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After Martha and Jim returned to the waiting room, where Captain Gates had already rejoined Alexis, Jenny, and her former subordinates, no one was speaking much. Lanie had received a phone call from Alan Masters, a particularly interesting case from the recent past, the man who refused to die. They had stayed in touch after Beckett and Castle solved his case and put away the people trying to kill him, and had been quietly dating for the past few months. Alan didn't want to intrude, but he was worried about Lanie's reaction to the shooting, and about Beckett and Castle. After all, as he told Lanie, "if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't still be walking around, and I wouldn't have met you. I'm not even sure the hospital would let me in, but if you want me there, I'll come."

Lanie had excused herself to the most private corner of the room, and Alexis had continued to talk up the party to Jenny and the others, having gotten Martha enthusiastically on board as nearly a one-woman planning committee, and then extended an invitation to Deputy Chief Gates and her husband, which Gates accepted on the spot, after she had returned after plugging the leak in the department about Beckett and Castle being shot in their home. "It's not that I don't want you here, but you're right, Alan, I don't think they'd let you in. I'm so glad you called, though. I'll let you know about Kate and Castle as soon as I know anything. They're still in surgery."

"I don't know them that well yet, but from what I do know, they're not the 'lay down and die' types," Alan replied.

"No, they're definitely not," Lanie agreed.

"If you need anything at all, call me, or text me. To tell me about Beckett and Castle, if you want me to bring you some food or coffee or something, if you need a ride home later, anything at all," Alan said.

"I will," Lanie had promised.

Once the party talk had petered out, they were all sitting in oppressive silence, trying not to break down. Finally, Jenny ended the silence by asking, "So, when did everyone know that Beckett and Castle were in love?" When everyone turned to stare at her in unison, she said, "We're all thinking about them, we're all worried about them, and almost everything I know, I got secondhand from Kevin, and a little bit from Javi. What's their story? When did each of you know that they were in love with each other?"

"The night Kate's apartment got blown up," Alexis said. "Dad realized there was a bomb in it. He told Gram and me to call the precinct and to stay at home with the doors locked, and he grabbed his phone and his keys and took off."

"I remember that," Esposito said. "Castle got there before we did. He went into the building when it was on fire to get Beckett out."

"And then he went back later after the fire department had cleared the building for re-entry and found her dad's watch and had it fixed, because it was damaged in the explosion," Ryan added. "We were all there when Beckett found her mom's ring that she used to wear on a chain, and she asked if anybody had seen her father's watch. We didn't have time to stick around and really look for it, but Castle went back on his own and found it and had it fixed and gave it back to her."

"Kate stayed with us for a few days after that," Alexis added. "But it was Dad's whole reaction when he realized that Kate was basically sitting on a bomb. I never saw him so freaked out over someone other than me or Gram before that night. He'd been following her around for a while by that point, but when he realized she might be killed, he freaked out and went racing off to save her without giving any thought to what might happen to him. He had already been changing since he met Kate, but that was when I knew for sure that he loved her."

"It was before that, darling," Martha said. "It was when he found out that her mother's death was not a random act of violence, that she was murdered. I found him in his office, agonizing over what he had learned. I told him that he had to tell Katherine. He didn't really want to, knowing that she had put it behind her as best she could, and I knew that day that the reason he didn't want to tell her was that he knew it would hurt her, and he didn't want to hurt her because he loved her."

"So Castle fell first?" Jenny asked.

"Yes." "Oh yeah." "Yup." "I'd say so." The responses came from all over the room and all at the same time.

"That's not to say that Kate didn't have feelings for Castle, though. She just denied them longer than he did," Lanie said. "Like when he made that 'Eligible Bachelors of New York' list. First she was pissed that the blurb in his article said it was rumored that he was romantically involved with her, but then when Kate found out he got himself a date with one of the eligible bachelorettes of New York, she was down in the morgue in an instant, asking me to fix her up after refusing to let me do it for over a year. She was definitely jealous then."

"That's when I knew for sure that Castle was in love with Beckett," Ryan said. "They came from their dates to meet us for the case, and they were still all dressed up. Beckett told Castle to hold her purse, and he just took her purse and held onto it without complaining or being sarcastic or anything. No man holds a woman's purse without even a token protest of some kind unless he is seriously in love with the woman."

