Author's Note: Loving the responses still... I hope you're all enjoying this little fic. I'm a huge family and romance fan, so that's what I usually tend to write, so I'm glad that you are all enjoying it! Review if you would like!

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She tries to keep a straight face as she walks into the room.

When they came to get here, she could barely think straight let alone walk with any sort of purpose. She wanted to see him so bad, but at the same time, she wasn't completely prepared for what she saw next, a broken Castle.

"There's a chair right next to the bed that you can sit in, and it would be good for you to speak to him while we're trying to get him out of the anesthesia. We don't want him to fight anything when he's coming out. Watch the tubes and wires and you should be fine."

"Thank you…"

"Don't hesitate to press the call button for anything, okay?"

She nods as she makes her way to the chair beside him, trying to keep herself from crying because once she breaks down, which she rarely let's herself do, it isn't going to stop anytime soon.

"Hey Kate?"

"Yeah?" she says almost distracted by the thoughts running through her head.

"Talk to me." He says simply, causing her to look up at him from her spot laying agains his chest on the couch.

She doesn't remember when this routine started, but they came home after every case solved and took these positions. It didn't have to be a hard case in particular, but they always needed to unwind. He would lay down on the couch with his arms open and she would just lean up against him, resting her head against his chest and relishing in his warmth.

This case had been absolutely terrible though, a little girl murdered by her father. It turned out that he did it because he didn't want his ex-wife to have custody… didn't want her happy.

"I just… there are times that I sit down and actually think about what I'm doing for a living and wonder if I'm not a monster for not being effected by all this."

"But you are…"

"Well, I know, but… God, Castle, how can a person do this?"

"I don't know Kate, but what is more important is that you stopped him from ever being able to do it again."

"I know that, but I just keep seeing her face." She says, closing her eyes as the image comes to her again.

"Allison?" he asks, mentioning the little girl that was found in an alley three blocks from her elementary school suffocated to death.

"no… her mother. Yes, the little girl's death was hard, but to see her mother's reaction, to know that she won't ever see her little girl again, all because her ex husband was a psycho… Did you know that he hit her? He actually hit the woman and that's why she left with the daughter. He started hitting her, so she got away from all of it. Then he kills the little girl to get back at her… and her poor mother didn't do anything to deserve any of this… I can't do that…" she says, allowing the tears to fall.

He is surprised by her actions and choice of words because even though they have been together for a while, she hasn't really broken down in front of him before. The wall came down, but she was still hesitant to show all her cards, even to the man she loves.

"You can't do what?"

"I can't bring a child into the world knowing that there are people like this out there…"

"Are you…?" he says, his eyes going wide in surprise.

She lets a smile come to her face then, through the tears, shaking her head.

"Oh… then why?"

"because I want that some day, and when I saw that little girl's body and I saw her mother's reaction, I just… it made me sick."

"Kate, the world sucks, and the only thing that we can do is help make it better… you help make it better by doing what you do. You stand for the victims each day, and that's something that I love about you. However, you have to think smaller too, because one of my goals, I know, is to make your world a little better too… the coffee, the little love notes, the small kisses to wake you up in the morning… we would do that for any child we had, you know? The outside world might suck, but we would combat that with making the small world around him or her filled with everything good we can."

"I love you." She says, burying her face in his chest and crying a little more for the victim and her mother.

At the memory, she looks down, and the tears start to fall even more. Now wasn't the time for a break down. She had done that, and right now she felt that the world absolutely sucked. It was about to suck a little bit more.

"Detective Beckett?"

The voice, rocked her back into this world, and when she looked up, she saw the familiar uniform of an NYPD officer staring her in the face.

"Yes? I, um… I don't understand." She says, standing up quickly, glancing at Castle.

"It's okay Detective. When we realized who this was and we realized who he was engaged to, we thought that you would be the best person to relay this information to."

Her face is the picture of confusion when she asks what they came to tell her.

"It was a DUI." The officer says, and her heart skips a beat.

"Castle? No… he wouldn't get behind the wheel of…"

"No, Ma'am, the other vehicle's driver was under the influence." The officer says quickly, which causes her to let out a long breath of relief. "We felt that you had the right to know."

"Did you arrest the guy?"

"They fled the scene, but with the help of traffic cams, we were able to get the son of a bitch. He'll be charged with the DUI, fleeing the scene of the crime, and… uh…"

"I know… you have to wait for the other charge."

"I hope he doesn't get charged with manslaughter ma'am, but I wish he could get that amount of time." He says, glancing at Castle, "How is he?"

"He's doing well, but we won't really know how well for a few hours, or even days."

"I hope that everything works out then."

"Keep me updated LT."

"I will, ma'am." He says, ducking out of the room, which left the opening for Martha and Alexis to appear in the doorway.

"Kate?" Alexis says, running to her and wrapping her arms around her before looking over at her father and burying her head in Kate's shoulder to cry.

The two had a good relationship, but this was the first time that Kate thought that the girl may need her more than she led on.

"What were the officers doing here?" Martha asks, as Kate strokes the hair of the younger redhead.

"Apparently it was a hit and run with at DUI. The guy in the other car was drunk, but they got him."

"That gives me a little bit of relief, but how is he?" she says, moving toward his bed and smoothing a piece of hair from his face.

Alexis had calmed down a bit, turning out of Kate's embrace to join the conversation, but still holding onto her hand. "Is he going to be okay?"

"The doctor said that he had a lot of internal injuries, but feels like they caught everything. He lost a lot of blood, and it might take him a while to get out of the fog of anesthesia. So right now, it's a waiting game."

"Okay… so we wait." Alexis says, moving to sit down at the foot of her father's bed.

Kate and Martha nod, and Kate takes the spot next to him.

She sits by his bedside, holds his hand too tight.

All three women fell asleep after a few hours of watching the steady breathing and the steady beep of his heart rate. Kate's hand never left his though, holding on tight as she dreamt of all the things they still had to do.

"Too tight." She is awoken by a raspy whisper near her ear.

"hmmm…" she looks up. "Castle?" she whispers, looking up to see him smiling down at her.