I've gotten plenty of reviews for the last chapter, and I absolutely loved it. Please keep it up, because there's nothing I loved more than checking my email and finding a new review there. Now that may say something incredibly depressing about my social life, but I try not to focus on that.

Regardless, here's the next chapter. Based on the title, you can probably guess who's making their first appearance in the fic. I'm pretty sure that this is one of the longest chapters I've written. He also adds his insight into the situation, although I won't say which. Just read.


Chapter Seven: A Call from the Hamptons

"So you wanna tell me what's going on bro?" At his partner's words, Ryan looked up from the fascinating cement floor patterning to meet the other man's eyes. He had started to recover from the dizzy light-headedness, and his elbows had been resting on his knees, making a horizontal path between them.

He didn't even know how to begin to deal with Esposito. The guy wasn't only his best friend, who could read him like a book, but he was also a detective on top of that, which means he was trained to detect lies. Ryan was sure that he wouldn't be able to come up with anything brilliant that could explain whatever had happened. He was too tired, too worn out, too drained. A composite of the past four night's worth of sleep couldn't even fully amount to a total of one night's worth of sleep. It had been a bad week, and he knew that with this case, it would only get much worse. He hadn't had a reaction with that much damage in years.

"It's nothing, I'm probably just tired. Like I said earlier, I've had a couple of restless nights." He could hear the mechanical tone to his voice, and he was sure that his partner had heard it too. Rather than press on though, Esposito knew when to diffuse to normal talk.

"Honeymilk becoming too much of a distraction recently?" Ryan was actually welcomed the light teasing that he got from his partner about his girlfriend. It was a nice piece of normalcy before he was reminded again about what caused this conversation, and that it was keeping them from working to solve Kayla's murder.

"Y'know, you're very eager with the insults, but need I remind you I'm the one having sex, not to mention a semblance of a relationship."

"Oh, but all the chances to poke at how utterly pathetic you are almost make it worth it."

"You know what's even more pathetic?"

"Your little pet names for each other? The way you feel the need to check in on her every couple of hours? Or how whipped she made you after only two weeks of dating?"

"How much you're living vicariously through my relationship."

"Maybe we should get Lanie back here, cuz that fall must've done something to your head."

And that ended the normal conversation. He knew that Esposito had meant it as a joke, but all it did was remind him of the entire situation. Ryan didn't know how to reply, so he let the banter drift off to make room for an awkward silence.

"Who was she?" Esposito finally asked, having picked up on the distinct change in mood. Without help from anyone, the conversation had immediately slid back to the uncertain gray area of what had overtaken his partner minutes ago.

Ryan was perplexed by the question. He didn't know where that had come from, and had next to no idea to what his partner was referring to. There was a likelihood that he could guess, but he had to make sure, so he stuck with the safest response he could think of. "Huh?"

"After you went down, you mentioned some girl," Ryan stiffened slightly. His fears had been all but confirmed as to who his partner was talking about. But he waited for Esposito to continue, hoping that he hadn't already noticed his discomfort. "So, who's Ashleigh?"

Ryan had expected that name to come up, but it still hurt him to hear it. "She's…" he had every intent of denying that he knew any one by that name, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Be it out of respect, guilt, honor, or dedication, he couldn't deny her existence. Not anymore. Not to his best friend. "She's someone I knew a long time ago."

"Playground crush?" There could have been teasing in Esposito's voice, but he didn't hear any. And even though he had thought he would have been content to just let his partner believe the conclusions he had made, Ryan found that he couldn't do that either. Besides, he'd be damned to let Esposito fall into a habit of teasing him about Ashleigh in accordance to Jenny.

"Nah man, nothing like that." That was where Ryan ended the interrogation. He couldn't take any more of it. Besides, they needed to get back and help with the murder. Beckett couldn't solve it on her own, much as he knew she'd be willing to try. At least, that would be his excuse to get out of the conversation. "C'mon, don't we have a case to solve? Can't let Beckett have all the fun."

"You sure you can stand up okay?"

"I fell down; I didn't get hit with a truck. I'll be fine," Ryan said and stood up to prove his point. Unfortunately, he stood up a little too quickly and got a head rush in the process. For a few moments his sight went fuzzy again, then his head cleared, and he was fine.

"Beckett said that the co-worker got here a few minutes before and she went to question her. She should be out by now." At his partner's words, Ryan automatically felt guilty when for distracting his team in the middle of an important investigation. Someone ought to have watched the questioning, so Beckett could have a second opinion. Even if she got another Detective, it still wouldn't be as good as having her team watching, someone who was on the case.

