A/N: I am really humbled by the response to this story. Thank you everyone for the reviews and feedback.
Castle's first thought when he woke up wasn't what he always thought it would be. On grim, morbid evenings while brainstorming murder scenarios, he occasionally thought about his own mortality, and he always figured that if he survived a gunshot, he would wake up in the hospital thinking, "Wow, I lived!"
Instead, the first thought to enter his mind, and subsequently leave his lips, was to comment on the annoying beeping sound. Beep beep beep. Over and over again. High pitched and incessant. Was it supposed to be psychological torture? If so, it was working.
"Castle?" he heard - someone sounded both excited and relieved that he was complaining about the noise. Someone male.
He peeked his eyes open - bad move. The light was so bright, he immediately forgot about the beeping. As he blinked and squinted, he noted that it was Ryan sitting next to his hospital bed. Why was Ryan sitting next to his bed?
Hospital. Beeping heart monitor. It all began flooding back to him in a rush of images. The last thing he remembered was once again telling Kate he loved her as one of them laying bleeding out onto the ground. Of course, this time both of them had been bleeding, but-
"Kate," he said immediately, noticing her absence. "Kate was shot."
"She's okay, Castle," Ryan assured him. "They discharged her. We've been taking shifts so she can go home and get some rest."
He blinked in confusion at the detective before asking, "How long?"
"How long have you been in the hospital? Oh, um... five days? No, four days. Surgery took a long time, and then they kept you under for a while to let you heal. You know, stomach shots are pretty bad, right? I don't remember everything the doc said. I kinda went for coffee when he was describing the surgery-"
Interrupting Ryan's rambling, Castle said, his voice barely more than a whisper, "Call Kate?"
The other man immediately jumped up and reached for his cell phone. "Oh yeah, of course. And I should get the doctor. I'll be right back."
Of course, as soon as Ryan left the room, like a switch had been flicked, Castle was overwhelmed by fatigue. He struggled to keep his eyes open while contemplating how long it would take Kate to get to the hospital from her apartment. Not that he even knew which hospital he was in. If only Kate could fly, then she could be there almost immediately, no matter which hospital it was. Of course, even flying would take some time and he didn't have much time before he lost the battle with the weights on his eyelids. No, teleportation, that would be even better...
By the time Ryan re-entered the room, Castle had fallen back asleep.
The next time he woke up, the beeping didn't bother him nearly as much. Perhaps it was because he knew that it was the sound of his heartbeat, a reminder that despite being shot, he was still alive. But more likely, it was because someone was holding his hand.
He opened his eyes and saw her sitting next to him, her smaller hand clutching his even though her head was lolled to the side. Alexis was asleep in the chair beside him, but she was the only one in the room. Castle had no idea how long he'd been asleep since talking to Ryan.
As if sensing his gaze on her, Alexis opened her eyes, blinking at him lazily as she awoke. But upon noticing that he was awake and alert, Alexis snapped to attention. "Dad!" she exclaimed.
"Hey, Alexis," he greeted her in return, his throat still gravely from disuse.
"How are you feeling?" she asked as she reached next to him to press the nurse call button.
How was he feeling? He took stock for a moment, looking down his body stretched out under one of those white hospital blankets. Experimentally, Castle wiggled both his toes and saw them move under the blanket. The rest of his body responded the same way. Everything worked, at least. The only trouble came when he tried to sit up and his abdomen screamed at him.
"Sore," he pronounced finally. He realized that he must still be on pain medication because his stomach did not feel too bad when he remained reclined and relaxed. "How are you?"
"We're fine," she assured him. "Everyone is good. We got half way to wherever you sent us before Ryan got in contact with Gram somehow and told her we could come back. And he said that you'd been hurt. So the pilot stopped, refueled, and we turned right back around. He didn't want to do it without hearing from you, but Gram was pretty convincing."
Castle nodded, picturing his mother taking charge in a situation like that. "I'm sorry you had to do that - get out of the country. I just wanted you all to be safe."
"It's okay, Dad. I understand. Kate explained everything."
Kate. Where was she? He had asked Ryan about her when he woke up before, but she wasn't there...
Alexis must have noticed his longing glance towards the door because she quickly added, "She's at home with Gram and Johanna. She was here all day yesterday after you woke up and talked to Kevin. She and I have been switching off today. Actually, she should be here within the next half hour."
About that time, a nurse came into the room. Alexis told the woman that her father was awake and to let the doctor know.
