I know there are tons of post-Knockout stories already, but I really wanted to write this, it wouldn't come out of my mind. It's just a sad/fluffy one-shot about what happens right after Kate gets shot, but I hope you like it anyway. Enjoy, Read and Review! :D
Castle's POV:
"Stay with me, Kate. Don't leave me, please. Stay with me, ok? Kate, I love you."
Tears pricked my eyes as I held her in my arms, a hand on her face, trying to keep her from drifting away.
Blood was flooding from the bullet hole in her chest, drenching her uniform and dripping on the clear grass, where a dark crimson pool was starting to form.
When I spoke, something lit up in her eyes, a faint spark of surprise and understanding making its way through the pain that darkened her gaze.
"I love you, Kate," I whispered again, staring in her scared eyes.
She stared back at me, and my heart sank in my chest as I saw the defeat in her dark irises.
No. No, she couldn't give up, she was a fighter, she would never, ever surrender…
Except that she was.
I could almost see Death's clawed hands grabbing her and pulling her away, away from life, away from me…
I watched helpless as her eyelids fluttered closed, as her head lolled to the side and her whole body went limp in my arms.
It was like everything around me had frozen; the only thing I could see was her face, pale and expressionless like a wax statue's.
Then I saw something, a small, almost imperceptible movement of her chest, and I heard a faint wheeze escape her lips.
She was breathing.
It was like everything started to move again all at once, and I found myself in the midst of a Hell broken loose: people from the funeral was screaming and running; some police officials were trying to calm them down, while others, led by Esposito, were running, tracking down the man who shot; Lanie was rushing towards us, fear and concern on her face, while Ryan called for help.
"Call an ambulance! She's alive!" someone screamed; it took me several seconds to realize it was me screaming.
Lanie knelt down by Kate's side, her eyes glued to the bullet hole in her chest, her mind immediately kicking in medical gear.
"We need to press something on the wound, try to stop the bleeding until the paramedics come. But we need to be careful, the bullet is still inside and she might have several broken ribs, we can't risk to cause more damage than it has already been done."
I took off my jacket and pressed it to the wound, with enough force to contrast the flow of blood without pushing too much on the hole or on the broken bones.
My head was spinning, and I felt numb, like I was in a dream: it couldn't be happening for real, could it? How could Kate be bleeding to death in my arms? She was so beautiful, lively and strong, always ironic and ready to tease me for something I had said or done, with that playful, mischievous smile I loved so much on her lips…
I couldn't lose her. She was the only one I had ever truly loved, how could fate be so cruel and take her away from me this way?
The sound of sirens echoing in the air brought me back to reality, to the warm late spring day tainted by blood. The ambulance stopped just a few meters from us, and three paramedics jumped down the back, rushing towards us with a stretcher.
"What do we have?" asked one of them, looking at Lanie and kneeling down to feel Kate's pulse on her neck.
"She got shot; the bullet is still inside. I don't think it compromised her heart, though it was very close, but I can't be sure. Two or more broken ribs, probably part of her shoulder too; her left lung is pierced, probably collapsed, and she has lost a lot of blood. She doesn't have much time," she said at top speed, her dark eyes shining with tears.
The man nodded, and suddenly Kate was taken from my arms and put onto the stretcher; the three paramedics stuck an IV in her arm and bandaged her wound in order to slow down the bleeding; she was barely breathing, so they intubated her to help oxygen into the lung which wasn't flooded with blood.
They lifted the stretcher onto the ambulance, but before they could hop in I got on my feet, catching up with them.
"I'm coming with her," I said, my eyes drifting automatically to her unmoving face.
The simple thought of leaving her was unbearable: if anything happened while I was not there, I would have never been able to forgive myself.
For a moment I thought they wouldn't have allowed me; but then one of the paramedics nodded briskly, motioning for me to be quick.
