CH56

It is still the same day: (August 22, 2001)

"Castle there has to be a way... I can cut wires, remove all of the C-4, something. You're not dying down here, Castle and that's final." Kate's breathing was heavy and quick as her chest rose and fell. The fear of losing Castle was settling in as she started thinking of him being blown to pieces.

"I'm kind of hoping I don't either, however I'm beginning to think of a plan." Rick hadn't worked everything out just yet, but he was getting there.

"Talk to me Castle, what are you thinking and it better not be something stupid that happens to include dying," Kate warned him.

"I guess we'll see. …First you are going to go back upstairs and phone Jordan and Frazier to get them to clear the area. I have no idea what is going to happen when this place blows," Rick began.

"THAT'S NOT A PLAN CASTLE!" She distinctly remembered telling him not to get himself killed in this plan of his.

"If you will let me finish." Rick didn't dare turn his head to glare at Kate like she glared at him. "As I was saying, you go upstairs and get them to clear the area of everyone. Tell them they have a time limit. That should get them moving fast."

"After that I want you to go home…" She interrupted him, "Not a chance in hell Castle!" Kate knew that wasn't going to happen.

"Will you let me finish, Kate?" Rick pleaded. "Dying isn't finishing Castle," she pointed out the flaw in his plan.

"I want you to go home, grab the first responder backpack that is in the panic room along with all of our pain medication and antibiotics and place them in the butler's pantry. Oh, and grab the phone while you are at it, just in case."

"After you accomplish that, you will have Jill tell Jack and you will wait right there. My plan, such as it is, is for me to teleport into the kitchen from this spot. What I don't know is in what condition I'll be in. Maybe injured or blown to hell. You've been teleporting with me and know how fast it can be. What I don't know is if it's faster than an explosion and the flying shrapnel." Rick finished telling her his plan.

"Teleport from here to home." She tried to think about it. What she wanted him to do was teleport to a hospital, but knew that wasn't possible; someone might see. Kate had all 6 uses and could fix almost anything. ...She hoped.

"We have time Castle, I can start removing as many of much of the C-4 as I can, make any explosion that much smaller." And reduce the risk to Castle.

"You need to think like the drug maker, Kate. If this was your place and you installed a pressure plate what else would you do?" Rick wanted her to think, she was better at him anyway.

She was quiet for a minute. "I'd have a backup plan in place in case someone stepped on it. But I'd also have a way to turn it off since I don't want to lose my site. I don't want to lose time and have to find someplace else to set up a new site."

"I'd have a remote to turn this off, or a hard wired one near the door!" She started looking for a box with numbers on it.

"Keep thinking, what else might you add?" Rick tried and got her to stop looking.

'It's a bomb with a pressure plate. A plate that I know about and can turn off or avoid easily. Except what if I'm away for some reason and someone finds this place?' she thought.

She tried to think, then she looked up at Castle suddenly. "I'd have it on a timer also, just in case. Just long enough for me to end it, but short enough that they can't disarm it." Her eyes widened as a new fear entered her heart.

"You need to leave, Kate, and you need to leave now! I don't know how much time I have and we've already used some of it." Rick tried to get her to move.

"We don't know that Castle, we don't know! Let me at least pull some of the C-4," she begged.

"And while you are pulling C-4 we both die. Please Kate, go and go fast." Rick was sure he was running out of time.

She just stood there breathing heavily like she was ready to start hyperventilating. Castle could be right, she wanted to pull all of the C-4 and she wanted to hold him and kiss him before she left him. "I don't… I can't…please, Castle think of something else," Kate pleaded as the tears started.

"Please go, love, you're wasting time. Time we may not have. Time to have some faith in Jack and Jill. Jack that he is fast enough for this and Jill to patch me back together if he isn't. So go, Kate." Rick couldn't even see her since he had his back to the doorway that she was standing outside of.

She placed her hands over her mouth to muffle the crying that she was doing. She didn't want to remember him like this. She didn't want to see his back standing on a bomb burned into her brain if he died from this. It would haunt her till the day she died. She might even kill herself over this from the pain in her heart.

Kate started backing up. "Please Jack, …please." And she took off running back the way she came until Jill started telling her where to turn. "You should be able to use your cell phone now," Jill informed Kate since she was probably close enough to the surface at this point.

Castle had found the site, but had tripped a bomb with a timer on it. Kate told them there was 33 minutes left, though to be honest she didn't know how much time they had or even if there was a timer at all.

Jordan was going to start making phone calls to get the police to help clear the area and alert the fire department. She didn't know what 200 pounds of C-4 was capable of either, just that it would be horrendous.

Kate emerged outside and ran for their car. She ran every red light she thought she could and didn't even bother parking it in the parking enclosure. It was too far away. Kate got lucky and parked out in the street and opened the iron gate that allowed access to their patio area and raced up the stairs and unlocked the door.

