the gasp and stutter of a heart 7/?
Title: the gasp and stutter of a heart 7/?
Author: dave7
Rating: M
Characters/Pairings: Richard Castle/Kate Beckett
Fandom: Castle
Spoilers: All of Season Three is fair game.
Summary: And it’s almost funny how this? Her ideals? Her sense of selflessness? Was one of the things he loved most about her yesterday.
the gasp and stutter of a heart 7/?
Lucky the doctor calls them.
Hours of waiting in the hard plastic chair next to Kate’s bed, hours of non-cancerous health effects echoing in his head, and the doctor calls them blessed.
He mentions something about biological equivalent doses and effective depths. Technical jargon that flies over Rick’s head. Absorbed doses and maximum depths and exposure times and a chance is what he hears. Everything is up to chance, but theirs are good.
And they’re lucky. Lucky it was Cobalt. Lucky the exposure was so brief. Lucky their baby is so far along.
It doesn’t feel much like luck.
But then -
A boy, the doctor says, a son.
He hears the baby’s heart beat, fast and strong, hears it with his own ears, and he watches as it moves on the screen, small hands and tiny feet twitching, jerking with life.
And it’s real, isn’t it? Oh so very real in a way that it wasn’t before because pregnant and yours are one thing, but that, there, on the screen - living, growing, being - is real in a way that makes everything else seem small.
- And then yeah, he almost feels lucky.
But.
“We’ll need to keep you for observation,” the doctor explains to Kate but she’s shaking her head, no.
He almost feels lucky. Until he remembers.
“No,” Rick says, and he hates himself for it, but, “we need to get back to the precinct.”
Kate looks at him, gratitude in her eyes. She’s happy he made the call. He hates that he can.
He offers her a smile but it’s weak because all he wants to do is bundle her up, keep her safe, her and their child. He wants to run, wants to take her somewhere apart from this, from the chaos, and keep her there, like his mother, like his daughter, but she won’t leave, he knows, can’t leave, and so he won’t ask her to.
And it’s almost funny how this? Her ideals? Her sense of selflessness? Was one of the things he loved most about her yesterday.
- -
They’re flying through the streets, getting closer and closer, soaring towards the bomb and the end and certainty and he hopes that he’s wrong but no, he’s not because then they can see it.
The black van pulls out in front of them and all he wants is to ask her to turn around but she’s pulling along side, pulling in front, and stopping the car to fly into danger.
She’s talking to Nazihah, the baby girl’s mother, when he finds it and they have minutes then, just two, and they’re already ticking down.
“Beckett!”
Kate’s with him then, next to him, a hand clutching his coat sleeve.
Over. God. It’s all over, isn’t it?
Her eyes skitter towards him as she rattles off the where and the what to dispatch and three minutes? They don’t have three minutes.
“That’s two minutes too late.”
Her eyes fill with regret, with sadness and sorrow and pain and he can see it’s aimed at him, for him, and why? Honestly, did she expect he’d want to be anywhere but with her - right next to her - if his world was about the end?
A minute and a half. Ninety seconds. Less.
Nothing left to lose.
Except.
Everything.
Everything to lose.
It’s a little insane, because she hasn’t told him she loves him and he hasn’t told her more than that one time, but everything and nothing and he does. He does. He loves her.
And he thinks she does too, loves him too, and somewhere they’re living another life, another reality, where they’re having a baby and they live long enough to see it born.
Rick takes her hand, seconds ticking down in his head, and he asks, “Marry me?”
Kate stares at him, silent, a thousand thoughts dancing across her face and time, precious as it is, slips past them while he waits for her reaction.
It’s tense and awkward and he thinks, maybe, he’s ruined it, their last moments together, but then it breaks. Her face cracks, a smile, and she ducks her head, tries to hide it from him.
Sixty seconds.
“Kate?”
“Ask me tomorrow, Rick.”
And it’s not an answer, but the hope in her eyes, the wish, that says everything he needs to hear. If he could ask her again she might say yes.
A hand against her cheek, thumb stroking the corner of her eye. “Okay.”
“I do love you.”
And he wants to say it back, but there’s too much. Too many words choking up his throat and she deserves to hear it again, deserves to know, but he can’t speak and so he says it without the words.
Thirty seconds.
He presses a kiss to her forehead, to each of her eyelids, one on both of her cheeks.
Twenty.
When his lips find hers their kiss is desperate, hot, and she’s pouring herself into him, love and pain and goodbye and no.
No.
Because they didn’t die, frozen in a freezer, their little family of three, and he’s not going to let them die now. No. He’s not.
Ten seconds.
Less.
Their foreheads press together, their breaths mix in front of them.
He can’t. No. He can’t let this be the end.
Rick reaches out blindly, wraps his hand around what he finds and everything he has, every hope, every dream, every wish for the future, he takes into his own hands. Fate be damned, his life and hers, and he rips them back from the precipice.
