AN: You guys are going to hate me for this chapter. Just remember, I'm a sucker for happy endings – keep that in mind. Enough said.

Chapter Thirty-Four

"Is that where Beckett and Castle are?" Ryan hissed, already fully aware of the answer, his chest tightening in fear at the knowledge.

Alexis was sick of waiting. They'd been in the hospital waiting room for far more minutes than she cared to count. She needed an update whether or not anyone was willing to give it to her. She needed to see that her father was okay. Alive, breathing, steady pulse. She needed the reassurance of his chest rising steadily up and down and to feel the warmth of his skin. Too much had happened in the past couple of days for her to sit idly by any longer.

"I'm going to find the restroom," she lied deftly to her grandmother. Martha nodded in acknowledgement, drawing her hand away from her granddaughter and watching her retreat from the room.

"You know at the moment, I'm as worried about Alexis as I am about Richard," she turned to Jim with a sad smile.

"It's an awful lot for her to deal with," Jim agreed.

"They'll all be okay, won't they, Jim?" The man nodded solemnly before taking Martha's hand.

"They have to be."

X-X-X-X-X-X

Dunnings was bored with casual conversation. He wanted to see Beckett squirm. He wanted Castle on the cusp of death. He wanted Beckett to experience the feeling of losing everything. He had an idea of how to achieve his purpose. He was really looking forward to exacting said plan, he wasn't sure specifically how the logistics of it all might work, technically Castle could die, or he could not. That was part of the fun. Gambling on another man's life, it made him feel powerful once again. He held Beckett's entire life in his hands simply by controlling the fate of Castle's. It felt more like justice than revenge. Revenge was messy, justice was power and power was what Dunnings sought.

Castle could see that Dunnings was tired of talking, now that they knew why he was intent on revenge he wasn't inclined to chat any longer. Dunnings glanced at Castle, he took in the drying blood on the sheets and let out a little half-frown.

"I wasn't planning on making a mess of this," he muttered more to himself than anyone else. "Don't really want to waste time with cleaning up. Perhaps it's time to take some cleaner measures," there was a devious glint in his gaze. The edges of his lips turned upwards. "They always seem to have so much fun with these on medical shows," he raised his voice, directing the next comment to both Castle and Beckett. "I've had a lot of time in prison to watch television. You can learn a lot from the medical shows you know. There's always that one doctor who stuffs up and kills a patient or two. I think I identify most with that character." He moved to a surgical tray that was positioned in the corner of the room and pulled a defibrillator from it. "Normally they wait until the patient is unconscious to try this, but what the hell." He moved slowly and deliberately towards Castle. Suddenly the situation seemed a lot more sombre than it had a moment before. Castle stared desperately at Beckett, aching to reach out and touch her. There was still so much left unsaid. There was still so much left for them to live, together.

"Kate," he gasped brokenly, trying to find the words, the words that would sustain her after he was gone. He couldn't stand the thought of leaving her – everyone left her, she had told him that before and it had broken his heart. He couldn't be another disappointment.

"Castle," she choked out, a gut wrenching sob, barely a word. He heard her nonetheless.

"I love you. Always have, always will," he managed, emotion straining his voice to the point of breaking.

"Always," she breathed.

"I, uh, I need to tell you something…in case. I need you not to hate me and if you do, don't tell me. Let me die believing that you love me," Castle didn't bother trying to mask the emotion in his voice, the tears welling in his eyes spilled over the rim, dribbling slowly down his face. The salty taste reminding him that it could be the last flavour he'd ever have on his palate. He wished it was her, Kate's lips, that would be a taste he could die happy with. Well, maybe not happy considering how premature his death would be if it occurred at this stage in his life. But as far as last tastes go, Kate Beckett would be the epitome of perfection.

"Nothing," she growled, "nothing Castle, will stop me from loving you." He wanted to hold her so badly. This was the torture. The scalpel, Dunnings moving towards him with defibrillator paddles clasped in his hands, that was nothing. Not being able to touch Beckett when he knew that she wanted him as badly as he wanted her, it was tearing his very soul apart.

"I'm still investigating your mother's case. I'm so sorry. The murder-board in my study, it's all there," his words crashed out, rolling over each other, rushed and barely coherent. Still she heard.

"Castle," her tone was forceful, she wanted her point to be heard, to be made. "I love you." At that he was a mess, sobs that shook his body stuttered shakingly from his lips. "And Castle, you're not going to die!" Her tone was fierce, her eyes dark. Castle could see that she was straining against the bonds attaching her to the bed. He half expected her to turn into a superhero and rip the bed into pieces before throwing Dunnings through the ceiling.

Dunnings was enjoying this little interlude, clearly he was torturing Beckett ever so slightly. It was nothing compared to the humiliation he'd endured though. He figured it was time to cut in.