Kate had the stuff in their panic room sitting in the kitchen sink while she was standing in the butler's pantry, waiting. "I've informed Jack that you are ready," Jill told her.

"THE PHONE!" Kate grabbed the cordless phone and went back to standing in the butler's pantry and waited.

"Jill says Kate is ready," Jack informed Rick. "Did we do the right thing Jack? Could Jill have disarmed this stupid thing?" Jill had many capabilities.

"Jill says she had already considered that. Apparently there are a lot of wires, most of which lead to dead ends, while some are back-ups in case the primary is cut. Jill has indicated that she would still be cutting wires at this time after she analyzed what wire to cut next," Jack explained.

Rick tried not to shake as he thought about what was about to happen, he couldn't afford the pressure fluctuation. "Okay Jack, on three." He folded his fingers into a fist. "One… two…three."

Rick had a fraction of a second to hear the boom that followed. His mind heard it, however he didn't have time to process it.

Kate watched Castle suddenly show up right after Jill said "three." Initially Rick was standing, but he quickly collapsed to the floor screaming in pain. Soon there was blood everywhere.

Kate was on the floor trying to look Castle over. What she found was what looked like a chunk of metal about 2 to 2-1/2 feet long in his left leg. The edge had penetrated his foot and went up into his leg.

It had effectively split his foot and leg into two pieces. His toes and shin were on one side of the ¼-inch plate and his calf muscle and his heel on the other. "OH GOD! …OH GOD!" Kate saw blood gushing out on both sides and starting to pool on the tile floor.

"Katherine, grab the small bag and prepare an injection of morphine," Jill spoke up. "KATE. MORPHINE. NOW!" Jill tried again.

Kate got to her feet, reached into the smaller bag, and pulled out a syringe and the morphine vial and took out how much Jill told her to. "Now give him the injection, somewhere, anywhere." Jill was forced to speak loudly because Castle was screaming in pain.

Kate stuck him in his other leg and tossed the syringe. "Now pull the metal plate out of his leg." Jill instructed her.

"We need to fix him first Jill, he'll bleed to death soon." Kate could see the blood pool spreading fast.

"We can't fix him until the plate is removed, now remove it!" Jill was forced to yell over Castle's screams.

She took hold of the plate and started to pull only to hear Castle increase the volume of his screams because of the pain. She couldn't bear it and let go of the plate.

"Katherine, pull on the plate." Jill tried again. Kate placed her hands on it and start to pull slowly, while Castle screamed in pain.

"Stop screwing around Katherine and pull out the plate," Jill demanded.

"I AM PULLING ON THE DAMN PLATE!" Kate countered.

"We need it out before he bleeds to death; we only have just so much blood to put back into him. Now, YANK THE DAMN THING OUT!" Jill yelled at her.

Kate hesitated but grabbed a solid hold of the plate and started pulling with some strength behind it till she had it in her hands and tossed it over her shoulder.

The silence was overwhelming. Rick had stopped screaming because he had passed out from the pain. The danger was now that the plate was out he could bleed out.

"Grab him Katherine," Jill instructed her, so Kate tried to put the two pieces of his left leg back together while getting blood all over herself.

She couldn't watch Castle die so she squeezed her eyes closed. Thousand one, thousand two, thousand three, thousand four. "You can open your eyes Katherine," Jill gently told her.

She was all set to squeeze her eyes closed again. She hesitantly peeked at him. Her eyes flew open wide when she saw Rick's leg looking like it always had. "Jill?"

"His leg is repaired, however he has lost a lot of blood and that is something I can't repair. We need a blood bag, a saline bag to add fluids, and an antibiotic shot. Who knows what germs were on that plate?" Jill said.

She pulled a blood bag out of their mini fridge that was next to their wine cooler and connected Castle to the bag. She was just setting up the saline bag when Jill called out, "Katherine, touch Richard NOW!" Immediately she reached down and touched him.

"Why?" she asked after touching him. "I spotted an air bubble headed for his brain; had it made it that far then to his heart…" Jill trailed off.

"Mental vegetable before dying from heart failure." Kate wasn't stupid. "Thank you, Jill." She went back to setting up his saline bag. "Shouldn't we have moved him? At least out of this giant puddle of blood?" She waved her hand at the mess, hating to see him lying in a giant pool of his own blood.

"I might have missed the air bubble in time. Best to leave him where he is. Better keep the phone handy; I only have one more use till 24 hours from now. Plus we only have one more bag of saline and blood for him. After that we will need to switch to the two bags of plasma that you have," Jill advised.

What Kate heard was, "We need more blood." She grabbed the phone and made a call to the same person from whom they got the two they had.

