Lifeboats
Just like that, his lungs collapse.
His ribcage is a ladder of bone, carving out foothold after foothold to ascend his chest cavity, and now the rungs are crumbling. Molasses leach in; fill him from the bottom up. He claws for purchase at the underside of his chair, eyes swinging wildly and then landing heavy on the floor.
Rick manages a breath, tasting like blood and tar at the back of his throat but there, keeping him alive. Okay, a breath. Eyes closed. Another.
One more.
Good. Air. The creeping shadows at the edges of his vision draw back, settle in embryonic wisps low in his stomach.
"You're sure?"
"I'm afraid so." Doctor Kelekian nudges the box of tissues on his desk towards Rick, but he doesn't need them. He's not crying. He's holding it together. There isn't another option.
He sits up a little straighter, tugs at the bottom of his suit jacket. Like funeral clothes, his mother said earlier. She's not wrong. "What, uh- what do I do?"
"We'll devise a treatment plan. I want to start with radiotherapy, since we've caught it early, but we'll most likely have to do a course of chemotherapy as well." The doctor folds his hands, sets them on top of Rick's notes on the desk. "Things look good, Mr Castle. I'm very confident about your prospects."
"Okay. And, uh- is there anything else I can do? Lifestyle changes or something?" He knots his fingers together in his lap, the still-clammy digits fumbling for purchase against one another.
Kelekian nudges a pamphlet across the desk towards him, his face lined with a pity that turns Rick's stomach. "I know you don't smoke currently, so don't start. Try to cut down on the amount of alcohol you drink. Eat well, get enough sleep. Exercise if you feel up to it. There's more information in the pamphlet."
Shit.
A pamphlet. He has a pamphlet on coping with cancer.
He has cancer.
The leaves crack under his feet as he walks through the park, fall rolling in already. He ducks his chin, wishes he'd thought to wear a scarf today.
Ahead of him on the path, a woman walks hand in hand with her son. The boy looks up at her, cheeks flushed from the wind and mouth split into a grin. His mother laughs, arranges the curling mass of her hair around her collar.
Dark hair. Like the strips of bark he used to peel from trees in his youth, strands long enough to coil. Like-
No. he is not thinking of her. Not right now. He can't. There are lines of pain running through him like tributaries, fissures in his nervous system so he has to fight the trembling mass of his body for every step.
A bench looms on the horizon like a mirage and he staggers towards it, sinking down so hard the wooden slats slice at his thighs. His spine bows, head almost between his knees and his breath coming fast between his teeth.
Shit.
He clutches at the underside of the seat and locks his elbows, sheer force of will allowing him to battle back the tremors that wrack his body.
He won't succumb to it. Not in the middle of the park, in the middle of the day. Not here, where anyone could see him.
Beside him, a woman who must have at least twenty years on his mother pats his back. He startles and almost shifts away, but some age-old thing sings in his bones, has him yearning for this stranger's love. Her fingers are twisted with wear and curling into the flesh between his shoulder blades, soft noises of comfort flooding him so he could weep.
He manages to lift his head and look, his mouth curving into a half-smile that tastes sour at the back of his throat.
"Are you alright, dear?"
Rick chokes a little, can't arrange all the letters that pool in his mouth, can't make them fit. His words crumble around the tombstone of his teeth, sentry guards to stop his heart from spilling out. "Yes. Just had some bad news."
"I'm sorry to hear that." She slips her hand down from his back, pats his knee on her way to taking his hand. "I'm Kathleen."
The woman doesn't say anything else, doesn't ask for his name, and somehow it's easier that way. Rick forces himself to meet her eyes, finds them a startling grey and soaked in a kindness that seeps through the cradle of his palm against hers and into the fissures of his wretched heart.
"I'm Richard. Rick."
She smiles at him, parentheses around her eyes and mouth that she seems to wear with pride. A testimony to the life she's lived, the laughter given so easily. "Well then, I'm Kate."
He hisses through his teeth, has to grit them to hold back a sob that threatens to choke him. "I'm alright, really."
"I don't doubt that you will be. In the meantime, would you like some coffee?" Kathleen – and no, he can't call her Kate – stands, tugs him up with her. He suddenly realises how tiny this woman is; he must have at least a foot on her, maybe more. She releases his hand, ushers him to move ahead down the path while she gathers her bag.
"You don't have to do this." Rick turns back to look at her, finds her shadowing him so close that their toes touch. "I can look after myself."
"Nonsense. You look like someone who needs a friend if ever I saw one, and I'm not in the business of ignoring other people's pain. Too many people live that way in this city and it's an ugly thing, Rick. I won't partake in it."
He takes a step back, almost shamed by Kathleen's words, the sharp bite of truth beneath her soft smile. "Okay. Coffee."
Kathleen pushes him through the door of a coffee shop he's somehow never noticed before. It's beautiful. He lets his companion push him into a leather armchair, distracts himself with the bookshelves while he waits for her to order.
He'll have to sneak the money into her purse later.
She comes back, passes him a mug of something he won't question. He clutches it to his chest, allows the heat to leach into the space behind his sternum and ease the knot of terror lodged there.
"Now, Rick, it does no good to let our pain fester. So talk."
And somehow, the wise and ancient face of this woman eases the muscles of his jaw so he can open his mouth, form words. Talk.
"I just found out that I have cancer. And my daughter, she's only nine, this will crush her. God, I'm-" he has to pause a moment, sip his coffee and try to stop trembling. "I'm only thirty three. What if this is it?"
"I'm so terribly sorry to hear that. Really. Your little girl, what's her name?"
