"Are you sure about this?"

Alexis sighed. "No, but that's why Lanie's here. Dad, we went over this. The legend was very specific about the fact that the wizard had control over the elements. And there was a point in the legend where he did exactly this."

Castle walked to the edge of the pool and peered over its edge. "But why does this have to be the *first* test?" he whined.

"Because it's an instinctive action," replied Alexis. "And if it works, then we can verify you match the wizard of the legend and we have a better idea of what else we should test. Now are you going to get in, or do I have to push you?"

Castle took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, savoring it as if it might be his last. Finally, he decided to trust his daughter and jumped in.

Alexis watched nervously as her father sank under the water. She knew she was putting a lot of faith in the legend, and she had complete confidence that Lanie could bring her father back if anything happened.

Nevertheless, she had just told her own father to basically drown himself in their family pool.
It was a hell of a way to start his testing session.

Lanie held the stopwatch in her hand, waiting to start it as soon as Castle's last air bubbles popped on the surface of the water. Finally, the bubbles stopped, and both women waited anxiously, expecting to have to go through watching the painful sight of seeing Castle struggle and panic.

It never happened. Instead, after the most painful 20 seconds of Alexis' life, her heart soared with relief and excitement as she watched her father take a victory lap around the bottom of the pool.

When he completed the lap of the pool, Castle's head finally broke the surface of the water. He coughed a couple of times, took in one giant breath of oxygen, and released it in a primal yell so loud that Lanie wondered if they might have heard it in New Jersey. "That's it!" Castle exclaimed joyously, "Tomorrow my scuba gear goes up on eBay!" Calming down only slightly, Castle turned to his daughter, "Alexis, remember how scared I told you I was at breakfast?" When Alexis nodded, Castle continued, "Forget it! This *is* the best thing ever! What's next?"

"Get out of the pool."

Castle started to use the wall to push himself up out of the pool, but stopped when Alexis coughed to get his attention. "What?"

"Uh, dad, you're a wizard with total control over the elements. Specifically, total control over *water*. Try again."

"Try again she says," Castle mouthed mockingly, "try again." He smiled wickedly as he realized the perfect way to exit the pool. Castle went to the end of the pool opposite Alexis and Lanie and floated face down. The water started to churn heavily and push towards him. As soon as he had collected enough water, a giant wave rushed toward the women at a speed that made it impossible for them to get out of the way.

Castle floated down to land gently, standing up, next to his fully drenched friend and daughter. Alexis tried to look unfazed even as her father smirked mercilessly at her. Flinging her hair back and spitting out a mouthful of water, she forced herself to speak as calmly as she could. "Okay, dad, while that was...unexpected, it was good. Now, can you dry us off, please? It's *October*, and I don't know about you, but I'm *freezing*."

They were all dried off in the blink of an eye-just in time for Beckett, Ryan and Esposito to run into the pool area and nearly knock them back into then water. Beckett, was the first to find her voice. "Castle, is everything all right? I heard screaming."

"Actually...yeah, everything's fine. I...we just found out that I can breathe underwater."

When that was followed by a chorus of 'no way's and 'prove it's from Ryan and Esposito, Castle was more than happy to oblige. He dove back into the pool and sank to the bottom of the deep end, the smile on his face growing as he watched his friends' faces growing in concern, then shock, then amazement as he sat under six feet of water, then took his time slowly crawling along the bottom of the pool before emerging in front of his friends in the shallow end.

Esposito and Ryan compared their watches. "Bro," Esposito commented, "you had to have been down there for at least ten minutes..."

"Yep...cool huh?" Castle replied with a smile.

Lanie though, couldn't help but notice the hoarseness in her friend's voice and how labored his breathing seemed. "Okay, Castle," she declared, "your new doctor wants to do a checkup. Get over here...and no tidal waves this time!"

While Ryan and Esposito mouthed to each other, "Tidal wave?" Castle simply hoisted himself up until he was sitting at the edge of the pool. Lanie sat down beside Castle, and lowered her legs into the water...a decision she immediately regretted. "Damn it, Castle!"

"What?" Castle nearly jumped at Lanie's loud exclamation beside him. "What'd I do?"

"I thought a rich guy like you would at least *heat* his pool! That water is *freezing*!"

Castle shrugged it off, "Really? I didn't notice..."

Lanie glared at her friend, grabbing his wrist with a little more force than she might have done otherwise. She entered the trance as her eyes closed, flying through his body as she checked for various potential problems. After a few seconds, Lanie came out of the trance and announced what she found and fixed. "Well, you didn't have hypothermia, which surprises the hell outta me considering how freakin' cold that water was...anyway, your throat and your lungs did show a little bit of scarring that I fixed."

"What would the scarring be from?" Alexis asked, concerned.

"My guess," replied Lanie, "would be the chlorine in the pool water. Can we try something?"

Castle nodded. "Sure, what?"

"I'd like to try watching your lungs while you're under," Lanie replied.

"Okay," Castle shrugged. He crossed his legs so he could sit Indian-style on the bottom of the pool and raised his arm over his head when he switched over to breathing water.

