He’s making his way through the final course of Christmas Eve dinner with his mother and daughter, humming over the cheesecake Alexis had baked all on her own, when his phone buzzes from where he had left it on the kitchen counter. His mother narrows her gaze on him, but he excuses himself to answer the call, attempting to narrow down in his mind who could be calling him at nine o’clock on the night before Christmas.
He knows who he hopes is calling, but Beckett had informed him that she would be working the Christmas shift this year, much to his chagrin, and that she would have little time to chat. Though, he had been granted a ‘Hope you’re enjoying your Christmas Eve dinner, Castle’ text that had put a ridiculous grin on his face for the rest of the evening a few hours ago.
And huh, New York area code, but he doesn’t recognize the number.
“Richard Castle,” he answers anyway, huffing as his mother offers Alexis a sip from her wine glass, one that his daughter thankfully denies.
“Oh good,” the voice on the other line sighs. “Richard Castle, this is Doctor Stein at New York Presbyterian. I’m calling on behalf of Detective Kate Beckett, you were listed as her emergency contact and-”
“Kate’s in the hospital?” he repeats, skipping over the rest of the information, hardly able to recognize the surprised skip of his heart at the knowledge of being listed as Kate’s emergency contact. All that matters is that she’s in the hospital and all he can think of is the last time, when she’s been hospitalized after being shot in the chest at Montgomery’s funeral. “What happened? Is she okay? Is she-”
“Detective Beckett was brought in nearly an hour ago,” the doctor begins to explain. “She’s currently unconscious, but she suffered some superficial wounds, potential internal bleeding, but that’s merely an assumption at this point. She’s still undergoing examination, but I could explain more if you were-”
“I’ll be there,” he promises the man, already stumbling out of the kitchen, towards the coat closet near the door. He pauses at the dinner table, though, his mouth open to explain, but Martha is already waving him onwards.
“Go Richard. Call us from the cab and explain on the way,” his mother urges and he’s grateful for the lack of hesitation, the wealth of support and worry for the woman he loves.
Alexis doesn’t look quite as encouraging, but concern shimmers in her eyes despite whatever qualms she may have in regards to Kate and she nods in agreement.
“Go Dad,” she offers, as if sensing his need for the permission. “Detective Beckett shouldn’t be alone in a hospital room on Christmas.”
“I’ll call you both as soon as I’m in the cab,” he assures them, snagging his coat and sprinting out the front door, racing down the stairs because he knows he’ll be unable to bear an elevator ride.
Unconscious? Wounds that were both superficial and internal? What the hell had happened to her in the five hours since he’d spoken to her last?
Castle bounds through the fourth floor hallway after he’s checked in at the front desk, received directions to her room and Doctor Stein has been paged to meet him there. Cold sweat trails in rivulets down his spine, layers the back of his neck, and he resists the urge to clutch at his chest, force the thunderous stampede of his heart to slow.
“Mr. Castle,” Stein, he assumes, greets him as he finally enters her room, but Rick’s eyes are searching for her.
He finds Kate in the hospital bed, a sickening wave of deja vu washing through his stomach at the sight, but it’s not the same. No, the skin of her forehead is mottled with a violent bruise this time, her left arm decorated in thick white bandaging, and it may be a different injury, but it still robs his lungs of air.
“She’s going to recover,” the doctor assures him in that calm, placating yet professional tone that Rick has never been able to find comforting. “It’s been a bit busy here, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but once we had the chance to assess Detective Beckett’s injuries, it’s been determined that aside from a few bumps and bruises, she’s suffering only from a mild concussion.” Only? The doctor says the diagnosis as if it’s no big deal, as if the picture of her lying unconscious in a hospital bed is nothing to worry about, and Rick has to purse his lips, take a deep breath to hold himself together. Lashing out at her doctor wouldn’t do any good. “She should wake at any minute, but we’re going to keep her overnight, ensure the head injury doesn’t escalate in any way.”
“Concussion?” he echoes, stepping deeper into her hospital room, past the grey haired pole of a man beside the foot of her bed to approach her, see her up close. “How did this happen? How did she-”
Rick’s eyes fly away immediately from the doctor, back down to Kate and her blinking eyes, and he can’t help lowering to the very edge of her hospital bed, grazing his fingers along the inside of her wrist, one of the few untouched pieces of her.
“Oh good, Detective, you’re awake,” Stein appraises, retrieving the clipboard from the foot of her bed and marking something down. “That’s a great sign.”
Kate frowns at the man and shifts her bleary gaze back to Castle, the muddled brown of her eyes slowly beginning to clear.
“Castle, what’re you doing here? It’s Christmas Eve,” she rasps and he feels the choked noise of gratitude breach his lips before he can stop it, the relief bathing his insides.
“What are you doing here?” he deflects, brushing his thumb back and forth along her metacarpal bone. “How did you end up with a concussion and a multitude of war wounds, Beckett?”
She winces at the gentle dusting of his fingertips along the mosaic painting a portion of her forehead.
“I was checking out a lead, saw our suspect robbing a Christmas charity box. Takedown mustn’t have gone too smooth,” she mumbles, assessing the white gauze encasing her arm, the IV attached to her hand.
