Wow...continued amazing response for this and another quick update as a big thanks to all who reviewed. I hope the chapter lives up to your expectations.

A note about chapters: I've never before had a prologue, so when I named the chapters, I didn't realize how stupid it would look when the site sends out alerts and puts which chapter it is for system purposes. So for the last chapter, it said "Chapter 2: Chapter 1," which looked ridiculous to me. So I'm going to go out on a limb and try to name my chapters.

Disclaimer: Still doing this and I'm not in California. There's your answer.


"Who's that one from? What does it say?"

"It's from my mother," he announced as he looked at the message on his phone. "Hey, did I hear her out in the hall before you came in here?" And at the end of the question, he turned toward her, only for them both to find that their faces were in very close proximity to each other since she was leaning close to him, trying to read the messages. They stared at each other, and for just a split second, she thought she saw one of those old flickers of desire in his eyes, what she'd seen often enough before last May, but hadn't been ready to acknowledge then. When she saw it then, if she hadn't been so taken aback by it, she would have felt like cheering because there, there, was a flicker of her old Castle. But quicker than a flash, he shuttered his eyes again into that bland, indifferent expression while simultaneously leaning back and away from her. "Personal space, huh, Beckett?"

Personal space? He was whining about personal space when he'd been the one breaching her personal space for the last three years? Who was this man?

But she wasn't going to let him win. "Stop whining and show me the message."

He held the phone out to her, while still leaning away from her. She took the phone and began to read the message:

'Do you like our set, Richard? You and Kate are the stars of this play. It's time to stop being silly now. Create your own story. You have everything you need. WE all know how it should end. Now both of you have to figure it out.'

She read the message and looked back at Castle. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Don't look at me!" he protested.

"She's your mother!" she argued back.

"Since when have I ever claimed to understand her?" She got up from the bed and stood there watching him, as he turned his attention back to his phone and scrolled to the next one, a message from Alexis. "Ah, the voice of reason." At her puzzled look, he clarified, "Alexis. Well, reasonable relative to my mother, of course," he amended after remembering that his daughter was the reason he was locked in a room with Beckett.

"Oh, good. Maybe she'll tell you how much she enjoyed handcuffing her father to a bed," she told him, enunciating each word clearly, unable to stop the smirk from entering her expression.

"Ha ha," he told her before turning his focus to the message. "She's probably going to...oh. Ohhhh. Really?" And then, as he read more of her message, he gave a more forceful: "But, A-LEX-is!" While reading the message, he was making vocalizations almost like his daughter was right there to hear him.

"What?" Kate asked, looking over his shoulder at the phone.

'Don't like how you've been acting lately with all of your dates and partying. Not good, Dad. So you're locked in here with Det. Bkt till you stop acting like you're in a college frat house. Consider it a forced introspectional retreat. I want my real dad back.'

'Whoa,' Kate thought. Well, it was certainly obvious that they could count Castle's family among those not enamored with his new lifestyle. But why punish her by sticking Castle with her? She continued reading the text:

'You two need to talk b/c even Dr. Prsh says things are bad with you two. Fix this. Alone. You're in there until you do. No phones, no internet. Signals are blocked.'

"What?" Kate exclaimed when she read the last part. Well, if Alexis and Lanie were talking, that would explain why she was stuck in here with Castle.

"How would she block the signals?" he asked, looking up at her. "How would she even know how to block the signals?"

"I...maybe she just thinks she does, but she doesn't really know how?" she surmised? She grabbed her phone and found no signal. "Damn. I don't have a signal on my phone."

"I don't either. But how did we get the texts?"

"I don't know! Did she send them and then turn off the communications?"

"Where did she learn all of this?" Castle asked, gaping at her. "I mean, it almost sounds like she was-"

And the lightbulb went on in both of their heads. "Ryan!" they said in unison.

"You said you thought he was around here. And Ryan would know how to do something like that."

"I thought I heard him after Lanie yelled at me and stormed out," he pouted, flashing back to what Lanie had said after Alexis had cuffed him to the bed. After Alexis had left the room, satisfied over her successful attempt at fooling her father, Lanie wasted no time in yelling at him that he was acting like a rich, spoiled brat who wanted to rub it in everyone's faces about how cool he was. Once she got started, she was on a roll and he could hardly keep up with her. He'd never seen her so worked up. She kept going on about how he had great friends and family and what does he do? He acts like an ass, parades bimbos in front of Kate and his daughter, and then ditches his team for some half-psycho, bad-ass, nutjob giant who was going to get him killed probably sooner rather than later. And she didn't need another body in her morgue, thank you very much. So he needed to shape his ass up, open his eyes and look at was was right in front of him. And then she just sat there and glared at him.

Once his mind could process what she said, he remembered her comment about 'parading bimbos in front of Kate and his daughter'. Alexis...he could understand that. Obviously she and Lanie talked. He knew Alexis had never liked some of the women he'd dated, or his 'public' persona, and he'd tried to keep that away from her. But...he supposed he hadn't been doing too good of a job of that lately, if she'd actually noticed and had even talked to Lanie about it. But he still didn't understand why she threw Beckett's name in with his daughter's name. Beckett shouldn't care if he went out. It wasn't like she wanted him anyway. And it wasn't like her boyfriends never came to the precinct. Sheesh. Double standard.

