Sorry for not updating sooner :( I am in full-blown exam panic mode right now and to top it all off I'm very unsure about this chapter; hopefully I'm just to pessimistic and you guys do like it anyway :) Well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there? ;)


Word count (chapter): 2683 words

Word count (total): 17814 words


Chapter seven: Surprise!

Castle takes my jacket and return to my side, but in the meantime, there's a bit of an awkward pause; thankfully, that's when Martha steps forward and pulls me into a hug. A one-handed hug because her other hand is holding a champagne flute, but still a hug.

"Come here, Jonathan. Thank you so much for saving my son and granddaughter," she says as she breaks the hug.

I give her a shy smile. I'm not exactly used to her flamboyant personality, even after a year of more or less frequent encounters, and I doubt I ever fully will. "You're welcome, Martha. Although I can't say it was entirely altruistic; my butt was on the line, too."

Martha however is having none of that and waves my comment away. "Nonsense, darling. There were hundreds of people in that building with a history of selfish behavior and none of them moved an inch. I know Richard tagging along with the police isn't safe, but I wouldn't have dreamed that a charity event would turn out to be so dangerous. Thank god you were there. To be honest, I won't stop worrying, but it's less when you are there to keep an eye on them." Frankly, I think it's the opposite; danger seems to follow me around, and in extension the people I work with, but I don't think it would be wise to tell her that. I sincerely hope there's plot armor in this universe.

"She's right, you know," Captain Montgomery throws in with a smirk. "and let me tell you something from a professional: That performance was not too shabby for a sixteen-year-old boy."

That elicits a chuckle from the boys. And Castle. Who promptly speaks up. "Speaking of which, how did you do that, exactly? There were more than a dozen heavily armed men against just you. That were bad odds, even for you," he states with wide eyes. The kind he always gets when there's a conspiracy theory around the bullpen.

"I met a joint NSA/CIA strike team who basically had the same goal as I did, so we combined our efforts." I mentally high-five myself, because that delivery was beautifully deadpan. "It took us a while because there were only four of us, but in the end, we got the job done."

Castle punches the air in excitement. "Yes! I knew it!" I admit, I almost crack up when he bites his knuckles and bounces up and down, but I hold strong. "You see, Beckett? It's all the law of averages. Eventually I had to be right," he tells her with a laugh.

Beckett smirks at her partner's antics and rolls her eyes. "Yeah, well, maybe. But not today, I'm afraid."

Hearing that, Castle's eyes grow bigger and bigger, and his head whips around to me. "Is that true? Did you just fool me into believing this to be a conspiracy?"

His mock hurt slash betrayed look finally proves too much for me and I crack up laughing. "Yes, Castle. I'm sorry, but you know full well that you have a teensy weensy bit of a sweet spot for the alphabet agencies and conspiracies in general, and this was an opportunity too good to pass up on, am I right?" I confess with a smug smirk. Sorry, not sorry.

Holding out my hand expectantly without breaking eye contact with Castle, Esposito obliges me and feeds my birds. "He's right, Castle," the detective says. "You're too easy."

The writer straightens his back and bows his head to me. "In that case, well played, sir. I admit defeat in this battle, but remember that the war has not yet reached its end."

Another eye roll by Kate. "God, Castle, why do you always have to be so dramatic?"

He gives her a nonchalant shrug. "What can I do? It's inherited," he adds and gives his mother a kiss to the cheek. "That said, there are good pieces of meat in the oven, for whom the situation is starting to get too dicey."

With that, he disappears around the counter to tend to the meal.

"Don't scare us like that again! But I wanted to thank you, too," Alexis tells me quietly and gives me a bone-crushing hug. Which turns out to be not that good of an idea, because my ribs are still bruised from that bullet.

I hiss softly at the hard contact, and make Alexis pull back anxiously. "Did you get hurt?" she asks.

I wave her concern away. "Nah, it's nothing. One of the bad guys just got lucky."

The young redhead gives me a disapproving glare. "It's not nothing if I made you wince with just a hug."

"To be fair, it was a bone-crushing hug," I counter meekly.

"Nonsense," she mutters, and before I can react, she has pulled up my turtleneck to look at the (by now rather impressive) bruising at my ribcage. I can't really tell if it's impressive by myself, but the way Alexis gasps at the discoloration is a fair indication.

