'Sup guys! Sorry I left you hanging for a while... Totally forgot I left it on a cliffhanger as I wrote the first part right after i wrote chapter 10 :/

Oh well! Enjoy! And tell me what you think

Disclaimer: as hard as I wish, I don't own Castle


Chapter 11 - Back to square uno


Lanie swore as she peered out of the window at the figure down below. She considered calling out, but thought the better of it, as there were still two people in the next room who she didn't want hearing her. Although by what Brad called out next, they had already heard her.

"You alright Lanie?" Came the concerned call from through the door.

"No no, I just..." Lanie searched her mind for a eligible excuse. "I realised I hurt myself worse than I thought when I fell over." It was weak, but it seemed believable.

She came out of the bathroom rubbing her knee and wincing. "Yeah, it was nice talking, but I should go get the nurse to check this out... See ya!" She yelled as she raced out of the room. Before either Brad or Beau could say a word, their front door was slammed in their faces, and Lanie was gone.


Javier Esposito sat on the grass looking out into the woods, clicking his tongue and still not really admiring the view. A small cat with an innocently evil face stalked past, swishing its tail in defiance at him. He sneered at it, stupid cat. It settled down near him, just far away for him not to be able to shoo it away despite his best efforts of waving his hands around like a maniac as close to it as he could reach.

He slumped back on his elbows, wincing as he moved his foot. He thought he might have sprained it when he fell, maybe twisted it.

It started licking its paws, staring at him with giant green eyes.

It was the cat's fault he had fallen. The cat's fault he was lying here with a bust ankle. What cat starts scratching at trees, making a heck load of noise for no apparent reason? Okay... He could answer that easily, all of them. But why did it have to do it at that moment? He supposed there must be some kind of special cat code that told them to make life as hard as possible for any humans around.

The cat blinked up at him, and he gave one last half-hearted effort to shoo it off. As expected, it didn't move an inch away. However, as he sighed and lay back on the slightly wet grass it got up from its haunches and stalked over to rub up against him. He rolled his eyes and started petting its soft striped fur as it curled up next to him.

He pulled out his phone, grimacing on the fresh crack down the screen. He didn't want to call Ryan, in case Brad went back into the bathroom and overheard him on the phone out the open window, so he started quickly typing an explanation to him instead. He didn't really want to specify WHY he was lying unable to walk on the grass outside the dorm, he figured they'd guess anyway, and didn't feel like adding more incentive for teasing. He knew they'd go on about this for weeks anyhow, especially because he did it because of Lanie. He didn't know what it was about her, but there was definitely something.

The sound of footsteps running close raised him from his phone, and as he glanced over to where they were coming from (hoping they didn't belong to Gates) he saw the very girl he'd just been thinking about.

"Ohmigosh! Are you alright?!" Lanie gushed as she rushed over to where he lay.

"Never better." He replied drily, and watched her face as she took in the cat lying next to him then shook her head confusedly.

"What are you doing? On the ground? Outside the window? Just lying there? With a cat?" Javi smirked as he noticed the pitch of her voice go up every added question.

"Relaxing?" He said, accompanied by an award winning smile. "The grass this time of year is very soft."

"Suave." She replied, the sarcasm seeping through her tone.

"You gonna help me up?" He asked politely.

"I thought you were just relaxing." She said, folding her arms to show that he was going to have to work a lot harder than that to get her help.

"My version of relaxing includes a possibly twisted ankle and a strong will to get out of here before someone else comes."

She couldn't hold a straight face for that one, and a smile crept onto her face before she replied "Fine!" But she added "You idiot" after he grinned proudly for getting her help so easily.

She grabbed his arm and pulled him upstanding, disturbing the cat who had settled conformably. Then she put her arm around his waist and he put his on her shoulders, and they started slowly walking around the building. Lanie had her face firmly turned away from his, so that he wouldn't see the blush that had flooded her face.


"It's not Brad." Lanie said definitely, when they had finished their parade around the dorm and had caught up with Castle and Ryan, who hadn't managed to locate Beckett yet.

"Yeah," Ryan agreed, "There was nothing in his room, unless you found something Espo?"

"Not like you gave me much extra time... So that would be a no." They were all seated outside the nurses office, waiting for her to get back from a coffee break. A sign on her door read Back in ten minutes. Unless you're dying, you can wait. Castle had commented that technically, we're all dying every minute of every day. Ryan had nodded, a thoughtful look on his face, as if Castle's point was strangely thought provoking. It would be strange if Castle ever said something that was thought provoking. Everyone else had just looked at him and shook their heads.

