AN: Hello Hello. This is a prompt from tumblr I filled and then was encouraged to make into a longer story. It's still pretty short, only about 4 chapters, but it expands upon what I had originally written. Thank you shout outs to Nadia for making the awesome cover art and Raina for assuring me the pacing worked well.


She groans as her eyes adjust to the lighting around her, or rather lack thereof. It's pitch black aside from a single beam of light shining from her right. A flashlight she quickly realizes. She turns her head toward the direction of the beam, drawing in a sharp breath at what it illuminates. Beckett turns her head to the side, sees Ryan sitting there with the same troubled expression on his face she's sure is present on hers.

"Ryan," she croaks out his name, confused as to why her voice sounds so hoarse. "How?"

He shines the light around the rest of the car, every window revealing dirt instead of sky.

"You don't think someone just covered your car in dirt do you? To give off the illusion that we were -" he trails off, not willing to finish that sentence.

No, no, no this isn't happening. This is impossible. There's no way.

Beckett glances warily out her driver's side window. "Do we dare try to roll down a window and find out?"

"That could just end in disaster if we really aren't above ground. Try your radio."

She tries the police radio first, barely getting static feedback as a response. Ryan reaches for the dials on the radio of the musical variety, but can't manage to find a signal on any of the stations either.

"How?" Beckett asks again. "This guy was burying people in shipping crates, not full cars."

This a joke. Some sick, twisted joke. She's ready for the host of this stupid prank show to run out and say "gotcha."

Ryan shakes his head. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"We had him in our sights. We got out of the car and were chasing him on foot and then..."

His eyes widen. "Right? I can't remember anything past that."

"Do you think we were drugged?" she asks, spying what might be a needle mark on his neck. It's hard to tell with this lighting, so she reaches up to turn on the overhead lights. They don't help much, but it's an improvement. "There's something on your neck. Do I have one too?"

She turns her head and can see him nodding out of her peripheral vision.

"I don't know how, but it happened. How else did we get stuck here?"

She feels like she's going to be sick. "Better question, how do we get out?"

Ryan grows silent, shining the flashlight around at the windows again. "What happens when we run out of air? There's two of us. We'll die half as fast as the other victims."

She feels her blood run cold at the thought. "This car is bigger than those shipping crates though. That should help, shouldn't it?"

They fall into another silence, fear lacing its way through their veins.

"How deep do you think we're buried?" Ryan asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I wouldn't think very deep because it's a car, but - do you even think we're still in New York?"

He lets out a long, frustrated sigh, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Maybe it's a good thing the wedding is still two months away. I can't make Jenny a widow if I never married her."

Beckett reaches out and smacks his arm. "Don't think like that. We're going to get out of here."

"How, Beckett? If we're not even in New York anymore, how will they ever find us? Even if we are -"

"Do you think the GPS on our phones still work?" she cuts him off. "Could they be tracking those?"

"What if they don't even realize that we're missing until it's too late?" he asks, ignoring her.

"Kevin," she grits out his first name in an attempt to get him to snap out of it.

"How are you not thinking about it?" he asks softly. "About everything you have to lose?"

She lets out a deep exhale, frustration and anxiety forming a knot in the pit of her stomach.

"Because I did not survive a bullet through the heart to die a couple months later being buried alive."

He gets quiet again after that, flicking off the flashlight, and sinking back against the seat. Even now she can feel the tears prickling at her eyes. She doesn't want to think about it, can't think about it. Can you lose something you never even had?

"Did you hear what he said?" Beckett asks when she can't stand the silence any longer.

"Hear what who said? Our killer?"

She knows he means our because that's how they refer to their perps all of the time. But there still feels like there's a double meaning attached today.

"No. Castle. When I - when I got shot."

He nods, turning to face her in the dim overhead lighting. "Did you?"

