A/N: I apologize for the late update. I was feeling burnt out from work and trying to get all my ideas written down. I just needed some rest so I could come back fresh. Thank you for understanding. I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle. Castle will always belong to Andrew W. Marlowe and ABC.

Chapter 4

"Castle?" Kate has tears streaming down her face. She can barely hear Alexis' voice over all the commotion happening around her. "Babe? Can you hear me?" She takes off her blood-stained gloves and cups his face in her hands. "I love you. Please don't leave me." She pauses to wipe her face. "I need you." With that Castle's eyes close.

Lanie runs up behind Kate and tries to get her out of the way. "Kate. Sweetie, let me take a look at him." Kate doesn't budge. "Sweetie, let me help him."

Kate yells, "No! I'm not leaving my husband, Lanie!"

In a soothing tone Lanie tries to calm Kate down. "I know sweetie. You can stay right here off to the side, while I take a look at him." Kate nods and moves out of the way so Lanie can tend to Castle.

Alexis is screaming out for her dad, but Ryan is holding her back while Lanie is trying to save Castle's life. Kate just stares at her husband. The sound of sirens gets closer, but Kate doesn't even bat an eyelash. The ambulance arrives on the scene and they run over to Castle. Lanie, being a doctor, has told the paramedics what she has found so far. The paramedics work on Castle, but they block Kate's view. She tries to make her way through but they have to keep her away. They stabilize Castle before putting him on a stretcher.

The paramedics are putting Castle into the back of the ambulance when Kate is climbing into the back with him. The EMTs try to get Kate to stay back. "I'm sorry ma'am."

"No! Please! He's my husband! I'm not leaving him!" The paramedics look at each other and give her a nod. Kate doesn't hesitate to climb into the back of the ambulance and stay right by her husband's side to hold his hand. The ride to the hospital seemed like it would never end to Kate. In the 7 minutes it took to get to the hospital, Castle's heart had stopped twice. Each time his heart stopped, it seemed as though Kate had stopped breathing. She's not ready to lose her husband. They had only been married for 2 months. They still had the rest of their lives. There was still so much for them to do together.

Doctors and nurses where waiting outside when the ambulance arrived at the hospital. Kate was the last one to exit the ambulance. Doctors and EMTs were rushing around to transfer Castle from the stretcher onto a gurney. The doctors need to get Castle into an OR as soon as possible. They're running through the halls to get to the OR with Kate following as close behind as she can. Once they reached the restricted area, they had to stop Kate from going any further.

"Please! He's my husband!" Kate has lost control of her emotions.

One of the doctors takes a step away from the gurney to talk with Kate. "Ma'am, we're taking him into surgery. We are going to do everything we can to save your husband's life."

Kate is emotionally drained, so she speaks in a whisper. "Please. I can't lose him." She takes a breath with tears still streaming down her face. "He's the love of my life. He is my whole world."

The doctor nods and turns to head towards the OR leaving Kate all alone in the hallway. She stands in the hallway for a few minutes, alone, before the rest of her family and her friends arrive. Kate hasn't moved from her spot since she stopped just before the doors to the restricted area. Her family and friends enter the hallway and run towards her. Alexis is panicking, "Kate? Kate, where's dad?"

Kate hasn't said anything. She didn't even make any movement to acknowledge she had heard them enter the hallway, let alone hear what Alexis had said.

Martha carefully walks up to Kate. "Katherine?" Kate slowly turns her head to look at Martha. "Katherine, where's Richard?"

Her voice was raw from all the crying she had done. "They just took him into surgery." Kate takes a step back to lean against the wall. Once her back hit the wall, she slowly slides down the wall to sit on the floor. She brings her knees up to her chest, rests her arms over her knees, and puts her head down to cry some more.

Alexis slowly walks over to where Kate is sitting on the floor and sits down next to her. Alexis has tears in her eyes. "Kate?" Kate doesn't say anything. She just lifts her head enough to look at Alexis. "It's ok to be scared. I'm scared too." Alexis nudges closer to Kate hoping to comfort each other.

Kate lifts her head and wraps an arm around Alexis to pull her closer. Alexis lays her head on Kate's shoulder and Kate places her head on top of Alexis'. Everybody stays in the hallway in silence waiting for any news on Castle. Kate can only speak in a whisper, mainly meant for Alexis' ears only. "He took that bullet for me." Kate takes a deep breath. "Why? That bullet was meant for me."

Alexis lifts her head off of Kate's shoulder to look her stepmom in the eye. She has tears in her eyes that were threatening to fall. "Because, he loves you Kate." A tear finally falls. "He will do anything for the people he loves."

