AN: A sad little chapter that popped into my head. I'm trying to think of some episodes I can put Emily into, but i'm not sure which ones yet. Is there any specific episodes from the seventh season you guys would like to see? Anyway, Thank's to everyone for following, favoriting, and reviewing this story. Here's the next chapter everybody, enjoy. Don't forget to Review. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or it's characters.

Too Young

It's been a couple of weeks since Castle has been found. He still doesn't remember much from his time being gone, but he did remember a little bit a few days ago. Turns out he was in Montreal for a little bit while he was missing. He even left some flash drives behind in a P.O. Box there. Even though he found some clues to his possible whereabouts, there are still many questions hanging in the air from his disappearance. Maybe someday his memory will come back fully.

But today was Saturday and I was hanging out with my friends. I was riding my skateboard around the city with my best friend Mike, and his new neighbor, Timothy. Technically, Timothy was on his rollerblades because he liked them better than his skateboard. We've only spoken to him a couple of times because he just moved in a few days ago. He's a decent kid, and is the same age as us, so we've been getting along pretty well. He doesn't go to our school though, because he goes to a special magnet school. From the conversations we've had, he does seem like a pretty sophisticated person, for a 12 year old.

So, we were riding through the alleyways and on the pavements erratically, getting dirty looks from many angry pedestrians, and pretty much ignoring them all. I turned one corner to fast and accidently shouldered a man who was talking on his cellphone.

"Jesus! You stupid kids!" he said angrily.

"SORRY!" I called out behind me as we continued to speed down the sidewalk.

Mike chuckled from beside me and I laughed along with him as we continued to our destination. We turned down another alley and Timothy said, "Hold on! Let's take… a short break."

We stopped and Timothy leaned against one of the brick buildings we were between, trying hard to catch his breath.

"You okay, dude?" Mike questioned him.

"Oh yeah… Sometimes I get winded pretty easily… No worries."

"All right, take your time."

"Yeah, we're in no rush. The skate park doesn't close until 8pm and the special festivities they have going is until then too," I said.

"Okay, cool. It's just been awhile… since I've skated and usually… it's only a couple of laps around my old home," Timothy said.

"Oh… I see. Emmy and I usually travel pretty far sometimes on our boards. It's cool if you aren't used to it, we'll wait," Mike said as he patted Timothy's shoulder.

"Thanks, you guys are cool."

"We try…"

I pushed Mike and said, "You're so weird."

"Yup, not denying it."

Timothy and I chuckled at him and Timothy said, "I like you guys. I'm glad you wanted to be my friends."

"Of course, everyone needs a friend," I said.

"Yeah… I didn't have too many back at my old home. They all thought my interests were weird and they thought I was a nerd."

"Well, we think you're cool. And those other children in your old neighborhood were all jerks," Mike said.

Timothy chuckled a bit once again and said, "I guess they were."

"So, do you need some more time or are you good?"

"I think I'm good now."

"All right. On word my fellow friends."

Mike and I started riding our skateboards and Timothy followed behind us on his skates. We continued riding through the streets of New York, still making the citizens give us dirty looks as we passed by them. Some even said some very vulgar things to us, but it's all pretty normal when you live here.

We were halfway to our destination and I saw that Timothy was starting to fall behind more and more. Mike and I crossed the empty street that was right by the park and we waited for Timothy who was moving pretty slowly behind. He put his hands on his knees at the other side of the crosswalk and Mike said, "Take your time Timothy. Cars rarely go by here."

"Yeah, but still be careful, they seem to go fast though," I said.

"Yeah, that too. Plus, we're literally right near the skate park."

"Okay… I'm… Coming…" he said.

Timothy looked both ways and started skating across the street to where we were. As he got halfway, he started to breath heavier than before, and he started to slow down again. Just as he started to take a breather, a dark red car with dark tinted windows flew around the corner, making a beeline towards Timothy.

"Timothy get out of there!" I yelled.

He looked to his right, eyes going wide, becoming a perfect example of a deer in the headlights. I went to run after him, but Mike grabbed my arm firmly not letting me save him. It was too late, the car hit Timothy and he flew through the air like a weightless feather.

"No!" I screamed.

I ran towards his lifeless body, blood pooling around him. The car was stopped a few feet away from us and as I turned to look at it, he sped off with his tires squealing madly on the asphalt. I barely had a chance to catch his license plate, but I did catch at least two of the letters at the beginning of plate. Hopefully that will be able to help.

"What… What do we do?" Mike stammered as he looked horrified at the young boy in front of us.

"Go get help! Now!" I yelled.

"Help!? Right, got it," he said as he ran towards the skate park.

I grabbed Timothy's hand, it was fairly warm, but he wasn't breathing at all.

"Please don't die… Please don't…" I whispered.

"Oh my god!" I heard a lady scream.

People were murmuring all over as they started to walk by. I drowned all the sounds out as I looked at the dead kid in front of me. I've never actually seen someone die in front of me and I think this has to be one of the worst experiences of my life. Not even being buried alive compares to what I've just seen.

