate either, but that was another matter. "I love them both." He answers.
"But who do you love more?" Alexis presses.
He raises a hand a runs a finger down her cheek, like he used to when she was younger, "There's different types of love. Like how I love you and Gram and…"
"And…?"
"And then there's loving someone because you've known them so long and you're so comfortable with them that you don't want to let go. Loving the familiarity and the safety in what's ordinary, you know?"
Alexis nods, "That's how you love Gina."
Rick nods too, then adds, with a faraway look on his face, "And then there's loving someone for exactly the opposite reason. They amaze you. They're so extraordinary that they keep you on your feet, make the world brighter, you know? You can't stop thinking about them and how they make you feel, and you just wanna be around them... That's how I love Kate."
"And how I love Ashley."
"Yeah. Isn't it amazing?"
They sit in silence for a minute, until Alexis asks, "How come you aren't with Kate then? If extraordinary is better than ordinary, why aren't you and her together?"
He smiles a sad smile, "Ordinary is easy, extraordinary is hard."
She nods, sensing an end to this heart to heart. "Do you think she's worth the trouble?"
When her father doesn't say anything, Alexis knows how deep her dad's feelings run for the detective. She looks over, seeing his eyes closed and thinking he's fallen asleep.
Smiling, Alexis tucks the blanket tighter and is about to get up when she hears, "Can you pass the pudding?"
When Martha reentered that darned waiting room, she spots Kate immediately. She was sitting in a chair, cross-legged, feet tucked up beneath her. She has her arms around her knees and her eyes were wide open, almost like she's in a trance. Occasionally, Kate would draw her bottom lip in between her teeth in a pensive way. Martha thinks her eyes look like they're ringed with pink.
The older woman sits next to the troubled detective and quietly says, "Richard is awake."
Her eyes dart over in alarm, the first sign of consciousness she's shown in hours. Her heart beats a staccato in her chest. As much as she's longed to see his smile the past few hours, hear his laugh and his words that always managed to sooth her frayed nerves, now that he is awake, walking into that room seems a gargantuan task. There's so much she wants to tell him. She wants to speak eloquently about her feelings for him, apologize for getting him shot and she wants to sit down with him and seriously discuss their future. But all of that depends on her getting up and facing him.
"Is he?" She asks needlessly, nodding slowly and not looking at Martha.
"Yes, and he would like to see you." Before she's finished, Martha sees Kate start to shake her head, "What?"
"Well what am I supposed to say to him?" Kate chokes out, "'I'm sorry it's my fault you got shot, and that you could've died, and that your stable relationship is no more. Oh and by the way, I think I have feelings for you.'?"
"Sounds like a good place to start." Martha remarks.
"I really am sorry," Kate says suddenly, "You and Alexis have every reason to be angry with me. Without me in his life, Castle probably wouldn't uh, almost die, so often."
Martha nods, "You're right. Without you my son would lead a relatively safe life." She puts a hand on the worried detective's arm, "But you're crazy if you think either of us blames you. My son chooses to be with you."
"But-"
"Listen," Martha implores kindly, "You make Richard happier than I've ever seen him. Working on cases with you isn't about gathering research for his books; Lord knows he has enough of that. It's you. How can we blame you for making him happy? Even if that happiness is risky."
Tears spring to Kate's eyes, "Thank you."
Martha smiles and gives Kate's shoulder a squeeze, "He's waiting for you…"
"Castle?" He hears her worried voice and looks up from his pudding. Alexis gives him a significant look.
He calls out, "Over here." Using the bravest voice he's got.
She perches on the edge of his bed, itching to take his hand, but feeling it was all too fast, too soon. She settles for wringing her own hands nervously, "How are you?"
He grins, "Why detective Beckett…"
Suddenly, the mischievous smile from his face disappears and is replaced with a grimace. His eyes close and a hand travels up to the bandages on his chest before his head droops to the side. The heart rate monitor emits a continuous tone.
"Castle?" Kate calls, leaping up and trying to swallow her fear, "no no no, you don't get to do this again. Wake up! Rick?"
Her hands curl around the bed sheets and a single tear has trickled down her cheek before the man in the bed opens his eyes, a childish twinkle appearing. "Gotcha. Nice to hear you call me 'Rick', by the way."
She stares, open mouthed, and gestures none too sanely at the heart rate monitor, "but how…"
"Simple, detective," Castle holds up a small plastic circle, the one used to measure heart rate, and replaces it on his wrist. The monitor emits a steady, rhythmic tone.
She frowns, chewing on her bottom lip, eyebrows knitted together with emotion. For a second, Rick thinks she's going to yell, or hit him, or simply explode, but what she does instead surprises them all. The strong detective sinks down into the chair by his bed, lets her head drop onto his thigh and starts to cry. The choked, heart wrenching sobs that she's managed to suppress until now wipe the smile from his face in an instant.
