I couldn't leave you guys hanging for more than a couple hours… (Or myself!) The perspective is thrown off here, but you should be able to make sense of it!

"Kate!" I yell, waking up instantly. "Kate, where are you?" Nervously looking around, I realize how bright it is here.

"I'm over here Castle, what do you want?" I whip my head towards the sound of her voice.

There she is, standing there in her dress blues with her eyebrow quirked up at me. "I thought I had lost you." I say, making my way over to her and giving her a hug.

"Really Castle, that's the best you can come up with?" She retorts, pushing me back. The jolt it gives me hurting far more than it should. All of a sudden I can't breathe, I look into her eyes with panic in my own. She just smiles at me, poking me in the chest, right between two of my ribs. I try again to take a breath, and this time I make some headway. I can breathe again.

"Where are we?" I ask, my voice barely a whisper.

"Where do you think?" She responds, smirking as always.

"Are we… Did we… Die?" I ask, not sure if she even knew.

"I don't know, did we? I thought you went all 'Macho-Man' and saved me?"

"I had hoped to… but Kate, I… I think I watched you die." I say, tears running down my face.

"Well, that sucks." She quips at me.

"But… if you're dead, that must mean I am too… so where are we? Purgatory?"

"I don't know Castle." She said, gasping in pain and crumpling all of a sudden. I catch her just before the hits the ground, but just barely.

I feel a warm wet substance on my fingers that are resting on her chest. "Kate?" I ask, knowing, but unable to look.

"Kate?! Kate, look at me! I'm not amused, Kate! You're scaring me! Come on! Get up!" I try pulling her up with me, but she won't budge. "Kate…" I cry as cradle her in my arms. "Please, you can't leave me."

~KO~

"Umpf." All of the wind being knocked out of me. "What the Hell Castle? Why did you tackle me?"

"To save you." He whispers in my ear.

"From what? Giving a speech? I think I was doing just fine."

" Maybe so, but I still saved you." He says, smiling down at me.

"What are you…?" I begin before realizing there is a warm, wet substance coating my gloved hands that are at his chest, pushing. "Rick?" I ask, afraid to look.

"Don't worry about me, just be happy. I love you Kate, be happy for me." He said, tears in his eyes before slumping forward on top of me.

"Rick?! Rick, get up! This isn't funny, Rick! You're crushing me! Come on! Get up!" I try pushing on him, but he won't budge. "Rick…" I sob into his chest. "Please, you can't leave me."

~KO~

There is a flurry of activity, Kate is removed from the ambulance, a breathing tube now in place, a bag supplying her oxygen, an EMT giving her CPR. Esposito follows after the team with the stretcher, they are running, there's no telling how much time is left, how much blood she has lost.

"You're going to have to wait here, officer." One of the doctors says before pushing through the door to the ER with the rest of the team. Esposito nodded, putting his head in his hands- only to realize that they are coated in blood. Her blood, Kate's blood. And Castle's. Oh God. Did he even make it to the ambulance? It was so much further behind. He couldn't lose another partner, not Kate or Castle. Castle was his partner, a part of his team, his work family. He'd lost too many people as it was.

The crashing of doors against the wall at the other end of the hall alerted him to a new arrival. It was Castle. Lanie was chasing the stretcher, just as he had with Kate. Castle had been intubated as well, obviously incapable of breathing on his own. Esposito wondered how long he had been without his own breath. He checked his watch, but it was smeared with blood. He shook his head, waiting until the team with Castle's stretcher ran by, and Lanie stopped by him, immediately throwing herself into his side.

"How was Kate?" She asked, bawling her eyes out.

"Not much better than that." He said, knowing he couldn't sugarcoat anything right now, even if he wanted to protect her from the truth. He just hugged her close as they cried into each other's embrace.

~KO~

Detective Ryan should have won an award for how well he drove in the tense minutes on the way to the hospital, but he wouldn't be worrying about that, he was too concerned with the task at hand, getting there safely. As he pulled into the parking structure of the hospital, he flashed his badge at the attendant, his lights still flashing, though he had turned off the siren. The attendant lifted the gate, and Ryan blew into the garage, grabbing the closest parking spot to the ER entrance as possible. With the car in park, he had one job left to do. After he turned off the lights, threw the NYPD parking pass in the dash and removed the key from the ignition, he turned around as far as he could in his seat, effectively facing the two scared women in the back.

