Jane Doe
The moment she murmurs the date to these two men in her hospital room, one the most familiar face she knows and the other an almost-stranger, it's obvious that she's wrong. Neither of them is particularly good at hiding it; her father looks devastated in a way she really hasn't seen since he got sober four years back. "Dad?"
"Katie, sweetheart-" Her dad grits out, the rest of his words crumbling at the barrier of his teeth. Shaking his head, her father stands up and strides out of the room. Leaving her alone with her favourite author, whom she has been desperately trying to ignore since he said that she's his wife.
Because holy hell. No. She sees the ring on her finger, sees the desolation on his face, but her brain just won't make the leap from A to B, won't connect the dots to come out with her being married to Richard freaking Castle, because seriously? No way she'd forget that.
"Kate. You uh, you don't remember me?" He murmurs, hands twitching as though he wants nothing more than to cradle hers in his own. The way he's looking at her – like she's his whole universe – makes her heart pound in her chest.
Swallowing hard, she dips her head and looks away from him, her finger coming up to trace the edge of the tape that holds the cannula in place at the crook of her elbow. "No."
"You don't remember. . .anything past 2008?" He says, quieter still. As though giving voice to the horror will make it all the more real. She knows that feeling well enough, how every time she had to say my mother is dead the knowledge grew a little more rotten, gnarled and twisted inside her.
At least she manages to do him the courtesy of meeting his eyes, this man she's never met but knows so well, his own personality bleeding through the words he writes and his face staring at her from the back of countless book jackets. "Nothing. What- how much am I missing?"
She almost said what year is it but the concept is just too weird, too completely bizarre to speak out loud. He stares at her for a long moment, his face contorted into anguish, and then he sighs. "I shouldn't tell you. They'll do a psych eval and-"
"I don't need a psych eval." She spits, venom making her words taste foul as they come out. "I need you to tell me the truth. How much of my life have I forgotten?"
"It's 2018. You're missing the last ten years." He says mournfully, his gaze trapped on the linoleum. She's grateful for that, at least, to not have him watch her suck in a breath and slam her eyes closed and try not to sob.
How can ten years of her life be missing? How is this happening? Lacing her fingers together, Kate presses her palms over top of her eyes and pushes until colour starbursts behind her lids. There are so many things she wants to know, but first. "How long have we been married?"
"Four years." He smiles at that, meeting her eyes again and his thumb comes to his ring finger, twisting the wedding band around and around. And at least there's this. She's grateful that her future self – well, her now self – has found someone to be happy with.
It's just. . .a lot to take in. Her bottom lip is raw but she chews on it anyway, suddenly exhausted. Her head is pounding and the place at her cheekbone where her skin got scraped raw is stinging like a bitch. She just wants to sleep, and maybe when she wakes up this won't be happening to her. She won't have forgotten her husband. "What am I gonna do?"
Before Castle gets a chance to answer her father comes bustling back into the room with a doctor in tow. The woman holds her hand out for Kate to shake and her grip is firm, her palms cool. Immediately, it sets Kate at ease and she feels some of the tension loosening in her shoulders as they drop a little. "Detective Beckett? Good to meet you. I'm Doctor Reid. Your father tells me you're suffering some memory loss?"
"It would seem so." Beckett says derisively, shooting a glance at her father. She can't meet Castle's eyes anymore, not when there are other people in the room watching her. Other people here to see that she doesn't know her husband, doesn't love him.
The doctor flicks her eyes over the monitor by the bed and makes a few notes on her clipboard before she turns back to Kate. "Okay. Can you tell me your name?"
"Katherine Beckett." She says, inordinately grateful that she's still got that much. There've been horror stories before of people waking up from an accident with no idea who they are; at least she's only missing ten years and not-
Holy shit. She must be thirty eight years old. Oh god. She's almost forty. "Can you tell me how old you are?"
"Mr Castle told me what year it is. So I can figure it out." Kate doesn't miss the way he flinches when she calls him Mr Castle, his face turned away and his jaw sharp with tension. Well, she supposes she calls him Rick now. If they're married.
The thought snatches the breath from her chest every time she thinks of it and she turns back to the doctor, forces herself to concentrate on the other woman rather than either of the men in the room. Every time she opens her mouth she breaks both of their hearts.