I climbed in and sat by the stretcher, taking her hand in mine and absentmindedly rubbing circles on her soft skin. Her bones felt thin and frail under my fingers, like they were going to break at any moment.
Seeing her so helpless was the worst part: Beckett had never been frail, she had never needed anyone to take care of her, to protect her; on the contrary, she had saved my life more times than I could count.
But I hadn't been able to save hers that only time.
If only I had been faster, if only I had immediately pushed her out of the way when I saw the reflex of the sun on the gun…maybe she wouldn't have been fighting for her life in the back of an ambulance in that moment.
I wished I could swap our places: me instead of her, that would have been a reasonable compromise. If Death wanted a life for herself that day, I would have happily given mine in change if that would have meant that she would have lived. It was impossible, and crazy, but in that moment her life was the thing that mattered the most to me.
When we got to the hospital I followed the paramedics inside, until a doctor stopped me, telling me that she would have been operated, that I had to wait there.
He led me to a small room with two parallel rows of plastic chairs along the walls, and then went away with a sympathetic grimace without telling me anything else.
But I couldn't sit, I couldn't just stay still when I didn't know if she was still alive, if she would have survived.
I paced back and forth in the small space, the scene of the cemetery playing again and again in my mind, the moment the man shot printed in fire in my brain, driving me insane. The scared look in her eyes, the feeling that it was too late, too late to save her, too late to tell her I loved her…
Eventually I sat down, my arms on my knees, my head in my hands, staring down at my shoes. My thoughts chased one another, rotating around the one thing I could think of: Kate. Kate, who I would have probably never seen alive again. Kate, who I loved in a way so desperate it was painful.
I didn't know how long I stayed like that -it felt like days, but it probably was just half an hour- before I resurfaced, brought back by a light touch on my shoulder. I looked up and met Alexis' blue eyes, filled with concern.
"Dad…"
I looked down again, and just then I noticed that my hands and clothes were covered in blood -Kate's blood-. Her life on my hands.
The thought made me sick; I needed to clean that mess up.
I stood up, my hands shaking slightly, and both Alexis and my mother -I hadn't noticed she was there too- took a step toward me, like they were expecting me to fall at any moment and were ready to support me. Somewhere in the background of my thoughts I felt guilty for leaving them like that at the Graveyard, for forgetting my family when they needed me the most, but I would have dealt with that later.
"I'm fine," I lied, attempting to reassure them. "I just need to wash my hands. I will be back in a few minutes."
They nodded and sat down, and I headed down the corridor, looking for a bathroom.
It wasn't far, so I found it quickly; I got in and shut the door behind me with a sigh of relief.
I ran the tap and washed my hands, fiercely rubbing my skin as the water went from red to pink to clear. For the blood that covered the forearms of my white shirt there was nothing to do, so I rolled the sleeves up to my elbow, hiding the dark red stains. I sprayed cold water on my face, rubbing my forehead in an attempt to ease the dull ache I felt behind my eyes and temples, and finally closed the tap with a sigh.
My head felt clearer, but it only made it even more difficult to manage the pain: thinking rationally, how many possibilities did Kate have of surviving after getting a hit so close to her heart?
I was no mathematic genius nor doctor, but I knew they were very, very few. Less than five percent, maybe.
I shook my head to chase away that thought and went back to where I had left Mother and Alexis; when I stepped in, though, the small room was crowded, several people standing there and waiting.
There were Ryan and Esposito, standing and leaning against the wall, looking like they had just left the graveyard; Lanie, sitting beside my mother and staring anxiously at the door which led to the area of the inner emergency ward, and Kate's father, looking dazed and confused, his eyes fixed on the opposite wall without really seeing it.
"Any news?" asked Ryan as soon as he saw me.
I shook my head, sitting down in the only empty chair and sighing.
"Nothing, not even a word," I said, my voice low and raspy. "What about you? Did you get that bastard?"
Esposito crossed his arms over his chest, his brow furrowed.