"Alexis." Rick wipes a hand over his face, battles back the stupid tears. He has to get it together. If even just his little girl's name does this to him then meeting her eyes will kill him where he stands. "Her name's Alexis."
"Lovely. Well, kids are more resilient than so many people give them credit for. Alexis will be just fine, I'm sure. She'll have her mother."
"No. We're divorced. Her mother lives in Los Angeles. They don't really see each other. It's just me and my daughter." Rick drains the last of his mug, his stomach suddenly in revolt. "I should really get back to her. Thank you for the coffee and for listening."
"Oh, any time dear. I'm usually in here, so if you ever need anything you come find me, okay? Good luck with everything."
Rick manages a wan smile and forces his feet to move, take him home. He needs his baby girl.
His girls aren't home when he gets back to the loft, the cavernous emptiness of the place somehow more than he can bear. He heads straight for his study, toes off his shoes at the door and pours himself two fingers of whiskey. He swirls the glass a moment, lets himself have just the space of a single exhale to think, and then he knocks back the liquor.
It burns. Sharper than he remembers, blistering along his nerve endings. He sucks in a cooling breath, opens his laptop. He doesn't want to think about it right now.
Maybe ever.
And Derrick Storm is badass and high-octane and carries a gun. He would never, ever be defeated by a cluster of overzealous cells.
He doesn't stop at the sound of the door, doesn't look up to meet his mother's gaze on him from the threshold, finds he can't even go and check on his kid. She'll ask if they know what the lump is and why he smells funny and where he got a grass stain on his elbow.
He can't break her heart. He won't. There has to be a way for her not to know. Please, God, let Alexis not have to know.
"Richard."
His mother rests a cool hand at his neck, leans over his shoulder to read what he's written. She mutters his own words back to him and they slide, vicious, in between his bones, lay him bare right to the marrow. "What would you do, if you knew you only had one day or one week or one month to live?"
She sucks in a gasp through her teeth, takes a faltering step back and then manages to gather herself, goes to sink into an armchair across from him. "Richard, darling? Is that for Derrick?"
"No Mother. Not Derrick. Not really. I-" he has to close his eyes, can't face his mother older than he's ever seen her and so very small in the embrace of the easy chair, her hands fragile as leaves where they clutch the arm. "It's cancer."
She chokes out a sob; her fingers already coming up to press it back inside before he even has his eyes open. "Oh, Richard. Oh darling."
Martha stands, comes around the desk again to cradle his cheeks in her palms, kiss his forehead. "Mother, it's alright. The doctor said they've caught it early, that he's optimistic. He said he'll give me some time to digest it and we'll make a treatment plan next week."
"Darling. Oh, Richard." His mother is trembling now, all the strength he's so admired crumbling in her wrists, her knees. "I'm so sorry. Oh God, Alexis. What are you going to tell her?"
"Nothing. She can't know."
His mother sinks back against the desk, half-sitting on it. "How are you going to keep it from her?
"I'll tell her as little as I can get away with." He shrugs, rubs a hand over his face to hold himself together. "I don't know what I'll do when I have to go in for chemo. When my hair falls out. I can't-"
Rick chokes on the words, images of his baby girl swimming in his vision. How confused she'd be, how devastated. He won't do that to her. Not now. Not ever. "I can't do this now."
He hears the trembling cadence of his own voice, burning tendrils of shame crawling through his nerves, turning his axons to smoke.
"Okay. Alright. We don't have to think about it now." Rick follows his mother's gaze to the computer screen again, reads the words he wrote in desperation an hour or so before. "What wish would you fulfil? What book would you write? What person would you declare your love to?"
She shakes her head, curls just brushing the tops of her shoulders. "Oh Richard. Darling."
"I can't stop thinking about her, Mother."
"About Katie?"
He grits his teeth, manages a nod. Her name still burns every time he hears it, crumbles all his defences. "Yes. Sometimes I dream about what it would have been like if we'd stayed. If you hadn't forced me into boarding school."
"Richard-"
"I know." He catches his mother's hand in his own and squeezes, feels the fragile reed of her fingers a little too clearly. She's old. And yes, she'd kill him for saying it, and she hides it well, but she is. Guilt surges low in his stomach, thick and asphyxiating like tar.
He's not sure she can handle this. He's not sure he can either.
"I forgave you a long time ago. I just- can we not talk about this right now?"
"Of course. But Richard, you'll need someone to lean on through this. Maybe you could call?"
Rick drops his head to his hands, the weight of regret suddenly too much for him. "And say what? 'Hey Katie, I know it's been twenty years but I need you now so drop everything'?"
"Richard."
"What? What am I supposed to do?" His mother opens her mouth to argue and he sighs, cuts her off with a wave of his hand. "You know what, never mind. She's not here. I'll just get through it on my own."
"You're not on your own darling. I'm here. Don't forget that."
He wishes it could make it easier, but he's not seven anymore. He doesn't want to run to his mother for comfort. "Thank you. Would you-" he ducks his head, finds himself unable to meet her eyes.
"You want me to go." His mother steps back from the desk, hissing as her ankle gives way under her. She's trembling; he sees it now that she doesn't have a surface to lean on.
"Please. I just need a little while alone. Would you check on Alexis?"
Shit. His daughter. Her expectant face as it blooms with hope, tender hand sliding into his, all of it is going to break him.
"Of course. What should I tell her?"
"That I love her. And that I'll be fine."
He watches his mother disappear, hears the lilting cadence of her voice as she finds his daughter. He hopes she hugs Alexis, hopes she comforts his daughter the way he can't allow her to comfort him.
Shit. Yeah.
He needs Katie.