A/N – Thanks so much for the kind reviews and favs. I have a lot of reviews to respond to personally, I'll get to it as I can. Until then, thanks to you all.

This chapter is…well just read it. I'm not sure what I think about it. I read the Castle story Dead to the World, and found that if I want to keep my title as self-proclaimed King of Angst, I have to up my game. This was the result.

Disclaimer: In a land of make believe, I own Castle. Not in this world.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Done Waiting Chapter Four

Previously…

She looked up and saw the worried look on his face. She knew instantly that something else had happened. "What happened?" she asked, sitting upright.

"We just got a call. There was a break in at your apartment. One of your neighbors spotted a man dragging a large bag into your apartment about an hour ago. She heard noises like someone was trashing the place and called the cops. They just arrived on scene. They found…"

"Espo, what did they find? Come on, tell me." The look on his face was one she had never seen before. It looked like anguish.

"They found Castle…"

xxxxxxxxx

When Kate Beckett walked into Mount Saini Hospital, she felt cold. It was as if her entire soul had been left behind, and she was just an empty pod drifting through the corridors of one of New York's biggest hospitals. The news Esposito had given her just thirty minutes before had been both good and bad. Castle was alive. That was the good news.

The bad news was that he wasn't in good shape. She didn't know the extent of the damage, other than he had been tortured and then stabbed.

When the officers had found him, after receiving the call about the break in at Beckett's apartment, they had immediately called for EMTs. Beckett, upon receiving the news, had called Martha and Alexis. That had been one of the most painful phone calls she had ever made.

Now she was at the hospital. She hadn't went to the crime scene. She hadn't been briefed on what else had been found at the scene. She just needed to be here.

Walking into the ER waiting room, she spotted the two red heads huddled off in a corner. "Any news?" she asked, approaching them.

Martha looked up and said, "He's in surgery. He lost a lot of blood and had severe internal bleeding. The doctor who spoke to us said the prognosis wasn't… well let's just say he was very blunt." The woman had tears running down her face, and it was clear that she was having a hard time holding it together. Alexis looked worse, and hadn't even met the detective's eyes.

Kate took a seat on the other side of Alexis and digested the news. "Did they say how long before we know?"

"Many hours is what he said," Martha said softly. "What's going on, Katherine? Who did this to him?"

"I don't know. Ryan and Esposito are at the scene now. They'll come here when or if they have any answers. But it obviously has something to do with me, since that is where they dropped his… where they left him. Maybe it has something to do with one of our past cases, or it could be a deranged fan. At this point, I just don't know. I just need him to be alright," she said, tears flooding down her cheeks.

"We all do, darling, we all do."

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Three hours after she had arrived at the hospital, Ryan and Esposito came rushing into the waiting room. Beckett and Castle's two redheads didn't even notice them at first, as they continued to gaze towards the doors where the doctor would eventually come give them the news on Castle's fate. They kept expecting a doctor to come out soon, but every time one did make an appearance, it was always for someone else. The waiting was getting to Beckett. She needed answers but more importantly she needed to know that Castle was alright.

Finally noticing the boys, she stood up and walked towards them before they could reach the corner that she, Alexis and Martha had taken up residence in for the last three hours. "Do you have news?" Ryan asked, once she was near enough to them.

"No. He's still in surgery," she replied dejectedly. "We haven't had an update since I got here. What about you, what did you find?"

"You're not going to like it, Beckett," Esposito said. "First off, your apartment is trashed, just like Castle's loft was. They were definitely looking for something, or at least wanted us to think that they were looking for something. The only thing we found was a note." He pulled an evidence bag out of his pocket and handed it to her.

With shaking hands she looked down at the handwritten note and read,

"It would have been easier, Detective, if you had just died last year. Now we have to do this the hard way."

"Son of a… It's the sniper isn't it?" Kate asked, looking up at her two partners.

"That's our guess too, but other than what the note implies, we've got nothing. We don't know what he's looking for, and we don't know why he didn't just come after you instead of going after Castle."

"Guys, Castle has been in contact with a man named Mr. Smith who received some sort of file that contained information on the man behind my mom's murder. He used that file to keep me safe over the last year, but I had to stay away from the case," Kate revealed.

"Wait, how do you know this?" Ryan asked.

"Castle told me when the first call came in, and has told me about every call since. What if whatever this guy is looking for has something to do with this Mr. Smith character and the information he has?"

"How do we get in contact with this Mr. Smith?" Espo asked, taking notes.

"I don't know. The last time he called was several months ago when we suspected that the mayor had a hand in a murder. We can check Castle's phone records from then and see what we can find. Other than that all we know is that he was a friend of some sort of Montgomery's."

"Family of Richard Castle," a voice said from behind Kate. She spun around, to see a doctor in green scrubs standing there. Martha and Alexis strode hurriedly to stand in front of the doctor. Ryan, Esposito and Kate filed in behind them.

"Mr. Castle made it through surgery. As you know, he was stabbed three times in the chest, which were our biggest concerns. He lost a lot of blood before he was brought in, and just making it to the hospital alive was a miracle. We were able to repair the damage, and stop the internal bleeding. We then set his ribs, both of his legs, and his right arm, and bandaged his head. We also set all of his fingers. Needless to say, he isn't out of the woods yet," the doctor said grimly.

"Will he be okay?" Alexis sobbed.

"I'm sorry, I just don't know. The fact that he's made it this far tells me he's strong, but at this point…at this point it could go either way, I'm sorry. There are two real risks right now. First, he went without oxygen for some time during the surgery before we could resuscitate him. Along with an extreme concussion, his brain underwent major trauma due to that lack of air. We won't know until or if he wakes up how bad it was. It could be nothing or there could brain damage. That's our first concern. The second is clotting. With the amount of blood loss and the corresponding amount of blood we had to put back in him, he's much more likely to develop a blood clot, which could lead to any number of issues. We have to keep him in the ICU until we're more confident of his stability."

Kate stood there stunned. It sounded so bad. So bad. Brain damage? What would happen to him then? What if he never woke up? What if he never came back to her? Tears were flowing down her cheeks, and it took all of her will power to stifle the sobs that were threatening to spill out of her.

"When can we see him?" Martha asked, her voice shaking.

"In a couple hours. We're going to limit it to one person at a time, so decide amongst yourself who goes first and so on. I'll have a nurse come get you when he can have visitors." He gave them all a grim smile and walked back through the double doors.

Kate sunk down in the nearest chair and curled her knees to her chest, the sobs finally breaking through. He was going to die, she just knew it. And the last memory he would have of her was of her pushing him away. This was all her fault.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

a/n 2 – Just to say, I have no medical knowledge whatsoever, so everything is probably wrong.

Review if you like it!