Chapter 4

Shortly before six that evening, Kate stepped onto the Intensive Care floor at Lenox Hill, her stomach churning with uncertainty. When her partner had left her side eight hours earlier, she'd barely been able to concentrate on what was necessary at the crime scene since her heart and much of her focus had left along with her partner. With what little knowledge she had she couldn't tell how serious the situation really was, but from the frantic look on his face—and simply hearing that Alexis had fallen through ice—she knew the day would, at best, be a stressful one.

When three hours passed and she had not yet heard from him, Kate's worry amplified. She didn't want to bother him if he was trying to focus on Alexis, but also wanted an update as both a cop and his friend. The more she thought about it, she decided that if the incident had simply blown out of proportion, he probably would have texted her by then to tell her that…wouldn't he? Or, would he have simply taken Alexis home to rest and forgotten to message her? Were that the case, she would have easily understood, but the not knowing was driving her crazy.

Finally, she texted him in the middle of the afternoon to ask if everything was okay. For the next twenty-five minutes she checked her phone approximately every forty-five seconds until his reply finally came through. Alexis is in the ICU not breathing on her own.

Kate read the message through twice thinking she had misunderstood despite its simplicity. Surely he meant that she was breathing on her own, but…no, that wasn't possible with what he typed. When the reality of the grave situation hit her, Kate covered her mouth with her left hand and merely stared down at the phone as thought it was a Magic 8 Ball that had just delivered her a terrible fate.

Alexis—sweet, spunky, always-cheerful Alexis—was fighting for her life after what surely was a freak accident. That news in of itself was difficult for her to process, but it also meant that her partner and friend was suffering as well. As she was not a parent, Kate could not begin to imagine the pain and terror that Castle must have been facing at that moment, but since she had lost her own mother at a young age, she felt she could very closely empathize with what he was going through.

Though she had sat the better part of ten minutes in shock, Kate quickly responded to his message saying she'd stop by as soon as she could. She did her best to focus on her work—typing up the notes she'd written out and summarizing all that had been done to date. Then, she messaged both her superior, Captain Montgomery, and her fellow teammates, Detectives Ryan and Esposito. She explained that Castle's daughter was in the ICU after an accident and that she wished Ryan and Esposito to take the lead on the murder case, despite them being off duty that day. As she was in very high standing with her captain and had never passed off a case before, she didn't think there would be a problem. Further to the point: they all knew Castle and would surely sympathize with his situation.

Thanks to her work obligations and evening commute traffic, Kate hadn't been able to get to Lenox Hill any sooner, but now that she was there, she intended to stay as long as her partner needed her. She knew that his mother was doing a traveling play and that his ex-wife was in California, so the last thing she wanted was for him to be alone on one of the worst days of his life.

Hands in her coat pockets, Kate approached the entry to the ICU only to be stopped by a friendly nurse telling her that visiting hours were over unless she was an immediate family member. Though she knew using her badge for such an unofficial purpose was technically against regs, Kate was determined to see her partner, no matter the costs.

She parted her coat to reveal the badge on her hip and said, "I'm sorry, but my partner is in there with his daughter; I just want to wait with him until more of his family arrives."

Though she looked uncertain, the nurse said, "Okay…but I'll need you to sign in, Detective."

"Of course," Kate replied pleasantly.

After filling out the necessary page, Kate walked into the bustling ICU. She didn't want to disturb any of the other patients or the nurses doing their work, but with so many of the curtains pulled, it was difficult for her to find the patient she desired without being too disruptive. When she peeked into the divided curtain of one of the beds, Kate was startled by the scene she discovered. The girl in the bed was so buried under blankets and tubes she never would have recognized her. The man seated beside her, his large frame almost looking small in its hunched state, was also difficult to recognize, but after nearly a full year of partnership, she could recognize the shape of his face easily.

Parting the curtain with her fingers, Kate stepped forward and for the first time caught a head-on view of Alexis. Instantly, she felt as though she'd been punched in the gut. Seeing an adult hooked up to machines and tubes would have been shocking enough, but on Alexis it was deeply upsetting. Further adding to the churning of her gut was the gutted expression on her partner's face. She imagined he hadn't moved very much in the prior eight hours, thinking only of his daughter and not of himself. God, how horrific.

"Castle." She tried to speak as softly as possible, not wanting to startle him, but he jumped anyway. "Sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Kate." He breathed out her name like an answered prayer. He released Alexis's hand from his grasp and stood from his seat, then he stared at her for only another fifteen seconds before his face began to crumple with emotion. "I…I don't…she…"

"Hey, it's okay; c'mere." Kate stepped around the edge of the bed until she stood beside him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He fell against her instantly, banding his arms around her waist in an almost crushingly-tight embrace, but she didn't mind one bit. His chin came to rest at the top of her shoulder and she heard him sniffling right beside her ear.

