Kate swam into consciousness slowly, the remnants of sleep still laying thick and heavy over her body even as she blinked awake to see Richard Rodgers dozing beside her. She barely remembered him coming to her room the previous night, holding her while she cried over a book series that her mother used to love but had never been able to finish, and allowing her to coerce him into staying the night with a few mumbled pleas.
So much for that blazing independence and self-reliance she had been determined to use against him.
She knew she should be panicking, it should be instinctive for her to be panicking right about now - tensing and jerking her body away from his as quickly as she could and seriously questioning her judgment. But it felt nice to wake up to someone she actually cared about instead of Lisa, who tended to glare at her the entire morning because they both knew the nurse had a crush on Doctor Rodgers and he seemed to have an interest in someone else.
Kate hummed contently to herself and curled further into the warmth of his body, her own mouth betraying her with a smile when the arm around her shoulders reflexively tightened.
Sure enough, her brain did start to riot, pointing out that he was her doctor and this probably broke a few rules. And not only hospital rules, but rules Kate had for herself when it came to relationships, rules that should be even more closely followed now considering the vulnerable state she was in.
Despite the fact that it had only been two weeks, she had started to care about Rick. He'd been a friend to her when she needed one, but she wasn't sure allowing their friendship to grow into something more was a smart choice while she was like this. She still needed time to figure out who she was now after losing her mother and two years of her life. She didn't want to ruin what could possibly be a serious relationship in the future because of bad timing.
She sighed mournfully at that, traced her finger down the steep slope of his nose, down to the soft flesh of his lips, and over the dip of his chin, keeping her touch light so not to wake him.
Maybe he would wait for her.
Rick's feelings for her seemed to be mutual, if not stronger, so if he really wanted her…
"I thought staring was creepy, Beckett," he murmured suddenly, his voice low and raspy and causing her to bite her lip in an attempt to quell the slow spread of heat searing the inside of her abdomen.
"Only when you do it."
He cracked an eye open to see her watching him with her head on his shoulder and her hand splayed over his chest, her thumb toying absentmindedly with the buttons of his dress shirt.
She withdrew her hand, curled it into her chest.
The quiet tranquility that had engulfed her hospital room that early morning had been calming, helpful to her raging mind, but she knew the serene little bubble would burst as soon as he awoke and the reality of their situation set in. She couldn't just be with him like this, it wasn't allowed and it didn't feel completely right. Yet.
"I'm sorry I fell asleep on you," she whispered into the stillness.
Rick reached over with the hand that wasn't smoothing circles over her shoulder and trailed his fingers over the porcelain shell of her ear.
"I don't mind. Feel free to use me for whatever you like, Detective." He smirked, the beautiful line of his mouth evoking the stupid urge to lean forward and find his lips with her own, but instead, Kate carefully lifted from his side and pulled her knees to her chest.
"Are you on call today?"
"Nope," he yawned, sitting up beside her, pretending he couldn't clearly see what she was doing. "I'm off for once, got a lot of writing to do."
It felt awkward, like some weird morning after gone wrong, and she berated herself for being the one to put them in this situation. Because it had never been awkward like this before, not between them. What the hell had possessed her to-
"Kate."
She glanced up and huffed, grinned affectionately despite herself when he knocked his forehead against hers.
"Stop thinking so much."
"What are you going to write about?" she asked instead, letting her forehead remain propped against his, letting him brush a strand of hair behind her ear, and letting the tight coil of anxiety loosen in her stomach.
"Well," he started, pulling back with enthusiasm gleaming in the sapphire blue of his eyes. "I've been pretty inspired by this female detective I've been hanging out with lately so-"
"Oh no."
"Oh yes. I have an outline and the first few chapters already done. I'll work on the first draft for a while, talk it over with Gina, and then maybe when said detective gets her job back, I can start following her around to make the book even more authentic."
She groaned. "Rick, you know it'll probably be months before I'm back on the force, right? And even then, I'll still need some time to get adjusted."
"I can wait."
She swallowed at the note of seriousness in his voice. There was purposely more loaded into that statement than she had been expecting.
She cleared her throat, thoughtlessly pushed a nonexistent piece of hair behind her ear.
"Why don't you go follow Esposito?"
