Richard Castle was a lot of things, Kate Beckett knew. Many good she had to admit, some not so bad and probably even a couple that were better off unmentioned. He was not, however, very entertaining when he was under the weather. Especially since he seemed to have very little interest in taking care of himself.

She walked with him over to the fire and had him sit on the ground, leaning against the log, and had brought him a cup of water and a packet of aspirin.

"You know… I don't really need that," he told her. "I feel okay. It's just because I've been out in the sun all day."

"It's 50 degrees out here, Castle," she pointed out. "You're hardly going to get heatstroke. Take it."

"We should save them for an emergency."

"Take the aspirin."

He obviously was ready to argue with her, but she gave him her best killer glare and he obeyed, swallowing the pills and downing the entire cup of water.

"Did you eat?" she asked.

"I had some crackers."

"Then dinner is the next item on our agenda. You sit here and relax and I'll make it."

"You don't have to do that, Beckett. I feel okay and I'm not hungry."

"You didn't eat lunch."

"I haven't done anything all day."

He sounded frustrated, and she understood completely. It didn't make it okay to not eat, though.

"If it were me that hadn't eaten what would you do?"

"I'd say you were a grown up and could make your own decisions about when to eat."

She smiled.

"You're lying, and you know it."

He'd rolled his eyes, realizing that her argument was a valid one – and one that he wasn't going to be able to defeat.

"Fine. I'll eat. But no tuna casserole, okay? Please?"

"Fine."

She made them both dinner (grilled chicken with more crackers and some berries that she'd gather when she'd been out hiking that day) and brought him another cup of water to drink with it. She didn't want him to get dehydrated – especially if he was fevered – and it wasn't like they didn't have plenty of water available to drink.

He thanked her when she brought it to him, but waited to eat until he joined her.

"What did you do today?" he asked as she sat down beside him.

"Hiked around looking for that road."

"No luck?"

"No. Are you sure it was a road?"

He shrugged.

"Pretty sure. I might have been way off on the distance, though."

They both finished their dinners and sat back against the log, with Castle looking over the lake and Beckett looking toward the forest.

"How far off the flight plan do you think we were?" she asked.

""Maybe as much as fifty or sixty miles," he replied, leaning back and wincing when he closed his eyes. "I wasn't really paying attention to where we were going."

"Because of the GPS."

"Right. It would have been easy to get back on track if everything had gone according to normal."

"So any would-be searchers will look along the flight plan first, right?"

He nodded.

"And then what?"

"They'll look elsewhere. Probably call all the airports we could have reached to make sure that we didn't divert to one of them, then start looking in other places along the route."

"They're going to know we didn't land somewhere else," she pointed out. "Where else would we go?"

He smiled without opening his eyes.

"Maybe they think we snuck off for a few days of quiet, alone time for a romantic interlude."

"That would never happen."

"It's happening now."

"Only because we're trapped here. And the whole romantic thing isn't happening."

"You slept with me."

"I did not."

He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her, and she rolled her eyes.

"Fine, I did. But not in the way you meant."

He smiled and closed his eyes again. Point made.

She changed the subject.

"What if the emergency beacon is actually on and just isn't getting a signal through the water?"

"You might be right," he agreed. "It would probably depend on how deep the water is."

"No way of knowing."

"No. Probably not."

She noticed he wasn't making much effort at conversation and looked over at him, watching him since his eyes were closed and he wouldn't notice. He didn't look quite as flushed as he had, but his scratched and bruised face was tired and drawn. Probably concern for Alexis – and guilt over what had happened, she decided.

She reached out and rested the back of her hand against his cheek, which caused him to open his eyes. He must have noticed the concern in her expression, because he offered up a tired smile.

"I have a headache," he told her. "The romantic interlude will have to wait."

She knew he'd said it like that on purpose, to make her flustered, or to annoy her, or maybe just to make her smile. She read him as well as he read her, after all. She didn't do any of them. Her hand slid along his cheek to his jaw, and then checked his forehead. He was still pretty warm.

"You should get some sleep, Castle."

He nodded and closed his eyes.

"What are you going to do?"

"Play pillow for a little while."

She moved a little closer; using the hand she had on his face to pull his head down to her shoulder. He went without argument, surprising her just a little, and without any smart comment, which gratified her. She wasn't trying to baby him or seduce him, just make him comfortable enough to sleep for a while. He'd done it for her the night before and she was willing to return the favor.

Burning with a fever that was taking far more out of him than he was willing to admit, he fell asleep fairly quickly. It took her a lot longer, but eventually she fell asleep too.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Sometime during the night she was roused by him moving around in the darkness beside her. The fire had almost gone out so she couldn't see anything, and being only half awake she wasn't aware enough to be too interested. The warm spot where he was moved away with a stifled groan of pain, and then there was rustling off to the side. She felt him lower her gently down onto the ground from the sitting position she'd fallen asleep in and felt him drape one of the emergency blankets over her. She roused long enough to pull it around herself and shift into a more comfortable position.

"Castle?"

"Shhh… go back to sleep. I'll get the fire."

She muttered something he probably didn't understand, and then heard him move away from her and toward the fire. She could have stayed awake to watch, but she was tired, too, even though she hadn't actually had all that active a day, either. She didn't fall asleep completely though until she felt him join her once more, tucking himself between her and the log and feeling the warmth of him from behind and the warmth of the fire from the front.

"Thanks, Kate…" he whispered, softly, as his arm went around her to keep her warm and he shifted to find a comfortable position.

"Mmm-hmmm…"

She might have said more, but she fell asleep instead.

OOOOOOOOOOOO

Author's note: Kind of a sappy chapter, I know, but they have to happen sometimes.