"Jack, can we move him out of this pool of blood please? I don't want to see him like this. It feels like… like death and he needs to live." She couldn't take this sight much longer.

"Where do you want to take him to?" Jack questioned.

That question gave her pause. "I… I don't know." What she wanted to do was take him to a hospital but just how would she explain that Castle needed blood when he didn't have any wounds?

"He… we need someplace safe. Bracken is going to hire more people to come after me to get to Castle. The house is secure, save for the hole in the window. But I only have one use left for the next 24 hours and I want to save that for Castle; he may need it." Kate was very conflicted.

Could they survive the next 24 hours locked up in the panic room? "We need clothes and food." She took off running and started packing for the both of them. They had access to a washer and dryer so they didn't need a lot.

She did what she could to pack food including perishables. Now she just needed to wait for the blood delivery to arrive.

"Come on, come on." She was losing her mind while waiting for Castle's friend show up with the two blood bags.

An hour later Jack spoke, "I have someone on security cameras approaching the front door. Scanning… running photo recognition. He is a match and likely has the blood you asked for.

Kate pulled out her weapon and went to the door and was back moments later with two bags of blood.

She had food, clothes, and their first responder backpack, a bag with medication in it, his three blood bags, the bags of plasma, and the last bag of saline. "Jack, can you get us and this stuff to the pool suite in our villa?" Kate started praying. She was thinking 'let's see his hired killers find us there.'

"What about Jordan and the others?" Jack put a wrinkle in her grand plan.

She almost dropped everything she was carrying. "I don't know what I would tell her if I was standing in front of her."

Kate tried to think of something, anything. They both still had their cell phones. "If I take our cell phones apart they can't trace us and since we will be in St. Lucia, we will be out of contact." She tried to think this through.

"We warned them about an explosion that was on a timer that we managed to trip destroying the lab making Nuke." Kate paused trying to come up with a plausible idea.

"We are trapped underground and after the explosion, all that concrete and what have you blocks our signal." She pulled out her cell phone and took it apart. She dropped it in her bag and did the same for Castle's.

"Jill did you scan and record everything?" Kate was curious.

"Of course, I record and store everything. Including the DNA that I found at the site." Jill informed her.

"Great! We can use all that later. Now teleport us to …wait." She tried to think of other things they might need. The villa came with everything, just did it come with soap, detergent and similar stuff?

She sighed, she would just have to risk it. "Never mind, I'm ready. Teleport us to the villa." Kate took hold of Castle and instantly found herself standing next to the bed that Castle was lying on.

She dropped everything, lifted and hung the blood bag and the saline bag, and got to work unloading what she had packed. Afterwards, she stripped Castle and headed for the washer/dryer unit. It was time to find out if she had what she needed.

Buying a villa that was used as an all included rental had its benefits since she found soap, Bounty, Tide, and Bounce among other things. Then she went back to Castle after getting a glass of water. Because of the blood she would need to wash the sheets too, but that would have to wait until he was awake and coherent. "Jill how is Castle?" She needed some good news.

"His leg is healed, however his blood pressure is low. The blood, saline and plasma should fix that. He will need an antibiotic injection in about 12 hours just to be safe. His heart rate is also low but he appears to be sleeping peacefully," Jill informed her.

Kate took that as good news even if it didn't feel like it. "Come on Castle, don't die on me now." She sat back in one of the two chairs that she had spun around to face the bed instead of the view.

She woke up later and realized that the sun was almost down. She turned around seeing a lovely view of a sunset that she hoped they could look forward to for years. Her mind was just coming up to speed when she felt a shock at her ankle. "Jill?"

"Richard is awake," Jill advised her. She was suddenly wide awake and on her knees looking at Castle.

"RICK? Baby, how do you feel?" She looked into his eyes. Rick started to move his hand as Kate captured it, held to her face, and then kissed his open palm.

"Did we both die? You look like an angel." He was trying desperately to keep his eyes open.

She smiled at him. "No we're both alive, your idea worked. …Mostly."

The word 'mostly' confused him; she could see it on his face. "Go back to sleep babe, I'll be right here. I'm not going anywhere." She kissed his hand again, and watched him close his eyes and fall back to sleep.

"Richard needs a new blood bag Katherine," Jill alerted her. She got up and went into the kitchen to retrieve it from the refrigerator. After setting it up, she decided on making something really simple for her to eat, since she wasn't interested in eating much.

After eating, she stripped and went skinny dipping for her first time in their pool. She did laps and ended up on the wall up against the infinity edge and looked out onto the ocean, taking an occasional peek at Rick.

Kate was feeling secure that Bracken's hit men wouldn't find them here. It also suddenly occurred to her that the only weapons they had were their service weapons and the clips that came with them. Once Castle was up and moving they could fix that.

Castle was at least alive even if her kitchen had a pool of blood in it.