"I need to tell you two something, and you can't freak out, okay?" He said calmly, tears forming in his eyes again. He bit them back as the two nodded. " Castle- Uh- Rick… got hurt too." He couldn't bring himself to say more than that, he just looked them both in the eye briefly and got out of the car, opening the rear door for them to do the same. They sat there in shock for a moment before getting out of the car. "I'm sorry. I just… I didn't know what to say before."

The two women were crying again, holding onto each other for dear life, but Martha nodded, understanding the stress of improvisation. He opened the door to the ER for them, not knowing what exactly lay beyond, but knowing that they should get in there.

They found Detective Esposito and Doctor Parish sitting in a couple of the waiting room chairs, what used to be white towels in their hands, as they attempted to rid themselves of the blood. As he approached them, one of the desk workers whistled and threw a white towel his way as well. He hadn't even thought about the blood on his own clothes and hands. After making sure that Martha and Alexis were situated on a set of chairs against the wall, he excused himself to try and wash some of the blood off in the bathroom. He got his hands mostly clean, drying them off on the towel, and dabbed at his uniform, trying to at least dry it. He walked back out into the waiting area, noticing Jim Beckett had arrived and firmly planted himself in one of the chairs near Martha and Alexis.

Ryan walked up behind Espo and Lanie, "Any news?" he whispered, knowing that if there was any, it probably wasn't good. They both shook their heads. He took the towels from them and walked over to the desk. "You have a bio-bag for these?" he asked, hefting the towels with one hand. It was a ruse, he wanted information, and he hoped the woman at the desk had some. She nodded, letting him through a door so he could deposit the towels in the lidded red biohazard receptacle used by the ER staff. "Any info on the two GSWs? They're our friends." He whispered, motioning back towards the lobby with his thumb.

"All I know is that they both made it into surgery. Doctor Davidson and Doctor Kovatch are operating them individually. Our OR teams are scrambling, they don't usually need two cardiac surgery teams at once, so…" She made an apologetic face. "I wish I knew more, sorry."

He nodded, then realized the names of the doctors. "Doctor Davidson, do you know which patient he's operating on?" He asked, worriedly. "I think he's operating on the female." He breathed a sigh of relief. He knew it was wrong, that the doctor should have recused himself, or taken the other surgery, but Kevin was afraid that if he had, he would have just let Rick die without even trying, just so he wouldn't have to compete. "Good," he said, nodding and walking back towards the waiting room.

Before he got there, he pulled out his phone, sending a quick text to Jenny, "Sorry I didn't catch you before I left. Kate and Rick are in surgery. Hope you made it home okay, Love You." He sighed after he sent it. At least she wouldn't worry as much now.

He walked back into the waiting room, heading towards the chair nearest to Alexis. He knew that Martha was bent out of shape too, but Kevin could see the teen starting to fall apart. He took off the jacket to his uniform, tossing it onto one of the chair Esposito had tossed his on. He sat down, hoping he might be able to comfort the daughter of one of his closest friends. He patted her on the shoulder, and before he knew it, she had spun from Martha's embrace and began bawling her eyes out into his shoulder. He let his arm come around her, squeezing her shoulder tight, showing her some support. Martha looked relieved for a moment before she cast her eyes downwards and put her head in her hands.

They stayed like that for a while, Kevin trying to keep Alexis calm, Martha putting herself back together on her own, Jim sitting there stoically, and Lanie and Javier trying to comfort each other in silence, squeezing the other's hand when it appeared to be overwhelming them a little too much. Eventually though, Alexis seemed to cry herself out, and sat up, stretching a little, then looking apologetically towards the Detective she had been crying on.

"I'm so sorry Detective Ryan! I, I ruined your shirt! I'll pay for the dry cleaning!" She exclaimed, unable to think of anything else, she was nervous and afraid, but she wanted to talk to someone.

