Chapter 1

It happened in a flash, in little more than a blink.

The taxi Rick was riding in hadn't even come to a complete stop before he'd jumped out and set off down the sidewalk at a sprint, trying like hell to get there-to get to her-but no sooner did he get there than it blew, as though in some cruel and calculated twist it'd been waiting for that very instant, and despite how his heart and mind raced from the shock, that was the very moment the second hand of his life-watch began to tick in slow motion.

Even before he could gather himself to turn and look, to see with his eyes what was left of the building in which Kate lived, he felt the heat from the fireball invade the threads of his clothes and flash the whole of him, and though its effect was mitigated by his fortunate distance from the blast, the burn it delivered was anything but superficial.

It was a sting unlike any he'd ever experienced before, an ache raw and ruthless. Overcome with fear though he was, he remained enough of mind to know that if the killer in their crosshairs had succeeded in his deranged mission and taken Kate from him, his heart would never be the same.

A man prone to action before thought, Rick tore across the intersection and into Kate's building, threw his weight against her apartment's locked door, again and again, until it finally surrendered, and he stumbled crashing through.

It resembled a war zone inside. Pockets of flame danced wildly all around him, devouring the plaster and wood that had, until moments before, long held Kate safe and secure. The smoke in the air burned his mouth and his nostrils, his lungs, but he continued to shout her name in spite of it, listening for a reply through the crackles and pops as he moved around the place in frantic search.

"Kate!"

His wrist was throbbing. It hit him out of the blue. He didn't know how or when or why. There wasn't time to care.

"Beckett!" he stopped and called out again and thought he heard something. He wasn't sure what, a cough, a voice, but something. Tears from the smoke filled his eyes. He could barely see two feet in front of him, but it was there.

"Here!" Kate yelled back with her every bit of breath, and Rick came tripping into the bathroom in his haste, tumbling to the floor with a howl when he attempted to break his fall and landed on his already badly injured wrist.

With the jolt of adrenaline his being there injected into her, she climbed out of the bathtub she'd dived into just as the bomb blew, and though shaken and sore as hell, crawled to him through the field of splintered bits of wood and tile that littered the floor. It was only then that she understood the reason behind his wail of pain.

"Beckett, you're still in one piece," he said sounding goofy, almost like the buzz of alcohol was talking, except he'd had none.

"Yeah, Castle, and you're a mess. No, wait, wait, don't move it." Instinctively, he tried to lift it, but she swiftly intervened. "Don't move it, I said. Let me." Kneeling beside him, she helped him to sit up, holding his right arm as still as she could. "It's definitely broken. You need a doctor."

Rick granted his deformed wrist merely a peep, then proceeded to examine Kate very thoroughly, which was how she was reminded of her current state of undress. "Shit," she muttered. "I was in the shower when you called." Her eyes scanned the bathroom, found nothing in any condition to cover herself with.

"My sweater," he said. He'd hurried from the loft without a jacket. "Take it. Help me get it off and take it." Sirens began to wail from a distance, growing louder by the second. "Come on, before the cavalry gets here. They don't get to see you like that."

Kate muzzled the beginnings of a smile, tugged his good arm free of the sweater, and worked gingerly around the other. "Careful, Castle. Try not to bend it."

"That's what she said," he quipped, and a hint of laughter escaped her. "And, hey, don't you be ogling me now, Detective. This is a chivalrous act on my part, not some backhanded attempt at a come-on."

She slid him the oft slid side-eye. "Sure it isn't." Pulling the sweater down over her naked body, she found it an amusing number of sizes too large for her frame, but it carried his warmth and his scent, both of which she took quiet pleasure in. "And thank you, Castle," she added, her eyes wandering the skin she'd exposed in defiance of his humorous admonition, "for this and-"

Just then, a duo of firemen in full gear rushed through the front door. "Is anyone in here?" one of them called out before coming around the corner and discovering Rick and Kate on the floor together, each half-clothed, his arm resting in her hands. "Is it just you two? Is there anyone else in the apartment?" He crouched beside Rick once the pair confirmed they were alone, took a quick inventory of the situation. "Is the wrist the only injury? Are you hurt, ma'am?"

"No, I'm fine. I'm NYPD. He needs a hospital."

"The ambulance was right behind us. We'll get him taken care of." He used his walkie-talkie to call it downstairs, hollered for his partner, who was now one of several bustling about the place. "We need to get you folks out of here. Follow Jimmy, do exactly as he tells you."

