A/N: It's been over 2 years, and Rise still drives me nuts. I have actually written this fic twice before and have spent way too much time thinking through the aftermath of Knockout. I finally decided to share. Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle in any way, shape, or form

"Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate." Castle watched as her eyes closed and her body went limp in his arms. "Help, I Need Help!" He yelled as he frantically tried to put pressure on wound . "Kate... No... Come on... Kate."

"Castle," Lanie shouted as she approached.

"You gotta help her," he said as he looked up desperately.

"Move," Lanie ordered as she kneeled down and knocked Castle's hand off her best friend's face so she could access her neck to feel for a pulse. Then Lanie leaned down and put her face up Kate's. "Her pulse is faint but she's breathing. Take your jacket off and use it to hold pressure."

Castle was still staring at Kate and made no effort to move.

"Rick! Come on she needs you!"

He seemingly snapped out of it and quickly removed his jacket and pressed it into her chest. He startled as he noticed his hands were covered in blood.

"Good, hold it firm. She's out. It won't hurt her, really press into the wound," Lanie said.

"Kate," Castle whispered barely audibly.

"I hear sirens. Paramedics should be here any minute," Lanie said checking Kate's pulse again. "She's hanging in there. Beckett's tough."

"Here, she's here," a cop yelled running over with 2 paramedics following behind.

"Where's she hit?"

"Upper left chest. She's losing a lot of blood. Passed out about 5 minutes ago. Pulse is weak and she's barely breathing."

"Thanks. We got it," a medic said kneeling down next to Beckett.

"No, I'm a doctor. Start her on a 100% O2 and get a large Bohr IV in her now. Wide open!" Lanie quickly ordered.

The man nodded and put an oxygen mask over Kate's face as the other medic started to cut Beckett's jacket off.

"Sir, can you keep holding pressure?" he asked Castle handing him a stack of gauze pads.

"Yeah... Yeah."

"You're doing great, Rick. Keep changing that," Lanie added and handed him even more gauze.

The other paramedic finished hooking up the monitor and it beeped on as he announced, "Heart rate is 138, Stats down to 72%."

"What's her pressure?" Lanie asked.

"I'm having trouble getting one."

"Give me," Lanie demanded reaching her hand out. "I'm getting about 80 over 55. We have to get her to the hospital now."

"Let's get her up," the medic agreed standing up to grab the gurney. They lifted Kate on to it and sped towards the ambulance.

"You guys coming?" the medic asked Lanie and Castle once Beckett was in the ambulance.

"Yes," they answered simultaneously and climbed inside.

"What hospital are we going to?" Castle asked as they started moving.

"Presbyterian," the medic with them in the back answered.

"I called already, trauma team is standing by," the driver added.

"Good, good, " Castle said quietly continuing to hold pressure on her wound.

"Does she have medical problems or is she on medications?" the medic asked.

"No, uh, just birth control," Lanie answered.

"Any allergies?"

"No"

The monitor started wailing.

"Damn it," the medic said quickly. "Can you bag her?" He asked handing an ambu bag to Lanie.

She grabbed it as the medic began CPR.

"What do I do?" Rick asked as he was forced to move his hands from Kate's chest.

"Just hold her hand," Lanie choked out.

"V-Fib! Everyone clear!" The medic announced reaching out to grab the paddles.

"Castle, let go!" Lanie said sternly.

"Clear"

"She's back!" The medic said with relief. "Keep bagging her. What's our ETA?"

"About a minute. We're close," the driver answered.

When they pulled up to the ambulance bay, the medics quickly unloaded Kate and started explaining her condition to the waiting doctors. They took over for Lanie and Castle as a nurse tried to shuffle them into the waiting room.

"We need you to head to the waiting room. We'll take good care of her," the nurse said politely.

"I'm a doctor. I'm staying with her," Lanie said in a no nonsense tone.

"You're her friend. You need to go to the waiting room. Someone will come out and update you soon."

"Come on, Lanie," Castle said as he spotted Jim, Martha, and Alexis on the other side of the ER.

"How is she?" Jim asked as soon as he saw them approach.

Castle paused for a minute not knowing what to say. "She's a fighter," he finally breathed out.

"Oh Dad," Alexis cried collapsing into his arms. He held her tightly and ran his hand up and down her back. He immediately noticed it was covered in blood, Kate's blood, and stopped.

"Doctor Parish?" Jim asked in a serious tone sensing that she knew something but wasn't saying it.

