Hi everyone. My first go at a Prompt. This one was put up a while ago, about Castle having somehow been able to hide the fact that he is deaf (partially in my fic) from anyone outside his family, but it suddenly all comes out when a bust goes wrong. My fic is in two parts. The first is from Castle's point of view, and the second from Beckett's. I hope it works. The second part will be out next week - its mostly written, just have to tweak it a bit because its not quite coming together. Any input from readers would be appreciated.

Please R&R. Hope you like it.

Revelations - part one.

Consciousness, when it returned, was slow. He felt himself, like an ink drop slowly blooming through a cup of water, gradually expanding back across his own mind, his body, until he was once more Rick. More or less. And with that return to awareness he could feel every cell weighted down with a spreading, melting sort of fatigue that he hadn't experienced since those endless nights with Alexis feverishly cutting teeth, followed by long long days of Gina and her never ending string of imminent deadlines. Even his eyelids were too much of a burden to lift. So he lay there against his pillow, stuporous with exhaustion and waited to fall back asleep.

Mother would wake him if Alexis started fretting again.

He suddenly fancied he could hear his daughter burble against his side, her words a lovely little blurry trickle of bells cascading and tumbling happily against his skin. He felt his chest tighten with feeling. A smile pushed at his lips.

"Pum-kin..."

He drifted again...

Voices.

Beckett. She was nearby, talking seriously, earnestly and straight with someone. He didn't open his eyes, but listened with all of his attention enjoying the feeling, that small thrilled glow, that ignited whenever she was nearby. He could clearly remember when that spark of closeness shifted from being purely carnal to something more. It was a day, same as any other, as he barreled into the 12th with a coffee that wasn't his and saw her already at her desk leaning over an open file folder. There was nothing different about the way they traded a witticism as he thunked her coffee lightly on to the same ring stained spot that he always did, nor how he slid home into the chair he had taken as his months ago, and swung it onto just the right angle so that he could see all of her face and wouldn't miss a word. But then it just happened. Just like that. In that one moment everything tumbling and clicking into place like the last twists on a rubik's cube. All his colours just slid home and everything changed. Everything. From that moment, he was enthralled. She wasn't his muse, she was just... his. Just like that.

But now, he floated away again listening, listening.

When he woke next, people were talking nearby. Women people. The soft timbre of their speech added an interesting layer to the inertia he was still stuck in, but he felt more focused this time, and automatically started searching for familiar patterns to decipher what they were saying. No matter how hard he tried though, the sounds slithered and slipped formlessly through the grasping fingers of his mind and the strain of the effort grew a piercing ache in his temples. He recoiled from the exertion and tried to melt back into his pillow. Too late, too late. The pain in his head, pricked the passive bubble he was floating in and a sudden new rush of awareness flooded in. A sharper, more penetrating, more demanding intrusion of consciousness this time. And with it: pain.

Pain in his head, cheek, eye, ribs and right arm. Pain that was throbbing and steady, dull and sharp. And thirst. Thirst. And more. A vaguely familiar and ominously astringent chemical smell. And unwanted cold and cramping confinement along each limb. This was not home. This was not his bed.

Not his bed!

With a sharp inhalation, he was awake. His previously heavy eyelids, flicked open with a snap. Not his room. Not his bed. He sleep on an elevation. He didn't have to be crammed into his own bed with his knees making hills in a too thin white cotton blanket, just to fit onto the mattress. So, not his bed. No. He looked down. That too cold blanket reached his waist, but above it there was white cotton shirt across his chest. Tight shirt. No. Wait. A band of painful pressure across his ribs, under the shirt. Bandages? His left arm was pressing against the cold metal rails along one side of the bed, the other arm bound down with something. More Bandages? Bloody knuckles on each hand. Lip, cheekbone, ear all throbbing with a taut swollen pain. Headache. And that smell...

Oh.

OK. Got it now.

Hospital.

Oh, hospital. Oh. And he remembered it all with a rubber band snap and a wince. The raid. The stink of weed. So much weed. His head had been swimming with it. Then the very very big guy, with fists like a gorilla, sneaking up on Beckett. The fight. Winning the fight. Maybe. No, he did win it, he was sure. Yeah, he must have. Ryan and Espo had given him the thumbs up from across the room so he must have won. Then... Then... Nothing. He frowned, thinking, but nothing more came to mind.

