A/N: Thank you to all those you review/follow/favorite! I love you all! There's a not-so-subtle reference to 'After The Storm' in here; I just had to.
Disclaimer: I own nothing (except all four seasons and all the books).
. . .
As the early morning sunlight streams through the windows of the lobby, a man with a long, square face and a strong jaw steps out of the elevator. The suit he wears is tailored to his tall stature, but it has both loosened and tightened in places with age. He walks over to his mailbox and sets his briefcase on the floor. Clutching the correct key, he opens the lock with ease. Reaching in, he grabs the papers and begins to flip through them, only mildly interested.
Until one name catches his eye.
The man's eyes reveal nothing. He simply picks up his briefcase and heads back upstairs, the tasks of the day forgotten.
. . .
After she weaves her way through the hospital's many corridors, hunting for his room, she finally finds it. She walks towards the door. Her stride is strong and the happiness spills out of her chest and into her lungs; every breath she exhales is laced with it.
Kate opens the door, not really knowing what to expect, but-
She didn't expect this.
He isn't there.
She's positive that this is the right room. Why is the bed gone? Why isn't he here?
Is he dead?
Her heart starts pounding and she grips the door handle to stop her hand from shaking, but then her knees can't hold her up and she has to lean herself against the door. Her heart is drowning, sinking, but it is beating so hard that it hurts and oh, oh God, not now, please…I love you.
Even as her vision starts to blur from tears threatening to escape, she sees a figure coming towards her and feels a warm hand touch her cheek.
"Kate, he's fine. The doctors took him to do some tests; he'll be back soon. He's okay." Martha's voice captures her and drags her back from the dark place she was heading.
Kate looks into the older woman's concerned face and nods, suddenly feeling foolish for jumping to the worst possible conclusion, but after all that's happened to her, all that's happened to them, it's become a habit. Beckett stands up straight and slowly releases the doorknob from her grasp.
"He's awake?" She asks.
"Yes," Martha replies happily, "I called you a few minutes after he woke up. He was confused and in a lot of pain, but they gave him some medication. The nurse said that they would have to sedate him for some of the tests, but that he would wake up again shortly after he comes back. He should be back soon, darling."
Kate bites her lip, "Did he seem…like himself?"
Martha rolls her eyes and chuckles, "Of course. He was making jokes about how cool the scar would look within minutes of his eyes opening."
Beckett smiles, some of the worry in her eyes melting. "Sounds like Castle."
Martha motions to the chairs in the white-walled hospital room, "Come in and sit down. We can wait together."
A few minutes after the women sit down, Kate notices another absence, "Where's Alexis?"
"She went home a few hours ago to get some books and clothes and some other things Richard might want when he wakes up."
After about fifteen minutes of silences woven with bursts of conversation, she hears the door open.
And then he's back.
. . .
I love you, Rick. I love you, okay? You need to stay with me so that I can love you.
Was it just a dream?
It didn't feel like it was a dream when it happened, but then again, he did have a bullet tearing through him. It doesn't feel like a dream now, though. How is he supposed to know? The scene has been replaying in his head, over and over, but vaguely so, like the rhythm of a song that he can't remember the lyrics to, but then the memory gets stronger and stronger before it reverts back to a faint whisper.
When he opens his eyes, Castle is confused and in pain. There's an unrelenting, crushing pain that's chasing him. He can't even move without feeling the pull of the sutures and flesh. The last thing he remembers, or that he thinks her remembers is the sound of Kate's voice telling him words that he thought he might never hear. His mother and daughter are there to crush the confusion, but no one is here to tell him what he heard was real. The question eating away at him and although he wants to stop thinking about it; he just can't.
Even though he can tell she promised herself that she wouldn't, Alexis begins to cry. She leans over and he embraces her as best he can when his arms feel like cement. He can see his mother out of the corner of his eyes, her bright blue eyes watery, but still full of light. She just smiles, takes his hand and winks at him.
