Sorry for the confusion with the completed thing, I didn't realise that I had it checked when I posted it, I was probably too tired to be posting anything but I did it anyway and paid the price. But needless to say, I will be continuing this, I hope to make it a big one actually.

I do not own Castle, or anything that you recognise.

A huge thanks to the reviewers! You are amazing, each one made me smile which I am so very grateful for at the moment. I hope you all enjoy.

'My name is Detective Katherine Anne Castle.'

Both the patient and the doctor looked over at Rick curiously, his face was contorted with confusion, 'wait what?'

Kate spoke defiantly, 'I'm Mrs Katherine Castle. What did you think that I wouldn't remember my own name? I may be injured but my brain is perfectly fine.'

Raising a sharp eyebrow at the woman Dr Belden spoke calmly, like this was something that he dealt with every day. 'Ma'am, there is just a slight discrepancy with the information that we have been given, we have you down as Miss Katherine Beckett.'

'Well it's wrong.'

'No Kate,' Castle woke from his shock, 'we aren't married.'

'Y-yes we are.'

'No, as much as I wish we could be we aren't. You're still Kate Beckett and you're in a relationship with Josh Davidson, another doctor at this hospital.'

Kate was confused beyond anything she had experienced, 'I know who he is Rick, but we broke up ages ago. We've been married for months now.'

Castle opened his mouth to reply but the doctor silenced him quickly. 'Mr Castle, could I speak to you outside for a second?'

When Castle refused to budge at all from her side the doctor noticed the way she was gripping his hand tightly, almost like it was the last thing holding her to the Earth. 'Whatever you say to him you can say to me, I'm not a child.'

Before he spoke the dark haired doctor looked at Rick for confirmation earning a glare from the detective and at his nod took a deep breath before continuing. 'Mr Castle, are you two married?'

Rick shook his head, 'no.'

'Have you two ever been married?'

'Only in my dreams.'

'This is strange.' He pondered everything for a moment, with each passing second the furrow in his brow deepened and the two waiting for the news became more on edge. 'Kate, I believe that you may have a certain type of amnesia called retrograde amnesia, which affects your long term memory. Although in this case it seems to have altered your memory instead of wiping it and usually with this type of confusion there is some basis, such as a past relationship, that would encourage a very intense dream that after waking seems real. It is very important, Mr Castle, that we don't confuse her further until we know the extent of her injuries.'

'What do you mean confuse her? She's already confused.'

'Yes, but to help the healing process we need to allow her to rest peacefully. Bombarding her with information from her past is not the best way to help her recover.'

'So you're saying that I have to pretend that we are married until she remembers herself?'

'No, not pretend, just don't argue about it for a few days and slowly bring the idea forward.'

'I hope you realise that by doing this I'm going to be the one on the bed with permanent brain damage once she gets better.' At the slightly horrified look on the dramatic writer's face the stony doctor cracked a small smile.

'Mr Castle, I can assure you that this is the best treatment for her needs. While it may seem like the best thing to do is get her memory completely back straight away that may not be the best thing right now. What she needs is some time to heal before putting her body under the stress of mental recovery. I'm sure that you've seen the movies where someone loses their memory then they are taken to a place and suddenly everything is clear again.' The writer and patient nodded. 'Well that rarely happens in the real world. Usually amnesia patients regain their memory little pieces at a time. In the few rare cases where they are suddenly hit with a past that they had completely forgotten about it is very shocking and in most cases the person ends up back in here.'

Kate was fuming that the doctor was speaking directly to Rick; she was the patient, the one who was actually hurt. Finally she spoke up, although she didn't tell him quite what she planned to say, even in her state she knew what was socially acceptable and throwing curse words at your doctor, doubting his skills wouldn't fall under that category. 'Is there any permanent damage?'

'We can't tell yet Ma'am, to know the full extent of your injuries we will need to run more tests and wait a while to see how you recover and what you remember but there is little chance that this delusion will continue for more than a few months.'

'This Delusion? Are you calling me delusional?' Kate protested as animatedly as she could in her state, only no one listened to her, instead Rick just spoke over her.

