(Entry for Castle Fanfication 2019) C:

Summary:

Instead of sending him home, the Incan artifact that was his only way home is shot out of his hand, trapping him in the world where he and Beckett have never met.

"Look out!" He shouts on instinct, the artifact clutched in his hand.

The shots explode from the far side of the plant and in that instant, he accepts his fate. This is what he promised he'd do for her before he even realized he would, put his life in the way of anything that comes for her's. The bullets whiz through the air and the first pierces the artifact in his hand, making it fly behind him and in that split second, he thinks he's safe.

When the next bullet hits him in the chest, he's body goes limp and he falls to the floor, the blood ringing in his ears making the next to gunshots coming from her Glock sound like dull thuds.

After Beckett sees Lark fall to the floor, she moves as quickly as she can to get to him, her movements clumbsy and uncoordinated when her knees hit the floor and her gun clatters onto the concrete next to her. "Mr. Castle," she says, her voice weak and scared as she grabs onto his shoulder. She looks him over, seeing a large hole in his left shoulder and blood pouring out of the wound. "You just saved my life." She puts her hand on his stomach, pulling at the back of his neck with the other just as his scared eyes, that look as if they're trying to push as much pain and fear away as they can for her, look over to her. "Why?"

His brow knits softly, as if she just asked him a very stupid and obvious question. "Because I love you, Kate."

Beckett's heart is cut in two, her pulse exploding inside of her throat. When she sees his eyes drift away from her and his hands start to weaken and fall back, she does the only thing she can. "No, please don't go. Stay with me." She pleads, keeping her voice as steady as she can, swallowing back the tremble.

It's not working. His eyes just closed. She's losing him.

"Stay with me, Castle." She pleads again, her thumb reaching up and petting a soft line along his jaw line as his head falls away. "Castle?" She tries again desperately. "No," she starts as a hot, angry fire ignites in her system. She moves closer to him, leaning over him and mashing her hands into the gaping bullet hole in his shoulder. "You're not leaving me."

The blood feels warm as it gushes against her palm and seaps through her fingers.

"You're not going, you understand?" She demands and fumbles in her inside pocket for her cell phone, speed dialing dispatch. She cuts the operator off once the sound of her voice comes over the line. "This is Captain Beckett, Twefth Precinct. I need emergency medical transport at the abandoned coal plant on Hudson, now!"

She tosses the phone to the floor and presses her hands back into his wound. Her teeth clench as she looks up to his closed eyes again. "You're staying with me, Castle."

"Blood pressure's dropping, we need to move." One of the nurses calls out as he's wheeled down the corridor, several other's crowded around him.

Beckett jogs close behind them, listening to every word with her eyes trained on his face.

"Pulse is weak, heart rate is dropping. We're losing him." Another nurse says too calmly from the other side of his gurney.

"No!" Beckett calls and jumps between the nurses, "no, you can't lose him! You-"

"Ma'am!" The nurse next to her shouts, snatching at her wrists when she lunges for him.

"It's Captain!" Beckett spits in the nurses face angrily.

The nurse slowly blinks her eyes and pushes her back as Castle is wheel down the hall. "Captain, you need to let us work, okay? We'll do everything we can for him, but you have to let us work."

Beckett's heart feels squeezed in her chest as the nurse looks up at her. Her body wants to shove her off, wants to go after him, be near him, plead with him until he comes back. But her rational mind knows her place. Besides, she'll do no good putting up a fight now. She only met him yesterday. She needs to come back to the real world here. She's getting sucked in. By what... she can't tell.

She pushes out a hard breath and pushes her hair back before looking back down to the nurse. "I want an update on him the minute you have anything."

All she's answered with is a careful nod before the nurse takes off back down the hall and through a set of swinging doors, disappearing out of sight.

Beckett lets out another breath, trying her best to fight the shake her lungs are making as she turns around to pace away from the doors, one hand on her forehead and the other on the back of her waist. As she paces slowly back down the hall, things quickly start to become overwhelming, everything closing in and surrounding her. She barely knows who he is. She knows nothing about that man. She can't even consider them friends, by any logical sense of the word.

But the fact he just stepped in front of a bullet for her, without a single ounce of hesitation, forces her to stop in her tracks and lean back against the wall, doubling over and leaning down against her knees as her own breath starts to choke her. She tries with a valliant effort to ease her breathing, drawing it in with a quick huff but letting it out with a slow hiss, letting her eyes drift shut against the burn. She can't cry now. She hasn't cried over anything in... years, at least. She hasn't been this emotional about hardly anything for even longer than that.

She's usually so much better at letting things like this bounce off. She's had civilians injured on her watch before. She's had fellow officers hurt or even killed before. It's part of the job. She's usually better at knowing that.

Why him?

