Disclaimer: As always, all things "Castle" belongs to ABC & Co.

Author's Note: Back with a new fic, less fluffy this time. An AU for the summer after Beckett's shooting because obviously "Rise" hasn't been written about enough.

The Space Between Us

Chapter 1

"Katie, lunch is almost ready."

The sound of her dad's voice from the kitchen of his cabin startled Kate out of the half-doze she'd drifted into as she lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. She'd been trying to read but found she couldn't find a comfortable position sitting up and the various aches of her body had distracted her from her book and made it impossible to concentrate anyway. So she'd given up and returned to her bed to lie down—again, since she spent most of her day lying down these days. She hated it but it seemed like the only position her body could tolerate for any length of time, provided she didn't twist or turn over or otherwise do anything.

Moving slowly, gingerly, as she needed to do everything these days, she pushed herself so she could slide her legs off the bed and then, after another moment, levered herself up until she was sitting upright, biting back a gasp at the pain that stabbed through her at the motion. She had never realized how much upper body strength it normally took to sit up or the way it pulled and stretched the muscles in her side but now she knew, would never take it for granted again. She waited a long few seconds until the pain subsided before she pushed herself to her feet and then slowly, slowly straightened upright.

Ow, shit!

The pain stole her breath—again—and she blinked back the unwilling tears pricking at the back of her eyes, the tears she so rarely cried but now always seemed so close to the surface.

She hated this, hated this so much! She tried to tell herself to be grateful that she'd managed to recover even as much as she had, that she was out of the hospital, that she could, finally, stand up without her dad to help her (well, okay, so that wasn't strictly true in that it still hurt more than she would ever admit to anyone to stand up on her own but she flatly refused to have her dad help her more because she knew how much he worried about her and she didn't want to worry him, had insisted he no longer needed to help her stand up for that very reason.) But she couldn't quite bring herself to actually feel grateful because it still hurt so much and she was so damn exhausted all the time and she hated this so much and she wanted… wanted her life back.

She wanted not to be so weak, wanted to recover her strength, wanted to be able to stand up without pain, wanted to be able to walk for more than 15 minutes without feeling like she would collapse. She wanted to be able to sleep without nightmares. She wanted to be at the precinct—even without Captain Montgomery, she thought with a stab of grief and loss—the precinct was still her home, with her coworkers and her team. She wanted her mother… She wanted…

Castle.

No, no, she couldn't think about Castle, wouldn't think about him.

Kate shoved the thought of him aside—that way lay too much emotion, too much hurt, too much longing—and instead concentrated on walking and oh god, she hated that too, that an act as basic as walking took so much effort and energy, just putting one foot in front of the other.

But she made her slow, shuffling way out of her room and into the main room of the cabin, heading towards the kitchen where her dad was making lunch. Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, from the smell of it. (Her dad's cooking skills were rudimentary so he was sticking with the simple things he knew how to do. Sandwiches for lunch and basic casseroles or pastas for dinner. Which was getting repetitive but it didn't matter since she didn't have much of an appetite anyway so she was mostly forcing herself to eat a modicum of food at every meal to assuage her dad's worry and not out of any real desire to eat.)

"Looks good, Dad," she commented, manufacturing as much of a smile as she could manage, trying to sound like her usual self.

Her dad shot her one of his searching looks but all he said was, "Sit down, Katie. It's almost ready."

She made her way carefully around the table, getting herself a glass of water, before moving to the table and lowering herself, gingerly, into the seat. She was ridiculously tired again and she hated that but she couldn't let her dad see, didn't want him to worry more than he already did, so she only drank a little water and carefully kept her expression blank.

"Katie?"

"Yes, Dad?"

Her dad hesitated and she glanced at him, a sudden niggle of tension shooting through her. Oh, this wasn't going to be one of her dad's usual questions about how she was feeling.

"I want to ask you something and you can tell me it's none of my business but I thought I'd ask."

Oh god. "Okay," she answered cautiously.

"Have you talked to Rick at all?"

The sound of Castle's name startled her so much that her hand jerked in spite of herself, water sloshing out of her glass and onto her hand and the table, and she hastily busied herself wiping up the small spill as she strove to get control of her suddenly rabbiting heart.

