A Far Off Dream

Richard Castle looked out the window of his Tribeca apartment and sighed. It had been almost a week since the homicide team at the 12th had gotten a case. Not that he didn't mind there being less dead bodies in the world, but he also hadn't seen much of his favorite cherry scented detective. After the whole fiasco with the "other guy," Beckett had been avoiding him more and more.

Castle didn't know what to think, and looking at the blank computer screen in front of him, ideas weren't flowing as much as he'd like. Sighing he went into his desk drawer and pulled out a pen. But the pen wasn't a normal pen, once upon a time that pen had kept him alive, and it had been awhile since he had used it. He twirled it between his fingers and leaned back in the recliner chair looking at the descending sun over the city scape.

At that moment his cellphone went off, turning he around he checked the caller ID and to his enjoyment it was Beckett.

"Castle," he said with utmost casualness, it wasn't his first choice of words but it sufficed better then, "why have you been avoiding me for a week."

"We've got a murder," Beckett said with the utmost professionalism, "I'll forward you the address via text, meet me there."

"Gotcha," Castle replied before hanging up the phone, not wanting to prolong an awkward conversation, he had no doubt, that they would talk about it eventually, just not right now. Getting up from the chair, he grabbed his coat and yelled to Alexis he had a case. He got a mediocre response and shrugged flying out the door to hail a cab and get to the crime scene.

(half way across the city)

Dom Cob looked to the city scape and found himself thinking back to his childhood, to all the things he used to do before his father introduced him to the world of the mind. The friends he used to have and the people he used to be close too. He remembered one kid in particular, his best friend all the way through grade school and high school, a kid named Richard Rodgers.

Him and Rick met in on the playground and they played a lot of games with their imagination. Superheroes and such, they both always dreamed of saving the world together, but that was just a childhood fantasy. Until Dom's junior year of high school when his father introduced him to the world he now lived in. One where everything was possible, in the mind. After his father introduced him to it, he tried to introduce Rick to that world, because Rick was his best friend, it seemed unreasonable to not let his best friend indulge in the same awesomeness Dom felt when he entered the mind. Rick even made a totem in the form of a weighted pen. But something went seriously wrong the last time Rick made a dive into a mind, he almost got lost in Limbo. Dom knew it was his fault, so the next day he moved away and Rick was left by his lonesome.

But the reason Dom was in New York, under and assumed alias was because he had an extraction assignment. An NYPD detective named Kate Beckett had important information regarding a player in Dom's game, a man named Dick Coonan. When Dom had inquired about Coonan it was said that Kate Beckett had shot him dead inside the precinct. Whatever Coonan had been working on it would be in a case file. Rather then steal the case file, giving police evidence for a theft charge, Dom was going to extract the information and skip town until he could figure out his next move.

So to draw out Detective Beckett, Dom did the most reasonable thing, he stole a dead body from the city morgue and placed it in a spot that would constitute a call to the NYPD, and hopefully grace the presence of Kate Beckett. So, Dom waited for the detective and continued to reflect on the past.

( 1 Hour later)

Kate opened the door to the crime scene, and saw the body. It looked like a basic pop and drop, dead body on the floor with one GSW. She around the small apartment and saw none of the regular crime scene people, not even Castle which was a complete surprise all things considered. She'd seen how he had acted the other day when she had brought Josh to the precinct and she really did feel bad. But Castle had made his decision, and so had she, now they were friends, just friends working cases. Get over yourself Katie, she thought to herself you know it's more complicated then that, you just don't want to admit it. Kate shook her head, her and Castle would talk about it later, but now, they had a murder to solve. That was the last thought she had before the scent of Chloroform hit her nose, and she passed out.

Dom carried the limp detective and set her on the couch. He looked around the room and almost laughed at the amount of work it had taken to make the fake crime scene, he and Arthur had taken almost all day and worked on this, and even now, it looked amazingly real, one of Cob's best works. From the overturned tables to the shattered vases, everything was perfect in a twisted sort of way.

Dom took a deep breath and then picked the detective up, draping her over his shoulders, moving her out of the room. That's when he heard a door open and turned facing the door the handgun that was stashed in his waistband aimed at the door, ready to fire if someone got hostile.

Castle opened the door expecting to find CSU and his team but instead he saw a man with a gun. He froze up and put his hands up, until he noticed the woman on the man's shoulder. It was Kate! Instantly Castle became a different man, putting his arms down and jumping at the man.

Castle body checked the man and grabbed his arm pointing the gun away from both of them. The man put his arm around Castle's throat and began to squeeze. Suddenly the hyper active mind of Richard Castle, flashed back 15 years when he had been in a fight exactly like this. His best friend had told him the one way to get out of a choke hold. It was to pump the elbow into the solar plexus incapacitating the attacker. Castle was preparing to drive the elbow when the man stopped the attack. The attacker said something to Castle something that would ring in his ears. "Don't try that, I mastered that move." Castle grunted and then turned to look at the man, when his face came into clear view Castle's eyes widened. "Dom?" The attacker stopped and looked upon the author with a shocked look of his own. "Rick? What the hell are you doing here?"