"Demming," Esposito said. "That's when I was sure about Castle being in love with Beckett."

"Who's Demming?" Alexis, Martha, Jenny, and Jim asked in unison.

"Tom Demming. Robbery detective. I used to work with him before the 12th, and then he got transferred there and was assigned to help us on a case," Esposito replied. "At first we thought he was a dirty cop. Castle certainly wanted him to be, because Demming took a liking to Beckett, and that made Castle so jealous, he could hardly see straight."

"Wait, Kate went out with this Demming guy?" Alexis asked.

"A couple of times. It was nothing serious. But Castle was afraid that it was gonna get serious, and he couldn't take it," Esposito replied. "That was when he told Beckett they should take a break from each other for the summer."

"Oh my god, I remember that!" Alexis exclaimed. "He was acting sad for about a month before summer vacation started. I didn't know what was going on, and he never said. Now it makes sense! He was upset because he thought Kate was going to get serious with this Demming guy!"

"Demming was so not her type," Ryan said. "And I think she knew that. You should have seen her face after Castle dropped his little bombshell about taking a summer hiatus."

"Totally devastated," Esposito recalled, "but, in typical Beckett fashion at that time, she tried to hide it. That's why I called her out on it. I told her that Castle was hanging around her for reasons that had nothing to do with the books, and he wasn't gonna hang around and watch her be with another guy. She dumped Demming that same day."

"And then it all got ruined when Gina showed up," Ryan said disgustedly.

"Gina?" Jenny asked. Kevin hadn't mentioned any Gina to her before.

"Dad's publisher and second ex-wife," Alexis replied. Then she shifted in her seat as she realized something, and seeing Alexis look excited had everyone staring at her, wondering what it was about. "Wait! That was the summer I was at the college prep program at Princeton, and Dad spent the whole summer in the Hamptons with Gina! He didn't mean her!"

"What do you mean, 'he didn't mean her'?" Esposito asked, puzzled.

"Well, that was right before Memorial Day weekend," Alexis said, "and I was supposed to go to the Hamptons with Dad like we always did, but then I got a spot in the program at Princeton at the last minute because someone else gave their spot up. And Gram was doing summer stock, so she wasn't going to be there either. At first, he was upset that I wasn't going to be there, but then, right before he drove me to Princeton, he said that he might not be alone after all, that he'd been working on someone to come along and he had a feeling she'd change her mind. Gina was a last-minute substitute. The one he'd been working on to come along, the one he really wanted to come along, was Kate!"

Lanie jumped out of her chair. "That's what she was gonna tell him!" she exclaimed. Now everyone's gazes swung to Lanie. "Remember, we had that going-away party for Castle, and Kate was the last one to get there, and she wasn't there two minutes when she asked to speak to Castle alone, so they left the break room-"

"-and we were all crowded around the window trying to read their lips," Ryan remembered.

"She'd already broken up with Demming by the time Castle got back from taking Alexis to Princeton and we had the party," Esposito recalled.

"Kate was totally going to tell Castle that she'd go to the Hamptons with him!" Lanie practically shouted. "That's why she wanted to speak to him alone! She didn't want to say that in front of all of us, especially since Captain Montgomery was there!"

"And then Gina showed up before she could tell him," Ryan realized. "He left with Gina, and we didn't see him again all summer." He paused for a moment, then shook his head. "That was a really long summer."

"Beckett returned to acting like she did B.C.," Esposito agreed.

"'Before Castle'?" Jenny guessed.

"Exactly," Ryan said.

"Katie was a bear that summer," Jim reflected then, surprising everyone. "I didn't see or hear from her too much, but the few times I did, she was shorter and more abrupt with me that she'd been in about a year."

"The exact amount of time Castle had been shadowing her at that point," Esposito declared.

"At first I thought I'd done or said something to make her angry, but then I realized it wasn't me. I remember meeting her for dinner once and she was on her phone, but she was looking at newspaper articles from the Hamptons. I couldn't figure out why she'd be looking at those. I asked if she was investigating a case out there, and she said no. Then I asked if she was planning a trip out there. She tried to hide it, but I saw the sadness before she said that she had thought about it a couple of months back, but nothing ever came of it," Jim concluded.

"If Dad had known that Kate dumped this Demming guy, it might have changed everything," Alexis said.

