A/N: I Hope everyone enjoys this College AU. There will be 18 chapters + an epilogue

The title for this fic came from the Rob Thomas song by the same name. I recommend listening to it or at least reading the lyrics because it fits the story quite well :)

Chapter One

Any college courses meeting before eleven a.m. on Monday mornings should be abolished.

At least, that's what Rick Castle thought as he walked into his nine-thirty physics lecture. Styrofoam cup full of black coffee in one hand, rucksack clutched in the other, he surveyed the landscape of the class. By that point, six weeks into the semester, the seventy-person class had assimilated into relatively consistent seating patterns. It was, after all, human nature to repeat successful patterns. Thus, Rick headed up the stairs of the stadium-style seating lecture hall to the twentieth row and took a seat on the aisle.

Normally, Rick did not want to sit on the aisle, or any other place that might make him seem prominent, particularly the front few rows. Such a seating selection would invite him being called on, and that was definitely not something he was interested in. In a subject he felt reasonably comfortable in? Sure, why not. He was usually up for some class participation—even a healthy debate. In physics? No, thank you. He'd sit towards the back, happily take his "C," and move on with his life.

Unfortunately, the structure of that particular lecture hall—most notably the narrow rows—was not created for men of his stature. In the middle of the row, the legs on his six-foot-one frame would be too cramped to be comfortable for an eighty minute already miserably boring class. At least the aisle afforded him the opportunity to stretch out a bit. Even better—he'd yet to be called on and the semester was one third over.

"Hey Ricky!"

Rick spotted two of his comrades approaching and smiled for the first time since waking up twenty minutes earlier. He stood and allowed the two men to slide into the row beside him before re-taking his seat.

"Missed you Saturday night. You suddenly too good for us, Ricky?" Jeremy, the eldest of the three men, asked.

"For you guys? Never." Rick generally did have a good time at the bashes hosted by Jeremy and his other senior friends. In fact, the closer they got to graduation, the wilder they became, which was more than all right with Rick. "Had a date, actually."

Sounds of aw escaped the boys lips before Pete, Jeremy's junior roommate, asked, "Well if you were busy getting busy we can let it slide."

Rick chuckled inwardly. "I probably would have had a better time at the party—and better luck." The men apologized, but Rick shrugged them off. Casey had seemed like a nice girl when they met in line in the dining hall and she was—nice. Unfortunately, she was also boring. Perhaps maybe she was just shy. She seemed friendly enough when Rick was chatting with her and her two roommates, but as soon as they were alone together she hardly said ten words the whole night.

When he saw the professor enter the room a few moments later, Rick balanced his coffee cup between his knees and reached down into his rucksack to retrieve his green spiral bound notebook and a pen. He clamped the pen between his teeth as he opened the notebook and flipped it to the next blank page. He then unfolded the absurdly small writing platform from its space tucked in between the seats and set his notebook on it. Just as he looked up, a familiar face approached up the stairs.

"Morning," he said, smiling at her. She nodded her head in return, and brushed a strand of hair behind her ears as she moved passed him and took a seat several rows behind.

"Whoa hottie alert." Pete observed.

Jeremy nudged Rick's arm. "Who was that?"

"Wha—oh, Kate?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder and then back to the guys. "She's my lab partner."

Jeremy clicked his tongue and shook his head while displaying a look of disgust. "You won the lottery you lucky son of a bitch."

Rick let out a breathy laugh. He presumed Jeremy referred to the fact that four different lab classes corresponded with their lecture. They took place on varying days of the week owing to the fact that labs were not to have more than twenty people in them distributed in groups of two. Within those labs, the partners had been randomly assigned by the professor. Rick had met Kate on the first day of their Thursday lab.

"You're going to hit that, right?" Pete questioned.

Rick cleared his throat and leaned casually back in his seat. "Well, that is the plan."

While his cronies bumped fists and continued to insult the man who had all the luck, Rick casually dated the top of the blank page in his notebook. Truth be told, he had not been thinking with the intent to solely make Kate another notch on his bedpost. In all honesty, he was intrigued by her.

