TWO

Richard Castle was never a man destined to live a normal life—not even from birth. In fact, his atypical life was guaranteed from the point of conception, when he was but an embryo created in a government facility. He and forty-nine others were part of the first wave of a new genetic frontier designed to alter the course of humanity as it was then known.

Beginning in the early 2050's the field of genetic studies began to examine ways to create what they deemed to be "elite" embryos. Of course the concept of "designer babies" had been around for many decades, with couples choosing to have sons instead of daughters or vice versa, but by the fifties the concept had taken on a life of its own. Not only could couples chose the gender of their child, but they could be assured that child would not be subjected to life-long problems like Type 1 Diabetes, various forms of cancer, or heart defects. As science progressed, they were soon able to choose whether their child would have blonde or brown hair, their eye color, and even how tall they would be.

Of course, these early tests were done on rodents and small mammals long before the first human trials were approved. When they were, the large sums of money being offered by genetic specialist to enroll in the still-risky trails drew the attention of then-struggling actress Martha Rodgers. She had always wanted a family, but never found a man who stuck around long enough to give her one. By enrolling in the trial, she would gain both the child she desired and enough money to support them until her next role-of-a-lifetime arrived.

As with many things, the initial information she heard about the trial seemed too good to be true—and most of it was. In exchange for enrolling in the trial, she would have a child that was biologically hers, but she would never know the identity of that child's father. Her child would also be subject to screening and testing at least for the first few years of his or her life, but once they assured her they would never take custody of her child away, Martha agreed and signed every form they placed in front of her.

Ten months later, one of the world's first elite children, her son Richard, was born. As they had promised her, he had brown hair, blue eyes, and absolutely no genetic abnormalities. Unfortunately, not all forty-nine of his kin were as lucky. Only thirty-seven of the initial fifty embryos produced viable children and only twenty-nine were as genetically perfect as their creators promised them to be. Despite this, the first generation of Elite children as they were known was deemed to be a success and, after making a few changes to make the next batch of designer children even more perfect, the next phase began.

By the time he was five years old the geneticists were no longer interested in poking Richard with needles or putting him through body scans. As they were now five generations deep into the world of Elite embryos, he was considered a successful but old model. After all, his eyes weren't as bright blue as some of the newer children, his skin just a little too yellow—and it burnt with too much exposure to the sun! Despite these minor blips, Martha could not have been more pleased, because they were finally free to live their lives as they desired.

As Richard grew up, he was afforded all of the best opportunities because of his Elite status. His entrance to the best schools was guaranteed (even after he was kicked out of the third one for poor behavior). He could have attended any university in the country even despite his mediocre grades. And then, when he decided to change his legal name and publish his first novel, half the publishing houses in Manhattan wanted his work. Still, despite all the preferential treatment he received, Richard never felt as though he fit in.

By the time he was a legal adult, nearly one fifth of the children born in the country were of Elite status; in Manhattan, the number was nearly double and it only grew the older he became. The explosion of genetic success had truly altered the course of humanity, eliminating illnesses and diseases, and making every Elite child born look symmetrical and perfect; any one of them could have been runway models.

Though he was technically lumped in with the Elites, as a First Gen he faced many prejudices. The later generations of Elites—the ones with perfectly smooth, unblemished skin, brilliant blue eyes and flowing blonde hair—barely saw him as any different than the Defects, the derogatory term they used to described any babies born from natural conception. The Normals, as they were more appropriately called, also looked down on him—calling him a freak and a robot for being created by a genetic machine and not a womb.

Despite his difficulty with his personal life, the man known by that point as Richard Castle, could not say he had a terrible life. His books were a wild success for the populous did not know he was a First Gen, only that he was an Elite. He was able to support himself and his mother in a lavish lifestyle, which made blending in with the other Elites a bit easier. He'd married one of them—Meredith, one of the only elite girls who didn't immediately walk away upon noticing the three moles on his face that would never have existed if he was in the later generations. He'd been instantly smitten with her bright blue eyes and sparkling orange hair, and though their marriage seemed doomed to failure from the start, he would never regret it for it had given him his pride and joy: his daughter, Alexis.

Though she was not the first, Alexis was one of the early second-tier Elites; a child born from two Elite parents. By that point, twenty-four years after their first round of embryos, the procedure was so commonplace it was practically as easy as ordering a custom meal. Castle and Meredith went to the local procreation office and sat down in front of a computer screen where they were given the option to choose as many or as few specifics for their child as they wished. He had no preferences at all, but Meredith had many. She wanted a girl with hair just like hers, and she wanted her to be tall, but with a slender build.

After their selections were placed, DNA was taken from them both to be combined into one of the blank, lab-generated embryos the company held. Meredith then received a vial of pills, which she would take for thirty days, and then she would return to have their designer child implanted in her now-ready uterus.

