In A Heart Beat (a Castle Fan Fiction)

Chapter 20: In the End (Alternate)

Comes in right after the story of the place Rick showed Kate while she's in the taxi. So sorry it's kind of a lot shorter than my other chapters, but I didn't want to right too terribly far into the events. I just kind of wanted to give you all a different (and less realistic) way of how things could have happened since I made several of you cry. So here is the Alternate Ending, brought to you by those who voted to have one and my conscience.

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Now, as Kate watched the moon mocking her from above, she couldn’t help but realize that his safe haven might very well be the final lasting memory she had of him and it might be the closest she’d ever felt to him. With that, the cab finally came to a stop. She unhooked the child’s seat and slammed the door shut as she bolted through the hospital doors for the second time this week. Inside, she could tell it was worse than she’d imagined.

Having entered the ER with the child in her hands, she could only see Esposito sitting with Ryan. The silence overwhelmed her as the two avoided her eyes. After looking to see her standing there in panic, Javier could only bare the weight of that moment’s glance before turning away from her and burying his head in his hands a moment. Another step toward him, her heart raced faster and louder than ever. He finally pulled out of his own darkness and took a breath before standing to search Kate’s eyes. Seeing Kevin sitting there, unable to stand, her heart broke as she knew this couldn’t be good. Holding strong as her eyes involuntarily watered, and she muscled through the agenizing screams she wanted to yell. Javi’s response came to her implied question with a single quiver of his lip and tears in his eyes.

She had to ask with her last bit of strength, “Is he- dead?” A single tear dropped along her cheek as the final word fell through. Her friend simply dropped his head another moment, heaving a heavy gasp for air before choking back as hard as she could. This wasn’t an answer she would take in silence. There was no truth in the response until one of them said the words. Not accepting his tears, his lack of speech, his weakness not a decent enough answer, she demanded, “Is he dead, Javi?"

The detective could barely let out an answer. "Kate, he- he's in really bad shape. With how weak he was from the toxin and his prior wounds still healing-." Even as strong as he was, Javi was struggling to speak. Tension built in his chest and he could barely formulate a coherent sentence for her. But for her, he did his best, "He's in a coma. He need surgery, but they don't know if he's strong enough to survive it."

Kate's heart fell to the floor and shattered at this answer. She had dated a surgeon for a long time. If someone needed surgery and wasn't strong enough to survive it-. Her father had told her from an early age that letting people in was the greatest exercise for the heart and that even if you lose them, it was better to have known them than to have shut them out in fear. Her mother's murder had caused that philosophy to die within her heart, and Rick had been one of the few people who was able to revive it and allow the saying to flourish. She lost Roy. She'd lost and won back her father from alcohol, but still held a strained relationship with him. If she lost Rick as well…

A man approached wearing green scrubs stained with blood on the ends of his pant legs. His deep, masculine tone ushered out to his ex-girlfriend, "Kate?"

The detective looked up at him, but thought of nothing else but her love and family. "How is he? How are they all?"

"Your father is in recovery now. He'll be in observation for the night to be sure there was no real damage to his heart, but he should be cleared to go home tomorrow morning."

Kate then switched over, "Alexis and Rick? Are they-." She was panicking. Unable to finish the sentence. If her father was the first thing Josh talked about then he was in the best health. That left the young child and the writer still worse off. She knew it. They all knew it. She wanted nothing more than to hear that everything was all right, but she couldn't have her way.