"It'd be too easy if it was her. Not to mention it doesn't fit with the fact that she was raped before she was killed. I bet that we don't get too much from her."

"Nah man, she may not have killed her, but she's close to the family. I wouldn't be surprised if she had one of those girl connections with our vic's mom. My guess is the woman knows something, and odds are, she's not telling."

"Would you be willing to bet?"

"Ten?"

"You're on."

•••

"I dunno, it just felt like there's something she wasn't saying," Beckett said with frustration lacing her voice, after she finished recounting her discussion with Pamela Linden to the boys.

In a strange reaction, she saw a smug grin appear on Esposito's face, while next to him, Ryan groaned. He dug in his pants pocket to retrieve his wallet, where he pulled out what looked like a ten dollar bill, and grudgingly dropped it in his partner's outstretched hand. Beckett couldn't help the sigh of relief that she let out. She should be annoyed that they were betting on murder, and not taking the case seriously, but she was more relieved that if Ryan was making bets on the murder, it meant that he was okay.

As much as they all teased each other, she saw both of them as brothers she never had, and she knew they saw her the same way. Granted, for some reason, she sometimes perceived Esposito to be her older brother, and Ryan her younger brother, if only because of Esposito's over-protective and more stoic side, versus Ryan's energetic and more adorable side. Then, at other times, she saw them both as the younger siblings. Regardless, she honestly cared for the both of them, and she had been worried when Lanie called to tell her that one of her guys had passed out in the gym.

"So," Esposito continued, immediately getting back on track, "What's our next course of action?"

"First, let's see if we can confirm Ms. Linden's story. She says that she was staying with her parents down in Hastings to help prepare for her sister's funeral, and that she drove back to her apartment for work early this morning."

"Well, parents do make excellent corroborators." Esposito countered.

"See if you can get any other witnesses besides family. In the meantime I want to fill in some holes in our timeline. It's about 5:30 now, so I'm going to see if I can get in touch with the baby-sitter. She picked up Aaron long ago, and brought him home, so she's either been given the night off for the family to be together, or has taken him to the park to give him some feeling of normalcy while the parents take it all in."

"Aaron?" Ryan questioned her curiously, though Beckett thought she had detected a hint of worry in his voice.

"Kayla's older brother." For some reason, the words felt like the wrong ones the moment they came out of her mouth. Ryan seemed to think so too, as he immediately ducked his head down for his eyes to meet the floor, and he began to chew on the inside of his cheek.

"Poor kid." He finally replied, and Beckett slowly nodded in response. Her eyes burned with curiosity.

"Call me if anything interesting pops up, and I'll let you know when I find the sitter." Beckett finally said

"Will do," Esposito shot back immediately

But Beckett didn't see the confirmation, only heard it, because she had already turned around and began walking out the door, more determined than ever.

•••

"Well, Pam Linden's story checks out, she really was with her family up in Dobbs Ferry until early this morning," Esposito sighed in exasperation. They were inching along in this case when everyone was clearly itching to get it solved and over with. It was easy to be light-hearted and treat this only as the job when a normal man or woman is murdered, and sometimes even some teenagers are bearable, but a little girl was damn near impossible.

He'd already watched his partner completely lose it for some unknown reason that still worried him. The first day of the investigation was almost over and they still had no strong suspects, a lot of horrible evidence, and few leads. Everyone at the precinct knew that Beckett was going to start getting cranky if she didn't get a suspect soon. There was just something about this case. They had barely started, and they hadn't pulled up to a dead end yet, but already everyone was getting nervous and jumpy about it.

A ringing phone almost made him jump, and he felt almost as if he'd been caught zoning out by Beckett. In a way, he had, because he couldn't think of anyone else who could possibly be calling him. Without checking the caller ID he picked it up.

"Esposito."

"Hey dude! How're things down at the Twelfth without me?"

"That you Castle?" At his question, Ryan sat up straighter, and looked over at him on the phone, his partner's expression most likely mirrored his own. The shock and bewilderment evident in the Irish man's every feature.

"Hello to you Detective. And you have yet to answer my question," he sounded jovial enough, but then again, the man was always grinning.

"We're holding up alright, nothing to complain about," Esposito didn't like to lie in general, much less to people he knew and respected. But the honest answer to that question shouldn't be said on a work phone.

•••

Ryan snapped his fingers until Esposito finally took enough of his attention away from the phone call to look over at him. Mouthing the words until he finally got his partner to understand that he wanted in on the conversation, he swiveled his desk chair around to the phone, and waited for Esposito to patch him in. He didn't have to wait long before the little green light flashed on line two. Holding down the button, he picked up the phone.

"Hey stranger."

