Hello my wonderful readers and reviewers! Once again, I remain stunned and utterly in awe of all of your wonderful reviews! I was so inspired by all of your wonderful words that, while I had initially intended for this chapter to be split into two, I felt that you guys deserved to get the whole thing in one shot of amazing Casketty-goodness!

I hope that this chapter satisfies the requests of many of my reviewers - I won't go into specifics as to which request that was since I don't want to spoil the story - but I think you guys will figure it out ;)

I have to admit too though, that I was quite inspired by the previews for the upcoming episode! What's got two thumbs and is CRAZY excited for episode 3X13? THIS GIRL!

Disclaimer: Y'all know the drill! If I actually owned them, I would probably never share! :)

Chapter 3

The next morning, Castle woke to find Beckett lying awake, seeming to watch him sleep, though she didn't show any change in either her gaze or expression upon finding him awake now too. It wasn't until he reached to feel her forehead that she seemed to notice for the first time that his eyes had opened, and she started a little at the unexpected contact.

"Hey," he whispered, "how are you feeling?"

"A little better," she answered, though the hoarseness of her voice betrayed her illness.

"That's good," he smiled in encouragement, ignoring the slight scratchiness in his own throat. "Do you think you could eat something?"

She appeared to give this some thought before a violent coughing fit forced her to sit up in bed to catch her breath. Rubbing her back gently until it passed, he noticed how the action caused his arms to ache, and that sitting up next to her had caused his head to start throbbing some.

Finally, as the fit passed, she nodded slightly, "I'm thirsty."

Helping her out of bed, he noticed that she was still quite unsteady on her feet. As they slowly progressed toward the kitchen, he couldn't help but notice how laboured her breathing was. They were both grateful to finally reach the kitchen. As Beckett plopped down into the chair, her body was shaken by another fit of dry coughs. Castle quickly poured her a glass of water and, placing it on the table next to some more Tylenol, went to the living to retrieve the throw for her.

After making some toast for the both of them, which he wolfed down rapidly while she pecked away at hers, his phone rang from his pocket.

"Castle"

"Hey there, how's she doing this morning?"

"Good morning, Lanie," he smiled at Beckett, catching her surprised look, "why don't you ask her yourself?" he asked passing the phone over to the detective who had now spent more time ripping her toast into pieces than actually eating it.

Taking the phone from his hand while leveling a substantially weakened glare in his direction for calling her friend behind her back; "He's overreacting, Lanie," she rasped into the phone, trying her hardest to sound healthy for her friend, though her efforts were severely undermined by another coughing fit.

"Uh huh," Lanie replied sarcastically, "now drop the bull and tell me how you're really feeling so that we can actually get you better. And don't you dare get mad at that gorgeous man watching over you, we should all be so lucky!"

Sighing in defeat, she recited her long list of aches, pains and other sources of flu related misery, Castle hanging on to her every word. If she hadn't felt like shit, she was sure she would have been annoyed at the worry she saw in his eyes. Nodding quietly into the phone, she mumbled a thank you before handing it back over to Castle.

Taking the phone from her, he realised that the call was still connected and raised the phone to his ear. "So when are you coming over?" he asked, levelling a look across the table, daring Beckett to protest. To his surprise, she said nothing, but continued to tear at her breakfast.

"How are you feeling, Castle?" she asked, catching him off-guard.

"Uh…I feel fine. A bit of a headache, I guess, and I'm a little achy, but I'm sure it's just from dealing with such a difficult patient" he smirked and was rewarded with a glare from the 'difficult patient' in question.

"Listen Castle, a body dropped this morning and they need me at the morgue, so I won't be able to come over until later this afternoon. Will you be alright to take care of her until then?"

"Yeah, sure. What do you need me to do?"

"Make sure that you keep her temperature down and that both of you are drinking plenty of water."

Knowing it was useless to argue with the ME over her assumption that he too was sick, he nodded his assent and wishing her luck with the body, hung up the phone, but not before asking her to swing by the loft to pick up an overnight bag that he would have Alexis throw together for him.