Voices interrupted his train of thought. The women. And oh, not just any women, but his mother and Kate Beckett. Deep in conversation with their backs to him. Beckett, his eyes lingered, was still wearing the brown leather jacket and simple elastic hair tie she had been wearing at the time of the raid. There was dust on her shoulders and right arm. An old spiderweb was tangled in her hair. And his mother was wearing one of his rain jackets that he kept by the door - the one she was always telling him to send to the dump before a family of rats moved into it. He pursed his lips. So a hasty exit from the loft to the hospital, and Kate had not been back to the precinct long enough to pick the remnants of the bust from her clothes and hair. He smiled. Well, enough waiting, it was time to alert them that the hero of the hour was awake and thirsty enough to drain a street hydrant, but then he heard his mother's distinctive inflection give voice to that which usually heralded her final argument-ending proclamation: "Men!" The intonation was unmistakable despite the fact that she had her back to him. Uh oh. He glanced at Beckett, but the detective still had her face turned away and he couldn't pick up enough of her murmur to put the pieces together. One thing he did know though, was that the 'hero of the hour' was going to get a chewing out before the parade. If only Beckett would turn just a bit more to the right he could find out what she was saying and...

Oh no.

Oh no. It suddenly made sense. Oh no. He raised his uninjured arm and touched his fingertips to his ear, though really it was unnecessary to check. But then it was too late. They had realised he was awake. He felt the bed dip and wobble and familiar fingers curled their tips under his chin, pressing in until he lifted his head. He dropped his hand to his lap.

"Richard, oh Richard!" His mother's drawn face was close to his. Her pale unmade lips forming the words with a subtle telling tremor. "How are you feeling darling? Does anything hurt? Do you need the doctor?"

"I'm ok mother." His throat felt pinched and stripped of all moisture. His head was throbbing. "I'm fine." He risked a glance to the foot of the bed, not quite yet daring to lift his gaze to make eye contact. And there was his detective. He stared at her sky blue shirt, dusty and smeared with something gritty, as it tucked in to the waistband of her jeans, near the police badge clipped into her belt, and then the pearly buttons rising up the centre line of her body, rising and falling over prose inspiring contours. He couldn't help what happened next. His eyes continued travelling upwards and he sneaked a glance at her face. Gorgeous, high cheekbones, incredible eyes... Um, ok tight - suspect-to-be-interviewed eyes, and -

His mother hit him.

"Ow!" He yelped and looked back at his mother.

"Richard! What were you thinking? You could have been killed!" She thrust something into his free hand and he looked down at the two small skin coloured hearing aids in his palm. He jerked his fingers closed around them. Heat flicked at his throat and cheeks. He didn't dare move his eyes from his mother. "The doctor found one and the medics found the other at the house where you were with the police."

"Mom-" He admonished, suddenly equal parts rattled and guilty. His eyes involuntarily whipped towards Beckett and back. He moved too fast to get any clue as to what Beckett was thinking, but he didn't think he needed much data to make a pretty good guess.

"Oh, she knows Richard." He opened his mouth to, what?, protest? but his mother was on a roll, and showed him her palms. He was too mortified now to move. "Why didn't you tell her? Richard. No, no, don't start. I already know. Men!" She closed her eyes for the protracted moment it took for her to take a long long calming inhalation. She exhaled. "I am going to get the doctor back in here." She pushed up from the bed. "I suggest you take that time to explain and then apologise to Detective Beckett. You owe her that much. Richard - " the rest of that sentence was lost to him in a frustrated, shaken sigh. His mother left the room.

The silence that followed wasn't only physical. His mind was racing, everywhere, anywhere, nowhere. Something like panic added to the pain in his ribs, his breath felt hot in this throat. The hard plastic shell of the aids in his hand burned like hot coals. He was so consumed with the horror of it all that he jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Her hand. Hers. And then a blessed cup of water under his nose. He heard her say something, but couldn't make it out. Instead he drained the cup, grateful not just for the water, but the moment to try to compose himself.

