A/N: I started this story a while back and had hoped to get it out before the new year. While that didn't exactly go as planned, I hope you guys enjoy regardless!

Kate Beckett paces the hallway, each nerve ending fried, body on edge as she wrings her hands together. Yet another doctor walks by, the fourth in the past half hour, and this time she's had enough.

"Excuse me, hi." She stops him, stepping in his path. "Sorry, yeah, hi. I've been waiting to hear something about my daughter for over an hour now and I'd really like to know what's going on."

"Name?"

"Annie Beckett," she sighs, just glad someone's listening. She watches as he glances down at his clipboard and then back to her, and she's not entirely convinced that stack of papers has anything to do with her daughter. "So? Anything?"

The doctor's eyes soften as he shakes his head. "She's still in surgery," he tells her. "One of the surgeons working on her will be out to talk to you as soon as they can."

With a curt nod he disappears, practically sprinting down the hallway in the way doctors always seem to when you need something. There one minute, gone the next, vanished as if they'd run at top speed just to avoid a simple question.

Still in surgery.

She forces herself to stop pacing, knows it's not doing anything but making her more anxious, and finds her way to one of the fairly uncomfortably looking chairs in the little lounge area at the end of the hall. She takes the one closest to the nurse's station, just in case someone starts looking for her, and plops herself into the worn leather. Her head falls into her open palms, elbows resting on her thighs.

This is definitely the last place she thought she'd end up on Christmas Eve-Eve.

Annie had complained of stomach pains earlier that morning and she'd tucked her into bed with some medicine, an ice pack to lay on her stomach to ease the pain just as her mother had done for her as a child. It seemed to work for a little while and the girl had managed to fall back asleep (or so she'd thought; leave it to her daughter to hold back on mentioning pain because she wants to be strong), but not an hour later Kate was jolted into a panic when she'd heard the most piercing scream coming from the room down the hall.

She almost broke her neck running to Annie's room and she'd walked in to the girl lying in her bed, tears streaming down her face and both palms cupped over the spot just above her right hip.

Picking up her daughter, still a dainty little thing at seven, she'd carried her to the car and drove as fast as she could to the emergency room.

Thankfully, having a wailing child in your arms tends to kick start the hospital staff into action. Annie was taken from her arms and transferred to a gurney in a matter of 60 seconds, tended to by a cluster of nurses asking questions about her symptoms and trying to calm the girl down.

There's nothing harder or more painful than hearing your child cry and not being able to do anything. Annie'd called for her, arms outstretched as she asked for her mother, and Kate rushed to her side, held her small hands in both of hers.

"It's okay, baby," she'd murmured as calmly as she could, not wanting to upset her any further. "It's okay. These nice nurses are going to take care of you, okay?"

"Mommy," Annie'd hiccuped in response, cheeks stained with dry tears. "Hurts."

She'd mustered the best smile she could. "I know, Ann, I know. They're going to fix it though, and then you'll feel all better."

"And then—and then we can get ice cream?"

The question caused a watery chuckle to escape, and she'd nodded, brushed the girl's damp bangs from her forehead. "Yes," she'd promised. "We'll get any kind of ice cream you want."

They'd rolled her away then, promising her that Annie was in the best hands possible and that they'd give her any updates as they got them.

Appendicitis. That's the diagnosis they give her when they come out, a mere fifteen minutes after they'd admitted her. They tell her she's going into emergency surgery; it's the "emergency" in emergency surgery that sets her off, has the tears she'd tried to fight all morning pricking at the backs of her eyes, but they explain that it's only because they don't want her appendix to rupture, which it seems to be on the brink of doing.

She sees her right before she goes in, dressed in the hospital gown she'd been changed into, looking oh so small beneath the sheet covering her body.

"I'll see you as soon as you're out," Kate promises her, pressing a kiss to Annie's forehead, lips lingering for a few extra seconds. "You're so brave, beautiful girl."

"I'm scared," Annie says, bottom lip trembling, a tell tale sign that she's trying her hardest not to cry. "I don't wanna—don't wanna have surgery."

She hums. "Shh, I know. But remember what I said earlier? About how much better you'll feel after this?" Annie gives a small nod. "Don't you want to feel better? You don't want your stomach to hurt like this forever, do you?"

That gets an aggressive head shake. "No."

"Then we have to let the doctors do their job, okay? Can you do that for me?"