Down on the street, Rick sat in the back of the ambulance being tended to by a paramedic, while Kate, now wrapped in a blanket, finished up her phone call with Montgomery. Her face was streaked from the smoke and from the water that'd been handed to her to help clean it away, and through reddened eyes she glanced over at her smoldering building, then back at Rick, where she parked them.

"I asked them for a lollipop for being such a good patient," Rick told her when she leaned her shoulder against the corner of the rig. "They thought I was kidding."

"Maybe they didn't think you were all that good, Castle. I could understand that," she teased. He, too, had a blanket draped across his shoulders. She could no longer see his skin, but she did catch herself trying to. "Does it hurt?"

He recoiled his neck, as though offended. "Are you kidding? Can I interest you in a game of tennis, Detective?" When he unthinkingly mimed a swinging motion, he winced, and in no small way. "Okay, maybe a little. On the plus side, I did get to see you naked, not that I looked… much." Kate blushed beneath her blackened cheeks. He grinned before it faded into something more somber. "I'm not used to this, but I'm finding it difficult to know what to say. I'm just grateful you're okay."

A car came to a screeching stop close by and Kate looked over her shoulder. "I need to go deal with Shaw, Castle. I'm going to go by the precinct after and talk to Montgomery and then I'll come to the hospital. Do you want me to call Martha and Alexis?"

"Go. I got it. I'll be fine."

They lingered in one another a moment, then Kate went.

xxxx

"Mother, I have an-Can you scratch the top of my ear?"

Standing in a curtained cubicle at the hospital, Martha slowly turned her head the way of her son, who was sitting at the edge of the bed, a fresh cast secured over his arm. "Not that I'm not relieved you'll live to fight another day, kiddo, but why do I get the feeling this is somehow where your nightmare ends and ours begins?" She took the few necessary steps-albeit absent hustle-scratched as he'd requested. "Two hands, one cast," she reminded him in that tread-lightly tone of hers.

Rick caught her unsubtle gist, as evidenced by his pivot in facial expression. How long before it fluttered out the other ear was another matter, however.

"On behalf of the citizens of New York, Mother, let me just say we're all very glad you didn't decide to take up nursing."

The curtain slid open then and Alexis came back through. She'd gone off to find coffee, not that hospital coffee ever made anything going on in a hospital any better. In fact, often quite the opposite.

"Your grandmother threatened the patient while you were gone," he announced, earning quizzical eyes. In them he saw clearly who was on whose team. He took the flimsy paper cup his daughter offered, raised it. "When this cools from scalding and I can drink it without melting my insides, I'll decide if I should thank you for it or disown you."

"He's crabbier than when I left," Alexis mumbled to Martha.

"Katherine hasn't come by, nor has she called. He's been checking his phone every five seconds." When they simultaneously turned their attention to him, he was doing just that. "See? You know you can call her Richard. Phones do work two ways."

Alexis snickered.

"Helpful, thanks," he sassed without tearing his eyes from the screen. Suddenly, Kate's image appeared there. Martha curled her arm around Alexis's shoulder when she sensed his instantaneous comfort. "Hey, I was starting to worry. Is everything okay?"

"They sent me home, Castle. They pulled me off the case," Kate told him with a combination of anger and dejection, on a night already filled with both and then some. "Shaw said I'm too close to it now and Montgomery backed her up. He wouldn't even listen to me."

"Are they wrong?" he replied after a pause. That was him talking to the civilian, not to the cop, not that she'd hear it that way, he knew. "This guy blew up your apartment tonight, Beckett, with you in it." Martha ushered Alexis out of the cubicle to give him a minute alone. "So, what are you going to do?" She was quiet. "Where are you going to go?"

Kate pushed her fingers through her wet hair. She'd showered at the 12th, put on the workout clothes she kept stashed there in a bag. "I don't know. I guess I'll go to my-"

"Come to the loft. I'm just waiting to be released from the hospital. Meet me there. Stay with us."

"What? Castle, no. I'm not staying with you at the loft."

He would've expected no other response. "My reasons are better than yours," he argued confidently. "It's safe. There's plenty of room. And we can still work the case, together." A notable silence followed. "Look, Beckett, I'm not asking you to move in forever. It's been an awful night. Just let me do this for you. You'd do the same for me."

A hint of a smile cracked Kate's eyes. "You know what happens when you assume, Castle."

"Glad to see you've lost your home but not your sense of humor, Detective. Give me an hour," he said and hung up.