A/N Hi everyone, so here's the next installment for you all. I've been arguing with myself for days as to whether or not to split it into two chapters or not. In the end, the length decided it for me and I thought it would be best to break it down so I'll post the next part in a day or so since it's already written and ready to go - no waiting this time! :) As always, I hope you all enjoy this next stage in the invetigation,

A


Wincing as he walked, Castle made his way back to the bullpen with Beckett. The two of them hadn't said a word since she'd handed him his ass on a plate not thirty minutes ago.

Strolling down the stairs and onto the Homicide Floor, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Ryan and Esposito were at their desks working (if you take 'work' to mean making 'fighter jets' out of paper and seeing whose got the furthest), Gates was shut up in her office as usual and a few other cops were milling around doing various odd jobs from filing to photocopying and every mundane task in between.

Confused and a little stunned by the silence from Castle and Beckett (getting one of them to stop talking long enough to breathe was hard enough, but both of them?), Ryan put his life on the line and hazarded a probe at the pair.

"Good time at the gym?" he braced himself for the tongue lashing he was sure was to follow. He could see Espo out the corner of his eye giving him the 'rookie-mistake' look, shaking his head slightly as he did so.

"Great, actually." Beckett replied, which just led to even more caution and confusion from the members of the resident bromance. "Haven't had a work out like that in forever. Ain't that right, Castle?"

"Speak for yourself" the writer mumbled under his breath.

"So, you guys are alright?" Esposito questioned.

"Do I look alright to you?" Castle groaned as he sat down, clearly feeling the strain in his legs from where Beckett had overstretched them and torn his muscles slightly.

Ryan and Esposito glanced inquisitively at Beckett hoping for a reasonable explanation as to Castle's inability to walk.

The trio exchanged looks for a moment before Castle – feeling as if he was about to be excluded from the 'cool kids' club and destined to a lifetime of Swirlies and Noogies – interrupted them.

"She ambushed me!"

"Please, I did not ambush you! Ambushed implies I only took you down because I had the element of surprise." Beckett said indignantly.

"You did so!"

"Did not!"

"Dude, you got your ass beat by a woman." Esposito chuckled.

Castle and Beckett both sent piercing stares his way and he was caught out like a deer in headlights.

"I didn't..I didn't mean that. I just meant-"

"It had nothing to do with her being a woman" Castle interjected.

"No, but it had everything to do with you being one" Beckett mumbled under her breath.

"Hey, that was uncalled for!"

"Really, Princess?" He regretted saying it as soon as the words passed his lips. Having already dug his metaphorical grave, Esposito decided now was the time to back off before he began handing out the hammer and nails to seal his coffin and giving a dollar for the privilege.

Castle turned his attention back to Beckett.

"You think I was prepared for what you just did to me?"

Ryan and Espo exchanged awkward looks, one of which definitely said 'What the heck happened in that gym?' and another from Esposito screamed 'Look what you've gone and done now!'. Ryan had to admit, he deserved that one. If he had just left them be, they'd have been scowling at each other the rest of the afternoon, clocked off around 6pm and come back like two 'normal' people in the morning. He made a mental note to just act as if nothing had happened the next time Mom and Dad had a fight. He also made a second note – never wonder what they get up to alone.


Once they'd finally settled, the rest of the day at the Precinct was pretty uneventful; Ryan continued to gaze longingly at anything that so much as resembled food, Esposito continued to taunt him with doughnuts and the likes, Beckett ignored everyone while sat hunched over her desk devouring a mountain of paper work and Castle – still nursing his ego – took up his usual seat by her side and tried to distract her long enough to coax information out of her.

No such luck.

It was about 4.30pm when he decided to get into his own paperwork. He flipped out his notebook and studied his 'Beckett List'.

Josh, Demming, Sorenson, Nathan, Mr T (sorry, Matt), Parker-someone-or-other and not Dan.

It was progression at least but he had less than 24 hours until his deadline.

Remembering his rather uncomfortable encounter at the Early Bird Café on 29th, he flipped a few pages further in his notebook.

And there it was; Madison's little addition. Two little words. Two little words that would brighten his day.