"Nothing, not even a flattened patch of grass. It's like he disappeared, or flew away: no one has seen him coming or going, like he wasn't even there. If it wasn't for that single shot directed to Beckett, I would think it was a collective hallucination. But we know a thing for sure: he comes from the same place Lockwood does. His modus operandi is too similar; whoever wants Beckett dead caught both fish in the same pond."
"The whole precinct is working on the case, though, and we have been contacting others to help us: soon the whole NYPD will be after him," Ryan added.
I nodded, running a hand through my hair and closing my eyes for a moment, too tired to say anything.
After a few minutes of silence Alexis stood up, putting a hand on my shoulder and squeezing it lightly.
"I'm going to get something to eat down to the cafeteria. Anyone wants something?"
"For me a tea, honey," said my mother, smiling sadly.
"Coffee," said Ryan, and Esposito nodded. "Yeah, for me too."
"Coffee," agreed Lanie; Mr Beckett didn't seem to hear her, so we decided not to insist.
"Coffee for me too, pumpkin," I said, smiling a little when she wrinkled her nose hearing my baby name for her. My mother handed her a ten dollars bill and she walked away, disappearing behind a corner.
When she came back, ten minutes later, nothing had changed: we were still waiting in silence, each of us lost in his own thoughts.
Hours passed, slowly and painfully; eventually, when it was a little past seven pm, I sent Alexis home with Mother -they had no reason to stay there that late-. They didn't ask me if I was going with them; they knew I would have stayed there until someone came with news, good or bad they were. I would have slept there, if that was necessary.
Two more hours passed, and eventually a man came out, his face tense and tired, his green coat spotted with red. He was oddly familiar, and after a few seconds I recognized him: Josh, Kate's boyfriend, who she once said was a great cardiac surgeon, one always around saving lives. If he was the one who operated her, maybe there was a chance for her to be-
"Any relatives of Kate Beckett here?"
We all looked up at him, suddenly urging: he knew all of us, he had seen us more than once when he came to get her at the precinct, why was he being so formal?
"How is she?" I asked before I could restrain myself. Josh glared at me, his eyes red like he was extremely tired, or like he had been crying. God, I hoped it was the first option.
"I'm sorry, I can speak only to a direct relative," he said coldly, his eyes fixed on me.
I looked around: why did Mr Beckett have to go having a walk to the cafeteria in that moment? And why was Josh being such an arse and refusing to tell us anything?
Ryan and Esposito exchanged an annoyed look and walked forward, blocking him.
"Ok, Surgeon Boy, now you are going to tell us how Beckett is, without complaining. Apart from the fact that, as police officers, we could force you to tell us everything, we," said Esposito, including all of us with a gesture of his hand, "Are Beckett's family, as long as you are concerned. So now you are going to inform us on her conditions, comprende?"
Josh nodded, looking taken aback by the scarcely hidden threaten in his words.
"She is still unconscious, but stable, for the moment at least."
Relief jolted through my heart at those words, and it felt like a huge weight had been taken off my shoulders.
"She had a collapsed lung, so we had to drain the blood from it, but she was lucky: if the bullet got her just another inch to the left, the bullet would have gone through her heart. This way, instead, it didn't even touch it," Josh got on.
Lanie looked at me with tears in her eyes.
"She turned a little when Castle tried to warn her, just before the bullet hit her, that must be the cause of the imprecision…He has saved her," she said softly, smiling.
"Can we see her?" she asked a moment later, looking back at Josh.
He studied for a moment the menacing looks on Ryan and Esposito's faces; then nodded reluctantly.
"Yes, you can. But she is under heavy doses of sedatives in order to keep the pain under control, so she won't be responsive. We need to keep her still as much as we can: when the bullet entered it broke three of her ribs, and it touched her liver before stopping in her lung. Right now, she is being moved to Intense Care, room 613. Ask the nurses when you get there, they will lead you to her."
"Castle…?" said Ryan, gesturing towards me. I shook my head.
