This installment is dedicated to someone special, with excellent taste in T-shirt designs ;-) because "Even on the worst days, there's a possibility for joy."

Author's Note: In this chapter, the muse demands I attempt something fairly terrifying for an author. (Yes, Master Sergeant. Whatever you say, Master Sergeant). If you decide to play along with the multi-media option, please make sure you are listening to the ACOUSTIC VERSION from Songs From the Front Porch. (The non-acoustic one will make zero sense here). Of course, I'm hoping it stands up without it, but I'm partial to dance parties with music, as some of you know.

Disclaimer: I do not own the lyrical portion of this this chapter, nor the NY characters. As for the rest, my fingers just typed what Kai-Rhee dictated. Now those fingers are crossed that it finds the accepting place in the universe that she wanted. This is a 'Lock the door,' 'Put on earphones,' and 'Escape for a bit' type of chapter.


As Espo and Kai-Rhee finished their lunch in her kitchen, the comfortable silence grew into a restless fidget for Javier. He began to cast his eye around the solitary chamber that kept Valedictoria safely nestled away from the weekend's bustle. The east-facing deck and tubs were bathed with bright light, but the adjoining wall of overstuffed bookshelves hung in shadow. Her desk near the front door looked over the treetops to the ocean. As he panned his eyes back to the kitchen, he noticed she hadn't made the bed they'd shared last night. Espo considered teasing Evans for relaxing her 'bounce-a-quarter-off-the-bed-sheet' standards, but stopped short when he saw her eyes much more contemplative than expected.

"You okay?"

She took a sip of her tea. Her mood had dropped down straight past hospitable to unaccommodating honesty.

"Don't I look it?" she said flatly, staring ahead of her, bringing her mug down to the table and cradling it with both hands.

Esposito's half scowl was the placeholder for conversation as he tried to size up what might have brought on this shift in disposition. 'Is she done with me? Had her fun and ready to kick me out? That'd never been our way before, but it's been a long time now. Maybe she needs to move on to other concerns? Did Hoax stir up something?'

"You look like you want to be alone. My in the way?"

"I don't want to be alone." Her statement didn't change anything about her demeanor, or clear up his other questions.

He wasn't much for emotional care taking. They both knew that, but he didn't want to leave. Espo searched through his memories for something useful.

"You still gotta playlist?"

After a beat, she turned to look at him with a smile of recognition fighting its way across her features, reclaiming her human connection.

"Only you." She shook her head in disbelief that he remembered this about her, and would bring it up exactly when she started stonewalling. "Yeah, I still gotta playlist." She flicked her fingers toward the bookshelf and speakers.

He gave her a smile with let's-get-into-trouble written all over it, pushed himself away from the table, and went to investigate.

In front of the paperbacks, he found a CD case opened with the lyric book unfolded across the length of the shelf. He turned over the black and white pictures and scanned the titles of the songs.

"Which one?"

"Stay Human"

Even uttering the name of the song she'd been playing on repeat made her feel exposed. She told herself that if she couldn't open up to Roc, then she was a lost cause. She gritted her teeth against her own defensiveness. Being made of iron, without a war to fight, did more harm than good if she couldn't dial it back when she wanted to. She was trying to make an honest go of civilian life. And this song, for some reason, pushed all her buttons on the issue.

"This is an old CD, isn't it?" He looked at the copyright '2003 Michael Franti.' That sounded familiar. "Acoustic, huh? This the same Franti from Disposable Heroes?"

"Yep." She smiled wryly to distract him from how vulnerable she felt, "He's a fucking vegan now."

Espo snuffed and turned back to find the title on the booklet.

He remembered the front man's didactic rap style creating quite a stir in the barracks back in the day. Esposito had no use for it. He felt like getting involved with the politics of war made for shitty soldiering. His job was to execute. Anything that got in the way of that didn't make it past his filter. But Kai-Rhee had a bumper sticker on her boombox that read 'Killing is Good Ratings.' She must have played that anti-television title track a zillion times before she gave up her boob tube for good. 'Wow, that was a long time ago.' They were just babies. Angry, me-against-the-world, trained-to-kill babies, with so much to prove.

