The muffled sound of conversation and the smell of something wonderful woke Castle. Not right away, of course. At first he was drifting in and out of sleep, trying hard to ignore everything around him while he slept. He was so tired that it seemed he was never going to get enough sleep. Had it just been the sound of conversation he'd have been able to go back to sleep no problem. The voices were deep, which meant guys, and guys weren't that interesting to him at the moment. Not more interesting than sleep. But the smell of burgers and fries was permeating the air, too. And his stomach was so empty that it was hurting him. Not worse than his ribs were, but even mostly asleep he knew better than to move and hurt the ribs. He'd learned that lesson quickly. But the smell of the food in the air made his stomach hurt in a different way and one that wouldn't be ignored.

He opened his eyes.

There was a curtain blocking his view of the bed beside him and muffling the conversations. That would never do.

"Hey…"

He was surprised by how weak his voice sounded. And how hoarse. He cleared his throat to try again, but he must have been heard, because the curtain was suddenly pulled back revealing Esposito and Ryan sitting around Beckett's bed. All of them were eating burgers, and Castle's stomach growled. All of them smiled at him, and he frowned, wondering why they looked like they were so amused.

"Hey, Castle," Ryan greeted him. "Good morning."

"Morning?"

He didn't have a clue what time it was, but it didn't seem right that they were eating burgers for breakfast.

"It's well after noon," Beckett told him.

He ignored that for the moment, because there were more important considerations at the moment.

"Is there a burger for me?"

Esposito grinned.

"One for you, but none for your friend there…"

Ryan and Beckett both snickered, and Castle frowned again, and looked down at himself. And saw that he was cuddled up to a very large teddy bear. No wonder they were so amused. He felt just the briefest flash of annoyance, but his own sense of humor took over and he shrugged slightly.

"I'll share mine with him."

Which made them all smile again.

Esposito grabbed up a bag and brought it over to him. Castle sat up very carefully, groaning to himself with every motion as his ribs protested the change of position. The detective put the bag on the table and rolled it over to a position in front of Castle and Ryan brought over a can of Coke and moved the bear to the other side of Castle so he'd have more room with his free hand since the other still had the IV in it.

"We'd have brought you a shake, but we didn't know how long you were going to be asleep."

Castle nodded.

"Thanks."

"It's Remy's," Beckett told him around her mouthful of food. She didn't need to tell him, though. He'd already read the bag.

"Have I mentioned how much I love you guys?"

Which drew grins from all of them.

"We were telling Beckett about the latest case we're working on," Ryan said as Castle pulled out a cheeseburger and took a giant bite.

"Yeah?"

It was a wonder any of them could understand him around the mouthful of food – and he wasn't normally so rude when it came to eating and talking, but there was no way he was going to stop eating.

"Gunshot victim," Esposito told him. "Interesting case."

The two of them went on to give the outline of the case while Castle munched his way through the burger and a large fries. Beckett gave them a few suggestions where they might go for informants. They had already thought of the same ones, but they nodded their agreement and continued discussing that case and a couple of other ones that had crossed their desks in the past few days. Beckett listened with interest, but as soon as he was full Castle leaned back and listened with only half his attention on what they were discussing.

Normally he'd have been interested – and would have added in his own observations – but sleep was starting to get the better of him and he really didn't have any reason to fight it. He drifted off with his stomach full and the bear still leaning against him.

"That didn't last long," Ryan murmured as they watched him fall asleep.

"He's on a lot of medication," Beckett reminded them. "He looks a lot better though, doesn't he?"

"Yeah."

Ryan looked over at Esposito for a moment and then back at Beckett.

"So… I know you guys were in a lot of trouble and all after you crashed…"

"Yeah…?"

"Was there ever a time you were really mad at him?"

"What?"

"You know, mad. Like you wanted to… oh, I don't know… beat him up?" Esposito added.

"What are you guys talking about?" Beckett asked, confused.

"Did you want to kill him?" Ryan asked. "Maybe right after the crash – that same day?"

"You mean after he saved my life by keeping us from dying?" she asked sarcastically.

"Yeah."

She stared at them blankly for a minute and then realization washed over her expression and she gave them both a look that plainly told them she wasn't amused.

"Tell me you didn't have a bet going on…"

Esposito shrugged.

"We might have."

"Answer the question, Beckett. When did you want to kill him the most?"

"I didn't."

"He didn't do anything to make you mad?" Ryan pressed. "Some smart assed comment that would have had you knocking him on his butt if not for being stuck out in the middle of nowhere?"

"Sorry to disappoint you guys, but he didn't."

Esposito didn't look entirely convinced, but she was as good at interrogation as he was, so there was no way he going to trick her into telling him anything she didn't want to tell them.

"Never?"

"Nope."

"Okay."

"What?" Ryan looked surprised by the ready acceptance of that. He scowled at his partner.

"You heard her," Esposito said with a shrug. "She didn't want to kill him."

"But-"

There was a hundred bucks riding on getting the answer.

Beckett grinned and finished her shake.

"Sorry."

She didn't sound like she was.

Ryan scowled again as he and Esposito gathered all the garbage from her table as well as Castle's and tossed it in the garbage.

"We need to get back to work," Esposito told her. "We'll see you tomorrow, though, okay?"

She nodded.

"Thanks for stopping by."

"Anytime."

She was one of them. Of course they'd stop by. They told her goodbye and left the room, nodding at the uniformed officer who was guarding the door.

"Are you nuts?" Ryan asked crossly. "She didn't answer the question and you didn't even try to get her to."

"She wasn't going to tell us, man."

"She might have."

Esposito shook his head.

"You know better than that. We'll just have to try it a different way."

"Yeah?"

"Lanie's coming by to see her tonight. We'll get her to ask. Beckett will tell her when she might not tell us."

The other detective brightened.

"You're a genius."

"Yeah. I know."

Still chuckling, the two of them headed for the elevator.