Two days after she was discharged from the hospital Beckett was back to work. Not on the street – at least not the first day back – but at least at the precinct. She smiled at the various greetings that met her at the door when she walked in about an hour later than her usual starting time, and wasn't surprised when Captain Montgomery almost immediately called her into his office.

She knew the look he gave her well. It was the same look he gave every officer who was coming back after an injury – whether a gunshot, a stabbing or even a nasty beating after chasing down someone hyped up on drugs. It was probably the first time he ever gave the look to someone returning from a plane crash, though. He watched her walk to look for limping, watched her eyes to look for pain that she might be trying to hide and then watched as she sat down to see if she could manage it without too much wincing.

"How are you doing, Beckett?" he asked as she settled into the chair by his desk.

"Better, sir. Thanks."

"How about Castle?"

"He's going to be fine."

"Good." He sat down across from her, and leaned back. "It's not exactly what we had in mind when we had you invite him along, you know…"

She smiled.

"I hope not."

"Good publicity, though."

"Yeah."

He shrugged, and she decided that he might have been feeling a little guilty. Especially since she'd been forced into taking Castle. Good. Maybe they'd think twice next time when it was more important that she be allowed to do what she want.

"You feeling up to being here today?"

"Yeah. I ache a little, but nothing too bad."

A long, hot bath and two full night's sleep had worked wonders. The doctor had given her a sleeping pill that she'd taken, and she hadn't even had any nightmares.

"You'll be riding the desk today and tomorrow," Montgomery told her. "We'll make sure you're up to chasing the bad guys before we turn you loose on them."

She'd expected that, so she agreed readily enough. She had plenty of paperwork that needed done that she knew she wasn't going to be sitting around twiddling her thumbs.

"Yes, sir."

He smiled.

"Good to have you back."

"Thanks."

"Now get out of my office."

She gave him a sketchy salute and left, heading to her desk and her overflowing IN box.

OOOOOOOOOO

Beckett worked through the morning without interruption. The other detectives and uniformed officers had all had a chance to check in on her, but they were all as busy – if not busier – than she was, so none of them hung out for long. Just long enough to let her know they were glad she was okay. Just as she was starting to wonder what she was going to do for lunch – and seriously considering heading over to the hospital to visit Castle since she hadn't seen him since she'd been discharged – Esposito and Ryan came in, looking worried and heading straight for her.

She wondered what was going on, but didn't have to wait long. Ryan handed her a file folder with a large FAA logo on it.

"Report's back on the plane you guys were in," he told her.

"Yeah?" she opened it up, but wasn't sure exactly what she was looking at since it wasn't something she looked at every day. "What'd they find out?"

"They found a device attached to the electrical system."

"What kind of device?" she asked, looking at them.

"Some kind of sparker set on a timer. The FAA techs said that it fried out all the systems at once – which is exactly what you both reported happening. Took out the electronics, which took out the engine right away."

"What?"

"The plane was booby-trapped," Esposito said. "Someone meant for you guys to go down."

"FAA is saying that the device probably didn't work exactly as planned – or that the person who put it there didn't understand exactly what they were trying to do – since it knocked out all your electrical systems but didn't take out the emergency locator."

"It didn't turn on," she pointed out.

"It did once Castle hit it manually," Ryan replied. "It just didn't turn on like it was supposed to, because the electrical part of the emergency system was out. Same reason he had to manually inflate the seatbelts."

She frowned.

"Do they have any idea who did it?"

Both detectives shook their heads.

"Someone who had access to the plane, but doesn't know a lot about them is the best they have."

Montgomery had been watching them through the office windows and could clearly see something was going on. He was by Beckett's desk right away.

"What's going on?"

She frowned.

"It looks like someone sabotaged our plane."

"Really?" He looked over at Ryan and Esposito for confirmation and they both nodded.

"Yeah."

The Captain scowled at the idea that someone had tried to kill one of his own and immediately started giving orders.

"Esposito, get a list of people that work at the airport that Beckett and Castle flew out of – and anyone else who might have had access to the plane the day they left and the day before that. Ryan, get a list of anyone Beckett collared who has recently been paroled."

"Castle…" Beckett said. "We need to warn the guard on Castle…"

Montgomery nodded. It made sense. If someone wanted the plane to go down they were either after Beckett or Castle. Both needed to be protected until they knew who they were looking for and had caught him (or her). Luckily, Castle was still in the hospital, and that made him easy to guard. It also made him an easier target, however, so they definitely needed to let the uniformed officers know what was going on.

"Do it."

She picked up the phone as the other two left to take care of their own assignments. Reaching the hospital was easy, but after that she ran into an immediate problem. She looked over at her Captain.

"They discharged Castle last night."

"What?" he scowled, looking over at the calendar on the wall. "He's not supposed to be discharged until tomorrow."

"They wanted to keep it low-key so they snuck him out last night."

"Shit. Get some people over to his place. You go, too," he added, knowing she'd want to. "Send someone over to his daughter's school, too, just in case. Make sure they don't freak her out - tell them to come up with a good excuse for checking on things."

Beckett nodded, already reaching into her desk for her sidearm. She hadn't needed it sitting around all day, but she had it close, like always. Now she was glad she did.

"Esposito! Ryan!" Both appeared at Montgomery's bellow. "Go with Beckett."

They didn't know where they were going, but they both immediately followed her at a run down the corridor and to the elevator.