"Hey, Castle?" he looked up at his companion who was now watching him with an odd look on her face.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you….for…you know…"

"Hey," he said, laying his hand on her shoulder gently, "you have nothing to thank me for."

They held each other's gaze for a few seconds until they were once again interrupted by another coughing fit.

"Castle?"

"Hmmmm?"

"I think I'd really like to have a bath."

His eyes lit up wickedly. "Why detective," he waggled his eyebrows, "I thought you'd never ask!"

Getting up from his chair quickly to escape the piece of toast that was thrown at his head, he made his way back down the hall to run a bath. Once it was ready, he returned to the kitchen to fetch her, finding her already half way down the hallway, sagging heavily against the wall for support. Sighing at her stubbornness, he helped into the bathroom and sat her down on the toilet seat next to the tub. Before leaving her to her privacy,however, he couldn't help but quip one last time, "Are you sure you don't need any help getting those clothes off?"

"You wish," she rasped at him between coughs, smirking as best she could, given her condition.

After watching Castle leave and close the door, she began to undress and get into the tub – the normally simply task rendered slow and difficult by the bouts of coughing and the intense dizziness. She was soon rewarded, however, with the warmth of the water, which helped to ease some of her aches and loosened the congestion in her chest and face.

She could hear Castle on the phone on the other side of the door, and though she couldn't make out the words, assumed that he was getting Alexis to prepare an overnight bag for him. She knew that she should be annoyed, at the very least, by his invasion of her home, but, to her own surprise, found herself not only pleased by his presence, but relieved that she wasn't actually alone.

Just as she was about to close her eyes, however, the bathroom door slammed open revealing a decidedly green looking Castle making a beeline for the toilet. Before she had even fully gotten over the shock of the sudden intrusion, she could hear his stomach liberating his breakfast with astonishing force. Without even thinking, she stood up from the hot water on wobbly legs, grabbed the fluffy robe from the hook next to the tub, and wrapping it around herself, found herself seated on the ground beside his hunched and heaving figure, rubbing his back gently.

Once his stomach seemed content for the moment, he sat back from the toilet onto the ground, though still resting his head on the edge of the toilet seat, his body momentarily weakened by the violence of the retching. He realised then that he hadn't hung up the phone with Alexis yet and could still hear her concerned yelling through the phone. Raising the phone to his ear, he assured her that he was fine, that it was probably just something that he ate, and that no, she shouldn't come over herself since they were both sick and contagious. After promising her that he would keep her posted, he hung up and dropped the phone onto the floor beside his leg.

Turning his head to look at Beckett for the first time since bursting into the room, he found himself a little disappointed to see that she was decent, but relieved that she was not aiming her gun at him.

Smiling ruefully though weakly, he mutters "it must have been something I ate."

Leveling a look at him that clearly showed that she didn't believe him, she found herself filled with regret. "God Castle," she whispers, "I'm so sorry I got you sick."

Reaching over to the bathroom cupboard behind her, she grabbed two bottles of water and the bottle of Tylenol that she kept stashed there for when she typically came home from the gym. Opening one of the bottles, she passed it to him to rinse his mouth out and to help replenish some of his recently lost fluids. Raising her hand to his forehead confirmed that he was now also burning up, despite his protests that he's just fine. Getting up, albeit shakily, from the ground, he held a hand out to her to help her back to the bedroom.

Unfortunately, even his best intentions were not stronger than his body's demands, and he found himself turning back on his heel, leaving Beckett leaning heavily against the wall, barely making it to the toilet before round two wracked his body with heaves.

Still leaning against the wall, Beckett slowly made her way back to the bathroom to make sure he was ok. Her concern mounts as she is greeted by the sight of the man that she normally considers to be unstoppable, leaning over the toilet, his body being ravaged by dry heaves. Sitting back down beside him, she is surprised when he turns to face her and the first words he utters are an apology.

"I'm supposed to be taking care of you," he mutters, his face pale, as she just stares at him, her eyes wide in disbelief.