"To Castle? No, why?" she asked trying to sound normal and terribly afraid she was failing miserably, her voice changing in a way she couldn't describe over his name. His name that she hadn't said aloud in weeks, no matter how it echoed in her thoughts. (5 weeks, 6 days, and around 2 hours since she'd sent him away in the hospital. 5 weeks, 6 days, and 2 hours since she'd last seen him. And damn it, why was she so conscious of that? Why was her mind persisting in counting how long it had been?)

She felt her dad's glance but steadfastly avoided looking at him, focusing instead on her glass of water.

"I just think you should. He cares about you, Katie."

He had said he loved her.

A sudden image of his face slammed into her mind, his terrified, beseeching eyes. His voice. Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate. She felt the burning pain in her chest, her hand automatically flattening against the bandage over her damaged heart. She couldn't breathe, her lungs felt as if they'd collapsed. She couldn't see, her vision going blurry, but she remembered the blue sky above her seeming to blend into the blue of his eyes, his face the last thing she saw before blackness.

Oh god. No no no, she couldn't do this now, couldn't have a flashback here, in front of her dad. Her dad! She desperately latched onto the thought of her dad—at least, enough of her remained that she remembered to be concerned for him—and she forced her eyes open—when had she closed them?—forced herself to slow her breathing, sucking air in and then holding it for five seconds—one two three four five—and then out again. Inhale, hold, exhale. Inhale, hold, exhale. She focused her eyes on the grains of the wooden table, the water rings from the time her dad had forgotten to use a coaster before putting down his drinks. Forced herself to look around, opening her senses to her surroundings, to ground her in the present—the sound of the birds outside, the stripes on her dad's shirt, the solid wood of the table.

She gripped the table so hard her knuckles hurt but slowly, she felt the panic subside. She was fine, she was alive. She was safe, in her dad's cabin, and no one knew where she was. She was alive. She could breathe again. She felt the fog of memory and unreasoning terror dissipate from her mind.

"Katie? Katie, are you okay?"

She let out a breath, blinking, and then turned her head to look at her dad, managing a somewhat wan smile. "Yeah, dad, it was just… a twinge," she lied. "I think I moved wrong."

Her dad gave her a narrow-eyed look that told her he was debating whether and how much to believe her but after a long moment, he appeared to accept that, true or not, she wasn't about to say more, and he returned his attention to their lunch, ladling the soup into bowls and plating up the sandwiches.

He brought first the soup and then the sandwiches over to the table before getting his own glass of water and sitting down.

Kate managed a smile for her dad. "Thanks. This looks good."

"Go ahead and eat, Katie. There's plenty more soup if you want it."

"I'll keep that in mind." She forced another smile, although she suspected they both knew she wouldn't ask for more. It was as much as she could do to eat the food her dad gave her and sometimes she couldn't even manage that. But her dad always offered more and it had become something of a polite fiction between them.

They ate in silence for a while and Kate was nibbling at her sandwich when her dad spoke again. "I saw him in the hospital, you know."

She sucked in a sharp breath and narrowly avoided choking on the bite of her sandwich. She forced herself to chew and then swallow before she asked, "Who?" Playing dumb in a way she never did and she hated it but she needed the extra seconds to try to get herself under control.

Castle. As always, the thought of him brought a tidal wave of emotion swamping her like a tsunami, the fear, the yearning, the grief, the hope, the… love. She froze at the word but she knew it was true. She was too tired these days to fight it, didn't have the energy to deny it. She felt absurd tears pricking at the back of her eyes and blinked them back, putting her sandwich down with preternatural control as if her control over such a small movement would aid her control of her emotions.

"Rick."

She ducked her head and shut her eyes, focusing on regulating her breathing. Inhale, hold, exhale. She could do this, could listen to her dad without falling apart. She had to do this. "You mean, while I was… in surgery?" When she'd died before she'd been brought back to life, like some zombie or Frankenstein's monster.

"No, not then. I mean, he was there then too but I meant, after. It was about a week later, just before you were transferred out of the ICU."

A week later. Wait. Her breath hitched. But that would have been… what, more than 5 days after she'd… sent him away. He'd been at the hospital? He'd come back? But… She jerked her head up to stare at her dad. "But I didn't…" She hadn't seen him, hadn't known. Hadn't called him.

