A/N: Thank you everyone for your kind words, and alerts! It brings a smile to my face.

Chapter 4

Kate and Lanie got back to Kate's apartment close to midnight, each with a bag of Chinese in their arms.

"Is wine okay?" Kate asked her friend tiredly as they deposited their food down on the kitchen counter.

"That sounds great, I'll grab a couple of plates." Lanie offered, and went about the kitchen grabbing plates, and eating utensils.

Kate turned to the cabinet behind her to get a couple of glasses down, and grabbed an already open bottle of cabernet that she had, and began to pour the glasses. As she began to pour the second glass though, she realized that Castle was the last one to share this bottle with her. Beckett's hands began to shake at the memory of her friend at a happier time, and the bottle slipped to the floor from her grasp.

The large crash of the wine bottle startled Lanie from her position in the living room, and she rushed to her friend's side.

"Kate, oh my God, are you okay?"

Kate stood there, and tried to talk, but an over flow of tears replaced the words that tried to come. She all but collapsed to the floor, into the puddle of red wine, and glass shards. What was happening to her? All she could hear was the echo of the gunshot that almost took Castle's life. All she could see was Rick's blood surrounding her, as the life poured out of him, much like how the wine poured out of the bottle to the glass. It was her fault for not figuring out who Coonan was before hand. It was her fault not shooting him sooner. Just a fraction of a second was all it would have taken to stop him. What good was she if she couldn't even protect her own partner?

"Kate!"

Kate tried to focus on her friend through her tears. She was able to feel Lanie's hands on her shoulders trying to shake her out of her melt down.

"Hey are you with me?" Lanie asked her. She had never seen Kate like this before, and she was scared for her friend.

Kate shook her head trying to take in deep breaths to calm herself down. Her entire body still shook with fear. She could barely see, barely breath, and it felt like the walls of her already small kitchen were closing in on her.

"If I just would have shot that bastard sooner." Kate tried to start, but it was hard to understand her through the ragged breathing, and tears.

Lanie shook her head. "Don't you start with that Kate Beckett, you did what you could." Her best friend tried to tell her, hoping that her words would get through.

"I hesitated Lanie. I got so wrapped up in my mom's case again that I was going to do whatever it took to find out who was behind it. And he is going to blame me for that!"

"Who is going to blame you sweetie?" Lanie asked confused.

"Castle!" Kate cried, and she fisted her hands together, the wet small pieces of glass grinding into the palm of her hand helped her focus on something other than her panic attack.

"Do you really think that man could hate you?" Lanie asked her seriously. "He is the one that wanted to dig your mothers case back up. He pushed you hunny. Not the other way around. And on the verge of death he still tells you how he feels." She paused taking a second to look her friend in the eye. "If that isn't romantic I don't know what is." She ended with. It wasn't really an attempt to lighten the mood, so much as to get her friend to face the facts.

Kate rolled her eyes at her best friend, and swiped some of the tears off of her face with the back of her hand. She was finally able to slow the tears and get her breathing under control again, but her voice was still shaky.

"Lanie, there was just so much blood. It was just everywhere." She told her and turned her palms up to stare at them, her mind's eye flashing back, and replacing the wine with blood.

"I know."

"Besides, because of the blood loss his comment, we'll call it, was probably meant for Esposito." She tried to joke about Castle's revealing of his feelings towards her. Part of her hoped that it was meant for her, but the other part of her hoped that he really did mean that towards Esposito because she wasn't sure that she could deal with that knowledge quite yet.

"Mmmhmmm." Lanie got out with a smirk and then stood up, and held her hands out to her friend.

Kate grabbed on and let her get pulled up by her friend.

"I'm sorry Lanie. You didn't need to see this." She told her friend upset in herself for breaking down like this.

"Hey that's what I am here for." Lanie told her bringing Kate into a hug. "Now the whole night isn't ruined. We each still have a glass of wine, and there is some food we need to eat before it gets too cold. Why don't you go get cleaned up, and I will clean up in here?" She offered.

Kate began to argue, not wanting her friend to clean up her mess, but Lanie held her hands up to stop her.

"I wasn't asking, I was telling." Lanie told her serious, and pointed for Kate to go back towards her bedroom, and bathroom.

Kate smiled, and murmured a thank you to her friend as she walked past to go change.

