Author's Note:- So it's long and early, I'm sure I'll hear so many complaints about that haha! For the reviewer who was wondering, I would place the bombing in the middle of season five ish, anytime before Still. And this will get worse before it gets better, sorry haha. Enjoy, let me know what you think, NYLF xx

"Castle's over there." Javi murmured, pointing with his chin, after a few moments of silence between them, not sure if she'd noticed him yet.

Kate looked up quickly, her spine stiffening and heart stumbling when she spotted him, before looking back. "So he is." She nodded, clenching her fists tightly. After all this time and everything that happened he still had such a hold on her.

Espo sighed deeply, her reaction too visceral for him to not notice. "What happened in there, Kate?" He murmured, never really understanding what had led to their break up. "You guys were so good together, and then you guys were trapped in there for four hours, and then we don't see you for months, and hear that you quit the force from the Captain because you couldn't even tell us personally. Then he runs away to the Hamptons, and you go to California, neither of you seeing each other what, like ever again? What happened in there?" He asked, having waited this long but seeing how the writer still affected her, he could understand their breakup even less.

Kate shook her head tightly, her memory cycling through Castle's screams as she had dropped the desk, him slipping in and out of delirium due to the pain, her sobbing, having to watch him in so much pain knowing she had caused it. "I don't want to talk about it."

Kate stared off into space while the doctors assessed her chest and head, again.

She knew that her injuries were nothing to be written off, but they weren't serious enough to need to have seen half the hospital, which she was sure she had at this point.

She'd been fine in the ambulance, unable to look at Rick, them both hopped up on painkillers and hidden behind oxygen masks, but had kept her hand secure on his ankle, needing the tangible evidence that he was alive beside her. She'd overheard the paramedics talking when they were checking them over, the writer had two cracked ribs and severe bruising. She'd saved his leg though; they'd told her he could have lost it without her quick thinking which had left him with only bruising and broken skin.

She'd started trembling the closer they got to the hospital, going into shock now that the adrenalin was wearing off, letting her be Kate, rather than a detective. She'd been okay though, and then they had wheeled Rick away from her, to take him to surgery.

Then she'd started screaming.

They'd begged her to calm down, worried about her hurting herself, making her own injuries worse, but she couldn't bear to be away from him. She'd screamed, and cried and begged them to keep them together, until they'd sedated her, so they could assess her properly, made her calm and still enough for them to scan her and do all their tests.

She was quiet now.

They'd been apart for a few hours, and Kate could feel her body trembling again with the need to check on him. He'd been in surgery since they arrived. His hand was bad. Very bad. Potential for finger loss bad.

She wasn't sure she would ever look him in the eye again. She couldn't face him in light of what she'd done.

She felt a little ridiculous.

Jenny was dead. Ryan had lost his whole family, and countless others hadn't survived, and she was freaking out about some lost fingers.

But they were his fingers, it was his hand, that beautiful hand that created those wonderful words and if he lost that because of her he would never forgive her. She'd never forgive herself.

They were trying to save his hand, to repair as much damage as they could. But his hand had been crushed and trapped for nearly four hours. They weren't hopeful.

Kate sighed, painfully, when the doctor finally left her alone. She hadn't been paying attention to what they'd said after they'd told her what was wrong with her. Her humerus and radius were both fractured, so her left arm was casted from the middle of her bicep to her fingers. She had a linear skull fracture and a bruised left lung they'd told her she was lucky weren't worse, as well as a hairline fracture in her T10 vertebrae. They'd all marvelled how she hadn't realised how injured she was before, how she'd still managed to lift the desk from her partner's leg. One nurse had gone as far as to equate it to hysterical strength. Kate had shrugged it off. He needed her. She'd helped. That's what they did for each other.

She couldn't process it all, the whole situation made her soul hurt. She knew she was being selfish, and insular, and narrow minded but she couldn't bring herself to think about the wider loss of life, or the building, or the person who had caused all of this. All she could think about was Rick. The man whose arms she had woken up in this morning, feeling safer than she had in years.

They were supposed to have a date night later, she'd picked out a dress. She'd made up her mind, had been smiling at the thought all morning before their world imploded, tonight was the night she was going to tell him that she loved him.

She shook her head, letting the tears fall as she sobbed. She'd damaged him, potentially irreparably. She couldn't, he wouldn't, how would they ever survive that?

She slipped off the bed, glad they had given her scrubs instead of a gown, at her insistence. She collected her bag and went to the nurses' station. He'd live, she knew that. She'd call his family, ensure they knew where to find him, but she couldn't face the aftermath of this, couldn't stay and watch him hate her. She wasn't strong enough to watch the best thing that had ever happened to her crumble because of her actions.

So, she did what she did best.

Kate checked herself out, against medical advice, and ran.

Castle took a deep breath, steeling himself, before making his way over to where Kate and Espo were stood slowly.