"You were asleep, Katie," her dad explained gently. "It was one of those times when I just stayed for a little while because you were sleeping before I left and then I saw Rick. He was on the other side of the nurse's station, where he could just see you but even if you were awake, you probably couldn't see him."

"Oh." He'd come back to the hospital. Ridiculously, she felt a little tendril of warmth inside her at the thought. And it was so completely hypocritical and stupid and irrational of her because she had been the one to send him away and told him she needed time and she should feel annoyed at him for wriggling around her request and returning to the hospital but she couldn't do it. He'd come back to see her, to check on her, even as he'd tried to honor her request, do what she'd asked. Obeying the letter of her request and giving her space, even if he'd technically broken the spirit of it. How very… Castle-like of him. Always finding a way around rules he didn't like. He didn't listen to directions—except this time, he had. Just as he still was.

For a moment, she couldn't decide if she wanted to laugh or cry at his deciding to listen to her now.

Ridiculous. And so unlike her, because she'd always despised indecisive people who told people to do something and then blamed them for listening.

"He was so worried about you."

The image of Castle's distraught face hovering above her flashed into her mind again and she forced herself not to think about it, focused on the half-eaten remains of her sandwich on her plate instead as if her future depended on her memorizing the pattern of her bite marks.

"He looked as if he hadn't slept in a week."

Her breath hitched again. "Did he… ask about me?" she asked in a small voice and then could have kicked herself for asking such an inane question and sounding so needy.

"He didn't need to. I told him how you were doing as we left the hospital together. And Katie, Rick is a young man, you know, but that day, he didn't look much like it. He walked as if it were physically painful for him."

She sucked in her breath, her dad's sparse but vivid description hitting her like a blow. It was so… wrong, so un-Castle-like. He was so youthful, in his outlook, in his behavior, the perennial man-child. She knew his usual gait, the slight bounce of his steps, the jauntiness she associated with him, and she couldn't really imagine him walking painfully.

"I know you're having a hard time, Katie, and I'm not trying to make you do anything. I'm just saying, maybe you should think about calling him. I'm sure he's wondering how you're doing and it might do you some good to talk to a friend too."

"I'll think about it, Dad." It was as much as she could say.

The rest of their lunch passed mostly in silence but she did think about it, think about him. As she hadn't really allowed herself to think about him in weeks.

She'd tried not to think about Castle—which, translated, meant she thought about him almost constantly but always forced herself to think about other things until she thought about him again and the whole cycle repeated itself—but her dad's words had thrown open the flood gates and now she couldn't think about anything else.

Because she missed him. Missed his smile and his humor and his silly jokes and his warmth. She missed his coffee and his zany theories. She missed his eyes—and god, how ridiculous was that? She hadn't even known it was possible to miss someone's eyes but somehow, it was. She missed the way his blue shirts echoed and intensified the color of this eyes, missed the spark that always lit them from within when the pieces fell into place to solve a case. Missed the way he looked at her as if she was the center of the world.

She just missed him so much. Missing him had set up that ever-present sort of dull ache inside her that reminded her of the way she missed her mother.

And god, that terrified her. How could she miss him that much? How had he come to mean that much to her, that she would miss him the way she missed her mother? Her mother, whom she had loved more than anyone?

She missed him—but she didn't want to see him, let alone talk to him, right now. She knew she'd promised to call him and knew she was breaking her promise every day and she'd never meant to do it, never meant to go so long without contacting him, but every day kept passing and she didn't call him and then it seemed like the longer it went, the harder it became to call. And she just couldn't do it. She hated the idea of him seeing her like this and she was afraid, even terrified, of him and what he'd said to her, afraid he might not really have meant the words, afraid he'd only said them because she was dying, afraid that what he thought he loved was her unavailability, this whole friends-and-something-more dance they were doing. (But somehow, when she remembered the look in his eyes, she had to believe that he loved her.) But she was afraid of that too because he thought she was extraordinary and she was afraid she could only end up disappointing him and he would get tired of dealing with the darkness and danger of her life, the fractured edges of her psyche. And she was afraid of the sure knowledge that if she ever let him into her life fully, she would be utterly lost because, perhaps most of all, she was terrified by the magnitude of all she felt for him.

