Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the recognizable characters who appear in this story. Any other names, for characters or businesses, are fictional, uncompensated, or are in the public domain.

A/N: Finally! This story's been kicking around in my head for a long while. It's about time I got around to writing it. It gets off to a bit of a gory start, but things will calm down quickly.

A few comments: I'm going to endeavor to have this story finished by Halloween, but it's about fifty-fifty on whether I'll make it. I've given up reading other stories to try to get some writing done, and even still I'm finding it difficult with other responsibilities. So, while I'll certainly finish it, we'll hope to have it complete by the 31st.

Also, pay attention to the dates. You'll note that we start with a scene, then jump back in time a little bit. Things should be pretty linear from there.

Finally, it's only through the kindness of the TSA that I have a story to offer. No, seriously. I managed to leave my laptop in a security bin at BWI, only realizing it as my plane took off. The TSA folks found my computer (with the 5K words of this story on the hard drive and not otherwise backed up) and had it back in my hands within two days. So, thanks TSA!

October 24

Beckett, weary and demoralized, stabbed the call button on the elevator. She'd slept hardly at all – her search was fruitless, her frustration at unsurpassed levels. Worse, she had to cling to her frustration – without it, the grasping gloom of her anxiety might drag her under and leave her completely useless. If that happened, she'd fail Castle, embarrass her team, embolden the Feds, and probably lose her job. So, she marshalled her resolve, imagined what her therapist would advise, and tried to adopt a confident demeanor.

Despite her efforts, Beckett stumbled off of the elevator on the fourth floor, only to crash into one of her teammates after taking a few steps.

"Espo?" she asked, wondering why he and his partner were stopped in the hallway, peering into the bullpen. Standing on her toes to look over them, she followed their gaze only to see her wayward partner at his place beside her desk.

"Castle?" she whispered incredulously.

"Yep," Detective Esposito replied without turning his head. "We spent all God-damned night trying to find the bastard and here he is, taking a nap. Son of a…"

"We were just trying to decide on the most appropriate way of waking him up," Ryan, Esposito's partner, offered. "We can't discharge our firearm in the precinct without pissing off the new captain," he explained, "and no one has an air horn. Hey, maybe somebody's got a whistle," he wondered, swiveling his head to survey who might be able to help them rudely awaken Castle.

"Nah," Espo disagreed with a disturbing grin and evil chuckle. "I know what we do – we get Gates to wake him up. Can you imagine? How'd you like to wake up and the first thing you see is…"

"Is a transfer order breaking you down to Traffic Enforcement?" interjected a voice from behind them.

Each of them froze in place, cursing their fatigue and sloppiness here in the precinct. They hadn't exactly impressed Victoria Gates, the new captain of the 12th Precinct, and Espo's comment wasn't going to help thaw relations.

"No sir," Espo mumbled as he turned in place, looking contrite. Both Ryan and Beckett also turned to face the music.

"Detectives, does this look like an elementary school?" Gates asked. "Or a playground? No. This is a place of professionalism. You all insisted on allowing the writer access to the precinct and your cases. Now, might you actually live up to your titles and investigate the situation? I may not like Mr. Castle, but it occurs to me that there might be a reason he could not be located last night and sought refuge here."

Casting each of the detectives one last icy look, Gates removed the possibility of action by striding forward herself. The sharp cadence of her short heels on the floor didn't rouse Castle from his slumber. Somewhat frustrated, Gates paused next to the writer and seemed to survey the desk for something that she could use to create some noise. Then, probably realizing she was treading a similar path to her chastised detectives, she instead reached out and poked Castle's arm.

"Mr. Castle," she barked, "this is a police precinct, not a flophouse. If you insist on insinuating yourself into my precinct, you have to behave with decorum."

Still, Castle didn't reply. Embarrassed by the attention she'd garnered, Gates reached out and shook Castle's shoulder. "Mr. Castle!"

The jostling caused Castle's arm to slip from the desk. Unbalanced, he toppled forward, cracking his head on the floor as his body collapsed in an insensate lump.

With a gasp, Gates knelt at his side, where she was quickly joined by Beckett, with Espo and Ryan hovering behind. "Call 911!" Gates shouted as she and Beckett carefully rolled the writer onto his back and straightened his limbs. A cut on his brow from his tumble from the chair bled profusely, coating half his face and already starting a small, familiar puddle on the floor. Desperate to stop the bleeding, Beckett reached forward flipped back the lapel of Castle's blazer to grab the handkerchief she knew she'd find there. Instead, her attention was drawn to the note sticking out of the breast pocket of his shirt. With a trembling hand, she grasped the note and pulled it free.

"No…," she moaned as she read the note, locking up momentarily before realizing she still needed to staunch his wound. She handed the note to her captain while reaching again for the handkerchief.

"There aren't many challenges left," Gates read the note aloud as she, too, paled. "Let's see who can find them first."

October 18

"Oh, Beckett," Castle groaned in indecent delight. "This has got to be the best crime scene to which you've ever brought me."