"You go first, guys. I will come in a while."
They walked away quickly, and I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes for a moment and sighing.
"Thank you," I said softly. I knew Josh was still there, so I got on. "For saving her life."
He scoffed, and I opened my eyes, looking at him.
"It's my job," he said coldly, still looking at me in dislike.
"Yes, but you have saved her anyway. And I will never be tired of thanking you for that," I replied, serious.
He looked surprised by my words, and he let his cool façade fall.
"You saved her too, though. If it wasn't for you, the hit would have killed her."
"She is too important to die," I whispered, almost to myself. Josh sighed heavily, a bitter smile on his face.
"You know, I could almost like you, if it wasn't for the fact that you are so obviously in love with my girlfriend," he said, a hint of twisted amusement in his voice.
"And, of course, for the fact that she seems to love you back," he added, sadness tainting his gaze.
"I don't want to take her away from you," I said, honestly. "I just want her to be happy."
That she chose to be happy with me, or with Josh, or with whomever man on Earth lucky enough to be worthy of her love, it didn't matter: as long as I knew she was happy and safe, it was alright. Her well-being came before mine.
Josh raised an eyebrow skeptically, but I stayed serious.
"It's her choice, Josh, not mine, not yours. We both know that. Kate can't be pushed to one side of the river or the other, she would just jump in the water and leave us behind if we tried to do that. If there's one thing I have learned about her in the last three years I have spent working at the 12th, it's that she can't be owned, but only own."
His mocking expression slowly faded away as I spoke, his eyes drifting to the wall behind me without really seeing it.
"I have tried to figure her out for months, and now you come and explain everything in less than five sentences. How did you get her to reveal so much of herself?"
That question got me off guard, and I frowned.
"I didn't get her to do anything. I just-it's my job after all. I have shadowed her for years, watching her, studying her every move and transferring it all from reality to paper for my books. It's normal that I have-"
He raised a hand, cutting me off.
"There's more than that, and you know it. She trusts you, I can see that, in a way she could never, would never trust me. How did you manage to develop such a bond with her?"
I shook my head: did he really know so little about her? Did he even know her at all?
"As you have said, it's all about trust. I had always been there when she needed me, I had spent countless nights staying late at the precinct with her, trying to figure out the missing piece in some case, I had risked everything I had to save her when she was in danger.
When she was upset I never pressed her to know what was wrong, but waited for her to come and talk to me about it when she was ready.
I had given her a home when she didn't have one anymore, I have been everything she needed me to be-a work partner and a friend, but nothing more. In three years, I have never tried a move on her, because I knew I would have lost her if I did so.
And I was stupid enough to break her trust twice before I realized that I was hurting her, and before I really understood that seeing her hurt was a hundred thousand times worse than suffering myself."
He was looking at me, surprised, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Then his face fell, twisting in a grimace of defeat.
"I understand why she looks at you like that," he said, his voice so low I almost didn't hear him. "So, I guess it's just-"
We were interrupted by Mr Beckett, who was now running toward us, an anxious look on his face.
"What happened?" he asked, looking at Josh with wide, pleading eyes. "Where are the others? Is she ok?"
Josh put a hand on the man's shoulder, trying to smile reassuringly.
"Yes, as much as she can be. Her injuries are bad, but her conditions are stable. She should recover completely."
Mr Beckett's eyes were now shining with tears, a happy, relieved smile on his lips.
"Can I see her?" he asked immediately, his feet twitching like he was ready to sprint. Josh nodded.
"Yes, of course. Her room might be a little crowded, though, with half the precinct in. Go up to IC, and ask for Beckett at the counter. They will let you in, since you are a close relative."
He nodded and almost ran away, too worried to wait even one more second.
Josh looked back at me, the bitter smile back on his face.
"So, Castle," he said, before turning his back to me and walking back in the limited access area, "I guess it will be a lady's choice."
