Chapter 10

Ok, so I thought the last chapter was long, but this one is almost twice the length of my last chapter, making it the longest thing I've ever written outside of school. Anyways, hope you guys like this chapter. It gets a bit intense but I threw some Caskett fluff in at the end to lighten it up a bit

The man finished recording and left Lanie alone in the room, slamming the door behind him. He had been upset about her saying something about the food, but obviously didn't take it as anything more than an insult. He had, however, left her cuffed to the chair.

The medical examiner was proud of herself for having gotten the clues to the team, and was confident that Beckett would be able to figure them out. God knows she complained about food enough. Kate had joked about it with her too. She wasn't necessarily picky, she just liked her food done right, and that wasn't a crime was it?

Lanie leaned back in her chair and thought about what the team was doing, how close they were to finding her. She thought about what time it was and how long she had left. She thought about how long it had been since her keeper had let her out to go to the bathroom, with him standing outside the door, gun drawn.

As she was sitting there, Lanie recalled something she had learned the one summer she had decided to try yoga. The yoga hadn't lasted long, but one of the breathing and stretching exercises had stuck with her and she used it from time to time to relax herself. She couldn't do the stretching part while stuck to the chair but she started the breathing portion and felt her mind begin to ease slightly.

After what seems like forever the door opened to reveal her captor with a microwave pizza on a plate. He set it on the table in front of her and stepped back to lean against the wall next to the door. She didn't realize how hungry she had been until she took a bite of the food. It actually wasn't bad either. She tried to ignore the fact that she was being watched but after a minute it was too much for her. "Can I help you with something?" she asked.

The man chuckled and walked over to Lanie's chair to take the handcuffs off. She didn't say anything but took a few more bites of the pizza. A few minutes more into the meal Lanie started to realize how tired she was, but attributed it to the fact that she had nothing else to focus on at the moment. A few more bites later though, she realized that the drowsiness she was feeling wasn't at all natural. Lanie looked down at the last bites of pizza that were left and then up at her captor in shock. She couldn't believe he had drugged her.

The man laughed even more as he saw that she realized what was going on. "No complaints about the food this time I see?" he opened the door and took a step out of it before turning back to his prisoner. "I'd try and make it to the bed before you pass out. Don't want to hurt yourself falling out of the chair."

And with that he was gone. Lanie tried to yell after him but found that her brain couldn't process what she wanted to say. It was all she could to do realize that he was right about making it to the bed. She tried to stand up, bracing herself on the table. Already her legs were heavy and she was losing feeling in her hands. She managed to take the couple of steps to the bed before crumpling as soon as she was next to it. She was having trouble seeing straight but managed to get into a fairly normal position on the bed. She realized her vision was tunneling and could only hope that when she woke up she was out of this place before everything went black.

Beckett pulled the van up to the curb a few houses in front of the surveillance van. "Wait here." She told Castle as she got out and went over to the van behind them. A few minutes later she was back with a map, a black marker and a walkie talkie. She leaned towards Castle and showed him the map. "Here is our area. There are 27 houses, three apartment buildings, a school and some small shops. We can rule out the apartments because there is too much risk of being seen. The rest of the team already ruled out nine of the houses."

Castle nodded as he tried to keep up. "So what do we do next?"

Beckett pointed to the top left of the area. "This is where we are now, the surveillance van has already done the three streets below us. Ryan and Esposito are down here," she pointed to the bottom right, "and are working their way up. That leaves the middle for us. We keep in touch with the other groups with the walkie. Got it?"

Castle nodded and they slowly pulled away and headed to the middle of the small map. They parked in the shadows at a spot they could see most of the street they were on. "So how are we eliminating houses?" Castle asked Beckett when she didn't say anything.

"Well see this house in front of us? There is a kids' bike in the front yard and you can see a swing set in the back. This guy was working alone, so we can rule out that house." She watched as Castle found where they were on the map and put an X over the house they had been looking at. "Good," she said. "Now what do you see about the house across the street from that one?"

Castle was surprised she was asking him, but assumed she wouldn't be doing so if she didn't already know the answer. He looked carefully and saw what she was talking about. "There is a couple eating dinner. Looks good too."

Beckett rolled her eyes but was impressed he had noticed it. "Right, couple eating a nice dinner doesn't exactly say I have someone hidden in my basement."