"Lanie, you're a doctor, right? Can you take a look at this, please?" the young girl asks.

Said ME looks rather unconvinced at that idea. Thank god. "You do know my patients are all dead?"

"Lanie, Alexis, you don't have to do this," I object. "the painkillers take the edge off, and there's not much else you can do about bruising, anyway. I'll be fine. Besides, there are less painful ways to get to see my abs," I quip with a smirk. Fortunately, said abs are in fact quite formidable by now, thanks to Andrew's rigid training regiment.

"Which she has no business seeing unless it's an emergency," Castle butts in from behind the oven. "That goes for both of you," he adds and points a large wooden ladle at Lanie. "You give her bad ideas if you do."

"Excuse me, Castle?" said ME asks and puts her hand on her hip. "I can ogle whomever I want, just so you know."

"Okay, credit for correct use of 'whomever', but considering the age gap and the fact he's a minor, this discussion is kinda moot."

"I don't know, Castle," Beckett joins and taps her chin in thought, "those abs really do make a woman forget the age gap. I can see Alexis going for that," she adds, making both mine and Alexis' faces heat up quickly. Oh, this woman is evil.

Alexis crosses her arms and gives the detective a deadly glare. "Kate!" she exclaims loudly.

I can't help it, but I think it's cute when Alexis is annoyed. Just saying.

"What?" is all Castle can squeak out for a moment. "That's my daughter you're talking about," he scowls.

"I know, Castle," Kate laughs, "and I know that it makes you squirm... It is fun seeing you squirm."

He gives her the stink eye over the counter. "Evil, teasing woman."

I clap into my hands. "Well, it seems dinner is ready; shall we?" No need to further heat up the discussion any more.

"You can go take a seat, dinner will be there shortly," Castle shouts as he bends down at the oven.

Everyone makes their way to the big table in the middle of the room. I want to, too, but Javi holds me back at the arm. "I haven't said anything, but I've seen that kind of bruising before," he tells me with a low voice. "I've been a soldier. I know you've been shot wearing a vest, and I can understand that you don't want to talk about it, but you'll probably need to eventually. PTSD is not a joke, and it can even take some time to set in. If you want to talk... you have my number."

With a short squeeze of my arm and a clap on the shoulder, he puts on a smile and walks over to the others.

"Thank you," I mutter, just loud enough for him to hear, making him turn his head to me and gives me a curt nod before turning his head back to the table.

"What were you two talking about?" Ryan asks his partner as I follow Esposito to the others.

"He asked for advice about how to fool Castle," I tell him with a smirk.

"You do know he will never let me live this down, right?" Espo says and swats my shoulder, playing along.

"My whole job revolves about knowing things, so yeah, I do know; that's why I told him," I say and grin broadly. "But I'm sure Ryan here won't overuse this knowledge, isn't that right, honey milk?" I ask and turn my grin at the now slightly paler Irish detective. "Aw, don't worry. My lips are sealed. Also part of the job," I tell him with a wink.

I think I successfully distracted him.

Time to move on? Time to move on. I clap my hands. "Anyone else hungry?"


The meat almost melts as it touches my tongue, the sauce leaves a warm, burning aftertaste - in short, perfect. "Castle, this is delicious."

The writer grins at the praise. "Thank you. I got the recipe in exchange for a photo op at the restaurant where it was created."

Beckett rolls her eyes. "Of course you did," she mutters under her breath. If Castle has heard it, he chooses to ignore it.

"But enough about the food, you still haven't told us how you managed to save the day," Castle inquires. Again. "Those guys were armed to the teeth."

It's not that easy to accept praise when I didn't do all that much. I wave him away. "It turned out to be not as hard as one might think. They had high-end military grade weapons, yes; but luckily, those were garbage to most in close quarter combat. That, plus they were absolutely unprepared for actual resistance from the hostages. I caught most of them unaware, and they had little to no clue what I was doing because they didn't communicate periodically. They were trained, but they made rookie mistakes."

That seems to mollify him to a certain extent, at least enough to not ask any further - at the moment. Then I catch Lanie looking at me. "Still not done ogling?" I tease.

"Boy, with a body as ripped as yours, I don't see an end to that anytime soon. How old are you again?"