He narrowed his gaze on her. "Do I look like I have a death wish? Besides, Espo would never make a good muse."
She rolled her eyes, secretly grateful he had lightened the mood with a joke at one of her old partners' expense, and began shoving the blanket from her lap.
"Take a walk with me before you go?"
He nodded, rising from the bed and allowing her to do most of the work as she maneuvered herself onto the edge of the cot and slid her feet into the fuzzy pair of slippers he had brought her from the gift shop.
"Do you want to get dressed before we go?"
Kate glanced pensively towards the bathroom, where her two sets of hospital issued t-shirts and sweatpants resided. She could change her own clothing now - a huge accomplishment in her mind - but it was a painstaking process that usually took her at least fifteen minutes and she knew if she went into the bathroom and saw herself in the mirror, the familiar surge of self-consciousness would flare up again.
She didn't think Rick truly cared about her appearance, knew he didn't judge her by her hair or lack of makeup, but she missed feeling…feminine. All her reflection ever showed her these days was how sickly she still looked despite her growing appetite, rigorous exercise, and overall increase in physical health. Seeing herself in the mirror only made things harder.
"When we get back I will," she murmured, smoothing down the ends of the hospital gown that flowed to her knees.
"What time is PT today?" he asked while she held onto his shoulder, let the blood flow through her legs and down to her toes before they started slowly towards the door.
"Afternoon. We're working on my gait, turning my shuffle into an actual walk."
"Ah yes, I heard Patrick calls you 'zombie' now," he chuckled and Kate huffed, only partially in amusement. Patrick enjoyed humiliating her when he got the chance, but she couldn't complain. It had only been two weeks and she was almost walking normally again. The system worked.
"Yeah, well, aside from that, Patrick thinks I may be discharged within the next week or two."
Rick hesitated, but nodded, the hand at her lower back clenching just slightly. "He would be correct. I was planning to discuss it with you on Monday so you can start figuring things out."
"I talked to my dad, Rick." He stiffened. "I know what you did."
He stopped them in the middle of the hallway, turned to her with an apology written in his eyes, and she was glad he had the decency to look ashamed for doing specifically what she had told him not to.
"I know you didn't want me to interfere with this, and I wasn't trying to go against your wishes, Kate, but I just wanted-"
"Thank you," she cut in, because the gratitude for what he had done, for the difference he had made, was far stronger than the minor discontent she had briefly felt when her father had mentioned Rick's visit on the phone yesterday. "He's coming to see my today, before I have to go to PT."
Her doctor's face brightened immediately at that. "That's great! Does this mean you'll be staying with him once you're discharged?"
"No." She sighed and flexed her fingers to refrain from clenching them into fists. "He explained everything to me, the alcoholism, the help he's getting, but he doesn't think he'd be able to care for us both at the moment."
Rick caught her hand, tangled their fingers loosely under the gild of leading her down the last half of the hallway.
"It isn't easy for him-"
"It isn't easy for me either," she growled in a moment of self-pity. "Of course I want him to do whatever's best concerning his recovery, but I thought that would include having me as a part of his life again."
"He wants you in his life," Rick reassured her, like he had countless times when it came to the discussion of her father. "I think he's just afraid."
She shook her head, drew her hand from his as they reached the end of the hall and turned to make the slow travel back to her room. "I wish that was good enough for me right now."
"I'm sorry," he murmured, no touch this time to accentuate the statement. "I'm sorry this is hurting you."
"I am not hurt," she objected, but maybe she was, just a little. Feeling rejected by her own father wasn't exactly comforting. "I'm just not sure what I'm going to do now, where I'll go."
"We'll figure it out. If all else fails, you can shack up with me."
She huffed a laugh and nudged him with her shoulder, smiled proudly when he nudged her back and her precarious balance didn't sway like it would have a week ago.
She would make it out of here soon, and even if her father wouldn't take her in and she refused to impose on her friends, at least she now had a last resort.
Kate was holding to the wall, breathing heavily and trying to keep her body from tilting towards the floor. Her sessions with Patrick had become more intense with time; the more her body allowed, the more her physical therapist pushed, but she valued the tough workouts. She didn't want anyone taking it easy on her; she wanted the quickest route to recovery, to normalcy, and if leaving her session dripping with sweat and staggering back to her room was the way - so be it.
