-Chapter 1-

Tears floating down his face Castle sat leaning over Beckett.

"Kate stay with me! Kate I love you! Stay with me!"

She smiled and then passed out.

"No! Hey anyone call 911… fast!" Castle screamed into the crowd.

Some of them screaming and crying, some of them shocked about what just had happened. Roy's family stood there in total shock. The youngest daughter hugged her mom sobbing. A few minutes later Kate was still unconcious and Rick panicked. Then the siren of the ambulance. Everything got hectic.

"What happened here? How is her name? Sir? Sir?"

Castle could neither breathe nor answer the parametic. He held Kates hand and tried to talk to her. Ryan came and told the medics everything they had to know then they ran back to the van and got a barrow. They asked if anyone would like to come with her to the hospital.

"Castle? You wanna go with her?" Esposito asked.

"Yea…" He stood up and followed the medics into the van still holding Kates hand.

In the van the doctors tried to do everything they could to keep the blood from flooding out of her chest. They ride to the hospital seemed to take hours. Castle began to realize what just had happened.

"Will she be like she as before?" he mumbled.

"We don't know that for sure." The paramedic meant.

The driver cabled to the hopsital: " Doug, we have a woman who has been shot to the chest. Make sure that me get an operating room. We'll be there in 3 minutes."

"Got it." Some guy named Doug answered.

"Hey Kate… if anything happens to you… please stay with me. Wake up… I love you." Rick whispered.

They arrived at the hospital and it got pretty hectic again. Doctors and nurses came running to the van and pulled out the barrow. Rick followed them into the emergency room.

"What's her name and who are you?" a nurse tried to stop him but he pushed her aside.

"Hey mister stop you can't go in there she needs an operation! And we need her ID and you have to calm can wait here until the doctors finished saving her!"

Rick got angry but turned around to face the annoying woman.

"What did you want?" he tried to take a deep breath to calm down.

"Her name and your relation to her." She asked again.

"Ehm her name is Katherine Beckett… Detective Katherine Beckett. My name is Richard Castle and I'm her… emm.. I think I'm her partner." Rick tried to control his emotions.

He sat down in one of those blue chairs that were standing on the wall next to the operation room entrance. And he waited. After 23 minutes and 56 seconds Ryan, Esposito and Martha came.

"Hey bro. Do you know anything new?" Ryan asked tapping Rick on his shoulder.

"No nothing… why does that take so long?" Rick whispered.

"Richard are you alright?" Martha wanted to know. She knew her son and she knew how he cared about Beckett.

"No. Mother I am NOT alright." He stood up and walked through the room. From one side to the other side.

"Castle calm down! She will be okay! We just have to wait." Esposite tried to get through to him: "they can hurt her anymore. They have surveillance cameras on every exit of the cemetery. We will get those sons of bitches who did that to her."

That was just what Castle wanted to hear at that moment. He sat down again.

" And how are the Montgomerys?" Castle asked.

"Well… they're o-kay…. Imagine how you would feel when you husband or dad just died and right at his funeral one of his collegues of his friends gets shot while giving a speech." Ryan meant but Rick stopped listening to him after he had said " They're okay…"

He continued looking at his watch counting seconds. While they were waiting none of them said something. After 38.21 minutes Ryan stood up to get some coffee.

And after 3.25 minutes a nurse came out of the operation room her scrub all bloody and said: "Are you all waiting for Miss Beckett?"Castle stood up nodding.

"She has lost very much blood and the bullet is still in a dangerous position between two ribs. We will need some time to fix untilnow everything went good. If you want you can go home and we call you if something happens or when we finish the operation" the nurse said unemotionally.

"Okay then we go again" Ryan meant and stood up.

The others ones followed him but Castle stayed behind. "Richard why don't you come with me and get some rest at home?" Martha wanted to know.

"No, I will stay here until she wakes up. But you can go. Say Alexis that I love her and that everything will be fine again… I hope!"

"Okay… then bye kiddo and maybe you should try to get some sleep. You don't want to scare her when she wakes up. You look horrible." She said and turned to go.

Rick stayed on his chair and thought about what will happen if she doen't wake up… what if she dies in there. What if she dies and he had never told her how he felt about her? Those thoughts made him shiver and tears started to float out of his eyes again. He tried to stop them but he couldn't help it. Castle thought about his good times with Kate. He thought about them finishing each others sentences and how she frowned everytime he said something like 'ninja assassin' or 'alien abduction' and how they kissed the last time they interrogated on her mothers case. Rick remembered exactly how the kiss felt and how she looked at him before kissing him again. So shy, so beautiful. She had to feel the same way as he did. But maybe she doesn't see it or she is not ready for it yet. Then he thought about they're fight last night and how she had said that they were over.

Did she mean it? What if she doesn't want to see me if she wakes up? Castle was scared by this thought. He stood up and went into one of those bigger waiting room. He layed down on one of the couches and before he could think about anything bad again he fell asleep and dreamed of Kates face smiling at him. That was all that happened in his dream:

She smiled.