Title: Before My Eyes
Fandom: Castle
Rating: T (may go up!)
Characters/Pairings: Kate/Rick
Spoilers: Season 3 Finale/Season 4 Opener (everything else is relative and possibly AU)
Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with Castle, if I did then Rick and Kate would have gone to the Hamptons together at the end of S2 and never looked back :p

I didn't even see the glint of sunlight on metal like he did. I didn't hear the gunshot like him, but I do vaguely remember him calling my name, just before everything went black. I have flashbacks to the day I got shot, and sometimes I think I hear him say he loves me, but I can't be sure. I can't recall feeling any pain, but I can vividly remember his arms around me, and the look on his face, which says he's afraid to lose me. It's strangely comforting and it kept me going through the difficult days after I came out of my coma. While I was lying there, staring at the ceiling, I had a lot of time to think and I realised Rick was right about at least one thing we had discussed recently; I didn't love Josh.

.

I told Josh that we were breaking up, the very next time he came to see me. He looked sad, but not overly surprised, by my announcement, as if he knew my life had changed completely on that fateful day. After all, had it been him there with me at the funeral? Had it been him holding me, as I lay dying, begging me not to leave? Had it been him how had saved my life, when one of my oldest friends died protecting me? Had it been him holding me as I slowly froze to death, locked in a cold storage unit while looking for a dirty bomb?

No. Josh hadn't been there, with me, during any of those life changing moments.

He had been there, just as he had been an integral part of my life now for what seemed like forever.

.

No, I didn't love Josh, but I did love him. I suppose, I had never stopped loving him, it just took something as extreme as getting shot to realise that fact. So, now all I have to do is tell him I love him and everything will be all cherubs and roses, right? Only, how do I tell him? How do I explain that, after weeks of not talking, I want him to be in my life as a more permanent fixture?

.

Maybe I should start small, perhaps by giving him the call I told him to wait for?

More to follow soon :) please review if you want me to keep going :)