Sighing at his inappropriate exuberance, Beckett shifted her cruiser into park. But she held her tongue – things with Castle were still a bit raw after this summer. Sure, he was back at the precinct, despite Gates' misgivings. But their partnership – if that's what they had – wasn't close to what it had been before their summer apart and the events that preceded it. Hell, she wasn't even close to what she was a year ago. Everything was so fraught right now, so brittle. Each of them stepped carefully, treaded lightly in recognition of the fragility of their current arrangement. Beckett knew that Castle felt the same way – it's what motivated his extra exuberance and general cheeriness as they tried to recapture what they'd lost.

"Glad to oblige," she offered as she stepped around the cruiser and led Castle to the door of a magnificent, if creepy, Victorian townhouse. The building looked like it could've been pulled directly from a horror movie with its turrets, old-fashioned carriage sconces, and general air of dilapidation. The cloud cover, misty drizzle, and occasional flashes of lightning on the horizon simply accentuated the eerie atmosphere, as did the slightly lopsided jack-o-lantern on the front stoop.

"You rang?" Ryan intoned in a deep voice as they entered the building, earning a delighted fist-bump from Castle and a prim look of disapproval from Beckett.

"Report," Beckett directed, annoyed.

"Your average, nuclear American sat down to dinner at 6:20 this evening," Ryan started while leading Beckett and Castle through a door to the first floor of what was clearly a subdivided building. "They'd spent the afternoon watching a Halloween movie that Mom thought was a little too scary for the kids. So, when they sat at the table and Dad started to carve the roast, she assumed he was playing an inappropriate trick on the kids and tried to distract them." At this point, Ryan paused at the entrance to the kitchen and dining area, where Beckett and Castle could see the meal still sitting on the table as described. "Unfortunately, their youngest looked up," he said as he pointed to the ceiling, from which blood still tricked down the light fixture from the center of an amorphous discoloration, "and let out a scream that scared the neighborhood. I don't think," he speculated, "the kids will ever watch a horror movie again."

Beckett looked grim, but for Castle, this story was a gift, not a scare. He nearly bounded away, heading toward the stairs to see what happened on the floor above.

Waiting at the top of the stairs, Espo corralled the writer and managed to hold him back until the team was assembled. After noting her glare, Castle calmed himself down and waited for the detectives to move into the flat in which the homicide that called them there must've occurred.

The team paused at the large doorway to the upstairs kitchen and dining area, which mirrored the floorplan of the first floor. Unlike downstairs, though, this kitchen table wasn't set for dinner.

"Well," Beckett allowed. "This is new."

"Lanie," Castle called out as he entered the room and noticed the ME hovering near the dining table, "I thought you usually waited until the vic was in the morgue before you opened him up."

"Castle, have a little respect, would you?" Lanie chastised. Beckett nodded in agreement, until her friend continued and made it clear they weren't on the same page. "I'm a professional and only work in a professional environment. You question my professionalism again and it might just be you who gets the on-scene Y-incision."

"Of course," Castle apologized, before he turned his head. He'd meant to inspect the body, but his eyes caught Beckett first. While maintaining her professional focus, she looked wan. Castle, very aware of her health since her shooting, felt himself caught on the horns of an uncomfortable dilemma. Asking if she was alright would certainly earn her ire, but she really didn't look good and collapsing at a crime scene wouldn't do her situation at the precinct any favors.

While trying to decide whether or not to approach his partner, Castle let his eyes fall to the victim. He felt his gorge rise and realized that perhaps Beckett's pallor was fully the result of this grim tableau. The scene was easily one of the most disgusting Castle had ever seen. The victim, spread-eagled on the table, wasn't naked – from the waist down, he was fully clothed in nice slacks, sharp dress shoes, and vibrant (or perhaps garish) socks. But above the waist was a different story. His dress shirt had been torn open, the undershirt sliced open and pulled to the sides. The Y-incision that opened the chest was crude and uneven, looking more torn than cut in some places. The chest showed the trauma from where the breastplate apparently inhibited the efforts of the killer. No effort had been made to stop the flow of blood during the procedure – it had soaked the victim's shirts, pooled on the table, and overflowed onto the floor, where it pooled again before soaking through to traumatize the family below.

The pool had another tributary, one even worse than the chest. For the killer had also performed an amateur encephalectomy on the victim – the top of his head was missing and the brain removed. Again, the killer had made no effort to contain or clean the mess, as the pile of gore and viscera on the floor attested.

"I don't feel so good," Castle confessed, feeling a little green. The fact that none of the NYPD personnel around the room teased him for the confession was testament to the truly disturbing scene.

"Well," Lanie interjected, "you haven't seen the worst part yet." As Castle looked at her, she redirected his attention to the kitchen counter.

The chipped Formica held one horror after another. A reciprocal saw sat there discarded, awash in congealed blood. Next to it was the top of the victim's scull, sitting there like a discarded toupee. And further down the counter was a mismatched collection of Tupperware containers the killer had used to hold the organs extracted by the "autopsy." The realization that vital organs had been dumped into plastic containers that usually housed leftovers and left sitting on the counter hit Castle like nothing else had and left him wondering whether he'd have PTSD whenever he ventured into his own kitchen.

"Any early thoughts?" Beckett asked. Castle turned to listen to the ME's response, very glad for the diversion.