Kate reaches up to Alexis' face to wipe away some of her tears. She gives Alexis a teary smile, "that's one of the things I love about him." She wipes away tears from her own eyes. "But, he shouldn't have risked his life for me. He didn't sign up for this job, I did." Kate looks down at the ground before looking back up to Alexis. "I don't want you to lose your father. And I don't want Martha to lose her son. That guilt would sit on my shoulders for the rest of my life."

Alexis wraps her arms around Kate as best as should could, while they're still sitting on the floor. "What about you, Kate? What would happen if we lost you?" Kate wraps her stepdaughter up in her arms while Alexis sobs. "You're a part of this family too, Kate. I'd be losing the best mom I have ever had. And gram?" Alexis pauses to catch her breath. "Gram would be losing the daughter she dreamed of having."

Martha walks over to where Kate and Alexis are both sitting. She overheard part of the conversation. "It's true, Katherine." Martha wipes away a tear from her eye before it could fall. "You are the daughter I never had. And I'm very grateful you came into our lives. You are as much a part of this family as Richard is." Martha takes a slight pause. "I couldn't bear the thought of losing any of you. You three are my family. And I couldn't be more happy."

Alexis and Kate were getting uncomfortable sitting on the floor, so they both stood up to give Martha a hug. After they had embraced each other they walked over to the waiting room. Martha and Alexis took a seat while Kate started pacing. Jim was watching his daughter pace around the waiting room and it was making him anxious. "Katie?" Kate doesn't say anything, but looks at her dad while she continues walking around the waiting room. "You're making anxious. Will you come sit down? Rick will be fine."

Kate stops in her tracks. "How do you know that dad?!" She didn't mean to yell at her father, but her emotions are getting the better of her. "I nearly lost my husband! He was shot because of me! He took the bullet that was aimed at me!" Kate takes a breath before she continues. "Nobody knows if he'll be ok or not. Most gun-shot wounds are fatal." Kate starts crying.

Jim starts to get up from his seat, but Martha stops him. Martha knows that Jim is Kate's father, but Martha thinks that Kate needs a mother's comfort right now. Martha walks over to where Kate is still standing and wraps her up in a warm hug. "Katherine, darling?" Kate looks at Martha with tear stained cheeks, but doesn't say a word. "Come over here with me. We'll take a seat over here away from everybody." Kate just nods and lets Martha lead her to the opposite side of the waiting room.

Kate and Martha take their seats away from the rest of the family. Kate's crying slows. "I'm not ready to lose him Martha."

"I know darling. I know. But, if I know Richard like I think I do, he'll be ok. He's a fighter just like his wife." Martha runs a hand up and down Kate's back. "He knows the two of you still have your whole lives together ahead of you and he's going to fight for that. He's not ready to lose you either."

Kate nods. "I don't know what I would do without him."

"Oh, darling let's not think about that."

"No, Martha, I need to talk about this. I need to get it off my chest, if you don't mind." Martha nods to give Kate permission to continue. "I was in a bad place after my mother died. I fell down this deep dark rabbit hole and I never thought I would come out of it. But, Castle…" She lets a few tears fall and wipes them away before she goes on. "Castle was there. He reached down and helped pull me out of that hole. I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for him." Kate takes a deep breath. "He brought light back into my life again. He made life worth living. He helped me to have fun again." Kate starts crying again.

Martha wraps Kate up in her arms and rubs soothing circles on her back. "Richard was smitten with you when he first met you. He told me. When he couldn't stop talking about you, I knew that you were someone very special to him. I knew that you would be the one." Martha leans back to get a good look at Kate. "Besides Alexis, Richard has never loved anybody as much as he loves you. I can see it, just by the way he talks about you, or in the way he looks at you. And I know you love him just as much. I see it in your eyes."

Kate stops crying and wipes away her tears. She sits wrapped up in Martha's arms for a few more minutes. The waiting room stays quiet for a while. Friends and family of Richard Castle had been in the waiting room for quite some time. Nobody knows how long they've been there. It seems like they had been there, waiting for what seemed like, forever.

Everyone looks in the direction to the sound of a door opening, hoping for good news, when the doctor comes walking out from the OR with a nurse standing right beside him. "Family of Richard Castle?"

To Be Continued

Note: I apologize for this chapter being a little short. I didn't want to make Castle's surgery too long. There is a whole lot of waiting and not doing a whole lot while waiting for someone to come out of surgery. I also wanted to leave it as a cliffhanger and thought this was the best place to end the chapter.