Gianluca Vitali.

Now, he was no expert but Castle was pretty sure that this was an Italian name. As far as he knew, Beckett had never been to Italy so how – and more to the point when – had she encountered this guy?

But what could he do with just a name? There's no story to a name. Without a story, it's just a bunch of letters strung together into words with no meaning. There was more to this and he was going to find it.

He pondered over the list a while longer and fended off nosy questions from the others but he just wasn't getting any further with this whole investigating business.

"What do you do when you have no breaks in a case, you've been staring at the board for hours and still have no new ideas?" Castle mused aloud to no one in particular.

"Take a break, bro"

"Yeah, go home. Get a bite to eat, kick back with a beer…" Ryan drifted off into his own dreamland.

"I usually have to listen to these ridiculous theories churned out by this writer that follows me around all the time. Kind of annoying, actually."

"Now, now" warned Espo, "You two have been playing nicely all afternoon, don't go ruining it now."

"Fine," Kate huffed. "I go back to the beginning, look over things I hadn't considered before. You've been tailing me for years now, Castle. You know how I work."

"I do, and I know that you sit for hours going over the same thing again and again. Not me, not today." Struck by a moment of inspiration, he gathered his few belongings from the area surrounding Beckett's desk and struggled to his feet, doing his best to ignore the pain in his battered legs. "It's 5:45; I make that home time."

"Oh?" she didn't understand; he never left before she did unless it was for Alexis or a meeting with Black Pawn, even if they'd fallen out or driven each other crazy he stuck it out til she called it a night. Why should today be so different?

"If you do what you've always done, Detective, you'll get what you've always had."


Having decided a change of tact was in order, Castle set about formulating a new, last minute plan to try and seal the deal on this number business.

It wasn't going to be flashy or 'out there' but he had to be…different.

Google.

Working on the proviso that 'If Google doesn't know, no one does', Castle thought it was a pretty safe bet that he could at least get somewhere by following this line of investigation.

Back at his loft with his feet up, his laptop on his knees and Chinese take-out at his side, Richard Castle settled down for a night of private investigating.

If only I had all the fancy P.I. gadgets, he thought to himself as he felt a pang of jealousy towards the real P.I's of the world. In all his daydreaming he'd let the Chinese food container tip over on his sofa, the juice staining its surface and the noodles falling through the cracks between the cushions. That'll teach him to pay attention.

He cleaned himself up as best he could and decided that he was definitely not made for multi-tasking. He scoffed the remainder of his dinner at the breakfast bar in the kitchen and changed into his pajama pants (he'd cleverly sat in the Chinese food) before returning to the laptop to make a proper start.

Opening up his browser, he decided it was best to start with just the basics. Tapping the name of Beckett's mystery suitor into the search engine didn't turn up much. Besides, he didn't really know anything about this guy apart from his name – he could have been any one of the hundreds of thousands of hits that appeared.

His next attempt coupled Vitali and Beckett's names in the search…still no luck.

Maybe Google doesn't know everything…

Hold on a second…Madison knew Kate in college. New search combination – Kate Beckett + college.

Clicking through the search results, he came across various links relating to newspaper articles and academic papers but nothing useful for his current quest. He did however make a note to himself to go back and read what the internet had to say about his favourite Detective in her earlier years. Why had he never thought to Google her before? He'd searched for Ryan and Esposito (who turned out to be quite the baseball player back in the day) but never for her. Curious.

Moving swiftly on, Castle clicked on a tonne of other links, none of which came to anything much. The next thing he's aware of is X rated flashing images flickering across his screen and a series of noises that can only be likened to the animals he'd taken Alexis to visit at Central Park Zoo. How had he ended up with this on his screen?

He frantically clicked his way across the screen, anything to try and shut it off. Hitting the mute button on his computer hadn't worked either and the more he tried to get rid of it, the louder it seemed to him. Oh dear God.

"Erm, Dad? You know I'm here, right?" Alexis called over from the arm chair she was reading in.

"Yes! Yes I know you're there!"

"Kinda inappropriate for the living room don't you think?"

