I've got six - count 'em, six - works-in-progress that are all at various stages of stuckage, so I wrote this to decompress. Reviews of any sort - short, long, positive, negative - are always welcome.

Beckett is the first into the empty garage, and the first to see him, though Ryan and Esposito are right behind. More approaching sirens can be heard well behind. There are bags under her eyes and her hair is a mess.

The duct tape on his mouth prevents him from speaking and the ropes that bind his arms and legs to the chair prevent him from gesturing. He tries to indicate something repeatedly with his eyes, but the meaning is lost.

They have their guns out and they scan the nooks and crannies even as they rush up to him. something under the chair catches Beckett's eye and she crouches in front of Castle to see.

When she sees, she freezes. Then, with incredibly slowness, she turns to her comrades. "Ryan, Esposito," she says, "I need you to go set up a perimeter outside."

"Beckett?"

"And get bomb squad here now."

For a single moment, they are both still. Then, throwing Castle sympathetic glances, they both flee.

"Okay," Beckett says. She looks at the bomb again, and then again at Castle. Castle stares back at her through wide eyes. He's bleeding a little from a long cut down his shin. "Castle," she says, "I'm going to take the duct tape off. Can you sit still?"

He nods with a jerk. His eyes shut in anticipation.

She puts one hand on the chair for support and gathers the very edge of the tape between thumb and finger of the other. Then she pulls.

He gasps and the skin around his lips is bright red with the irritation, but he doesn't move.

"All right," she says. "There are pressure sensors in case you try to get up, and it looks like the ropes are hooked right in to it."

Castle offers an open-mouthed smile. "I had a dream a lot like this once."

She lets him get away with that, because she knows he's had a hard day.

The walkie-talkie at her hip crackles to life, and it's Esposito's badly distorted voice. "Bomb squad's ten minutes out."

Beckett's eyes and hands clench. When she opens them again, she finds that Castle is still staring right at her.

"I don't have ten minutes, do I?"

"No," says Beckett.

"You should get out of here." He looks away, though. There's nothing here to look at, besides her, but he suddenly won't meet her eyes.

She takes her hand from where it still rests against the seat of the chair and lets it rest atop his own. "Not yet."

"Thanks," Castle says. His mouth has gone dry, and his words are barely more than whispered. He looks down at the place where their hands rest together. It's almost something, but he's still not meeting her eyes. "And Alexis?"

"I promised," says Beckett, which is true.

"Don't let her do what you did," he says. He purses his lips. "No offense," he says. "It's just-"

"Oh, for God's sake," says Beckett. Then she drives one hand right into the pocket of Castle's pants.

"Um, not that I don't appreciate the - uh - the sentiment," says Castle.

Beckett withdraws her hand, holding Castle's phone. She rotates so that she is sitting rather than crouching, with the phone and her eyes angled up at the seat bottom. An electronic sound of a fake shutter-snap is made, and then Beckett rotates back around and starts punching in a phone number.

"Or we could do that," Castle says.

The phone rings. Beckett answers. "Yeah?"

She flips around yet again and lies down underneath the chair. "No, they're all black. Okay, yes, I see those."

"Now I know how a car feels when it's in the shop," says Castle.

"Shut up," says Beckett. "No, not you. Him. Okay, there are leads on both sides of the watch."

"What, a wristwatch?" asks Castle. An edge of annoyance finds its way into his voice. "I bet it's digital, too. This guy sure sounds cheap."

Beckett says, utterly matter-of-factly, "I'd hit you right now, except I would probably die."

"So I've got a captive audience?"

"What? Something conductive?"

"No," says Castle patiently, "Captive."

"Shut up," says Beckett. Into the phone, she says, "What about a gold chain? Um, 14 karat? All right."

Beckett pulls the phone away from her ear long enough to pull the gold chain up over her head. She undoes the clasp, one-handed, and slides the ring from the position it kept for so long.

"Okay," she says, "I've got it. What now?"

Castle laughs. "Funny," he says. "You're a lot hotter than Richard Dean Anderson."

As she winds the chain around some half-hidden parts of the device, Beckett chokes on a laugh. "He got a lot hotter when he ditched the mullet," she admits, then, "Okay, done." She waits, then replies: "What about keys?"

"Oh, this sounds great," says Castle.

Beckett selects one thin key from her keychain and sets to work sawing on two wires. Castle leans over, trying to see, and immediately gives up when he feels one side of the chair start to rise.

"Done," says Beckett. "Yeah. Yes." She pauses. "You're sure?"

"Sure about what?" asks Castle.

Beckett ignores him. Into the phone, she says, "Well you're not the one who's six inches from this thing when it goes wrong. All right? All right."

Then, with incredible delicacy, she reaches up into the bowels of the bomb, takes hold, and begins to pull. The watch comes gently loose. Beckett lets her breath out, slides out from under the chair, and watches with Castle as the watch, bereft of power, ticks down the last few seconds. It's cheap, black, plastic, and digital.

"So I'm going to live?" asks Castle.

Beckett lets his phone drop from her ear. "Well, you're still tied to a bomb. But now we've got time to wait for the experts to get here."

"Sorry about your ring, by the way."

She stands back up, cracking her knuckles and her vertebrae audibly. "I only used the chain," she says. "I can get another."