In A Heart Beat (a Castle Fan Fiction)

Chapter 4: Frozen City

“Pick up, pick up.” Lanie said in the back seat of her cab. The traffic toward the hospital was horrible. Ryan and Esposito said they had a difficult time getting to New York General, the mostly pediatric hospital. They had no idea how they were going to be able to get to St. Luke’s with this big of an emergency. So many families, friends, and patients would be being brought to the hospital, not to mention all those “crushed fans” of Castle’s. The fans who fantasized about him and who had his life sized cut out next to their bed. The thought of seeing them there repulsed Lanie.

She couldn’t even kind of imagine how Kate was doing. God forbid he weresto die, the ME didn’t know if her friend could make it through that. Katharine Beckett was a ticking time bomb of one more terrible thing sending her over the edge, and this would be a major push. Not to mention he’s been non responsive to her for hours. She’d called him, most likely texted him, possibly even e-mailed him, and he hadn’t given a sign of life. And considering that area he was at had not food around there, she’d probably thought that Tyson had had him that whole time.

Lanie felt offal. She’d told Kate he was fine, and that she had nothing to worry about. She’d promised Castle’s safety without verifying it herself. She’d not only been keeping secrets, but she’d been lying, to her about things she knew and didn’t know. Mostly, she felt offal because she’d ignored Kate’s gut feeling, which nine out of ten times was one hundred percent right. Nothing more but to comfort Beckett and wait to see if Rick was going to live.

That was a scary thought, even for Lanie to think about. Castle’s death would mean a lot of things, but most of all, it would mean she’d lost a friend. That same friend she’d been so incredibly harsh to just that morning. The same friend who had nearly always been nothing but nice to her. The friend whose daughter she’d mentored in the lab when she was interning. Oh, no. Alexis.

He was the only parent she really had around. He was her center, the thing that kept her on balance while still being on her toes. The thing that kept her grounded while keeping her reaching for the stars. He was everything to her, and now-. She couldn’t even finish the thought.

Being a doctor, Lanie knew too much in this case, and she’d wished she knew less. He was sniped before a bomb in the back of a truck blew up the area surrounding him. That meant very bad things. Body damage, internal damage, depending on where he was shot, either a heart too weak to under go surgery, or a head to banged up to not have bleeding, plus the probable burns surrounding his body, and, should there be no smile for God to give of hope, shrapnel that could have been launched nearly anywhere. In the security video that the news was running, it’d shown from a high view Castle getting out of his car, walking the street, stopping, falling, and then the explosion.

Nothing in the world could have stopped this. Not even Beckett, although she’ll blame herself for the rest of her life. She should have never let Tyson get away the first time, or, she should have told castle going out alone with a killer who tried to kill him or is a follower of the guy he did kill, or, best of all, there will be the ‘I-should-have-gone-with-him’ guilt, as if that would have changed things or like he’d let her.

Why was today the day every secret had to come out in public?

“To the other hospital? I just picked you up from one didn’t I?” The cabbie was being not only nosey but also seemingly rude and thoroughly annoying. Ryan found him to be possibly the rudest cab driver he’d ever had. He’d been going on about how Kevin had been going from one hospital to the next for nearly the entire drive, and Ryan was fed up with it. A uniform just took over for him while watching the kid.

Not that it was any of the driver’s business anyway, but the only reason Ryan was going to this hospital was because his friend had been in the explosion that very possibly killed him. His other friend was probably in serious pain and nearly in a state considering the man she loved was so horribly hurt. Plus, his wife had called him to let him know that she too was at the hospital and that the hole freaking place was filled with crying people and lists of people who were dead, seriously injured, unidentified, and fine. Castle’s name was on the seriously injured board apparently. Ryan was a little surprised they were even able to identify him, which meant either he wasn’t injured in the face, or he had ID on him.