Riddle Me This

AN: Hmmm, so I'm jumping back on the Castle fanfic bandwagon because the synopsis of episode 12 caught my attention. So, if you're SPOILER FREE, don't read this until after the episode airs. I'm pretty sure the writers aren't going to do this. Just thought of some scenes I want to see.

Don't own Castle; just playing with the characters.

Chapter 1: Secret Identities

"Hello?" a voice queried into the total darkness with a slight hesitation as if they were unsure they wanted an answer. "Is anyone there?"

A cough responded to the sound, a stirring. "Yeah – yeah, I'm here." The answer was weak, the voice male. "Oh, god, my head," he groaned. "What the hell happened?"

"I'm here, too, but who are you? Where are we?" came another response, this time female, the accent Hispanic, with a slight edge of hysteria.

"Castle – Richard Caste. And I have no idea where we are, but it's going to be okay," he said with conviction. Panicking wouldn't do them any good. "People looking for us – they will find us." He paused. "Anyone else here?"

"Me," came a whispered response somewhere off to his left, another female.

"Yo," came a 4th response from across the room, definitely male, definitely Brooklyn.

"And me," echoed another voice, another female.

"Anyone else?" asked Castle.

There was a long pause.

"I guess that's all then," Castle responded to the darkness.

"What's going on?" asked the Brooklyn accent.

"I don't know," Castle replied as he slowly stood, sliding his hands up the wall he had been seated against. "I think we're in a room – can someone find a light switch?"

He could hear people move about slowly.

"Yeah, found it," said the first male voice.

A click of a switch and the overhead fluorescent lights flickered on, flooding the room in a bright light.

Castle blinked against the light and scanned their surroundings.

The room was fairly large, but sterile, basic white with no furniture, no doors, and no windows.

Castle looked at the other people in the room as they looked at each other warily, and then straightened up and moved to the middle of the room. They needed to keep calm if they were going to get out of here.

"Why don't we start by introducing ourselves?" he said simply. "I'm Richard Castle – author." He paused for a moment. "Everyone knows who they are, don't they?"

They looked at him with puzzled expressions and then nodded.

"Retired seaman Newman Risner," Brooklyn said and turned to the woman on his left.

"Maria Consuela," said the Hispanic woman. "I work from Ables Janitorial Services."

"Brad Collins," said the man to her left. "Pharmaceutical rep for Beckham-Peirpont."

The young woman next to him nodded. "Tanya Fellers. I'm an art student. My parents just moved here—well, to New York."

"Felisha Atwater," said the African-American woman. "I'm an administrative assistant at the Percy law firm."

Risner peered at Castle curiously. "You write those murder mystery books, don't you? And work with the NYPD?"

Castle nodded. "Yeah."

"So what do you think? Why did they do this to us? What do they want?"

"How long have we been here?" asked Maria anxiously. "I have to get home to my son."

Castle automatically looked down at his wrist to look at his watch and found that it was gone. He shook his head. "I don't know how long we've been here, but I think our number 1 priority is getting out of here." He moved along the walls, skimming his hands over each surface. "Since we're in here, there's a hidden door some place." He stopped and looked up. "Maybe in the ceiling..."

He was about to say something else when one of the walls lit up. The people standing near the wall moved away from it.

"Riddle me this as fast as you can," said a metallic voice echoing in the room. "Answer before time runs out, or blackness descends and bad things begin." The voice paused and a green 3:00 appeared on the wall.

"Rail-road crossing, watch out for cars. Can you spell it without any R's?" said the metallic voice as the display changed to 2:59 and then began to count down.

"I-T," Castle replied drily. The display stopped at 2:58.

"What?" asked Collins, looking at Castle in surprise.

"Spell 'it'," Castle said, looking at the man. "We're playing games with a computer."

"Take one out and scratch my head, I am now black but once was red," said the metallic voice. "What am I?" The timer started again.

"Oh, I know – a match," said Collins, snapping his fingers. The timer stopped again.

"I can be cracked, I can be made, I can be told, I can be played. What am I?" The timer started.

The timer neared 2:00 as several wrong answers were guessed until Atwater yelled out, "A joke!"

The timer stopped but this time the display changed to yellow.

"That can't be good," said Fellers, as the metallic voice started again.

"I am the beginning of sorrow, and the end of sickness. You cannot express happiness without me, yet I am in the midst of crosses. I am always in risk, yet never in danger. You may find me in the sun, but I am never seen out of darkness."

They murmured amount themselves as the timer counted down to 0:59 and changed to red.

"S!" Castle finally yelled out. "The letter S."

The voice started again. "I have wood but no bark, leaves that don't fall, I am made up of branches, and I come in sizes of all. I am completely devoured many times, over and over by a worm of a kind. If you desire to know the answer of mine, look for the secret that I've stored inside. What am I?"

"What?" asked Consuela.

"Who makes up these things?" Castle demanded as he wracked his brain trying to think of the answer.

The people in the room froze as the timer hit 0:00 and a loud siren sounded.

The lights went out and a scream rent the air.

After a moment, the lights flickered back on.

Castle slowly turned to look behind him at the blood splattered on the wall.

"Tanya!" exclaimed Atwater. "She's gone!"

"Oh, that's so not good," said Castle, shaking his head.

# # # # # #

Beckett waited until the Police Union rep had left the floor before rounding on Esposito and Ryan to pull information out of them since they were studiously avoiding looking at her after Alexis' visit that morning.

Just after her meeting started, she had seen Alexis rush into the precinct and talk to the boys briefly before rushing out again, clutching her phone to her ear.

"So what's up?" she asked, walking up to their desks. "Why was Alexis here?"

Espo shrugged. "Nothing really," he waffled with a slight shrug.

"She was just looking for Castle," Ryan offered.

"And…?" Beckett continued.

"He had a meeting with a 'client' last night," said Espo, making air quotes when he said 'client.'

"And…?" Beckett prompted.

"And he didn't come home and his phone is off," said Ryan uncomfortably. He glanced at Espo and at his nod, continued, "The client was Mrs. Kazankov," a slight pause, "and we're sure she's …Svetlana." He said the name as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

"And we weren't going to do Castle's dirty work for him by telling his daughter that he's shacking again," Espo blurted out.

"I'm so sorry, Beckett," said Ryan.

"I see," Beckett said, nodding, looking around to see if anyone had overheard their conversation. She looked back at them. "Gentlemen, if you'll come to my office."

The boys nodded. "Sure."

They walked into her office and she shut the door behind them.

"Listen, Beckett, if you need to vent, we're here for you," said Ryan supportively.

"Yeah, and we'll be glad to hand Castle his nuts the next time we see him," continued Espo.

Beckett nodded and let out a breath. The only way to do this was to rip the band aid off.

"Gentlemen, that won't be necessary, because I'm Svetlana," she said simply. "And Castle wasn't with me last night."

# # # # # # #