I waited for a while, pacing nervously in the halls and in front of the nurse's desk in the IC ward, until outside everything became dark, until Ryan, Lanie and Esposito received a call from the precinct, until Jim Beckett came out of the room with a tense face and eyes red from the need of sleep and went home to rest for a few hours.
Then, when no one was around anymore, I slipped in the room, and what I saw tore my heart in two.
She was laying on the bed, her body almost disappearing under the white sheets, her hair spread on the pillow behind her head like a dark halo.
There was an IV stuck in the back of her hand, and several other tubes sticking out of her body, some carrying liquids in, some carrying liquids out. A cannula was bringing oxygen to her lungs through her nose, and a machine by her bed was beeping faintly, taking her vitals under control.
Tears streamed down my face freely at the sight of her, broken and helpless in that hospital bed. She looked so frail and young, and so small…
There was a small plastic chair by her bed, and I sat down in it, taking her hand in mine and squeezing it gently.
"Hi, Kate," I whispered, looking at her pale, unmoving face.
"I know you can't hear me, but please, try to get better, ok? You had me really, really scared out there before, do you know that? For a moment I thought I had lost you. I don't want to feel like that again, ever. So please, try to do your best to heal."
I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it softly.
"I love you. I will never get tired of telling you that. And when you will be awake I will tell you again and again and again until you won't kill me to shut me up. Annoying you is my job, no one else can do that better than I."
"Everyone was worried for you, you know. Mother and Alexis stayed here for hours; I sent them home when it was almost dinnertime, even if Alexis didn't want to. And Esposito, Ryan and Lanie stayed a lot too; they visited you before, but maybe you know. And your father. He was really afraid of losing you, I can only imagine how difficult it must be for him: what happened to you must remind him terribly of your mother."
"They went home or back to the precinct; the whole NYPD is trying to catch the bastard who shot you, they will have him soon, I am sure. But I don't want to leave you alone here anyway; I don't think I could just go home after everything that happened today. I know you would hate me for that, but I think I will stay here with you for a while -well, a long while, to be honest-. This chair is much more comfortable than it looks, I bet I will sleep wonderfully in it."
"I will stay here night and day if it's necessary, until you wake up. I know it's a cliché, but I want to be the first thing you will see when you open your eyes. I will always be here for you when you need me, Kate, I promise. Always."
I got on talking to her, until at some point I fell asleep without even noticing, still holding her hand, and woke up a few hours later, when dawn was just beginning to color the dark sky with pale pink, yellow and blue shades.
Not much time later a nurse passed by, checking Kate's vitals and giving her another dose of sedative; then went away without even looking at me.
I stayed there for God knows how long, unmoving, my eyes fixed on her face, unable to look elsewhere.
This was, until Mother and Alexis came in, running to hug me.
"Richard, have you stayed here the whole time?" Mother asked, her eyebrows arched to the point they were almost disappearing in her hair.
I shrugged, not saying anything, and Alexis smirked.
"Told you, Grams," she said, shaking her head. "That's why I brought you these, Dad," she added brightly, handing me a duffel bag.
I opened it, curious, and smiled: fresh clothes, my laptop and a few more useful things.
That was my Lex, caring and organized, always ready to take care of that mess that was her dad.
I hugged her fiercely, ruffling her hair. She held me back, for once not complaining about me messing with her hair, and then pushed me off the chair, smiling.
"Now go change. And then go down and eat something, I bet you haven't eaten anything since yesterday before the funeral, ain't I right?"
I shot her a guilty glance, but then my eyes drifted back to Kate's unmoving figure, wondering how could I leave.
"Come on, Dad," Alexis said softly, patting my arm. "You need to loosen up a bit, and if she is under sedatives I don't think she will wake up anytime soon. Grams and I will stay here until you come back, ok?"
I nodded reluctantly, taking the duffel bag and heading to a bathroom I had seen the previous night while I was looking for her room.