"So, why now?"

"Dunno. Simon brought me this disc years ago, when we were in New York. Guess I wasn't ready to listen to it, til now."

"When were you in the city?" He couldn't help feeling a little hurt that she hadn't come to see him.

"I went to get some certifications I thought I'd need for this place. I wasn't in town long. I didn't see anyone. Wasn't really that kind of trip." She knew that sounded cold, but didn't know how to say, 'I was fucking unstable after re-entry. I could barely handle one foot in front of the other.'

Espo thought about what it might have meant to see her against the backdrop of his life in NYC, what time period it might have been. Would he have been at the 54th? Or maybe before that? Might not have mattered. He would've refused her, if she'd tried to visit during his time in treatment at the VA. The thought dropped him back into the uncomfortable metal folding chairs of his first support group.

His PTSD counselor pedaled a lot of touchy feely bullshit that Esposito never bought into. But the fact remained that a few of the things touted there were essential to Javier's fight back to mental stability. Espo could hear his counselor's words admonishing him now, 'Admitting what you've been through doesn't make you weak. It means you've got enough distance to master it. Especially with other vets, maybe they need to hear you speak up first.'

Still facing the bookshelves, Javier offered, "I might not have been around anyway. I didn't have an easy go of it when I got back."

'Whoa, did Roc just admit there was something he couldn't handle? What's going on here?'

Her stunned silence begged him to expound.

Espo put on his proud emotional distance face, and turned his chin over his shoulder, repeating the words he'd practiced a hundred times since going through therapy. "It wasn't easy, but I did what I needed to do."

His eyes went back to the CD player. After fiddling with the controls, he cued track number 8.

Javier turned toward her, and held out his hand, summoning all the easy charm his face could manage. Keeping his muscles relaxed, he stood heavy into his heels, determined to make her feel like she could trust him just as much as if she were his boo. He had no plans to let her wriggle out of this request.

"You wanna dance?"

Damn those eyes, his bare chest hanging loosely from all the tension they'd been releasing with each other. She was gonna do this, wasn't she?


She returned her mug to the table, and drug herself up from her chair. Every step across the room felt like free fall into a place without a floor. She knew her missing autonomy was gonna slam her fragile side into him, with more force than she was comfortable with. She just prayed her Roc wouldn't buckle from the impact.

Javier drew her in with strong hands on her lower back. Kai-Rhee curled her arms up over his neck and reminded herself to breathe.

The music surprised him. The acoustic twang of solo guitar strings seemed to lay a net of quiet beauty over the room, bringing the energy down to something sweetly tragic. This wasn't the kind of song they had danced to back during his qual.

Evans was already embarrassed before the deep sandpaper voice sang the first lyric. The words were silly and flowery. Only Franti's soulful voice could make them sound like gospel truth in this stripped down acoustic version.

Starvation… is a creation of the devil…

'I'm really gonna go through these images with him holding me? He's gonna see everything.' She cringed that feelings ever had to be dealt with, that they couldn't just incinerate themselves upon contact with the surface of her skin.

A rebel, I'm bringing food to the people like a widow

Bringing flowers to a grave in the middle

'The war, my dad…and worst of all, him. This line about the city could fit no one else but Javi and how I felt in his city…'

Of the city, isolation is a riddle

To be surrounded by a million other people

But feel alone like a tree in the desert

Dried up like the skin of a lizard…

Javier was listening too, but he picked up on the image of the feline Kai-Rhee running through the trees when they first met.

Full of color like the spots of a leopard

And for some reason the percussive ear fall of…

Full of life, like a man gone to Mecca

…seemed to fit exactly how he felt right now, having traveled so far out of his world for something like a pilgrimage to his past.

