For starters, I do not own Castle or any of the characters from Castle. I'm just writing for fun, clean and simple.
First off, Thanks so much to everyone who's favorite-d/reviewed/read on purpose/accidentally clicked on this and read anyway/whatever. It's really cool to know people are reading and liking this okay So, thanks! Secondly, I'm actually excited for Monday. Why? Oh, just, AWESOME LOOKING CASTLE EPISODE! Also I know nothing of New York's set ups or medical things so… bear with me when I say stuff about that. :)
Okee Dokee, this (again) was supposed to be longer, but it got to like eight pages in Word and there's still a lot I want happen between Point A and Point b, which I shall not name, so you get this. Another update. I've already started the next chapter so (hopefully) it'll be up soon. Hope you enjoy! Drop a review if you feel like it Don't kill me at the end of this, please. It had to be done.
Thank :)
M
PS: If you get the LOST reference, do tell me, because I'll feel like a dorky Lost-ie if no one does ;) It just fit so well. (If you wanna know what I was listening to while writing this: Of Mice and Ben (Lost score from season 4 (?)) and (for some reason this song helped) Starstruck by Lady Gaga.)
Part 14
"Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit." My breath caught and I pressed my hands to the area where it was thickest and darkest. She whimpered as I touched her.
"Lex, I'm so sorry. I've gotta stop the bleeding." The blood continued to pump through my fingers, gushing. God it must have hit an artery. Alexis. No, this couldn't be happening to her. They had to have been aiming for me. Who would want to hurt her? She was the best kid in the world. I'd brought her into this danger and now- No. No freaking out. No pity party. No shit like that. I had to focus on her. She was all that mattered at the moment.
"Daddy," She whimpered, shivering. She was trying to stay strong but her voice shook. I choked on the air, hearing it.
I looked up long enough to check on Castle. His eyes were frozen wide on my hands pressed against his daughter's shoulder.
"Castle," I said sharply. He looked up at me very slowly and I almost started crying again. He looked utterly lost and like he was about to be sick.
"Kate," he choked, a tear worming its way out of his eye.
"Castle. Take you daughter's hand and then call 911." No more shots had come but we all remained crouched behind the couch, just in case.
He obeyed robotically, taking Alexis' slim hand in his and pulling out his phone. His conversation faded to white noise and I shifted around Alexis' body and sat by her head, gently pulling it into my lap while continuing to keep pressure on her wound.
"You're doin' great, kiddo," I whispered to her, "Stay with me okay? Talk to me. Tell me about the bathing suit mishap. Just focus on staying awake."
She swallowed and nodded, gritting her teeth, "We were in the Hamptons for Grams birthday," her voice was strained but surprisingly, stronger than it had been minutes before, "And Dad decided it'd be a good idea to go swimming at high tide. His swim trunks were way too big though and…"
It seemed to take years for the damn ambulance to arrive. Alexis finished one story and continued on to another. I didn't even focus on the story. Just hearing her voice, knowing she was hanging with me was all I cared about. Her voice shook when I momentarily took my hands away to whip off my jacket to press it over the wound but otherwise she hung in there. In the moments before the EMTs arrived on the scene though, her free hand clenched in a fist on the loose material of my pants leg and I could hear her voice cracking. Her strength was waning.
When they finally did burst through the door, blood had pooled around her, tainting her perfectly ginger hair scarlet and soaking through the knees of my dark jeans.
"Single GSW to the left chest, 17 year old female, still conscious and lucid," I spouted as two trooped in with a stretcher between them and another pair bringing up the rear.
"Name?" one of them barked, taking my place and looking between Castle, who looked utterly frozen, and me.
"Alexis Castle," I supplied, "That's her, Richard Castle, and I'm Detective Kate Beckett, 12th precinct NYPD."
There was a flash of recognition in the young EMT's eyes that I didn't have time to ponder as she continued to address me while her colleagues swarmed Alexis' now terrifyingly prone figure. When had her eyes fluttered closed? When had her fingers come unclenched from my jeans? Come on, kid, stick with me. Your dad won't function if you… I won't function if you…
"What happened here, Detective?"
My brain kicked into over drive. There was only one reason I could think of why anyone would take a pot shot at Alexis and that was to get to me. And the only previous case I could think of that would have anything to do with this was my mother's The Dragon had just blinked, then. He was getting nervous and we were getting close.
"I don't know. I'm staying the Castles, recovering from a GSW from a couple of weeks ago. We were all standing here, talking. Next thing we know, the window's blown in, we're on the ground, and Alexis is bleeding."
"Harper," one of the EMTs called from the ground, "ETD one minute." She nodded once to her partners then to me. I took it to mean our conversation was over and knelt quickly next to Castle who was still clinging to his daughter's hand.