Wow, she doesn't even blush. However, two can play this game. "Seventeen, soon-ish... but if you're looking for a boy toy, I think there are others at this table who are more than willing." To my pleasant surprise, both Lanie and Javi look at each other before averting their gazes somewhat shyly. "Uh-huh, that's what I thought," I say and lean back in my chair with a smug grin on my face.


The rest of the surprise dinner is rather uneventful, but not unpleasant. Castle's cooking skills find enthusiastic critical acclaim among the guests; Espo and Lanie throw each other bashful glances because neither of them wants to admit having feelings for the other; Castle jokes around and Beckett rolls her eyes, the same as always; Montgomery and Martha are engrossed in a discussion about theater - who would have thought? The boys (and I still am somewhat baffled by the fact that I can call them 'the boys' - my fan boy heart is squealing of joy right now) are warming up to me a bit; Alexis... I don't know. We'll see.

It's long past nightfall when I finally bid farewell to the others. The friendly doorman downstairs offers to hail a cab for me, which I gladly accept. It was a nice evening with friends, but I'm actually quite beat right now. You'd be surprised at how much effort smiling for hours involves.

"Where to, pal?" the driver asks as I let myself slump into the backseat.

I think for a moment before answering. I just ate a lot of really great stuff, but there's no better pick-me-up after a long, awesome, taxing session of social interaction than breakfast food. "Where's the next pancake place?"


I slip a bill to the driver and climb out to take in the sight of the diner the cabbie has recommended. It's a dingy little hole-in-the-wall, but he has assured me that their pancakes are awesome - if you're not too inquisitive about the ingredients. Considering I have a built-up resistance to most poisons by now (including most truth serums except for the real expensive ones), I'm not too afraid to sample it. I think.

I step through the door and find myself back in the fifties. No, there is no time travel involved (I think), but the whole diner seems not to have changed for the past sixty years. Strangely, it's not worn out at all; someone must have kept it up meticulously. Although there are more than enough tables are free, the bar is quite packed, mainly with people waiting for their pancakes to-go; it seems their pancakes really are that good.

I'm maybe five steps into the place and at the end of the queue when someone bumps into me from behind. That someone turns out to be a quite stunning woman, maybe forty years old.

"Sorry, I was looking at my phone," is all the lady says, but she flashes a smile at me in apology.

"Don't sweat it, the place is... packed..." My voice trails off because I get a good look at her face as she looks up from her smartphone. I'm not usually one to freeze if he has to talk to women, but something about this woman is... off. I know her, but I can't place her. She's not from 'Castle', that much I know; I would've flashed on her already.

Long, wavy brown hair, stark blue eyes, those cheekbones... it can't be her, can it? Oh for the love of... it is her. Maybe.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," she says with amusement lacing her tone. She seems to be used to men staring at her, as I obviously am doing right now.

"Doubtful, I have an almost perfect memory," I quip distractedly, which makes her laugh a little. I really shouldn't tip her off, but I can't not know. "Say, your father wasn't a soldier, by any chance?"

Her head comes up again. Now I seem to have her attention. Good. Keep her occupied. Get her to talk. She won't suspect a thing, hopefully. Not from a kid, anyway. "He was indeed, how did you know?" she asks with a raised eyebrow.

I wave her curiosity away. "Oh, 'twas but an educated guess. Mainly posture and such. Reading people is a hobby of mine, you could say." If she really is who I think she is, which gets more likely by the second, then we have a big, ugly, fat problem on our hands. An 'oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die' kinda problem, perhaps.

That said, if things are about to go south anyway, I might as well get some fun out of it. "It's a burner with the ladies, pretending to be a medium," I tell her with a wry grin. "and while, no offense, you're a little too old for me, I wouldn't mind giving you a demonstration," I add.

She stares at me for a moment before throwing her head back and laughing out loud, making a few heads turn. "I don't know you, young man, but I like your style. Fine. But be warned, I'm an experienced psychotherapist. I may not be as easily read as most other people," she shoots back with a grin on her own. "Also, you're buying."

Oh, shit.

May I introduce Beverly Barlowe, psychotherapist for VIPs in a small, sleepy town with an estimated average IQ of 250, called Eureka.

As in, another freaking UNIVERSE, Eureka. Because Eureka doesn't exist. Or, at least in this universe it doesn't- didn't exist. First the Chuck universe, now Eureka has crossed dimensional borders, too?

I'm so screwed. Again.


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