They stood for a moment letting the cathartic sounds seep into their flesh, images of all the people they had been before double-exposed over their faces. Both stood frozen in fear that they'd be dreamfasted to this moment, as much as to each other. It wasn't usually their style to come at each other so head-on like this.

Javier had worried on the flight down that his increasing appreciation for mortality would have him clawing onto her, since she connected him to the younger Javier who still thought he was immortal. The urge made him panicky. During the flight, he'd taken to curling his fists to wring it out of his system.

Every case with Beckett seemed to have something unusual in it, but the murder of the Wall Street trader they'd just solved was hard to put to bed for some reason. Peter Cordero's American dream seemed to come true after emigrating as an orphan from Venezuela. He escaped the gangs to become a self-made man, standing up to the financial giants at JP Harding. And after all that struggle and triumph, his life still ended too soon in bloodied violence.

Thinking on it made Esposito feel kind of hopeless. Evans' impenetrable strength felt like everything he needed to face his own future, whether fate would make it violent or not. He'd made good. He knew it. And he loved his team, but they'd attended too many funerals and hospital rooms recently to think endless good luck was guaranteed.

He clutched his hands onto the muscles rippling out from either side of her spine, as if he could manually clutch his own life force. Javier didn't feel 'done' yet. He was too old to die in blissful ignorance, but too young to have played his last hand. It was an uncomfortable bed of nails to lie on for someone who regularly put their life on the line.

Espo had outgrown the old ways of strapping on his gun, but hadn't yet decoded the replacement mindset. Of course, he could still do it, but the comforting mantras had all been censored by his better judgement over the years. Without them,his mind was in control of the sidearm, but he felt a few empty sockets in his will, where before he could plug into something greater than himself.

No one ever wanted to feel like they pulled a trigger alone. Even when it was true.

He'd never admit it, even to himself, but Kai-Rhee's reappearance was giving him a just-in-time existential antidote.


Afternoon sunlight painted amber-wheat light across the unmarred side of Kai-Rhee's face. Javier marveled how the new lines, on the half in shadow, formed a number 7. He wondered if he'd be out of line running his fingers across her forehead and down her cheek, tracing the pattern, kissing her skin where hairline discolorations spidered across her chin. Espo didn't want to risk it.

To him, her scars seemed to accentuate her superhuman powers, like Storm's lightning bolt come to earth.

When they were younger she came off wildly elemental. Now it seemed the disambiguated rage that fueled her had reorganized itself in a new articulation. She was still a force of nature, but now her power gathered in something more like a goddess. Not the westerly kind with frilly skirts and flower garlands, of course, more like the easterly version that rode tigers and beheaded the unrighteous.

But his hands on her lower back could testify, she was still very much made of flesh. Even more amazing was the fact that she was in his arms again, for real.


Valedictoria blushed when a brand new realization hit her. She'd listened to this song almost a hundred times. However, this go round it was clear that even more lines applied to Roc, after a morning spent with the honeyed texture of his voice dripping into her ear.

I speak low but I'm like a lion roarin,'

Baritone like a Robeson recordin'

She sent her eyes to study every detail of Javi's face. The tiny vertical divot above his right brow, the beauty mark to the left of his nose, the shadow of stubble on his chin gave her strange comfort. She'd been in this same room, recalling embellished memories of a younger Roc, all week.

'He's definitely improving with age.'

When she played this song, her mind's eye went wild with images: Running with him over sand. Crumbling under his puppy dog eyes that begged her to get him out of some jam he'd worked himself into. Quivering under his body suspended above her. Melting in his eyes starved with desired.

She ran one set of fingers up the back of his neck through the short hair on his scalp, while the other plunged between his thickly padded shoulder blades. 'He feels more solid. Guess Roc still fits.'

As the song played on, old memories flooded her levy: his tricep tensed over his rifle, his right eye closed to target, paired with a dirty smile as he mentioned something wholly inappropriate and hilarious in an offhanded whisper. 'No one could make me laugh when I didn't want to…'cept this joker.'