"Ryan? How're you here? Ooh! Let me guess, you're pressed up against Esposito's phone like two school girls at a sleepover?"

"No!" He replied much too quickly in embarrassment. "Esposito beeped me into the call through the desk phone, at my separatedesk."

"And hey, the pot shouldn't be calling the kettle black; didn't Beckett tell me about this time you did the same thing to her… on her cell phone?" Esposito mentioned evilly, backing up his and his partner's honor.

"That was different!" Castle shot back, his voice suddenly several pitches higher than before, "She wouldn't put it on speakerphone!"

"Whatever you say bro,"

"So Castle, how've the Hamptons been treating you?"

"It's the Hamptons! There's sand, there's surf," Ryan heard a crumpling of some sort, then a muffled moan before Castle returned to the speaker, his voice thick, "and there's the best homemade salt water taffy in the entire country. My God, I could live off this! When I get back, I'm bringing this taffy to the precinct."

Ryan heard more crumple noises that he assumed were wax paper from the taffy wrappers. He couldn't help but smirk at the writer's childlike excitement.

After working with the guy for two years, he ought to be used to the tiny fascinations and simple joys that he found, but it never ceased to amaze him. Little kids all love to explore the world, and find the tiniest of everyday things astonishing, but as they get older, they've seen it all before, and the wonder is taken out of the ordinary. Yet somehow, Castle still managed to be fascinated by the most peculiar things, like Russian Stacking dolls, bad coffee, and custom made police vests.

Ryan sometimes got energetic to the point of annoyance for his partner, but he still rarely took pleasure and excitement from Chinese finger traps, like Castle once did. He spent the entire day playing with it, and marveling at the tiny contraption. It drove Beckett up the wall, and Ryan and Esposito were cracking up the entire time. At one point Esposito had bought that microwavable popcorn from the vending machine, and popped it in the microwave in the break room so they could properly watch the show.

"How's the book coming?" Esposito asked, and Ryan could hear the hint of caution in his voice. It was only smart too. This was where they slowly started walking into murky waters.

"The final draft is done and sent out to my editor for the last few revisions. But otherwise, I'm done for the summer. I'll probably stay out here until Alexis's program at Princeton ends in a few days, and then she'll come stay with me out here for a few weeks, and the last week, we'll head home for the giant back-to-school shopping trips. Mother takes care of the clothes shopping, while I handle the multiple Staples trips."

"Sounds like you've got this all planned out."

"Well, now that the book's done and I'm still waiting on the final edits, there's not much else to be done here. So I'm down to twiddling my thumbs and waiting for Alexis's summer program to end."

"What, your ex-wife not keeping you busy now that she got what she wanted?" Ryan heard the words come out of his partner's mouth, and he could tell Esposito was shocked that the words had actually been said. He even looked half guilty about the harsh tone that went with it, but not guilty enough to take it back. Ryan knew how he felt. Even though the oblivious writer technically hadn't done anything wrong, they were still defensive of Beckett.

"Gina?" Ryan couldn't help the burst of anger towards Castle at the genuine surprise in his voice. "She left weeks ago. Once my first draft was finished, she was satisfied, and went to focus on other clients. Not that I mind too much; that woman ran my house like a prison. On the plus side, spending a two weeks with her reminded me of why we're divorced."

As quickly as Ryan's anger surged, it dissipated. Although he still didn't forgive the guy for what he unknowingly did to Beckett, he could sympathize with him. The man was lonely, and loneliness is one of the few things that can turn a home into a prison. The presence of others, and the atmosphere they brought to a place could change a situation enormously, for either the better, or the worse.

"Well, we miss you over here man." Esposito looked at him oddly when he said it, but Ryan was glad that he did. He was even more pleased with himself when Castle answered, his voice immediately sounding less tired.

"Well, I would like to believe that I added a little something to the team, if only cappuccinos and monthly poker nights," he said it proudly, then paused a moment, then quickly sprung a last-moment thought at them, "so, have any dead bodies come up recently?"

Ryan froze. He didn't know why he found it surprising that Castle asked that, because it shouldn't be. Ryan would've thought it would be the first question on his list, but hearing the question still made him stiffen considerably. His partner seemed to get the message.

"Yeah, we just got a case this morning. We don't have any strong suspects yet, but there're still a lot of possibilities that we're running up. Right now we just need to fill in the timeline." Esposito dumped out the most overview about the Evans case, but even as he was inwardly thanking his partner, Ryan knew that Castle would never settle for such vagueness.

"Ooh! Who's the victim? Was it gory? Is it weird?" Ryan had joked with the other two guys in almost this exact conversation before, but now, the questions made him nauseous. Forcing himself to avoid another scene, he stared forcefully at his computer screen.