"They weren't ready yet then," Ryan said. "They were in love, but they weren't ready to be together yet. Not like that. Still, it was a huge relief when we got Castle back on the team that fall." He looked at Esposito. "Beckett was mad at not hearing from him all summer. We all were. But you could see the change in her once he was back. Her body language, her expression when she thought no one was looking, her attitude in general went right back to Beckett A.C." Esposito murmured his agreement.

"'After Castle,'" everyone chorused.

"They had a bet about that case, you know," Esposito said. "The bet was that if Castle figured it out before Beckett did, he could come back to the precinct to stay. If she figured it out before him, he had to leave and never come back."

"The counterfeiters!" Ryan exclaimed. "When we found Castle standing over the dead body with the gun in his hand."

"Annie Oakley," Esposito said with a snicker.

"Hey, he had a gun!" Ryan retorted.

"It was Castle!" Esposito exclaimed. "Anyway, that's when I knew for sure that Beckett was in love with Castle," he continued. "She let him win the bet, because she wanted him back at the precinct."

"Yeah, but then she started dating that other guy," Ryan said.

"What other guy?" nearly everyone else asked.

"Dr. Motorcycle Boy," Esposito and Ryan chorused in unison.

"He was gone more than he was around, but when he showed up at the 12th, and Castle found out Kate was dating him and they were riding motorcycles together..." Ryan trailed off, remembering the look on Castle's face when he watched Kate leave with Dr. Motorcycle Boy, their arms around each other.

"Excuse me, Castle deserved that for his summer with Gina!" Lanie defended Kate.

"It was just another form of denial," Esposito said. "Beckett and Castle were getting closer and closer, they were totally gone on each other, but they still weren't ready to do anything about it."

"Dad broke up with Gina in...I think it was the January after the Hamptons summer, right, Gram?" Alexis interjected then.

"Yes, thank God," Martha said with a slight shudder. "It was so obvious that the one he loved and wanted was Katherine. After he broke up with Gina again, Richard didn't date anyone else significant."

"Well, there was Miss Concourse Shoes," Lanie said, "but that was way after Kate broke up with Josh, aka Dr. Motorcycle Boy, and Castle was waiting for Kate, but after he showed up at a crime scene with Miss Concourse Shoes in his Ferrari, I told Kate that he wasn't going to wait around for her forever."

"'Miss Concourse Shoes'?" Gates asked, startling everyone, since this was the first time she had spoken directly.

"She was a stewardess that Castle picked up on a flight back from Vegas," Lanie replied. "That really hurt Kate. I told her straight out that Castle was crazy about her, and she was crazy about him, and it's not like it was any big secret, and he didn't have a girl on each arm much anymore because he was waiting for her, but they were in a holding pattern."

"And 'Miss Concourse Shoes' was the stewardess," Gates replied.

"Yes, sir. Thankfully, she didn't last long. Long enough to give Kate some serious doubts, but at the same time, I think Miss Concourse Shoes also gave her the nudge she needed to take the chance she needed to take on admitting her love for Castle," Lanie replied, "because she was definitely hurt and confused and really bothered that he'd been pulling away from her in recent weeks. I never did find out why he pulled away from her. I just chalked it up to him being tired of waiting. I mean, it had been four years by then."

"Yeah, Castle put his feelings out there after..." Ryan trailed off.

But Martha remembered, as did everyone in that waiting room who had been at the cemetery that awful day, and she finished Ryan's thought for him. "After Katherine was shot the first time, at Captain Montgomery's funeral," she said quietly.

"I never saw anybody move so fast in my life, but Castle had no chance of getting Beckett out of the way of that bullet," Esposito said solemnly.

"Everyone heard what he said to her when he was on the ground holding her after she'd been hit," Ryan recalled. "Telling her that he loved her and begging her to stay with him."

"That's why she lived," Lanie said. "Not that modern medicine doesn't get their due, but the real reason Kate survived was Castle. She knew he loved her. And she knew she loved him, so she had to live so she could tell him that and they could finally do something about it."

"That's where I came in," Gates said. She'd been mostly silent so far, and her voice made Esposito and Ryan both startle slightly, to her secret, internal delight. "I don't know if I'm relieved or sorry to have missed the early years of Beckett and Castle." She paused. "I'm leaning more towards sorry to have missed it."

