Chapter 4: Dizzy and Hurting

Castle holds the door of his loft open for her, "Mother and Alexis wished they could be here, but school and work took precedence."

"It's okay."

He sets her bag down before helping her remove her jacket. "So I was thinking… the guest bedroom is on the second floor. I thought… I'd take that and you could take my room so you wouldn't have to deal with the stairs."

"Stairs are fine, Castle."

"No, they're not. You're leaning on me an awful lot when you walk, and I don't want you to fall down the stairs if you have a dizzy spell and I'm not there to help you."

"The dizziness will go away when my head starts to hurt less. And I'll only be here a couple days; I can manage."

"You're staying in my room," he says firmly.

"Fine."

"You didn't eat much of your breakfast this morning. I know hospital food sucks. You want me to make you something?"

"Can I take a shower first?"

"I don't know, Kate. I really don't want you to fall in the shower and hit your head again."

"A bath then?"

"You could still fall and hit your head."

"Castle, I'm not going three days without bathing."

"Okay, you can take a bath," he concedes. He helps her to his bathroom, bringing her bag of clothes for her and getting out a clean towel. "Just… try to be careful and yell if you need anything."

A half an hour later Beckett emerges from the bathroom. She freezes in the doorway, leaning against the wall for support. "Castle?"

He looks up at her from his position against the wall by the door, his computer in his lap. "Oh… hey. Feel better?"

"…Not really. What are you doing?"

"Writing."

"I mean why are you sitting outside the bathroom?"

"I wanted to be close in case something happened."

"I don't know whether to think you're sweet or creepy."

"Sorry for being creepy," he gives her a small smile as he stands. "So breakfast?"

"You don't have to go to a lot of trouble, Castle. Toast is fine with me."

"It's really not too much trouble to make you breakfast, Kate," he offers her a hand.

She stares at his hand for a moment, "Look, Castle, I appreciate all your help, I really do. But I need to do some things on my own. Like walk to the kitchen."

"Okay," he says, trying not to take this personally. He doesn't want her to hurt herself even more, but he knows that she needs to feel independent.

"Thanks."

With one last look at her, he heads out of the room to make her some food. By the time she makes it to the kitchen, he is already making eggs and the bread is in the toaster. She takes a seat at the island and watches him. Minutes later he slides a plate in front of her. "You want orange juice?" She opens her mouth to protest, but he places a finger to her lips. "The doctor said no coffee; you need to rest, and it'll only keep you up."

"Decaf?"

"Sorry, don't have any."

"Orange juice is fine then," she sighs and picks up her fork.

"I think I'm going to start a group: Coffee Drinkers Anonymous. I'll even sponsor you."

She frowns at him, "I think you're the one who sponsors my coffee drinking to begin with."

"You drank coffee before I started following you."

"Not nearly as much."

"You know, if you get pregnant, I might stop shadowing you; I don't want to listen to you complain when you can't have coffee for nine months."

"I don't even have a boyfriend right now so getting pregnant is a little out of the question at the moment. Unless you're planning on trying something while I'm staying with you…"

"My hands won't wander… unless you ask them to," he flashes her a mischievous smile as he hands her a glass of juice and slides into the seat next to her.

"Don't get your hopes up."

"So what would you like to do today, Detective?"

Kate glares at him, "You're really asking me that?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'd really like to go to work and find these guys. But you heard Montgomery; I can't go in to work."

"What else would you like to do?"

She shrugs, "I don't really care. It's not like I can do much anyway."

"You can use this time to read. There's got to be a book you've always wanted to read and never got around to it. I'm sure I have it; you can spend the next three days reading."

"Really? You want me to sit here and read for three days? That's so… boring."

"Kate, you have to take care of yourself. And I thought you liked to read."

"I do… just not for three whole days."

"You break it up, watch movies or something."

"It still amounts to doing nothing useful," she sighs.

"What do you do with yourself when you have a day off?"

"Catch up on sleep. Run errands. Jog. Read. Doing something with Lanie or Josh… but we're not together anymore."

"Some of those things are out of the question."

"I know."

Castle takes her plate to the sink, "Let's go find you a book." He lets her walk to his office without holding on to her but is close behind her to catch her in case she falls. "See, you're already getting better. A few more days and you'll be ready to go back to work."

"Going back to work won't be that great; I'm stuck on desk duty."

"Only for a little while. Plus, you always say that sometimes the best police work happens in the precinct, not in the field."

"Desk duty isn't fun, even if it is helpful. And especially when you know you can't leave the precinct to follow anything up."

"Yeah, I'm totally not going to continue shadowing you when you get pregnant," he smiles to himself.

She glares at him, "Why do you keep insisting that I'm going to get pregnant?"

"I'm not. I'm just saying that I don't want to be around you when you're pregnant because nine months of this would not be fun."

"Whatever," she rolls her eyes and stops in front of his bookshelf.

"My books are down on that end if you want one of them. The classics are up there. Everything else is by genre." She picks a book at random and pulls it down. "Pride and Prejudice, Detective? Mr. Darcy?"

"I haven't read this since high school English."

"You can read the version with zombies. I find it so much more appealing. And Alexis made me buy the movie. You two can watch it together sometime and fawn over Mr. Darcy."

"Fawn?"

"Yes."

She shakes her head, "I'm good without the fawning. But maybe I'll try the zombie version after I read this one."

Rick watches her get settled on the couch in his office before grabbing his laptop and joining her. He starts writing, almost forgetting about her entirely as he immerses himself in the world of Nikki and Rook where things could go as he wants them to in real life. He jumps when she slams her book shut and looks over at her, "I told you it was bad."

"It's not that. I just can't read with this headache," she places a hand on her forehead. "I'm going to go try to nap. See you later."

He watches her go, wanting desperately to console her as Rook is comforting Nikki in his novel.

A/N: So I got my snow day. I'm pretty sure I did nothing all day. But I did write the first two chapters of a new story, which I hope to continue working on this weekend. I only have like ten more chapter left of Harry Potter, so once that's done I can concentrate solely on writing instead of studying for finals that are coming up in a few weeks. Well, hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Thanks.