Chapter 6

Discoveries

"Castle," she hisses quietly, only him hearing her in the darkened section of the apartment.

They are still in the victim's apartment, continuing their interrupted search. With the shooter arrested and on his way to the precinct with Esposito and Ryan, Castle and Beckett (together with some uniforms) were left to conduct the search of the apartment.

She was hesitant to stay there. He could tell. However, she had been the one who insisted that the boys should be the ones who would interview the victim's ex-boyfriend.

Something was off with her. He could sense it. The way she moved, quietly, chin up high. The way she swallowed and shifted on the spot whenever she stopped, rubbing her hands together nervously. Something was bothering her.

She had walked to the back end of one secluded room.

He followed her, hoping that she wouldn't notice. But when she turned around, she spotted him right away. Damn.

"Castle," she hisses again, "come here."

Ah. She wanted to be followed. He gets it now. Taking a few quick steps, he is at her side.

"Super-powers?" she asks, eyeing him quizzically. He chuckles. Seems like the "not-so-old-news-anymore" hasn't quite sunk in for her yet.

He smiles. Nods.

"H- how?" she looks up at his eyes, brows furrowed, trying to understand the whole concept of her man being a super-freak.

"Honestly? I don't know exactly. As I said before, I woke up and I could… do all these things. I am still figuring it out. Hey, do you think I can fly too?"

Beckett shakes her head in annoyance. "Castle, could you be serious for a moment? Don't you think these abilities are kind of weird?"

"Weird? No way, Beckett! They are so cool!" he exclaims and for reasons of showing off, he summons few cookies from the plate nearby to fly to his hand. "Cookie?"

Beckett purposefully ignores Castle's antics while racking her head over the facts she has.

Castle woke up, having these weird powers. He could lift things with his thoughts, he had super hearing, x-ray vision (not cool) and now super-speed as well. How could this be happening to him? Then she remembers their conversation back at the precinct (when she was still under the impression it was all a great joke) when they discussed the same topic.

"The phaser!" she suddenly breaks from her thoughts, subsequently startling Castle so that he drops the cookie he was eating.

"What?" he asks, mouth still full of the remains of the chocolate chip cookie.

"The Thorian Blaster, remember, we talked about it at the precinct? This makes most sense. That's where you got the powers!"

"Yeah," he swallows the last of the cookie before he can talk again. Then suddenly, he furrows his brows and narrows his eyes.

"Wait, but why didn't I feel anything yesterday when I fired the laser blaster? I should have had powers then!"

"Maybe it needs time to settle before the powers can work?"

"What needs to settle?" Castle asks, pointedly looking at her.

"I don't know, I don't know," Beckett whispers. He can hear the slight desperation in her voice already.

"Are you thinking that the phaser gun could have dangerous side effects?" Castle asks, slightly raising his voice.

She only nods, looking down.

Something catches her eye and she gasps. She reaches for Castle's right hand, the very same hand that he used to fire that laser gun.

"Castle, what is this?"

"What?"

He doesn't understand at first and looks at her quizzically. But when Beckett turns her hand around to expose the insides of his palm, he can see it too.

His hand is green.

Not like paint-green, but an eerie-sick like green that stays under his skin. His whole palm is covered with the new colour and it is starting to crawl up to his wrist.

He gasps in horror and quickly pulls his hand away from her and yelps. "My hand is green! Aah. What is this?"

"This is not normal," Kate states in discomfort, looking at Castle freaking out in front of her. He tries to wipe the greenness off from his hand, but nothing seemed to help.

"Ya think?" he snaps at her, rubbing his hand against his pants.

"Castle, why is your hand green?"

"I don't know!" He yells at her, panic lacing his voice.

He is obsessively trying to get rid of the colour on his hand now.

He turns around and grabs disinfectant from one of the shelves and pours it over his hand. But it has no effect. Nothing helps.

"Castle, you need to calm down…" Beckett starts, but Castle interrupts her.

"Calm down? CALM DOWN? How am I supposed to calm down when my skin is turning green? What is happening to me? Kate. Am I going bald? Do I have scales on my face? Please tell me I don't have scales on my face!"

She realizes that Castle might go into full-blown panic mode soon if she doesn't do something.

Beckett grabs one of his arms in order to stop him gesticulating wildly with it. When he turns to her to look into her eyes, she raises her other hand to caress his cheek. "Castle, breathe."

"I do have scales on my face, don't I...?" Castle states, his voice shaking gently.

Beckett only chuckles and places a finger on his lips. "Shut up, Castle. You are alright. You don't have scales on your face. And you still have all of your hair. You are alright."