"Well, sir, you were in charge during the case with Miss Concourse Shoes," Ryan said. "You just weren't at the crime scene."

"I'm glad I wasn't," Gates said with a grimace. "I would have had a few things to say to Mr. Castle about bringing a civilian to a crime scene...and in a Ferrari, no less."

"My dad wears his heart on his sleeve," Alexis said. "Kate...well...doesn't. I just didn't want to see him get hurt by love again. But when we were getting ready for what was supposed to be their big wedding...I finally saw it. I finally got it. I knew that Kate would sooner cut off her own arm than do anything to hurt Dad. And the way she wouldn't give up after he went missing, and she stood by him and believed in him when he came back without remembering anything...I knew I could trust her with his heart, because I finally saw that Kate loves Dad the way he loves her: the kind of love that's all-consuming and once in a lifetime, the kind of love that you never let go of, no matter what."

"Sir, when did you know about Beckett and Castle?" Lanie asked after Alexis had finished speaking.

Gates considered the question for a moment before responding. "From my first day as Captain of the 12th," she said. "Oh, they weren't together yet then, I know, but it was all in the way they looked at each other, the way they behaved around each other...especially when they were unaware that others were watching. I remember when Mr. Castle pulled away from Beckett. I remember how upset she was. And after she returned from her suspension, she was a different Kate Beckett in every possible way from the one I had worked with for a year. The only explanation was that she and Mr. Castle had finally acted on their true feelings."

"But you didn't call them out on it until Beckett ended up standing on that bomb, and Castle wouldn't leave her until she made him, and then he went back inside, like, five minutes later, sir," Ryan said.

"Of course, I didn't, Detective Ryan," Gates replied. "Plausible deniability, remember? Just because I didn't acknowledge it didn't mean I didn't know what was really going on. Besides, I got to have a little fun at Mr. Castle's expense on Valentine's Day precisely because they didn't know I knew they were a couple."

"What fun?" Esposito asked, hastily adding, "Sir."

"It seems that Mr. Castle decided to try to be stealthy in presenting Beckett with her Valentine's present for their first Valentine's Day as a couple," Gates said. "Unfortunately, he put her gift, and the note that he wrote with it, in my coat pocket instead of Beckett's. Although I have to give the man credit: they were beautiful earrings, and he does have quite the way with words."

Ryan, Esposito, and Lanie all burst out laughing. "Oh, I wish I could have seen the look on Castle's face when you called him on that one, sir!" Esposito said.

"At least we got to see the looks on both their faces after the bomb was defused and they were out of the building and safe," Ryan reminded him, "and Captain Gates practically ordered Beckett to kiss Castle."

"It wasn't an order," Gates retorted, a twinkle in her eye. "She was standing on a live bomb, and he went back for her. Then they came out of the building together, standing so close you could hardly see daylight between them. Believe me, I was glad they were so professional when they were under my command, but in that moment, I was very exasperated, Detective Ryan. That's why I told her to kiss the man, for heaven's sake! And he did deserve it. Beckett even agreed with me on that before she finally did kiss him."

"I know we were all standing far enough away to give them privacy," Esposito said then, "but I heard something Beckett said before she kissed Castle. She told him, 'I think we're just getting started.'"

"They are," Martha said then. "They were then, yes, but they're just getting started now, too, in a different way. They haven't even been married two years yet. They're finally out from under all of these threats and shadows that have been hanging over them, first with the men responsible for Katherine's mother's death, and now these horrible LokSat people. And that is why they are going to survive. They have too much left to do in this world."

Silence fell again, as everyone silently prayed that Martha was right, and that at any moment, Dr. Gallison would come out and tell them all that Beckett and Castle were alive and headed to Recovery and they would be okay...because none of them could even begin to wrap their brains around the tragic alternatives to the only best-case scenario, and they didn't want to even think about having to try to do so.


It was all Kate could do not to sob. She was aware that she was crying again, but she felt Castle tighten his hold on her and she was grateful, knowing that his arms locked around her waist from behind were all that was keeping her upright. "Oh God, no. We're dead!" she cried out, grieving in that instant for all that she and Castle wouldn't get to do and have.

"No! No you're not!" Johanna Beckett shouted, and Castle was struck by how much angry, no-nonsense Johanna sounded like angry, no-nonsense Kate. Or, wait, that was probably the other way around. "You are not dead, Katie! Neither is Rick!"