--
TBC...
Author: dave7
Rating: M
Characters/Pairings: Richard Castle/Kate Beckett
Fandom: Castle
Spoilers: All of Season Three is fair game.
Summary: And it’s almost funny how this? Her ideals? Her sense of selflessness? Was one of the things he loved most about her yesterday.
the gasp and stutter of a heart 7/?
Lucky the doctor calls them.
Hours of waiting in the hard plastic chair next to Kate’s bed, hours of non-cancerous health effects echoing in his head, and the doctor calls them blessed.
He mentions something about biological equivalent doses and effective depths. Technical jargon that flies over Rick’s head. Absorbed doses and maximum depths and exposure times and a chance is what he hears. Everything is up to chance, but theirs are good.
And they’re lucky. Lucky it was Cobalt. Lucky the exposure was so brief. Lucky their baby is so far along.
It doesn’t feel much like luck.
But then -
A boy, the doctor says, a son.
He hears the baby’s heart beat, fast and strong, hears it with his own ears, and he watches as it moves on the screen, small hands and tiny feet twitching, jerking with life.
And it’s real, isn’t it? Oh so very real in a way that it wasn’t before because pregnant and yours are one thing, but that, there, on the screen - living, growing, being - is real in a way that makes everything else seem small.
- And then yeah, he almost feels lucky.
But.
“We’ll need to keep you for observation,” the doctor explains to Kate but she’s shaking her head, no.
He almost feels lucky. Until he remembers.
“No,” Rick says, and he hates himself for it, but, “we need to get back to the precinct.”
Kate looks at him, gratitude in her eyes. She’s happy he made the call. He hates that he can.
He offers her a smile but it’s weak because all he wants to do is bundle her up, keep her safe, her and their child. He wants to run, wants to take her somewhere apart from this, from the chaos, and keep her there, like his mother, like his daughter, but she won’t leave, he knows, can’t leave, and so he won’t ask her to.
And it’s almost funny how this? Her ideals? Her sense of selflessness? Was one of the things he loved most about her yesterday.
- -
They’re flying through the streets, getting closer and closer, soaring towards the bomb and the end and certainty and he hopes that he’s wrong but no, he’s not because then they can see it.
The black van pulls out in front of them and all he wants is to ask her to turn around but she’s pulling along side, pulling in front, and stopping the car to fly into danger.
She’s talking to Nazihah, the baby girl’s mother, when he finds it and they have minutes then, just two, and they’re already ticking down.
“Beckett!”
Kate’s with him then, next to him, a hand clutching his coat sleeve.
Over. God. It’s all over, isn’t it?
Her eyes skitter towards him as she rattles off the where and the what to dispatch and three minutes? They don’t have three minutes.
“That’s two minutes too late.”
Her eyes fill with regret, with sadness and sorrow and pain and he can see it’s aimed at him, for him, and why? Honestly, did she expect he’d want to be anywhere but with her - right next to her - if his world was about the end?
A minute and a half. Ninety seconds. Less.
Nothing left to lose.
Except.
Everything.
Everything to lose.
It’s a little insane, because she hasn’t told him she loves him and he hasn’t told her more than that one time, but everything and nothing and he does. He does. He loves her.
And he thinks she does too, loves him too, and somewhere they’re living another life, another reality, where they’re having a baby and they live long enough to see it born.
Rick takes her hand, seconds ticking down in his head, and he asks, “Marry me?”
Kate stares at him, silent, a thousand thoughts dancing across her face and time, precious as it is, slips past them while he waits for her reaction.
It’s tense and awkward and he thinks, maybe, he’s ruined it, their last moments together, but then it breaks. Her face cracks, a smile, and she ducks her head, tries to hide it from him.
Sixty seconds.
“Kate?”
“Ask me tomorrow, Rick.”
And it’s not an answer, but the hope in her eyes, the wish, that says everything he needs to hear. If he could ask her again she might say yes.
A hand against her cheek, thumb stroking the corner of her eye. “Okay.”
“I do love you.”
And he wants to say it back, but there’s too much. Too many words choking up his throat and she deserves to hear it again, deserves to know, but he can’t speak and so he says it without the words.
Thirty seconds.
He presses a kiss to her forehead, to each of her eyelids, one on both of her cheeks.
Twenty.
When his lips find hers their kiss is desperate, hot, and she’s pouring herself into him, love and pain and goodbye and no.
No.
Because they didn’t die, frozen in a freezer, their little family of three, and he’s not going to let them die now. No. He’s not.
Ten seconds.
Less.
Their foreheads press together, their breaths mix in front of them.
He can’t. No. He can’t let this be the end.
Rick reaches out blindly, wraps his hand around what he finds and everything he has, every hope, every dream, every wish for the future, he takes into his own hands. Fate be damned, his life and hers, and he rips them back from the precipice.
--
TBC...