"It's okay, Lex, I think I'm going to get a new set of dress blues anyway… these ones aren't fitting the way they used to." He said, trying to make it seem like no big deal, when he really would need to be getting rid of them due to all of the blood that had soaked into every article of the uniform. "Hey," he said, trying to change the subject, "you want some hot chocolate or something?" He motioned around the corner, there was hot beverage vending machine near the desk, which they couldn't see from where they were sitting. She nodded, he got up, asking if anyone else did, and eyed Javier, jerking his head slightly. The detective understood, and stood up, patting Lanie's hand.

Together Detectives Ryan and Esposito made their way to the desk, quietly asking the desk worker for an update. "Any news?" They asked together.

"There was a cardiac arrest call, but that seems to have been rectified, and I don't know which patient it was, so I couldn't tell you who it was, but don't worry guys, they'll pull through! These surgeons deal with this type of thing almost every day! This is New York!" She said, trying to brighten the mood, it wasn't very effective.

"Thanks." They said together again, "Let us know if- - when one or both of them are out of surgery." Esposito said softly, she nodded with a sad smile on her face.

The pair made their way to the vending machines, picking up hot chocolate for everyone, just to give their hands something to do. They grabbed a couple bags of chips too, knowing it was getting to be quite a while since any one of them ate. They juggled all of their purchases, handing them out around the room, and making their way back to their respective seats. Alexis took a sip of her hot chocolate, before looking down at it and beginning to weep again. She used to drink hot chocolate with her dad whenever they were sad, extra chocolate, extra marshmallows. She swiped the tears away, wanting to be strong now, not wanting everyone to think she was just a kid and didn't know how to school her emotions.

They waited.

~KO~

"Let's check those X-rays, I am concerned there might be some significant bone breakage exacerbating this injury." Doctor Kovatch said, taking the X-rays and placing them up on the light board. "Shit." He said, shaking his head. "Splintered the sixth rib on the way out. We need to get those chunks out of there before they do any more damage to his lung. It already collapsed once, we don't want that happening again." He turned around to begin the process of removing the bone shrapnel from Castle's already open chest cavity. "At least once we got his lung working again his heart leveled out to its own pace." He grabbed a piece of bone with the forceps, plopping it into a metal tray next to him. He repeated the process several more times until he was confident he had removed it all.

"Let's get him sewn back up, what do you say?" The doctor looked over at his partner, starting the process of resealing the wound on his right side where they had been working. They eventually had to turn him on his side to sew up the hole in his back as well. They were going to work on that first, but he started to fibrillate, so they skipped it and dove in on fixing the main issue, the hole in third lobe of his right lung, the reason his lung had collapsed and his heart rate had dropped.

Once he was all stitched up, they monitored his heart rate for a few more moments, making sure he was, indeed in the clear. He still wasn't breathing on his own, had a machine doing it for him, which was probably for the best at the moment. They moved him from the OR into the ICU, right up next to the one person he cared about the most.

~KO~

"Come on, let's find the source of the extra bleeding here." Doctor Davidson said, unable to think of anything other than 'I've got to save Kate, and then kill Richard Castle.' "Got it. Pulmonary vein." He clamped it, then sewed up the tear, making sure there wasn't any other bleeding. She got off pretty easy as far as a bullet to the chest went. The slug had been traveling slow enough that when it entered her chest it tore her left lung and a pulmonary vein and settled in behind it. Doctor Davidson retrieved the bullet, dropping it into the metal pan next to him, then deciding she was good to go, he removed the tools and began to sew her back up.

"That's going to leave a pretty nasty scar, even with my best stitch job." He said, a nurse looked at him like he was an asshole, which he was. He was being vain about a scar when she had just been shot.

Once he was done, he made his way out to the waiting room of the ER, hoping to give Richard Castle a piece of his mind, while the nurses transported Kate to the ICU, breathing machine and all.

So... I had to stop it somewhere here... I'm still writing, and it is past 2am... so there's that...

Glad to see so many of you are liking it so far, sorry if this chapter got a little tedious!

~Morgen