"I didn't mean…I wasn't looking for that! I-"

Seeing that her father was becoming more flustered by the second, Alexis decided to put him out of his misery. Stepping over the cable stretched between their two chairs she took the laptop from Rick's hands and sat down next to him.

"Hey! Hey! I don't want you looking at that!"

"Dad, I'm 18."

"I know you're 18 but that doesn't mean I want you watching things like this!"

"I'm not watching it, Dad." Always the cool headed and calm one of the two of them, Alexis unplugged the laptop from the mains and removed the battery – all while keeping her eyes averted from the screen. The picture gave way to black and the sound cut out, leaving only the gentle background noise of the TV humming quietly from the other side of the room.

"Ahhh, thank you!" Castle breathed a huge sigh of relief. Alexis simply smiled a knowing smile at him as the redness began to subside from her father's cheeks.

"Blushing, Dad?"

"No, I-…Can you help me fix it?"

"Sure, just give me a minute and I'll reboot it all for you."

She re-hooked up the power cable and set about restoring the computer to an earlier time point.

"I was looking up something about Detective Beckett" Castle confessed.

"I see…and that led to this how?"

"I don't know ok! I was looking up some stuff about Beckett and this guy she knew at college and-"

"You had 'college girl' in your search terms didn't you."

"Maybe." Alexis tilted her head and looked at her father with raised eybrows. "OK, I see where I went wrong. Now can you just fix it?"

She tapped away at the keys a while, throwing in the odd click of the mouse here and there along with the occasional 'Mmmhmmm'.

"You clicked on a virus, Dad."

"See! I told you I wasn't looking for that stuff."

"Not this time."

"No. I – wait! What do you mean not this time?"

"Dad, I get it. I know what guys 'accidentally' look at on the internet"

"No! I don't, I-"

"It says so in your internet history."

Darn. Outsmarted by an 18 year old. Again.

"Purely for research purposes. Nikki Heat. You understand."

Alexis continued to work on the computer, restoring it to its pre-virus state.

"Since when was there a chapter in Nikki Heat involving 'sexy nurse in high heels'?" She asked,eyes trained on the screen, still distracted by the restoration process she'd started and not really paying attention to her father or his answer. "Here you go." She handed the laptop back to Castle and started back toward her own lounge chair and the book she'd left balancing over the arm. "You might want to check you haven't lost any of your work. You shouldn't have, but the last chapter might not be the latest version. Oh, and I've set the parental controls for you so you don't 'accidentally' end up harming that innocent brain of yours again."

"Thanks Pumpkin, I owe you one." Castle replied with a sheepish smile on his face.

He turned back to his screen only to see a web page Alexis had left open for him. His eyes lit up at what she'd found for him. He'd said it before and he was sure to say it again, but the girl was a genius. The Alumni webpage. Of course. She'd even found the page that listed Beckett's graduating class and used the tabbed browsing to open up the list of exchange students that had visited in her Freshman Year.

Alexis, you beauty. Castle beamed, the embarrassing blush of moments ago replaced by a glow that could rival the Vegas Strip.


It didn't take long for Castle to set up his own account on the Alumni website; a bit of bluffing here, a white lie there and hey presto, he was in. Some nine thousand plus ex-students had already registered on the site and a further two hundred something exchange students had joined the party. Luckily for Castle, one was not Beckett but another was most certainly Signore Vitali himself.

Castle clicked his way through the profile. It all seemed pretty standard.

Family man. Married. Two sons. From Alba, Italy. Took part in a yearlong exchange to USA. Took over the family business 4 years ago. Amateur photographer… Nothing out of the ordinary.

He continued to nosy around a bit and stumbled across a few photos Gianluca had uploaded of his time in the US – not surprising really since the man considered himself a photographer. The typical tourist snaps took over his screen in turn, followed by a college football game, Gianluca and a few other exchange students attempting beer pong…Jackpot – Gianluca and co. at a party. But he wasn't just with anyone; Madison was there, token plastic red cup in hand, a couple of guys that Castle knew nothing of and then right there, on the end stood Gianluca with the teenage Kate's arms draped over his shoulders from behind, a leg wrapped round his waist and her mouth to his ear – all while cheekily eyeing up the camera.