Strange as this process would have seemed for those twenty years in the past, Castle found the entire thing relatively normal—convenient, even. Of course the thirty-thousand dollar price tag was a little more than he expected, but they could afford it. It did, however, help him to realize why Elite children weren't as widespread as he would have thought and so many people still chose to conceive naturally.

Just a few months after Alexis was born it became clear to Castle that motherhood was not as easy or as natural as it had been presented to Meredith, though it took her almost three years for her to give up completely and move out to a community for Elites-only in California. Castle knew they were better off, and that he had received the better end of the deal, because he was able to keep their perfect little girl with brilliant blue eyes and sparkling red hair.

Castle continued on with his life, even marrying again, that time to an early generation Elite, hoping it would work out better, but of course it did not, until one morning he woke up and decided he needed to make a change. He killed off his money-making character, much to the utter fury of his ex-wife-slash-publisher, and found himself floundering, not sure where he fit in or how he should continue with his life.

And then he met her.

When Kate Beckett stepped in front of him, held up her police badge and demanded to speak to him about a murder case, Castle knew his existence was forever changed.

She was, without question, the most beautiful Normal he had ever seen. In fact, had it not been for the distinct mole beneath her left eye, he would have initially thought her to be an Elite. Still, with her looks and slender, model-like body she could have fit in well enough with Elites to become something significant, but she was a cop, a profession that by the 2100s was very unusual and undesirable, particularly with all the robot patrols and security cameras linked to computers doing most of the work. But Kate Beckett had chosen to become a cop, and that was interesting.

He immediately wanted to know the reason why, even flat out asked her when their interview was over, but she sharply shut him down, telling him that she was not one of his characters and he didn't need to know her backstory. It was that moment that he fell in love with her—well, in lust with her; falling in love with her would come later, after she'd told him about her mother's murder and how the crime-processing algorithms had determined to be a random, unsolvable event, but she was convinced that had a human been on the case the killer would have been found. That was why she'd ditched all future career plans and gone to the police academy instead—so no other family had to face the same fate.

The night he met Kate Beckett had changed Castle's life. He was once again invigorated to write—to write about a character like her: a gritty Normal who wanted to take the world by storm, refusing to accept the social bias she faced for not being an Elite and charging her way through life in spite of it. She was extraordinary, and every day that he shadowed her and learned just a little more about her he became more intrigued, more enthralled.

For over three years he shadowed her nearly every shift, becoming her defacto partner in crime and loving every moment of it, which was one of the many reasons he refused to let her die and determinedly searched beneath the driver's seat of their sinking vehicle in hopes of finding the weapon he needed to save her.

Finally, as his fingers were filling with searing pain due to the frigid temperature of the water, Castle's hand found the metal barrel of the gun, and he grappled for it. It was trapped on part of the seat mechanism, but after an agonizing ten seconds of fighting, he was able to pull it free and surfaced with a gasp. By that point, he had to tilt his face so it was practically parallel with the car's roof before he could reach air, which meant that Kate's nose and mouth were most definitely submerged and he didn't have much time.

Aiming the weapon down and away from her body, Castle shot through the belt to release it from where it was trapped. Fortunately, it tore with only one bullet, so he would be able to get her free, but he estimated nearly another minute would pass before the car was submerged enough for the pressure to equalize and the doors to open freely. That was a minute he didn't have, so on a whim he came up with a backup plan.

Gulping down air, Castle half-scrambled, half-swam to the front seat so that he could grip Kate around the waist. From that point, he fired the gun towards the back of the car in order to break out the back window. It took four shots to successfully do so and the miniscule pocket of air left in the vehicle filled with water. He could feel the back end sinking as he struggled to pull himself and Kate through the tight space. Once he reached the back window, he had to ram it with his shoulder in order to escape.

His lungs feeling like they were on fire, Castle pushed his way out, pulling the limp frame of his partner with him and pushed his feet against the car trunk to propel them quickly upwards. Fortunately, they were only a few feet down, and he was able to surface quickly with a gasp for much-needed air.

Treading water, Castle pulled Kate's body in front of him and called out her name, terrified he'd need to do CPR and not sure how easily he could get then back onto the pier. She didn't respond to his calls, but when he turned her around so that her back pressed into his chest, and dug his balled up fists into the space just beneath her rib cage as a make-shift Heimlich maneuver, he heard her cough up water and begin gasping for air.

Relief pouring through him so much that tears pricked his eyes, he pressed his lips to the back of her head while his feet continued to kick furiously to keep them above water. "You're okay; Kate; you're okay."

"C-Castle." She rasped out.

"Don't try to speak—I'm right here and I'll get us to shore, just focus on breathing and coughing up that water, okay?"

