Kate opened her eyes to a world of pain, cold and confusion. There was a man leaning over her with a worried expression and her head hurt enough to make it hard to think straight. She groaned and tried to sit up but her stomach almost rebelled and she realized she was too dizzy to fight the man's hand against her shoulder. She let her eyes slide shut while he talked on the phone, trying to piece together fragments of what happened. He said she fell and hit her head, and she could certainly feel the truth of that. But the rest of the memory skittered away from her when she reached for it. As she heard the siren of the approaching ambulance, some of her confusion coalesced into a question.
"Where's Royce?"
"What?" The man leaned over her as soon as she spoke, his face a pale blur to her tired eyes.
"My partner. Royce. Where is he?"
"Kate, Royce isn't your partner anymore. He hasn't been your partner since before you made detective."
The words rattled around inside her skull, refusing to hold still so that she could understand them.
"Who are you?"
He looked like she'd just slapped him and she almost wished she could take back the question.
"I'm your partner. Richard Castle."
That was as much nonsense as Royce not being her partner anymore, but Kate could tell he was being serious.
"Richard Castle? The mystery writer?"
The ambulance pulled up and suddenly there was a paramedic shining a light in her eyes. She could just barely see without turning her head that the other paramedic was laying a backboard on the ground next to her. The world swam out of focus again.
"I'll call Ryan and Esposito." The man with the phone was talking to her again. He sounded like he was holding onto his calm with his last bit of willpower. Now Kate really regretted asking who he was. The answer didn't leave her any less confused and it was clear she'd hurt him by asking it. "I'll have them meet us at the hospital. I should probably drive your car over there. Or maybe we should come back for it later. It's fine where it is. Isn't it?"
Kate took pity on his confusion since it seemed so similar to her own. She felt the need to hold on to the one ally she had with her, at least until someone she knew showed up.
"Stay with me?" Her voice was small and slightly muffled by the collar the medics had snapped on her. The man looked like he would've reached for her hand except the paramedics were lifting her up and setting the backboard on a gurney. One of them nodded when the man asked if he could come and Kate let the world go fuzzy again as the ambulance started for the hospital.