"But he could have gotten rid of any evidence incriminating him just after he did it!" Pointed out Castle, rather fairly.

"Look, the stuff he said to me... He wasn't lying." Lanie said, with certainty.

"How can you be sure?"

"He is not that good an actor! When the school put on a production of Hamlet, everyone got a part who tried out because y'know it was a pretty small school. He was a servant who appeared once in the entire play, amongst a bunch of others, right at the back, with no lines. The smallest role they had."

"Hey, there are no small roles in acting!" Said Castle, obviously repeating something that his mother had told him many times.

"Fine, not the smallest. The tiniest? Most obsolete? Minuscule?" At Castle's glare Lanie stopped, and went on with her point. "You get what I'm saying. He could not act his way out of a paper bag."

"I never got that saying." Muttered Castle under his breath.

"So that leaves us back at square one." Said Esposito, slightly disappointed that he didn't get to find out what Brad had said to Lanie. When he had asked her what happened while they were trying to find the boys she had blown him off and changed the subject. He hoped it was nothing that made her want to get back together with him.

"Oh I wouldn't say that just yet." Said Lanie with a knowing smile. The others looked at her expectantly. "Hmmm... Not sure if I can tell you while Castle is around."

They all looked at Castle and after a few seconds pouting he turned around and blocked his ears - in such a way that he could still hear every word of course.

"Meredith told me that Gina likes Castle. And has been trying to steal him for ages!"

Castle whipped back around like a tiny hurricane with it's mouth hanging wide open. Lanie raised her eyebrow at him. He shut his mouth and turned back around, faux fingers still in ears.

"And I call that motive to destroy Meredith's most prized possession; her clothes. She probably thinks that Castle is only attracted to Meredith's style and rich accessories"

"Which I'm not!" Called Castle around his shoulder.

"And once that was out of the way, Gina would become the most fashionable girl at school, and so naturally that progression would lead to being Castle's next arm candy.

"Hey! I'm right here!"

"And you're not meant to be listening!"

"But why would Gina do that to your clothes too? And what happened to our Chemistry experiment?" Javi pointed out.

"Maybe she made a mistake?"

"That would make sense, Gina, if she was doing this for," Ryan nodded his head in Castle's direction, "would want to eliminate both Meredith and Beckett."

"Cause we all know he's crazy about her." Espo added, in a hushed tone.

"And maybe she got confused between you and Beckett's beds?" Finished Ryan.

"I think Kate mentioned once that last year she had the window bed, which I have this year. Gina hasn't been in our room very much, maybe she thought mine was Beckett's. I mean it's obvious which one is Meredith's, but Kate and I have kinda similar styles, we even had jackets that look similar, of course mine is now a fashionable black."

"Talking about Beckett, where is she?" Asked Ryan.

"Here!" Called a voice from down the hall. "I've been all around the school looking for you! Then at last Maddy said that she'd seen you going to the nurse's office. What happened?"

"Espo jumped out of a window and hurt his ankle." Castle turned around and spoke to Beckett.

"Let me guess... It was your idea, and now it's gone and hurt someone!"

"It wasn't exactly my idea this time!" Castle replied defensively.

"Sure." Said Beckett sceptically. "Anyway, it can't be Brad."

"If you'd been here earlier then you would know we've already established that." Said Ryan with a laugh. "But feel free to add why you're sure he isn't the one."

"Sorry, oh well... I was talking to Josh, like the plan said, and somehow we got onto the topic of Brad, and Josh mentioned that he thought Brad was kinda weird, and when I questioned why, he said it was because on the day he arrived, instead of unpacking during first class, he just sat on his computer until he had to go to class."

"But wasn't Josh meant to be in class first period? I thought everyone had a class then." Questioned Espo.

"Uhh... He was taking the lesson off to. Study?"

"Skiving off, got it."

"So where do we go from here?" Asked Beckett after a small silence.

"We wait for the nurse to get back." Said Espo with a grin, knowing that's not what Beckett meant.

"By the way, it's been way longer than 10 minutes! And how is she s'posed to know if someone is dying anyway?" Castle said, looking with disappointment at the offending sign. "If 'Sito had been dying, and by that I mean unexpectedly fast due to his injury, he might be dead by the time this neglecting nurse got back! So really that sign is completely irrelevant..."

While Castle continued ranting to no one, Beckett rephrased her question. "So whats the next step in our investigation?"

"We have reason to believe that Gina had something to do with it." Said Ryan practically.

"And we're gonna bring her down!" Espo added energetically.

"Lets do this!"


Yay! Less of a cliffhanger! Hope you liked :D

SF xx