The girl takes a deep breath, an action that seems to cause her more pain as silent tears fall from her eyes. Kate's heart breaks, cracks in her chest as she reaches out to wipe the tears with her fingers.

"I can do it," she says quietly.

"We should get her prepped now, ma'am," a nurse says, politely coming to her side with a hand on her shoulder. "She'll be okay."

Kate nods, lips pursed together because she cannot break down in front of her kid. She won't. Instead, she leans down one last time, hands braced on the railing of the hospital bed.

"I love you, sweet girl," she whispers, dusting one last kiss to the crown of her daughter's head.

"Love you too, Mommy."

The nurse wheels her away, leaves Kate to stand in the empty hospital room. It takes a mere 15 seconds for her composure to completely shatter, palms coming to cover her mouth as the sobs break free.

She pulls herself together after a few minutes, swipes at the tears beneath her eyes and takes a deep breath. Someone's likely to come into this room sooner or later, clean it and bring another patient in, and so she leaves, makes her way back out into the hallway to find somewhere to wait.

Sitting still seems impossible, but wandering the halls of the hospital doesn't seem all that appealing either.

She can't bring herself to even leave the floor her kid's on, paranoid that she'll be needed or that something will happen the second she gets in that elevator, and so she decides to find a place to take a break, sit down, and that's how she finds herself in the waiting room at the end of the hall.

The tears continue to roll down her cheeks but the sobs quiet down for now; she hates crying in public, doesn't like to show it, but god, this is her kid. She's been in the hospital more times than she'd like to admit: bullet wounds, scrapes with some knives, broken bones, but that's all her. That she can deal with. This? This she doesn't know how to handle.

Annie's never had any issues, never had any trips to the emergency room—save for that one time when she was a baby and she'd rolled off the couch in the 10 seconds Kate used to grab one of her toys. She'd rushed her to the emergency room, bawling, because she was terrified she'd broken her daughter. But she was fine; Annie rolled onto the pillow Kate was kneeling on at the time, giggled and barely made a whimper, but she freaked.

She feels a bit like that again, only now she's on edge for an entirely valid reason.

She's so busy trying to blink back tears, trying to avoid thinking about the look Annie'd given her as they wheeled her away, that she doesn't notice anyone else sit down in the waiting area, not until there's a small murmur of "excuse me" and she turns to find a man sitting beside her, a small packet of tissues in his extended hand.

"Oh." Letting out a watery chuckle, she sniffles, wipes at her tears before reaching out to grab a tissue. "Thank you."

"Of course," the man says, his voice soft. "Are you—I mean, it seems insensitive to ask if you're okay because you're obviously not, but..."

Lifting her head, she brings her gaze to the man next to her, takes him in. Stunning blue eyes, beautiful and bright even in the dingy beige hospital lighting, an attractive amount of stubble grazing his skin and a kind face. He looks familiar but she can't focus on placing him.

"I look a little crazy, don't I?"

He shakes his head. "No, you look like someone who cares very much about the person that's in the hospital right now."

She hiccups, a small smile forming. "My daughter. Appendicitis. You?"

"My mother, fell off stage after a drunk game of improvisation."

Kate winces. "Oh, wow, I'm sorry. I um, I hope she's okay?"

"She's a little banged up, a few bruises and a sprained wrist, but she'll be just fine. I take it your daughter's in surgery right now?" At her raised brow, he chuckles. "I had mine out as a kid too, and I can only assume my mother looked something like you do right about now."

"Oh," she breathes. "Yeah, still in surgery."

"It's a common surgery," he says, as if he's trying to reassure her, and she doesn't quite understand why. It's sweet, though, the effort. "I'm sure she'll be out in no time and then it'll all be uphill from there."

She offers him a smile. "Thank you..."

"Rick."

The name clicks somewhere in her brain, puts a face to a name and makes her realize where she knows him from. Richard Castle, mystery writer. His face is plastered on the book jackets of all of the most worn in books she owns, the books her mother'd owned before her and took solace in.

"Kate," she returns, shaking his extended hand.

A nurse comes by, politely calling Rick over with information about his mother. He gives the nurse a nod before turning back to her, a soft smile playing on his lips.

"That's my cue," he says, moving to stand. "It was nice meeting you, Kate. I hope your daughter feels much better after this."

She thanks him and watches as he goes, follows the nurse down the corridor and disappears from sight. The tissues remain in her lap still, serve as something for her hands to fiddle with, something to keep her busy.