"Rick," I murmured and, forgetting that I'd been stemming a blood flow minutes before, I reached out to touch him. Instantly his eyes locked on my hands and a choking noise strangulated from between his lips.
I swore and did my best to put my hand out of his line of sight, but it didn't matter. The damage was done. I glanced down and swallowed a gasp, knowing the key to keeping him calm was to be calm but… God they were so red. There was so much blood on my hands and now Alexis'. His daughter's blood…
"Rick," I tried again, shaking myself and fighting to keep my voice steady as I watched tears pour from his eyes, "I know this is hard, but you're going to go in that ambulance with her and hold her hand until you can't anymore. I'll be right behind you, in a cab and I'll meet you at the hospital, okay? I'll call Martha and… Just stay with her."
"Kate," he gasped, seemingly unable to form words.
"Shhh." I leaned in and kissed his forehead, trying to pass over the little strength I had to him, "It's going to be alright."
I stood up; leaving my calf pressed against his shoulder and turned to Harper, "He's going in the ambulance with her." I left no room for argument and the EMTs didn't bother protesting. They were too busy trying to fix Lex. I couldn't force my eyes past the curtain of titian hair splayed around her which, even now, looked more lifeless than I'd ever seen it. Come on, Alexis.
"God, two ambulances in three weeks," Harper mused, "That's gotta be tough."
"Two?" her statement caught me off guard.
"Yeah. He was in the ambulance with you. We were the first team on the scene and the doctor… Parish I think it was, loaded you up and got in with, him right behind her. The guys in the back had a hell of a time working around him. Wouldn't let go of your hand." Oh no. Castle had been in the ambulance with me. Didn't I hear Lanie saying something about flat-lining the ambulance? It was a new level of hell that I had apparently put him through. Don't do what I did, Lex. Don't hurt him like I did. He'll break if you flat-line. You stay strong in that bus.
"Time to go," Harper's partner shouted, lifting the stretcher and walking briskly towards the door. She ran ahead of them, pushing through the small crowd that had gathered, yelling at them to move.
I caught one last glimpse of Castle as they left. He seemed to have aged yeas in the space of a few minutes. Darkness had fallen over him and his face was drawn. The terror and anger and heartache were clear through his eyes. His shoulders were slumped and he was just crumbling. He wasn't acting, he was just moving through the motions. A broken man twice over. I wanted to tell him I loved him, tell him to be strong and that I'd be there with him every step of the way. But the words died in my throat.
My heart squeezed watching him. The guilt was growing in my stomach again. Trying to push it away, I found myself suddenly very alone in the loft. A few nosy, straggling neighbors were peeking around the door, staring wide eyed at the shattered window, the pool of blood and my scarlet hands. Giving the most withering glare I could muster, I stalked to the door and slammed it shut with a nudge of my foot.
As quickly as I could be, I was in the bathroom. The blood on my hands was suddenly scalding my skin. Elbowing on the faucet, I stuck my hands under the jet of hot water. I squirted a good 8 pumps of soap into my hands, and rubbed them together in the water. It turned pink and then bright red as it circled down the drain. The water was hellishly hot; I must have burned off one layer of skin and scrubbed off another. I couldn't get the image of Alexis bleeding out under my hands out of my head. It was seared into my brain. I flashed back to my dream of Lockwood using Montgomery to shoot Castle and I shuddered. Blue eyes emptying… NO.
And without any further warning, grief and guilt crashed over me again. Who the hell was I to waltz into her life, turn it upside down? Her father was involved in some convoluted, dangerous case and there I was, infesting her house and putting a target on her back. That shot had been meant for me and there was so much blood…
She had to know I loved her like a daughter. It was the first time I'd ever really thought about it but I really did love her. She had come into my life along side Castle, a package deal, an innocent child. I couldn't think about her not being around or think of her laying, lifeless, paler than usual in a morgue. I retched at the though.
It was like physical blow to the stomach and I doubled over letting the metaphoric pain course through me. 5 seconds. That was all this panic was going to get. 5 seconds of unbridled feeling, alone here in Castle's bathroom and then I would pull up my bootstraps, call Martha, call the boys, and go to Castle and hold his hand until Alexis was out of the woods. And then I wasn't going to rest until I found the son of a bitch who tried to shoot her, doctors orders be damned.
1. The first tear fell and I clenched my arms around my chest, sinking to the tiles of the bathroom floor, pressing down on my still healing chest wound, trying to use that pain to distract me from the nearly unbearable other.
2. God. I was going to going to die here in the bathroom. I couldn't breathe, couldn't hear my own heart beating.
3. Maybe if my heart weren't beating, Alexis would have been better off. Castle too. She's never have to worry about losing her father or being in the cross hairs. She'd be safe and so would he.
