This is my first Castle fanfiction, so I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle or The Fault in Our Stars.


The second she walked into that class, she knew it was going to be one hell of a year.

She had just gotten out of her wild child phase.

Okay, that was only a ploy to get her parents to allow her to go to Stanford.

She was trying to be a better person, though. She was trying, and that's why she was taking Literature. Writing was the one thing that could calm her down and make her feel normal for a little. Reading was her only escape. Literature was supposed to make her a better person.

She lowered herself in her seat, when she recognized the boy who had helped her move into her dorm the other night. Javier.

"Hey, chica. I didn't peg you for a Lit kind of girl," he commented, slipping into the seat next to her.

"Javier, right?"

He nodded.

"Do you have plans for tonight?" he asked.

Her head tilted, and she almost laughed.

"I'm new in town, and it's a school night."

He shrugged.

"I was going to suggest us hanging out in your dorm tonight."

"A little forward, don't you think?"

"No, that wasn't what I was suggesting," he explained as she raised an eyebrow. "I was going to order in Chinese and hang out while we do French homework. You are taking French, right?"

"Yeah, of course," Kate replied, feeling kind of idiotic at this point. "Okay. I'll see you then."

"Any specific time?" he asked, pulling his notebook out.

"I'll be in all night, really."

"Katherine Beckett," a deep voice called from the front of the room.

She realized that the professor was taking roll call.

"Present," she replied into the room.

Roll call continued as she opened her notebook, beginning to doodle. She knew her literature inside and out. This class would be a—

"No doodling in my class," the deep voice said, much louder (as its source was no longer located at the front of the room, but next to Kate).

Her professor placed a book on her desk, then on Javier's.

"Miss Beckett, I'd like you to please pay attention."

She sighed, nodding.

She watched as her professor walked back to the front of the room.

He had sandy brown hair, cobalt eyes behind his square eyeglass frames, and he was tall. From what Kate could see through the green button-up shirt rolled up to his sleeves, his muscles were larger than average. And he had an intellect. And a really nice voice. He couldn't have been much older than her and Javier.

She stared at the book cover.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

She had read this book before. She'd read this book at least five times. It was definitely a favorite.

"Can anyone tell me why I would choose this book?" the professor asked.

Several hands shot up.

"Miss Beckett," he called. "Your opinion?"

She took a deep breath before replying.

"The book has many metaphorical aspects, which are of course not as obvious to the literarily impaired."

Her professor nodded.

"Very good, Miss Beckett. Very good."

~x~

She was talking to Javier about their plans for tonight (whether there would be movies, what he should order, what he needed help with for French) at lunch.

She liked Javier, but she knew that they wouldn't ever amount to anything other than friends, and it seemed that he knew that too. She was already feeling fairly comfortable with him, which was nice. She needed a friend in town, and Javier was a good one.

She got in line to buy a bag of chips, leaving Javier at the table they were sitting at in the campus-coffee-shop-that-sold-lunch.

Someone tapped her shoulder, so she turned.

"Professor Rodgers," she said, surprised.

"Miss Beckett," he replied, putting a hand out for her to shake.

"Please, call me Kate," she shook his hand in response.

"Kate. You were wonderful in class today."

"Thank you, Professor Ro—"

"Rick," he insisted, cutting her off as she reached the register. He handed a five dollar bill to the clerk over Kate's shoulder. "I'm paying for her, too."

Kate's hazel-green eyes met her professor's cobalt, shaking her head.

"No, I can't let you do that," she argued. "It's okay. I can pay for my own chips."

He laughed.

"Take it as an apology for yelling at you earlier," Rick said, receiving a receipt for his sandwich and her chips. "See you in class, Kate."

Kate watched as her professor walked away. Finally, she snapped out of her trance and walked towards Javier.

"What was that?" Javier asked.

"He paid for my chips," Kate replied, showing him her Lays.

Javier only nodded.

His phone rang, signaling his next class.

"I'll see you later, but I've got to go make bio," he stood, leaving the coffee shop.

Kate finished her bag of chips and began to get to her next class as well.

~x~

She sat in her green plaid fleece pajama pants and her light gray NYU sweatshirt, her prescription Ray Ban Wayfarers now on, as she read The Fault in Our Stars.

Even though she knew how the book ended, her heart continued to break at the first line of Chapter Twenty-One.

There were knocks on her door, so she put her hair in a ponytail and answered the door.

"Hey, Javi. Come on in," she said, waving him in and taking a bag of Chinese food. "What'd you get?"

"I got Lo Mein and sushi. I wasn't sure what you wanted, so I picked up some fried rice and sweet and sour chicken too," he replied, plopping his backpack on the floor next to Kate's couch.

"I've already done the French homework," she muttered.

"Oh, that's fine. Me too."

She unpacked the brown paper bags, laying out the contents on the table. She pulled two bowls out of her cupboard, filling her own with a little bit of everything and grabbing a pair of chopsticks from among the spread out contents.

Javier did the same, nodding towards The Fault in Our Stars.

"You like it?" he asked.

"I've read it before, but yeah. It's a favorite."

"Does she die?"

Kate was startled.

