Chapter Thirty-Eight
When Castle came awake, he could see the angle of the sun through his blinds. It was at least mid-day and if the ache in his side was anything to go by, probably getting close to time for another dose of medication. Shrugging off the thought of asking for help, he cautiously sat up and climbed out of bed.
After a quick trip to the bathroom that was an exercise in breathing control in order to make the short journey there and back, he happily fell back into bed. Well, he didn't happily fall anywhere anymore; he carefully scooted and cautiously arranged himself.
Despite the discomfort, he was glad to actually feel as if he had control of his own brain again. He didn't know how long he had been in the drug induced state he found himself in nearly constantly lately, but he knew he was sick of it. He had finally reached the point where he would rather deal with the pain over losing his mental faculties for one more minute.
Castle's life had become a study in surrealism, a veritable cacophony of contradictions and confusion that left his head spinning, sometimes more than the drugs coursing through his system. After he was released from the hospital, it was the last time he really fully grasped what day or time it was. His time was spent sleeping through a drug induced haze, struggling to move even enough to get out of bed.
According to Dr. Hook, he was supposed to take it easy and try to lie still as much as possible to prevent the need for surgery to repair what was currently minor damage to one of the muscle groups in his stomach, but could be made more severe by continued irritation. That was easier said than done.
Unfortunately, between Alexis, Kate, and his mother, they seemed to be forcing water down him like he was a fish and he had to make frequent trips to the bathroom. Sitting up was nearly impossible alone, the pain and a feeling like he was tearing his gut every time he tried to use the muscles needed to simply sit up.
He was surprised Kate seemed to be there, close enough to lend a hand, whenever he woke up or came to or phased into cognizant thought. He was fairly certain he was awake a lot more than it seemed, but his ability to form cohesive and coherent memories seemed inhibited by his medication.
He did remember several times, trying to have a conversation with Kate that she would briskly cut off and subsequently leave the room. She told him she didn't want to do this now, and as much as he understood considering his own mental state, he still tried to talk to her, apologize, and work through whatever was going on. It was tabled every time and she would throw off waves of frustration if he pressed her. She had a trump card, however, because he was basically chained to his bed and she was capable of leaving the room.
So, his life became about very little. He slept, laughed, ate, laughed, screamed, cried, laughed, drank. Everything was funny, except of course when it wasn't. Whining became linked to his movement, if not burning tears in his eyes that he refused to let fall unless he was alone. That didn't work out very well, considering someone was always popping into his room to check on him.
He began to wonder if any of them had a life.
Alexis would pop her head in to chat with him about whatever ridiculous notion had occurred to him in her absence. His mother breezed through and simply shook her head at his antics. Ryan and Esposito stopped by to see him and they laughed together so much that he needed to take his medicine right one time, despite having been trying to ease off it a little.
He didn't remember them leaving and thought he had either slipped deep into one of his 'drug induced word vomit sessions' as his mother and daughter had taken to calling them, or simply passed out. He hoped for the latter, because whenever he heard about the random thoughts he spouted when not fully aware of himself, he cringed.
Beckett was an interesting visitor, though. She maintained what felt like an emotional almost professional distance for the most part. Sometimes she'd laugh with him. He didn't know how it had started, but during what felt like a very lucid moment for him, he informed her that he felt like a lump lying around in bed and doing nothing. He asked her to type while he dictated some writing to her.
He felt really good about that time and was sure that once he regained his strength, those would be some of the best chapters he had ever written.
Eventually, his pain level evened out and he started backing off the medication. It didn't feel so much like a fresh wound every time he tried to sit up. His cognizance started to return as he weaned himself down from the pills. It was nice to realize that it had only been two days of being completely out of his mind. A lower dose of medication on the third day had him almost feeling human.
His three favorite ladies had taken to joining him in his room for meals so he could still share the family dynamic, though he was on bed rest. Today, however, Kate came in alone with a tray of food and his mid-day medication. He was feeling well enough to shift and raise himself up against pillows piled behind him, even after the strain of his solo trip to the bathroom.
