A/N: This chapter is a little bit shorter because it was going to end up being so long and I felt like I needed to break it up somewhere. But I'm almost done the next one too so you shouldn't have to wait too long for it...the words have been flowing like coffee on a Castle set! Hope you like it. Would love any feedback you have. Thanks as always to those who have reviewed, especially those of you with constructive suggestions. They push me to work really hard to make sure that the details ring true with the show. I really appreciate it!

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle but I love playing with the characters. AWM, cast and crew, my highest respect is yours.


"Kate? What is that?" Rick looked around Kate's hunched over form to see what she had found. She stood and turned to face him, looking at the small fuzzy hair elastic resting in the palm of her hand. "Could be nothing," she said with a shrug. It was not uncommon for girls to lose their hair elastics, and without a DNA test, there was no way to know if the long blonde hair attached to this one belonged to Paige. But it looked fairly clean, like it hadn't been sitting there long. Kate's eyes searched the area for any other clues but found none.

Rick moved closer and gently took the fuzzy blue tie from Kate. His eyes narrowed as he looked closer, turning it over in his hand. "This isn't nothing. This is something. This is Paige's."

"Come on Castle, you can't know that for sure. It's a hair elastic. Girls lose these all the time. It could belong to any number of kids who have come hiking here. When I was a kid, my mom would clean the apartment on Saturdays and she would always walk into my room with a handful of hair ties that she'd found scattered around the place. There's no way you can know who this one belongs to." She paused at the memory of her mother. She hadn't thought about that image in a long time.

Castle noted her reaction briefly and was pleased to see that the memory brought a smile to her face. Nice to know they're not all bad memories, he thought.

"Well, I guess I can't know for sure, but this morning, Alexis showed me how she and Paige had done each other's hair. They were laughing when Alexis said she used the purple elastic to match Paige's sweater and Paige used the blue one to match Alexis' sweater." Kate looked dubiously at him, but he continued, "And see this little plastic heart attached to it? It's got the letter 'A' on it. 'A' for Alexis. Her mother gave them to her the last time she came to visit. I can't be one hundred percent sure that Paige was wearing this, but I think it's a pretty safe bet."

Castle looked up to see Kate considering his deductions. "Hmmm. Well, maybe it is. There's no way to know for sure. But it doesn't matter anyways, we're still heading in the right direction. Can't be much further to the ranger's station. We should keep moving."

Castle and Beckett resumed their course along the ridge, managing a fairly steady pace, despite Kate's injuries. They had made good time so far, in large part to Castle being there to help Kate over several more fallen trees that they encountered. She noted that he was doing his best not to baby her or be too overprotective, though she could see every time they came to a small crevice to jump over or a group of large rocks to climb that he wanted to. The terrain had been rugged, but Kate felt like she was managing well. Just having Castle there had energized her, given her the strength to keep going, despite the enormous amount of pain she was in.

After a while, they started to see a change in the ground underfoot. It seemed to be more worn and tamped down as they progressed along, like this part of the forest had seen more foot traffic than where they had been. Kate paused and took out the map Don had given her. Turning it over in her hands she attempted to glean their location. Castle could tell she was struggling with it, judging by how she looked up into the trees and back at the map several times.

"Do you want me to take a look?" he asked.

"No, I've got this," she said looking back at the map. He grinned as he watched her try to maintain control over a situation that was clearly not her strength. "Just need to figure out..." her voice trailed off as she glared at the map, her brow knitting in concentration.

Castle didn't want to push, but really he was quite good at reading maps. He and Alexis had gone on many an adventure in the woods near their beach house in the Hamptons. They learned how to read maps together by refusing to take the worn paths, getting lost, getting more lost, and finally, always, managing to find their way. It was trial and error most of the time, until eventually they had both become pretty good at reading the maps. He smiled warmly at Kate as he remembered the first time he and Alexis had gotten lost.


"Daddy, where are we?" They had been walking for almost an hour. Rick was sure he knew where they were, but the concern in Alexis' tiny voice beside him had made him question his certainty.

"Well, honey, we're..." They looked down at the map together and Castle realized quickly that he actually had no idea where they were, at least not where they were on the map. After a moment, Alexis' big blue eyes looked up at him worriedly. He quickly masked the tension in his own eyes to shield her from the reality of their situation. Instead he tried to cover, realizing his suggestion earlier to walk away from the path might have been a terrible idea. "Here, look, we're right here." Castle finally responded, pointing to a spot on the map.

"How do you know that's where we are?" she asked innocently.

"Well..." Good question, he thought. "Well, you see that bit of green right there on the map? That's that clump of bushes over there." Castle surprised even himself with the confidence in his voice. He was really hoping Alexis bought it.

"Dad," she drawled out, rolling her eyes. Even at five-and-a-half she had been ahead of her time, sounding almost like a teenager. "They don't put all the bushes on the map, they just make it all green to show grass and plants and stuff."

"Really?" he asked, eyebrows raised, blue eyes twinkling. "And how do you know that?"

"Because we learned about maps at school. Mr. Davis showed us how they work. And he showed us how to use a compass."