'Well I never' was all that Castle's mind could process.

Ha! He couldn't believe it. Best not get ahead of himself, he should really read what the man had to say before he went ahead and counted his lucky stars.

He was in luck.

Quickly scanning the lines on his profile, Castle read all the tales that Gian (as he seemed to prefer) had to offer. Between the not so exciting tales of his time in America, he had unwittingly dished the dirt on Beckett.

'Often found in inappropriate places, rolling with the craziest girl on campus' followed by a picture of himself and Kate as teenagers, posing for the camera.

There it was in black and white…well, as subtext really but it was definitely there. Castle chuckled manically to himself – this day couldn't get any better. He had to hand it to himself, he was getting pretty good at this detective business – Beckett better watch her badge.

Not only had he pretty much told Castle that they had a 'friends with benefits' situation for the majority of his year abroad, he'd included some pictures and the golden ticket in terms of Beckett blackmail; a video clip.

Not just any old video clip either, it was titled 'How it all began'.

Oh, thank you Gian for being a camera nerd and digitising decade old clips. Thank you!

It was fantastic to see what the beautiful Detective had looked like in her younger days, in a time of carefree youth before her mother was cruelly and unjustly snatched from her but that wasn't so much what he was hoping for and it certainly wasn't the cream of the crop. That lay in the video, he could feel it in his bones.

Castle clicked play on the video and was immediately greeted with scenes from a college party – loud music, alcohol and plenty of rowdy students. The voiceover was heavily accented but Castle could just about make out what was being said above all the noise.

"We come in America four days ago. Tonight we introduced to college life!" the man – presumably Gian – screamed over the disorder. The shot panned the crowd, showed people dancing and playing games. Next thing Castle knew, Kate and Madison were on the screen.

"Woooooooo! Woooooooo!" The girls screamed at the camera, coming in close. Castle had to turn the volume down because the noise was just too much.

"Tonight, we're gonna show you how we do it in America!" Kate slurred a little during her grand announcement.

"You have one minute to kiss all the hot guys you can" Madison explained to an equally drunken female exchange student. To be fair, she seemed pretty game and jumped right in. "You're in charge!" Madison dictated to the cameraman, "You have to count."

Madison went first, racking up what Castle thought was a rather impressive total of eleven. The exchange student was up next and chants of 'Flori, Flori, Flori' rang through Castle's speakers as the other students egged the girl on. Dutifully catching it all on camera, Gian chased the girl through the house, tallying up her score.

"Nove!" The Italian on camera called out – clearly the Europeans weren't so adept at this game as the home nation. "Next up, Kaaate!"

Castle couldn't believe what happened next. Kate jumped up on a table in the centre of the room and called for everyone's attention. Next thing he knew, her top was flying through the crowd and she'd certainly attained the response she was after, standing there in her cropped cami. In the 45 seconds that followed, she'd managed to add sixteen guys to her score before she turned her attention to Gian.

"Welcome to America!" she yelled before launching herself at him. The camera shook and the lens was aimed towards the floor. There was a wobble as the camera changed hands and was retrained on Kate and Gian by some other third party. Kate had time to move on to the other waiting participants in the gathered crowd, but she stuck out the last ten seconds or so with this one.

"Diciassette!" a breathless Gianluca called out when time was signalled by the new cameraman.

"New personal best for Miss Katherine Beckett!" Madison shouted wildly, closing in on the lens. By the time she turned back around, Kate and Gian were nowhere to be seen and the crowd had dissipated as quickly as it had gathered.

Castle rewound the video slightly and took a screen shot of the young Kate playing tonsil tennis with the Italian and printed himself a copy.

Seeing how late it had gotten, Castle shut his laptop down and prepared for bed. Tomorrow was going to be a long day and he didn't want to be yawning his way through the church service. He checked in on Alexis as a force of habit (he knew she was 18 and all grown up, but she was still his little girl and he still felt the need to check on her before he went to sleep), left a glass of water and a sandwich on the breakfast bar for his mother when she returned from her latest adventures, shut off the lights and shuffled through the darkness to his bed.

This game just got a whole lot more interesting.