Without waiting for her response, He moved his arm from around her waist to around her upper chest, just beneath her armpits. Thankfully, one of his gym classes during boarding school had included lifeguard training, so he knew how to swim them safely back to land, even with Kate's limited assistance. Unfortunately, that was where they encountered their next problem: how to get back up onto the pier.

The surface was far too high for him to reach. Even if he could have somehow flung himself up high enough to reach, he definitely could not have done so while still holding on to Kate, but he could not let go of her if she couldn't keep her head above the water, so he continued down the pier, swimming for almost five minutes until they reached a very old, worn wooden ladder. Though he was convinced it nearly broke under their weight, it held firm enough for them both to climb to safety.

When Castle hoisted himself up enough to swing his backside around and sit down on the concrete pier edge, he realized his arms felt suddenly as limp as wet spaghetti noodles, but he could not yet rest—not with his partner collapsed just two feet away, still coughing and spluttering. "Kate—ugh." He grunted as he tried to move his way towards her and felt as though his legs were weighted with anvils. He wriggled his way across the ground until he could stretch out beside, her propping his body up with his left elbow as his right hand landed on her upper back.

"Kate, are you okay?"

"I—yes—I—I don't…" She spluttered out her words and Castle realized she wasn't just choking on river water, but she was crying as well.

"Hey, hey." His tone turned soft and he drew her in towards him with a firm hand against her upper back. "It's okay; you're okay."

She looked up at him, her hand loosely covering her mouth as she shook her head and said, "That was just…really scary."

He nodded and pulled her in until her head rested in the crook of his neck. Obviously her stuck seat belt had added quite a bit of terror to the situation, but even without that he imagined she still would have been unsettled due to the simple fact that she was unable to swim. "Well we're fine now; we made it."

"I know." Her voice was weak as she snuggled her head against his neck and used her hand to grab on to the center of his plaid-button down.

Castle felt his arm and shoulder begin to tremble due to the exertion he'd just had while swimming them to safety, but he didn't want to move—he couldn't, not with her so close to him for the very first time.

They had touched before, of course; had many handshakes and even three brief hugs (not that he was counting). Once she'd even used him as a makeshift ladder to climb up into the propped open window of a grungy warehouse to see if their suspect was inside. Arguably, since during that incident she was literally kneeling on his shoulders and his hands were braced at her hips for support, that situation might have been a tie insofar as physical closeness, but this was different. That was closeness for practicality; this was closeness for comfort.

Castle splayed his hand out across her shoulder blade and rubbed it in gentle concentric circles. He didn't say anything, not only because he did not want to ruin their moment, but also because he was gritting his teeth, fighting to keep his trembling shoulder from collapsing. God, was he really that out of shape? He used his gym membership…occasionally. And it wasn't even as though he swam a mile; it couldn't have been more than two hundred feet in total. Then again, other than the bobbing around he'd did in the ocean outside his Hamptons house, he could not recall the last time he had been swimming, particularly not when trying to keep another person afloat as well.

Ultimately, the muscle weakness in his arm and shoulder won out and Castle was forced to collapse back against the ground as his arm continued to tremble. Kate fell along with him, barely stopping herself from crashing into his neck with her hand flat against his chest. He grunted out a, "Sorry," and winced while putting his head against the hard concrete surface below.

"Oh god, Castle—are you okay?" Her hand skimmed from his chest up to cup his jaw as though she were examining his head for injuries.

"I'm fine." He grunted. "Just…arms are tired from the swim; couldn't hold us up like that."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

He bobbed his head and lifted his arm enough so he could grasp onto her shoulder. "'m fine Kate, just tired. You're the one who lost consciousness."

He watched as she glanced tentatively back towards the river and then felt a tremble go through her body. He gripped more tightly to her arm and she looked back towards him with a mixture of relief and gratitude. It was only then he became acutely aware of how her body was almost draped over his, their faces hovering barely a foot apart. Had he the strength, it would have been all too easy to lift his head and kiss her. He wanted to and, god, maybe just maybe he could muster the core strength to—

Any thoughts of kissing Kate were evaporated from his mind by the arrival of the cavalry: several police cars and a fire truck, by the sound of it. As the sirens drew almost deafeningly close, Kate pulled her body away from his and rotated so that she was kneeling and bracing her hands against her thighs, preparing to stand. After taking a few deep breaths in preparation, Castle managed to push himself up into a sitting position with a grunt and then he look over at his partner. "At least we won't have to hitchhike our way back to safety."

She offered a small smile. "Yeah they'll take us back to the Twelfth and we can wash the river off."

"Great; I can already feel my third arm growing."

She grimaced and looked down at her body. "Don't remind me."

A/N: Thank you all for the reviews/follows. I hope you're all still with me now that you see the, uh, strange futuristic twist I put on this tale :)