"A compass?" Yep, a compass would have been good to bring, Castle smirked at himself. "Well, Mr. Davis is pretty smart so I guess he would know."

"Maybe we should sit down on those rocks and try to figure it out before we get more lost." Alexis had spoken in such a matter of fact way, making such a responsible adult-like suggestion, that Castle had a hard time hiding his proud grin.

They sat for a while and Alexis pointed out things on the map, explaining to her father what they all meant. Of course he knew everything she was telling him, thanks in part to the legend at the bottom of the map, but he was enjoying hearing her explain it to him so he just let her talk.

"You know," she finally said after several minutes, "maybe we should just walk towards the ocean. I bet we can figure out where we are on the map if we can see the way the beach curves." At this idea, Castle beamed in awe. While he would have eventually come to the same idea, it was amazing to him how perceptive and strategic his little girl could be. Maybe that's why she keeps beating me at laser tag.

They had eventually found their way, and their location on the map, and from that point on they challenged themselves to get lost on a regular basis, just for the fun of having to figure out where they were.


"Humph." The noise brought Castle back to the present. After a few moments of looking around, looking back at the map and turning in circles, Kate finally sighed out in frustration, her heavy breath puffing the hair away from her face. "I can't...I'm not sure...ugh. I hate maps!"

Castle tried hard not to laugh at her frustration, but he was finding the way her nose crinkled and her eyes narrowed were really quite endearing. "Can I...?" He held out his hand for the map, waiting patiently for her to hand it over. He figured she wouldn't take kindly to him jumping in and just taking it from her, even though he clearly was the better map reader, so he just stood, waiting.

Finally, Kate pushed it towards him. "Fine. You think you can figure it out? Go ahead." She was frustrated for sure, but was interested to see if he could actually decipher where they were.

Castle took a couple of steps away from Beckett, closer to the ridge. He looked out across the valley, and up and down the river, noting key features in the landscape. Looking back and forth to the map a few times, he settled his finger on a spot. "Here." He held the map up to show Beckett where he figured they were.

"And just how do you know that?" she asked, skeptical and annoyed, though she wasn't really either.

"Well, see how the valley turns sharply up ahead there and that little river breaks off to the right? You can see that here on the map." He pointed to the thin blue line moving away from the thicker stretch of blue that was the river. "So," he summed up, "that would put us about here."

Kate studied the map and looked out to the river below, back and forth, back and forth. She saw from the corner of her eye that he was grinning like the cat who ate the canary and she definitely didn't want to support the satisfaction smeared across his face.

"So another quarter mile or so and we can start heading inland to the ranger's station. Come on. Let's go," she said quickly, trying to put herself back in charge.

He looked at her entirely pleased with himself. He could tell she was trying hard not to seem impressed by him and that was all he needed. A wide grin broke out on his face as he said, "Guess it's a good thing I showed up after all, eh Beckett?"

"Humph," she said again and started walking.


After another five minutes of stepping over rocks and crevices and fallen branches, Beckett and Castle turned away from the ridge. They saw more and more signs of increased foot traffic until ahead in the distance they finally spotted the ranger's station. Coming closer, Kate slowed her pace, carefully searching the trees all around. Castle slowed his pace behind her, looking ahead towards the building. Finally, they came to a complete halt behind a couple of large oak trees.

Beckett peered around the tree, taking in the scene in front of her. Castle edged up behind her and looked out from the other side of the tree. If someone had been watching from the ranger's station, it would have looked quite comical as the two heads peeked out on either side of the large oak.

"Do you see anything?" Castle whispered loudly.

Beckett glared in his direction, then rolled her eyes at herself when she realized he couldn't actually see her. She straightened up behind the tree and pulled him back as well. "Nothing. You?"

"Nah, just a bunch of trees and the building. Seems quiet enough. We should just go in."

"And that's why I'm the cop," she said smirking at him. "We can't just walk right in. What if Johnson is in there? We don't know the situation yet, so we have to be cautious. Don't you write scenes like this? What would Alexandra Jones do if she was in this position?"

Castle thought for a moment about it, kicking himself for such an idiotic suggestion. Of course he knew better than to have his lead characters brazenly rush headlong into danger without a second thought. He was beginning to realize that the situations Beckett faced everyday might not be that far from what he wrote after all. "Right. Okay, so what's our plan?"

"Well, my plan is to go ahead and check things out. Your plan is to stay put and be quiet until I get back."

Castle looked at her, hurt that she wasn't going to let him help. "Come on Beckett, we're partners."

"Partners?" she raised one eyebrow at him, her eyes sparkling in the faint light falling through the trees.

Castle faltered for a moment before pressing on, "Yeah, partners. I can be your backup."

"Castle, the backup usually come with their own guns and since I'm the only one who has one, you're not coming with me." The dry humor in her voice told him she meant business but that she at least appreciated his gesture. "Got it?" she added to emphasize that she really was being serious.

Castle finally relented, seeing that he wasn't going to convince her. "Fine."

Kate considered his reluctant tone, narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously. "You're not coming with me," she said again pointing a finger to his chest.

"Got it," Castle answered raising his hands in acquiescence. Kate took one more look at him, then turned and edged silently away towards the ranger's station.