"I don't know what to do," he sobbed out after thirty seconds of their embrace and Kate felt her heart throb at the emotion in his voice; she had never seen him so distraught.

Bringing her right hand up to feather through the hair at the nape of his neck she sighed out, "I know; I know."

His arms squeezed her a little tighter. "Alexis…she…"

"I know." Kate sniffed back a few of her own tears as she continued to cradle her partner's body against his. While on duty, she considered herself well skilled at compartmentalizing her emotions. True, some cases were harder than others, but after three years as a detective she was quite good at separating her feelings from the facts of the cases, meaning she rarely if ever broke down. But this wasn't a case; this wasn't a crime scene she was working. Castle was her friend and he was facing far more pain than he deserved, and that broke her heart.

While they had almost never hugged before—certainly not for that duration—Kate allowed Castle to be the one to break their embrace. He wiped his fingers under the base of his nose and gave her an appreciative nod. She reached out to stroke her hand down his arm. Gazing over at the pale girl she asked, "What's the latest update you got on her condition?"

"They're, ah, they're keeping her in a medically induced coma for twenty-four hours to help her body heal. They said…they said that young children can absolutely recover one hundred percent from this sort of thing, but there are so many unknowns, like how long she was underwater without oxygen and what…what kind of brain damage there might be…"

"God…" She breathed at the notion of brain damage. The thought was simply too horrible to process. Giving his arm a squeeze, she said, "I am so sorry, Rick. Can I do anything? Did you get a hold of your mother?"

He nodded. "Yes. She's leaving tonight after the show. She should be here by morning. And Meredith…I left her a message I don't…she hasn't called back…"

"What about you? Have you eaten?"

He shook his head and flopped down in the chair. Picking up Alexis's hand once more he said, "No; I can't."

"You need to—keep up your strength. Let me get you something."

"I'm fine."

"Rick!" she insisted in response to his stubbornness.

He turned his head with a softened expression. "Just…a sandwich maybe. Not a lot. And coffee."

She nodded. "Of course; I'll be back soon."

Before she could turn away, she felt his hand on hers and gazed down, half expecting him to make an additional food request, but instead his gaze turned intense, but appreciative. "Thank you for coming."

She simply smiled and gave his hand a squeeze. "Of course. Where else would I be when my partner needed me?" In her mind, there was no question. She would not leave him alone until his mother or ex-wife arrived. He needed someone there with him to make sure he was eating and drinking. To force him to take a break—and stay with Alexis so he didn't feel too guilty about leaving her. To simply make sure he knew he wasn't alone.

Castle woke up, tried to move, and was suddenly aware of an excruciating pain in his neck. He groaned, moved his head, and tried to open his eyes and focus on his surroundings. He was definitely in his apartment; he recognized the position of the TV in front of the couch and the distant hum of the refrigerator. Blinking his eyes a few times, he tried to focus more and took note that the television was on, playing some random commercial, but the volume had been muted. He'd fallen asleep in front of the TV, he concluded; certainly wasn't the first time.

As he had no idea what time it was, Castle went to stand up, but only then did he realize he wasn't alone. Two sock-covered feet were braced against his thigh, but he immediately knew they were far too large to belong to his daughter. Moving his head a few inches he groaned at the discomfort, but then saw his partner, Kate, asleep with her head resting on one of his throw pillows.

Why was he sleeping on the couch with Kate? For a moment, he thought he was having a very strange though very real-seeming dream, but then, when he looked towards the television and saw a commercial for a local medical practice playing, it all came screaming back to him. Alexis—Alexis was in the ICU. Alexis was in the ICU on a breathing tube.

Alexis!

"Shit!" He cursed when he bounded off the couch, half tripping over his own feet. He began frantically searching for his cell phone while simultaneously cursing himself for falling asleep. What if the hospital tried to call him? What if Alexis's condition had changed? What if he wasn't able to make it back to the hospital in time? God—it was bad enough he'd had to leave at all!

Hours earlier, he and Kate had barely finished eating their dinner at Alexis's bedside when a nurse came around and warned them that vising hours would be over in less than thirty minutes. He had immediately become frantic and, admittedly, slightly out of control. Thankfully, Kate had been there to talk him down before hospital security needed to be called. He begged and pleaded with every nurse or other staff member that would listen to him, but the ICU had a strict policy: no visitors after eight p.m. The nurse manager on duty was kind and sympathetic despite Castle's indignation. She explained that they would call him immediately if there was any change in his daughter's condition, but otherwise he wasn't welcome back until seven a.m. the next morning.

Though he tried to argue for another twenty minutes, Kate ultimately dragged him away and forced him into a cab when he voiced his intentions to spend the night in the ER waiting room just so he could be close by. When they arrived at his apartment, he half-expected her to just drop him off and go, but she didn't. She took off her coat and shoes and told him to sit while she made them both tea. While she watched some TV and ultimately fell asleep, he pulled out his laptops and began looking for all the documentation he could find on children under ten going into frozen bodies of water. Apparently, at some point he had fallen asleep as well.