"They're doing everything they can but..." Lanie trailed off unable to tell her best friend's father that she had practically died in the ambulance.

Jim just nodded solemnly seeing Lanie's distress and taking it for all he wanted to know.

Martha stepped up and rubbed Jim's arm. "We should sit," she said softly.

"Let's go clean up," Lanie said to Castle looking at their bloody hands.

Shortly after they returned from the rest room, a young resident came out. "Family of Katherine Beckett," he announced to the room.

"Yes. I'm her father," Jim said as everyone stood.

"I'm Dr. Geller. We are taking your daughter into surgery now. Dr. Kovacs, our attending cardiothoracic surgeon, is getting ready. "

"How bad is it?"

" We are going to do everything we can, but she has lost a lot of blood, and it appears the bullet did severe damage," the doctor explained.

"Thank you"

"I'll be out to give you updates."

Everyone sat back down, but no one said anything for a long time. Everyone was lost in their own minds. Castle couldn't stop himself from thinking the worst. He wished more than anything that it was Nikki Heat that had been shot. But this was real life and Kate wasn't Nikki, and he sure as hell wasn't in control of the outcome.

"Where are Ryan and Esposito?" Lanie asked breaking the silence.

"I don't know. Still at the cemetery, I think," Jim answered.

"I hope they caught the son of a bitch that did this," Castle chimed in.

"Me too," Lanie and Jim said at the same time.

The group shared a moment of silence with no one knowing what to say.

Castle's phone went off breaking the void. "Speaking of," Castle said seeing Esposito's name on his screen. "Castle, " he answered. "She's in surgery."... "I don't know"... "Did you catch him?" ..."The place was full of cops. How is that even possible?"... "No, I know." ..."Ok, see you soon."

"That was Esposito. They searched the whole grounds and locked down all the exits, but the guy got away. They were able to recover his gun so the lab is going to check for prints maybe we'll get a match," he told the group.

Jim got up and started to walk towards the exit. "Mr. Beckett," Castle called out.

"I just need to go for a walk. I'll be close by," he answered.

"Lanie, how long do you think she'll be in surgery?" Castle asked.

"At this point, the longer the better."

"If they're still operating, she's still alive," Alexis said speaking up for practically the first time since they arrived at the hospital.

"Yeah."

Ryan and Esposito came hustling in and up to the group. "Any change?" Ryan asked.

"No, but it's been over an hour. We should get an update soon, " Lanie answered as she got up and buried herself in Esposito's arms. He quickly closed his body around hers grateful for the comfort as well.

"Where's Jenny?" Castle asked Ryan. He knew she had been at the funeral as well.

"We passed Beckett's dad on the way in. They went to the cafeteria to grab some waters for everyone. He looks like hell. We thought... We thought... well he was standing outside the ER by himself so..." Ryan said.

"She's a fighter," Castle said understanding his point.

"Jenny loves to take care of everyone. Once we knew Beckett was ok, she made him go with her to get everyone something to drink."

"She's a good one, Kevin." Castle replied pulling Ryan into a hug. Castle pulled away shaking his head.

"Lanie," He said getting the woman's attention. "Do you have a phone number for Josh?"

Lanie just looked at him without responding.

"He needs to know. I completely forgot, but someone needs to call him."

"Castle, Kate and Josh broke up."

"What? When?"

"A couple days after you guys got back from LA," Lanie answered.

"Beckett didn't tell me," Castle said in disbelief.

"She was going to. She wanted to."

Castle just shook his head. Why would Kate keep that from him?

"She just needed some time, Rick. That was only like 2 weeks ago and think about everything that has happened since then. She was going to tell you."

"Did the doctor come out?" Jim interrupted as he and Jenny returned to the group.

"No, not yet," Lanie told him.

"I thought they were going to keep us updated."

"I can go check," Castle said. He headed towards the nurse's station just in time to see Dr. Geller come through the double doors.

"You're here for Katherine Beckett?" The doctor asked Castle.

"Yes, yes. We're all over here." Castle showed him over to the group.

"We were able to control the bleeding, and we are working on repairing the damage. She's not out of the woods yet, but things are looking better," Dr. Geller told them.

"Can you tell me more specifics about the damage?" Lanie asked.

"The main source of the bleeding was a tear in her left pulmonary artery, but the bullet also grazed her left ventricle. It doesn't appear to have hit her lung, and we were able to clear her spinal cord, so that's not an issue, but we could still find more damage. We have been focused on the heaviest of the active bleeding. "

"Thank you."

