Here is another Chapter. For those who think it is too dark and scary and think no one can come back from that, you don not have to read what I write but I assure you that my stories all have a happy ending, even if the road the characters take is a dark path.

Disclaimers: I own nothing, they are just borrowed.

And thanks to those who support my kind of writing. Thanks.

Chapter 4

The night had been uneventful. After Jane had left him alone he had stepped outside to inform Jim , Martha, Alexis and the boys. Jim had been clearly shaken by the information provided by Rick. Alexis had only clung to her grandmother and for the first time since Kate had been kidnapped allowed her tears to escape. And Esposito and Ryan had asked him if they could help the team of SVU detectives handling Kate's case. He simply had handed Javier the card, Jane had had left for him and after a very emotional goodbye the boys had left the hospital. Rick had told Jim and the women of his family to go home and get a good night's sleep. After a short discussion the three of them had left with the promise to be back in the morning with fresh clothes for Rick.

The night nurse had put a cot next to Kate's bed where he could at least try to get some sleep. But he just had sat there listening to the machines keeping his precious wife alive. It had been shortly after one a.m. when the night nurse had come to check on them both only to find Rick slumped in his chair. After she had woken him up he had, without any form of resistance, agreed to sleep on the cot. It had been merely the exhaustion instead of tiredness from the previous week that had him sleeping like a stone.

The shuffling of feet and the rustling of paper had Rick rousing from his sleep. He threw back the covers and sat on the side of the cot running his hands over his face. He blinked two times and noticed Dr. Isles at the end of Kate's bed, writing something in her chart.

"What time is it?" Rick asked, his voice laced with sleep.

Maura put the chart down and glanced at her wrist watch. "It's quarter past seven Mr. Castle."

Rick stood up from where he was sitting and glanced at Kate's still form. He couldn't quite believe that he had slept this long.

"Please call me Rick." He said running a hand through his hair. Maura had to admit that he was somewhat handsome for a man. But no one could ever live up to Jane, even if she was confined to her chair.

"How is she?" Rick asked stepping around the bed, stroking his wife's pale face. She had warmed up again to a normal temperature, at least that's what he thought.

"She survived the night." Maura simply answered. It had taken her long to adjust working on living patients again but after overcoming her fear of failing she had managed to live up to her standards everyone had been used to.

"She is still two degrees under the normal body temperature and her leucocyte levels are still too high for my liking. We are giving her the strongest antibiotics possible, we even added anti-inflammatory tonight." She sighed stepping next to Rick.

"I have to take a look at her sutures on her back and make sure her amputation wounds are not infected." At that Rick winced looking pained at Maura.

"I never asked…" he trailed of gesturing to her thick white hands. "Which did you have to…" he gulped "take off."

Maura smiled at him understanding what this man was going through right now. She simply laid the chart down at the end of the bed put on some gloves and started unwrapping Kate's hands.

"On her left hand," She said cutting through the rest of the bandages revealing three little stumps and two angry purple fingers. "We had to take off the pinky and ring finger including her thumb."

Rick took in a sharp breath and covers his mouth with his right hand. It was a disfiguring picture to see Kate's beautiful hand with only two fingers left to it. A single tear escaped him which was quickly wiped away. Maura waited until he had gathered himself for the right, the gun hand.

"On her right hand," she repeated the actions from the left hand. "We had to take of the last two. So she still has her thumb, pointer and middle finger." Like the left hand the right hand looked as nasty as the other. Raw and red around the stitches and the other fingers like from a frozen body.

Rick closed his eyes and willed his heartbeat to slow down and his stomach to settle. He had seen almost everything since he had started following Kate around but seeing those marks on a beloved person only broke his heart more.

"And you couldn't have saved them?" he asked in a childlike whisper. Maura applied some anti-inflammatory ointment on the wounds and tightly wrapped new gauze around them. Maura looked up to see pain and hurt and also anger etched across his face.

"I'm sorry Mr. Cas- Rick, but no, we couldn't. They were already dead and we had to make sure that…" Rick waved her off.

"I understand. What about her feet you said that… you had to amputate there too."

Maura gently laid Kate's handy back on the thick bed sheets stepped to the bed end and uncovered Kate's feet. It looked exactly the same like with her hands. Thick white gauze tightly wrapped around the hidden wounds. She took a scissor from her pocket and started cutting the bandages away. First on the left side.

"We had to take of three toes. Lucky for her it wasn't the big toe." She immediately regretted her choice of words as she saw Rick's puzzled look. "I'm sorry." She apologized. "That's not exactly luck as in fortune but in order to stand and walk you need your big toe, that's what I was trying to say." Maura rambled on. A blush crept up her cheeks and Rick noticed the discomfort the doctor was now in.

"It's okay Dr. Isles. I… I get what you were trying to say." He tried to reassure her. Maura simply nodded and showed him the exact same picture like he had seen with Kate's hands. He closed his eyes and gripped the bedpost not sure he could stand it anymore. Maura noticed immediately and grabbed him before he could slip.

"Take a seat Rick. It's my fault I shouldn't have shown you this shortly after getting up yourself. You haven't eaten and I'm sure you could use some water…." She again rambled opening the door to Kate's room yelling for a bottle of water.

"No Dr. Isles, no, it's…it's okay please continue. I have to know and see the extent of her injuries. I…. please continue." He sighed standing up from the chair Maura had pushed him onto.

Maura nodded. "But please call me Maura. I know you are a friend of Jane's so there is no need for formalities anymore."

She pushed the sheet further up revealing a complete wrapped up leg. Between the gauze was a tube draining yellowish fluid from beneath. Maura noticed him staring at the foreign object wondering why now blood came through and explained.

"That's a drainage pumping out the blood and ooze coming from the rather long and deep gash your wife sustained maybe through a fall along a sharp object; a rock maybe." Maura said cutting along on the inside of Kate's lower leg. She was just lucky for the beautiful brunette that she couldn't feel anything of it. Infected wounds especially in this size and depth were rather painful.

After unwrapping the foot and lower leg both were met with a very dark blue looking leg. Dark greenish ooze came out of the wound on the edges. A frown appeared on her face and she pulled out her phone. Rick now more curious about what was going on turned his gaze to Maura.

"What's happening? Something isn't right, isn't it?" he asked his voice slightly panicked. Maura raised her hand to cut him off and started to speak.

"Jenny? Yes it's Dr. Isles. I need a sonogram in room B01 ICU left wing right now." She ended the call and put her phone back into her breast pocket. She took a deep breath and turned to Rick.

"I think, but I need confirmation for that, that the meds aren't working for her. It seems that there is little to no blood circulation in that leg anymore." Maura slowly said. Rick's eyes went huge in an instant.

"But that would mean that you…" he simply stopped staring at the foreign looking leg. "you can't… you have to save her leg Maura." Tears swam now in his eyes. Maura stepped up to him and squeezed his shoulder.

"I know Rick. That's why I need to do a sonogram to see if I can save her leg." He looked her straight in the eyes and nodded.

"But if I can't, if you want her to live you need to be prepared to make that decision. You are her husband." The tears had now escaped from his eyes and he wasn't ashamed of them anymore.

That short moment of realization and grief were interrupted by the nurse, presumably Jenny, wheeling in a small portable sonogram. She plugged it in and Maura applied gel on the scanner. Carefully she put it on Kate's leg and looked at the screen. She slid the scanner along her ankle and calf and what she saw wasn't promising. No pulse at all. She cleaned the scanner and gave Jenny a sign that she was finished and could leave. Maura took a deep breath and turned to Rick.

"I'm sorry." She simply said.

I know you wanted me to save this leg but I just couldn't