The Haunting Past (A Castle Fanfiction)

Part Ten: Fight for Life

As Javier desperately tried to awaken the woman before him, calling her name, even going as far as slapping her cheek, Valgora was immediately on his phone talking to disbatch to send an ambulence to their location.Carpenter had rushed out of the room after seeing blood drip from Kate's lip and called down to the M.E in the morgue. At very least Lanie was a doctor who could possibly do something to help. When the M.E got up to the bullpen of the precinct, she rushed in to find her friend's limp body drapped on the floor, resting on her side, a small pool of blood stainging to floor beneath her mouth in the bright pink, frothy pool that Kate seemed to be drowning in.

Javi saw Lanie only when she pushed into him to get him out of the way. There was no time for formalities. Esposito just quickly told Lanie, "She barely has a pulse." Lanie checked anyway. She wasn't even certain she was getting a pulse off her friend. So, for the second time in a few short years, Lanie rolled Kae onto her back and began CPR. Everyone stood back and watched, helpless to aid either the M.E or the detective.

After being removed from Kate's side, Javi moved behind her head, to watch her airway for a continuence of blood. He watched Kate's unresponsive face as remained shrouded by a ghostly figure as his girlfriend did everything she could to revive the woman on the ground. It was horrifying to see Beckett like this for a second time in so few years. But- there was nothing they could do to stop it. They knew this might happen from the start, they just never imagined the indestructable women who had survived a bullet to the chest and come out of it ready to fight would be taken down by something as silent and ordinary as stress. Then again, there was nothing ordinary about this situation. There was nothing ordinary about what Kate had been through over the past six months. She'd been through so much. She'd gone through hell and come back so many times. This couldn't be her end. Not now. She had to make it. She had to come out of this alive.

When the paramedics stormed the upper room with a large bag of medical supplies, Lanie didn't let herself be removed. Just as before, she identified herself as a doctor and helped in transporting Kate from the floor to the gourney where she continued CPR. They asked her hundreds of questions about Kate and her pregnancy, every answer in the back of Lanie's mind just as she and Rick had trained each other. After knowing anything could happen for months, Lanie and Rick had decided on every answer before they'd been sure they were having boys. Drilling Lanie with questions wasn't something she was taken aback by. The only thing that threw her off guard was the sight of her friend spewing up blood. The reality of this scene set Lanie off, but she did what she knew Kate would do; she held it together and focused intensely on the facts at hand.

Just as before when she got to the hospital, they forced Lanie to remove herself from the gourney and allow someone else to take over as they continued to bag the woman who had deteriorated severely in the short ride over. She did as she was instructed with an upmost pain in her chest and landed with two feet on the ground, staring into the sight of her friend being wheeled away. For the second time, Lanie was stripped of all power over the situation and was instantly hallowed of any strength she could have possibly had. And for the second time, when the team pulled up inside the hospital doors, Lanie fell into Javi's arms, aware of the overwhelming possibility that this could be the last memory she had of Kate. Ryan and Espo didn't need to ask about Beckett to know just from Lanie's desperate, woeful gaze that it wasn't good. The only thing they could do was wait. There wereothers working the case now. They needed to be here for their partner, especially since her husband refused to pick up the phone.

Instead Rick's outing caused the others to have to call in to the two girls who could do next to nothing for the woman in peril. Luckily, when Ryan called from the car, Alexis was the one to pick up the house phone instead of her sister. "Alexis, sweetheart, I need you to sit down and listen very carefully," Ryan started. He knew in this instant he wouldn't be able to hide the emotion in his voice. He refused to try. Trying would make it worse. Alexis sat. Ryan continued at the sound of her voice. "Something's happened to Kate and your father won't pick up the phone. She's at the hospital. She's not doing too hot. We really need Castle down here. Do you know where he is?"