4. Guilt was my world now. All the blame was mine and I couldn't feel anything but … acceptance. I was the guilty one. My obsession had driven me here and this was my punishment. It shouldn't have included these people. Not the ones I loved. Mom, Roy, Alexis, Castle (by extension). No more.
5. I stood up straight again, taking in some deep breaths. My moment was over. Now time for everything else.
I glanced down. My hands were a different sort of red now, more raw, but I could still feel her blood. It was the only thing I could feel at the moment. Resisting the urge to douse my hands in ammonia, I shut off the water and hurried into Castle's room, grabbing my black tennis shoes and tugging my phone out of my pocked. God, this was going to be a hard call.
Martha answered on the fourth ring, "Kate, darling, how lovely to hear from you," You won't think so in a moment, Martha, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Martha… Are you busy?" I hated how uncertain I sounded and she picked up on it instantly.
"No, dear, I just finished my first call backs. I'm just lounging in my hotel room. What's wrong?"
I swallowed hard, anticipating her reaction, "Martha… Alexis has been shot."
I could practically see her. Curled, red hair, and flamboyant clothes failing to support her as she collapsed against the back of her chair, gasping for breath, "What?"
"I don't know how it happened. She and Rick and I were talking and then… it all happened so fast. She's being taken to NYC Presbyterian. Castle's in the ambulance with her."
"Oh my god." There were tears in her voice, "Where?" it was all she could muster.
"The left shoulder area. I don't think it hit any organs but… Is there any way you can come back?"
"Darling, I'm already packing. I'll be on the first flight home."
"Martha I'm so sorry." I felt tears prick in my eyes and I brushed them away impatiently. My five seconds were up already. Time for everybody else.
"This is not your fault," Martha said sternly, "I'm sure you jumped into action as always. You'll text me with updates?" I heard a zipper and knew she was almost out the door.
"Every chance I get." I promised.
"Alright then. I should see you soon. Tell Richard and Alexis that I love them."
"I will."
"Thank you, dear," I heard her choke up for a moment before she regained her composure, "Now please go take care of my son and granddaughter."
"Always, Martha." The line went dead and I shoved my phone back into my pocket, trying to drown out the sound of Castle's mother gasping for breath as I told her that her only grandchild had been shot.
Instead of dwelling on that thought, I threw on my shoes, grabbed a pair for Castle (who had left only in socks) and snatched my purse off the table before hurrying out of the loft and forbidding myself from looking at the shattered living room.
In the elevator to the lobby, I called Esposito. He and Ryan were my best chance of figuring everything out. He answered on second ring.
"Yo, boss. We-"
"Esposito, you need to talk to Castle's guys. And the people Shaw and Fallon put on us. Alexis was shot."
"What?" Esposito's voice was stone. Alexis had a special place in all our hearts and hearing the possibility of her being mortally injured was petrifying.
"I've got a hunch that it has something to do with Darling but I don't know and I can't go… I need to get to the hospital. Can you and Ryan-"
"We're on our way." He was fierce and I knew his partner would be too.
"Thanks, Espo."
"We'll get this asshole, Becks." The line went dead and I sighed in relief, knowing one thing was being taken care of.
The taxi ride seemed to take forever. I could feel myself hyperventilating a couple of times and I almost asked the cabbie to pull over but thought better of it. There was no time. No more 'five seconds' for me. Castle and Alexis needed me. I'd made Martha a promise.
The cabbie could sense how tense I was and kept throwing glances over his shoulder when I bit back groans of irritation at the backed up traffic.
"Everything okay, lady?" he drawled.
"Fine. Can you please just hurry?" I snapped. He did.
An ER nurse directed me to the waiting room when I finally burst through the double doors, demanding Alexis Castle. Knowing Castle would be waiting in there, I hurried to the room.
I found him tucked in a corner, on one of the long bench seats, head in hands. His shoulders were hunched and he didn't move a muscle. He looked more defeated than when I'd last seen him. There was no air of exuberance or optimism. He was simply a grieving, terrified father. The guilt gnawed through my stomach and sent bile to my throat.
He only looked up when I sat down beside him. His eyes were red rimmed and his whole body was quivering.
"Hey," I reached over and detangled one of his hands from his hair, weaving my fingers between his, "How is she?"
"I don't know," he croaked, tightening his hold on my hand and turning to face the wall, trying to hide the fact that he was wiping away tears. I turned his face back to me and gently batted his hands out of the way, taking over, "The rolled her through those damned double doors and now… I don't know."
"She'll be okay, Rick. She's strong."
"But she's my baby. She's…" he faltered, swallowing hard and I ground back tears.
"Shh." I reached over and wrapped my arms around his neck. He untwined our hands and wrapped his arms around me. His face pressed into my neck and I felt a fresh wave of tears roll down his face, "She's going to be okay. Shh." I rocked back and forth, fisting the back of his shirt. One of his hands clung to the side of my shirt, the other rested on the small of my back.