Although it was still her main priority, she had been walking for the past week - slowly, but still walking - so Patrick had been less concerned with her leg exercises for the day - making her do the variety of squats, lunges, and leg lifts for only a quarter of their time - and focused the majority of their hour together on toning her upper body and strengthening her core.
She could barely breathe.
Part of her loved physical therapy; it was her chance to do something rather than lay in a bed waiting for things to happen. She loved to sweat and feel her body burn with exertion, relishing in the sense of actual progress, but she hated the after effects. She hated the way she could barely move, how her body threatened to seize up on her through every step, and how she sometimes had to be wheeled back to her room instead of simply escorted. The workouts weren't hard, two years ago she would have been able to do the exact same exercises with relative ease, but now it was as if her body had never endured physical activity before.
She swatted at Cooper's hand when he reached to assist her as she stumbled, mumbling an apology under her breath to the gentle giant of a man Rick had not so subtly replaced Lisa with. Her former nurse still stopped by her room, still helped her with a few minor things she still grudgingly needed assistance with, but she hardly spoke to Kate now, and definitely wasn't making verbal jabs under the cloak of small talk like she used to. Again, it annoyed her that Rick had taken initiative and switched up his staff for her even after she had told him not to, but she couldn't necessary be upset that she hardly saw the bitter blonde anymore.
"Are you going to be okay for the rest of the night, Ms. Beckett?"
Kate nodded, not having the breath to spare for conversation.
"I'll be fine, thank you, Coop."
They were at the doorway to her room when they heard the first shot, a distinctive pop that she knew all too well. And then there was only the sound of panic.
Cooper immediately moved Kate inside and gave her a firm look before he turned to leave.
"Stay here, Ms. Beckett," Cooper told her calmly, but there was fear darkening his eyes and spreading into the lines of his face.
She nodded, watching Cooper rush out and slam the door behind him. It was her instinct to follow, to be out there, but even she knew she would be worthless to defend against whatever danger that had suddenly invaded the hospital. So instead she grabbed the empty vase on her bedside table – the only thing close to a weapon she had in this room – and shuffled towards the bathroom.
Rick hadn't taken a day off from work in three weeks, but he had needed to run some errands and get some writing done since he did have a deadline he had knowingly spent his time neglecting despite Gina's constant pestering. He'd managed to successfully churn out a few chapters, tweak the main plot for the story and work on his outline until it finally felt right, and he had just returned home with an armful of groceries after a quick trip to the market down the block when his cell started vibrating angrily in his coat pocket. He growled under his breath and maneuvered the phone out of his pocket before the call could go to voicemail.
"Lisa, I'm not-"
He paused in his protest at the frantic voice cutting him off, telling him there was a gunman in the hospital, that it was on lockdown and there were still people inside.
Panic flooded his system like ice water.
Kate.
He hadn't realized he had said her name out loud until Lisa choked back that she was still in there, that no one had been able to get to her through the chaos and now authorities weren't allowing anyone back inside.
Well, to hell with that.
He hung up midway through more of Lisa's hysterical explanations and dropped his groceries to the floor, turned right back around to head out the door. There was no way he was leaving Kate Beckett defenseless in a potential hostage situation.
Rick listened to the news through an app on his phone while he sprinted through Manhattan. According to sources that had been inside when the alleged shooter had first gotten into the building, two people were already dead. Apparently the gunman had simply walked inside, opened fire, and taken down the two victims while everyone else did their best to make an escape.
Shit, all of their patients.
It was easy to see as soon as he reached the hospital that the evacuation process had immediately gotten out of hand, as he knew it would, and maneuvering through the sea of scrambling people surrounding the sidewalks was no small feat, but he had to get to her. Lisa had already gone, been swept away in the first wave of panic with many of the other doctors and nurses on call that evening, and Salazar had never come in that day since her former neurologist wasn't scheduled to check up on her until next week. If he didn't get to her, there would be no one. Kate would have no one and he would not let her sit alone and practically immobile in a hospital bed while some killer was running around.
He tried not to let the contagious touch of terror enter his mind, not yet.
Rick stealthily circled around the building, to the side entrance that was only accessible with an employee keycard, and slipped inside the hospital.
