A/N - Sorry for the delay. I'm having a little trouble deciding where the plot will go for this little story. Help me out in your comments. Throw those ideas. If not, well you know me, someone will probably die or get maimed or kidnapped. Please throw me a line! I'm trying not to make this one dark. ;-)

The Commitment

Chapter 4

One Size Does Not Fit All

"Susannah seems nice." She tried. "Castle," then again, only louder, "Castle!"

His eyes snapped back into focus. "Mmhm," he slowly came back from where ever he was, "Oh, sorry. Did you say something?"

"Look Castle, if you don't want to be here…"she said for the fourth time since they'd come back.

"No, no it's not…Sorry Beckett, I'm a little preoccupied."

"Susannah?"

"Um, yeah."

"She seems like a nice girl."

Seeing her expression, he felt the need to clarify. "It's not, I mean we're not. I just help her out, honest, that's all." He looked around. "Where did the boys go?"

She gawked at him incredulously, "Burgers? You gave them your order and money, remember?"

"Must have been on auto-pilot," he said studying his shoes.

The four of them returned from the coffee shop to the precinct. Kate and Castle started work on Harold Jordan's murder. "A.K.A. Hal," Castle said, rubbing his hands together, "that's so cool." Kate showed him the current statement from his roommate and he read it. It looked as if he really wasn't paying any attention and he handed it back to her. That elicited the first of the 'if you don't want to be here' speeches.

"Seriously, Beckett, I'm good." He closed and opened his eyes slowly. He snatched the witness statement back from her.

"What?"

"Where's the original?"

"What, Martin's statement?"

"Yeah, and the CSU report."

She dug them out of the case folder and handed them to him. She watched him reread the originals. She made a mental note to get him to teach her how to speed read. He picked up the second, read it, and closed his eyes.

Kate waited approximately ten seconds. "Castle. Castle? Rick, what is it?"

He opened his eyes and cocked his head towards her. He grinned. "Martin's the killer."

"Wait, what?"

"In his original statement, Martin said that Harold was home, doing research, decided to go for a walk and ended up dead."

"Yeah."

"Short, sweet and to the point."

"Okay."

"The statement you just took today was more involved. Hal," he winked, "was home, eating tacos, got a phone call, decided to go for a walk, and ended up dead."

She stared at him.

"Don't you see Beckett? Witnesses usually forget things after, what forty-eight hours?" She nodded. "How did Martin forget to mention a phone call and tacos the first time around? He didn't. I mean really, who remembers what was for dinner yesterday, let alone eleven years ago. He had time to embellish his story. He made it up this time as a believable catalyst to get Hal out of the apartment. However, he never really left. He was killed there and dumped in the alley."

"But CSU…"

"Never went over their apartment. The detectives at the time told them it was unnecessary to waste time there. They had a crime scene, but there wasn't enough blood at the scene." If you get a warrant, I'll bet you still find blood in that apartment. Nonetheless, the killer's still Martin. Why else would he make that up? He's had time to think about it. To fix his original story." He ended with a self-satisfied grin. "Shoddy. I didn't see anything about his alibi in the file, either."

"What about motive?" She asked.

"To whom did he get himself married?"

She grabbed the folder and looked up Hal Jordan's girlfriend's name. "Shut the front door!"

If possible, his grin was wider and more smug. "Yeah, I know" he bit his lip, "it's better than Temptation Lane."

"Mrs. Julia Martin. How do we know they weren't in it together?"

"We don't, established on the original," he coughed a fake cough that sounded remarkably like 'crappy', "detecting, she alibied out. I'd recheck it, but Trevor Martin is the dude whether he has an accomplice or not."

The elevator dinged. Ryan and Espo stepped out with a big bag of lunch. Castle smiled and escorted Kate to the break room.

The four shared hamburgers and camaraderie. Kate was happy with the team. She quietly looked around at her boys and knew that she could count on any of them to have her back.

"Yo, so Castle," Javi prompted while sucking down the remnants of his shake, "what's the story with the teacher babe?"

Castle made a face. "She's just a friend."

"Dude, she's hot." He cocked his eyebrow expectantly.

"Espo, she's also just a few years older than Alexis." He shuddered. "No thanks, stuff like that never ends well."

"Sounds like the voice of experience Castle." Beckett piped in.

Castle murmured, "Yeah, something like that," and pushed the last of his fries around in the puddle of ketchup, apparently deep in thought. Kate caught that she stepped over the line again. You could read it in his face. She had never had so much trouble gauging someone before. In her defense, she rationalized, if you took all of the publicity, his divorces, page six, not to mention his almost-arrests, Castle did not exactly come across like an upstanding citizen. She looked across the table at his slightly hang dog expression. He didn't make sense to her. She examined the evidence. According to the articles, pictures, and tabloids, he was the embodiment of the quintessential playboy. But then take the way he was with his daughter, the friendship he'd developed with the boys and his discomfort at her jibes about that lifestyle. He frustrated all her efforts at figuring him out. And this association with the teacher. What was that all about? Richard Castle, millionaire, playboy, womanizer but a really nice volunteer?

She stopped her musings and asked, "Castle?"

"Yeah?" He raised his head and looked her directly in the eyes.

"Beyond Susannah being younger and," she shot a look at Esposito, "hot, what is it you do with her?"

"I, uh, I told you. I volunteer for her program." He sighed. He was used to most people having the wrong impression of him. It helped to sell the books. But, it was frustrating when the people you have worked with for a while now, still buy into that façade.

"She said you read." Ryan offered.

"Yeah, when I can. The kids are great," he said his face transformed and glowed with excitement. "It's a terrific program, she was really getting through to the kids, but…" his voice and mood dropped off.