Kate sniffled. "But I can see you, and I know-" She choked on the words, her eyes closing briefly before she forced them open again to find her mother still standing there several feet away in this strange limbo she and Rick were stuck in for the time being. "I know that you're dead," she forced herself to finish.

"Well, you weren't supposed to see me," Johanna said, and now she sounded sheepish.

"If Castle and I aren't dead... Wait, you know Castle? Do you know he's my husband?" Kate asked. This had to be the weirdest conversation ever, weirder than any of Castle's theories about zombies, aliens, the CIA, ghosts, or Bigfoot, and she wondered, fleetingly, if she would remember this when she woke up...if she woke up.

"Yes, I do," Johanna replied.

"How? How do you know? You...You died before we even met," Kate said.

"I just know," Johanna said. She prayed that Katie and Rick having seen her wasn't going to throw a gigantic cosmic monkey wrench in the works. "It doesn't matter how I know. Just accept that I do, and that I'm happy for you...both of you."

Kate looked like she was seeing a ghost...which, technically, she supposed she was. "Mom," she said again, years of pain and longing and love and joy all jumbled up in that one syllable.

"I know, baby," Johanna said wistfully. "I know."

Kate's tears started again. "I've missed you so much," she said. She took one step closer to her mother, Castle keeping one arm looped around her waist in case her knees buckled again, but Johanna stepped back, a look of horror engulfing her features.

"Don't come any closer!" Johanna exclaimed. "I don't know what will happen if you try to touch me, and I'm not taking any chances!"

"I can't even hug you?" Kate asked, crestfallen.

"I can't take that chance," Johanna reiterated adamantly. She looked to her right, through the windows into the operating rooms. "We don't have much time," she said.

"But I have so much to tell you," Kate said.

"There will be time for that later. Much, much later," Johanna said. "Right now, you need to listen to me, honey, and I want you to always remember everything I'm about to tell you, all right?"

Kate swallowed hard, then nodded. "All right, Mom. I'll remember. I promise you, I'll always remember." She didn't know how she would do it, but she would do it.

"I'll help you," Castle said from behind her, and that was the instant that Kate knew that somehow, everything would be all right, because this wasn't like when Johanna died, this wasn't like when Kate had been shot at Montgomery's funeral.

This time, Kate wasn't going to be alone. Castle would be with her every step of the way...the way he had been, or tried to be, since that first case eight years ago.

Whenever he left, whether it was that summer in the Hamptons with Gina, or the two months he was gone when he went missing on what was supposed to be their wedding day, he always came back, he always found her again, no matter how long it took or what he had to go through to get back to her side.

And when she disappeared on him, whether it was physically like the summer after she was shot the first time, or emotionally, on too many occasions to count, she always came back to him, whether it was on her own or because he found her and somehow brought her back to him.

Castle had been looking out for her, he had had her back, since the night she showed up at his book party for the last Derrick Storm novel, when he was wearing those ridiculous sunglasses after dark and asking her where she wanted it as he held up a Sharpie and gave her a playboy grin, which she shut down by flashing her badge at him and taking him in for questioning.

He had loved her when she didn't even love herself, when she didn't think she was capable of loving anyone, including herself. He had even loved her when she lost herself in her mother's case, and when she tried to leave him to protect him and his mother and his daughter from LokSat, because that's what Richard Castle did best: he loved fiercely, intensely, completely, with every fiber of his being, and somehow, she, Kate Beckett, was lucky enough...no, blessed enough...to be the recipient of all that love.

In that instant, Kate realized something for the first time: just as she never gave up, neither did Castle. They went about it differently. Even Castle would admit that Kate was tougher than he was, hardened by the loss of her mother and its devastating impact, the blast crater Johanna's death left in her life and how it changed literally everything for her overnight. Kate built a wall around herself as a coping mechanism. She joined the police force to get justice for her mother, and along the way, she got justice for a lot of other people who were murdered, and for their families. And thanks to Castle, Kate herself finally had answers to all of the questions about her mother's murder, and she and her father finally got justice for the woman they both loved.

Castle had his own coping mechanisms, humor being the main one. He could still be the 9-year-old on a sugar rush she had complained to Montgomery about when she learned Castle had arranged to shadow her. But after all this time, it was more endearing than annoying to her (though it could still be annoying sometimes).

