Debt paid and full, Syzygy.

Challenge from my friends. I hope they are happy now.

"No!" he exclaims in utter surprise. "It can't be!"

He presses his lips together, suppressing a huge grin that threatens to take over his face.

"Castle," she sighs at him, rolling her eyes. Even though she tries to act serious, the corners of her mouth are trembling.

"Come on, really?" he throws a pointed glance at her, trying to make her see the hilarity of the turn of the events. "It's the best story ever!"

She ignores him. Tries to continue with the typing she has on her hands.

"I mean, I would have never come up with that good of a story!" he cannot keep his mouth shut. Again.

"How it is so unbelievable?" she asks from him without even bothering to look at him. "I mean. These things happen."

"She's an old lady!" he tries to make his point.

"And?" she smirks and tries to get him reeled up again.

She likes when he's like this. Not that she would ever confess that out loud. But this bright-eyed 9-year-old-boy on a sugar rush is adorable. Apparently his writer's mind is working at full speed now, trying to place all the pieces of the case at their right place in his mind.

"Old ladies don't do such things!" he still can't believe that it was her. That she did it. His mouth falls open in silent surprise. Again.

"Oh, believe me, old ladies are capable of worse things than that," she is staring at him now, trying to figure out where his crazy mind is going. Which direction does it take. It's fair to say, it has to be one of the craziest cases they have had in a long time.

"It was roses. Just roses!" he brings out another point in his defense.

"It was a motive."

"Roses!"

"Maybe she loved those roses!" she can't stop herself from grinning now. This is getting ridiculous.

"Apparently!" he shrieks out loud, rousing the attention of the detectives working few desks back from theirs.

"Castle," she sighs, grinning. "What's your point?"

"Cutting the roses too short is not a motive to kill people!" he flashes his bright smile."I would have never come up with this story, never in a million, fillion years."

He pats his side pocket and slides his hand in there, taking out a little notepad. "I gotta write this down."

"Castle, it happened, it IS possible," she says out, tries to convince herself too.

"Nobody kills a gardener because he cut the roses too short..." he mumbles before he pushes the pen down to the paper.

I hope you liked it. I hate you, Syzygy.

Let me know, dear readers, how did YOU like it ;)