Awakened 6
Title: Awakened
Chapters: 6
Rating: PG
Pairing: Beckett/Castle; Kate/Josh
Summary: Kate is alive. Speculation about the Big Bad
Notes: Not beta read, so please let me know how I've screwed up.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, but I'm using them for entertainment not for profit
Spoilers: Canon
Six
Kate stood on unsteady legs and waited for the blackness to fade. It happened every time she hauled herself off the bed into a standing position and it was only partially caused by the feeling that her guts were going to drop out of the slash on the right side of her belly that was held together by strips of paper. Strips which had started to curl up at the edges. Her knuckles whitened on the walker, but she didn’t pass out to complete the humiliation and she released a sigh of relief.
She straightened her back and felt the stabbing pain that reminded her of the other, more jagged hole in her body, that one closed with ugly black stitches. She’d accidentally found out that much in the bathroom.
“Easy does it,” the nurse said. He was a large, bleached-blond with an equally bleached goatee. “It’s just your blood pressure taking a few seconds to right itself. Let me know when you’re ready. You don’t have to worry - I won’t let you fall.”
She nodded, although she could feel the cold sweat that made the cotton gown stick to her skin. She gritted her teeth against the pain and the wave of nausea that accompanied it and she moved the light aluminum frame a few inches away from her then shuffled forward to meet it.”
“That’s my girl,” the nurse said, managing not to make it condescending.
He walked behind her and she was completely unselfconscious as he reminded her of the instructions for transferring her weight to the toilet while putting minimal stress on her incisions. She wiped her clammy hands on the thin gown, posture still erect as she sat on the toilet. “Jay, tell me it gets easier every day,” she said, hoarsely.
“You know it does. Yesterday we helped you to the bathroom, today you got here on your own.”
“Tomorrow?” she hated the desperate, hopeful tone of the question.
“Tomorrow, we’ll wash your hair and you’ll feel like a million bucks.”
She smiled tiredly. “I’ll settle for feeling like a worn-out twenty,” she joked.
Exhausted from using the toilet and brushing her teeth left-handed, she didn’t protest when a second nurse came in to wash her, cream her limbs and help her into a fresh gown. For some reason, having them do it on a chair in the bathroom, rather than in the bed, made her feel better.
The other nurse’s name was Paloma and Beckett remembered with a smile that she couldn’t stop blushing when Rick was around. She also avoided looking directly at him. Definitely a fangirl.
“Would you like a wheelchair to get back to the bed?” Paloma asked kindly.
Beckett shook her head stubbornly. “I got here on my own two feet and I’ll get back the same way,” she said through gritted teeth.
Still, once she was back in bed, she was ridiculously happy to take the pain pills and oral antibiotics, because she knew that meant four hours of being left alone to rest. Jay checked the heparin lock where her IV had been removed while Paloma checked her temperature and blood pressure.
“Everything looks great,” Paloma said, cheerfully.
“Do you want me to send in Mr. Caste before you go to sleep?” Jay asked, lowering the back of her bed.
She nodded. Castle had come in late that morning and she hoped it was because, for the first time in the week since she’d been shot, he’d actually managed to get a good night’s sleep.
A minute later he walked in, looking tired but smelling so good that when he reached down to kiss her forehead, she lifted a hand to his neck, so he couldn’t pull away. “You smell nice,” she admitted, her voice thready with exhaustion.
“I have a shower every Thursday, whether I need it or not,” he joked.
She kissed him.
He kissed her back.
As the hand behind his neck fell away, he lifted his head and looked at her. “Can I have a do-over when you’re not stoned out of your mind?”
“M’not stoned. Justired.”
“Ok, Detective. So, why don’t I let you sleep for a bit. I’ll be in the waiting area doing some writing and we’ll have a proper visit when you wake up.”
“’Kay,” she agreed, her eyes drifting shut.
He sat with her for more than fifteen minutes, just watching her sleep. Then, reluctantly, he rose, lingering for a few more seconds and looking down at her. “Kate…” the whisper seemed torn from him. I love you.
“She knows.” The words came from Jim Beckett. Castle had not heard him enter the room and he flushed at the knowledge that Kate wasn’t the only Beckett to whom he seemed to be transparent.
“Kevin, Javi and a redhead who tells me she’s not related to you, asked if you could step outside for a minute. Apparently, the redhead can’t stay. Don’t worry, I can sit with Katie until you get back.”
“I… the nurses told me she’ll be out for a few hours.”