"So," Beckett asked him, bringing him back to the present, "are you ever going to tell me about this supposed tongue-lashing from Lanie?"

He looked at her, thought back to what Lanie said, and then said resolutely, "No." No way was she getting a recap of that.

She gave him an odd look. What was his problem? Changing topics, she asked, "Okay then, if we can't call or text, and they won't let us out, then what about a key? You have to have a key, right? This is your house."

"Alexis told me they put a new deadbolt on the door, just for this. And I don't have a key for it," he admitted grudgingly. "And don't even think about trying to break down that door unless you want to end up in physical therapy." Then he turned back to his phone, murmuring, "Hmmm...another message from Alexis, sent right after the last one," while he tapped at his phone.

She watched in stunned amazement as, about a second after he started reading it, his eyes got big and he all but vaulted across the bed to the door on the other side of the room, which presumably held a closet. He threw open the door and after walking inside, he started exclaiming, "Oh, no. No, no no!"

At his outburst, she was right on his heels. "Castle...what? Did Lanie leave a dead body for you? A bomb or something?"

"No...look! Just look at this!" He stepped back and for the second time in the last hour, she was walking through a door in Castle's house not knowing what to expect. And for the second time, what she found was something she never would have imagined finding.

"I...uh. Huh." Was all she could manage to get out.

Food. And what looked to be something like a small kitchenette.

There was a dormitory-sized refrigerator sitting on the floor, as well as a small microwave that was sitting on a small table nearby. Next to that was an electric griddle and a small coffee maker. There were cans, boxes, bottles and bags of food and drink on the shelves, as well as a few plates and various utensils. Then her brain caught up with what she was seeing, and more specifically, why she was seeing it. "Castle..." she said in a warning tone. She whipped her head around toward him, and found him holding up his phone for her to read the text, a grim, resigned look on his face.

'And if it takes a long time for you to come to your senses, you won't starve. Look in closet. Gone for few days, me to Paige's and Grams to the Plaza. Phone on microwave for emergencies; will only dial me. Bye.'

She looked back up at him, the shock on her own face mirroring his. "Days?" she squeaked. "They're not letting us out, are they? I mean, there's...there's food, Castle!" She looked back to the closet and caught sight of something. "And...oh, my God, is that my bag?" She leaned down and unzipped it, finding a folded piece of paper on top of what appeared to be her clothes. She opened the note to find Lanie's handwriting, telling her that she packed some clothes so Kate would be more comfortable during her stay in Casa Castle. And the smiley face next to where Lanie signed her name actually annoyed her to no end. This was not a situation where a smiley face was appropriate. She turned back around to face Castle.

"She packed me clothes, Castle!" Kate told him, a tone of bewilderment in her voice.

He looked over her shoulder and bobbed his head toward a shelf on the wall that held a stack of folded clothing. "Looks like I have some too."

She ran her fingers through her hair. "So I'm apparently not only locked in this room with you, but I have to stay here for God knows how long? What are we going to do, Castle?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then shrugged. "Well, I can attest to the fact that there's no tiger, so that's a plus."

She rolled her eyes. "That's the best you can come up with? No tiger?"

He tried to look thoughtful again. Then he snapped his fingers. "Oh, I've got it. Since we both have clothes, we could put on each other's clothes and try cross-dressing."

She swatted him lightly on the arm and glared at him. "Would you be serious?" Then, determined to give Lanie a piece of her mind, she pulled her phone out of her pocket before remembering that she had no signal. But after she unlocked it, she saw what she hadn't seen before...she, too, had a text, but hers was from Lanie. "Oh, Lanie texted me. I wonder what she has to say." She stalked out of the closet as she opened the message.

Rick watched with curiosity as her eyes got slightly more rounded as she read the message. But then all of a sudden, she clicked her phone off and quickly shoved it back into her pocket, looking somewhat agitated. Then she looked around the room, and as her eyes fell on Rick, she froze.

What a strange reaction to a message, he thought. So he asked her, "Everything okay? What did Lanie's message say?"

"Just...uh...more of the same." Her eyes darted down to the floor and around the room before coming back to him. "That we're locked in here together. Uh...yeah."

And then she walked back to the closet, muttering something about checking out the food, while Rick stood there, wondering what was in that text message from Lanie that had her so frazzled.


Haven't done this in a while, but I just couldn't resist with the 'she packed me clothes' comment...I'm visualizing the "She took my coffee, Castle!" comment from Nikki Heat...the befuddled attitude and everything.

I tried to let a little more of the 'normal' Castle come out in this chapter. Hope you saw him. I think if he really was locked in a room with Beckett, he wouldn't be able to keep up the casual, unaffected pretense forever.

Incredible amounts of story alerts so far, but remember, that little message that I get from doesn't tell me what you like, so reviews are golden, and are wonderfully motivating and greatly appreciated. Unless, of course, your keyboard doesn't work so you can't type anything. If that's the case, I'll give you a pass. For now. :)