Author's note: Sorry guys, I confused you and I didn't mean to. There isn't anyone else with Castle and Beckett; I meant that they weren't alone because they were with each other. Sorry! I also stopped Beckett and Castle at midday while everyone else is in the evening, so I'll get them all in sync in this chapter.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Beckett woke with a start, but held still as she tried to figure out what it was that had pulled her from her restless doze. They'd fallen asleep sitting up, mainly because Castle's breathing was so raspy that she was worried about letting him be flat. She also pulled away from him so she wasn't resting any weight on his chest. Instead, she'd played pillow for him once more, his head close to hers so she could listen to his breathing while he slept.

"Castle?"

His breathing had changed and since she was so attuned to it just then, it was enough to wake her. She leaned back, trying to see him in the waning firelight. His head lolled back against the log, and she shook him, panicked.

"Castle!"

He woke with a start, too, and a fit of coughing that racked his entire body so forcefully she was afraid he was going to pass out. When he finally caught his breath he looked over at her, exhausted.

"What's wrong?"

"You stopped breathing."

He frowned, his breath catching in his chest once more.

"Really?"

"I think so."

Castle leaned back against the log, looking at the fire and ran his hand along his stomach and chest absently.

"I'm tired, Beckett…"

She nodded. She knew exactly how he felt. They were both sick, and he was hurt, and if she was feeling hopeless she couldn't even imagine how he felt.

"I know. It won't be long. You just need to hang in there."

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

"I don't know how much-"

"Don't even start," she interrupted. "You're strong enough to survive a freaking plane crash, you can hang on until we get rescued."

"What if we don't?"

"We will."

He sighed, and she could hear his courage failing in that simple sound. Searching for anything that would keep his spirits up – or at least keep his attention from drifting back to how miserable he was – she reached over and rested her hand on his leg.

"You'd give up before our romantic interlude? I find that hard to believe…"

He didn't answer.

"Hey…"

The worry in her voice made him open his eyes, though, but for once he didn't have anything to say. Which worried her more than anything, really.

"Alexis needs you to stay strong."

It was the only thing she had left to try, and when she said it she knew she'd found the one thing he had left to hold on for. The idea of sex was all well and good, but that had only been banter between them to keep their spirits up when they needed it the most. Alexis was real, though, and she did need her dad. He looked like he was ready to cry, so tired but forced to hang on by her shrewd comment, and she felt like a heel for doing it to him, but she knew if he gave up then he wasn't going to make it. She'd seen it before, after all.

He nodded and closed his eyes again, and she looked at the fire, thinking that she should put more wood on it to get it roaring again. Instead, though, she started coughing and by the time she'd managed to catch her breath she felt as tired as she knew he was and couldn't gather enough energy to do more than reach for the jug of water and take a drink that she didn't really want.

She pressed up against him again, determined to keep him warm and to rouse him through the night if she thought he needed it. Before she could do more than maneuver his head back to her shoulder he was asleep once more, and she felt her own energy and courage drain out of her like someone had pulled the plug in a bathtub. She didn't fall asleep as much as pass out, and neither of them was awake to hear the plane that flew over them sometime in the early hours of the morning.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Flight, this is Air Rescue Bravo, picking up an emergency location transmitter signal 55 miles north of grid 2. Could you confirm the ELT of the plane we are looking for, over?"

Just because they had an ELT signal it didn't mean for sure it was the one they were looking for, after all, and the pilot of the search plane knew it. Sometimes the ELT in a perfectly good plane would start transmitting on its own for no reason. Other times they would be kicked on during a turbulent flight or a particularly graceless landing. It was better to be sure.

There was a long pause and then his radio came alive once more.

"Air Rescue Bravo. The ELT we are looking for is registered to N7145 out of Allentown Airport in New York City. Over."

Ha!

"Roger Flight. Confirming. Over."

He didn't need to confirm, he already had. But the National Guard didn't make mistakes if they could avoid it – it looked bad to the people they were supposed to be protecting – so he double checked the signal he was picking up.

"Flight, this is Air Rescue Bravo. I have located the ELT of the missing plane, transmitting the exact location now. Over."

"Roger, Air Rescue Bravo. Any sign of wreckage? Over."

Of course, the controller knew it was 3:00 in the morning, so there would be little chance of that. It was an automatic question.

"Negative. Heavy woods and what appears to be a small lake. I'll locate a clearing for a helicopter landing if I can and we'll have to go in on foot. Over."

Not him, of course. He was a pilot. But they were also working with the forestry people, and they'd know the area well enough to get where they needed to go once they had a general location. The ELT was all they needed for now. Hopefully they'd find the missing persons huddled in the cabin of the plane waiting for rescue.

"Roger," came the reply, interrupting his line of thought. "Transmit possible landing locations and Helo 1 will recommence search. Over."

A fixed wing plane was not ideal for small area like a helicopter would be.

"Roger."