(A/N: Told you there was going to be another "Knockout" tag piece. This episode was just so heart-wrenching, plot bunnies just run wild. Hope you enjoy!)

Summary: In her head she was screaming, begging to be released from this quick and poisonous prison. But she could barely move, and could only watch as he hovered desperately over her.

Disclaimer: I do not own "Castle".

Screams

A Beckett/Castle Fanfic

by Jill Diamond

The eulogy she had worked day and night to write perfectly was rudely interrupted. She felt for one second a sharp, clever pain in her abdomen, and before she could so much as make her pain known, the mourners all dove for the grass as one entity, screaming as they went. She felt herself pushed and pinned down to the ground, but she didn't have to see who had done so, for she knew by the way his touch made her tingle.

But that tingle picked up and left at an alarming rate, as did the rest of the feeling in her body. The only thing that remained constant was the burning just under her bust line. Her breath was short and bedraggled. She tried to squirm in a desperate attempt to make the burning stop, but his grip on her was too tight – too desperate. From a hundred miles away, she heard the boys run just past her yelling "Beckett's down! Beckett's down!" to the other officers.

"Kate..."

In her head she was screaming, begging to be released from this quick and poisonous prison, but it only produced a whimper. She could barely move, and could only watch as he hovered desperately over her. He gently shushed her in a tone that broke her heart.

"Kate..."

With the evil slowly flowing through and corrupting her body, everything around her began to seem more like a dream. She knew it was happening, but it wasn't all quite real.

"Stay with me, Kate..."

"Rick...I am afraid. I was acting like a brat, but I'm afraid. I'm very afraid. I don't want to be afraid anymore."

"Don't leave me, please."

"Rick, you know that I never could. You should know that by now. I didn't leave you when my apartment blew up. I didn't leave you when we almost froze to death – see? I'm talking about them now. It probably doesn't make up for the hell you've been through, but I'm talking about them. I want to talk about them so much."

"Stay with me, okay?"

"Rick...you're the best partner any cop could have. I should have said it before, but you are. I honestly don't think any of our cases in the last three years I could have solved without you. Rick, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking about you when I should have been – I was only thinking about the third cop. Rick, stop looking at me like that! You're scaring me! I'm scared and it hurts..."

"Kate...I love you. I love you, Kate."

Her now manipulated heartbeat skipped over, though what from was undetermined. Kate Beckett had never felt higher. And that's when everything started to fade.

"No...no! Not yet, please! No! Rick, get some help! Please! Oh, God, not now! Please! Oh, God, Rick, I lo..."

She tried with all her might to squirm and jump up to him and do whatever felt right, but her nervous system was already corrupted by the bullet. She couldn't move an inch.

The cemetery was gone. The distant sirens were gone.

He was gone.

There was only darkness.

The End

(A/N: Whenever I watch this bit (apparently trying to torture myself), I just feel like Beckett was trying so hard to say something to him, but, of course, she'd been shot, so she couldn't. It's going to be a very long summer...Feedback welcome! Bai!)