Author's note: I'm glad you seem to be enjoying it so far! This chapter might seem a little boring, though – at least at first. It's hard to make airplanes exciting, after all.

OOOOOOOOOOO

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for flying Castle Air. Please make sure your seatbelts are securely fastened and your seats are fully upright. The flight time for today's trip is about 3 hours with a maximum cruising altitude of about 5000 feet. The temperature here in New York is a slightly chilly 45 degrees, with no clouds and very little wind. The temperature in Buffalo is a little cooler at 42 degrees, but it'll be warmer by the time we reach our destination…"

Beckett couldn't help but look over at Castle as she made sure the seatbelt was securely fastened.

"You sound like you know what you're doing…"

He turned off the microphone on his headset and winked at her.

"Saw it on a movie."

"That's not what I wanted to hear, Castle."

"I'm just kidding. We do have a couple things to go over before we take off, though…"

He spent the next half hour going over the flight plan with her and answering her questions about the flight – including why they weren't flying in a beeline to Buffalo from New York and were instead heading straight west for most of the flight and then turning due north.

"To stay out of the established flight paths of the commercial airlines."

She'd frowned.

"We're going to be a lot lower than they are, though. Even the puddle jumper I had been planning on taking would have been."

"We're lower than they are when they're at flight level," he'd corrected. "But when they're ascending and descending then we'd be in trouble."

"I didn't think of that," she'd admitted.

"Which is why I'm the pilot and you are the passenger."

Which had actually given her a lot more confidence in his abilities. He certainly sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

"Ready?" he finally asked, turning on his headset once more.

She only hesitated a moment before shrugging and nodding.

"Yeah."

"Put your headset on and don't say anything until I tell you that you can, okay?"

"Okay."

She did what he told her and kept quiet as she listened to him speaking to the person in the small control tower that overlooked the private airport. Under his watchful eye Castle taxied the plane – which she now knew was a Cessna Stationair 206 – out to the end of the small runway, and after a very short wait he revved up the engine and they took off with only a small bump as they took to the air.

"You can open your eyes, now…"

She hadn't realized he'd noticed. Beckett opened her eyes and looked down, surprised by how far up in the air they already were.

"Wow."

He grinned, not at all offended.

"Pretty neat, huh?"

She surprised herself by echoing the smile as she looked around. It was a lot different in a small plane than it was in a commercial plane. More intimate, for one thing. Like there was nothing between her and the air around them. She wished there were clouds so she could see what that looked like, too.

"Yeah." She looked over at him. "Do you bring Alexis and your mom up often?"

He shook his head.

"They're both afraid of flying. Which is why I'm so glad you were willing to let me fly you."

"I'm impressed."

"I'm a very impressive guy, Detective," he told her. "I thought you knew that by now."

She chose to ignore that, watching as they flew over one suburb after another until they were finally flying over a more sparsely populated area than the one they were both more used to.

"It looks a lot nicer from up here…" she murmured.

"Another reason I love to fly," he replied, causing her to look over at him once more. There wasn't any sign of his usual cockiness or arrogance, which made her smile once more.

He didn't seem to be looking for any conversation, though, and truth be told, she wasn't, either. Instead they both watched, lost in their own private thoughts, as even the less sparsely populated areas fell behind them and now they were starting to fly over some of the outskirts of the wilderness areas of Pennsylvania.

After about half an hour he spoke up, startling her.

"Wanna handle the stick?"

"Excuse me?"

He grinned, knowing she'd take that the wrong way. He'd phrased it that way on purpose. The plane didn't actually have a stick. It had a steering wheel of sorts.

"Wanna fly it?"

She hesitated.

"I probably shouldn't."

"Why not? It's easy."

"You don't mind?"

"Of course not." His smile was all reassuring, now. "Come on, you just hold it and I'll tell you what to do. Simple stuff."

She reached out and took hold of the controls in front of her, looking over at his hands to see how he was holding them and duplicating it.

"Perfect." Castle took his hands away from the controls and lifted them up and away. "You have the bridge, Number One."

She ignored that.

"What do I do?"

"Well, we're supposed to be going in a straight line," he told her. "But if you don't mind being a little late checking in at the hotel we can do a few maneuvers so you can see what it's like…"

She nodded.

"Okay."

He pointed out the horizontal indicator.

"Make sure that stays steady, but turn the controls a little and we'll turn."

She did, and they did. Which made her smile. She was flying!

"Now play a little. Just don't make any sudden motions. Everything should be steady and slow. Push forward to go lower, pull back to go higher. Just like a flight simulator."

For about twenty minutes Beckett found herself in complete control of the small plane, turning left or right, making full, wide, circles and even going higher and lower – wherever she wanted. It was fun, and she could definitely see why he enjoyed it. She was starting to think that maybe she needed to think about getting herself a pilot's license when he told her that they'd better get on with their trip.

"The weather's still pretty good, but we don't want to be too late," he told her. "Wouldn't do to have the star speaker miss her speech."

"My presentation is for the last day," she pointed out. "And it's hardly an important one."

She waited for him to take control of the plane back, but he shook his head.

"You're doing fine, just turn us north."

Since she knew how to do that, now, she did, and they now had the sun on their left, shining brightly through the windows of the cockpit. Below them was nothing but trees as far as she could see, aside from the occasional glint of water. She hadn't realized there was so much wilderness in the east, still.

"How far are we from Buffalo?" she asked.

He shrugged, reaching for the GPS and a map. "I'll have to refigure our flight," he told her. "But an hour or so, probably."

They'd gone off their course a bit playing around, but it wasn't that big of a deal. He'd done it himself tons of times. That was what the GPS was for, after all.

"Then how-"

She was interrupted by a sudden popping noise that seemed abnormally loud in the small craft.

He looked at the instrument panel, frowning.

"What was-"

Suddenly the panel went dead, and everything was quiet. Including the engine drone that they'd been listening to the entire trip.

"Castle?"

He reached out and grabbed the controls.

"I got it."

"What-"

"Hold on."

The plane was suddenly going down. Not in a sudden drop, but far more quickly than when she'd been playing with it. Beckett felt a flare of alarm and looked over at him.

He looked alarmed, too. But not panicked.

"We've lost everything," he told her. "That's impossible."