Castle gets some pain medication and it makes him feel better within minutes; his body is no longer tearing apart, now it's just ripping slowly. He talks to his family for a few minutes, joking about how badass his scar will be, even though the acute pain is radiating through him. Then his mother's eyes grow wide and she says, "Oh, dear, I forgot…"
She trails off and fumbles through her large, bedazzled handbag, pulling out her phone moments later.
"What did you forget about?" Alexis asks.
"I promised Kate that I would call her when your father woke up," Martha says, distracted.
Castle stops breathing for a moment, but soon enough his chest begins to ache. He takes a deep breath, which hurts even more, but he forces the question through the pain.
"Was Beckett here?"
Martha rises from her chair and moves toward the door, intending to make the phone call a private one. "Of course she was here, darling. Her, Ryan, Esposito, Lanie and Jim Beckett were here for hours until you got out of surgery. The doctors made them leave, but if they hadn't I can assure you that Kate would still be here."
As his mother exits the room, Rick's face softens.
Maybe it isn't a dream.
Shortly after his mother returns from calling Beckett, Dr. Kovacks comes into his room with a hoard of nurses, dryly informing him that they have some exams to do, just to ensure that his heart is fully functioning and that the surgery was successful. The writer in him is racing a mile a minute, painting a picture of every possible thing that could go wrong, and everything that could go right.
They move him to another room and after poking him with needles and fiddling with all the machines he has hooked up to him, the medical team informs him that they will have to sedate him for one of the tests. He knows that it's for his own health, but even as a nurse inserts the sedative into his IV, his heart flutters as the nerves tighten in his abdomen.
As his eyelids begin to feel heavy, he hears someone say, "The medication will wear off within the hour, Mr. Castle. You will be awake again before you know it…"
Kate will be here when I wake up, he thinks hopefully as the darkness wraps around him.
. . .
He definitely looks like he just got shot. He's much paler than usual and his hair is disheveled. Despite all of that though, the thing that catches her off guard is the lack of boyish grin igniting his eyes.
Once the doctors have him settled, they file out of the room until it's just Martha, Beckett and him. To be honest, his is the only presence she really feels, because now that she thought she would never feel it again, it's all-encompassing.
The chiming of Martha's phone joins the beeps of his heart monitor. The actress glances at the screen and then looks up apologetically.
"Alexis just got here and she can't remember how to find the room. I'll go and help her. I won't be gone long," Martha explains, her eyes flickering over her son's sleeping form before she leaves.
Then it's just the two of them.
Beckett isn't sure what to do at first; so she settles for what she wants to do. She drags a chair next to his bed and sits down. Careful not to jostle any wires, she leans her forearm on the bed and entwines their hands together, running the pad of her thumb softly over the back of his hand. Kate's green eyes rake over his face until she has the image scorched into her mind, then she closes her eyes and allows the steady, reliable noises ensuring her that his heart is warm and alive lull her into a sense of peace. Even though he's pale, his body still emits a comforting heat that she's never appreciated until now. She lowers her head next to their hands, her body weighed down with fatigue.
"Kate?" An unwelcome voice inquires. Her eyes snap open and she raises her head. Josh is standing gingerly in the doorway, his affronted gaze trying to absorb the scene in front of him.
She wants him to leave and let her be with Rick for a few minutes before he wakes up and everything becomes fantastically, frighteningly complicated.
"Hey, Josh," she says, trying not to sound like he's the last person she wants to see.
"May I come in?"
Beckett straightens her back and lets go of Castle's hand, crossing her arms across her chest. "Sure."
He moves to stand next to her, the tension palpable and undesirable.
The dark-haired doctor shuffles his feet, "Look, Kate…did you mean what you said yesterday?"
Oh…right.
Their relationship shouldn't have ended that way, but it had to happen. She doesn't regret it.
She sighs and blinks slowly, "Yes."
Josh averts his gaze for a minute and looks at anything but her. "How is he doing?"
The sentiment is nice, but she knows he doesn't mean it. "He's pulling through," she looks over at the writer and smiles, "he's a fighter."
"Do you know what happened?"
Well, that's a good question, isn't it?
