Hello everyone! The story is a zombie story! It's back from the dead! Ruuuuuuuun! Actually no...a week or two ago, I was talking to a dear friend I love so much, telling her I'd been rereading the Crumbsverse stories and she told me she missed the kids of the Crumbsverse...that combined with the news about the casting decisions for season 9 (if there is one) made me want to come back and revisit these characters I love so much...so hopefully some of you are still out there, interested in reading! Love all of you so much!

'Thank God! Where have you been?'

'Traffic jam on Bleecker.'

'Dammit why would you take Bleecker this time of day?'

Shane tried not to roll his eyes in frustration at his mother-in-law's reaction to his delayed arrival at the crime scene du jour. Beckett stood outside the scarred-with-character office building on Avenue C, hands jammed into her leather coat and a scowl on her face. Shane took it in stride, letting his very yummy wake-up with his wife coat him like a nice little glaze and set his mouth in a steady line. 'What do we have here?'

'Besides your mother-in-law, frozen like a...' Beckett trailed off as Shane tried without success to keep a straight face. 'Oh god no, did I just do that thing where I sound like your mom?'

'Give it a few more months, you'll be telling the kids they're making you meshugah,' Shane teased her, which had Beckett pinning him with another lethal stare.

'I really don't want my grand-daughter growing up without her daddy so remember that's the only reason you're still walking straight now. This way.'

Beckett gestured him around the corner into the alleyway, where the crime scene had already been cordoned off and a highly pregnant Watkins was standing guard before the yellow tape. Shane had a moment of thinking how much a little cast-iron bell she looked like in her dark winter-uniform coat that angled out from the roundness of her belly. 'Officer, thank you, now go sit in the squad car.'

'No.'

'Officer Watkins, that was not a suggestion and it was part of our deal,' Beckett reminded her in what Shane recognized as her best don't-mess-with-Mumum voice. 'Your ego is as big as your belly if you think you're gonna keep standing here with me and win this conversation.'

'Sir-'

'Evelyn,' Beckett tried one last time, hoping the use of the first name would drive the point home, 'you are barely cleared the mandatory four weeks medical leave followed with the additional two on desk duty. Don't push yourself just to prove something to people who understand what you went through.'

'Maybe I will go get myself some tea from the shop across the street,' Watkins relented, and Shane could actually see Beckett's shoulders slump in relief.

'Good, and then drink it while sitting in the squad car, Margie.'

Watkins chuckled at that - everyone had taken to calling her Margie, since she more resembled the pregnant cop in Fargo than herself lately - and headed on her way while Shane turned his attention towards the dead body. 'Who do we have here?'

'Rebecca Macon, age fifty-five, according to her wallet she lives on the Upper East Side just a hop skip and jump from the Guggenheim and she works as the senior editor for Next Threads, it's a fashion website that promotes up and coming designers.' Off his look as Shane opened his field kit for gloves, Beckett shrugged. 'Martha has taken me to a few shows they've sponsored. Can you give me a time of death?'

'It'll be hard to tell since it's so fucking cold out, but I can tell you it was at least twelve hours,' Shane replied, doing his preliminary touch tests of the body that lay like it had slipped on a banana peel, careful to avoid the pool of blood that had gathered underneath the woman's head. 'It was a dry night last night and she is damp to the touch-'

'Meaning she'd been in the elements for longer than a few minutes, say walking a short-cut route.'

'And I'm not so sure it was that fall that took her to the other side, either,' he added, making Beckett tilt her head in attentiveness.

'Why's that?'

'See the angle of her left arm?' Shane gestured as he reached for his thermometer to get a preliminary reading though he doubted it would do much good. 'If you slip and fall your natural instinct is to reach out and grab something to break it, right? And if you did fall hard enough to do some damage like this, you wouldn't have - haha - brains enough to drape your arm over your body.'

'Any speculation on what would have done the job?'

'Not as yet but I think I can bribe Micah into giving me some answers pretty quickly.'

'Bribery? I'm shocked.' Beckett feigned indignation, then turned to Adam who had appeared from the other end of the alley. 'Any luck Detective?'

'Actually yeah, we got security cams on the building opposite the north alley entrance and even better, the slice-shop owner of said cameras pointed us towards a homeless guy who hangs around the area,' Adam replied on a brisk nod, then looked around. 'What'd you do with my Officer Jiffy-Pop?'

'She's back at the squad car with some tea. Or she better be, or I'm gonna walk up one side of her and down the other,' Beckett fairly growled, making Shane glance up again.

'Is there another reason you're so grumpy?'

'Gee, maybe it's because I'm freezing my nibs off at barely eight o'clock in goddamn morning while my husband-' Beckett fairly snarled the word in reference to the love of her life '-gets to sleep in, make the kids fancy pancakes for Leap Day while they have time off school and then visit Alexis and Petra, maybe it has something to do with that?'

'Lex didn't mention that,' Shane mused, trying to rewind his mind and remember really hard if Alexis had mentioned this during one of Petra's late night snack times. 'Did she?'

'They're surprising her,' Beckett groused, wishing she hadn't been so annoyed with Castle getting to sleep in until seven-fifteen that she'd turned down his offer to make her a scrambled egg wrap for the road. 'So when can I expect some answers?'

'Sooner I get back, sooner I can start.'

'Do so, please.'