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure about that, Detective. I think there's a fairly distinct possibility he could die," he grinned. Beckett snarled, it was low and guttural. Castle found it terrifying, yet somehow kind of hot. It was such an inopportune time to be thinking about Beckett like that, still, he couldn't resist. He was him after all, even on the edge of possible death it was nice to know he still stayed in character. He liked who he was and to die as himself, without compromising his personality, that was a good thing. He thought it said a lot about him as a man. Integrity. That about summed it up. He was a man who lived and died with integrity. A man who was currently getting slightly distracted from a pivotal moment in his life by mulling over the words that could be written cursively across his tombstone. How morbid and relevant. Perhaps he should discuss it with Beckett. He opened his mouth, but on catching her expression closed it quickly. He'd seen Beckett die in his arms, he'd seen her ache for her mother, he'd seen her angry, he'd seen her recovering from a break-up, he'd seen her hit hard by a tough case, he'd seen her heart break remembering her father's alcoholism. He'd never seen this. The look of utter despair, the brokenness of her expression. It looked like he was going to need that defibrillator after all, Beckett's expression was near to jolting his heart to a complete stop. He choked on the emotion swelling in his throat, fresh and fierce.

"Please," he pleaded with Dunnings, who had placed the paddles on the bed and was slowly cutting through his hospital gown, clearing the material away from his chest so it was just skin awaiting the cool metal of the paddles and potentially the end of Richard Castle. The man, the myth, the legend – the life, the love, the future.

"As cute as your manners are, I'm not convinced," he laughed spitefully, drawing the paddles above Castle's chest. Beckett pinched her eyes shut tight. She was not going to watch the man she loved die. She remembered when she was a child her father had teased her, covering his eyes with his hands and declaring, I can't see you so you must not be there, when she begged him for something trivial that he wasn't prepared to give her – like a unicorn. That was the mentality she was aiming for, if she couldn't see it, then it wasn't happening. Apparently Castle being tortured to death caused her to regress to childlike behaviours. Then she couldn't bare it any longer, she needed to see him. He had held her as she died. He hadn't given up on her. She should have the decency to offer him the same devotion. Her eyes found his and she was lost, swimming in swirling oceans of bright blue. A moment of calm before the storm. They stared at one another, into one another, neither paying attention to Dunnings' movements. After a moment of simple contentment shrouded by unadulterated fear, love pouring from one pair of eyes to the other, Castle flinched and his eyes snapped shut, his body jolting.

"Whoops. Forget to say clear…" Dunnings chuckled, pulling the paddles back from Castle's chest. Beckett stopped breathing. If Castle's heart wasn't beating than neither was hers. There was a poetry to it that he would have appreciated, had his heart been beating.

X-X-X-X-X-X

The hospital was huge and Alexis was beginning to rethink the brilliance of her plan. She'd wandered round in the general direction that the doctor from earlier had headed in, sticking her head in every door and glancing around for her father or Beckett. So far she was fairly certain all she managed to achieve was getting just a little bit lost. She spotted a young nurse and a new plan wormed its way into her mind. She let her frustrations swell, dwelling on them for a moment until there were fresh tears pooling in her eyes. She made her way towards the young nurse, shuffling and sniffling, sure that her red-rimmed eyes were obvious. The nurse looked up at her nervously.

"Miss, are you alright?" she asked hesitantly.

"No," Alexis mumbled, letting a few of the tears trickle down her face. "I lost my daddy, I can't remember which room he's in."

"Oh, okay. I'll look it up for you," she smiled gently.

"Thanks," Alexis sniffled, offering a strained smile in response. "His name's Richard Castle."

"The novelist? Awesome," she tapped away on the computer a couple of times. "Okay, he's in room 4122," she squinted at the screen. "Hmm, I don't think you're meant to be in there yet. Just don't tell anyone I told you where to go," she winked.

"I won't get in the way," Alexis assured her.

"I'm sure you won't honey, just go see your Dad," the nurse patted her shoulder. "It's down that corridor there, then the first left. Don't go right, they're renovating that wing of the hospital and it's a complete mess." Alexis offered her another soft smile and hurried down the corridor. She found the room quickly and was puzzled to find it devoid of inhabitants, and beds for that matter. She made her way back to the nurses' station. As she reached the fork in the corridor something caught her eye, the plastic covering the walkway to the right, where the renovations were going on, was pushed to the side a little, like it had been moved recently. She inspected the corridor more closely, noting that the fine dust coating the floor on the other side of the plastic had a pair of long thin lines drawn in it, as if a hospital bed had been pushed through it recently. The pair of footprints she noticed etched into the dust a little further down the hall did nothing to disprove that theory. She pushed her way past the plastic, it couldn't hurt to check out what was going on. It had already been proven that she was her father's daughter in that regard, inquisitive and awfully detective-like.

She moved cautiously and quietly through the abandoned section of the hospital. The emptiness of the usually bustling facility giving it a strange eerie quality. She was considering turning around and making her way back to the waiting room to actually give waiting another shot when she heard a noise. It sounded like a woman weeping, bitterly.

Additional AN: Random fact, when I googled what happens if you defib a healthy person one of the responses was that, 'They will punch you in the face,' it was kind of my favourite option! Unfortunately it didn't quite fit with the story.