I haven't seen Knockout yet, I only know the spoilers thanks to people writing it in their summaries. I am just basing this on what I know, that Beckett was shot at Montgomery's funeral and as she was slipping into death Castle said he loved her. So anything else is my own interpretation.

I do not own Castle or anything affiliated with it.

Her eyes were drooping, slowly closing on the blurry world before her. The searing pain from her abdomen was the only thing keeping her in the realm of the living. She could feel people rushing around her, they were flustered. Murmurs took the place of screams in the cool air, one voice stood out to the detective, even in her comatose state.

'Kate, don't leave me.'

She could feel pressure on her wound, making the pain increase. She couldn't even scream, she couldn't even move.

She'd never been so scared in her life; she could feel herself slipping into the other world, the world where she was neither here nor there, between death and life. For a few years after her mother's murder she would have welcomed death with open arms, because in that life she could be with her mother.

Now she knew that there was more to live for, you've only got one life and you can't let it end before your time. She also had others to live for. She couldn't leave everyone who loved her, she knew the pain that her death would inflict on those around her and she wouldn't wish that on anyone.

To make them go from one tragedy to another would be more harmful than could be imagined. Her father would turn back to drinking, the precinct would once again be silent out of respect and God only knows what would happen to the man she loved.

She'd spent so long trying to deny her feelings for the handsome writer. She'd repressed them until she had even convinced herself that they weren't real and that he would never reciprocate them. Now in facing death she realised that nothing was more important than letting him know how she felt, even if he didn't love her back she would at least be able to say that she had tried.

If she survived this she knew that she would have to tell him. She'd have to do many things. So far her life had been too focused on the future, every time she had a dream she'd think 'soon' but she shouldn't have waited because you are never promised a tomorrow you are just lucky to have the moments that you get.

She wouldn't let herself think, 'if only'. She'd done that enough when her mother died to realise that it would do nothing. Life is not written in pencil, it's written in ink that can never be erased. Each person that comes through your life has been stamped in your mind forever and each moment that you lived is transcribed in your skin.

Her pain was fading, along with her thoughts. Pictures were flashing before her eyes, moments in her life that she knew she'd never forget. She tried to focus on staying awake, on staying alive. Straining her ears she could hear Castle's voice laced with emotion.

'You can't go. Stay with me Kate. You can't go, I love you.'

As his arms encircled her almost lifeless body she realised that she would make it through because nothing was stronger than love. With that last thought she slipped into a peaceful oblivion.

Something has to be wrong with me, to get over a death I write about it.