A/N: This should be the angstiest this story will get, so I hope you enjoy and look forward to the story to come.

He felt like he had lead weights attached his eyelashes to keep him from opening his eyes. Slivers of light reached his pupils as he somehow managed to flutter his eyes open and closed.

"Kate?" he mumbled.

"Richard, can you hear me?"

"Kate?"

"Richard, it's your mother. Can you open your eyes for me?"

Rick slowly lifted the drawbridge that his eyelids had become and was attacked by the morning sunlight streaming in through the window nearby. His eyes started to focus on the overexposed room and landed on the face of his mother standing next to the hospital bed he laid in.

"I'm so glad you are awake," his mother gushed, gripping his left hand in between both of hers and bringing it to her lips to kiss.

"Mother? What happened? Where's Kate?"

"Who's Kate?"

"My wife, Mother," Rick said between clenched teeth. How could his mother be playing tricks on him while he was laid up in the hospital?

"I think you are confused. You were in an accident yesterday evening."

"What are you talking about? Where's Kate?"

"Oh Richard," Martha sighed, "I don't know who this Kate is that you are speaking of."

"She's my wife," Rick said with a forceful and staccato tone.

Martha paused and wet her lips while her eyebrows drew together, "Richard Darling, you aren't married."

"Of course I am!" Rick shot up into a sitting position and snatched his hand from his mother's grasp to show her his wedding band, but the platinum ring his wife placed on his finger three years before was absent. There wasn't even an indentation or tan line that he knew was always there in the rare times he removed his ring. Rick felt his heart sink into gut and heat rush to his head. Like a pot on a stove, his emotions boiled over and he shouted, "Where's my ring? Where's Kate? I want to see my wife!"

"Richard!" Martha cried out, horrified by her son's sudden and uncharacteristic outburst. She quickly pressed the call button by the bed to get a nurse into the room before she tried to calm him down.

"Mother, what's going on? What happened? Where's Kate? Is she dead? What about Evie? Where's Alexis?" he pleaded, his voice strained with the need for answers about his family. Tears began slipping out of his eyes and his face contorted in devastation.

"Richard, I need you to take a deep breath, okay?" Martha had her hands placed over Rick's shoulders trying to keep him from making any sudden movements. Due to his heightened emotional state, she wasn't even sure that Rick was aware that he had physical injuries. "Can you breathe with me?" Martha inhaled and tried to encourage Rick to imitate her.

He took in one shaky breath and Martha continued to coach him in copying her.

"Is everything okay in here?" A nurse entered the room in response to Martha's page. The mother and son were in the middle of synchronized breathing and Martha refused to answer until she knew that her son was calmer.

He was still taking in shuddering breaths and crying, but he had reached a low and manageable simmer allowing Martha to consult with the medical staff.

Pulling the nurse to the side, keeping Rick in her sightline but her voice low, Martha said, "he seems to be a bit confused. He keeps mentioning a woman named Kate and he mentioned another, I think he said Evie."

"I'm assuming he doesn't know a Kate or an Evie?"

"I've never heard him mention them before. He said Kate is his wife, but he's not married."

"I will have Dr. Jensen come in. She'll likely recommend a consult with neurology." The nurse then turned to Rick and asked if she could get his vitals and check his eyes for signs of a concussion.

Rick, still in a stupor and trying to focus on his breathing, only nodded in response.

The nurse left saying the doctor would be in to check on Rick within the hour and again it was just Rick and Martha in the room.

"Are you feeling a little better?" Martha asked, sitting in a chair pulled up next to Rick's bed.

Rick's face was pallid and drained of any energy. "I suppose so." Rick sighed. "What's going on, Mother?"

"You were in an accident yesterday. Some idiot in a Prius hit you on the sidewalk. You weren't physically hurt too badly, managed to come out of it with only a broken ankle and this cut over your eyebrow." Martha swiped her thumb over the bandage that covered the stitches he received. "The pictures I saw looked a lot worse than it actually was, especially for the car. Serves the guy right."