"You look better." she commented.
He grinned at her, "I feel almost human."
Beckett started in on the list of questions she always peppered him with on waking. He had told her more than once that he didn't have a head injury and that he still remembered his own name. This time when she started, he refused to answer and simply glared at her.
"Ok, if you're going to be uncooperative." she intoned lightly as she grabbed the tray with their food on it and started to walk away.
"My name is Richard Castle." he answered her earlier question and watched her turn back towards him. "I think it's Wednesday, but don't be mad if it's not, because I've been pretty out of it. I live in New York City. The year is 2011."
"Anything else?" she asked.
He racked his brain trying to remember if there were questions he'd missed, but couldn't think of anything. Instead, he gave a little shrug. "My brain is fine." he replied, frustration with the entire situation bubbling out of him in the short sentence. He was sick of lying around. He was tired of being exhausted. He was so freaking done with the pain in his stomach every time he moved too quickly, and he was damn fed up with the coddling. Mostly, he was frustrated that it had been days now and he still hadn't gotten her to have a real conversation with him.
She was there, and that had to mean something, but he couldn't find out what because she was being so frustratingly evasive.
Kate brought the tray back and set it over his lap so he could reach his lunch. She grabbed a small stack of papers off the nightstand and slapped them onto the tray next to his plate. "Why don't you read what you've dictated in the past two days and then you can tell me how 'fine' your brain is?"
With that, she turned and moved to the door. She glanced back at him a moment and added, "It's verbatim." Then she left the room, her lunch forgotten on the tray beside his.
He didn't understand her, but for the first time, his mind was clear enough to really try to. Something was off, he knew that much, something besides him being injured. Figuring she had at least left him a clue in the small stack of papers, he picked them up. He was anxious to reread words he didn't really remember beyond the vague understanding that it was really good.
As he started reading through the pages his confusion grew. This was probably the furthest thing from good writing. The sentences were choppy, the syntax obviously screwed, the word order was appalling, but more than that, it just didn't make any sense. He jumped topics like he had severe ADHD and beyond that those topics were a jumbled mess of nonsense.
Somehow, what he had thought was so good ended up being a rambling mess. Somewhere along the way his novel had turned into a train wreck, but like any other wreck, he couldn't bring himself to look away.
It started with an in depth examination of the differences between dwarves, lawn gnomes, and elves. The correlations extended for two pages and expressed the view that they were all somehow related, possibly cousins. The hypothesis ended with the realization that they were likely evolved cousins to the Ewoks.
Another three pages was spent detailing the habits of the killer, though as he thought about it, nothing in the case he was writing into his latest book even remotely resembled this. A killer family, cruising city to city with a traveling circus and committing a series of brutal axe murders. The wounds to the victims would vary in size, because like the three bears from Goldilocks, there was one that was just right for each member of the family. The dad would use a maul that hacked right through any kind of bone that got in the way. The mom would use a standard axe due to her smaller size. The kid would have a hatchet and participate willingly because it was all she knew.
He continued reading the odd mix of fantasy, science fiction, movie references, and poorly crafted crime drama. Sometimes, the words would deviate to their actual life and she had typed up some very humorous observations he made about their friends and his family. Whenever Beckett or Kate came into the writing, it lasted no more than two sentences before a page break and the next session's ramblings began.
Thinking back, those had been the times he'd tried to shift to a serious conversation with her and away from 'writing', though he couldn't call it that now that he was actually reading it with a fairly clear brain. He focused on his pain level for a moment and allowed his frustration over his mind to win this one, he could take the pain.
His pill sat untouched as he finished his sandwich and a few minutes later he had gotten through the reading Kate had left for him. He couldn't believe she had actually sat there and typed out this rambling dialogue. She could have pretended to be typing for all the good this pile of crap was going to do him. "Kate!" he called through the closed door of his room, hoping she was nearby in the living room.