Thank God there weren't car radios on the island to accidentally bombard her with this tune in front of others. She'd be a mess if this much want leaked outside these walls.


As Javier dropped two wet lips to kiss her glistening shoulder, and deltoid, and curve of her neck, the rhyme ushered her quickly to the silent prayer that she offered up every time she heard…

I'm givin' thanks for being human every morning

'Hope I'm living up to that,' her pavlovian response.

Kai-Rhee didn't know if she deserved the torrent of pleasure Javier's lips were injecting into her hypothalamus, but that didn't surprise her. She didn't know a lot of things.

She didn't know why she had set-up shop on this island. Why she felt she needed to remove herself from active duty. Why here? Why now? But somehow that lyric about gratitude plucked the strings of her super-ego as if she was supposed to know what it all meant.

When she sat in crossed-legged lotus at the foot of the Buddha, sometimes she just repeated that line of the song like a mantra, hoping all would be revealed.

When that didn't work she fell back on 7 centuries of absolution. 'If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.'


When the chorus came in with a drum beat, they began to move their hips in a sway side to side. The energy built in delicious tension inside the deep pocket between the 6 and the 8 count. Roc and Kai-Rhee threaded their legs. The slow pumping of knees in time with the rhythm, gave their bodies the opportunity to reintroduce themselves.

A dialog of sculpted muscle began to melt copper and caramel skin over the years of silence between them.

The thunderbolt of his energy swiping against her inner thigh was the only thing that made sense to her inside the whirlpool of feelings. That connection seemed to be the only reason she could stand to feel so emotionally naked when the singer proclaimed:

Every flower got a right to be bloomin'

Stay human

The expanding of Javi's senses allowed him to take in her every detail, his every sensation, and every note of music. Just like their first time together, birds and people played outside, the world went on, while for them time slowed. Only the musical measures proceeding reassured him that the clocks hadn't stopped ticking altogether.


Evans couldn't stand it anymore, she needed to lean into him physically to match her emotional swell. She'd held back the tide for so long, that now it was ready to release with tsunami force. She pressed her sternum into Javier with gradually more force until he had to move. The steady pressure swept him across the room one foot at a time. Eventually it pushed them both to the bed.

With anyone else, Espo would have taken this as bullying. No question, he would have balked rather than hand over control. Fortunately, with Kai-Rhee, he didn't need to fight. In fact, he was grateful that her current was sweeping him downriver. There was never a doubt that wherever she was headed would be a good place for him to go. He'd felt vulnerable with her before, in small doses. And these movements into uncharted waters felt like they could only bring good things, no matter how scary the ride.

The negativity we keep it at a distance

Call for back-up and I give you some assistance

Like a life saver deep in the ocean

Stay afloat here upon the funky motion

In the rising tide of brackish energies between them, Esposito wondered whether he heard a reference to an arresting officer hiding in the melody.

To legalize it will give you your freedom.

You want rights? Ask him to read 'em.

He tried to listen more closely to the chorus, as she pressed him back into the pillow.

Because the streets are alive with the sound of

Boom Baht. Can I hear it once again?

Boom Baht. Tell your neighbor. Tell a friend.

Every flower got a right to be bloomin'


Kai-Rhee straddled her legs to either side of his hips to brace herself for the bridge. She felt sure that her friend would see right through her to the place that made her feel like she wasn't worth anyone's time. She knew it was corny, and irrational, and just plain untrue, but emotions were little cunt fuckers when it came to reality. That's why she tied them up in songs on her playlist, and didn't let them out to screw with her real life. They'd easily decimate all she worked for.

Because all the freaky people make the beauty of the world

all the freaky people make the beauty of the world…

Every time the line repeated, Valedictoria buried her head a little deeper into the crook of Javi's neck. An old phrase from basic training hoodwinked her from behind, 'YMRASU!' she admitted to herself. 'Yes, My Retarded Ass Signed Up,' seemed to fit this situation she had gotten herself into, even more than explaining 'US ARMY' backwards.