The sound of footsteps rounding the corner of the hallway next to her brings her back to reality for a second. "Captain?" Detective Esposito asks calmy.

Beckett draws in another long breath and pushes herself up right, rolling her shoulders back and straightening her spine. She opens her stinging eyes to see her detectives standing in front of her, simply looking curious as to what's going on.

"We got word of the incident at some coal plant over on Hudson, Captain." Ryan starts casually.

She takes in another hard breath to try and steal herself, not trusting her words to remain steady as she begins to explain. "Castle was shot."

The two detectives look between each other curiously before Esposito starts for the two of them. "You mean that guy who's been hanging around?"

After she gives them a silent nod, looking back down to the floor, Ryan starts up again. "What was going on? I thought we closed the case already. The DA's already got a plea deal ready."

Beckett shoves off the wall, puts another hand on the back of her waist and paces away from them. "Well, we were wrong." She tells them as she paces to the other side of the hallway. "I had a feeling there was more to it so I went back to the only place I could think of," she turns around, feeling a tight pull in her chest at the sight of them looking at her like this is just another day on the job for them, "and found Mr. Castle being held at gunpoint."

Both the detective's brow shoot up in surprise. "Whoa," Ryan says and turns briefly to his partner. "That guy doesn't really seem the type to be wrapped up in the criminal underworld."

Espo turns to Ryan, knocking him in the arm with the back of his hand, "Doesn't exactly seem the type to keep his underwear clean during a fire fight either." He says on a chuckle.

"Detective Esposito!" Beckett scolds in a commanding voice, cutting through their laughing with the fury surging inside of her. Both of the detectives freeze, eyes wide and grins wiped clean off their faces. "A man was just shot protecting me. This is hardly time for jokes of any kind." She angrily scolds him, slowly pacing her way toward him. "And if I sense that you or your partner cannot take your duty seriously, we can see how seriously you take traffic detail. Do you understand?"

"Boss," Ryan starts in a voice barely above a scared whisper as she stands in front of Esposito, "Esposito didn't mean anything by it."

"I'm sorry, Captain, but-" Espo says and gives her a shrug, "we don't even know the guy."

Beckett takes in another breath to continue lecturing him, but sees a pair of faces come down the hall over Esposito's shoulder, an older red-headed woman and a much younger woman with jet black hair, both looking terrified and worried. "His family is here," she says to them. "Ryan?" She says while she catches eyes with the young girl from the far end of the hallway.

"Sir?"

Beckett looks over to him, "You and Detective Esposito go to the coal plant and start processing the scene. I want to know what happened and why."

"You got it, Captain," Ryan obeys with a nod and looks down to the floor.

"Sir?" She hears Esposito call as she catches the girl's eyes again while she jogs down the hall toward her. "You just gonna wait here?"

"Yes," She tells him sternly and steps around him to meet the family.

"Sir, with all due respect," Esposito tries again, "I don't think you should let this guy get to-"

"You don't get it, Esposito!" She yells at him, shoving a sharp finger into his chest, tears finally showing their tracks running down her face. "I just had a complete stranger step in front of a bullet for me without a single shred of hesitation or regret." She struggles, her voice shaking. "I'm not leaving until I know why, now do I need to remind you of your orders or can I expect you to follow them?"

The two detectives look to her with arks in their brows before looking between each other and silently moving passed her and out of sight. Once they're gone, she lets her shaky breath go and gathers herself, feeling the presense of his family behind her. She turns hesitantly, brushing a pair of sweaty palms down her thighs as she looks anywhere but into the eyes of the two scared women in front of her.

"Are you the family of Richard Castle?" She asks, not looking either of them in the eye.

"He's my son, what-"

"What happened to my dad?!" The girl demands, angrily charging toward Beckett but stopping with in a few feet. Beckett looks over to the girl and feels the strength drain from her, a dull headache making itself known as it vices her brain.

"Okay, I'm..." she trails off and pulls her badge off her belt, "I'm Captain Kate Beckett of the NYPD." She tells them and lets her badge fall down to her side. "Your father was shot this afternoon." Beckett says as calmly as she can.

"Shot?"

"He was shot?"

"What on Earth was he doing?"

"Is he alive?"

"Have they said anything?"

"What happened?"

They ask over each other, one right after the other. Beckett lifts her hands up to slow them down. "Okay, okay, listen!" She urges them, reaching over and putting a hand on the girl's arm. "He was shot in the shoulder and they just wheeled him into surgery. I've instructed them to update me the minute they have anything." She explains, looking between the two.

"Ugh..." The elder sighs impateinly and waves her hand in the air as she spins around. "What drunken escapade did he go on this time that could have possessed him to get anywhere near something like this? How immature and stupid could he have-"

"No, no, listen." She says, stepping passed the girl and up to his mother, getting her attention. "What your son did wasn't anything like that, okay?"