When they were done with the houses they could see clearly they moved to a different spot. Slowly but surely they managed to cross off most of the homes on their map, radioing into the other teams every few minutes. There were only a few houses that they left unmarked and would need to check later. They were making progress but the light was fading fast and they still had almost two blocks left to cover. The darker it got the harder it would be to rule some of the houses out and the more homes they would have to search later.

Castle noticed that the later it got the more and more tense Beckett was getting. For every house they couldn't cross off the map the shorter her answers to him got. He wished there was something he could do but at this point he realized that he was out of his element and knew enough to keep quiet and follow her lead.

Finally a few hours later there was a break. It was 10:30 pm when Beckett's phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and was pleased to see it was Captain Montgomery. "Hello sir."

"The bastard you're looking for is Franklin Gunner."

"He matched the sketch we got?"

"He matches the sketch and the profile. Where are you guys? I'll come meet up with you now."

Beckett thought for a second. "We just have this street left and then we're done. We can meet you outside the perimeter, just in case he's watching."

"Sounds like a plan detective, see you soon."

Beckett hung up the phone and filled castle in. Then she radioed the other two teams to tell them the plan. As they were pulling away from where they had been parked Castle counted the unmarked houses on the map. "There are eleven houses we have to look into." He said. "Are we going to be able to do that tonight? Don't we need a search warrant or something?"

Beckett tensed up. "We have no choice but to do it all tonight Castle, even if it means waking people up. We're going to find her. And we don't need a search warrant to go to the door and ask a couple of questions. Now if anything seems suspicious after that we will. Unless he is the one who answers the door. Then we can take him."

Rick nodded and stayed silent for the rest of the short drive. They pulled out of the radius they had been searching and saw the captains' car parked down the street. Montgomery was standing on the street next to a squad car talking to the man inside. Beckett parked her car and they got out to go meet him.

He turned and saw them walking up with Ryan and Esposito getting out of their car. "Hey guys, I was just getting this guys' name and real picture out to the cars watching the perimeter. Just in case. How much were you able to narrow down?"

Beckett handed Montgomery her map. "27 houses and three apartment buildings in the area. We were able to cross out all but eleven of the houses." She looked at her partners and the both nodded almost imperceptibly. "All of us are ready to get going on these houses now."

The captain looked up from the map. "It's getting kind of late to do that tonight don't you think detective?"

"Sir the longer we wait the less time she has. We can do this tonight and get it over with."

"Beckett, there is no way you are doing this tonight. All of you have been going strong since way too early this morning. We can't afford for any of you to miss something and make a mistake."

Ryan took a step forward. "Sir she's right, we don't have any time to waste."

"Listen, we know she's in one of these eleven houses, we know what the guy looks like and I took the liberty of putting a hold on all of his bank accounts and credit cards. He isn't going anywhere and neither is Lanie."

Beckett spoke up again. "If we don't get to her in time he's going to-"

"If you don't go home and get some rest I'm demoting all of you back to beat cops. Whoever lives in those houses, we need them to cooperate. If we wake them up at 11 at night you think they are going to want to answer our questions? No, they are going to want to get rid of us. We will move the perimeter in a bit and keep an eye on everything. Now all four of you go home and get a few hours of sleep. We will be back here at 7am to search these houses. Is that understood?"

Beckett was fuming but saw resolve in the captains' eyes and knew it wouldn't do her any good to argue. She pursed her lips and spun around. Castle watched her stomp off to the car and figured he had better follow her quickly if he didn't want to take a taxi home. As soon as he was in the car with his seatbelt on she pulled away and headed for his apartment. She pulled up outside the front doors but didn't turn the car off. "Kate what's going on?" Castle asked warily.

"You're going home to get some sleep and I'm going back to the precinct to see if I can find anything out about these houses before the morning." She didn't look at him as she was saying this but kept staring straight ahead at the road in front of her.

Castle was shocked at her response. "I don't think so Kate. You heard what he captain said. Plus, if you're going to the precinct then so am I."

"Castle no. I need to do this." She looked at him and he noticed something strange in her eyes as she continued. "Castle I…I don't want you to come with me this time."

