Chapter 4: Panic
Kate is frozen, still slumped against Alexis's hospital bed. Her mind is going a mile a minute, trying to piece everything together. She realizes she's breathing heavily, panicky, as her vision starts to blur. She's not sure if it's from tears or lack of oxygen. How did this get so bad? When did everything fall apart?
She's been asking herself that for weeks, but now she has her answer. And she wishes she didn't. She can't shake the look in his eyes out of her mind, the pain she felt reflected back at her, made so much worse on the man who had always worked so hard – and so successfully – to make her smile.
She's pulled out of her spiraling thoughts when she feels the bed shift under her, and she suddenly remembers where she is. She turns quickly to see Alexis's eyes opening slowly, confusion registering on her face as she struggles to figure out where she is.
"Hey, Alexis," Kate whispers, trying to sound soothing, making a concerted effort to put Kate away and replace her with Detective Beckett, calm, cool, and collected in the face of a less-than-ideal situation. "You're in the hospital. Do you remember what happened?" She brushes some bright red hair off her forehead with one hand, uses the other to give her good arm a gentle, reassuring squeeze.
"Detective Beckett?" Alexis finally opens her eyes completely, focuses on the woman standing over her. "What happened?"
"You were at a graduation party. Do you remember what happened?" Kate's pushing her, not wanting to frighten her by blurting, "You got shot." She doesn't want to overwhelm her. She sees Alexis thinking hard, her brow furrowed.
"There were guns," she starts, recognition flashing across her face. She tries to sit up, feeling panic overwhelm her.
"It's ok, Alexis," Kate says soothingly, putting her hand firmly on her good shoulder to ease her back into bed. "They're in custody. It's over. It's ok." This feels an awful lot like déjà vu, and she wonders how much Little Castle dislikes her these days, too.
Alexis settles back down, her eyes starting to shine with tears. She looks at her shoulder, pain suddenly flashing across her face. She squeezes her eyes, trying to push some of the pain away but simultaneously forcing the tears from her eyes. Kate, noticing her discomfort, presses the call button for a nurse. "We'll get you some pain medicine, ok? And then you can go back to sleep." Alexis just nods, unable to say anything, grateful for the help. A nurse comes rushing in, and Kate whispers something to her before she goes to the IV and adds the pain medicine.
"You're going to feel it going in, it's going to feel weird, but then it's going to go away and you'll feel much better," the nurses says reassuringly. Sure enough, Alexis feels when the pain medicine slides into her veins, a woozy feeling overtaking her brain, and she realizes her expression must have changed because Kate is suddenly squeezing her hand. And then, just as quickly as it came, it's over, and she's drifting into sleep.
"Where's dad?" she manages out as her heavy eyelids fall.
"He's here, he just stepped out. He's been here the whole time, and he'll be back when you wake up, ok? For now, just get some sleep," Kate replies softly.
Something dark flashes through Alexis's features at that, and Kate realizes that she's recalling the circumstances of her life (their lives?) before the shooting. It's clear she is working hard to form a coherent sentence before the drugs pull her under, and Kate holds her breath, bracing herself for more harsh words.
What she gets is much worse.
Alexis opens her eyes, just long enough for Kate to catch how wounded she looks, and sighs deeply. Her voice is soft, faraway, and laced with so much sadness, it sounds like her heart is breaking as she speaks.
"You really need to let him go," she whispers, her voice part sadness, part pleading, part exhausted anger.
She sounds an awful lot like her dad.
Kate stumbles out into the hallway, leans her back against the nearest wall.
Let him go. Let him go. Let him go.
The words echo in her brain, reverberate around her skull. Hearing them from Alexis, picturing her, even in her drug-induced haze, trying desperately to protect her father, makes Kate's gut twist, her chest tighten. That breaks her heart, the fact that somehow she's sent him into such a downward spiral that even his teenaged daughter has noticed, has started to feel some of the pain that's been clouding his eyes lately, has stepped up to try to protect him.
Protect him. Because now, he needs to be protected from her. She bends down, hands on her thighs, because she honestly feels like she might be sick.
Let him go.
Hearing it laid out like that, as though that's her only option, brings a stinging clarity to her. She can't let him go. Mentally, physically, emotionally, could not possibly force herself to just walk away from him now.
She loves him too much to do that, to give up on him when he has stood by her through everything she's thrown at him.
She knows in that instant what she has to do: she has to fight. Hard. For him, for them.
Fight to rebuild what she had so quickly, so carelessly dismantled.
Fight to make him see that she loves him and that she never ever plans to let him go.