"What?" Ryan asked. Out of the three detectives, Ryan was the least experienced, the youngest, and the least jaded. He'd listened to Castle for hours, a captive and willing audience.

"They're trying to shut her program down." He had all three of them listening now. "We're going to meet with my attorney tomorrow to see what we can do legally to stop it. It's just…" He let his words drop. Absent-mindedly he ran his hand through his hair.

"Castle, you okay?" Beckett asked. He ran a hand over his face.

"The kids just need a chance. Some extra time to process and people they know they can trust, that they can depend upon, people who don't tell them how different or weird or broken they are."

Esposito who had been quiet, had a thoughtful look on his face and asked, "Is there something wrong with them?"

Castle raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. Just as he was about to respond, Espo read his expression and said, "No, bro, I didn't mean like, um. I mean are they sick or something?" He finally got it out, however inelegantly.

Castle smiled. "No, they're not sick. They've all been labeled."

Beckett chimed in, "Labeled?"

"Yeah, plastered with a label of some form of a disorder or another." At their confused looks he gave examples, "like, um, ADD or ADHD, Asperger's, PDD, Autism. Labels. Susannah's methods don't try to squeeze every kid with a label into the one-size fits all education system. No kid fits or should ever be forced to fit into any broad sweeping classification, let alone kids that look at the world just a little outside of acceptable norms. That type of narrow-mindedness stifles creativity, invention, and stilts the capabilities of the human mind." His voice rose slightly revealing the depth of his passion for his subject.

When Castle stopped speaking, the break room suddenly became quiet. Rick studied the three faces of the detectives. Three people he admired and respected and he had rendered them silent. "Well, sorry about that. I, I should go." He started gathering the trash.

"Bro," it was Esposito, "you okay?"

Castle smiled. "Yeah, just a cause close to my heart."

Quietly, Beckett said, "Yeah, I guess so."

After lunch, they acquired a warrant to search Trevor Martin's apartment. They arrested him for murder and his wife, Hal Jordan's ex-girlfriend, Julia, for conspiracy to commit murder. Julia was the first to confess. She made a deal that ratted out her husband that would have made a black widow proud. Uniforms took the pair to holding and Castle and Beckett made their way out to the bullpen.

"How did it go?" Ryan asked.

"It's Miller time," Castle said while fist bumping Ryan. He looked at his watch. "Anybody up for a celebratory round of drinks?" He waited two beats and continued, "On me."

"Castle," Captain Montgomery poked his head out of his office door, "could I see you a moment?"

Looking like the kid who was called to the principal's office Castle said, "Uh, sure." He skulked across the room to the captain's office. Beckett followed.

Montgomery escorted Castle in but put a hand up halting Beckett as if she was a car to his traffic cop. "Sorry Beckett, I just need Castle," he said and closed the door.

Esposito and Ryan had walked over to her desk. "So, what's that about?" Espo indicated the one on one in the captain's office.

"It doesn't look like he's in trouble or being dressed down."

"You know they play poker together, right?" Beckett answered them. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"So, what do you think?" Espo asked.

She frowned. "What do I think about what?"

"What's your guess, Beckett?"

The two partners stood waiting at her desk expecting her to solve this latest mystery concerning Richard Castle. She inhaled and exhaled, shut her eyes and pursed her lips, all part of the torture.

"You're detectives, detect," she said, finally rolling her eyes.

They began their surveillance nonchalantly. Esposito walked by the captain's office. He reported that Castle was listening intently to what the captain was saying. Ryan took his shot. He dropped a pen, which rolled (or may have been kicked) across the bullpen. He bent down to retrieve said pen and observed Castle telling apparently, what appeared to be a hilarious story. Both scrutinized men were laughing.

He stood back up to the angry glare from Beckett. "This isn't what I had in mind."

Ryan and Espo turned and retreated to their desks and Beckett noted that they appeared to be convincingly at work. She knew they had none, nice act; she would have to watch for their performance in the future.

"Thanks, Roy, you don't know what this means," Castle said as he clasped the captain's hand. He smiled from ear to ear.

"Glad to help, Rick." Montgomery enthusiastically returned Castle's handshake.

Beckett raised an eyebrow as he sat in his chair next to her desk. "Roy? Rick?" She asked, putting extra emphasis on the K at the end of his name.

"Um, yeah," he turned a palm up, "I do play poker with him. You didn't expect me to call him Captain Montgomery as I'm winning his kids' education fund at my table, did you?"

"Oh, I guess not." She pulled her bottom lip through her teeth, "Castle? What's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on, Castle, that," she pointed to Montgomery's office, "little meeting, over there."

He grinned. "You're gonna love it. It'll be great. It's a surprise for tomorrow."

Sometimes, Beckett thought as she rubbed her brow, the man's enthusiasm would kill her. "You know how I feel about surprises."

"Yeah, but, you'll love this one." He looked at his watch. "So what do you say we take this party down to O'Malley's? I've got an appointment in about an hour, but we can get a quick one." He turned to Ryan and Espo, "Boys."

"Right behind you, Castle." Ryan said as he gathered his jacket.

Esposito practically ran to the elevator. "You bet bro." Homicide was rarely slow and the past few days had been taxing on him. He needed some action."

Castle held the elevator door and called, "Beckett?"

"You guys go on ahead; I've got some things to finish up here."

He looked a little crestfallen, "Until tomorrow then, Beckett."

"Yeah, bye." She waved halfheartedly as he entered the elevator. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, rolled her neck until she heard the satisfying crack of her vertebra, and mentally began preparing herself for his surprise.