Castle stared at her as she turned her eyes back to looking out the windshield. He opened his mouth to protest but nothing came out. She didn't want him? She had told him to go home before, told him he couldn't go with her, that he didn't need to, but she had always relented. And she had never said she didn't want him. If it wasn't for the conviction he was sure he had seen in her eyes he would have thought she was just saying it. All he could do was nod and open the car door. "Ok." He looked at her for another second then got out of the car and shut the door behind him. He stood on the curb watching, hoping that the window would roll down and she would tell him she was sorry, to just get back in the car. But it didn't happen. Instead he watched as the blinker flipped on and the car slowly pulled away from his building. He didn't know what else to do but turn around and go upstairs. He could call her, but he knew she wouldn't pick up. She didn't want him with her, why would she? He was in a daze as he took the elevator up and fumbled with his keys to open his door. Luckily everyone else was asleep. Rick only made it as far as the couch before he had to sit down. Think he told himself. There has to be a rational explanation for this. Maybe she just didn't want him to get in trouble if the captain found them there. Or maybe she wasn't actually going back to the precinct. He shook the negative thought from his head as he took his shoes off. He knew he wasn't going to get much sleep so he went into his office and closed the door behind him. He sat down in front of his computer and stared at the screen saver Alexis had put up. It flipped through a folder of pictures that was on his computer somewhere. He just sat watching as pictures from the past year popped up. Him and Alexis looking at colleges, his birthday, him, Alexis, Martha and Beckett on the trip to the zoo he had convinced them all to go on. He looked the most excited out of all of them as they were looking at the monkeys.

Kate took a deep breath and set in her mind what she was about to say before turning to the man sitting in the car next to her. "Castle I…I don't want you to come with me this time."

She watched as what she was saying hit him. It killed her to have to do this to him, but she knew she had to, for his own good. She turned back to the scene out the front windshield so she didn't keep looking at him. She knew if she saw what was written all over his face that she would change her mind. And she couldn't do that this time. She couldn't bear to bring him down with her, because she was going down and she knew it. She could feel herself spiraling out of control, and this wasn't a side of her she wanted Rick Castle to see.

Beckett heard the car door close and allowed herself to drop the façade she had put up. Her hands gripped the steering wheel a bit harder and she closed her eyes for a second, willing the emotion to stay inside and not burst out in the form of the hot tears she knew all too well. Just as quickly as she had let go, she regained her control and put her blinker on, merging into what little traffic was on the street. She looked in the rearview mirror to see Castle walking slowly up the steps to the front door of his building and wished that he was still in the car next to her.

A few minutes later she pulled up outside Lanie's house and parked the car. She didn't get out, just sat there and looked into the vacant windows. She brought her hand up to her mouth and began to chew on one of her nails. It was a habit she had kicked a long time ago, but it tended to surface when she was under a lot of stress. "I'm going to find you Lanie, I promise."

Kate blinked her eyes and turned the car back on. If she was going to find anything out about the eleven houses they had to search the next morning she had to get back to the precinct.

After taking the elevator up, he took her jacket off and hung it on the back of her chair as she went straight to the murder board. She brought the map that was hanging there up to date with the one in her hand and made a copy of Gunners' picture to replace the sketch. After admiring her handiwork she opened Franklin Gunner's file and read it silently. When she had read all she could she went over to her computer and turned it on.

As she was waiting for it to boot up she couldn't shake the nagging feeling in the back of her head that she had made a mistake telling Castle she didn't want him here. If anything she needed the comfort, but couldn't bear to have him see her like this. He had been with her in a lot of rough situations, and she had been there for him, but this was different. This was like she had just joined the force and had gone back to sleeping on the couch in the break room in order to spend as much time as possible going over her mothers' case. He was the one that had pulled her out of that funk, and she didn't want him to see her falling back into it because if this case. A case that she knew he felt partially to blame for.

The computer finished loading and she pulled up the program she was looking for. She made a list of the eleven addresses she wanted to look at and typed the first one into the search bar on her computer. It would take a few minutes for anything to come up so she went to the break room to get coffee.

Four of the addresses later she looked at the clock in the bottom corner of the computer screen. It was almost one in the morning. She grabbed another coffee and sat back down, sighing as she typed in the next address.

Castle looked over at the clock on the nightstand. It was almost one in the morning. He was still awake, lying in bed watching TV. He hated that he had let Beckett drive away. He should have said something, made her let him go with her. He shuddered as he thought about her sitting alone at her desk, or sleeping on the old couch in the break room, though he doubted she was sleeping. He spent another minute staring at the TV without really seeing anything before throwing the covers off and getting up. He wasn't going to let her sit there alone anymore. Maybe it was foolish but he didn't care if she wanted him there or not, he wasn't letting her to this by herself.