“According to the fellow officers who brought you in, during the scuffle, the suspect slammed you into a nearby brick wall, nearly broke your arm and earned you a pretty big bump on the head,” Stein explains, returning her chart to its place at the edge of the bed railing. “We attempted to contact your father, but there was no answer. Mr. Castle was the only other person on your emergency contact list.”
Kate diverts her eyes to her lap, a kiss of pink spreading along her cheeks, but Castle merely traces the line of her pulse, reassured by the steady beat against his thumb.
“I’ll have a nurse in to check on you soon, Detective. But I’m sure by tomorrow morning you’ll be cleared to go,” the doctor assures her. “In the meantime, Merry Christmas to you both.”
Castle nods to the man as he makes his exit and before he can even return his attention to her, Kate is already speaking.
“Castle, your Christmas Eve dinner,” she murmurs, her tired eyes rising to seek his. “You were telling me all about your traditions this past week-”
“Christmas traditions were the last thing on my mind when I got that call,” he states, feeling his heart threaten to rip, splitting along the edges as the shame blooms through her features. “Mother and Alexis understood. Christmas is important to us, but so are you, Kate.”
Her lips purse but refrain from falling into a frown and oh, how he wishes that her wall was in shambles now, that the waiting could be put on hold just for tonight, just so he could press a kiss to the uncertainty staining her lips.
“I should have warned you that I’d made you an emergency contact,” she mumbles, turning her hand palm up to catch the fingers dancing at her wrist.
“I consider it a great honor,” he muses, mapping the lines of her hand with the tips of his fingers. tentative in his touch. She has rarely allowed him this much touching.
“You should go back home,” Kate insists, but the curtain of her lashes hide her eyes from him. “I’ll be fine here.”
“You really think I’m going to let you spend Christmas Eve alone in a hospital?” he scoffs, the corners of his lips quirking once her eyes cut back to him. “No way, Beckett.”
“We were already finishing up with dinner. We save presents for Christmas morning. I’m not missing anything and they’re not missing me for the night,” he promises her, despite how doubtful she looks, but it’s true. Mostly. “You’re not getting rid of me, Kate.”
“Story of my life,” she grumbles, lowering her head back to the pillow, but her mouth is lifting into a smile.
And he may have been pulled away from one tradition, but he’s here now, making a new one of sorts with her, hoping that one day they can spend Christmas together outside the walls of a hospital room.
He hadn’t had much to work with in terms of decorations, especially since her stay was going to be less than eight hours, but when Kate’s eyes peel open at six-thirty the next morning, he’s managed to dress her IV pole with a Santa hat one of the nurses let him borrow and has the tiny Christmas tree that he stole from the waiting room on display near the window.
“Had to make it a little more festive in here,” he explains from the chair beside her bed, and she musters a smile for him, shifts sideways and tugs back the crisp white bed sheets.
“You look exhausted, Castle,” she whispers, patting the empty space beside her with her uninjured hand. “Crawl in for a few minutes.”
After talking to his mother and daughter again the night before, explaining the situation and managing only a couple of choppy hours of sleep beside her hospital bed, she was right - he’s absolutely exhausted. But waking on Christmas morning to see strips of sunlight slipping through the blinds to douse her in winter light has revived him, infused him with joy and a foreign spread of peace he hadn’t known he’d been searching for.
“Just before you go,” she adds softly and he doesn’t want to think about telling her goodbye, so he unfolds from the uncomfortable chair at her bedside, carefully climbs onto the hospital bed with her.
He doesn’t expect Beckett to lower her head to his shoulder once he’s arranged himself beside her, doesn’t expect the heavy sigh that leaves her lips to deflate her entire body, let her sink into him without a second of hesitation.
“How are you feeling?” Castle inquires, finding her hand between them, tangling their fingers and feeling his heart bloom with childlike wonder when she squeezes in response.
“Better, just tired,” she admits. “May drift off again.”
“That’s okay, you need your rest,” he murmurs, turning his head to brush his lips to the top of her head, listening to her hum in response, feeling the vibration of the noise travel through his bones. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“Gotta go home,” Kate protests, but her words hold no conviction, quiet and threatening to slur together. “Home for Christmas.”
“I could make a really cheesy joke right now about how home is where the heart is,” he replies without thinking, counting on her drowsy, concussed state to save him from his blunder.
Beckett huffs against his shoulder. “Giving me your heart for Christmas?”
She chokes on a laugh, buries it in the fabric of his sweater and he feels his own smile grow. They’re both low on sleep, rather loopy, but it doesn’t change the truth - she has his heart, has claimed ownership of it for a while now, and he’s certain she’s been well aware of this. But if by some chance she wasn’t, she definitely is now.
“It probably doesn’t mean much now,” Kate murmurs, her thumb trailing along the length of his index finger. “But you’ve got mine too.”
Castle glances down, but all he can see is the top of her head, the twine of hands between their thighs, the anxious path of her thumb along his bone.
“Your - your heart?” he questions, watching her hand squeeze in affirmation.
“Still not in the best shape,” she sighs, her IV riddled hand rising to curl protectively at her chest, over the still healing bullet scar. “Still healing, but it’s yours, Castle. If you want it.”
“As if I could ask for a better Christmas present,” he huffs, the tension unraveling from her limbs, her cheeks rising with her smile, and Castle smears a tentative kiss to her forehead.
They’re still waiting, he knows, but he has her heart, has the promise of more, and it’s the only gift he had ever truly wanted this Christmas.
