It's not Christmas yet which means I'm not late. This was written for beatingoutsamba's Christmas Story Exchange.

This is for StorySpinner44 who wanted a Board Game-themed story. Well, this is for you my dear.

Anyways, here you are. Oh, and follow me on twitter vatrask

Enjoy 3

"Do you realize how much I love you in red?" She jumped when his warm breath traced down her neck, sending shivers down her spine. He was standing behind her with the coat he'd magically retrieved from her chair when she wasn't looking, offering it to her with a special smile.

"Not as much as I love you in purple." She eyed his button down. It was old but a classic so she gave in to the temptation to lean into him, whispering in his ear "but I love you out of purple even more." As predicted, her boyfriend of eight months gulped and helplessly watched her put on her coat, turn her computer monitor off and brushed against him as she passed. "Coming, Castle?"

He was this close to responding but thought better of it. She patted the gun in her holster, just to be sure, as she felt more than heard Castle coming up behind her. It was late; it was basically empty on the floor – even Esposito had gone home for the night – but they had finally finished up the last of the paperwork on their cases.

"You guys heading out?" Ryan perked up from his desk as the duo passed him. "I'll join you." He grabbed his coat along with a small evidence baggie before they could say anything.

"What is that?"

"The knife we used to get Johnson to confess."

Beckett narrowed her eyes "we never found Johnson's knife."

"He doesn't know that." The Irishman smiled. He nodded at Castle. "What's with the candlestick?"

Castle sighed, exasperated "my mother decided to use my expensive candlestick as a prop for her 'physical movement' class and it was 'mysteriously broke through no fault of her own'." He rolled his eyes "I swear I don't even know why she has her own studio when she just uses all my stuff."

"Well your stuff's nicer," he reasoned as they slowly made their way to the elevator. The trio turned when they heard a light growl of frustration from behind them. "Sir?"

"Sorry, I was just trying to fix the heater in my office." Captain Gates, fell into step with them.

"Wasn't maintenance going to do that?"

"Two months ago," she waved the wrench in her hand frantically before dropping it in her oversized purse "they haven't even called me back so I decided to bring some tools from home to fix it." She growled again.

"I take it, you didn't have much luck?" Castle smirked which earned a glare from the Captain.

"No," she opened her mouth to speak more but the elevator dinged and all four of them froze as the doors opened on a Hispanic couple frantically kissing against the wall. Lanie had Esposito pressed firmly against the wall of the elevators, his hands pressed tightly to the railing to keep him upright. The four standing on the outside watched in a mixture of amusement and horror as Lanie pulled out a long piece of rope from her pocket and held it in his line of sight, causing him to moan in anticipation. That is…until Captain Gates cleared her throat and the pair turned their heads, frozen in place. In the moment of silence that passed between them, Esposito leaned into the railing and a piece of it broke off in his hands, causing the three…less than mature adults to start snickering. They were silenced by another glare from their captain who kept her eyes on the pair in the elevator.

"Well, are you two going to get off?" Again the three children had to bite their tongues – this time, earning a glare from Lanie.

"Actually sir we were just…heading home." Esposito cleared his throat, looking at the woman beside him "right?"

"Right." She nodded. The pair dispersed to either side of the elevator shaft as the other four stepped on, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

Just as the door was about to close, someone called out and grabbed the door. In stepped a pale looking uniformed officer who nodded to them all before turning towards the doors and folding his arms in front of him.

They had barely dropped down one floor before it suddenly bumped to a stop and the lights flickered off. There was a cacophony of worried murmurs and panicked shouts and then a loud thump before the lights finally came on.

The officer was lying on the floor, blood slowly pooling from somewhere around him.

"Oh my god." Castle exclaimed as he looked around at the rest of the elevator residents to find that everyone one – including himself – and their weapons raised in defense: Lanie had her rope, Esposito had his piece of metal, Gates had her wrench, Beckett had her gun, Ryan had his knife and Castle had his candlestick. It seemed everyone else made the same observation before swiftly lowering their weapons as Lanie dropped to her knees, feeling the man's pulse.

"He's dead." She ran a hand through his hair and found a large, fractured splice in his skull – the source of the bleeding – and she looked up. "Someone hit him over the head with a blunt object."

"So it could have been any one of you." Gates looked pointedly at her detectives – and Mr. Castle.

"With all due respect sir," Ryan piped up, replacing the knife in the fake evidence bag "it could have been you, too."

"Well I didn't do it."

"Neither did I." The elevator echoed back.

There was a moment of silence before Lanie took charge. "Well, it wasn't me because I had a rope." She turned over the man. "Did any of you know Mister…" she leaned over to read the nameplate "Body?" Castle bit his tongue and Beckett shot him a warning glare to make sure it stayed bitten.

"I've never heard of him."

"Nope."

"I'm sorry."

Lanie pursed her lips before reaching over to hit the emergency call button. "Hello? Can anyone hear me?"

It was three minutes before they got a response. "Hello, are you there?"

"Yes," Lanie exhaled in relief, the air was thick with unresolved tension from every direction and it was circling around her. "There are…seven of us stuck here. Do you know what happened?"

"I'm really sorry to hear that but the entire building's on lockdown. Apparently one of the suspects in holding on the fourth floor has escaped by stealing a uniform with the nameplate "Body".

They all looked down at the body incredulously but Lanie was the first to respond "did he have blonde hair and brown eyes; about six foot one inch?"

"That's what I've heard." They all stared back at the man on the floor. "Oh, and one of the officers threw him against the wall and apparently he had a really nasty bump on his head. He's bleeding pretty bad." Lanie lifted her hand away from the button as she looked down at the body once again. "We'll have the elevators up and running as soon as we find him."

Lanie was still processing everything as she stared over the body so Gates reached over to press the 'talk' button. "You can cancel that lockdown, Gary; we've found him."

The entire elevator exchanged confused glances. "So…none of us did it?" They all glanced at Castle.

"Yup."

"Odd."