Alexis filled him in on some of the details while they waited for the doctor. Maddox was definitely dead, although nothing in the man's possession linked him to his real identity or his employer. The only phone calls he had made or received were to an untraceable burner phone.
When the doctor arrived, Castle was glad to see that it was not Dr. Motorcycle Boy, although if he had been writing the story, he felt that would have been an interesting turn of events. Still, he was grateful. Grateful for the drugs which kept the pain (mostly) at bay. Grateful for the older physician who told him exactly what had happened to him and gave him a description of the resulting surgery. Grateful that the bullet which had torn through his stomach had luckily missing his kidneys. The blood loss had been tremendous and the surgery took hours, but he'd pulled through.
"You have several months of recovery ahead of you, Mr. Castle," the doctor told him solemnly. "But you should know that you were very lucky."
Lucky. He wondered if the doctor knew how much of an understatement that was. Castle had been prepared to die, had closed his eyes for what he thought was the last time. This was beyond just 'lucky.' This was a second chance.
After the doctor left, Alexis sat with him, telling about how Johanna had entertained herself on their two long plane rides and her curiosity about why they were going on a trip. As he listened to his daughter, Castle felt his eyelids growing heavy again. Knowing Kate was on her way, that she could be there any minute, he fought to stay awake.
"Just sleep, Dad," Alexis told him. "I'll wake you up when she gets here."
He knew it was a lie, knew they'd let him sleep just as Ryan had let him sleep when he'd woken last. Sleep was important for healing, but he needed to see Kate, whole and healthy and safe.
"Not tired," he responded with his own lie, even as he struggled to keep his eyes open. Within a moment, he was out once more.
He only intended to close his eyes for a minute or two, but when he awoke again, there was light streaming through the window of the hospital room whereas just a minute ago, it seemed to him, it was dark out. Alexis was gone and the room was empty. Disappointed, Castle looked around to make sure.
Then he spotted her.
She was standing next to the window looking out, so still that he'd missed her the first time. She was balanced on two crutches, and Castle could tell that the leg Maddox had shot was bandaged under the pants she wore.
"Hey," he said quietly, instantly drawing her attention.
As Kate turned in his direction, Castle felt his heart clench in his chest. It wasn't the drugs and it wasn't his imagination - his heart must have physically done something because for a second, he couldn't breathe and he couldn't focus and there must have been a drop in blood pressure.
She looked tired - so tired - and the worry lines on her face were extra deep. Black circles under her eyes reflected too many sleepless nights, possibly spent at his bedside. But she still looked beautiful. Gorgeous. Alive.
"Castle."
She breathed his name like a prayer, a thank-you to the heavens above. And the way she looked at him - he suspected it was much like the way he was looking at her, as though neither of them expected to see the other again. "You're awake," she observed the obvious even as she began making her way to his bedside.
Moving quickly on the crutches to reach his side, Castle spotted a grimace of pain on her face. "Are you...?" he began, wanting to ask if she was okay, but at the last minute realizing the absurdity of the question.
Of course she wasn't okay. She was shot in the leg. He was shot in the stomach. And yet, the look on her face could only be described as pure joy. Not only was she beaming at him, her eyes bright with the sight of him, but she was smiling widely.
"I'm awake," he confirmed. "Sorry I fell asleep."
Not even bothering to sit in the chair Alexis had occupied the night before, Kate crutched her way directly to the side of his bed. She reached out a hand to take his, but paused halfway before touching him. He watched as her hand started shaking before she drew it back half a second later.
When her eyes flicked back to his, he could tell that she had seen him watching her. "Sorry," Kate said, looking away as guilt washed over her features.
She was hesitant to touch him, he realized, as though she might hurt him.
"Don't," Castle told her, using what little strength he could muster to reach out his hand to her. With a heavy sigh, she took it, wrapping her fingers around his in a desperate grip.
Her eyes slammed shut as she whispered his name, "Rick." And then her body began to shake with emotions too long restrained.
The sobs wracked her body so strongly that he feared she would fall from the crutches. When the tears came, washing down her cheeks like warm rain, he felt so helpless to stop them, to comfort her.
"Kate," he whispered, holding tightly to her hand like a lifeline. "It's okay. I'm okay."
But she kept crying, the sound cutting through him as painfully as the bullet from Maddox's gun. He hated seeing her so upset, so devastated. And there was nothing he could do to help her. He was confined to the hospital bed, barely strong enough to move his hand. "Please, Kate," he begged, wishing there was something he could say to stop the avalanche of her tears.