It had been so long since he'd seen them both, hadn't seen Kate since the ambulance and even that he didn't really remember, and hadn't seen Espo since the funerals.

His body ached with the thought of the distance that had existed between them, how long it had been since they had been his second family, his girlfriend, but five years was long enough.

Esposito spotted him first, and Castle felt his, long dormant, heart ache as he watched the ex-soldier murmur to Kate, and her entire body stiffen at the thought of even being in his presence. He watched her spine straighten, could imagine her jaw clenching. His hands burned with the need to touch her, to massage that tension out of her shoulders, to feel her muscles relax against him. He could still acutely remember the feel of her lithe body beneath his hands, the image permanently branded into his brain.

He still didn't have the whole picture of what happened between himself and Kate but seeing her react so badly at the thought of them even talking hurt.

"Hey, man." Esposito greeted, his smile genuine if not a little awkward, half moving to shake his hand, cutting the move off though before Castle could notice. He didn't want to cause more awkwardness and he'd heard about the writer's damaged right hand through the grapevine. "How've you been?"

Castle shrugged, granting the detective a small smile. "Not bad, yourself?" He managed to not stare at her, but he had noticed that Kate hadn't even looked at him. He tried to maintain eye contact with Esposito, tried to ignore his ex's presence, tried not to tune into her breathing, tried not to need to reach out to her. He was mostly succeeding.

"Yeah, I'm okay." Espo shrugged. Talking to Kate about his marital problems was one thing but he hadn't seen the writer in nearly five years. Besides, his and the writer's bond had never been as strong as he and Kate's.

"Excuse me." Kate murmured, not even glancing at Castle, capturing and squeezing Esposito's hand gently. "Email me, yeah?" She asked, a little shy, but looking pointedly at Esposito's face. She waited for him to nod, registering that he was resigned to that being the end of their face to face conversation and feeling a little bad, but she couldn't stay now, before turning heel and walking away. Running away, her brain helpfully provided.

Rick sighed, watching her go, sadly. "She hates me, huh?" He murmured, shaking his head, gripping the bridge of his nose with his left hand, trying to rub away the headache forming between his eyes, loving her hurt now.

"I don't think it's hate, bro." Esposito murmured sadly.

They hadn't really spoken of Castle, Kate always changing the subject whenever her ex came up, but Espo knew that the ex-cop could never hate the man, knew that it wasn't hate she felt around him.

"Go after her." He murmured bravely before pausing, unsure whether to break his friend's confidence or not. They'd been apart for so long, but she was so sad. "She still thinks about you." Esposito divulged quietly, she'd told him as much when they'd both drunk too much after his first divorce.

Rick looked at him sharply, shock rocketing through him. After all this time, she still thought about him too?

"Go after her." Espo urged.

When Rick came to, his heavily bandaged hand was clasped by his daughter, his mother stood at the end of his bed, wringing her hands, but his girlfriend was nowhere to be seen.

"What happened?" He asked, his voice croaking and his mouth full of cotton. Anaesthetic always did such a number on him.

"Daddy!" Alexis cried, burying her face in his shoulder as she sobbed.

"Oh, Richard." Martha sighed, relief flooding her system, as she gripped the end of his bed with both hands, her knees threatening to collapse at the sight of him conscious and alive. "We were so worried. How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay." He smiled a little, wrapping his arm more firmly around his daughter, cradling his baby tightly, ignoring for now the pain in his chest and hand, the sensation dulled by the medication anyway. "What happened?" He repeated gently, needing to get some sort of answer.

"There was an explosion. They're saying it was a bomb. It's being investigated now." Martha explained slowly. Her eyes told him everything he needed to know. There was too much sorrow for it not to be bad.

"How many?" He asked quietly, cautious of his daughter, but needing to know. He knew there would be a death toll, that much was obvious. But it had been the middle of the day and what looked like two floors at least of a police precinct exploded from under them.

"Twenty-eight, including Detective Ryan's pregnant wife." Martha murmured, nodding, giving her son a moment when his eyes slipped shut and he buried his face in his daughter's hair. "They say it may yet rise," she continued softly, "many are still in critical conditions and they are still dealing with the building itself." She paused. "They aren't even sure they've found everyone yet."

Rick gripped his daughter a little tighter, gulping. He lifted his face from his daughter's crown, squeezing her shoulder as she sat up a little. "Is Kate okay?" He asked quietly. He was ashamed to admit, if only to himself, he hadn't really kept track of her after his hand had been crushed. He needed to apologise for snapping at her, knew he'd hurt her.

Martha paused, unwilling to hurt him further but knowing he needed to know. "I haven't seen her." She murmured, heart aching for her son when his eyes flew to hers.

"What?" Rick gasped.

"She called me, wanted to make sure I knew that you were okay, that you were here and out." She smiled sadly, so very grateful for that call. "But by the time we got here, she'd checked herself out and had gone. No one knows where she is." She confessed solemnly.