Effectively after changing my clothes, which were still stained with Kate's blood from the graveyard, I felt a little better. And I was hungry, I couldn't deny it; I had been too worried to notice that before that moment, though. So I went to the cafeteria downstairs, which was crowded with doctors and patients with their visitors, and bought a doughnut and a cup of coffee, eating quickly before going back to IC, trying to keep my eyes down as I walked.
I hated hospitals, and in particular the Intensive Care ward, with the patients in critical conditions: it wasn't a rare thing seeing someone crying in the corridors because they had just lost someone, and thinking that I still might become one of them made me sick.
When I closed the door of room 613 behind me, I sighed in relief.
"Done?" Alexis asked from her spot by Kate's bed, lifting her eyes from her book to look at me.
I nodded tiredly and sat down in the plastic chair I had spent the night in with a sigh.
"Thank you for thinking about clothes and such, pumpkin," I said, rubbing my eyes for a moment and then taking my laptop from the bag.
"Therapeutic writing?" Mother asked, smiling a little and pointing at the computer.
I shrugged, avoiding her gaze: I desperately needed to do something -anything- to keep my mind busy, to look somewhere else than to Kate's pale face. Seeing her there, looking almost dead, was driving me insane. So, writing seemed the only thing to do.
I spent the whole morning writing and then deleting everything I had just wrote, unable to keep my eyes on the screen for more than three consecutive minutes. After several hours I gave up, turning my laptop off, and looked at Mother and Alexis, sitting by the window and playing cards in silence.
"You don't have to do this," I said softly, smiling at them.
They both looked at me in surprise, like I had just said that the sky was about to fall.
"Do what?" Mother asked, confused. I sighed, shaking my head.
"Staying here, trying to make me feel better," I said with a vague motion of my hand.
They exchanged a worried glance.
"We don't want to leave you here alone," Alexis said, smiling sadly.
"But I don't want you two to spend hours in here, when you could be home or do something more important. Mother, don't you have teaching shifts at your school? And you, Alexis, don't you have homework to do, or -God, I thought I would have never said that- some date with Asley to go to?" They looked down, I knew I was right.
"But-"
I shook my head, trying to smile a little.
"No buts, Mother. You don't have to worry about me, I'm fine."
Mother and Alexis nodded reluctantly, slowly standing up and gathering their things before hugging me.
"Will you be ok alone in here, dad?" Alexis asked, giving me a peck on the cheek before leaving. I nodded, trying to reassure her.
"I will, you don't have to worry. The boys from the precinct will come soon to visit, hopefully with news about the sniper, I won't be alone."
My eyes drifted automatically to the unconscious Kate laying still in the hospital bed.
"I won't be in any case."
Beckett's POV:
First came the shout, anguished and urging, calling my name, a desperate warning.
Then the blast and the hit in my chest, which pushed me backwards with such force I fell on the ground, my breath knocked out of my lungs from the hard impact.
And then the pain, a pain so strong I thought I was burning alive.
The center of the fire was in my chest, just beside my heart, and it spread through my veins in white, incandescent waves, making me feel like I was being ripped apart. I needed air, but breathing just brought more fire into my blood, drowning everything else out.
Something made its way through the fire, though, a scared, broken voice calling my name.
His voice.
The most powerful calling I had ever known. It was impossible not to obey, so I struggled to open my eyelids, and looked directly into tear-filled, frightened blue eyes.
Was he crying? Why? That wasn't right; I didn't want him to suffer.
I breathed in to ask him what was wrong, but as soon as air entered my lungs, the fire exploded again in the center of my chest, intensified of a million times by the small movement.
I felt liquid rasping in the back of my throat, and I tasted salt and rust on my tongue.
Blood.
"Stay with me, Kate. Don't leave me, please."
His voice again, filled with such hurt it made my heart swell: he was begging me to stay. There was nothing I could have wanted more, but how could I tell him, when the pain and the blood sealed my voice in the depths of my chest, forbidding me to speak out loud?