"How am I alright when my hand is green?"

"Maybe it's a temporary effect due to using the phaser? Maybe it will go away. Castle, you have to calm down and breathe... before you break that vase behind you."

She is brings both of her palms to caress his face. "Castle, look at me," she begs. "Look at me. You are alright. We're okay. We're Ok."

He nods. He closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath to calm his snappy nerves. When he opens them again, Kate is looking back at him, worry-eyed and concerned.

"Better?" she asks.

"A little," he answers honestly. Even though he calmed down a bit, it doesn't mean he isn't still worried about himself. Something HAS to be wrong. For crying out loud, his hand is green.

Beckett senses his mind reeling and steps closer to him. She entwines her hands behind his neck and hugs him tightly. Castle buries his nose into her hair and embraces her back, holding her tightly against his body.

"Thanks," he whispers softly into her neck.

When they finally pull back from the hug, she smiles up at him and takes a hold of his left hand - the one that isn't soiled with the eerie green colour. She squeezes it gently and then lets him go.

"We need to finish searching the apartment," she explains. He nods. Yes. They were working here. Of course. Before he can turn himself away, she touches his arm again.

"After that, we are gonna find out what happened to you, I promise."

"Okay," he says softly.

It took them another hour to finish their sweep of Anya's apartment. They found only one more suspicious picture and fingerprints on one recent letter. Beckett bagged them both as evidence before they headed downstairs to the car.

They didn't talk much. His mind was still reeling about the discovery of the changes of his body, and she was busy wrapping up the case with newly found evidence and new information Esposito and Ryan had gathered from the shooter.

Like Beckett had theorized before - the man was Anya's former boyfriend, Boris. Anya had dumped him a week ago and Boris couldn't get over the fact that he had been dumped. So, for a whole week he had stalked Anya and thus discovered that she was talking a lot with Gaser.

Boris, the former Soviet love hammer that he was, couldn't swallow his pride and had confronted Anya in the alley. When Anya told him off, he got angry and crushed her skull against the wall. Realizing what he had done, he tried to escape from NYC. But he wasn't very bright. Upon remembering that he left several of his belongings and some pictures in Anya's apartment, he had come back - only to discover police in there. He freaked and decided to kill everybody in the apartment to get away.

"Oh man," Castle whines out loud when Beckett tells him what Esposito learned from the interrogation. "And we missed the confession?"

Beckett smirks at his beaten state. "Don't worry, Castle. He will be in the lockup till tomorrow. You can visit him if you want to."

Castle snorts and shakes his head. "No, thank you. I think I have had enough of him for today. But … Soviet Love hammer? What the hell is that?"

"Um... I… I don't know. Esposito... didn't explain," she answers, furrowing her eyebrows, narrowing her eyes and tilting her head to the side.

They fall into a silence once again until Castle notices that they are not heading to the precinct like they were supposed to.

"Uh, Beckett?" he asks, voice slightly higher than usual.

"What, Castle?"

"We are not going to the precinct?"

"Nope," she shakes her head. "We need to talk to Benjamin Donnely."

"The guy who sells sci-fi weapons?"

"That's the one," Beckett nods. Castle furrows his brows for a second, then understanding what she is meaning by this.

"Oooh, you think he might know why my hand is turning green?"

"Uh-huh," Beckett nods. "We need to ask him how he made those Thorian Blasters and what is happening to you. He must know something about what is going on."

She stops at one of the crossroads and eyes the neighbourhood. Confused a bit, the car stays on the spot a bit longer than needed.

"I think it was to the left," Castle decides to assist her.

Beckett turns her head to the said direction and nods. "Thanks."

The car rolls in front of Donnely's garage door and the pair steps out.

"Let's get this over with," Castle sighs and bends down to help Beckett open the door. When they finally manage to lift the garage door they just stare blankly then turn to stare at each other, shocked. They are both left speechless.

The room is empty. There is nothing there. Nada.

A/N: Thank you everybody. The reviews have been so awesome I can't put my feelings really into the words. Seriously – for you having time to sit down and write something to me. I appreciate it so much. And to know that you like the fic and you want more. It's just... so cool. And makes my heart beat faster. Thank you so much. I hope that you keep doing what you doing and keeping my fic afloat.

Also, I am sorry about ... the pause again. As Castle once said... "You can't rush genius..."

Well. Ahem.

Sheyna and German-we-wont-speak-about – thank you for proofing. Yer awesome.

Review? Pwlease?

P.S. Can you see now why I have this kind of artwork done for the fic? He he he.