"Morning, Kate." Doctor Rodgers greeted her the next day with a smile, but Kate didn't have the energy to muster a returning lift of her lips. Her morning had consisted of being hand fed applesauce, forcing it to stay down by sheer force of will, and making her best attempt at using a toothbrush. She hadn't accomplished much. She didn't really see a reason to be smiling.
It hadn't felt real at first, when he had told her that her mother was dead, that her life had been put on pause for nearly two whole years. But now…now she was starting to believe him. She didn't want to, but the shocking weakness of her body was proof in itself. This was actually her life now.
And she hated it.
"There's someone here to see you."
She allowed him her attention at that and when he stepped aside and she saw who that someone was, the tears welled in her eyes without her consent. She was flooded with overwhelming relief while Doctor Rodgers helped her into a sitting position, adjusting her hospital bed and placing a few pillows behind her to keep her body propped up.
"Dad," she breathed as her father stepped in the room and came for her.
"Oh, Katie," he croaked, moving to sit at her side and enveloping her in his shaking arms.
She wanted to throw her own arms around her father's neck, cling to him like she did as a little girl, but her arms refused to cooperate, the limbs still feeling like lead, and she had to settle for curling them limply around his waist.
"I never thought you would wake up," he rasped into her hair and she choked on a sob, digging her fingers into his jacket and burying her face in his shoulder, inhaling the familiar scent of cinnamon and spice and what was once home. But underneath those comforting memories was a stench that she had never associated with her father.
Alcohol, strong alcohol.
"I thought I'd lost you both," he murmured into her temple, pulling her from the well of bubbling concern for him and jerking her back to the present.
Both. He had lost them both. Her and her mother. God, she missed her mother.
"No, no, Daddy, I'm here," she promised, lifting her eyes past her dad's shoulder to see Doctor Rodgers watching hesitantly from the doorway, apparently torn between witnessing the tearful reunion and giving them their privacy. But the concern she felt was reflected in her doctor's bright blue eyes and she knew he had caught the odor of scotch on her father as well.
"What does she need to get better?" Jim asked suddenly, drawing back only far enough to glance back to the doctor in the doorway.
"Well, considering everything she's been through, her recovery process thus far is quite impressive," Doctor Rodgers started explaining to her father as he came inside and approached the two Becketts on the bed. "We'll start working on muscle toning today, strengthening her body back up, and eventually move onto more challenging forms of physical therapy. Luckily, her brain and motor skills seem to be intact and visibly undamaged, and she doesn't seem to suffer from any form of amnesia. She knows who she is and what her life was before this. What we have to work on with Ms. Beckett at this point is her physical state since the prolonged bed rest caused her body to grow weak and practically immobile."
"How long will this take?" Kate asked, more indignant than curious, because the last thing she wanted was to be locked up in a hospital room with physical exercises as the only highlight of her days.
She had already wasted so much time – years – and she refused to spend any more of her days in a hospital bed.
"I'm assuming a few weeks, maybe a month at most. As soon as you can do basic tasks on your own, I'll feel safe discharging you."
She almost choked on the breath of air she inhaled too quickly.
"Weeks? A month?"
"Katie," her father chided quietly, stroking an unsteady hand through her long, oily hair. "Don't worry, I'll come by every day."
"Will you call everyone for me too?" she asked quietly, trying to rein in the hopefulness threatening to leak into her voice. "Tell them I'm…alive again?"
"Of course. As soon as I get home, I'll call everyone we know, okay?"
She nodded and leaned into his embrace once more, squeezing him as tightly as her disobedient arms could manage.
"Thanks, Dad. And will you – can you – maybe just-" Jim looked down at her, waiting patiently for her to struggle through her sentence, but even now, she could see his eyes were hazy. Her father was probably about as well off as she was at this point. Kate did her best to take a deep breath, but she wasn't sure it was her current state of frailty that was making her question so hard to ask. "Could you try to cut back on the drinking?" she finished with a small voice that resembled one of her childhood self.
Jim appeared slightly taken aback by the request and stared down at her with shame and apology bubbling up in his eyes.
"Still one hell of a detective, Katie," he sighed sadly.
"Dad," she pressed, holding weakly to her father's jacket when he began to move away.
"I will," he assured her. "For you, Kate, I'll fix this."
Her stupidly unstable emotions made the smile she gave him turn watery and his matched when he leant down to kiss her forehead before promising he would be back tomorrow morning and then shuffling towards Doctor Rodgers.
Kate slowly lowered herself back down to the bed once she was sure her father and her doctor were no longer lingering in the doorway. She had quickly noticed she grew exhausted easily now, within minutes apparently, and the short reunion with her father had sucked every ounce of energy from her tired body. Not that she had much to begin with.
"Hey,"
She cracked an eye open – when had she even closed them? – to see Doctor Rodgers returning to her room.
"You okay?"
She shook her head.
"You could tell too, couldn't you?"
He pursed his lips but nodded solemnly.
"He lost his wife, and he was sure he'd lost his daughter too. At least now he has a reason to get better."
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip. As he had confirmed, her memory was still intact, and she had seen plenty of alcoholics during her days as a cop. It was not an easy habit to kick.
"So," Her doctor said suddenly, taking the seat beside her bed as he had the night before and eyeing her eagerly. "Detective, huh?"
She rolled her eyes and turned on her side, away from him.
"Go away, I need a nap."
"Fine," he sighed dramatically and she listened to him pop back up and hover over her for a brief moment. "We'll talk about it in a couple of hours when I come back to test your muscle tone."
"I can't wait," she muttered, hiding a smirk when he patted her back before trotting out of the room and allowing her to drift back to sleep.