Kate was, without any question, a beautiful woman. Unlike most of the women (and men) who favored sweat pants or the dreaded flannel pajama pant as appropriate class attire, Kate wore almost exclusively jeans and nice tops or sweaters. Sure, she had worn a hooded sweatshirt once or twice, but for the most part she dressed well, and he appreciated that. More so, he appreciated the way her jeans accentuated her endlessly long legs and well-proportioned curves.

Whether or not she wore makeup, he was unsure. If she did, he imagined it wasn't much, because she always looked fresh and youthful, not like she was going out for a night of drinking and debauchery. Besides, she didn't need makeup. Her prominent cheekbones and lovely lips already made her gorgeous. What attracted him, though—what he would have spent hours staring at were it not for social impropriety—were her eyes. Her beautiful chestnut colored eyes peppered with flecks of green around the iris were her most stunning feature, not just for their shape, but for the fact that they were filled with more sadness than she should have seen during her twenty-some years on the planet.

After leaving physics lab Rick often found himself wondering what had caused such sorrow in the lovely girl's life. Had she been a victim of a tragedy? Had a family member, leaving her as collateral damage? Had she simply always maintained a melancholy demeanor? In Rick's mind, the possibilities were endless and part of him hoped he would one day find out.

"You guys still having that party this weekend?"

Lost in his own thoughts, Rick had not properly heard Jeremy's question, so he asked him to repeat it. When he did, Rick responded with, "Oh yeah, definitely."

"You should invite Kate."

"And seal the deal—asshole," Pete added.

"Well," he began with a smirk, "she surely won't be able to resist my charms for too much longer."

When the professor stepped up to the podium they could chat no longer, but as he sat back and prepared to take notes, Rick could not help but think maybe his friends had the right idea.

Kate Beckett scurried into her Thursday lab and came to a halt when she saw the instructor had not arrived yet—thank god. She was convinced someone was playing a trick on her because she had faced a "DON'T WALK" sign at every intersection she needed to cross leaving her all but late for her lab that morning. Well, one minute early, but compared to her usual seven-to-eight minutes early, that felt late.

Exhaling a long breath, she held tightly to her messenger bag as she sidled her way into the tightly packed space. At the table second from the back of the room, she spotted her lab partner or, as she generally referred to him, the overgrown child. He was, at present, living up to his name by attempting to balance a pen on the knuckle of his thumb without letting it fall onto the ground.

Kate shook her head slowly during the last ten steps to the desk. Honestly, most days she did not know what to make of Rick. He was…something.

From the moment Kate walked into her first lab, she was concerned about her partner owing to the fact that the syllabus stated that the partners would be randomly assigned. Now, she did not know anyone in her lab lecture—at least, she had not seen anyone she knew during their first two classes—and even if she had, there was no guarantee that person would be in her lab section. Still, there was something about the random assignment that unnerved her.

When she was introduced to Rick she was mildly relieved to discover he did not have a foul odor whether from lack of personal hygiene or excessive use of cheap cologne. That was at least an improvement over her lab partner from the prior semester. Her relief, however, dissipated almost instantly when he tried to talk to her during their first project together. No, not talk to—interrogate.

Okay, okay—it hadn't been that bad. She supposed that for normal people questions like, "Did you grow up in the city?" or "What's your family like? Do you have any brothers or sisters?" were just normal, friendly, conversational questions. It wasn't as though he asked her deepest darkest secrets, but she just wasn't interested in giving out personal information to a practical stranger. Come to think of it, discussing her mother and her tragic death four years earlier wasn't even something she discussed with friends.

And it wasn't just the questions. Rick talked all the time. Almost continually during their ninety minute lab timeslot. Even though she would rarely speak to him unless it directly related to what they were doing, he still talked to her, having an almost full one sided conversation by himself, which could not have been more annoying.

