Awakened 2
Title: Awakened
Chapter: 2/?
Chapter rating: G
Synopsis: Random post-finale scene that I needed to get out of my head
Pairings: Josh/Kate, Castle/Beckett, Lanie/Esposito, Jenny/Ryan
Synopsis: Kate is alive
Notes: Thanks GhostWriterLost for beta services, I hope I got 'em all. I seldom start a story without knowing where it's going but... All I can promise to anyone who takes the time to read it is that I will finish it, but it will be a collection of scenes that reveal a plot rather than a plot illustrated with a collection of scenes. If that makes sense, please read and let me know what you think and if you see embarrassing errors. Gotta head out for the long weekend, but I'll post an update to “Ten Days” when I get back.
Two
When Castle walked into the room her eyes were closed and the gentle rise and fall of her chest barely moved the white sheet that covered it. Her skin was so pale it looked like wax and the startling reminder of her fragility started him trembling.
He walked up to the bed and simply stared down at her, mesmerized by the subtle movement of her chest, his head filling with the rhythmic beeping of one of the machines that was stacked next to the bed.
He sat carefully on the chair, feeling the trembling in his belly transmit itself to his legs. She was alive, she was breathing, she was safe. No matter how many times he repeated that mantra, he could not shake the almost palpable memory of her blood soaking the knee of his trousers and her eyes drifting closed as he begged her to stay and registered the horrifying reality that he was moments away from losing her forever.
He felt the tears fill his eyes and he closed them against the awful images. The flashing light of the ambulance and the squad cars that had screamed into the cemetery to secure the area. The strong, uniformed arms of Ryan and Esposito hauling him back as Lanie wadded Martha’s shawl against the exit wound and leaned all her weight against the bullet hole in Kate’s abdomen. The indelible image of the bullet hole before the scene was secured, pulsing warm, red blood as her life, and his, ebbed away.
She’s alive, she’s breathing, she’s safe. Even sitting inches from her with the relentless beeping as a reminder that her heart was still beating strongly, he couldn't drag himself back from the cemetery to this much more palatable aftermath. This, with Kate still so frail, was not good enough. His face twisted in agony as a tear snaked its way down his cheek.
Then cool fingers brushed away the tear. His eyes flew open and looked straight into hers. Something he’d thought he’d never be able to do again.
He reached up and took the hand that she had somehow found the strength to lift, because the tender gesture tore at his heart just a little bit more. Her hand was cool and he held it between his palm and his cheek, warming it with his skin as he continued to stare at her, unable to form words.
Against all odds, she smiled. “I’m not dead yet, Castle.” Her voice was little more than a whisper and did nothing to alleviate his pain.
“Beckett,” he chided softly, “can we just agree that when you decide to go rogue, you’ll do it in a way that I can go along with you? The whole loss of consciousness and almost dying thing? It really wasn’t part of the plan.” He kissed her hand tenderly. “So from now on, where you go, I go, ok?”
“I’d like that,” she replied, but her voice was reedy and her eyes drifted shut.
He continued to hold her hand as he watched those hypnotic movements of her chest under the sheet and the thin, white blanket.
Time passed, he thought it might have been only a few minutes, but he suspected it was more, as he stared at her and tried to will his own strength into her, to help her heal. A nurse walked into the room and smiled sympathetically at him. “She’s sleeping, Mr. Castle. That’s probably what she should be doing for most of the next twenty-four hours. You can take the opportunity to go home and change. When she wakes up properly, you probably don’t want her to see her blood on you.”
He looked down and saw that in the harsh light of the room the darker splotches of dried blood showed up on his shirt, jacket and trousers. He nodded stiffly and stood. “Thank you,” he said, “for everything.” The nurse had been in and out of Beckett’s room from the time she’d been moved there from recovery and there was something calming about her demeanor and the quiet efficiency with which she went about her job.
She made a dismissive gesture. “We’ll take good care of her until you get back,” she told him.
He leaned over the bed and pressed his lips gently against Beckett’s cheek. She made a noise in her sleep and a small smile quirked up the corners of her mouth. “I’ll see you later,” he whispered.
Despite the many tragedies as she’d seen in her career, the nurse found herself feeling slightly choked up by the tenderness of the gesture, coming as it did from a man who was so clearly devastated by the injury to the pretty cop. She had heard enough hospital gossip that she understood that the cop and Dr. Davidson were supposed to be an item, but what she had witnessed between those two people didn't make it seem as though one of them was in a relationship with someone else.
When Castle entered the waiting area, Jim Beckett came to meet him. “How's our girl?” he asked quietly.
“She's sleeping, but she spoke a few words to me before...” He shook his head as though to clear it. “The nurse told me to go home and change because she'll be more alert in 24 hours, but I don't want her to wake up and there's nobody...” He looked towards Josh and his voice trailed off.
“I'll stay with her until you get back. And I'll make sure she's not alone. Kevin, Javi and Lanie will take turns; they won't mind. Take your mother and your daughter home and try to sleep for a few hours. I know you think you won't, but you probably haven't had a proper rest since all this started and at least, for now, you know she's safe.”
Castle nodded. There were two uniforms outside Kate's door and two armed officers who would lay down their lives for her sitting in the waiting room in full view of that door. She was safe.
He walked toward Martha and Alexis and they stood, instinctively knowing that quiet conversation with Jim Beckett had persuaded him to do what everyone else had been urging him to do since Kate got out of recovery and they were all told that she was out of immediate danger and that for the next few days the biggest risk was of infection.
They also knew that the bullet, apparently aimed at her center mass because it was fired from an almost impossible distance away, had instead entered the right side of her abdomen with trajectory that was slightly upward and to the right. That split second when Castle had seen the light reflecting off the scope of the sniper's rifle and called out to her, making her turn slightly just before the bullet hit, had probably saved her life.
Martha shuddered as she thought of it and threaded her arm around her son's waist. She didn't want to think of what he would have gone through if Kate Beckett had died. It was bad enough watching him avoid the gaze of the man who, along with Jim Beckett, had the most right to be at Kate's bedside. The disconcertingly beautiful doctor looked genuinely worried about his lover, but he wasn't the emotional wreck that her son had become, and likely would remain, until someone told him definitively that Kate Beckett was out of danger. Maybe it was because he understood the details of her medical condition better than Richard ever could, but it was striking nonetheless.
As they said their good-byes and headed toward the exit, Alexis silently slipped her arm around her father from the other side, adding her support to that of her grandmother. She had seen her father interact with her mother, she had seen him marry and then have a months-long reconciliation with Gina, but she had never before seen her father in love.
The press had been banned from the hospital, but dozens of uniformed police officers milled about in the main lobby. A few walked up to Castle and asked about Beckett and he was glad that he didn't bear the burden of delivering bad news. Beckett was holding her own.
Alexis, watching and listening was amazed and moved by the sense of relief that went through the men and women as the news circulated. She also gathered that they had all come to donate blood. It was a show of solidarity, a reminder to the people involved in her care that Detective Beckett was a member of a family, a fraternity, so much more than an organization, which took a vow to serve and protect them and each other.
For the first time in her girly, cerebral life, Alexis Castle thought that she might like to contribute to that some day.