A few painstaking hours later, she's finally given some updates.

The surgery goes smoothly, no complications, and Annie's brought to her own room on the same floor. Kate glances at her daughter from the doorway, makes sure she's really and truly there, the rise and fall of the white sheet ensuring that she's breathing.

"Everything went as well as expected," the doctor informs, looking from Annie to Kate. "We were able to remove the appendix before it ruptured and she should have a full recovery in no time."

Kate nods, lets out the breath she's been holding since Annie went in. "And how long is 'no time', approximately?"

"Well, we'd like to keep her here for a day or two for observation," he says, and she can feel herself deflate. A day or two means her daughter's likely going to have to spend Christmas in the hospital. "Providing there are no infections or adverse side effects, she'll be discharged and instructed to be cautious. It'll be sore for a while, so rest is important."

She thanks him as he turns to leave, and her attention shifts to the girl now asleep in the bed behind her. Dragging the chair closer to the edge of the bed, she takes Annie's tiny hand in one of hers, her thumb brushing against the bone of her wrist.

She sits by her side for the next hour or so and only settles when she's told by a nurse that it's completely normal for Annie to be taking this long to wake up, that the anesthesia effects people differently and will likely linger longer because of her small size. After a while, she lets out a sigh, eyes darting down to the phone she's neglected all day.

She'd let her father know what was happening earlier, ensured him that he didn't need to drive down and that she'd let him know what happens. She'll tell Lanie and the boys later; all they know is that she'd had an emergency and didn't have the time to explain why exactly she needed them to cover for her.

Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she contemplates calling Will.

A beat later, she releases the breath she'd been holding and decides that she should.

She takes one last look at her daughter and steps into the hallway, makes her way down towards the waiting area and leans her back against the wall as she dials the number she hasn't looked at in months.

"Will," she says by way of greeting. "I'm not that great actually. Annie's in the hospital. Appendicitis." There's a brief pause and then the answer she gets on the other line is oh. "Oh?"

Her blood begins to boil with everything he says, everything he doesn't say.

"That's all you have to say? Your daughter is in the hospital, just underwent surgery, Will, and it doesn't even sound like you care." He rattles off something about how of course he cares, but 'isn't that a really common surgery' and 'it's not like she broke a bone, Kate'. "No, she didn't break a bone. One of her organs almost ruptured. That could've—that could've killed her and you..."

She has to pause then, a hiccup of a sob escaping at the thought. A ruptured appendix is a serious issue and can cause so many problems if left unattended, including death. It's so painful for her, what could've happened if she hadn't gotten her to the hospital in time, that she has to cover her mouth, compose herself for a few seconds.

It's Will's voice in her ear that breaks her from her thoughts. She doesn't hear the first thing he says, only catches the tail end of his sentence. "I really should get back to work," he says, and her fist balls at her side. "Tell her to feel better, will you?"

"You can tell her yourself. She'll be here for a day or two, at least," she says. "She'll be stuck here for Christmas, and I'm sure it'd be a nice surprise if you stopped by."

"I'm in the middle of this rough case, Kate, I can't—"

"Can't break away from your job for ten seconds to visit your daughter in the hospital?"

He sighs in her ear. "Don't say it like that..."

"How should I say it, Will? Annie's currently still under anesthesia, in a hospital bed, and you don't even want to try to come see her."

"It's not like that. Listen, I have to go," he murmurs, the sounds of other officers chattering in the background floating into her ears. "I'm sorry, Kate."

She hangs up on him before she can hear any more of his excuses. He's never really been in Annie's life; she found out she was pregnant right before he left for Boston and even that wasn't enough to make him stay. He sends her a birthday card, a present here or there, but he rarely stops by.

She's not sure of the last time he even asked about their daughter without being prompted, the last time he seemed genuinely interested in any aspect of her life.

Kate's angry, sure as hell is she angry, but she thinks she's mostly sad. Sad for her daughter, the brilliant little girl in the room down the hall that deserves the world, deserves a father who cares for her and wants to be in her life.

Wiping hastily at her tears, she drops her head back against the wall, lets her eyes fall closed.

In the midst of her deep breathing, an attempt to calm herself before she heads back to Annie, she doesn't notice Richard Castle standing a few feet away, a pained expression painting his features after having heard the better part of her conversation.

A/N: Also, apologies for any inaccuracies regarding appendicitis. All of my knowledge comes from a younger cousin's relayed experience and google.