Something kept me standing by that hospital bed,

I should have quit but instead,

I took care of you

-Kettering by The Antlers

"I'm sorry, but do we look like we have room for this?" Rick sighed tiredly, waving his hand over the crowded hospital lobby. "Those rooms are for actively recovering patients, not lifeless bodies."

The nursing home representative sent him a cool glare, and yeah, maybe that was a little uncalled for, but this was a busy hospital with little space available as it was, and now the people of the board had just decided that a few of the nursing home patients could reside here while their current residence underwent construction. How was that fair?

He sighed again - in resignation this time - and directed his hand towards the elevator.

"Floor three is our most vacant area, there should be room up there."

"Thank you, Doctor Rodgers." the woman replied coldly, her eyes narrowed disapprovingly as she passed.

Rick watched as the nursing home staff carefully wheeled in the six patients that would be staying at the hospital, all coma patients by the looks of it. He was prepared to turn away, head back to check on the man he had performed emergency surgery on just a few hours before, when he saw the last patient being pushed through the lobby doors.

"Excuse me, who's this?" he asked, subtly approaching one of the male nurses before he could completely make it into the building, attempting to keep the horror from his voice as he stared down at the woman in the gurney.

"Oh, this is Katherine Beckett," he answered easily, clueless to any interest Rick may have shown in her. "You know her?"

Kate.

"Uh - no, she just…she looked familiar."

"Ah, well, real shame, huh? Such a pretty girl."

"What happened to her?" he murmured, refraining from reaching out to brush the soft strands of stray hair from Kate Beckett's face.

He did know her.

"Car accident almost two years ago. Not sure what happened, but she hit her head, went into a coma, never woke up." The younger man shrugged while Rick strolled with him through the hospital lobby towards the elevators.

Morning subway routes. A night at a bar. Hazel eyes glinting with clever mischief. He knew her.

"Well, see ya around, Doctor Rodgers." the attendant chirped, wheeling Kate forward into the lift and leaving Rick behind.

The nursing home representative eyed him skeptically, obviously having witnessed the exchange, and he quickly turned away.

Kate Beckett. He knew her.

Rick took the subway home even though he knew walking would be quicker at this time of night. But after seeing her in the hospital today, lifeless and sentenced to unconsciousness, he felt drawn to the first place he had ever laid eyes on Katherine Beckett.

It had been at least three years ago, he had been running late - really late - and if he would have been late to work again, he would have risked losing his job at the hospital that year. He hadn't meant to stay up so late writing the night before and then sleep through his alarm the next morning, it had just happened. For the third time that month.

He remembered sighing in relief as the train took off, leaving his arrival to the hospital up to the silver bullet he and fifty other people had been squeezed into. He had known most of the passengers – sort of – saw them all on a daily basis, and it was because of them that his morning subway ride had become his favorite part of the day.

On occasions when he was actually on time in the mornings, he would take out his black moleskin notebook and write one of the loyal subway patron's stories, spinning an elaborate tale about the life of the man with the green umbrella always tucked under his arm despite the weather or the woman with the electric blue streaks in her otherwise uncolored blonde hair.

People watching - it had been and still was his absolute favorite past time. That was why when someone new had come aboard on the first stop that morning three years ago, he had noticed.

There had been two of them, a man and a woman, but it was the woman - the gorgeous woman - that had caught his eye the moment he saw her face in the crowded train.

He'd immediately noticed that she rode the train with ease, telling him she was likely a native to the city, and he couldn't help but enjoy the view of her lean figure standing confidently to the side while she allowed another couple to take the last two open seats, much to her partner's chagrin.

She had the face of a model, but most days she wore suits, slimming slacks that accentuated her height and fitted blazers that clung to her frame. Some days she would wear leather jackets and tight jeans instead, though, which he always appreciated. And she was always in heels – tall, towering four-inch heels that always left him wondering how she walked anywhere, let alone strode out of the train with such great confidence once they reached her stop.

Her appearance made the task of narrowing down her profession much harder than he had anticipated, but he'd always liked a challenge. The endeavor of learning her eye color had become his greatest feat though, but had always remained an ongoing mission - as it was hard to determine someone's eye color from afar without staring creepily for long periods of time.

Despite Rick's restless love for books and writing, he had grown to despise the concept of love at first sight. For this woman, he had made an exception. He was hopelessly infatuated. For over six months, even after he made the discovery that taking the subway took him longer than simply leaving his loft early and walking, he shared a train with fifty strangers, and the beautiful woman. He never spoke to her, only admired her from his usual place a few seats down. The man who accompanied her - a dark haired male who looked as if he spent the majority of his time at a gym - had luckily not been an everyday companion. Rick liked to pretend he was a brother or a cousin or perhaps a friend who was interested in the opposite gender, but on one of the few times he had seen the two of them on the subway together, he had witnessed the muscular escort snake an arm around her waist or peck a quick kiss to her lips.

He had hated muscle man.

But he'd loved the beautiful woman - as silly as that sounded when he hadn't even known her - so he had started writing about her, even when he wasn't on the subway.

At first, writing anything other than Derrick Storm had been a hobby he only pursued out of boredom or spare time, like on the subway when he had nothing better to do, but the mystery woman - that he now knew as comatose Kate Beckett - had caused steady streams of words and countless hours of stories to plague his brain more than ever before. With him as the writer and her as the muse, he wrote multiple scenarios, hundreds of pages, all starring her. Most of them consisted of him actually speaking to her, something he had never accomplished in reality.

Eye contact had finally been made for the first - and final - time the last day he ever saw her on the train. She had glanced up at just the right moment, caught him staring at her, and the hazel orbs of her eyes, rimmed with brown and feathered with flecks of gold, had been ingrained into his memory. He would never forget them, or the charming smile she had shared with him.

That had been well over two years ago.

She hadn't miraculously awoken the moment he saw her again like she would have in the books or the movies, but even he - ever the skeptic - had to admit it was quite the coincidence to have the woman he had fallen in love with on the subway under his care - comatose, but in his life nonetheless.

If fate was real, it was funny, but it definitely wasn't fair.

A/N: I'm aware there's a great possibility that this concept may have been used to some extent in the past, but I do have a clear outline of where I intend to take this story, and I hope you'll stick with me through this little journey.