I'll Fight The Flames For You Emily, Always- Chapter 8
AN: Hey guys, I know that I have been slacking a lot over the past year, but I'm trying to be able to get back to my writing and fanfiction more nowadays. This is just a quick filler chapter but, I hope that you all can continue to read, review, and love this story and my other fanfics.
"Anyways, what I was trying to say before Kate is that Emily gets to come home from the hospital today, I was just on my way to go sign her discharge papers and go show Emily her new bedroom." Castle finishes while looking at Beckett with a 100 watt smile on his face.
"Her new what, Castle?" Beckett asks with a confused, disoriented look on her face as she stares at Castle with a way that makes him feel that she isn't exactly staring at him, butthroughhim. He squirms in his seat a little bit, trying to figure out how to respond to this question; with the new turn that everything had just took.
"Her new bedroom Kate, at the loft, Mother and Alexis called me right before you woke up from your little cocoon, and her bedroom is all set up. It's a surprise, I wouldn't tell her what I was going to do, but she's very excited to go see it today, I could barely get her to go to sleep last night, she wasthatexcited." He answers looking at her with an anxious look on his face, waiting for her to answer him.
Ignoring the remark he made about her sleeping habits lately, (something he had nothing to do with, and will make sure he knows of the later), she answers him with the first remark that comes to her brain, and out of her mouth without thinking about it. "Rick? What the heck do you think you are doing? We need to talk,now."
And then his world shattered.
"You have absolutely no right, Castle, to think that you can just walk in here, right after I wake up might I add, and think that you are going to tell me what is going to happen with my daughter. MY DAUGHTER, RICK, MY DAUGHTER!" Oh, she was done, she was lived, she was exhausted, and on top of it all, she is about to start fighting with the only man that she has ever cared so deeply for.
"I, I just thought that-" He couldn't find his words, he as a write and he was rendered speechless in a moment that his words could at least help to explain his reasoning behind it all. He quit, he stopped talking and just stared at her, waiting her out like he always does.
"You thought what, Castle, huh?" She's still waiting for an explanation as to why he was trying to parent her child when it was her job by the time that he goes to move away from her side and to the end of the bed. When he finally picks his head up to look her in the eyes she sees the hurt on his face, the pain, and she finds herself looking down at her thumbs that she is twisting together, no longer able to look at him when he looks like a kicked puppy.
"You were, are, sick, and the hospital needed an answer for as to where Emily was going, and your dad wanted to watch her but he has this gigantic case that the firm gave him, and, and so I offered, and I, I figured you wouldn't mind since that way she doesn't have to stay another night here, and-" she cuts him off and stops him from having to ramble on and stutter anymore, saves him, he thinks to himself as he holds his breath and waits for her to begin speaking, to carry on her end of their argument. An argument that should probably stop, he faintly hears the heart monitor going off in the background, faintly hears himself thinking about how this can't be good for her heart, but then she's talking again.
"Castle," Kate sighed, "I get why you did it, and thank you for taking care of my daughter when I couldn't, but it's too much for you to do all of that for." She held up her hand and continued when he went to go object. "Even if I can't exactly take care of her and I at the moment, and if there is no one else too." Once she had finished she looked back up and saw the look on his face, he was going to object. Of course he was, she thought to herself as she turned slightly in her temporary bed.
"Beckett," Castle all but barked while his back straightened, shoulders squaring and his jaw locking. "Of course I do not think that it is too much to do something like this, even if Emily isn't mine, and even if there is nobody else to take care of her. I want to take care of her, and you, if you will let me, and I want to help nurse the both of you back to health." He sees her go to shake her head in disagreement and as her arms go to cross over her chest, her unconscious way of protecting both her and Emily, she freezes. She snaps her gaze back up to his and begins violently coughing again when she try's and fails to throw her body up, he runs over to side and gently guides her to lay back down while he gets her a glass of water. "Small sips, Kate, here, take small sips."
"Emily…oh, God, what kind of mother am I? I didn't even ask you if my baby girl was okay, please tell me that she is safe, Rick, and that she's fine and that she isn't hurt. Please, Rick, tell me that my sweet princess is…" She goes to say "alive" but her throat gets clogged up and the words get caught on a quiet sob, and when he doesn't answer her right away the tears that she had been holding in surface to the corner of her eyes. If anything were to happen to her daughter because of her, or because of her job, she would never be able to live with herself. But, he finally shakes his head to indicate negativity and she lets out a breath that didn't know she was holding.
"She isn't exactly out of the woods yet though, Kate." And just like he had fixed her whole world, he shattered it with those few and simple words. She takes a shaky breath, runs her hands through her hair, and closes her eyes. "Kate, it isn't anything to serious, just somethings that we have to lookout for and be careful because of. That's all." She opens her eyes to see him smiling down at all, and she forces a thin line on to her face, one that is a small mirror of his.
"Okay…so, what's wrong with her then?" She ask and then she feels his hand squeezing hers before he goes to explain, she didn't even know that they were holding hands and now she's grateful for it, for the pleasure of hope and faith that it gives her.
"It's not as bad as you think that it is, Beckett. She has some cuts and bruises, a couple broken ribs and her asthma was slightly affected from all of the smoke, and her back has open flesh wounds on them." Castle knew that no matter how gentle he explained it, it was still going to torture her if she didn't know the entire truth and if he held back with how much he told her, so he decided to just rip it off like a Band-Aid. He watched her face very carefully, watched her reaction and she could feel him analyzing her every move, waiting her out just like he always does while watching her like a mother hawk watching over her young.
"That's…." That's what? Beckett thought to herself, that's wonderful that she is alive? That's horrible because she is my baby girl and she is hurt? That's not fine at all because it is my fault? She knew that he was reading her thoughts the moment that she thought the last one.
"None of this is your fault, Kate, none of this. It isn't any more your fault then it is mine." Castle's voice was a mere whisper by the end of his sentence, and oh…oh, God, Castle…. He's blaming himself; he's blaming himself for writing the Nikki Heat series and getting them all stuck in this situation even though it's not his fault. Because it isn't, it really is not!
"Castle- Rick," she tries for his first name instead. "THIS IS NOT YOUR FAULT, OKAY! Do you hear me; this is not your fault." She squeezes his hand harder than he did hers and sees a little bit of the light that shines back into his eyes, the small grin that finds its way on to his face.
"Okay." He says and she repeats it back to him.
"Anyways, how are you?" She completely forgot to ask him how he was, and yet here he is, worrying himself down to a thread about her and her daughter.
"I'm fine." At the eye roll that she gives him, he goes on. "I was worried sick about you and Emily, but I'm much better now. I promise, Kate, okay?"
"Okay." They both take a moment to look at the other, letting them physically see and reassure the other that they are okay, and that it will all be okay. She breaks the silence first.
"If you really don't mind," she knows that she's blushing now, feels the heat on her cheeks and neck. "Then yes, Emily can stay at your place." She watches the smile that spreads across his face and let's a matching one duplicate her face too. "Thanks, Castle."
"Always." She laughs at that and it's going to be okay, they are going to be okay.
AN: Hey again, this chapter is not as long as I was hoping for it to be, but I really wanted to get it up ASAP and started on the next one.
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