"Well Ms Beckett, your father told me you think it's 2008. Is that correct?" Doctor Reid says gently, watching Kate from over top of the clipboard in her hands.
Gritting out a sigh, Kate rakes a hand through her hair and shrugs. "Clearly it's not correct, but yes. . .that's what I thought."
"Okay. I'm going to go and find out if any of our psychiatric doctors are available to come and see you." The doctor says and then she's gone and the little room is cloaked in silence, all three of them reeling from the shock of it. Castle's phone rings and he jerks, tugs it out and checks the caller ID before he hurries away from the room and down the hallway.
In the chair next to her bed, Kate's father looks more tired than she can remember ever seeing him. And yes, maybe that's because he's ten years older than she was expecting him to be when she woke up, but the absolute desolation on his face isn't helping much.
"Dad. What am I going to do?" She says quietly, searching his face for some kind of reassurance.
To his credit, he does manage a smile for her and he reaches for her hand, clutches it tightly. "It'll be okay, Katie. You're not badly hurt, and that's the main thing. We'll do everything we can to get your memories back."
"But what if they don't come back?" She says, her voice crackling with anguish as she looks at her father. Her eyes flood with tears and she blinks them away, pressing a trembling hand to her mouth. What is she supposed to do?
From the looks of things, her whole life has changed in these last ten years, but she's completely in the dark about everything that's happened to her. So far, all she really knows is that she's gotten married sometime in the past ten years.
Her father squeezes the hand still trapped in his own, reaching up to swipe away a tear with his thumb. "Katie, sweetheart, trust me. You're going to be okay. There are so many people that care about you."
"Like Richard Castle?" She lifts an eyebrow at her father, staring him down. Her dad knows that she's an enormous fan of Castle's books, that they got her through her mother's death, and so he must understand her total astonishment to find out that she's married to him. "Dad, are he and I. . .happy together?"
At that, her dad huffs a breath of laughter and shakes his head, grinning at her. "Katie, I have never seen you so happy as you have been since you married Rick. The man adores you, and you adore him right back."
"I don't know him, Dad." She murmurs, drawing her knees up closer to her chest. "What if he expects me to be able to be his wife? I don't want him to get hurt when he realises that I can't do that."
"Rick has been trying his best to do what's right for you for nine years now. I'm sure he'll give you whatever you need. Just don't push him out, alright? I know he's essentially a stranger to you but you're his wife. He loves you, and he needs to be allowed to help you."
"Okay." She mumbles, feeling like a little girl, and then Castle – Rick – God, she doesn't even know what to call him – reappears in the doorway and comes back into the room.
There's only one chair in the room and her father is currently occupying it, but Castle doesn't sit at Kate's feet again. Instead he stays carefully on the other side of the room, his back against the wall. His eyes are red and a little swollen and his face, even from over here, looks cold and clammy as if he splashed water over it to hide the evidence of his crying. If she had any doubts about how deeply he cares for her after the way he kissed her when he first walked in, the way he looks now is erasing them completely. She's broken this man's heart, and she barely even knows him.
"I spoke to my daughter. Explained that I don't know when I'll make it home." He shares a look with Kate's father that she doesn't understand, the two men watching each other a moment before Castle nods slowly. "If you'll let me, I'd really like to stay here with you until you're discharged, Kate."
"You have your own life." She says before she's even thought it through. The worst thing about getting hurt, or sick, is how much of a burden she always feels to the people who end up looking after her. Which is why for the most part, she doesn't let anyone see that weaker part of herself.
Except, if she married this man. . .she never would have committed to that unless she'd thrown herself completely in to their relationship. Unless she trusted him.
"You're my life, Kate." He's quiet, his head bowed as if in shame, and her heart breaks for this handsome stranger who looks so utterly dejected.
Her father squeezes her hand to get her attention and then lets go of it, leans in a little closer and speaks quietly enough that Castle might not even hear. "Katie, if you want me to stay then I will, but it should be Rick with you. And the nurses aren't going to be happy if we're both hanging around."
"I don't know him, Dad." She whispers, panic rising in her throat. If she's left alone with Castle she's bound to just keep hurting him with how little she knows about him, about them.