“In that case, I’ll go for a walk and maybe grab some lunch.”
When they walked into the waiting area, the three cops were not alone. Martha Rodgers was also there, looking somewhat disturbed by whatever conversation they’d been having.
Jim Beckett sized up the situation and asked, “Martha, I was just going to head out for some fresh air and a proper lunch. Would you like to join me and leave those young people to their morbid discussion?”
Martha shuddered delicately. “As grateful as I am that they do what they do, I cannot honestly say that I’ve ever been able to hear the details without feeling vaguely queasy.”
As the two older people exited, Castle asked, “You’ve told them?”
“Some,” Shaw confirmed.
“Where are the files now?” Esposito wanted to know.
“One copy is in the safe at my publisher’s, another is in the safekeeping of my lawyer and I’ve asked not to be told where it’s being held, and Agent Shaw has the original,” Castle replied.
“I already have an analyst working on the bank records,” Shaw added, “but the fourth file is what concerns me. It’s a list of names, dates and numbers.”
“Bribes?” Ryan suggested.
“I hope not,” Castle muttered. “I know a bunch of the people on the list, including the mayor.”
“How far back do the dates go?” Ryan asked.
“All date back to when the people on the list were starting their careers. The date next to the mayor’s name goes back to before his first campaign for office, when he was a legal consultant for that morning news show and running voter registration drives in Brooklyn.”
“Are any of the other names ones that I’d recognize?” Esposito wanted to know.
Castle rattled off a who’s who of New Yorkers including a flamboyant Wall Street millionaire, the owner of a major sports team, two hall-of-fame athletes, an Oscar-winning actor and a Broadway producer.”
“And there was nothing else in the file?” Ryan was as confused as the rest of them.
“We’re doing chemical analysis on the ink to date it,” Shaw said. “I have a gut feeling it’s not new. Somehow Montgomery got hold of this old document because it provides some kind of link to our guy. But it’s like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle when we don’t have a photo of what it looks like when complete.”
“What do you need from us?” Ryan’s question was directed to Shaw.
“Things are still pretty chaotic at the 12th Precinct and active homicide cases have been reassigned, along with Karpowski, Ortega, Diamanti and Bloom.”
“So the homicide squad has been disbanded?” Esposito sounded stunned.
“Temporarily - until a new Captain has been assigned. Probably within the next four weeks.”
She smiled faintly. “I’ve arranged to have the two of you temporarily seconded to the FBI and I’m assuming you have no objections, so the paperwork is being drawn up downtown. As soon as you make it down to Federal Plaza to see this guy,” she handed them business cards, “we should be all set. And since nobody is using the squad room at the 12th, that will be the home of the task force until further notice.”
“Task force?” Castle asked. “I thought we were keeping this on the down low?”
“We’ll be keeping the link to Beckett quiet, but three federal agents have been killed. It would arouse suspicion if there wasn’t a task force. We can shake their trees by admitting that the NYPD uncovered a link between the deaths of the agents and that of Captain Montgomery, but you and Detective Beckett don’t exist for the purpose of this exercise. The ballistics report on the bullet that went through Beckett has been lost and will stay that way until we’re preparing for trial or writing a post-incident report on the death of the bastard who’s behind this.”
“What do you mean, I don’t exist?” Castle was scowling.
“You’re off the case.”
“But if it wasn’t for me…”
“Captain Montgomery would have had to send that file to someone else,” she replied flatly. Then she softened. “It’s not that I don’t think you can contribute, so unofficially we’ll be in touch. But I can’t let you be part of the public profile of the investigation. It’s just too dangerous.”
When he would have argued, Esposito said quietly, “Castle, Beckett needs you right now.”
Shaw watched as the simple statement seemed to sap all the animation out of the writer. The reality of the case appeared to hit him like a blow to the body: this case was no intellectual exercise or effort to help strangers make sense of a tragedy. It wasn’t an abstract concept or a search for someone who represented some vague risk to society. It was a hunt for the man who had ordered the firing of the bullet that had ripped through Kate’s body and almost stolen her life.
And Kate was just down the hall, fighting small battles that would gradually restore her dignity, her strength and her life. Whether she liked it or not, whether she knew it or not, he could do a lot to help her win those battles. That fact relegated any other demand on his time, with the possible exception of issues critical to Alexis, to the back burner.
“You’re right,” he said simply. “But you know where to find me if there’s anything, anything I can do.”