A moment later she came in through the door to his study. She had probably been reading, he did note she had done a lot of that in a chair in the corner of his room. Sometimes he would wake up to find her there, quietly, intently reading some book or slumped with whatever she had been reading in her lap as she slept in what had to be an uncomfortable position.
"What is this?" he asked, waving the pages a moment before setting them back down.
Her eyes scanned his tray, ignoring his question for a moment and he was going to be incredibly pissed if she lectured him about not finishing his lunch instead of tell him the meaning of giving him what he'd written in the past two days. There had to be some reason behind it, but he worried his mind and body were too tired to grasp it. "You didn't take your medication."
"Could you just stop with the damn nursemaid bit for five freaking minutes and have a serious conversation with me?" he asked in frustration. It seemed he couldn't go ten minutes without someone telling him what to do and he was getting more than tired of it.
She looked at him a moment, her mouth a tight line and her eyes unreadable, but tired. Castle found himself really looking at her for the first time since they had parted in her car before all this happened. That couldn't be true, because he had spent a lot of time the past two days watching her, but he hadn't really seen this strain and exhaustion. She looked pale, almost sick, but that could have simply been the contrast between her skin and the dark smudges under her eyes that clearly communicated her lack of sleep.
Even her body language screamed that she was tired, exhausted really, and he realized that he didn't want to have this conversation with her when she was obviously on edge enough already from lack of sleep. That realization had everything falling into place. She had avoided the conversations with him because she wanted him not to be drugged up. She wanted him to have clarity and understand what he was saying, what she was saying. That's why she had typed his rambling thoughts. That's why she had given them to him. She wanted him to understand that he had been pretty well out of it.
"I'll make you a deal." he offered. "I'll take half of this pill and my afternoon nap, but we're talking before I take any more medication. No more putting it off, Kate. I'm serious."
He watched her consider this for a long moment. If he were as perceptive as he sometimes gave himself credit for, he'd label that look in her eyes as fear. However, he felt a wave of victory wash through him as she gave a small tight nod. He broke the pill in half against the edge of his plate and swallowed it, downing the rest of his water to avoid any further arguments or reprimands.
Beckett grabbed the tray and moved towards the door. "Leave it on the dresser." he told her, getting an odd look for the comment. "If I have to be in full control of my mental state before you talk to me, then I think it's only fair that you are, too."
"I'm fine, Castle." she informed him, but he watched her set the tray down and turn to face him fully.
"You need to get some sleep."
She was already shaking her head before he even finished, "I said I'm fine. Leave it alone."
Castle rearranged the pillows, trying for a casual attitude and he carefully situated himself back to lying down. "Not going to happen," she turned away and grabbed the knob as if about to leave. He raised his voice to ensure she heard it and the seriousness of his intent, "If you walk out that door right now, I'm going to follow you. I don't care how far you want to run off, I'm going to follow you, pain be damned. You need to take care of yourself, Kate. You need to stop hovering over me and get some damn sleep."
She rolled her eyes at him, the classic gesture this time clearly a cover as something burned in her eyes that she was fighting to keep hidden from him, "You need to stay in bed." she informed him.
Castle's response was to pull back the covers on the empty side of his bed, "You stay, I'll stay. You go, I'm going, too."
The flash of anger in her eyes surprised him, but he watched her turn back and face the door. Hand on the knob, Kate leaned forward and rested her head against the wood surface. "I'll go lay on the couch." she informed him, a hint of defeat in her tone.
"No." he told her calmly defiant, glancing at the clock beside his bed, "You do that and Alexis coming home in half an hour will wake you up." He patted the bed next to him as she turned back to look at him. "Please?" he tried a different tactic, sincerity. He watched her expression soften just a bit. "I've missed you." he added on a softer tone.
He heard the shaky release of a breath and then watched her straighten her shoulders. The way she moved towards him was determined, her expression a mask of frustration and annoyance as if she were proceeding against her will.
