A little background before you read this – firstly, it's based on the fact that I'm in the camp that believes the Gina/Castle relationship will be over before the Beckett/Josh relationship is.

I was inspired to write this partly by comments that have been made by Andrew Marlowe and several members of the cast, to the effect that when two people are clearly meant to be together, they can take their time getting there. I see this as a near-future scene cut from the process of C & B "getting there".

There are bad days and there are good days.

Tonight's one of the bad ones; he's left feeling needy, empty, and he definitely can't sleep, so he finds himself wandering across town to the hospital. Visiting hours are long over, but the first nurse he runs into happens to be a fan, so for a quick wisecrack – delivered with a smile he doesn't feel – and a scribbled autograph on the back of a patient's chart, he's directed without fanfare to the same third floor room that's been haunted by his presence all week.

This is the first time he's been here at night, though, and the feel of the hospital (as he walks down the carpeted hallway, counting the numbers on each door he passes) is eerily familiar to him. It's the exhausted sense of a place that has seen far too much foot traffic during the day and – now that the sun has long gone down – is not so much settling as sagging into the reprieve of nighttime. Castle has years of intimate experience with the feeling; he's had a childhood of waiting in empty theatres after his mother's performances, a career of writing at his laptop into the wee hours of the morning, and recently a station at the murder board during late nights spent hoping that a tiny eureka might somewhere pop out of a stagnant case.

He knows how the building tends to empty around that feeling of exhaustion, as people depart for the comfort of their homes and beds; and he knows that after the exodus the only ones left will be those committed to the night shift or so driven in their work that their fatigue ends up churning itself into a kind of desperate energy.

He also knows, as he pauses in the doorway of room 314, how that exhaustion is somehow an innate part of her. She's not asleep – he didn't expect her to be – but it takes a moment for her to turn her eyes away from the city lights that are slowly winking off outside her window and towards him. When she does, the look she wears is neither sad nor pained, not calm or resigned – it's more a complex sort of bittersweet, like someone who's perpetually recovering from an endless loss.

And maybe she is. Complex – so many things about her are complex. Still, as he takes a step into the room, he lets himself believe (or hope?) that there is a little more sweet in her expression now that he's here, that her burden has lightened just a little bit in his presence.

"I have a dream," she says by way of greeting, as he leans against the wall and scrutinizes her. He raises an eyebrow in response to her remark; this seems like an obvious place for a classic Richard Castle quip, but she rolls her eyes, barely suppresses a smile, and cuts him off before he can speak.

"I have a dream that someday soon, you'll come here, expecting to see me in all my hospital gown glory, except – " she pauses and widens her eyes wickedly before finishing, "Except – you'll find someone else in this bed. Because I will have been discharged, released from this endless nightmare of doing nothing, and gone home to get a good night's sleep."

His mind runs the gamut of possible responses, from I know a way you can get a good night's sleep to I bet 'someone else' wouldn't look nearly as good against these taupe walls to Funny, I have dreams that involve you not wearing a hospital gown too. But, given what's been on his mind tonight, he settles with "Heard they're discharging you tomorrow."

In response to her questioning glance, he allows himself a small smirk and says, "The nurse is a fan."

She nods, acknowledging the 'of course' that is implicit in that statement, and looks down at her hands; and then silence reigns in the room. He's content to just stand there, being with her, but after a few moments she breaks the quiet in a tone that simultaneously suggests a need to speak and a sense that the words are being pulled out of her.

"I cannot believe that I came down with appendicitis during this case. This case, of all cases."

Her tone is almost deceptively wistful and nonchalant, but there's a telltale waver at the end of her sentence that prompts him to look keenly at her. Her eyes are dry.

He struggles with himself to find a suitable response; the best that he can wrestle out is, "Beckett, you know there's nothing you could have done about that."

"I know, but still" – she looks away from him and he suspects that the tears have now appeared – "It makes me nauseous. Thinking about him, somewhere out there on the streets, stalking his next victim, because while I was busy getting my appendix out he got away."

"Hey, hey," he says softly, stepping away from the wall and towards her bed, hoping to find some way to diffuse her sudden emotional tension. She looks down, up, and down again, and her voice is the shakiest and lowest yet when her hand goes to the necklace resting on her bedside table and she murmurs, "His first vic – she was the same age as my mother."

She's still not crying, but to him this rare hole in her armor feels all the more raw for her apparent composure. He steps closer yet and reaches tentatively towards her; then stops as a sudden flood of thought reminds him why he couldn't sleep tonight, why he's here in the first place.

She senses his hesitation, and looks up at him from within the curtain of hair that she's allowed to fall over her face. With an expression that's suddenly more candid than anything he's used to, she looks at him and says quietly, "Castle, how did we get here?"

Again, a whole range of responses spring to mind. Should he play dumb? Meet her head-on? Admit that that's the answerless question that's been keeping him up more than any other recently? Is he ready for this conversation?

In true Beckett form, though, she doesn't wait to see if he's ready or not; she simply barrels on. "Me with Josh, you – as of recently – not with Gina. Again. How did we get here?"

He wants so badly to hold her, comfort her, stroke her hair and tell her that everything's going to be alright – but he knows that he's lost that right, lost it ever since months ago when he allowed himself to utter the infamous words "no flag on the play". All he can do is settle for sitting down next to her on the hospital bed – it's a relief when she unhesitatingly moves over to give him room – and staring at his own hands.

"It's my fault." He responds to her question in the hoarse voice of someone who's spent months not acknowledging his failure, blaming fate, bad timing, other people; someone who's now too drained by the run-around to offer anything but the truth. "I didn't fight hard enough for you. I'm the reason that we're here."

For a moment, he thinks that she's either satisfied with his response or regretting bringing up the topic in the first place, because she doesn't say anything – but then he realizes that she's biting her lip and fighting to speak without letting the tears fall, and he's suddenly worried that she's putting herself at more strain than she should be when she's just had surgery.

"No, don't," he cuts her off abruptly. "It's been a long week for you. Don't think about all this right now." He scoots closer and surprises her by pulling her head down onto his shoulder (it's another relief when she doesn't fight his touch). This is the best he can do, he thinks, but even if nothing else, maybe he can ease her mind for a little bit, because right now he sees that she can't clear the hopeless guilt from her view and could really use a distraction more than anything else.

"Close your eyes, and think about somewhere happy – some place where you're not in that itchy gown, and you're relaxing – or, or," he quickly amends, because this is Beckett he's talking to – "some place where you've just done something amazing. More…more amazing than what you do every day. You've just caught a would-be killer, and saved a life, and now the parents and husband and children of that life are looking at you like you're superhuman, like you've just stopped the world from ending. Because you have. And you know, in that minute, that you can do anything. Everyone adores you – you adore everyone – and you adore yourself. You can do anything, go anywhere, be anyone. You're empowered, and you're happy, and it's the perfect moment."

He feels something warm seeping through his shirt, and even though he can't see her face he suspects that she might have succumbed to tears. And in an instant, he feels like he might succumb too, when he hears what she whispers next.

"And you're there?"

His expression tightens, screwed up with a pain that swells and chokes; but still, he only hesitates for a brief moment before answering softly, "And I'm there."

Constructive criticism and reviews are welcome & encouraged. There's a chance that this might become a two-shot in the future because I have an idea for a vaguely related follow-up scene, but I make no promises about ever being able to write it – and so I'm marking this as complete for now.