But oh, how she missed him.

She went for a "walk" after lunch as had become her habit, her dad having to help her down the couple steps of the back porch, and then hovering until she took a few slow, careful steps and then waved him away. Her "walk" was more of a shuffle since she moved so slowly she would have made an arthritic tortoise look like Speedy Gonzalez in comparison and she had to stop every few steps to catch her breath but she forced herself to do it, pushed herself to take a couple more steps each day.

And again, the stark visceral reality of her physical infirmity reminded her why she wasn't calling Castle, didn't want to see him, or rather, didn't want him to see her right now. Didn't want him to see her like this, this pitiful wounded invalid barely able to shuffle a few steps on her own before the pain got to be too much. This wasn't her, wasn't the Detective Kate Beckett he knew so well. She felt like a ghost of herself and she didn't want him to see her like this; everything in her rebelled at the thought of seeing pity or sympathy in his eyes. Those eyes that had looked at her with lust and admiration and affection, looked at her as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world, looked at her as if she was a super-hero…

Maybe that was prideful of her, wanting only to be strong and capable in front of him, wanting to be the Detective Beckett he thought was extraordinary. But it wasn't only about pride either. It wasn't only about herself but about him.

Because she was so helpless right now, needed so much care and assistance. Her dad had dropped everything, taken a leave of absence from work to take care of her, and she wasn't happy about that but had accepted it because she needed the help too much and she'd known there was no chance she could persuade her dad to do anything else. But her dad was one thing; he was her family, had already seen her when she was sick, had helped her mom take care of her through all the various ailments and injuries of childhood—after she'd had her tonsils out, a severe cold that had almost become bronchitis in junior high, the time she'd sprained her ankle in high school.

Castle was… different. She couldn't impose on him so much. She knew he would help her if she asked him, didn't doubt that. He was, whatever else, a good, kind man and he liked to help people and… and he cared about her (loved her). He would do whatever she asked. But that was the problem. Because she didn't want to be a burden, on him or anyone. He had a daughter to take care of, a mother to look after, a life of his own, and she would not—could not—take advantage of his kindness.

And then too, he deserved more than the broken version of herself she was now. Deserved more than the weak invalid who sometimes felt as if she were clinging to her sanity by her fingertips.

And she wanted to be stronger for him, wanted to be the person he somehow believed she was, the one who, as he'd said, amazed him with the depths of her strength and her heart. Those words he'd said to her in LA came back to her again and again these days when she felt so helpless and so weak and she could only be amazed, in her turn, and humbled that that was how he saw her. And she wanted—god, she wanted to be that version of herself, the Kate Beckett he saw and believed in. The Kate Beckett that deserved him, with all his intelligence and his humor and his capacity for fun and his strength and his loyalty and his compassion. She wanted to be stronger, needed to be whole again so she could stand with him, just as he had stood with her.

And then… When she was strong again, when she was something closer to the Kate Beckett he already believed she was…

But not now...

No, she told herself yet again, she wasn't ready. Not physically ready and not, to be honest, emotionally ready either. She needed to get better, needed to be stronger. For herself and, yes, for him too.

And then… and then she would call him, see him. And if he still wanted her, if he still… loved her…

She would see.

She made her slow, laborious way back to the cabin and, again, had to rely on her dad to help her up the couple steps to get inside. She was breathing hard and her chest ached and her side hurt. But she managed to make her way back to her room, lying down on her bed.

And for once, she allowed herself to think about what it would be like to have Castle with her, to be able to hold his hand in the times it hurt to so much as breathe, to be able to lean against his broad shoulders, to feel his strong arms around her, holding her up when she couldn't hold herself up. To have him here to make her smile and distract her from the physical pain with his silliness and his humor.

Oh, she wanted him with her but she couldn't have him, couldn't ask so much of him, couldn't burden him with her broken, damaged self.

She drifted into exhausted sleep and her last thought was of him.

~To be continued…~

A/N 2: Apologies for all the introspection, especially as it's covering very familiar ground of getting into Beckett's head. Going AU for real in the next chapter (and, I hope, getting more interesting.) As always, thanks for reading.