She heard Lanie begin to clean up the broken glass off of the floor, as she turned into the bathroom to clean the glass out of her hands. She stopped in front of the sink, and turned the warm water on, and began to gently remove the small pieces, thankful that she didn't cut her hands up too bad. As she finished up with her hands she took a moment to taken in her appearance in the mirror. Her mascara had run all down her cheeks, and her eyes were red and puffy from crying, with large dark circles underneath them. Once she was satisfied with her hands she grabbed a washcloth, and placed it under the warm running water of the sink, and once she added a little soap to it began to vigorously scrub her face until it was red and raw looking.

She exited the bathroom, and went next door to her room depositing her dirty wine stained clothes in the hamper, as she passed it to her closet. Kate grabbed a pair of black yoga pants, and a gray and white oversized NYPD t-shirt from her closet and quickly got changed. She removed all of her jewelry, and sank down onto her bed for a moment when she heard the sink turn on in her kitchen. Not ready to deal with the feelings, she fell back down on her bed with her feet still dangling over the edge. Once she went back out there she would have to talk, and she wasn't ready to talk. What she needed to do was get herself back under control. She needed to compartmentalize these feelings to avoid another panic attack. But when she closed her eyes all she could see were her mother, and Castle's lifeless eyes staring back at her.

She had failed them.

Kate took a deep breath and slammed her eyes shut harder, which spilled fresh tears down her cheek. How could she not have protected him? She almost caused Alexis to become fatherless. That little girl was Castle's whole world, and she had so much more to do that Castle would have missed out on. Would have, her mind finally reminded her, would have.

She fisted her bed sheets, and sat up straight in bed. When she opened her eyes she felt something click inside of her. Greif was no longer the prime emotion. Kate Beckett was now engulfed in a new feeling.

Rage.

You could have called it determination, but that only fueled the fire that was inside of her. Coonan took her mother, and almost took her partner. She would find who was controlling the puppet strings, and bring them down. This game ended now.

She stood up, and looked at herself in the mirror, giving her reflection a little nod as she straightened herself up before going back out to see Lanie. Beckett took a deep breath, and opened her bedroom door and headed out to the living room of her small apartment confident that she finally had herself under control.

"You know Lanie, you don't have to stay." Kate offered to her.

Lanie simply glared at her friend as she walked over to the coffee table that was in front of the couch with two plates of Chinese food that she had just taken out of the microwave.

"I know that I don't have to, but I am so you just need to accept that."

Kate let a small sliver of a smile slip at her friends comment, and nodded as she made her way over to the couch to sit down. Once the delicious aroma of the food in front of her hit her nostrils, her stomach growled loud enough that Lanie could hear it when she was making her way back with the wine glasses.

The two women ate in silence for several minutes, both starving from lack of anything to eat almost all day. At first Kate found it hard to drink the wine that Lanie had brought over to her because it only reminded her of her panic attack, but after a couple of long sips she found herself able to relax a little bit more.

Kate's thoughts turned once again to the man lying in the hospital room right now. And while Castle may not currently be fighting for his life, that's all she could picture was him hooked up to all of those machines alone.

"Don't worry, your boy is going to be fine." Lanie reassured her friend, sensing that her thoughts had taken another turn.

"He is not my boy." Kate corrected her, but Lanie just stared back at her friend with a raised eyebrow, and a look that told her she knew better. "And even though the doctors have told us he is going to be fine, I'm still not able to accept it. All I can picture is him completely helpless sliding down that wall in the precinct, or all alone in the hospital." She told her openly.

"You know what will help? Drink your wine faster." Lanie joked and took a sip from her own glass. "I can't imagine how that must have been. Javier told me everything happened so fast; they didn't even realize he was shot until they got over to him. By the time they got to Castle he was just standing there shaking. They were just able to help him down, before he started to fall to the ground."

Kate shook her head as she lived through everything in her mind again. "If I wasn't so wrapped up in Coonan, I-"

"Kate, don't go down that road. There is nothing you could have done. The important part that you have to remember is that Castle is going to be okay."

Kate nodded at her friend, thankful for her advice.

"Thanks Lanie. I'm glad you are here." She told her honestly. She hadn't realized how much she missed her friend.

"Yeah I am too."

The two stayed on the couch and talked for a couple of more hours about anything but what happened today, both needing something else to focus on, even if it was for just a moment. Close to four in the morning they each finally fell asleep on Kate's couch after the conversation lagged for a couple of minutes.

However, as hard as they tried to not talk about him, the second Kate drifted off, her partner was all she could dream about.