She'd almost forgotten what it stood for, but this time the slang, dredged up from her memories, made her cringe guiltily. 'No, I'm worse, way worse.' Since her time as a grunt she'd had occasion to meet people with actual mental challenges. One young woman in particular had nearly burst her heart open. She seemed to have it all figured out when it came to expressing her heart. 'She's the master. I'm earning a D minus, as far as all that goes.'

'So many words don't mean what they used to, like weeds, choking out what I meant to seed.'

Valedictoria was being hard on herself for the errant thoughts that rushed in with a flash flood of emotions. Her brain, normally, was a well-ordered place. She rarely let an out-of-line comment slip, even inside her own head. Usually, she equated affectivity with handing her island over to the Lord of the Flies. The phrase 'over my dead body' seemed apt.

all the freaky people make the beauty of the world…

She quivered with the desire to merge with Roc. Even though she'd gotten very good at faking it, Evans didn't drive her own regency anymore. Getting caught by the edges of an explosion blew up her semblance of control. In the mirror, each line on her skin screamed, 'You'll never be 'whole' again, and everyone can see it.'

She wasn't vain. It hadn't occurred to her that she'd miss her symmetry. 'No, it was the orphans.'

The fearful look of children, who ran from her when she'd tried to evacuate them, still chased her peace. Her scars terrified them so wholly that she had to pass off the rations to Lamar, so he could give them something to eat. They were only small children, scared and lost after mortars leveled the only home they'd ever known. It shouldn't have hurt. But she couldn't shake it. Just as then, she prayed in Javier's arms for invisibility, for the power to poof into thin air, and never have to let herself be seen.

all the freaky people make the beauty of the world…

Even more, she wished she could believe this goofy anthem Franti was flaunting. It seemed both impossible, and essential to her future at the same time.

Evans envied musicians who could sing songs like the one they were listening to. They never had to worry about people judging them for their sentiments, because it was 'just a song.' No matter how ridiculous it would sound in spoken word, how contrite scribbled in pen, music made anything possible. 'What freedom!'

Permission to believe wasn't enough. She needed proof.

Kai-Rhee needed Roc's body to submit it's statement without a single word spoken. A body could be mislead, but it couldn't lie, not for long. If she was really lucky, he'd accept her without a hiccup of hesitance spiking the polygraph. If she was more than lucky, his hazelnut eyes would corroborate all the testimony his hands, and lips, and strong form gave her.

As her limbs explored the ways she could lean into her Roc, she found it was the swinging away from him in between their contact that gave her new life. On a more than physical level, he was the perfect fulcrum for her to catapult herself around. That must be why she'd called him here. She didn't fully understand why she'd invited him, until her body had a chance to find out for itself.

In the rise and fall of their union she could ride the swells high enough to get a glimpse of her future over the horizon. Surprisingly, she found the vista wasn't entirely stark.


Esposito saw their shift away from the vertical dance floor from another angle.

When Evans started steering him toward the bed he knew there was something very different going on for her. She was moving from a place of abandon, rather than control. It was clear that she was upping the ante, but damn if Espo knew what it meant. Even though he was older, and hopefully a little wiser, interpreting women came no easier.

'Maybe that's it. Maybe she's Val the woman right now, instead of Valkyrie the phenom.'

Even if he guessed right, it still gave him no clue what to do about it. That's why he'd asked her to dance. He thanked God for the music that allowed their bodies to work it out, where their words failed. With women, Javier was golden once he was through the gauntlet of verbal land mines that led to what he considered the 'real thing.'

Ya see, Y2K and 2 is a moment

In time we find that we can open

Up a heart that's locked up and broken

By the pain of words not spoken

He drew her chest against his. Espo knew he couldn't hold her pulsating strength for very long, but he planned to engage in every advance she'd give him. His detective side tried not to trip on his hunch that this song had something to do with the plane ticket she'd sent him.