She presses a hand against her chest, the swelling anxiety making her scar feel tight. "I've been lying to him, Kev. He thinks I didn't hear him, but -" She swallows down the words. Saying them to Dr. Burke was hard enough. "We have to get out of here. He has to know that I - that I -"

"You love him too," Ryan supplies.

Beckett nods, chewing on her lower lip.

"Why keep it from him? We've all seen the way he looks at you. He clearly wasn't just making it up in the heat of the moment."

She skims her index finger mindlessly around the steering wheel. "He never tried to say it again while he was sure I was conscious. I just wanted to be sure I guess. But facing my mortality for a second time...I'm sure. When we get out of this, I'm going to tell him."

"Yeah, but Kate, how are we going to get out of this?"


When he hears the knock on the front door of the loft, a part of him hopes that it's Beckett. She's been opening herself up to him slowly again lately. It was like she was finally beginning to tear down that wall she had told him about that day on the swing set. And he was ready. Ready for her to walk through that door, wanting to start something however small.

But when Castle pulls open the front door, Beckett isn't the one standing there. Esposito is.

He opens his mouth to greet him when Esposito starts talking before he can even get a word out. "Have you heard from Beckett? Or Ryan even?"

Castle scrunches his eyebrows together. "I - no. They went to chase down that lead and I came home to help Alexis with something for school. You haven't heard from them yet? Hasn't it been like two hours?"

He feels his breath catch in his throat, his stomach filling with dread. But maybe he's wrong. Please let him be wrong.

"No one at the precinct has heard from them. And I'm worried that we were right about our suspect being our killer and -"

"No," Castle cuts him off, not wanting to hear him say the words they're both thinking.

"Two hours, Castle, and we can't get a hold of them. What else could it be?" Esposito pauses, his face going pale. "Unless they're already dead."

"No," he responds, more forcefully this time, shaking his head. "They can't be - We'll find them." He starts looking around the loft frantically for his keys and his phone. "We'll find them."

"I was supposed to be the one with my partner," Esposito says softly from his spot rooted in the doorway. "But I was talking to Lanie and Ryan thought I was taking too long so he grabbed Beckett instead. She shouldn't even be there. If something happens to her - if something happens to either of them -"

Castle tries to search his brain for something reassuring to say. But he's normally the one stuck with Beckett in these near death situations. He's not use to being on the other side. And Esposito is the last person he ever thought he'd have to offer comfort to.

"Don't start blaming yourself for this," Castle says, finally locating his phone and pulling it away from the charger. "We don't even know if they've been...buried." He pauses as he picks up his keys. "Is Gates even going to let me help with this?"

"We're down two detectives. As much as she doesn't like you, I can't see her turning away the help on this one."

Castle follows Esposito out to his car, feeling very out of place in his passenger seat. He almost doesn't want to ask the next question that pops into his mind, but knows that if he doesn't at least try to work it out with someone, it will just gnaw away at him.

"Do you think he buried them separately or together? Because if they're in the same crate, they're going to run out of air twice as fast."

He hears Esposito curse under his breath. "What happened to that 'we don't even know if they've been buried' attitude you had going on?"

Castle shrugs, slumping in the seat as he stares at the window while Esposito pulls the car into traffic. "I guess I can't chase the thought out of my head."

Silence fills the car, the noises of city traffic taking over. Castle eventually decides that he has to speak again or else the thoughts in his head will take him to a very dark place.

"What made you decide to come get me?" he asks. "I mean you could have just called."

Esposito draws the silence out a moment longer before he finally answers. "I had to get out of the precinct. Waiting for them to return my calls was making me a little crazy. I tried going where Ryan said they were headed first, but there was nothing to find. Figured while I was out, I might as well bring you in to help."

There's another long pause that only gets stretched out longer as a fire truck and ambulance try to make their way through the traffic to save whoever needs saving.

"They're like family to me, you know?" Esposito says once the sound of the sirens has faded into the distance.

Castle nods, the worry still knotting and twisting in his stomach. "Yeah, I know."