"Hey, I got a lead, I need to run this by Beckett. Sorry to cut my conversation short, Castle. Talk later." He tried to sound as normal as possible, and even went through the motions of scribbling a note on one of the many post-it pads sprawled over his desk, tearing it off, and making his way to the coffee room. Only in the back of his mind did he remember that Beckett was off, looking for Kayla's babysitter, but that didn't matter, because Castle wouldn't pick up on the lie. What he forgot is that Esposito would.

•••

"Whoa, quick escape much? What's going on?" Castle's laughing voice was laced with confusion, but Esposito didn't hear him. He just sighed, watching the retreating figure of his partner rushing off to the break room with a post-it covered in squiggles.

"It's got something to do with the case. Since we got it he's been really shaken up," reluctantly, he decided to leave out the part about his partner passing out, partially for the guy's pride, and partially because they were both afraid of what would and what wouldn't appear in a Heat novel.

"Okay, seriously, what is the deal with this case of yours? This is like, the third time you've dodged the question in this one conversation, and you're never one for the half truths."

As oblivious as Castle was to some of the things around him, he had a habit of picking up on the little details that most others missed. Esposito was stuck; he both trusted and respected Castle, as an investigator, and as a friend.

"The vic's name is Kayla Evans. Caucasian female, brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin. Found her body dumped in Gramercy Park at 4:28 this morning. Time of death was somewhere between 8 pm and 10 pm the night before. Cause of death was blunt force trauma; blow to the back of the head. She's got bruises all over the place, all of them pre-mortem. On top of that, she shows signs of sexual assault hours within her death."

"And her age?" Esposito knew wouldn't miss the one horrible, omitted detail that just made everything all the worse.

"She was eight."

The phone went silent for several minutes.

"How are you all holding up?"

"Can't let the job get in the way of the job."

"Lanie?"

"Braver than any woman I've ever known, with maybe the exception of Beckett," he couldn't help the small proud smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"Speaking of Beckett, how is she taking it?" The question was tentative, and fearful.

"You know her; she went into super-cop mode. Today alone, she's done the work of four cops." There was a muffled sigh of half relief, and concern, across the line, before pausing and returning in full Castle mode to the conversation.

"But Ryan?" His voice had utterly lost its sympathetic softness, and had suddenly transitioned into his curious, probing tone.

"What about him?"

"He sounds like his nerves have been strapped to train tracks and there's a train coming."

"We don't get cases like this often. When we do, it usually has some horrible ending. More often than not, there was no reason. Everyone's nerves are bound to get shot around here." Esposito said diplomatically.

Even if Castle hadn't started the summer on a bad foot for everyone at the precinct, he was still hesitant to talk about what had happened with Ryan, and what Lanie loosely concluded. Ryan barely told him anything, which meant that he didn't want to make too big a deal out of it. Hell, he was pretty sure the Captain didn't even know what had happened.

"Still, the guy works with gruesome corpses daily. You come face to face with the worst of humanity on a regular basis. The guy seems pretty frazzled for something completely work related. Just looks like there's something personal there…"

"How about you come over and see an eight year old girl being used as a punching bag? Tell me you don't get a little on edge too?" Esposito didn't expect to snap like that, especially because Castle was confirming all of his own suspicions, but he knew it would definitely throw Castle off the trail of odd behaviors that his partner was leaving.

"Okay whoa, chill out okay? I'm sorry."

"S'okay bro. You've probably just gotten rusty over the summer," he said, trying to lighten the mood, but then had a second thought. Castle was a wealth of obscure, and many times important information, especially when it came to the macabre. "Actually, mind if I ask you a question for the case?"

"Absolutely not! Do you need any more help? I could come back for the week, and be there in a few hours,"

"Nah bro," Esposito said in slightly better spirits. "Just checking what you can tell me about something. I got the general concept, but not many specifics, and I don't have time to do extra research."

"I'm your guy!" Castle's voice couldn't have been more eager, and Esposito had to smirk. "What do you need?"

•••

Castle was not easily surprised, and almost never caught off guard. Six months before the seventh Harry Potter book came out, he and Alexis had each made a list of predictions, dated the bottom, and had both of them sign each one. Out of a list of twenty guesses, he had only gotten one prediction wrong, and missed two plot twists. He knew stories; he knew characters. He often created characters that were more realistic, and more human than some real people are.