Her father nods, his face solemn, and she knows this look. He's made his mind up. "Yes, but he knows you. Better than anyone else does. You must have so many questions, sweetheart, and Rick's the best person to answer them."
"Dad-"
"I'll come back in the morning and bring you some things you might need, if you're still here." Her father says, standing up from his chair and heading for the doorway. "Will Alexis be able to let me in to the loft?"
"Of course." Castle says, staring at Kate's father as if he's just resurfaced from some sort of fugue state. Ironic, really, and it makes her huff out a breath of laughter that earns her a raised eyebrow from both men. "Thank you, Jim."
When her father leaves, he takes all of the carefully maintained, fragile calm with him and suddenly it's so unbearably awkward that Kate can't even look at Castle. It takes almost five minutes with neither of them moving before she finally musters up the courage to speak. "Do you. . .want to sit?"
"Right." He mumbles, the corner of his mouth quirking up into something that might be a smile. Sinking into the chair at her bedside, Castle sets his palms against his thighs and stays completely still, just watching her. "You must have a lot of questions."
"I don't know where to start. And I'm afraid of most of the answers." She confesses in a moment of brutal honesty, watching his reaction carefully. He flinches, and it confirms what she already suspected; the ten missing years are littered with even more tragedy.
Scrubbing a hand over his face, Castle presses his fist to his mouth and watches her, his ring struggling to glint in the too-bright hospital light. "What if I just told you the most important things you've missed?"
"Sure." Kate says, trying desperately not to seem too eager, but before he gets a chance to say anything else Doctor Reid is back with two more doctors in tow, and then there's no time for talking.
It's almost four in the morning by the time they've finished with his wife. She's been subjected to a barrage of tests, scans and x-rays, countless questions posed to her in the interim as they've waited for the results. Her cognitive and motor functions are apparently fine; apart from the scrape to her cheek and some bruises she's physically undamaged. Mentally, however, they have no idea when she might regain her memories. If ever.
She's asleep now, the thin hospital sheet draped over her slender frame as best she could manage when she had to battle the stiffness of starch. Rick sits in the chair at her bedside, one of her hands cradled in both of his, and he watches his wife sleep.
Every time he takes a breath it catches in his throat, the slow-receding panic making him sick and shaky. He keeps trying to tell himself that it's okay, that she's physically unharmed and he should be grateful for that. And he is, truly he is, but she doesn't know him.
She doesn't remember anything of their life together, and he has absolutely no idea what he's supposed to do. He's her husband and he loves her, adores her, would move heaven and earth to keep her safe. And she knows only that they've been married for four years. Only the most basic facts about them.
There hasn't been the time to explain everything to her; how to even begin explaining a whole ten years of someone's life? The doctors wanted to keep her here overnight to be monitored because of her head injury, but hopefully tomorrow he'll be able to take her home and start filling in all of the gaps in her memory.
If she even comes home with him. He's not sure if she's even realised that she lives with him now, that she doesn't have her old apartment to retreat to. Maybe she'll stay with Jim, but his apartment is a one bedroom and Castle is entirely not comfortable with either Kate or her father roughing it on the couch.
No. He's happy for Jim to stay at the loft with them for a while if that's what Kate needs. Anything she needs really, he's willing to do, but he wants so desperately for her to come home with him. And yes, thank you, he knows there are some tough conversations that need to be had before she does.
Like the fact that there's a two year old whirlwind waiting for her back home who adores her and will absolutely not understand why Mommy suddenly doesn't know who he is. He should have told her already, he knows that, but she had seemed so overwhelmed just at the knowledge that they're married and she's missing ten years.
He couldn't bring himself to give her anything more to handle. He'll tell her in the morning when Jim is back, so at least if she screams at him for keeping it from her and sends him away she won't have to be alone.
Eyes drooping, he jerks in the chair and yawns wide, his jaw aching with it. One of the nurses offered to try and find him a cot bed but he declined; there's no way he's going to be able to get any sleep. Not when every time he closes his eyes their entire life together flashes behind his eyelids like ticker tape. If he loses her now, if she walks away from their life, he doesn't know how he's going to survive it.
She stirs around six, her eyes slowly peeling open to meet his. He waits, heart pounding, for a flood of recognition that never comes. "What time s'it?"