"Well then, what on Earth was it?" The elder demands.

Beckett lets out another hard breath and feels her lungs squeeze tightly. "He was shot stepping in front of a bullet that was meant for me."

As her heart is choked by a snake coiling itself around her with every heartbeat, she sees the girl step in front of her with a knit in her brow and red-rimmed eyes. "What?"

"Why would he do that?" His mother asks with a shake in her voice.

She decides not to give them a dead end and instead decides to start investigating. "Has uh..." she starts and brushes her hair back, putting a hand on her waist, "has he been acting strangely? Has he said or done anything that might indicate his behavior was off at all? That something might have been wrong?"

"Well, he has been jabbering on and on lately about some artifact and another world or some other nonsense."

"No!" The girl snaps at her grandmother. "No, he was better, okay?!" She argues with her in a shaking voice.

It's then that she gets a very cold, sickening thought in her mind that can't and won't leave until she has answers. It would explain a lot. His going on and on about being from some other world, his constant thinking he's supposed to be somewhere else, his supposed rambeling about some artifact, his sudden shift in and out of behavior... his telling a complete stranger he loves her...

"Listen, Miss..." she tries, eyeing the elder for her name.

"Martha."

"I'm Alexis."

She gives them a soft smile briefly, feeling her headache surge around her brain again. "Martha... Alexis..." she says as she looks between the two, "I... hate to have to suggest this, but... does your family have any history of mental illness?"

"My dad is not crazy!" Alexis fights her.

"Alexis, darling!" Martha pulls her back as Alexis tries to fight out of her grasp. Martha looks back up to Beckett with a sadness in her eyes. "No, Captain. My son may be crazy at times, even insane maybe, but one thing he is not is certifiable."

"Okay, that's..." she trails off, lifting her hands up to try and slow them down, "that's all I needed to know. Now," she says on a shaky sigh, "I've instructed my detectives to go to the scene where he was shot to try and find out what they were after from him." She reaches into her inside pocket again and pulls out one of her cards. "Here is my card if you ever need to call me."

Martha takes the card, handing it to Alexis.

"I just need to go take care of a few things down at the precinct and I'll try and be back as soon as I can."

"We'll call you if there are any updates, Captain." Martha says, pulling at her granddaughter's shoulder.

"If you don't mind, I'd also like to assign an officer here to look after you and Mr. Castle."

The two of them nod silently as Alexis turns herself into the grasp of her grandmother. Knowing where her place is, Beckett turns away from the two of them and strides quickly down the hall, feeling her migraine tighten around her head again. Once she's around the corner, she lifts her hand up, pinching her forehead in a sigh of pain. She moves through the front door, passed the ambulances and toward the sidewalk, while pulling out her cellphone to call for an officer to the hospital to look after his family.

With the precinct only a few blocks away, she decides to hoof it and starts down the sidewalk, the dull pain of her headache encircling her head. With the first block down, she catches sight of the drug store across the street. This headache is going to be killing her if she decides to live with it. She hasn't had a migraine this bad since her last budget battle with the mayor.

She jogs quickly across the street and glides through the doors as they slide open, hearing the soft lull of the music in the background. She's never heard the song before, maybe in passing on the radio a time or two. But she pays it no mind as her headache just buldged around her brain again, more intense than it has before. "Ah..." she sighs and grasps her forehead.

"Nothing goes as planned..." The lyrics start in a soft, raspy melody.

She shakes her head and quickly finds a bottle of Aleve near the first aisle. She grabs it quickly and moves to the register, setting it down with a rattle. "Will that be..." the cashier trails her words off and Beckett looks up to see a familiar looking redhead, hair tied back in a pony tail, looking over the counter at her with wide eyes.

"Is there something wrong?"

"De... Detective Beckett?" The cashier asks her, her brow knitting.

"Captain, do... do I know you?" She answers back as the music in the background swells.

"Penny? Penny Marchand?" She tries. "You investigated the death of my grandmother."

"Oh... right, the uh... the psychic medium, right?" Penny nods, her eyes still wide. "Um... how are you doing?" She asks, forcing her trying to be friendly.

"I-I'm fine, is... is that all?" Penny asks her as she rings up the pills. With a nod, Beckett sets down a twenty dollar bill, collects her change and grabs for the bottle. "Nice seeing you again, De... I mean Captain Beckett."

She smiles, "You too, Penny." She says as she moves for the doors, twisting open the cap and shaking out two pills. She throws them down her throat and swallows, the headache dulling a bit as she exits the drug store and the doors close behind her, out of the sound of the music and into the noise of the city.

A/N: I've had this in my head a while. Let me know what you think. :)