But he wouldn't have guessed that was what Esposito was looking for an explanation for. Didn't they teach them anything in the Police Acadamy training anymore? Then again, it is a really complex concept. For one long moment, he didn't know what to say. Sure he knew about it from some of his original research, before he got his first book published. When he was just starting out trying to be a mystery writer, he started looking up everything he could about murder, and the phrase came up. In the end he could never use it, because he didn't have the willpower to do that to any of his characters.

"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?" he repeated it back to Esposito dumbly, before tripping over what to say. "Yeah, I know about it. I did research for a story on it. Early days. Never got published. But that's not important. What do you need to know about it?"

"Just general stuff; I dunno… when does it happen? What causes it? What does it do? I dunno, whatever you know."

Castle sighed heavily. That helped him absolutely none. In some far corner in his mind, where he dumped his retired muses, his worst book reviews, his conscience, and several other unimportant things, he was well aware that he probably shouldn't be the one to explain it to the Detective, but he didn't have the proper sense to just email him a paraphrased copy of his research.

"You know how some soldiers come back from war, and they can't reintegrate themselves back to their old lives because they saw too much, or they've lived through too much?"

"Yeah," on the other end of the line, Esposito sounded tense, and nervous.

"Well, that's one prime example. Basically, anyone who has this has experienced something horrible, usually they were threatened, or they were hurt, anything traumatic. Like being exposed to war, surviving a gun or knife fight, being kidnapped or tortured, living through a natural disaster, or a human-caused disaster like a terrorist attack, being raped, mugged or even assaulted if they thought their life was in danger,"

"So, what happens to them if they have it?"

"Well, PTSD has a huge impact on their life. You know how Beckett still hasn't completely come to terms with her mother's murder? It's not like that. Even though it still haunts her, she deals with it. PTSD is different; someone with it has experienced something so horrifying that their souls completely close in on themselves in a desperate attempt to handle it. At its worst, it can impair every area of their life."

"What does that mean? What are the symptoms?" Esposito sounded so tense now that Castle actually became afraid of wording anything wrong, in case he ruined something. This case was beginning to honestly scare him, and Richard Castle didn't scare easily.

"Almost always there are flashbacks, or recurring dreams, sometimes they're forced to relive the event in their minds. It would be so vivid that sometimes they don't realize it's not real. Usually certain objects, sights, phrases, sounds, smells, situations, or even people will become triggers that set off panic attacks, or reminders of the trauma. And they will avoid anything having to do with the event like the plague. Sometimes the mind can't find any other way to compensate, and forces the person to forget certain memories, or parts of the event. Sometimes they can't feel specific emotions. Almost always they have trouble getting to, or staying asleep at night. They get angry, or jumpy, and paranoid, or hyper-aware of everything around them."

Castle breathed for a moment, waiting to see if Esposito would cut in, maybe explaining why it was relevant to the case, or asking about a specific area, but he remained silent, waiting for him to continue. After a moment, he did.

"If someone is stuck with long-lasting trauma exposure, then there's something called Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or C-PTSD. For these victims, their ability to function in just about every area of life can be damaged. On top of that, they're normally stuck in a feeling of helplessness, and see their attacker as all-powerful. More often than not, they're subject to depression, and are likely to blame themselves for what happened. The mind, the heart, the soul: all of them are essentially obliterated in the brain's desperate attempt to cope."

The line was silent, and Castle didn't know what else to say. Apparently, neither did Esposito. They sat there for several minutes without a sound being passed between them. He couldn't imagine what twists this case could possibly be taking that had so many tragic and dynamic roads. He immediately decided to call Beckett later to check up on her, even though he had been hesitant to before.

"Thanks for the info, bro," Esposito finally replied on the other end of the line. "Listen, I gotta go, dig up some more leads for Beckett. Everyone wants this case closed soon."

"Sure, no problem,"

"Later." The single word was quickly followed by a definitive click that signaled the end of the call.

"Later," Castle repeated, and let the phone sag until it hung limply in his hand, by his side. Only then did he press the button to hang up.

He hated not being here for this one, which was affecting everyone dramatically. During the Finch Case, everyone was shaken up, and the group's protective, tight-knit nature rose. He had even been referred to as Esposito's partner, a title that made him the proudest that he's been in many years. Even though he wasn't a cop, he had been accepted into the family.

He didn't need to see the pictures of Kayla to imagine how terrible this had to be on everyone. Suddenly, he had an overwhelming need to call Alexis, and see if she was alright.


If PTSD seemed bad before, you must hate me now that you know more about it. But I promise you, it won't be as bad as Castle's worst case scenario. Also, we may see more of Castle yet. What do you think? I'm curious about your guesses about what happened to Kayla, or what happened to Ryan. I'm not sure if I've revealed too much too early, or not enough. What's your viewpoint?