Take a mental trip to the Bahamas

Steam your body in the stereo sauna…

He curled his head into the curve of her neck, and buried his face into her hair. Javi wanted to hide from the daylight that might make him appear unfit for the beauty she was unfolding before him.

If only he could hush the alarm bells of his security system. He didn't know how to convince himself it was okay to ignore his pre-sets.

Detective Esposito rarely felt entirely comfortable on his back. In this moment, though, it seemed 'right.' His current awkwardness originated instead from how completely he was willing to give in to her lead. Normally, his defenses defaulted to a fairly high base minimum. In his world, an unguarded Espo was a loud invitation to others, even his partners, to count him out.

This exchange with Evans had Javi's heart in his throat, the feeling he was never allowed to show in the 'real world.' Anything that approached this much vulnerability and love would basically guarantee him that he'd be cut down in a few seconds.

With Kai-Rhee above him, Javier didn't even mind thinking the word 'love.' It wasn't the same terrifying idea that threatened to strangle his freedom and crap on his dreams. What he felt for her had always been there. He was just allowing himself to revel in it for a few sunlit hours.

It wasn't possessive. He loved her the way someone might love a waterfall or a sunset. There was no need to claim her because of it. He felt like everyone should appreciate her the way he did, even if he didn't think everyone was worthy of being so intimate in that pursuit.

Javier didn't presume that he deserved Kai-Rhee either, not in the larger sense. But he gave himself leave to enjoy her company, since he wasn't asking to keep her.

The palms of his hands traced the outline of sexy silhouette that she had smelted with years of sweat and determination. He'd never brag about the specifics of this moment, even though it clearly stood in a class by itself on the hotness scale, but he was branding it into his memories. Javier had been with beautiful women before. He'd even been with powerful women before. Kai-Rhee was something else. Kai-Rhee was a fireball.

It never occurred to him that his old friend might be thinking about her scars. As the vocals rose in crescendo, shouting about the 'freaky people' of the world, Esposito felt sure that they applied more to him, and his stubborn inadequacies, than to the incredible Valedictoria Evans.


"Beckett." Kate answered her phone instinctively, despite her best intentions to let it go to voice mail. When she realized her slip, she chalked it up to a hangover of lingering sensation left by Rick's hands on her skin. 'That sunblock massage must still have me a littlegooey.'

She wasn't worried anymore about Castle's ability to focus on her. With slow, devout attention he'd traced every inch of her exposed skin with intricate patterns that made her feel like their patch of the Atlantic was spinning of the earth's axis.

As the minutes ticked by, and Richard showed no signs of completing his task, everyone else on the beach took their cue to round up a game by the volleyball net. Adnan had suggested that particular pastime to entice Cannon, whose adolescent drooling over a mostly naked Kate Beckett was beginning to make everyone uncomfortable.

Once the others were at a safe distance, Katherine's modesty gave in to the desire to dip her pelvis and respond to the sensations with toe wiggles in the soft sand. She wouldn't dare vocalize her appreciation in 'public.' But she didn't need to.

Castle was the type of man who enjoyed the patient un-spindling of a long gossamer thread through a maze of foreplay.

His mercurial mind was at play tracing labyrinthian patterns over the most mythic body he'd ever had the pleasure to fantasize about. He'd spent years pleasuring his Beckett muse, Nikki, with only the lace of his thought patterns. He had several volumes worth of ideas about how to make this woman, writhing under his finger tips, a very satisfied 'reader.'

As his imagination knit together new patterns to tantalize her with, it occurred to Castle that creativity might be the secret weapon that kept their love life exciting….still.

He felt so alive with Kate that a new hope of self-actualization pulsed through him. He saw himself growing into a more balanced Vitruvian Man since he'd met her. This week at Camp Krypton had brought that metaphysical truth into plain evidence in his physical form. 'And that was really Kate's doing, too.'

