Sorry guy. I know this took kind of longer than I wanted it to, but I had to do a bit of research before posting this.

Also, I'm not a doctor. I'm a 16 year old girl. Please don't be too harsh on my lack of medically accurate description if anything is horrifyingly awful. I apologize for having only had reading (which I understood about a third of) and Grey's Anatomy to back this bit of this story's medical acts in this chapter. I did as much research as I could. Thank you for not slaughtering me with your reviews and for reading this story in the first place. Now, enjoy. :)


The next morning, when I woke up, my body seemed heavier than usual. Rising alone, Castle having vanished from his side of the bed, made me all the more conscious of how hallow I felt. Each breath I t

ook made the world fell even more weighted down on my chest. With an aching swallow, I looked up to see Castle standing outside the door, speaking rather feircely with a nurse I recognized. I couldn't quite make out the words he was saying, though he annunciated them purfusely, but I eventually made out that this was urgency coming off of him, and not anger. After a few moments, Doctor Richards joined them and did her best to calm Rick down. She didn't waste much time doing this and even though he was still opposed to whatever it was she was telling him, she brushed him off and passed into my room, followed by the nurse. My first question was, "What's going on?"

"Miss Beckett, another patient is being flow here from a hospital in Montreal and in order to have an O.R prepped for his arrival, we've had to move the time of your surgery up. In order to do this, we must prep you now," the woman flatly stated.

I didn't see what the problem was the way Rick seemed to. I mean, this all seemed fairly straight forward. So, when Rick walked in, I questioned, "Why is that a problem, Castle?"

"Because, I don't want them operating on you and delivering our baby in a rush! I don't want you to be a second thought after some more intriguing slap of meat coming their way," Castle completely overreacted.

"Mr. Castle, I promise you, your son and finacé will be the only thought on my mind. I promise you that Kate and Gabriel will be the only two people on my mind. I've been following your case for months, I know both of you, I am as committed to this case as I would want any doctor working my case to be, and I have every intention of ensuring that your family makes it off that table no matter what kind of complications and hurtles are standing in the way. I promise you, Mr. Castle, that if I thought for even a moment that I would be distracted while taking their lives in y hand, I would hold off on the surgery or send the two of you to another hospital if I thought the surgery couldn't wait."

The air cleared a moment and Rick shifted in place. I took in another gravity filled breath and struggled to maintain it before I spoke. "Rick, she seems sincere."

"I am," the woman swore.

Again, he switched feet and stared down at the floor. I then brought in another breath. "Castle, please, babe, believe me when I say that there is no way I would do this if I thought, even for a moment, that this was risky. Haven't I proven to you enough that I wouldn't do anything that could even possibly hurt me if it could hurt Gabe too?"

"Kate, I just-... I-... thought I'd have more time," he stated, suddenly making sense to all.

"I know," I stated. "I did too."

He then sharply took in all of his pain and choked it down, warding off the tears I knew he had to fight to not let slip away. Nodding with out having the strength to speak, he gave way for the doctors to start with their treatment. When the doctor uncapped the needle and asked me to lean forward, Rick took the nurse's place and helped stand in front of me to hold me up. Keeping my mind off what was happening as though I couldn't feel it, Castle talked. "You know, Lanie and Ryan are going to be pissed if I don't call them."

"Yeah, I know. Just- don't call them until I'm in surgery? I don't want to have to deal with their questions while they're prepping me," I said, burying my head in his chest.

"What, so I have to deal with the questions," he teased.

I laughed, "Hey, I carried your son around for six and a half months and you're escaping a painful grouping of hand squeezing. This is only a small bit of karma."

"And I'm happy to pay it," he said, just before the needle pierced my back. Pain instantly shot through my body as my arms tightened around his body. As I tightly clung to him, his gentle hand grazed over my head and shoulder while he honestly, tenderly hushed me. "It's alright, it's okay. Relax, honey. Sh, sh, sh, it's alright. Just breath, hun. Just breath." Then, when the doctor removed the needle from my back, he told me, "It's all over, Kate. It's all over.

I then took in a breath, and stated, trembling voice and body, "No, Rick. It's just started."


Doctor Richard's P.O.V

When I felt a sufficient amount of time had passed after the delivery of the epidural, I came back in the room, prepared to take Miss Beckett into the O.R, I found myself interrupting a deep conversation between the couple who I barely knew, but knew well enough. "I'm sorry," I said to the pair, "but it's time."

I could see both instantly fall to depression and then just as quickly put on a mask to spare each other the pain of seeing one another ache. As I moved in to ready her bed for transport, I was able to listen to yet another conversation which broke my heart. "You'll be alright," Castle said. "You and Gabe will both be alright and you'll make it out of there and in a few weeks, you'll be taking our son home and putting him in his crib and I believe that with my whole heart."

"I know," she stated, quite simply. Then, as she looked down at their hands linked together on the bed's risen side-rail, she repeated, "We'll be alright, Castle. We'll all be alright."

Rick nodded. "You know, Kate, I've been thinking. When you get out of here, when we bring our son home and both of you are alright, I think we should get married. Skip the big family gathering, because I know you hate those almost as much as I do, and- we just- go to the courthouse. Invite just a couple of people, whoever you want to, and we just- we make the family you've always wanted."