It was eerily quiet, unfamiliarly still in the abandoned lobby, but he couldn't let himself dwell there; he scanned the area for any signs of immediate danger and hurried for the stairs when he determined the coast was clear. He held his breath for nearly the entire three flight climb up, adrenaline overshadowing the surge of fear zipping through his veins at the chance of running into the shooter on the way up. He knew some self-defense, basic martial arts, but no type of training could protect him from an enraged man with a quick trigger finger and one set mind.
He paused at the top step, tried to listen for sounds of a threat through the pounding of his heart and the rush of blood filling his ears. All he registered was more bone-chilling silence.
Rick moved from the dark stairwell and kept to the wall once he was on her floor, saw the hallway too was empty and instantly panicked when he saw the door to her room was cracked open. He ran, cursing himself for every breath of noise his shoes made on the linoleum floor, but wasted no time charging into her room.
He heard a quiet gasp and glanced down to see Kate on her knees beside the doorjamb, a glass vase that used to hold flowers in her hands, her face ashen and her eyes wide as they flew up to meet his. The relief that overcame her features rivaled the alleviation of panic filling his lungs and it was enough to make him to fall to his knees in front of her, haul her into his chest.
"Thank God you're okay," he breathed into her hair, holding her too tightly, but when she failed to squirm against him, failed to wiggle out of his grasp, reality crashed back in, and he began to notice the overwhelming fatigue weighing her body down. She sagged into him, fingers weakly clinging to the sides of his jacket instead of gripping, and her legs looked useless lying curled on the checkered teal and white floor.
"I was trying to hide, to wait," she rasped into his collarbone. "I was hoping… I knew you'd come for me."
"Always," he murmured into her crown, carefully placing her back against the wall and shrugging his coat off. "Here, put this on."
Kate set the vase down at her side and leant forward, allowed him to slip her arms through the sleeves and button his pea coat over her sweat stained tank top and yoga pants.
She had just returned from physical therapy then. Fuck, not good.
"I'm okay," she mumbled when he started checking her pulse, pressing his fingers to her neck to feel the weak thud. "Rick, please, I'm fine. We need to go."
He knew she was lying, for the most part anyway. The exhaustion she was wearing in her eyes and over her limbs - exhaustion from the combination of her physical therapy session and the added effort of heaving herself across the room - was visibly overwhelming her. She had begun walking in the beginning of the week, her determination pushing her towards improvement with each new day, but she still didn't possess the energy a normal body would.
Definitely not enough for this disaster of a night.
"I can walk," she grunted when he lifted her into his arms, cradling her against his chest as he hesitantly glanced back down the hallway.
"No offense, but you're still at snail speed and we need to go fast."
She huffed, but held onto him when he started moving back towards the stairs. They were so close, just a few feet from the stairway, but Rick came to an abrupt halt at the known sound of a gun's safety being clicked off.
"Put me down," she whispered fiercely. "Leave me here and go. You can still make it."
He looked down at her like she was crazy.
"Not happening."
"Rick-"
"No."
"You should listen to Detective Beckett, Doctor. I might let you live if you go now," a gruff voice informed them from the sinister cove of darkness their only exit had become.
Kate was stiff in his arms as the gunman stepped out from the stairwell and into view, the gun trained on them, on her.
"How do you know her?" Rick questioned instead. The gunman had called her by her name, addressed her title as a detective, and he had the sinking realization that, for whatever reason, this man had come specifically for Kate.
"I don't, she's just a cleanup job. Last chance."
"Rick, please," she murmured, digging her nails his shoulder, and Rick pursed his lips, but moved to carefully set her down by the wall.
"It'll be okay," he promised her, leaning forward to kiss her forehead even as the shooter raised his voice to a shout as he ordered Rick to leave.
"Do not be a hero," Kate whispered back sternly and then he was fighting his every instinct and pulling away before she could say anything else, heading for the nearest exit without her.
The gunman kept the weapon on him, pressed it roughly into Rick's back when he slowly eased past him to get to the stairs.
He spared one last glance over his shoulder at Kate, her frail body propped up against the wall, no hope for survival whatsoever, but she gave him a waning smile and nodded encouragingly. Rick continued down the stairs.