"But what about Kate?"

Martha's chin trembled and she looked down at her hands resting in her lap. When she met Rick's eyes again, the tears that had pooled against her eyelashes fell down her cheeks. "Honey, there is no Kate. You don't know anyone named Kate. You aren't married."

"No! Mother you have to be mistaken. Her name is Katherine Henry and we've been married for three years, we have a daughter named Evie and she's pregnant again. We were going to name her Hadley. Mother, Kate has to be real!"

Martha stood from her chair and moved to sit beside Rick on the bed, taking him in her arms and cradling him like he was her 5-year-old little boy again with a skinned knee. "The accident happened on the corner of Catherine and Henry. I don't think your Katherine Henry exists. I'm so sorry," she spoke into his ear.

Wrapped in his mother's arms he released a haunting wail and collapsed into himself like he no longer had a spine, ribs or internal organs keeping him from becoming a puddle on the floor.

He looked up at his mother and through stilted breaths he uttered, "Alexis?"

Martha gave him a small smile, "Alexis should be here soon. Do you remember that she was visiting Meredith in California for the week? She got the earliest flight available."

"She exists?" Rick choked out, feeling a little bit of the hole in his soul fill with the knowledge that he didn't lose everything.

Before Alexis arrived at the hospital, Rick had exhausted himself out from crying and fell into a fitful sleep. Martha remained sentinel at his bedside, her insides twisting with worry as she waited for her granddaughter.

While Rick was asleep, Dr. Jensen had stopped by to speak with Martha and inform her that an order for a CT scan had been put in and someone would be stopping by to get Rick within the hour. The only thing Martha could do during that time was sit and wait.

It was about fifteen minutes later when Martha received a text from Alexis saying that she had landed at JFK and was heading straight to the hospital. Rick would likely be getting his CT scan when Alexis arrived. Another thirty minutes went by and a technician arrived to collect Rick in a wheelchair and take him to the radiology department. Given that he had been napping restlessly after crying himself to exhaustion, he was easy to wake. The normally upbeat and jovial man that Martha knew her son to be, looked like he had aged ten years overnight. His skin looked gray and lifeless like the spark that gave him life had been snuffed out. It took everything in her to not break down in tears until her son and the technician were half way down the hallway and likely out of earshot.

The first thing Alexis saw when she entered her father's hospital room was her grandmother sitting with her back to the door and beside an empty bed, her head hung low as she quietly sobbed. The teen squeaked out, "Gram?" Martha turned in her seat and watched the color drain from her granddaughter's face, realizing how the situation looked in the eyes of a worried daughter who just arrived after a four-hour flight.

"Gram, what happened? Where is he?!"

Martha jumped from her chair and rushed to Alexis grabbing her by her shoulders. "He's going to be okay. He's just getting a CT scan. He'll be back in about ten minutes. I'm sorry if I scared you just now."

Alexis sagged in relief and then began to cry from the emotional turbulence and adrenaline surge that hit her only moments before. Martha embraced her, rubbing her hand up and down her back in comfort.

"Here, let's have a seat. I do have to tell you what is going on."

"You said he was okay…"
"And he is, but he seems to have woken up very confused. That's why he's getting the CT scan."

"He has amnesia? Is he going to remember me?"

"No, he doesn't have amnesia. He woke up believing he was married to someone named Kate and that he had a second daughter. You know your father's imagination. It's entirely possible he just had a very intense dream. His reaction to finding out the truth was…a bit extreme. That had me concerned, so they took him to see if there is an underlying issue. I just don't want you to be alarmed when he gets back and something seems off."

Rick was wheeled back into his room and at the first sight of his daughter, he covered his mouth and nose with both hands and tried to hold back more tears but wasn't successful. Alexis ran to her dad and threw herself at him. He engulfed her in his arms as best he could whilst sitting in a wheelchair with a propped up broken ankle.