"Mr. Delbruck here," Lanie began, "was dead before he was cut open, so I'd guess the crude cuts and tears are from lack of experience and poor equipment, not from a struggle. Facial trauma and petechiae indicate suffocation, but the hands are free of any trauma. I'll have to get labs back to see if he was drugged, otherwise I'm not sure why there's no sign of struggle."

"Any idea why he was cut up?"

Lanie paused and took a deep breath. It was a move sufficiently out-of-character to fully draw the attention of not only Castle and Beckett, but of Ryan and Esposito, too, who wandered over.

"I… I'm not sure. I'd say the killer," here she paused again, "well, assuming the killer is the same person who performed the autopsy, which you'll have to figure out. Anyway, you might think the killer was looking for something in the body. But if that was the case, he wouldn't have cut open the chest."

"Why not?" Espo asked, confused.

"Because the only organ that appears to be missing is the brain."

"The killer took the brain?" Castle erupted, imagination again engaged. "Our suspect is…"

"… not a hunchback named Egor," Beckett interjected quickly, quashing his fun despite welcoming its effect in breaking the tension.

"It's pronounced Igor," Castle grumbled.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Beckett turned to the rest of her team. "Lanie's got this. Let's have a look around, see if there's anything of note – anything missing, signs of struggle, the usual."

With that, the detectives dispersed and walked around the flat. Castle meandered around, poking and prodding, looking more like a visitor to an open house than an investigator. He'd drift into a room after the detectives had inspected, hands in pocket only until something caught his attention. In the bedroom, he noted the décor and the evidence of an obviously single existence. On the walls and desks were family pictures – the victim had two daughters who looked college-aged, maybe a little older. Castle didn't envy Beckett's responsibility to contact them. The pictures also showed someone who appeared to be the matriarch of the family. It's possible that Mr. Delbruck was divorced, but Castle's bet was that he was a widower. Divorce is no picnic, as Castle knew better than most, but he still found the notion of dying while alone to be a terribly bleak prospect.

Trying to move away from those thoughts, Castle padded into the en suite restroom. It was as Spartan as expected for an older, single gentleman. A bar of soap and a bottle of cheap shampoo/conditioner – in his experience, this was ample evidence that only a man resided here. The medicine cabinet was similarly bare – shaving cream, disposable razors, a few medicine bottles, and an unopened box of bandages. The contents of the cabinet beneath the sink were similarly mundane – extra rolls of toilet paper, a plunger, and cleaning supplies. No great surprise, but it would've been nice to find something overlooked by the detectives, however unlikely that might be.

With a sigh, Castle stood, checked to make sure his cheery façade was in place for Beckett's benefit, and went to find his partner.

October 19

The next morning found the team at their desks, compiling information to begin adding details to the murderboard. Beckett leveled a baleful eye at the board, perturbed by the paucity of information.

"Let's start with the vic's details," she said with a sigh.

"Steven Delbruck," Esposito called out from his desk. "Age 56. He's lived at that address for the past four years, since his wife died in a car accident. Two daughters, aged 24 and 26. One's married and living in Miami, the other's a grad student at Berkeley. No other relatives."

Beckett jotted some notes on the board, including symbols relating to her notification requirements. "Occupation?" she called out.

"He's a volunteer at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden," Ryan answered, flipping through some forms. "He'd been a transaction attorney at Fox Schiller, left after his wife died. Looks like he's been living on the settlement from his wife's accident and interest income."

"Why no plants?" Castle asked, looking up from the game he'd been playing on his phone. "Seems odd that he's working at a botanical garden but didn't have any plants back at his place."

"Not sure," Ryan answered. "Maybe it was somewhere his wife enjoyed? I'll call BBG when it opens and see if I can get some answers."

"Anything from the accident?" Beckett asked. "If there was a settlement, was there any bad blood from what happened?"

"Doubt it," Ryan answered again, turning to a different set of papers. "A Wegman's driver had a heart attack at the wheel and drifted into her lane. Head-on collision – she didn't have a chance. Wegman's insurance paid out for the accident, but the driver died at the scene, too, so it's not like he lost his job and was looking for revenge. And he was single, so probably no one acting in his stead, either."

"Okay," Beckett sighed. "Let's turn this around. What about the killer?"

"Nothin' from Lanie yet," Espo answered. "She figured it'd be mid-afternoon at the earliest before we heard from her."

"We do have some early returns from CSU," Ryan followed up, trying to be encouraging. "There were prints all over the place – no match in the system yet, but they didn't belong to Delbruck. Looks like the killer didn't do anything to clean up. He didn't even wear gloves when he… operated."

"Ye-uch," Castle grunted. "And no one saw anything? The killer must've been covered in blood when he left."

"While carrying a brain," Ryan added, with a macabre grin.

"The canvas hasn't turned up anything," Beckett interjected, trying to quell the discussion. "But there are still a few neighbors to be interviewed. In the meantime, do we have anything else?" she asked. With only silence as an answer, she sighed again, assigned the grunt-work, and wondered how long Castle would stay in the precinct before the less exciting aspects of the job drove him off.