Oh, god, he loves her. What are they going to do? "It's just past six am. How are you feeling?"
"Like I got hit by a bus." She says wryly, sitting up in the bed and tugging the hospital gown up where it has slipped down past one shoulder. There's a window set high up in the wall and it sends the golden light of the early morning pouring in to splash over Kate, her hair luminescent in a halo around her head as she watches him.
Shifting in his seat to try and get some feeling back into the parts of his butt that grew numb sometime in the night, Castle hesitates a moment before he works up the courage to speak. "Do you. . .remember anything?"
"No, nothing. I'm sorry." She murmurs, picking at a loose thread at the corner of the crisp white sheet. His heart lurches and he reaches for her other hand, knotting their fingers together.
"Please don't be sorry, Kate. There's no pressure. It's alright."
Her eyes are too big in her face when she stares at him, her mouth a pale slash. "I don't want to disappoint you. But I don't know how to be your wife, Castle."
"Hey, no." He soothes, his thumb stroking over the back of her hand. "I'm not asking you to be my wife right now, Beckett. Just be you, okay? Focus on healing."
She nods at him, but she slowly untangles her hand from his and clasps both of hers together, setting them on top of the sheets. Stiff and awkward with her spine too straight, she sits there and barely manages to look at him.
They're still silent when the nurse comes in some time later and checks Kate's vitals, frowning at the monitor and noting down the figures. "Okay honey, your heart rate's looking a little bit high, so they're probably going to want to keep you here until after lunch."
"Okay." Kate says, suddenly so small and fragile in the hospital bed. Castle wants to say something, offer some sort of reassurance, but before he manages to think of anything Kate's father appears with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder.
"Hey there, you two. Katie, how are you feeling?" Jim says, waving Castle away when he starts to get up and offer his chair to Mr Beckett.
"Not great, Dad." His wife admits, and Jim sets the duffel down and heads to sit at his daughter's hip on the bed.
He smoothes her hair back, kisses her cheek and the two of them share a look that Rick turns his face away from, feeling voyeuristic to be witnessing it. "I'm gonna head back to the loft and freshen up, check on Alexis and-"
Thankfully, Kate doesn't seem to notice when he cuts himself off sharply. Jim does, though, and he turns to face Rick, his eyes shuttered. "That's probably a very good idea."
"Is everything okay?" Rick chokes out, panic making his vision blur for a moment, his heart thrashing in his chest. His son, their little boy, and he must be terrified to have gone to sleep with his mother on her way home and woken up to find both of his parents gone.
"Alexis is fine." Jim says pointedly, a note of sympathy in his face. Father to father, Jim understands all too well the concern that Rick is about to drown under.
Castle stands and shrugs his way into his jacket, hesitating before he goes for the door. Instead, he comes to Kate's side and smoothes the wild curl of her hair back behind her ear. "I know you don't remember me, and I know it doesn't help much, but I love you, Kate. I'll be back soon."
And then, as if on autopilot, he leans in and brushes a gentle kiss to the underneath of her cheekbone. She flinches and recoils, the same way she did that first case together when he first felt the perfect smoothness of her skin underneath his mouth.
He lets himself have a precious moment to hover, breathe her in and pretend that everything's normal and he's leaving her in bed to head to a meeting at Black Pawn instead. When he pulls away, Jim stands and claps him on the shoulder, squeezing hard. "I'll let you know if anything changes."
"Thank you, Jim." He manages, and then he leaves his wife alone with her father and navigates his way out of the maze of corridors and into the sunshine. Plucking his phone from his pocket, he calls his car service and arranges for someone to come pick him up. When he hangs up he slumps against the concrete edifice of the building and chokes on a sob, clenching his fists so hard they shake.
He can't fall apart now. Not in front of his driver and certainly not in front of his children either. No, he has to be strong for them, especially Mal. Their son is such a mommy's boy that the despair comes in waves that crash over Castle's head. Kate doesn't even know Marlow exists, and there is no one else that even comes close to the adoration between the two of them. Castle's son is only going to get more and more agitated the longer he's kept away from Kate.
Not that it'll be much longer; she'll be home this afternoon. But there's no way she'll be ready to be a mother then too.