"Oh Alexis, I'm so glad you are here," he sobbed into her shoulder. His struggle of keeping up an even pattern of breathing like he experienced earlier had him sucking in air and blubbering like an inconsolable baby. He gripped Alexis in his arms like she was a life preserver he struggled to maintain a hold on while in the eye of a hurricane. He was afraid that if he let go even a little, she'd float away and he'd drown in his sorrow and grief.

Alexis pulled away to look her father in the eye. "I was so scared when Gram called me. I'm so happy that you are alive. Please don't leave me, Daddy." She wrapped her arms around him again and started to cry.

Martha watched her son and granddaughter from across the room and after a few minutes she stood and said, "Come on Alexis, let's get your father back into the bed."

The two women helped Rick get situated and while they waited for the CT scan results, Alexis hesitantly asked about Kate.

"I know it sounds crazy but it all felt so real. She felt so real. I woke up and found out that the last four years of my life was a figment of my imagination. I can't wrap my mind around the fact that I'm not married and that Kate doesn't exist." Rick paused and raised his hand to his head. "But she's here. And here." He placed his hand over heart. "I've had dreams that felt real and when I woke up, I knew my own reality, but this doesn't feel like a dream."

"Dad…" Alexis began before a knock at the door interrupted her and a woman in blue scrubs and a lab coat walked in.

"Hello, Mr. Castle. I am Dr. Bedi, the radiologist who examined your CT scan." The woman came and stood beside Rick's bed holding a clipboard in her hands.

"Nice to meet you," Rick said. "So, what's wrong with me?"

Dr. Bedi glanced at her clipboard and said, "well, you were given a CT scan when you first arrived and we didn't see anything significant in that scan. Your second scan showed some minor brain contusions but I am not seeing anything too concerning about them. I do recommend you stay under observation in the hospital for a few days as a precaution though."

"Do you know why I remembered things that didn't happen?"

"Confusion is very common after a brain injury and how that presents varies greatly from person to person. The human brain is also very complex, so the reason why you had false memories is difficult to pinpoint."

While Rick was disappointed in not having a definitive answer to his situation, he was at least grateful that he hadn't lost memories or suffered long term brain damage. Dr. Bedi spoke with the Castle/Rodgers family regarding the next steps in Rick's healing before leaving them to attend to her next patient.

After Alexis and Martha had gone home, promising they'd return early the next morning, Rick laid back in his bed and closed his eyes. It wasn't long before he had fallen asleep.

Rick sat at his desk in his office with his laptop open to an empty document. His fingers hovered over the keys, itching to tap out a story that he hadn't completely formed or planned out.

"Rick, where have you been?" a familiar voice asked.

Rick's head shot up to the entrance of his office from the living room. "Kate?"

"Evie was hoping you'd play her damsel in distress, so unless you want a stern talking to from a toddler…" Kate paused after seeing Rick's wide-eyed expression. "You okay, Babe?"

"You're not supposed to be real," Rick muttered. He could feel his temples pulsate as his heart rate spiked. He pushed himself further into his chair like Kate were a wild bear that had somehow gotten into his apartment.

"What are you talking about?"

"This isn't my life, Kate. I want it to be, but I know it's not real!" he exclaimed, his voice heavy with emotion. He tightened his hands around the arms of his office chair

"Daddy!" a little girl with a mop of wild brown hair squealed as she came running toward Rick from behind Kate.

"Evie, no. You aren't real…" Rick clenched his eyes shut. He knew they didn't exist and while it was breaking his heart having to admit that and fight the urge to keep his eyes on his family so they wouldn't disappear again, he knew it wasn't true. "Evie!"

Rick jolted awake to a dim room with the bluish tones of dusk seeping through the windows. His heart felt as empty as his hospital room. Logically he knew it shouldn't hurt so much to realize a very realistic dream was just a dream, but in that moment, he didn't want to be logical. He just wanted his family back.