'I'm going to have to pretend to be married to her for a few months? Not that I don't want to do be married to her, I'd just rather it be a proper marriage you know, with a certificate and a dress and an actual wedding.' Running his hand through his hair Castle realised that it didn't matter what he had to do, what he had to give up, he had to help her. 'She is going to kill me when she finds out that I pretended to be married to her, Doctor.'

'I'm sure she will realise that you were only following doctors orders.'

'You obviously don't know Becke- I mean Kate.'

'Your best hope of helping her is to find out how much information she actually remembers about her past and figure out what memories have changed. Then, slowly, you can tell her what actually happened.'

Once again she was being completely ignored, something that Kate couldn't stand, at least when the topic was her. 'I am in the room you know.'

Castle rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand that was had been entwined with his throughout the whole exchange. 'Sorry, it's just a little strange at the moment.'

'You're telling me that it's a little strange at the moment. I'm sitting here in a hospital bed with a possible hole in one of my vital organs and being told that I'm delusional.'

Rick focused all his attention on her, 'you're not delusional Kate, you're just confused.'

She met his eyes sullenly, 'you make it sound so simple, so trivial.'

'It's not, I know. But there is nothing that we won't be able to get through together.'

She smiled at the cliché line. 'Now it feels like I'm in some corny movie.'

'At least you didn't think that you were Nikki Heat. Now that would have been different.'

Kate laughed a little but grimaced at the pain that erupted from the movement. Through gritted teeth she managed to mutter, 'laughter's the best medicine for some, just not shooting victims.'

The busy doctor knew that he had spent a long time, time that he would need to soon make up to finish his rounds with her. 'Detective?'

'Sorry Dr.'

'I'll leave you two in peace soon enough but I just need to check a few more things, especially the wound.' Dr Belden looked up at Castle, 'I'll have to ask you to leave, just while I check the wound.'

Kate couldn't fathom letting him leave her side, even if they weren't married she still felt like they were and she wanted her husband with her. 'No, he can stay.'

'The wound is rather high on your chest Ma'am.'

'In my memory he's seen a whole lot more than my chest; I don't think it will bother me.' The writer shot an amused glance her way while she smirked knowingly, somehow, despite having been shot and undergone surgery not long ago she was already up to teasing him. 'I don't want him to leave, I trust him and I don't want to go through this on my own.'

'If you're both sure...' Dr Belden was tentative, although he knew from the way Castle hadn't left her bedside for more than toilet breaks that they were inseparable, he didn't think that this was something that Rick would want to see.

When both of them nodded he assisted Kate in manoeuvring the gown off her shoulder, revealing half her chest covered in padding, most of it soaked through with dark blood. They both looked away as the doctor slowly pulled off the layers of padding and squeezed each other's hands as they took a look at the wound for the first time.

It was smaller than they imagined but it still caused each to gasp. The black stitches seemed to only just be holding the swollen red skin from breaking open and revealing everything beneath. Seeing the wound, not yet properly cleaned brought them both back to the moment. For him all he could think about was the way that her blood oozed over his hands and the way the life seemed to slip from her eyes before they fell shut. In her mind was the pain, the feeling like she was floating away from everything that she knew and the words 'I love you' ringing in her ears above the boom of the gun.

She was too distracted by the wound to think about the fact that she was sitting there half naked in front of her partner. He on the other hand was all too aware. This was the most he'd ever seen of the beautiful detective, other than after the explosion but then that was only a glimpse before he turned his eyes away. He was more distracted by the wound resting near the centre of her chest but he was still a man.

Before either had even began to gather their thoughts together to form a coherent sentence the doctor was finished and began re-dressing the wound with precision. 'I'll be back to check on you later, if you need anything let a nurse know.'

With that he left the two alone in the small room, each still buried deep in their own minds. Castle pulled his chair back up to the side of her bed and sat down, resting his head on the edge of the mattress. They sat there quietly for what seemed like hours, each lost in thought, absentmindedly she rubbed circles on his tensed back, he was still holding her hand for dear life but the longer they sat there in companionable silence the softer his grasp got.

Well, I hope you approve and like it enough to review, they really do make my day each time.