Hello my faithful readers! For those of you who are following 'Be Ok' – I promise, I haven't given up on that story yet! This little plot bunny, however, has been rattling around inside my brain for over a week now and it just won't let me get any rest until I put it down on paper.

This story's gonna be pretty fluffy and much more in the tone that 'Colder' was. It'll be a challenge for me, though, in keeping Beckett and Castle in character, when they are clearly operating out of character. I expect you all to keep me in line with this one!

Without further ado! On with the fic!

Disclaimer: I don't even want to pretend to be associated with Andrew Marlow – until Josh is gone, I feel that he and all his associates needs to sleep with one eye open!

Beep….Beep….Beep…..Beep…..

As Kate Beckett clawed her way towards consciousness she became aware of a number of things – most of them unpleasant. An incessant and rhythmic beeping was relentlessly pinging against her eardrums like Chinese water torture, making her throbbing headache impossibly worse. The first rays of light to blister past her eyelids made her seriously consider never opening her eyes again, since she was pretty much convinced at this point that being permanently blind was better than ever experiencing that level of driving pain ever again.

As she lie there, her face screwed up in a grimace of pain, she slowly became aware of a hand holding hers gently. Eventually she also became aware of a familiar and comforting scent and she felt herself relax, feeling the pain in her skull loosen enough to try and crack her eyes open again one more time.

"That's right, Katie," she heard his soothing voice rumble softly, "it's time to wake up."

Hearing the thread of worry in his voice, she finally pries her unwilling eyelids open, bracing herself for a new wave of light induced pain, and is relieved to see that he's dimmed the lights since her first efforts.

His face is haggard and he looks like he's aged ten years since she last saw him. But the smile on his face as her eyes meet his is filled with relief and love.

"Daddy?"

Her voice is hoarse and her throat is dry as sandpaper. Taking a drink of water from the procured glass, she tries again. "What happened? Where am I?" she asks, taking in her surroundings for the first time. Immediately she locates the source of the incessant assault on her ears and she's surprised that it's being caused by her own heartbeat. "Why am I in the hospital?"

She doesn't miss the flicker of worry that crosses his face at her confusion and she feels her heart sink at the possible reasons for her current predicament. She does a quick assessment of her body as she waits for her father's answer, relieved to find all of her limbs intact and no signs of any deep or penetrating wounds that would indicate that she'd been shot. The only real pain that she's aware of is the persistent throbbing in her head.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

She tries to think back. She and Castle had been getting in her car to go…somewhere. 'Why can't I remember where we were going?' she wonders. Suddenly, pain shoots through her skull again as flashes of memory come back to her.

The snowstorm.

Taking Castle home.

A patch of ice.

The moving truck.

She feels the bile rise in her throat as she remembers the sound of metal crunching. Of Castle yelling out her name as the car spun around before slamming into something else and finally coming to a stop. She remembers nothing after that.

"Castle! Is he alright?" she's suddenly panicked as the thought of having lost him fills her mind. She's struggling against her father's arms and it takes her a few moments to realise that he's talking to her.

"Katie! He's ok!" she feels him loosen his grip on her shoulders slightly as she stops fighting him, the words finally sinking in.

"Where—"

Her words are cut off but the curtain beside her bed being opened by a certain red-headed matron, her eyes alight with amusement. Her jaw drops as Castle comes into view, sitting up in his bed playing cards with Alexis as though nothing at all were amiss in the world.

The relief that she feels seeing that he is ok is rivalled only by the flutter that she feels when she sees his face light up as he too realises that she's finally awake.

"Kate!" she smiles, letting his casual use of her first name slide given the circumstances. The smile drops off her face, however, when she sees him start to try and get out of his bed, pulling at his IVs in his rush to come over to see her.

"Castle! What are you doing?" she exclaims, trying to stop him from hurting himself worse than she already has. She sees a harried looking nurse rush into the room, undoubtedly called in by all the unhappy sounds that he's cause the machines to generate.

"Mr. Castle-"

"Look, Nurse Ratched! She's awake! My Kate's awake!"

The nurse smiles and rolls her eyes in a way that reminds Kate of herself when dealing with Castle at his most infantile.