She looked at him with the same loving eyes he had for her. Staring into her, loving her with the most vivid kind of passion I'd ever seen while she returned the same adoration, I could see the underlying pain I knew was between them. She smiled up at him, wholly engulfed by his gaze and told him with the most care in her voice she could possibly have, "I love you, Rick, and nothing would make me happier than to be your wife. But- let's do it right, okay? Let's have that massive wedding everyone secretly wants. Let's invite a million people and dress up like Barbie Dolls and- have something- normal in our lives. Let's- do this the right way, okay?"

He shook his head, still smiling and refraining from cracking up. "You really are a wild card, aren't you?" She didn't respond, but continued to grin. "Anything you want, Kate. Anything."

She breathed a bit more heavily. A thought stirred over her eyes just as his body motion changed. He knew she was about to do something he wouldn't like quite as much, and she did it anyway. Pulling her ring off her finger, Kate looked into her fiancé's eyes and pulled his hand toward her. "Hold onto this for me, okay?"

"Kate," he detested.

She didn't take it back. "Castle, I swear, I'll be back for it in hours. But- if I'm not-."

"You will be," he insisted.

"But if I'm not, do me a favor? Make sure wife number three is good to Gabe, okay? Cause while I want you to move on, I also don't want our son to be the next Cinderella story," he stated.

"Beckett, I don't think there's a second act that could hold a candle to you," Castle stated to his love. Somehow, even knowing his past from page six, I believed him when he said this.

Kate then honestly requested, "Try? For me?"

He smiled. "Anything for you, Kate. But no matter what super model I marry next, you'll still be the love of my life."

"Super model?" she questioned, playing with his tease. "You'll be lucky to rope in another blood sucking corporate woman who looks half way descent. You are getting older, babe."

"Getting older? Huh. Are you saying you're settling, Katherine Beckett?"

"Didn't have a choice. I got pregnant," she joked.

He smirked, "My plan all along."

"I knew it," she continued. Then, with a smile decorating each face, Mister Castle leaned in and both took each other's lips willingly. When he split from her and we pulled the brakes up, I told them we had to start moving. We did. And every moment we continued toward the doors to the O.R, Castle held her hand and she stared into his eyes. Then, when we stopped outside the point of no return where Rick was forced to stay behind, I listened to one last exchange.

He told her, "See you on the other side?"

"Absolutely," she stated, clearly only half believing her own words.

He could see it and so could I. But he didn't say a word to her. That was the one thing that I didn't understand about these two. Neither one of them ever did the normal human thing and tried to convince one another they were going to be fine no matter what kind of massive fight it would bring. Most people insist upon being eternal optimists until reality swallowed them whole and they became pessimists, but these two somehow seemed to have accepted the odds without living eternally with the nightmares of other people who had come to the zen state they seemed to be in. I couldn't understand why they were so completely stolid until I heard them say their next few words. "I love you, Rick."

"I love you too, Kate. Always." Somehow, while the two stared lovingly into each other with complete faith in that vow which they shared, I saw between them an absolute honest trust that went unchallenged. And watching them continue this unbreakable gaze until the doors closed between them, keeping them from seeing each other any longer.

By the time they wheeled her into the O.R and I scrubbed down, her face had been screened off from the rest of her body to keep her from seeing us. They'd moved the tray of scalpels and needs and the other necessary surgical tools beside the gurney. I'd done a million cesarians before, but never had I felt so much want in me to ensure the mother and child made it out of this alive. Knowing what I knew of them, knowing the hell they'd been through over the past six and a half months, knowing that the woman on my table had given up he life in order to save her son's in more ways than one, I felt obligated to give these people a happy ends. So, with my team completely prepped and Kate completely numb to her lower body, I started doing what I had to do.

The first incision was clean, just as the others were as we slowly moved through skin, then muscle and then through the membrane holding her organs in a bunch. When I finally reached the point where I was able to make a steady move into her fully enlarge uterus, I did so with a caution I'd not kept in a routine surgery in a long time. Once through, the scalpel was down after cutting the umbilical cord and I lifted the small child from his mother's open abdomen. "He's out," I stated the moment I could see him in his entirety.

No tears. No crying. No breath sounds were heard from the newborn premie. The mother noticed.

In a haze, Beckett questioned, "Why isn't he crying? Shouldn't he be crying?"

"It's alright," the anesthesiologist soothed her. "He's with the doctors now. They'll help him." I watched as she weakly nodded. Then, a monitor began to screech. Her heart's abnormal beat now increased. She was in cardiac arrhythmia.

"Paddles!" I half screamed. The nurse handed them to me instantly. After they were charged, I demanded that everyone, "Clear!"

Nothing.

"Charge again," I instructed. They did. "Clear!"

Again, nothing. And just as the sound of nothing filled the room, I heard the assessment behind me and cringed a bit at it. But I had to continue.

"Charging," a nurse stated.

"Clear!" Nothing. The paddles were put down. We cracked her chest. In order to ensure we didn't shock her heart until it fried, I opened her chest up. Inside, the evident damage from her earlier injuries was so entirely evident that I was still able to see where the heart muscle was struggling to fully reattach. When they handed me the other set of paddles meant for internal usage, I nearly refused them due to the state her heart was in. But I couldn't refuse to give this woman the chance to fight. Taking them into my hands, I called out one final time, "Clear!"