"I warned him not to." Alexis says to Martha, who's leaning against the doorframe.
"Let's give them a moment." The wise woman replies softly. She and Alexis quietly leave the room.
As soon as they leave, Rick says weakly, "Kate, come on… Kate… I was messing around. I'm sorry."
She doesn't lift her head to look at him, just shakes it fiercely and continues to sob. He tries to reach out to her, stroke her hair, but she's too far away and his range of motion is not yet that wide. He's limited to words only, "Please Kate… I'm fine see?"
When she doesn't move, Rick retrieves the tissue box from the small stand next to his bed. He strains to hand it to her, but he still can't, so instead he throws it lightly. It bounces off her head and lands next to his knee. Rick huffs in frustration, hating that he can do nothing to help her.
As Kate continues to sob into Rick's leg, her hand curls around his knee and he can feel the wetness of her tears seeping through the thin sheets. He wonders how long she's been holding this in, how much it eats at her, and feels an deep pang of sadness. Finally, after what seems like ages, he hears a muffled, "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault; it's not your fault…" He whispers, "But could you please just… look at me… or at least scoot on a little closer?"
She complies, shifting her chair. It's just enough so that he can run his fingers through his hair, his hand resting at the nape of her neck. The gentleness that is supposed to sooth her only induces stronger sobs. "Don't…" He implores. One hand finds her cheek and he uses it to lift her chin.
Their eyes meet, grey on brown, and with considerable difficulty, he makes a Kate sized space on the side of his bed. Under normal circumstances, she would scoff at the idea, roll her eyes and possibly make a joke of his manliness, but these aren't normal circumstances. She's just spent a good 5 minutes crying in his lap, she hasn't slept in more than a day, and he's just waking from surgery. Screw it.
Heaving a long sigh, she gets up and settles down next to him, linking one arm around his and resting her head on his shoulder. Silently, she sends thanks to the Powers That Be that the tears seemed to have dried out, at least for now.
"I can't believe you did that," She says after a few minutes, "I can't believe you took a bullet for me…"
He hears a mix of resentment, gratitude and raw tenderness in her voice. At least she's back to being close to Kate again. "Well, I wasn't going to let you take the bullet."
"You can't just jump in front of a gun," she protests.
He smiles, "Technically I didn't jump, and Alexis already lectured me on that."
"Good." And a second later she adds, "I'm the cop. I'm supposed to do the saving."
Feeling brave, he leans over and kisses the top of her head gently. Normally, he expects he'd get a slap in the face, but this is not Detective Beckett in front of him, it's Kate, unguarded Kate, Kate who would let him kiss her head. "Who's gonna save you then?"
She shakes her head, "don't worry about me. That's not your job."
He thinks for a moment, wondering how to get around the red tape she's set up, "What if…" He ventures carefully, "What if I don't worry about Detective Beckett? What if I just worry about Kate?"
"That doesn't even make sense…" Kate protests, but in her weakened state, she can barely keep her eyes open a moment longer, let alone argue with a very very stubborn man.
"Yeah it does." He says simply. Then, because she's falling asleep, her walls are down, and she probably doesn't have the strength to stop him, he leans down and brushes his lips softly against hers.
Kissing Detective Beckett… he's always known kissing Detective Beckett would be mind-blowing, but kissing Kate, he quietly realizes is infinitely better. After making sure she's not pushing him away, he presses his lips on hers again, relishing their softness. She gasps, her mouth opening just enough so that he can capture her bottom lip between his. He knows he should stop, he knows there are all kinds of things they have to clear up before they can be kissing like this, and he knows he's taking advantage.
But kissing Kate…
And feeling her start to kiss him back…
Nothing has ever felt so good in his life, so he latches on, kissing the daylights out of her, kissing her like there isn't going to be any tomorrow – because when the haze of drugs and in her case, guilt mixed with sadness mixed with finally breaking down, wears off in the light of day – there may very well be no tomorrow. She may never let him kiss her like this ever again.
There's only right now, when he can kiss Kate Beckett without worrying about anything. He commits her to his memory, everything from the way her lips feel, to the way her hand snakes up his cheek, to the intoxicating smell that is just Kate.
When his oxygen deprived brain finally screams at him to pull back, he does. Immediately, he searches her eyes for traces of regret and almost doubles over in gratitude when he finds none.
"I have to tell you something," she whispers quietly.
But Rick can see her eyes starting to flutter shut, her head weighing more heavily on his shoulder. "Tell me tomorrow…" He breathes, "Sleep now."
It's only a few minutes before her breathing has evened out. Whatever she has to say, Rick decides, can wait, especially if that something will undo the delicate thing they've found between them. Tonight, he will pretend like she is his and he – hers.
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