And somehow, that did it. The sound of his voice calmed her - not completely, but enough for her to drop her crutches and lower herself into the chair beside his bed, never letting go of his hand as she did so.
"I'm sorry," she told him, wiping away the salt water from her cheeks with her free hand. "I've been kind of a wreck the last few days."
"Understandable," he said.
"How are you feeling?" she asked as she pulled herself together.
"I think I feel like I've been shot," Castle told her. "Of course, the drugs help."
Kate laughed at this. "Yeah, they do help," she agreed. "Until they start weaning you off."
And suddenly, he remembered that she'd been through this before. She'd been shot before - in the chest, in the heart. And now in the leg. She was definitely still ahead of him on life-threatening injuries.
"What about you?" he asked. "How's your leg?"
"Okay," Kate responded dismissively. "Healing. He was trying to cause pain, not to seriously injure me."
Her simple observation transported him back to those few minutes in that parking garage. In particular, he remembered her attempting to go after Maddox even though she was shot, on the ground, and he was standing above her with a gun. She did it even after seeing Castle and presumably realizing that backup was on the way. Despite the obvious disadvantage, the extreme risk to her life, she went after him.
"Seemed like you were trying to get him to," Castle remarked. "I mean, get him to hurt you."
She didn't answer right away. The corners of her lips fell into a hard line as she looked away, focusing on some spot on the floor. When she did speak, it was quietly and with as little emotion as she could force from her voice.
"I saw you. When I was on the ground. I saw you stick your head around the corner, and I realized that you didn't leave the city like I told you to. You came looking for me instead." Kate paused before taking a slow, ragged breath. "I knew you'd try to step in and save me. I had already lost my gun - he got it away from me easily. And he'd already disabled me. I knew as soon as you moved, he would see you, and he would kill you. "
Finally, she met his gaze as she stated, "I guess I was trying to distract him. I couldn't really think about anything but keeping him from seeing you. Before you got there, he was asking where you were. He was planning to take us both out, I think, but he wanted to find you first."
"He almost killed you," Castle said, the words painful to speak.
"No, he almost killed you," Kate shot back. "And you knew he would. You shot him knowing he would shoot you."
She had taken note of that exchanged, he realized. The hard set of her mouth, the disapproval in her eyes...
"I was protecting you. Johanna needs her mother."
And he needed Kate. He needed her more than his own life. She had to understand that.
But she was shaking her head, her eyes beginning to glisten once more with fresh tears. "Johanna needs you," she told him. "So does Alexis. And your mom. And so do I, Rick. Don't you understand that? I am the expendable one, not you."
Flabbergasted, he began to argue, "Don't you ever-"
"No, Castle. You listen to me. The man behind all of this is still out there. He's still coming after me. I put you in danger. I put Johanna in danger. Before she was even born, I put her in danger. What kind of mother does that make me? And what kind of mother would I be if I let her father get killed?"
Kate wiped the moisture from her eyes, pushing the heels of her hands roughly across her face. And Castle stared at her in horror, unable to comprehend what she had just said.
He could not respond, could not argue and tell her that everything she said was wrong. She wasn't a bad mother. None of this was her fault.
In the end, all Castle could say was, "I love you, Kate."
She let out a harsh, humorless laugh. "I wish you didn't," she said. "You wouldn't be lying in that bed."
"And I wouldn't have Johanna. And I wouldn't have finally known what if feels like to find my soul mate." He was growing tired again, but he had to get this out before the drugs and the fatigue pulled him back under. "None of this is your fault. The only thing you are to blame for is being the person I fell in love with. I love you, Kate, and we are going to be a family. I'm not going to let you pull away again. I'm not going to let you run. I don't care if that man is still out there or if being together puts me in danger. Because I need you, Kate. Our daughter needs you. And I'm not going to let us waste any more time being apart."
Kate looked at him with tears in her eyes, but this time, she did not argue. Their conversation had taxed him, had used up all his energy reserves. He needed more sleep, but he was afraid that if he looked away for even a moment, she would be gone.
"Please stay," he said.
Kate was still there when he closed his eyes a few moments later, exhaustion pulling him into unwanted sleep.
And amazingly, despite everything she'd said and everything she'd done over the past year, she was still there hours later when he woke up.
A/N: One more chapter after this.
Hope I got the medical stuff as close to correct as possible. But if you see any glaring errors, feel free to private message me!