Gina let him stretch out his ego.

Meredith let him exercise his acrobatics.

Kyra let his heart run long distance.

But, Kate?

Kate, let him do all of that! Plus, he got to workout his tireless mind. Castle felt like a mental-lympics hopeful with the incomparable opportunities this woman provided his mental muscle.

Their interplay made him feel like a rising star, instead of a dying comet.

From the smile on Kate's face, Rick judged that she was very pleased with his 'work.' Resuming his spot on the towel next to her, he threaded his fingers behind the base of his neck and leaned back to bask in the glow that both she and the sun where emanating.

Turning over to her belly, she propped herself up on her elbows, and checked to see if she had sand on her hands before switching the phone to her other ear.

"Hi Ryan, what's up?"

With a delighted twinkle in his eyes, Rick motioned for Kate to put him on speaker. Watching her try to 'pull herself together' for a detective-ish conversation was so worth the interruption. Also, he had a question for their friend in New York.

Kevin's voice fought with the sounds of the water lapping, and the game of volleyball nearby. "Oh nothing, I was just calling to make sure you are actually relaxing on vacation."

"Let me get this straight. You are calling to interrupt our beach time to make sure that we aren't interrupting our beach time?"

"Yep. You know after your last trip to the Hamptons, we can't be too careful. I wouldn't want you digging up bodies with less than 24 hours before you need to head back on a plane."

She narrowed her eyes, only Ryan could twist this idea into something sounding like logic. On second thought, maybe this was her writer-man's influence. 'Will Castle leave my team completely unrecognizable as a crime fighting unit?'

"Nope, no bodies. Though I can't say for certain what bad things might befall junior detectives who like to pester their bosses on their vacation time."

"Unlessss," Rick cut in. "You'd be willing to do a little digging into the place that's accommodating us."

Kate rolled her eyes, by this point she knew trying to stop Castle from co-opting her employees was futile.

Kevin asked, "You mean Kai-Rhee's camp?"

"No, her neighbor. An R&D outfit, specializes in futuristic weapons."

Kevin imitated his best Beckett, "Seriously, Castle?"

"I couldn't make this stuff up." He met Kate's glare. Two dozen best sellers refuted that statement incontrovertibly. "Oh, well, I guess I could. But that's not what's happening here."

Kevin gave in easily. Resisting would only prolong his return to sweet slumber. "What do you want me to look for? I have a date with a fluffy pillow and down comforter."

Rick answered, "I'm thinking the financials. See if you can track down the money flowing in or out. Especially if you can figure out what kind of scientists are on the payroll."

"Private defense research? That sounds like a lot of money to track. This isn't gonna be a quick project, is it?"

Kate interrupted, "Ryan, you have my permission to ignore everything Castle just said. We have no evidence of wrong doing. We've just heard about some… anomalies."

"Anomalies, huh? Sounds like code for Castle can't keep his eyes focused on Lanie's heartfelt gift with a mystery to unravel. Must be a good one. Are we thinking chemical agents that turn people into zombies, cloned super soldiers, or AI drones?"

Rick tried to answer, "Definitely D…"

"Don't encourage him!" Beckett cut him off. She batted her fiancé on the arm.

"Go back to bed, Ryan. I'll worry about the distractions, you worry about catching up on some of that sleep you've been missing."

"Sure thing."

"Bye."

Before the call disconnected, Kevin heard Castle shout in the background, "Drones, Ryan, Dro…!"


Gratitude for both TeamBromance and TeamCaskett reviewers. I think it's safe to say that Rick has waaaaaaaaay more patience than Javi on any measurable axis. Still, I hope to churn out the rest of the weekend's exploits expeditiously.

Next up: What does Espo reveal to Evans during pillow talk as his secret weapon of invincibility? What's Ryan's excuse to call Beckett, again? And what kind of plan has Kate formulated to get Rick alone?