"Stay with me, ok? Kate, I love you."
Warm tears flooded my eyes when I heard those words, and I stared back at him, unable to speak.
Why did he have to tell me now? Now that my life was slipping away without any control from the gash in my chest? I would have slapped him, if only I had enough force to do so. Only Richard Castle could have such bad timing.
"I love you, Kate," he said again, his hand caressing my cheek, wiping away a single tear escaped from my eyes.
I just looked at him, trying to ask for forgiveness with my eyes.
Forgiveness for hurting him so much, forgiveness for not being able to stay like he was begging me to.
Forgiveness for not being strong enough to push my voice out and tell him those words back.
Because I loved him, I loved him so much it was almost a physical pain having him so close and yet so distant at the same time during every single day of my life.
But I felt tired, so tired…the pain was fading away, leaving only a terrible numbness. Even beating my eyelids seemed too much of an effort in that moment.
My eyes closed slowly, in spite of my struggle to keep them open, and I tried to hold onto his face, his face which seemed the only real thing in the world.
Darkness was starting to gather around me, and I felt cold fear stabbing my heart: I didn't want to let go of him. I didn't want him to disappear like everything else around me.
Rick…
I managed to keep hold of his image for one more moment, trying to print it in my mind, to impress it in my heart in fire and never let it go.
Then everything slipped away, and I floated back into the darkness, a darkness which wasn't black, but of the most perfect, flawless blue of the sky on a summer morning.
And in that familiar blue, all I felt was peace and warmth.
An eternity later, I became aware of a change. Everything around me was black, but I could sense something around me, hushed voices which I couldn't decipher floating in the utter obscurity which cloaked everything.
I came and went in and out of the darkness many times, and there always were those whispers, so low I couldn't understand what they were saying. But who were they? I didn't remember anything, anything but the comfortable blackness of my world.
Slowly, something else came back; I started to feel a steady beat somewhere inside me, and the slow, regular rising and falling of air coming in and out. I couldn't exactly tell where, but I could feel the slight pain which accompanied every single, small movement, making me gradually more and more aware of where I was.
I started to feel my body again, resting limply onto a soft surface, my limbs so heavy I couldn't move them of an inch.
There was a weight on my chest, which made it difficult for my lungs to pump air in and out, and something was prickling my nose, slightly uncomfortable, but not unbearably so.
My ears started to work better and I could hear a faint, regular beeping somewhere to my left, following the steady tempo of my heart, a thing that confused me: where was I?
I tried to work through the fog which clouded my mind, searching for something that could help me understand.
I somehow pulled out a few confused, blurry images, but they didn't have much sense to me.
I remembered the sun shining brightly over a grassy field, a loud bang which shook my body from head to toe, and then the pain. That was the only thing I remembered clearly, the pain, so intense I thought someone had set my blood on fire.
There was something else which was practically begging to be pulled out, something that I needed to remember, but I couldn't figure out what it was.
Then I heard a sigh, close to where I was laying, and a soft, warm pressure in my hand.
"Come on, Katie, wake up," someone said softly, almost begging.
I knew that voice, I was sure, but my mind was so foggy and weary…
Castle…Rick.
Rick was there, but why, how…?
Then that memory I couldn't pull out suddenly opened up in my mind, and I heard that same voice calling my name, begging me to stay, telling me he loved me.
But that was impossible, how could he ever say such a thing to me? He was my partner in work, and my best friend, but there was nothing more, even if Lanie often teased me about that. No way, it must have been some kind of hallucination.
But in that moment the most important thing was that he was there.
It took me a lifetime to find my eyes again, but eventually I did, and I struggled to open my eyelids, which felt terribly heavy.
Everything around me was blurry and shadowy, terribly confused, except for the figure sitting by my bed, slumped in a small plastic chair.
He was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his head bent and his back hunched like he was too tired even to stay straight. He was gently holding my hand on the bed, his fingers intertwined with mine, his thumb rubbing soft circles on my skin.