Kate was a hard-boiled realist who, before a certain ruggedly handsome mystery writer plopped himself in the middle of her life and refused to leave, didn't have the time or the inclination to believe in such things as love and always and magic any longer, all of that having died the night her mother did; Castle was a head-in-the-clouds romantic, with a large dose of childlike wonder mixed in, hence his love of Laser Tag and Star Wars, and all his crazy theories about zombie apocalypses, ghosts and the like.

Castle made Kate believe in magic, believe in love and always, and believe in herself in a way nothing and no one ever had or could. And no one else in the world had the ability to make her feel as safe and loved, or to make her feet occasionally, and completely, leave the ground, or to surprise and amaze her the way Richard Castle did.

And there was no one she trusted more, because Rick Castle was the one person who proved over and over again that Kate could trust him. Even when they got mad at each other, even when one of them pushed the other away, and despite misunderstandings and miscommunications of epic proportions, and painful separations both physical and emotional, Kate knew that nothing could ever truly keep her and Castle apart.

Except for...

No, she wasn't going to go there. She wasn't going to give up, and Castle wasn't going to give up, and as long as they didn't give up, they would survive whatever the world threw at them. Their tenacity had gotten them this far; Kate knew it would take them a whole lot further than this.

For so long, Kate's whole life was the job: the precinct, the body drops, the cases, the murder boards, the unending search for justice.

Then Rick Castle crashed into her life, and she remembered how to smile, how to laugh, and she learned she had an ability and capacity for love that surprised even her. She loved Rick in a way she had never believed herself capable of doing, long before her idyllic life was shattered by her mother's murder. He softened her hard edges, and she made him feel invincible.

No, she realized, her love made him feel invincible. That's why he would walk into a tornado for her. That's why he had done everything he had done for the past eight years, and everything he would do for the rest of their lives: because he loved her and he didn't give up, and he knew that she loved him and she didn't give up.

The epiphany that the one thing Richard Castle never gave up on, and never would, was Kate Beckett nearly brought Kate to her knees again.

This wasn't how or where their story ended. This was just the latest obstacle they had to overcome.

And overcome it they would, the way they did everything else: together.

Time was suspended as the comprehension of all of this ran through Kate's mind, and she vowed to herself that she would not forget any of this either.

When Johanna saw that she had her daughter's attention once more, she said, "I love you so much, Katie."

"I love you too, Mom," Kate said, her voice thick.

"And I am so proud of you," Johanna continued. "You're the best thing I ever did. You're the legacy I left the world. And as long as you remember me, I'll live on in your heart, just like I do in your father's. And speaking of your father..." Johanna looked at Kate seriously now. "When you and your dad lost me, you lost each other too. I'm not placing blame, I'm just stating a fact. You turned away from each other instead of turning to each other. You mended some fences, but not all of them. You let him part of the way back into your heart, Katie, but not all the way back in, because you're scared that he'll let you down again, and hurt you again, the way he did after you lost me."

"That sounds suspiciously like a long-winded way of leading up to an 'I told you so,'" Kate said. She blinked as more tears welled up in her eyes before emotionally saying, "God, I've even missed that about you, Mom."

"Your dad loves you, Katie," Johanna continued. "He would cut off his arm before he would let you down like that, hurt you like that, again. You've learned how to forgive. Finish forgiving your dad. Let him all the way back into your heart, into your life, honey. I don't want you to have any regrets about your relationship with your father. Life isn't supposed to be about regrets."

Kate nodded. "Mine was, for a long time," she said quietly.

"I know," Johanna said. "But the time for regrets is over, Katie. Life isn't supposed to be lived in the past. Each day is a gift. That's why it's called the present. And you have a good present, Katie...well, in spite of your current circumstances." Johanna looked at her daughter, radiating love and pride, and Kate felt every bit of that love and pride filling her heart.

"You got justice for me," Johanna continued. "It's time to let me rest in peace now. This is your life, Katie. Yours and Rick's. Your future is waiting, and it can be whatever you want it to be. Just be happy. That's all I really want for you, all I've ever really wanted for you, honey: for you to be happy."

"I am. We are," Kate corrected herself. She looked over her shoulder at Castle and found he was looking back at her with his heart in his eyes. "We're going to be all right."

"We are," Rick agreed, his eyes locked on Kate's.

