A/N: I've been playing with this idea in my head forever so I figured I would see how it goes. Each chapter will match up with a song, mostly songs by Justin Timberlake.

Background: Richard Castle is 30 years old, his daughter Alexis is 6, he is in the middle of Derek Storm. Post-Meredith, Pre-Gina. Kate Beckett is 24 (Yes, I know it doesn't match the timeline in the show but I'm taking creative liberties), neck deep in an obsession with her mother's unsolved murder and her father's addiction, Post-Will.

Please listen to the song that goes with each chapter.

Song: watch?v=DPKglboFfuU

What Goes Around... Comes Around

Rick hates this night, absolutely detests, utterly despises, holds unbridled disdain for it.

Some of his idiot buddies, who incessantly ride his coat tails, thought that taking Rick out on the town would cheer up his gloomy, pathetic ass. And by taking him out, they meant Rick would be getting them into the clubs and opening a tab on his dollar. Yeah, super great friends- the type of friends Rick wants to have a fight club kind of thing with.

But, never the less, Rick put on the cheesy bachelor smile and played his part of suave, care-free ladies man. It beat sitting at home avoiding writing like it was the clap and swimming in his self-loathing. What the fuck happened to me? Rick thinks to himself.

However, Rick could only take so much of that annoying fake giggle from women with zero ambition and lewd bro-talk that dismantles and destroys the English language. So he snuck off, away from his drunk parasitic "friends" and the horde of whores, Ha, pretty funny alliteration, Rick applauds himself. He is now sitting at the far corner of the bar, hidden from sight by the separating wall of the first booth, nursing a double of whiskey. Apparently swimming in self-loathing was still on the itinerary for tonight.

He feels as though every time there is a reprieve in distraction his brain runs through his list of failures, which has grown to be fairly extensive in the last year: Cheated on by his wife, divorced by his wife, mother moved back in- that may be the most humiliating of them all. And most recently, he had been broken up with by his ex-wife... Yes, the one that cheated on him and divorced him. Pathetic.

Meredith had come back into town for a court ordered visit to see Alexis. The fact that she had to be ordered by the court to visit her child should have been the red flag that halted is idiotic, optimistic imagination. But nope, he was so desperate on behalf of Alexis to have Meredith be at least the image of an caring mother that Rick even paid for her plane ticket and let her stay at his loft. Mistakes number two and three.

Mistake number one, is reserved for marrying such a careless, inconsiderate bitc-... She's the mother of your child, she's the mother of your child, she's the mother of your child.. inconsiderate woman.

But the fourth mistake, the one that has him in the dark corner of a club ordering a bottle of $220 Macallan Fine Oak Scotch Whiskey for himself, was sleeping with said careless, inconsiderate bitch, Yeah I said it. The mother of my beautiful, sweet daughter is a total bitch.

Meredith spent a week at the loft, things seemed to easily fall back into the ways of their glory days, at least that's what Rick thought.

By the second night Rick felt like they were an actual family as he called his girls for the dinner he made and Mere and Alexis painted each other's toenails.

By late on the third night wine had loosened Rick's tongue and erased his good judgement it seems since he found himself in bed with Meredith.

On the fourth morning Meredith told him that she missed him and missed being a family. They made a smiley pancake breakfast together for Alexis.

The fifth day, made Rick think that all the grief of the divorce was for nothing as he and Meredith held hands through Central Park and the zoo while Alexis bounced on his shoulders.

The sixth day, that's where the shit hit the fan so to speak. It was the day that Rick realized that he and Meredith were not getting back together, they would never be a family, and, in a funny twist of irony, she was actually cheating on her boyfriend when she slept with Rick. Gee isn't that swell!

"Ricky baby, it was a fun week, but it wasn't real. I was just playing the part," she said on the seventh morning. "Im an actress it's what I do. Its not my fault you let your little imagination run away with you."

So thats his summary of a heartbreaking week which ended with him still being a 30-year-old divorcee, single dad to a 6 year old girl, and living with his mother. Only now he just has more baggage... Talk about forward progress! Damn I'm getting cynical. Rick pours himself another glass of amber liquid and swivels around on his bar stool, seeking out distraction for his own narrative and using his "little imagination" (and rugged good looks) to forget Meredith ever existed.

A/N: Thanks for reading. Hope you like it and will review.