On the bright side, he did seem nice in his own way. During their six week partnership he had yet to ask her out or flirt too grotesquely, much to her relief. He always greeted her politely, both in lab and in regular class if they happened to cross paths. She suspected their dormitories were near each other because she would occasionally see him in the dining hall, where he would always at least acknowledge her with a nod and a smile if not a verbal hello.

The thing she appreciated most about him—the thing that made the concept of partnering with him for another ten weeks actually bearable—was that he absolutely pulled his own weight when it came to classwork. He was an English major—he'd mentioned that a few times—and had made it very clear that the sciences were not his strong suit, but he made a good effort, which she appreciated. Despite the fact that there were more than a few occasions on which she wanted to duct tape his mouth shut, it would have been much worse if she was forced to carry their lab work and he just went along for the ride.

"Hey, Kate." He grinned at her when she sat down. "Having a good Thursday?"

"Um." She paused as she lifted her messenger bag up onto the table top, lifted the flap, and slid out her notebook. "I guess."

"Excellent. I'm having a great Thursday, especially because after this only one class stands between me and the weekend."

Kate gave him a half smile before turning back to her notebook and flipping through the pages until she found the ones on their lab assignment for that day. As she began to review, she could tell that Rick was doing something with the pen beside her, but as he often fidgeted during class, she tried to ignore it. She was mostly successful until she felt the pen smack into her arm. Though Rick apologized, she still felt herself turning her head to give him a perturbed look. She then watched as he picked up the pen from where it had ricocheted off her arm, placed it back on his thumb and spun it right back off again. Fortunately, that time it went in the opposite direction and skidded along the table until it bounced off the wall.

"What are you doing?"

"Me?"

"No, the other person sitting beside me and hitting me with things."

He grinned. "I said I was sorry. I'm just trying to spin this pen."

"Why?"

"Because I saw some guy do it in my last class and it looked cool."

"Of course." She muttered under her breath. That made complete and total sense and brought him right back into his overgrown child state.

For the first five minutes of their teacher's lecture Rick continued to spin the pen on his thumb. The third time it hit her, Kate took the pen from him. He sneakily tried to retrieve it, but she kept her hand firmly over it while she paid attention to the final instructions for their lab assignment that day. Only when the teacher returned to his seat did she slide the pen back to her sulking companion.

Fortunately, they were so busy completing their lab assignment that Rick did not have time to play with the pen any more until almost the end of the class period. By that time, Kate was just glad they had managed to successfully complete the assignment. Despite the fact that she always desired to get the highest grade possible, the deeper they got into class it seemed more and more likely physics would not be her strongest class of the semester—let alone the year.

"Hey so are you doing anything Saturday night?"

As she slipped her notebook back into her messenger bag, Kate gave her partner a side glance. "Not that I'm aware of."

"Great!" He grinned. "There's a party at my dorm; you should come."

Kate let out a short, breathy laugh. Oh yeah, just what she wanted: hanging out with Rick and his presumably equally childish friends while they drank heavier and heavier until they ultimately passed out onto their beer pong tables. What a blast! "Thanks, but I don't think so."

"What? Why not?"

She merely shrugged. There was that irritating interrogation again. What did it matter? He didn't know her; he didn't need to. She turned him down politely, and that was that. Before she could shoulder her bag and step away he—to no one's surprise—continued talking.

"C'mon it'll be fun – what else are you doing? Plus, you know, free beer."

Kate fought the urge to roll her eyes as free beer could not have been less enticing. Of course, he would have had no way of knowing that and, in his defense, it probably would have been enough to persuade most if not all of their classmates. "I don't think so."

She looked over at him just in time to see him shrug. He then ripped a page from his notebook and quickly jotted down a few words. "Well, if you change your mind that's my address."

As a means of ending their conversation quickly, Kate snagged the page with a thank you and then stuffed it down into her bag without a second thought. She gave him a terse goodbye and then headed towards the exit. Maybe if she didn't get all the "Don't walk" signs again she would have time to eat lunch before her next class.