"Thanks." He huffed once it was empty, and let her take it from him. This time he raised his eyes to follow her as she refilled the cup from the jug at the table side. How the hell did she make such a simple act look so graceful? Oh fuck. He squeezed his eyes closed for an intense second as the magnitude of this screw up slid home in one violent rush. He was finished with the 12th. Finished with Beckett. And someone was damn sure going to leak it to the press. The medical staff, the medics, someone on the force. Someone. All the years of care and deal making to keep it out of public record, trying to keep it about the writing.

She put the refilled cup back in his hand. He looked up at her, standing there. Yes. He owed her. Big time. He licked his lower lip.

"I-" He started. She waited, patient and in-control calm. He was all at once grateful and infuriated and scared out of his mind that she seemed to be granting him the space to get the words out, but it wasn't going to be without cost. She wasn't going to be giving him a free pass. This was going to cost. It was going to hurt. "I owe you an apology." She raised her eyebrows at him as she sat down on the plastic chair by the bedside, never breaking eye contact. His gaze darted between her lips and eyes.

"Yes, you do." She said with slow deliberation. "With holding that sort of information was dangerous Castle. Not just for you, but for all of us. We only work as a team if we know each other, if we are honest with each other. What happened in that house-" She paused and he could see the memory was still barbed. He felt himself die a bit more inside. "You were just lucky you weren't killed."

Hang on - "No, but I got him. That guy that was coming up behind you. The King Kong-godzilla lovechild - "

"Castle." She interrupted him. Clearly there was more to the story than he recalled. "There was more than one. You- Castle there was more than one of them. Yes, you somehow got on top of the first guy, but the other one.. You didn't even know he was there. Your hearing aides were knocked out during the fight. Espo and Ryan tried to warn you about the other guy, but you couldn't hear them Castle. It was just plain dumb luck that the bullet went wide and Ryan was able to take him down."

"Oh."

"Yes, 'oh'." She pursed her lips, thinking, considering. "There was no way I could get there in time. And if Ryan hadn't been quick enough, I wouldn't be here talking to you I would be at the loft right now explaining to your mother and daughter that their son and father would not be coming home." He had nothing to say to that. Nor anything to sooth the tightly held distress he could clearly see flickering in her eyes, in the strained lines around her mouth. God, he had totally screwed up. And Ryan had had to kill someone that maybe he may not otherwise have had to shoot. God. Right now, he would sell his soul to the devil to go back and slap that wise ass grinning idiot who had blithely ticked the 'nothing to declare' box on the Existing Medical Condition section of the NYPD consent and waiver forms.

"I didn't," He cleared his throat. "I didn't think about that."

"No. You didn't." She worked that silence again and his gaze slid down to the water in his hand. Faint waves distorted the surface. Her heard her voice, the soft sounds slid like a balm against his damaged ears. The guilt suddenly felt unbearable. But she spoke again and he knew he had to take whatever was coming next. He owed her that. He owed his mother. He owed Alexis. So he looked back.

"I'm sorry." He managed. His voice sounded like gravel in his own ears. "I am so so sorry Kate. I was stupid. I didn't want anyone to know. No one has ever had to know before, and I just, I - I didn't want anyone at the 12th to know, the guys, you. I - I didn't want you to know. It was a stupid, stupid badly thought out decision.

"And, I do know what's coming next. I do. I deserve it. Could you tell the guys, Lanie, that I'm sorry. That I never meant for anyone to get hurt-"

"Castle. Stop!" Beckett interrupted him and he shut up. For the first time, for the last time maybe, he shut up like he should. She went on more gently than he deserved. "Just stop. There is a lot to talk about, a lot that is going to have to be dealt with, but right now Martha is coming back here with the doctor and Alexis is on her way to the hospital. And you have to rest." He watched her rise from the chair, took in that elegant economy of movement, the long slender lines and beautiful face. He tried to soak it in, tried to force an imprint of it into his mind, suspecting it would be the last time he would see it.

He nodded. And as if that was a cue, his mother sailed back in to the room towing a tall blond man sporting a stethoscope in her wake. It was all meaningless noise then. All background blather and rattling bed rails and the hell with the lot of it. He let it all go, let it all swirl around him, and instead watched Kate Beckett walk out the door.

End, part 1.