The Hardest Things
A 'Waking Up in Vegas' Verse fic

"Sometimes the hardest things in life, are the things most worth doing."

Richard Castle, Dreamworld. 6x02.

Kate taps her fingers against the paper placemat in front of her, giving her father a long look. They've been waiting for nearly an hour so far, sipping idly at the waters their server had offered, but holding off on ordering more, and giving their cell phones quick glances that have gone from annoyed to dismayed to concerned in that time.

"Dad, he would've called," she murmurs, checking the time on the phone for the tenth time in about as many minutes.

"They're just tied up and running behind, Katie. That's all. You said he was writing, and you've talked a hundred times about how Rick gets when he's writing."

She nods, conceding that point; her husband's writing habits are almost legendary in their family at this point, having been recounted and observed by all of them at least once over the last few years. It's a point of amusement when Rick gets gripped by an idea at Thanksgiving dinner and leaves them for thirty minutes to write, it's less amusing now that she and her father are sitting in a crowded restaurant waiting for him to show up.

Besides, Rick's tunnel vision aside, it's definitely not like her mother to be this late. It's not like her mother to be late at all, really; Johanna Beckett prides herself on being punctual, to an absurd degree. For her to leave them waiting like this without a word…

"Maybe you're right, but she would've called. You're sure she hasn't called you?" she asks, jutting her chin toward her father's phone. She hasn't heard it chirp, but he could have his ringer turned down from the night before or the impromptu client meeting he'd had earlier. "Not even to tell you she's running behind?"

Jim indulges her with a dutiful look at his phone, showing her the screen even as he shakes his head.

"Nothing, Katie. She was going into the office; she probably went home to change and lost track of time because of another email from a client."

"For over an hour?" she asks, skeptical. "The woman who insists on being fifteen minutes early to everything lost track of time for over an hour because of an email? Is Mom even capable of being late to something?"

Her father sighs. "I don't know, Katie. I don't know what to tell you."

"Call her," she urges, swallowing back the sudden lurch of her stomach. It's stupid, but she just knows something is wrong. That's all there is to it, something just isn't right. Her mother would never leave them waiting this long; Rick would never leave her waiting this long.

"Then you should call him, too," her father insists, lifting an eyebrow. "Since, as you said, being this late is un-characteristic for Rick, after all."

She nods, already hitting speed dial and lifting her phone to her ear, pulling her lip between her teeth. She's not being silly; something is going on; neither of them would be late like this unless something had happened.

Rick's phone goes to voicemail without even ringing, telling her his phone is off for some reason. He's usually good about charging it – a habit leftover from when they lived with the country between them and would call each other at all hours of the day and night just to check in and hear the other's voice – which makes the likelihood of the phone being dead pretty slim. But he also wouldn't have turned it off. Not even to avoid talking to his agent.

"He didn't answer," Kate murmurs, putting the phone down. Her brow furrows again. "I think his phone is off; it went straight to voicemail."

"Or he's with your mother on the subway," Jim suggests. "Hers just rang and rang, which is what it does now when she's underground without much signal."

She exhales, nodding after a second. "Maybe you're right. Maybe they'll be here soon."

They sit there for another forty-five minutes before her father's shoulders slump. He takes a final sip of his water and reaches for his wallet, leaving a sizeable tip to make up for the fact that they've been taking up a table for over an hour and a half without ordering anything.

"Let's get out of here, Katie. They're not coming."

Uneasiness tugs at her gut again, but she just nods and gets to her feet. God, Rick is so dead if she gets home and finds him playing a video game with his phone off – dead or otherwise. So dead.

They make it out of the restaurant and almost to the subway entrance at the end of the block when her father's phone rings from his jacket pocket. He fishes it out, flipping it open and lifting it to his ear. Kate steps closer, making sure she's out of the way of fellow commuters while her father talks.

"Jim Beckett."

She'll give him credit, he tries to appear nonchalant and unaffected, but the harsh intake of breath and the way he angles his body away from her tells her enough.

"What?" she demands, crowding into his space. "What is it?"

"Where are you?" he asks whoever is on the other end of the line, ignoring Kate's growing insistence. "Johanna, where are you?"

Dread slogs through her veins. Something is wrong. Her mother wouldn't call and get her father worked up like this if there weren't something happening.

Her father's eyes widen, and she watches him nod at her mother's words, whatever they are. He does his best to school his face and temper his reaction under her scrutiny, but she sees enough.

"Dad?"

"We'll be there soon," he says, focusing on the call instead of her request to be brought into the loop. "We're about to head down. Stay where you are if you can; we'll be there soon."

"What's going on?" Kate demands as soon as he closes his phone and returns it to his pocket. "Dad, what's going on with Mom? Where is she? What's wrong?"

There's no missing the tremble of her father's fingers as they curl around her upper arm. "We have to go."

"Where? What happened?" She doesn't stop him from tugging her down the steps, pulling her metro card out of her pocket a second after he does. "Dad, what happened to Mom?" she asks again.

Jim exhales. "We're going to the hospital." Off her incredulous look, he adds, "She was attacked, Katie. On her way to dinner with us."

Kate stumbles down the last step, feeling her heart drop and her breath catch. "Attacked?"

Her father nods, swiping through the turnstile and waiting for her to do the same.

"But she was able to call, so she's…" she exhales. "She's gotta be okay, right?"

Jim nods again, but even with that confirmation, the grave look on his face doesn't leave. "Sweetheart, there's more."

She stops, glancing up at him.

He exhales, leading her down the platform to a less crowded spot. Rubbing her arms and shifting his weight is obviously an attempt to buy some time, but she lets him have it.

"Apparently, she did meet up with Rick and they were going to head to dinner together," he begins, squeezing her upper arms quickly. He nods as horror floods her face and she feels the lump in her throat grow.

"No."

He nods. "Honey, Rick was with her; whoever jumped her attacked him, too."

So! I have had this sitting in a notebook and then on my hard drive for, no exaggeration, years. I wrote a solid chunk off it years ago when I was sitting in a waiting room waiting for my father to get out of heart surgery as a way of coping with that, and then I just... never typed it up, or when I finally did, I never posted it.

I did, however, sort of reference these events in the Waking Up in Vegas Verse chapter of In Every Universe. So here's to finally filling in the blanks, and finally telling you where this universe falls in terms of certain canon events and how (though I do have AUs of the AU too haha).

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy this story.