"Is your name really—"

"No," the nurse smiles in her direction and they share a look of commiseration, "your dear friend here took to calling me that when he woke up two days ago and I wouldn't let him crawl into your bed."

"He's been trying to crawl into my bed for three years now,"she quips, rolling her eyes.

"Well I can't help it if you can't be wooed by my extensive charms," the man in question pouts, finally allowing the nurse and his daughter to fix his monitors and tubes before letting them help him up out of the hospital bed and across the room to check for himself that she really is alive and well.

"Oh Castle, you won me over ages ago—" her eyes widen as she realises that she's said those words aloud. She stares in mute horror at the others in the room, each of their faces reflecting the shock she feels, Castle frozen mid-stride only a few steps from her bed.

Finally snapping out of it, she finds herself quickly engulfed by his much larger frame, as he murmurs in her ear "Is that so, Kate?"

She shudders at his proximity though she is surprised by his lack of concern for showing such open affection in front of such a large audience, and she finds herself gently pushing him away from her. He's still holding her hand as he sits beside her on the bed, his other hand rising up to gently cup her cheek.

"I'm so glad you're ok" he murmurs, his eyes filled with emotions.

"My head hurts," she's surprised to hear herself tell him. He is too, from the startled look on his face. They had both expected her to say her usual 'I'm fine'.

'So why didn't I?' she puzzles.

Her thoughts are interrupted by the doctor entering the room.

"Ah! Ms. Beckett, you're awake. How are you feeling?" he smiles brightly.

"Like crap, actually. The lights are too bright, the monitors are too loud and I still don't know what's going on," her eyes widen in horror as she realises just how much information she has just blurted out. When she looks around the room this time, it isn't just shock that she sees on the faces of their collective family members, but something else that she can't quite place.

"Oh dear," she hears the doctor murmur quietly as she feels Castle's hand tighten around hers, "I take it that you're not typically this…uh…forthcoming, are you?"

She feels the heat rise up on her cheeks again as the others in the room all shake their heads vehemently in response.

Her voice is shaking a little as she asks the question that she's both terrified and desperate to hear the answer to. "What's wrong with me?"

"Well, Ms. Beckett, it appears that both you and Mr. Castle have suffered some temporary brain damage from the concussions that you received in the crash."

She feels like she's just had the wind kicked out of her. Brain damage? She feels the beginnings of a panic attack closing off her airways. But just as she's about to go into full hyperventilation, she hears the doctor continue.

"You need to calm down, Ms. Beckett. As I've said, it's just temporary. We've run our tests and scans and while there is some bruising of the brain and some minor swelling, we have every confidence that the problems will correct themselves."

"Wait a second—" she stops him as she registers a second bit of information, "both of us have brain damage?"

Turning to meet Castle's gaze she sees him shrug his shoulders, "apparently I can't control myself."

Despite the situation, she can't help but snicker. "Castle, you never could!"

"Well yes," the doctor breaks in, "but this time, medically speaking, the part of his brain that took the greatest hit, the frontal lobes, was the part that regulates impulse control. Mr. Castle here, very literally, has absolutely no filter between what he thinks and what he does."

She suddenly feels the pieces fall into place – the excesses of public affection, the nickname for the nurse, the impulsive struggle to get out of his bed at the risk of hurting himself.

She's afraid to ask, but she does anyways. "And me?"

"Well, Ms. Beckett, based on what our scans have shown us and on what we've seen here in the last ten minutes or so, it appears that the most significant damage occurred to your frontal cortex – that is, the part of your brain that controls your ability construct fallacies."

"What does that mean?" she hears herself asking, the horror of their situation slowly beginning to dawn on her.

"It means that you are no longer able to tell a lie."

Ok folks – let me know what y'all think. I understand that the entire premise of this story requires a great deal of willing suspension of disbelief. To be honest – I'm not even entirely certain that such medical conditions exist, and if they do – just how temporary they would be – but I think I saw cases of each of these problems on episodes of House (that's right, all my medical expertise comes from TV!...and Google :p).

At any rate – I'm just using their "medical conditions" as a means of torturing our two favourite heroes into admitting their feelings to each other...and providing high-larious entertainment value for all of you, of course!

I hope you all enjoyed! ^_^