She climbed into the bed, keeping to the farthest edge and turned on her side to face away from him with a disgruntled huff.
He reached across the expanse of empty bed to run his hand along her arm. It was an awkward angle from where he was lying on his back. He would have much rather rolled over to wrap his arms around her, despite her obvious attempt at distancing herself, but his injuries wouldn't permit it. She didn't shrug off his touch, but she didn't relax. She stayed rigid on the edge of the bed, there was no way she'd relax enough like that to get any sleep at all.
The silence stretched out and his hand stilled as he waited for her to relax. He got tired of the waiting; he'd never been good at patience. "Why haven't you been sleeping?"
If the way she shoved his hand away from her was any indication, she wasn't interested in talking.
He couldn't watch her lying there tense anymore, so with his hand now lying behind her, itching to move back up and touch her, he turned his head away and stared at the numbers on his bed side clock. The digital display clicked through three excruciatingly long minutes before he gave up again and turned back to her.
"Come on, Beckett. You're supposed to at least try. There's no way you're going to sleep if you're tense." he teased, hoping to lighten the mood enough to get her to relax, but fairly certain it was in vain.
He had finally resigned himself to sleep and let his eyes drift closed when he heard her soft words fill the air. The silence of his room the only reason her quiet confession made its way to him. "I close my eyes and you're lying there, bleeding out and I can't do anything to stop it." he wanted to stop here there, remind her that he's ok, but her tone is mesmerizing with its raw pain. It sets an ache in his stomach that has nothing to do with his injury. The lump forming in his throat at the haunting sound of her prevents his interruption and after a long slow breath, she continues, "I can't watch it anymore. I can't feel the warm blood on my hands or see that look in your eyes or hear your words again. What would I tell Alexis if I let something happen to you? How would I ease her pain? Could I even do that or would I just be this daily reminder of the fact that she didn't have a dad anymore because of me?"
"Shh." he tried to sooth her, the non-word seeming to be the only sound he was capable of making just then and so he repeated it again as he reached for her arm, this time gently tugging.
Kate rolled to face him, but dropped her eyes, probably attempting to hide the moisture he had seem shining in them, but her voice had already given her away. He pulled gently again and she scooted closer, settling her head on the pillow beside his. She wrapped her arms around his, fingers of one hand twining together with those on his hand and he gave a gentle squeeze
"Close your eyes." he told her softly, so close he could feel her sigh against his skin as she finally brought her gaze up to meet his. "I'll be here when you wake up." Her eyes seemed to search his for the meaning behind his words and he had the sudden realization that she might be asking him if he just meant this time. "Always." he informed her softly, ignoring the pain in his side as he brought his free hand around to gently caress her cheek before letting his fingers brush softly over her eyes. He watched Kate's eyelids flutter a moment and he repeated the gesture one last time before she finally went along and kept her eyes closed.
Castle watched her for a long moment. It seemed to take ages for the crease in her forehead to smooth, the tension to ease from her expression. Sleep was hers, but for the first time in what felt like forever, he was not tired. Instead he laid beside her, feeling her embracing his arm, her warmth, the gentle puffs of her breath against him and watched, almost mesmerized as she relaxed.
x.x.x
A/N: Since Castletasmic didn't want to give me anything to put in here, I stole some verbage instead. On a side note, verbage is my most commonly used non-word. I also like percipitatious, because rainy sometimes doesn't cover it.
So… do I hate this chapter? No. Do I like it? Not really. I'll give it a few more days and maybe it will grow on me, but until then I figured you would all want me to stop hoarding it and hoping it would shape up into something I actually wanted to give you.
Review that made my day: Ssn04, for sending me out to the ABC Castle board to see what you were talking about concerning finding out about this story there. I can't believe this story was at the top of anybody's list to recommend for summer reading. That made my day, times about a million.
Thanks to everyone for reading.