Despite his own violent illness, Castle can see her shivering in her robe, even though the bathroom is not particularly cold. Raising his head up from the toilet seat he tries to tell her that she needs to get back in bed, though he knows that she'll likely refuse. She doesn't disappoint.

"It's my fault", she wheezes softly, "I'm not going to leave you alone."

"You're too sick to stay here with me," he protests, his voice hoarse. He is satisfied when he sees her stand up slowly and make her way down the hallway, still holding herself up against the wall. As soon as she is out of sight, he allows himself a moment to curl up on the floor, clutching his stomach.

He opens his eyes several minutes later from his new position on the floor in order to identify the strange noises coming from the hall. What he sees stuns him completely – there was Katherine Beckett, on all fours, still in her robe, weakly and slowly dragging the blanket from the bed, complete with pillows on top, into the bathroom. Even through his own misery, he can see how the effort has cost her; her face is ashen, and she is wheezing badly, trying desperately to suck in as much air into her congested lungs as she can without sparking another bout of coughing.

"What are you doing?" he groans out miserably.

"You thought…you won….but I showed you…" she nearly whispers between shallow breathes, a small smile gracing her pale, drawn face.

Whatever he was about to say in protest to her actions would never be known as his stomach once again let its discontent be known. Bolting upright and clutching the toilet bowl for dear life, Castle found himself heaving until he was sure his very stomach was attempting to make an escape. Just as he found himself wishing for death, he felt a gentle hand rubbing soothing, though admittedly shaky, circles on his back, and realising that she had done this during every bout, couldn't help but be amazed by the extraordinary compassion in this woman, who could barely even breath, let alone walk from one end of her apartment to the other.

Feeling that his stomach was satisfied with the amount of torture it had inflicted upon him for the time being, he raised his head from the toilet seat to find her sitting off to his side, leaning against the sink cupboards with a pillow behind her back, wrapped in part of the massive blanket, still rubbing his back.

"Are you ok," she asked quietly.

"Yeah," he ground out from clenched teeth, "I think that's probably it for now. I mean, there can't possibly be anything left, right?"

The pitiful look he threw her way would've made her smile under normal circumstances. Today, however, she just felt commiseration. With the other pillow on her lap, she guided his head down so that he too could rest and be covered by parts of the blanket. At least until the next bout, they both thought to themselves.

Both exhausted, Beckett, though still coughing and sniffling, found the sitting position she was in to be helpful for her breathing, and Castle, still shaking with sweats and chills from the fever and the violence of his own illness, found some comfort from the extraordinary woman whose lap he was resting on. Together, they both gave way to an exhausted slumber.

There were a number of things that Dr. Lanie Parish, armed with mask and gloves, expected to find when she entered Beckett's apartment at the end of her unexpectedly long shift: her friend asleep in bed, Castle either puttering around the apartment or camped out in front of the TV or writing at the computer. Much to her shock, she found none of these things, and while she liked to consider herself to be generally unflappable, what she did find left her completely stunned.

After entering a disturbingly quiet apartment, Lanie finally found the two of them, with no small amount of searching, curled up together on the floor of the bathroom, amidst an ad hoc pile of blankets and pillows, which, based on the evidence from the master bedroom, had been tugged off the bed and dragged into the bathroom with little care for the mess left behind. She was gratified to see that, despite the less than comfortable position the two adults where undoubtedly going to regret, they had at least had the presence of mind to have bottles of water with them to stay hydrated, as she had commanded Castle to ensure over the phone. Staring down at the two, who were still out cold and unaware of her presence, Lanie found herself nearly at a loss for words.

"Just what am I going to do with the two of you?" she sighed.

WOW! That was a long one. Please keep those wonderful reviews coming! They really are the bread and butter of what makes writing so great :)

(especially since doesn't seem to be recording ANY of my story stats other than reviews - so without your wonderful words, I have no idea if anyone's even reading! :o)

Chapter 4 should be up in a few days - might take a little longer since I technically posted it with this chapter and now I have to start a whole new one! :)