"It should be about 3 more hours," Dr. Geller explained.

"Thanks," Castle said quietly, and the doctor returned through the double doors.

Everyone sat back down, and Lanie began to cry quietly as she placed her head on Esposito's shoulder.

"Lanie?" Rick asked timidly.

"Yeah, Castle."

"Can you translate what the doctor said into English because I thought I heard that she was doing better?"

"She is. I'm relieved... but..."

"But what?"

"Those are serious injuries. It's going to be a very difficult recovery for her."

"Ok.. Ok, we'll deal with it. She's going to be fine. I'll help her. Whatever I can do. Money's not an object."

"Why don't we start by getting dinner for everyone? The doctor said it is going to be another 3 hours. Alexis and I will go get everyone something to eat," Martha chimed in.

"I'm not hungry, but here, take everyone down to cafeteria. I'll wait in case there's news." Castle said reaching into his back pocket for his wallet.

"Richard, you have to eat," Martha said.

"I will... just bring me something up. I'm not leaving in case the doctor comes out."

"I'll stay too," Jim said.

Everyone else reluctantly got up and headed out.

"I'm sorry Sir," Castle spoke up.

"For what?"

"I couldn't protect her."

"You tried, and that's all I asked. I probably didn't even have a right to ask you that. All I know is Katie cares about you, and I thought maybe she would listen if it came from you. I couldn't talk to her about it anymore. I'm lucky she still comes to me with details. When all this came up in January and Detective Raglan was killed, I asked her to be careful, but she's so determined. Before I could even really ask her to back down, she got angry with me," Jim explained.

"We fought about it too. It was... It was bad. Actually, she's not speaking to me right now," Rick chuckled. "Wow, that sounds stupid."

"When she called and told me Captain Montgomery had been killed, she spoke very highly of you, Rick. She said you saved her life."

"Roy did. I just helped."

"Still, thank you...I don't have to tell you this, but Katie is stubborn as hell. She's not going to want any help while she's recovering. Especially if you two aren't on the best terms right now, but you can't let her push you away."

"I'm going to do my best, but I don't want to over step."

"I wouldn't worry about that. I don't think she'll let you get that far," Jim said with a smile.

"Probably not," Castle laughed.

"She cares about you, Rick. Katie only truly fights with those she cares for. Most people she just ignores until they leave."

Castle was about to respond when the group returned.

"Any word?" Ryan asked.

"No," Rick shook his head.

"We brought you guys some coffee and some sandwiches. There's not a lot to pick from down there."

"Thank you."

Everyone settled in for the rest of the wait. About 2 hours later, Dr. Geller and another doctor came out.

"I'm Dr. Kovacs. I'm Detective Beckett's lead surgeon."

"Jim Beckett, I'm her father. These are her friends and partners. How is she?" Jim asked extending his hand to the man.

"She's out of surgery and stable, but we are going to need to watch her very closely."

"Can I see her?"

"The nurses are getting her settled and then someone will take you back. The rest of you should go home, get some rest, and come back in the morning."

"I'm not leaving," Castle resisted.

"I can only let immediate family back to see her right now. We are keeping her sedated at least over night. You will be back before she wakes up."

"I'm still not leaving."

"Dad, let's go get some sleep. She'll need you tomorrow," Alexis added putting her hands on her dad's arm.

The doctors excused themselves saying they would be around to answer any questions, and they would go through her whole treatment plan in the morning.

"We need to set up security on her room. The shooter's still out there. If he finds out she's alive..." Castle said to Ryan and Esposito once the group was alone.

Esposito turned to Ryan."We'll stay," Ryan said in agreement with his partner's silent question."We can set up a permanent detail in the morning. People we trust."

"I'll stay with you guys," Castle immediately volunteered.

"Castle, our job is to stand outside Beckett's door with guns. Yours is to take care of her and to do that you need to take care of yourself," Esposito said firmly.

"Call me if anything happens. Anything," Castle relented.

"We will." Ryan agreed.

A/N: So there's chapter one. I hope you enjoyed it. Consider this my personal head cannon for how season four should have began (extended edition lol). There's a lot more to come. I plan to include more medicine and recovery than we saw on the show. The majority of this story will focus on Beckett's recovery as well as her and Castle's relationship. Please leave a review. Positive or negative, I love hearing people's thoughts. Next chapter will be up in day or two.

Thanks for reading,

Meagan