I didn't trust my voice to speak, I was too tired to push it out, so I just squeezed his hand with all the forces I could gather, which were barely enough to make my fingers twitch weakly.
His head shot up immediately at the touch, and his eyes found mine, relief plainly evident in his blue irises.
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty," he said, a tired smile lighting up his face, "About time you woke up."
He squeezed my hand, and I felt my heart swell at the tenderness in his gaze.
"Rick, wha' happn'd?" I asked weakly, struggling to form the words on my tongue.
His smile faltered, and he suddenly looked extremely fragile, like I had never seen him before.
"You got shot, Kate. There was a sniper in the graveyard during the funeral."
Then I remembered: the Captain's funeral. I instinctively raised my hand to touch the spot by my heart where I knew I would have found the bullet hole, but Castle's gentle grasp on my wrist stopped me.
"Don't move," he said softly, shaking his head. "You have to stay as still as possible."
I nodded, waiting for him to release me, but instead he kept both of my hands in his, still looking at me with concern in his eyes.
"How bad?" I whispered, my voice sounding terribly weak even to my own ears.
He hesitated for a moment before speaking, like he was thinking about whether to tell me or not.
"The bullet got very close to your heart," he said eventually, looking very pale. "It broke a few ribs, pierced your lung and did a little damage to your liver before getting stuck, but the doctors fixed everything up in no time. You will have to be careful for a while -a pretty long while actually-, but then you will be as good as new and ready to go back on the field."
He swallowed hard, looking down for a moment.
"I thought I had lost you, you know," he whispered, looking back at me with a haunted look in his eyes.
I managed to squeeze lightly his fingers with mine, trying to say that I was there, alive, that he hadn't lost me.
"How long?" I asked, my voice now barely above a whisper. The time I had spent in the darkness seemed an eternity to me, I wanted to know how long I had been unconscious.
"A little more than five days," he said softly, the ghost of a smile on his face. "They kept you sedate to control the pain and ensure you wouldn't have moved and pulled at the wounds."
We stayed in silence for a few minutes, Rick still holding my hands while I struggled against the numbness to keep my eyes open.
"Kate…" he said tentatively after a while, not looking at me, "Do you remember anything of what happened right after you were shot?"
That question sank slowly in my foggy brain, clearing it a little.
The only thing I remembered before I passed out was his voice, and those words which I had pulled in a corner of my mind, considering them no more than a dream came out of the darkness.
But, why was he asking? Was he saying that it hadn't been just something made up from my mind during unconsciousness?
"I r'member you talkin' to me," I whispered, so low that for a moment I thought he hadn't heard me.
His eyes lit up with surprise, and his hold on my hands tightened a bit.
"You…remember?" he asked, almost sheepishly, looking at me in the eye.
I nodded, and something sparkled for a moment in his eyes -hope, maybe?-.
"Everything?"
I felt my cheeks get slightly warmer at his words, and I hesitated, a kind of shyness I had never felt before taking hold of me for a moment.
I nodded again, too tired to speak anymore, and he smiled, tentatively reaching out with his hand to push a strand of hair from my face, gently brushing my cheek as he did so.
"I have waited so long to tell you," he said softly, playing with my fingers, "And I realized how stupid I have been only when it was almost too late."
I smiled weakly, while my eyelids started to close; I was exhausted, even if I had been awake for maybe a little more than five minutes.
"It wasn't," I said sleepily, surrendering to the heavy weariness which was taking hold of my body and mind.
"You don't know how glad I am of hearing you say that," he said, taking my hand in his again.
"I love you, Kate."
I felt a small smile turn my lips upwards, and I relished the feeling of his warm hand holding mine.
"Love you, too," I said under my breath, already half-asleep, while everything around me faded away.
A moment before drifting off to sleep, I felt him pressing his lips to the back of my hand and whisper a single word against my skin.
"Always."
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