Even back in New York, no one ever asked her about a book's ending. Perhaps that was because her friends in New York weren't readers, and that her mom had never been one to read ahead.

She looked for the words, trying to decide if she should tell him or not, and decided finally on the latter.

"You should just read it. It would be a crime for me to tell you."

He chuckled, scooping food into his mouth.

"So, what do you think of Lit?"

"It's okay. It's only the beginning, so how would we know?" Kate commented. "It is a year-long course."

"True. What do you think of the professor, though?"

"He's okay."

Javier agreed as he pushed a Spicy Tuna Roll into his mouth.

"He's young," he said softly.

"Yeah, that's different though, right? I guess college is when you might actually start to have teachers that are anywhere near your age."

It was silent, but no necessarily awkward.

"Hey, you know what? Let's put on the TV. I think my How I Met Your Mother DVDs are in the cabinet on the…left?" Kate offered as Javier got up to put a DVD in.

"You know, Becks," he began, testing the nickname and deciding he liked it. "You're cool."

~x~

Kate woke up the next morning on the couch, noting that Javier had probably left to get showered and dressed for class.

She looked around and saw that the Chinese boxes from last night were in the garbage and the bowls were in the sink. The only thing that hadn't changed other than her position on the couch was the How I Met Your Mother menu screen still playing.

She got up and showered, shuffling with her schedule to see which classes she had today. She still had time to kill, so she chose to take a walk and read, then stop at the coffee shop for breakfast.

Nothing interesting, she decided, grabbing her backpack and her copy of The Fault in Our Stars.

When she had scoped out the campus on the first day of her arrival, she made sure to find which path was less traveled—not simply to be symbolic—but so that she could read all she wanted as she walked without killing someone with her carelessness.

The path less traveled, she discovered, was the small dirt path near her dorm. The path would lead her to most of her classes, with the exception of French and whatever she had after Literature. She pulled TFiOS out of her bag, walking at a steady pace as she read.

She felt the blood rush to her cheeks when she bumped into a body, and blushed even harder when she heard his voice.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I should have—" the voice paused. "Kate?"

She chuckled nervously.

"Oh, Professor Rodgers. What are you doing here?"

"I'm on my way to the library. And call me Rick."

She nodded, taking his outstretched hand so that she could get up.

"What about you, Kate? What are you doing?"

"I have time to kill before class, so I thought maybe I would just get some breakfast and read some," she explained, showing him the book.

"You're reading that now? You still have a week to read it and you're already half way through," he said, starting to walk with her.

Kate silently cursed whoever decided that the library and the campus coffee shop should be five steps away from each other.

She had had crushes on teachers before, of course she had, but back then, it was always one sided. The teacher never replied or reciprocated or even talked to her outside of class. But now.

"I've already read it before so I decided to just re-read it and refresh my head because I have some other stuff to do."

"Oh, well what do you think about it?" he asked.

"It's tragically beautiful, of course," she replied.

"Why would you say that?"

She almost wanted to laugh.

"Are you serious? John Green is brilliant! Augustus is a character that is so unique and yet realistic. Hazel is—"

"Hazel isn't even the main character."

"Of course she is."

"It's mostly Gus's story."

The argument continued until the got to the coffee shop where Rick opened the door for Kate.

"I thought you were going to the library," Kate said.

"It's okay, let me buy you breakfast."

She paused for a moment.

"What?"

"We'll take-out, sit on the bench on our path, okay? I just want to talk to you some more," Rick said, turning to the clerk. "Two bearclaws and two coffees. One black and one—"

"Grande skim latte, two pumps of sugar free vanilla."

He smiled, nodding.

"That."

As their order arrived, they walked back towards the path that they'd come from.

They didn't talk this time, only stopping when they reached the sole bench.

"So how did you find this dirt path anyway?" Rick asked, pulling a bearclaw out of the white paper bag and handing her one, as well as her coffee.

"I scoped it out when I first visited. What about you?"

"When I was a student here, I hung out on this bench for most of the time that I wasn't in my dorm or in class."

"How long ago was that?" she asked nervously.

"Oh, it was only five years ago."

Five years. He was five years older than her. That was definitely a reasonable age difference, right?

Her phone rang, since Javi had suggested she set alarms for her classes, so she got up.

"Thanks for the breakfast, Rick. I have to get to class—"

"Would you like to go to dinner so that we could discuss some more?"

She blinked quickly, as if she couldn't believe he'd just asked that.

"Aren't there rules against teachers and students dating?" she commented.

He relaxed against the bench.

"We're only discussing, Kate. If it leads to me walking you to your dorm and kissing you on the doorstep, that's a completely different story."

She took a deep breath.

He was sweet and handsome, yes. And so what if there were rules? She hasn't given a crap about them for the last four years of her life, so why should she start now? Besides, it was only discussing.

"Yes, that sounds fine, I suppose. Friday night, seven pm. I really have to get going."

"See you in Literature, Miss Beckett."

She only walked away, slightly disappointed in herself.

It was only one rule.


A/N: I've never been to Stanford, so I wouldn't know the mapping or anything...sorry? Thanks for reading!