AN: Hi everyone! It is been long time since I wrote something new in this fandom although I have been meaning to write this particular piece ever since season-3 ended. Well so this is evidently going to be an AU story. And hopefully if you guys like it, I will continue it and finish it with two or three more chapters.

This story is Non-beta'ed. And I'm sure there would be quite a few grammatical errors despite my best efforts to weed them out, so I apologize in advance for them.

Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me.

The world had turned upside down for almost everyone who knew and cared about one Det. Kate Beckett when that unseen bullet pierced through her heart. But to be fair it was one Mr. Richard Castle's life which had been completely shattered in those life wrenching silent moments in which Kate's breathing gradually slipped into barely visible chest movements, showing that they were the only evidence that somewhere inside that silent body lying limp in his hands, she was still alive...

Then afterwards there were those agonizingly painful moments of waiting outside the operation theater where he had to believe that everyone inside that shut door where doing their level best to save her- his Kate, for the sake of his sanity. And when surgeon actually came out and announced that even though she was still critical, she was alive and breathing, all he could do was fall onto to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut due to overwhelming relief and happiness.

All through this he was faintly aware that his family- his mother and daughter were constantly by his side comforting and supporting him. But somehow, at that moment it seemed that he was in a dream and everyone besides the person lying on that hospital bed in the ICU seemed like they were on the periphery of his consciousness, just like someone waking you up from a dream and you hear their voices as disembodied voices in your dream.

...

And later after God knows how many hours of waiting in the hospital lobby after being asked to vacate the area in front of the ICU by the hospital staff, someone finally came down to find him to say that Kate had finally regained her consciousness. He had already sent Martha and Alexis along with Kate's father to the loft asking them to take rest while saying that he would more at peace here- the closest he could be to his Kate.

When he finally got a glimpse of her, tears seemed to flow unbidden from his eyes involuntarily from the sight before his eyes. His ever energetic Detective was reduced to a small frail body bundled in meters of stark white gauze and tapes running across her chest and various tubes sticking out of her body and that scary oxygen mask covering most of her beautiful but tired face.

He then tread softly towards her bed wishing to confirm his traitorous heart that she was actually alive and this was all not some drug induced fantasy he was having after being admitted in some psychiatric facility after having lost his sanity finally...

When he finally came closer to her, he found that her eyes were open and were staring off to some faraway place as if she did not acknowledge his presence in the room or for that matter if she actually acknowledged her own presence in that room... He then sadly realized that it must be because of all the pain killers that must be coursing through her system then. So he just carefully pressed a delicate kiss on her forehead and left the room, not wanting to disturb her open eyed sleep.

…

Just when the door was closed behind Castle, Kate turned her face towards the door and delicately touched her right cheek where his tears had fallen unknowingly. And afterwards her own tears joined his.

AN: Depending on your reviews, I will decide whether this is worthy enough to be continued or not... So please review?