Yes, you are, Johanna silently agreed.

She regarded Rick then. If she had had any doubt about how much this man loved her daughter (not that she did), one look at his face, his eyes, the way he was gazing at Katie as if she hung the moon and stars, would have assured her that she had no need to worry that her daughter was lonely or unloved. Rick Castle would make sure that Katie never felt lonely or unloved ever again. Still...

"And Rick," Johanna said. He started when Johanna addressed him directly. How did one address the ghost of his mother-in-law?

"Yes?" he asked, hoping he didn't sound too cautious/shocked/freaked out to Johanna, or, for that matter, to Kate.

"Thank you for making my daughter so happy," Johanna said.

He relaxed at that. Kate and Johanna both saw it, but neither of them called him on it. "Thank you for bringing her into the world so that we could find each other and love each other," Castle replied earnestly, emotionally.

"Keep that light in her eyes, Rick. Or you'll answer to me when we see each other again, a long time from now," Johanna said, and he saw the shift in her expression, the look in her eyes so reminiscent of Beckett in the box with a suspect whose face she was in demanding answers, demanding truth, it actually scared him for a second.

"You have my word," Rick promised, and Johanna knew he would keep his word.

The sounds coming from both operating rooms reached Johanna then. "Her pressure's dropping! 90 over 50! Hang another unit of blood, stat! Don't you quit us on now, Kate!"

"Dammit, he's hypoxic! His oxygen sats are dropping like a stone! Come on, Mr. Castle, stay with us!"

"I have to go now," Johanna said.

"Mom, no," Kate pleaded.

"I've stayed too long already," Johanna said. "Remember, Katie, I love you and I'm proud of you, no matter what. Forgive your father, and let him all the way back into your life. And be happy, sweetie." Johanna blew a kiss to Kate, and then disappeared right before Kate and Rick's eyes.

"Mom?" Kate asked, but it was too late. Johanna Beckett had faded completely from view. "Mom!"

Another sound reached Castle's ears then: beeping machines, and shouting voices, coming from both ORs.

"She's crashing! Get the cart!"

"We're losing him! I need the paddles!"

"Kate, we have to get back," Castle said urgently.

"Back where?" Kate asked, still staring at where the apparition of her mother had stood just a moment ago.

"Back inside our bodies!" Rick exclaimed. "Or else we really will be-" He stopped short, unable to say it, not about himself and Kate.

"Charge to 250...Clear!" The drone of a flatlining monitor finally reached Kate, and then she felt the jolt of electricity in her chest, jerking her out of Castle's arms and towards the OR in which they were working on her.

"Charging to 300...Clear!" Rick felt a similar jolt of electricity in his own chest, jerking him backwards, away from Kate and toward his own OR.

"Kate! Promise me you'll be there when I wake up!" Rick called desperately. He seemed to be floating backwards, away from her, some inexorable force pulling him towards the OR in which his body lay. He felt another jolt of electricity in his chest that pushed him further away from Kate and closer to his OR.

"I promise!" Kate cried just as desperately, feeling her tears start again. She then felt another jolt to her chest, and this one propelled her further backwards towards the OR in which her own body resided on a table, and further away from Rick. He was sliding backwards, through the window and into the OR where his surgical team was working on him, and she was being wrenched further away from him and into her own OR where her own surgical team was working on her. Before he faded from her view completely, as her mother had only a moment before, she cried, "Promise me you won't leave me, Rick! Promise me you'll be there when I open my eyes!"

The last word Rick got out before blackness engulfed him was, "Always."

The last thing Kate heard before blackness engulfed her was Rick's voice vowing, "Always."

"We have sinus rhythm!" announced the head surgeon working on Rick.

In the adjacent OR, at the exact same moment, Dr. Gallison, the head surgeon working on Kate announced, "And she's back!"

The surgical teams began to close them up then, and although they gave their respective surgical teams quite a scare for those few tense moments, when they both came out of surgery and were transferred to Recovery, Kate's and Rick's vital signs were stronger than they had been at any point since their arrival at the hospital.

They were both going to live. Not without a good amount of pain, some newly acquired scars (both physical and emotional), and a highly detailed plan of action for their complete recoveries, but the crisis had passed, and Kate and Rick would get through everything to come the best, and truthfully the only, way they knew how: as the team they were always destined to be.