I pressed my lips to the side of his head, "Shh. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." A single tear slipped past my control and landed softly in his hair. The urge to cry and scream and run and hit things and maybe even throw up was overwhelming but I couldn't move. I was needed here and I was more than willing to try and clean up the mess I'd made.
An hour later found Castle and I still curled against each other. The tears had stopped, but Castle seemed incapable of doing more then hold me to his side. He was just a shell, head snapping up each time a doctor came through the double doors and then sinking back when they called the name of another family. Each time, I would hold him a little tighter, whispering, "Soon." He'd barely nod and burry his face in my hair for a few moments.
The ringing of my phone distracted us from the flow of doctors and disappointments. I tugged it out of my pocket glanced at the caller ID.
"It's Ryan," I murmured, "I need to take it, okay?"
He nodded numbly. Sighing, I pressed my lips to his shoulder and stood up, "I brought you shoes, you should put them on."
I went half way across the waiting room before answering, "Beckett. Whatcha got for me, Ryan?"
"It was Darling," He growled with no preamble, "I don't know how he got as far as he did. He was in the building across the street from Castle's. Stabbed our guy on the ground floor before he could catch a glimpse of him and then knocked out the guy on a level with Castle's place. Snagged the rifle they had stashed up there in case of emergencies and took a potshot. We're guessing he had a thermal. He left the rifle. Our guy woke up just before he got away and took a shot. Grazed his side. Blood splatters at the scene match. He ran out after that. Our guy got a good look at him though."
"Is the guy on the ground floor..?" Heavier dread coursed through my system at the sound of Ryan's static-y sigh.
"We were too late."
"God…" Add that poor man's blood to the waterfall flowing from between my fingers, "Anything else?"
"No. Canvassed the street but no one noticed anything strange. But, you know New York…"
"Yeah." I was simultaneously frustrated and exhilarated. Not much longer now. We'd have him, "Alright, put out an alert to all the hospitals with his description and all the usual stuff."
"Already done, boss."
"Thanks, Kev."
"Alexis Castle?" My head whipped around. A young doctor was standing in the door of the waiting room, looking around expectantly.
"Sorry, Ryan, I gotta go. They just… news about Alexis."
"Yeah. Okay. Tell Castle to stay solid and give Little Castle a hug for us. We'll call if there's anything new."
"Thanks. I will."
"Oh, and don't worry about Castle's apartment. Javier and I took care of it. That was, um… That was a lot of blood." He took a shaky breath and I was struck by how much closer the four of us had become. Before, he never would have shown that little weakness, it wouldn't have been there before. But now…
"I know. Thanks, Ryan."
I clicked off the phone and turned to Castle. He had gotten on his shoes, though they weren't tied but some fire had come back to his eyes. I slid my hand into his as he passed me to meet the doctor. It was like ice. For the first time in as long as I could remember (even including when we'd been trapped in the freezer), Castle wasn't warm.
"I'm her father," He rasped at the doctor, tightening his hold on my hand.
"Alright." The young doctor's eyes flickered to me but he didn't question as he continued, "Well, your daughter was extremely lucky. The bullet didn't hit any of her organs. It tore through a good amount of tissue and muscle and it nicked her collar bone though, and she lost a lot of blood. However, that said, barring any unforeseeable complications, your daughter should make a full recovery. With some therapy of course."
"Oh thank God," Castle sighed, suddenly very limp at my side. I turned and curled my arms around his waist, holding him close.
"She's alright. Shhh. She's going to be okay." Castle shuddered, pressing me almost too tightly to his chest. His face was against my neck again and I could feel his shaky breaths against my skin.
Inside of me, a quiet explosion was going off. Alexis was alive. She was okay. She was going to make it. It was terrifying how close we'd come to losing her.
And then I realized that I'd been putting 'we' where it really should have been 'he.' She was his daughter, not mine, though sometimes I wished she was. Even if she wasn't though, I was allowed to be terrified of the fact that she'd been shot. Of how much blood she'd lost. I was allowed to love her and fear for her. Even if it was my fault. She was the daughter of my partner, my friend, of the man I loved. She was the best kid in the world and I had almost had a hand in the end of her bright future.
That set off a whole other wave of guilt that had me gasping for breath like Castle. God, when would this end? When would I get to feel like a normal woman again? Love without fear, act without thinking, think without guilt? It was a vicious cycle at the moment and I was tail-spinning out.
Alexis, I thought, focus on Alexis and Castle and the fact that Martha will be here soon with them. Focus on the fact that she's alive. And so I clung to Castle almost as tightly as he was clinging to me.
The doctor gave us our moment before, clearing his throat gently, "Ah, when you're ready, I can take you to see her."
Castle took one last, heaving, relieved breath before pulling away, and rejoining our hands.
"Now. Please, I need to see her now."