Beckett removes herself from the conversation for a moment. She can still see the glint off of the sniper so clearly. She remembers how it's aimed at Castle; how he didn't see it, how no one saw it. Then the shot pierced through the air, the sound of it so vivid. Then the bullet sliced through him. That's what happened.
Or is it?
Her pupils dilate in fear and guilt, because what if the bullet was meant for her? What is it was her that was supposed to be laying there in pain right now? Now that she thinks about it, why would the people behind her mother's murder shoot Castle? Why would they shoot anyone? If Montgomery sacrificed himself to save her, why were they still coming? The questions keep forming and she simply doesn't have the answers.
This is all her fault.
If she hadn't been chasing these people, these ghosts, then he would have been able to avoid all of this unnecessary pain. They all could have. Oh, God, he could have died and his blood would have been on her hands. He could still die. Guilt rams into her chest and squeezes her heart, nausea surges in her stomach and her lungs clog with the regret.
Josh's voice rips through her thoughts, "Kate, do you know what happened?"
"No," she replies, her voice small and shaky.
"Dr. Kovacks told me that the surgery went as well as expected." Josh moves even closer to her and lays a hand on her shoulder. "How are you holding up?"
The sound of someone clearing their throat followed by the hushed call of her name makes her forget her response.
. . .
He can hear voices. As he drifts into consciousness, they push their way past the fog looming over him. It's not his mother or his daughter. It sounds like Kate.
He needs to see her; the choking desire to see her is overwhelming. He fights his way out of sleep, his eyes opening and searching for her.
His cracked heart sinks at what he sees.
Josh's hand is caressing her shoulder and she is looking up at him in what he expects is an adoring fashion.
It must have been a dream.
But, seriously, he just got shot in the chest. Josh can come back later.
"Kate," he calls, his voice ragged and his throat dry.
She's out of her seat and next to him in a heartbeat, Josh suddenly gone, her green eyes dancing over him frantically, like she can't believe he's really awake.
"Oh, Castle," she breathes, reaching out a hand and trails a scorching path across his cheek and forehead before smoothing back his hair. She smiles, bright and beautiful, in a way that he wants to wake up and go to sleep to everyday for the rest of his life. Her smile is contagious and he grins back at her. Kate's heart skips a beat when his blue eyes light up for her.
"You're alive," she says, mostly trying to remind herself of what's true. He can't help but gasp when she takes his hand in both of hers, because even if it's just for a moment, it may as well be forever.
"I am," he replies. Castle takes a chance and reaches out to brush a piece of chocolate hair behind her ear. He's surprised when she lets her eyes fall closed and leans into his touch.
She becomes quiet then, and the urge to extinguish his confusion flares up. Even if it was a dream, he can blame it on the drugs later, but he has to know.
"Kate…did you say anything to me before I blacked out?"
Beckett's eyes fill with nervousness and anticipation. "Yes. I told you that I love you."
"So it wasn't a dream?"
"No…you definitely weren't dreaming."
The way she admits it shocks him, the way the corners of her mouth curl upward; the way her voice doesn't shake when she says it. Oh, how he loves her.
Castle takes a deep breath, his blue eyes shimmering with joy, the strength of his smile starting to hurt his cheeks.
"I love you, too, Kate."
There is a moment where they just look at each other, and he's never seen such happiness on her face.
Then his eyes roll back in his head and his body tenses up.
"Castle?!" Kate yells, screaming for help. His heartbeat that was steady moment ago is now weaving in uneven jagged lines that threaten to tear her apart.
Hospital staff floods into the room and surround her, Martha and Alexis trailing in frantically behind them.
"Daddy!" Alexis screams, her grandmother clutching her arm so that she lets the doctors do their job.
A young male doctor turns to Kate, whose eyes are darting between Castle and the doctors, waiting for an explanation or a solution.
"It looks like an infection has formed where the bullet grazed Mr. Castle's lung. We will have to put him in a medically induced coma for a few days; the body should heal itself," he relays rapidly.
"Is he-?"
"Ma'am you have to get out of our way and let us take care of him."
In the few seconds before she moves away, she leans down so that her mouth is right next to his ear.
"I'll be right here when you wake up, Rick."