Lanie positioned herself so she could grab Castle's wrist without having to actually go in the pool. She entered a trance and came out quickly, knowing exactly what she had been looking for. Lanie then yanked on her friend's hand to encourage him to come up and join them.

Alexis turned to her friend, who seemed to be processing what she had seen. "Lanie?"

It was only at that point that Lanie turned to Castle with a smile. "Rick, I need you to promise me one thing."

Castle frowned at his friend, "What?"

"Don't *ever* go to another doctor without at least coming to me first. If, God forbid, anybody but me ever saw you pull that off, you would end up in some top secret government facility before you could say conspiracy theory."

"What did you see?" asked Alexis, her curiosity growing by the second.

Lanie described what she saw. "Apparently, whatever happened to us tweaked your lungs to be able to dual process: air when you're up here with the rest of us and then pulling the oxygen out of water when you're under. Instead of exhaling carbon dioxide underwater, I *think* you're actually exhaling liquid hydrogen...anyway, I was right on one thing. The chlorine does scar your lungs when you breathe in too much pool water. Whatever this process is, your lungs don't take too kindly to the harsher chemicals."

"Your prescription, doctor?" asked Castle with a sly smile.

"Don't breathe too much pool water. And if Beckett ever asks you to dive the East River see me *immediately* afterwards," Lanie replied sternly.

Castle replied with a chuckle, "You got it, Doc." He then turned to his daughter and asked, "Where to now, Alexis?"

Alexis thought for a moment before responding. "A couple of questions came up for me during the pool test. How would you feel about repeating the test in the ocean?"

Her father didn't need to be asked twice; he simply took off running toward the beach. Lanie watched Castle, her eyes getting wider the closer he got to the water. She turned to Alexis and asked, "That ocean water is going to make your pool water feel like a hot tub in comparison. Are you *sure* your dad shouldn't be heading inside to get a wetsuit?"

Alexis nodded. "That's the first reason I wanted him to try an ocean swim. When we were freezing our butts off after he hit us with that pool wave, how cold did he look?"

"He didn't," Lanie replied, catching on. "And he didn't look cold in that ice water pool of yours either."

"Exactly," said Alexis. "I think part of being able to master the elements might mean being able to control the temperature of what's around him: air, water, whatever. And I think he's already doing it without realizing it. The other thing I was curious about was how his lungs would handle the salt of the ocean as opposed to the chlorine in the pool."

"A fair question," mused Lanie.

Beckett turned to Lanie and Alexis. "You guys need us for anything?"

"Not right now," shrugged Alexis. "Hey, how are things going with hide and seek?"

Ryan started grinning from ear to ear. "It's been a little more like tag then hide and seek, but other than that...fantastic."

Alexis was thrilled to see her new friend so happy after the talk they had had that morning. "In that case, you guys can keep going if you'd like. Kate, you'll hear me call you guys when lunch is ready?"

"No problem," Beckett replied. She then turned to Ryan and Esposito with an evil grin. "Boys," she purred, reloading the paintball marker in her hands, "you might want to start running now."

Ryan and Esposito didn't need to be told twice either. They took off at a full sprint, Esposito yelling, "Later, chica!" back to his girlfriend as he ran. Alexis noticed the smile that crossed her friend's face as she watched their three other friends run off. "Lanie, you and Detective Esposito...that's not a new thing, is it?"

Lanie shook her head. "We dated a while back. Broke up maybe...wow, almost a year ago now."

"Was it serious back then?"

"Let's just say there was a certain ring in his pocket when we broke up."

Alexis' eyes widened. "Ouch. That musta hurt."

"Yep. It was really awkward for a while, but we got past it. We did that whole friends with benefits thing after that."

"I sense an until coming..."

Lanie nodded. "Until your dad and Kate finally got together. When you see two people who care about each other as much as they do finally get the hell out of their own way, and it's *so* good, and they're *so* happy..."

Alexis completed the thought easily, fully sympathetic to the emotion behind it. "You start to want that for yourself."

"Yeah."

"Do you think you and Detective Esposito could have the kind of relationship that Kate and my dad have?"

"I think it's possible. I'm the one who kept getting in the way of it, not Javi."

Alexis was impressed that Lanie was so willing to admit that. "Why?"

"I was scared. You see what I do every day. You know what he does every day. It wasn't hard for me to think that one day...Hell, I might've lost him yesterday if it wasn't for." Lanie waved her hands around to punctuate her point, which caused Alexis' eyes to widen in surprise. Letting out a weary sigh, Lanie admitted, "Javi had major head and spinal damage from that fall. If I hadn't been there..."

"But you were."

"Yeah," Lanie noticed a collection of pebble by her feet and picked them up, throwing the rocks into the ocean one by one. "So last night, when Javi came to my room to check on me, I started to think about what we almost lost yesterday. What I was still going to lose if I let my fears keep getting in the way."

The two women went silent, listening to the sound of the waves rolling in and the pebbles in Lanie's hands being thrown into the ocean. Finally Alexis mused, "What is it with you and Kate and needing to have someone fall off a building before you can fall in love? I mean, it's not like the phrase is supposed to be taken *that* literally..."