Beckett looked up in horror as she heard the elevator door open. When Castle stepped out her jaw dropped. She had half expected him to show up, but now that he had she didn't know what to say. She almost wanted to apologize for what she had said in the car, sure that her words had hurt him more than she had intended, but at the same time she was angry with him for showing up anyways. She stood up a little straighter, trying not to let it show how tired she was. "Castle, what are you doing here, I told you-"

He cut her off with "That program you're using, what does it do?"

She was caught off guard by his question, and the fact that he didn't look hurt or angry or anything, just curious. She didn't know what to do but answer him. "Umm, I'm looking to see who lives in the houses and if any of them have a record, or match the name of our guy."

Castle nodded. "And all you have to do is type in the address and then wait for something to pop up?"

"Or nothing pops up, if they don't have a record. So far no luck."

He nodded again and held out a large tote bag. Gesturing to the break room he said "Go on. I got this."

She was dumbfounded. "Castle what-"

He cut her off again and shook the bag a bit. "Here's a sheet to throw over the couch, a blanket, sweatpants and a change of clothes, a couple sandwiches and a soda. Go eat and get some sleep. I can handle this."

Her eyes grew wider and she took the bag, not really sure what else she could do. She started to say thank you but he didn't let her say anything.

"Kate…" he started, turning towards her. She saw a pained expression on his face and knew that he had been hurt by her words in the car, but was here anyways. Even though it was hurting him, he was still here with her. She watched as he raised a hand to her cheek and brushed his thumb across her skin. "Kate, let me do this for you. When are you going to learn that you don't have to do this alone? I'm not going anywhere, you can lean on me. Whatever it is that you don't want me to see, I can handle it. It's not going to make me run screaming."

She was caught off guard by his words and the tears that she had been holding back slipped out slowly. Before she knew it she had dropped the bag and closed the distance between them. Wrapping her hands in his shirt she let the tears come. She felt his arms wrap around her, holding her tight and it only made the tears come more freely. She had hurt him, she had told him she didn't want him, and he was still here, he was hurt but he was here. And she had never been more grateful in her life. He didn't say anything but let her cry on his shoulder, not minding at all that she was making a mess of his shirt. She hadn't wanted him to see this side of her, but she realized now that that had been a foolish thought. He had known she was hiding something, some part of her, and he had turned up anyways. She was amazed that after what she had said, and what he had figured out he was still here holding her and letting her cry all over him. She didn't say anything but simply held on to him tighter.

A little while later when Beckett had cried herself out she took a step back. Her and Castle stood in silence, looking at each other, not knowing what to say. Finally she broke the silence. "Sorry about your shirt."

Castle looked down at his rumpled shirt, covered in the detectives' tears. He looked back up at her and couldn't help but laugh.

"Castle what do you think you're laughing at?" Beckett said indignantly as she wiped her eyes.

Still laughing a little bit Rick replied. "After all of that, after everything this case has thrown at us and put us through…all you can say is 'sorry about your shirt'?"

Beckett chewed her bottom lip for a second and then started laughing as well. She took a step forward and put her arms around him one more time. "Thanks Castle. I'm glad you came back."

He pulled out of the embrace and picked up the bag she had thrown on the floor. "Here. I was serious, so get some sleep. I can take over here. If anything pops up I'll come get you."

Kate hesitated but finally took the bag and walked over to the break room. They were the only people in the building so before she turned the light on she stripped down and put on the sweatpants and the t-shirt she found in the bag. She threw the sheet over the couch and pulled the blanket out of the bag as well. After curling up and getting as comfortable as was possible on the couch she reached into the bag one more time and pulled out the sandwiches and the soda. She unwrapped the sandwich without bothering to look at what was in it. After finishing both of them and draining the can of soda she took one last glance out into the bullpen. Castle was sitting in the light of her desk, twirling a little bit in her chair and staring at the computer screen. She was glad he didn't seem to notice that he was being watched. She watched him for another second before lying down and pulling the blanket up around her. The last thought she remember having was that she didn't want to hide anything from him anymore.

Reviews pleeeeeease? Pretty please with a cherry on top?

Also last night's episode…WOW. Luckily I was about to put my heart and brain together enough to post this today ;)