After checking his pockets again, Castle began frantically digging through the couch cushions and tossing pillows in the search for his cell phone. His aggressive actions who grumbled and stirred with, "Wha…what's going on?"

"My phone—I can't find my phone!" He practically yelled as he pulled out the cushion he'd been sitting on and skimmed his hands on the base of the sofa only to find crumbs and no cell phone. "What if the hospital called and I-"

"Hey." Her soft hand on his arm halted his progress and he turned to look at her in the dim, blue light of the room. "It's okay," she continued. "We didn't hear it ring, right?"

"But what if…what if it wasn't loud enough? What if the battery died!?"

"Well we'll find it okay? Where…where's the… oh, here." A moment later the room was bathed in bright light when Kate found a lamp and turned it on. They blinked at each other for several seconds as their eyes adjusted and then their search resumed. It only took Castle two minutes to find his phone on the floor beside the edge of the couch.

"Oh! Here! I…oh." His voice fell flat when he discovered the phone was, in fact, still on, but with a very low battery—and no missed calls. Huffing out a breath, he walked over to grab his charger on the nearby desk and plugged the phone into it.

"No missed calls?"

"No."

"What time is it?"

"It's, ah," he shielded a yawn with the back of his hand before saying, "Quarter to five."

Kate nodded and sat back down on the couch. "And your mother's flight lands at six, right?"

"Six-fifteen, yeah." He stared at her for a few moments, collecting his thoughts, before he began gesturing towards the opposite side of the room where a hall led to the two bedrooms and bathroom. "You…you should, um, sleep for as long as you can before your shift. Go—go ahead and take my bed."

She made a disbelieving sound. "I'm not going to take your bed, Rick—not when you should be sleeping."

"Nah, I can't…I'm up now." Particularly after his heart-pounding search for the lost cell phone. "I'm just, ah….yeah I'm just going to go back to my research." Spotting his laptop on the coffee table, Castle scooped it up, threw his sofa cushion back into place, and then sat down, balancing the computer on his knees.

The computer was just coming back to life and displaying the last website's he'd left open when he felt Kate's hand land on his shoulder. "Castle. You'll drive yourself crazy with that stuff."

"I'm already there, Beckett," he said with the sideways quirk of his lips. Leaning back against the sofa, he skimmed his hand over the light stubble on his jaw. "I just keep thinking…what if she doesn't wake up… what if she wakes up and isn't the same… I just… what's worse?"

He honestly, truly, could not bring his brain to develop a pros and cons list on those two situations. His gut told him that having his daughter back in any capacity was better than having her at all, but then he wondered what his life might be like if his daughter was no longer kind, spunky, and sweet. What if the accident caused some sort of Jekyll-and-Hyde like transformation and Alexis and she turned out to be the opposite of her former self? Would such a scenario be too frustrating and painful to bear, however unlikely? He genuinely wasn't sure.

Countering his dark thought, Kate said, "What if she wakes up and she's fine?"

He merely shook his head and turned back towards the computer screen. "I was a mystery writer, Beckett; my brain doesn't think that way."

"Yes, it does. You're always Mister Positivity."

Purposefully ignoring what was a generally true statement, he merely went back to his Google searches and began tapping his fingers against the keyboard. "I spent hours last night reading articles and blogs about children falling into frozen lakes, rivers, swimming pools… in almost every once of these instances the children recover fully with, at worst, large memory gaps, but they don't seem to have physical or mental issues—unless they somehow suffered injuries as part of their accident."

"That's good news," Kate reminded him.

"It should be, but… You know, some of these parents reported personality changes in their kids if they were under water for a really long time and had oxygen deprivation and…and we don't know exactly how long Alexis was under water and…and…" His voice rifted off when Kate's right hand closed around his bicep. She scooted closer to him and slid her left hand underneath his arm and linked her fingers together so she hugged his arm with the palms of her hands.

Her gentle touch calmed him slightly, but not by much. His brain still spun with worst-case scenarios. "I just keep thinking…she wasn't breathing on her own and…you just have no idea how terrifying this is as a parent…especially when I can't be there with her."

"You can go back in two hours."

"I know, but…"

After a few seconds of silence, Kate asked, "Is there anything I can do?"

He shook her head. Though he felt stressed and too on-edge to think of much other than his daughter, he did appreciate her loyalty and kindness far more than he could express in that moment. "You've done more than enough. You didn't…you didn't have to say with me like this…"

"Yes, I did," she said simply. Then, she leaned her cheek against the edge of his shoulder and brushed her thumbs over the edges of his t-shirt at even intervals.

Castle said nothing. He simply turned back to his computer and continued his research, but unlike the night before, the weight on his chest felt a little less heavy with Kate by his side.

A/N: thank you so much for all your reviews