It was Castle's mother who answered their frantic knocking, her eyes annoyed and then concerned when she realized who was there – and noticed that all three of them had their service pistols out. The three detectives walked in without saying anything, looking around suspiciously, as though expecting to find someone lurking behind the door.

"Detectives?" she asked, finally, when they'd assured themselves that no one had been pointing a gun at Martha to keep her from warning them off.

"Where's Castle, Martha?" Beckett asked.

She frowned.

"He's out shopping. What's going on?"

"We're not sure yet," Beckett told her, holstering her gun. "How long has he been gone?"

"A few hours. He was going stir crazy and said he had to get out for a while. He needed to get a new laptop and-"

"Can we call him?" Ryan asked.

"-cell phone," Martha finished. "His were ruined in the crash. What's going on?"

"We got the report back from the FAA about the plane," Beckett replied. "Where was he going? Do you know?"

She nodded.

"Bernie's – it's a place over by Central Park west. They're the ones he always uses…"

"Can we get the address?"

"Of course, but-"

"I'll explain it all to you as soon as I can," Beckett promised her. "Right now we need to find him." She looked over at a motion at the door and saw one of the uniformed officers had arrived. "We're going to leave an officer with you," she said, gesturing him in. "Call if he shows up or calls. Please?"

"Of course." She hastily wrote down an address and handed it to Esposito, who nodded in thanks and glanced at it. Then they were gone, leaving only the officer and her. "Do you know what's going on?" she asked him.

He shook his head.

"Only that I'm supposed to watch you guys. Sorry."

He knew a little more than that, but he was under strict orders not to panic Martha or Alexis – had she been there – by telling them the truth.

She sighed, worried about her son – again. She gestured to the living room, hostess enough at all times that she'd never leave someone standing in the middle of the room if she could avoid it.

"Come on in and make yourself at home."

OOOOOOOOOOO

There wasn't actually a guy named Bernie. It was the name of the proprietor's cat. Castle knew this story well, because he'd spent a fair amount of time in the store before and the guy that owned it loved to talk. Which was fine, because Castle liked to listen.

"This thing is beat to shit, Castle…" he said, turning the laptop over in his hands and looking at the bottom of it. Even in the case, the wreck had cracked the housing and had it managed to stay dry, it still would have been destroyed.

"I know, Jimmy."

"You don't look that great, either," the owner told him.

It was the truth, and Castle knew it. But he felt a lot better than he had, and although his ribs hurt every time he breathed, he was glad to be on his feet and out of the hospital. It had been a genius idea to sneak him out earlier than they'd planned, and he wished that he could have taken credit for it.

"Should have seen me a week ago."

"Yeah, that's what I hear." He gave the laptop another mournful look and shook his head. "I can't fix it. I'll see if I can salvage the data on the hard drives, though, and we'll ghost it over to another machine." He picked up the cell phone that was on the counter and nodded. "I'll pull the card on this, too, and see what I can save."

"Thanks. How long, do you think?"

"For anyone else, I'd say a week. For you… a few hours. Go get a hot dog or something and I'll try to have it for you when you get back."

Castle grinned.

"I think I'll do just that. Is that vendor still over by the big rock?"

"He was last week. But it's raining. You'll catch a cold."

He wasn't really worried about catching anything, considering the antibiotics that the doctors had him on just then. And now that he didn't have to sleep outside, he wouldn't mind a little rain.

"Thanks."

"Anytime."

Castle left the electronic store and headed into the park to get some lunch. He wasn't walking very fast – mainly because he didn't want to have to catch his breath – but there wasn't any hurry. He didn't have anything to do today, anyway. He thought maybe when he was finished with the phone and laptop he'd call Beckett and see if she wanted to go to lunch, or an early dinner or something. He hadn't seen her since the morning she left the hospital and he missed her.

The hotdog vendor had his cart by a large rock that was probably a boulder left by the last ice age glacier – although Castle had never really researched it find out. Eating a hotdog (or two) and sitting on a park bench watching people go by on the jogging trails was a good way to spend an afternoon. Castle had done it more than once when he'd needed a break from writing, or needed a new minor character for one of his people to interact with. People in New York were so diverse that he only needed to watch for a while and he'd see someone he could borrow some characteristic from.

Today, of course, he was just people watching for the pure enjoyment of it. He bought two hotdogs and decided to walk a while longer before he settled on a bench that gave him a good view of the area. Not that there was a lot to see. It was gloomy and the rain was coming down hard enough to keep the nannies and their charges inside for their play dates, so all he saw were a few joggers who went by discussing a play that they'd seen the night before and a dog walker who had absolutely no time to even say hi since the dogs had all seen a squirrel and were practically dragging him along behind them as they went after it.

He ate the first hotdog, and leaned back and closed his eyes, feeling the rain soak his hair and face but enjoying it. He'd have to dry off before he went home, or he'd have to suffer through a well-deserved lecture from his mother – or worse, Alexis – but right now there was no one to tell him what to do and when he had to do it. Which was a pleasant change from the hospital.

"Richard Castle…"

He opened his eyes and saw a man standing in front of him. A man he didn't know. Nothing new there, really, since he saw lots of people he didn't know in New York. And a lot of them knew him – at least knew who he was. It was part of being famous. He started to smile, thinking maybe it was a fan, but there was an odd look in the man's expression and a slightly off-kilter glint in his eyes. He was also sweating, although the day was far from warm.

"Can I help you?"

The man was staring at him, almost possessively, and Castle frowned. Before he could say anything. Though, the man shook his head.

"You must have some kind of guardian angel looking over your shoulder, Mr. Castle… it's not everyone who can crash into the middle of nowhere and come out unscathed."

Hardly unscathed, Castle thought, but he didn't say it. Something was definitely odd about the man, and his expression was so overwhelmingly wrong that Castle was immediately on edge with him.

"I got lucky," he said, when it was clear the man was waiting for a reply. "It-"

"You were supposed to die. You and that cop, both."