"Yes, operator," a lady said.

"Yeah, there's a boy who's been struck by a car," another man said.

"Should we move her?" another person questioned.

"Hey, kid," someone else said.

"Emmy," Mike said sadly.

I looked up at him, seeing all the people who've gathered around the street. Tears were slowly falling down his redden cheeks and he asked, "Is he dead?"

I'm sure he already knew the answer to the question, but I nodded whispering a strangled, "Yes…"

"Cops and an ambulance are on their way," the one lady said.

"Yeah, I got ahold of someone too," a man said.

About fifteen minutes later, the place was surrounded by dozens of paramedics and cops. They practically had to pry me away from Timothy's body. I may not have known him for long, but no one deserves this, especially someone so young. One of the paramedics took me over to another ambulance and sat me down. He looked at me and asked, "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," I said through tears.

"Is that his blood on your hands?"

I looked down at my right hand which was soaked in blood and mumbled, "Uh-huh."

"Okay. Should we call your parents?"

"That won't be necessary. Her aunt is just over there. We want to ask her a few questions first?" I heard a familiar voice say.

I looked up and saw Ryan looking solemnly at the paramedic in front of me. Next to him was Esposito who was looking just as solemn as Ryan.

"Sure thing, detectives," the paramedic said as he walked away.

"You okay, mini B?" Esposito asked.

"Javie… She just witnessed…," Ryan went to speak lower to Esposito, but I still heard his last sentence, "She just witnessed a hit and run."

"I know… This is rough. Kids shouldn't have to be victims…"

"Yeah…" Ryan turned back to me and asked, "Emily, we're going to ask you some questions, okay?'

"Okay…" I whispered.

"Did you see the car?" Esposito asked me

"Sort of… It was dark red with tinted windows, but I don't know the make or model."

Ryan nodded and asked, "Did you catch the license plate?'

"I only saw two letters… IK, but that's all I caught. He drove off to fast…"

"It was a he?" Esposito questioned.

"I don't know…Like I said it had tinted windows, but the way they drove… I would say it was a guy."

"Can you recall anything else?" Ryan asked.

"No, it all happened so fast," I said as I started to sniffle.

"Hey, hey… It's gonna be okay mini B. We're going to find this guy," Esposito said with a hint of anger.

"Em," my aunt said as she came over to me.

Castle was following behind her and she gave me a tight hug.

"Are you okay?" she asked as she looked at me.

I shrugged my shoulders and said, "This is tough."

"You two really saw the whole thing?" Castle asked.

"Yes," I said as I broke down harder than I ever done before.

Aunt Kate pulled me even tighter into her chest as I let all my emotions flood out of my body. Trying to stay strong all the time was hard, this whole event just broke everything I had in me. The scene kept playing through my head, and I could have saved him… I could have.

We left the scene soon after I finished crying, and headed to the precinct. Mike headed back home with a uniformed police officer, so he wouldn't have to skate back. I was quiet the whole time I sat by Aunt Kate's desk. My skateboard was sitting on my lap and I kept turning my used to be egg white wheels as I continued running the horrific scene in my head. Aunt Kate, Castle, Esposito, and Ryan were all talking by the investigation board while I sat staring off into space.

"Okay, I'll go see Tory and see if she came up with anything yet," Esposito said and walked off to see Tory.

"I'll go call the local stations to see if they can show viewers the information we have so far," Ryan said and went to his desk.

"I'm gonna make us some coffee," Castle said.

My aunt nodded and walked over to her desk, taking a seat at it. I could see her look over at me in my peripheral vision, but I didn't want to look at her.

"Em, I know this is hard," she said to me.

I finally looked up at her, her hazel eyes shining with sympathy, and said, "But I could've saved him… I could've…"

"Em, don't put this on yourself. This is not your fault. There was nothing you could do."

"I could have pushed him out of the way. There was enough time to do that, but Mike stopped me."

"If you would have done that you could have got hit, or you both could've been hit."

I shook my head sadly and said, "I wouldn't have minded it being me. I've had so many close calls, why am I the only lucky one."

My aunt pulled her chair in front of me and grabbed a hold of my hands, "You don't mean that. I admit what happened was tragic, but you cannot blame yourself. I can't even think if that was you in the street."

"But…"

"I know… But all we can do right now, for Timothy and his family, is catch the guy who did this."

"Yeah, and knowing your aunt and this precinct, they'll catch his killer in no time," Castle said as he placed Aunt Kate's cup of coffee on her desk.

I took one of my hands, wiping some of the tears away with the back of it, and said, "Okay. I hope we find him before he does something like this again."

"Me too… Me too…" Aunt Kate said as she pushed one of my stray hairs back.

"Kate, we just got a tip of an abandoned car that looks similar to our suspects. It's just a few miles from the scene," Ryan said.

"Okay, let's go check it out," she said, then turned to me, "Stay here, Em. And please, don't keep blaming yourself, there was nothing you could've done."

I nodded slightly and she placed a light peck on the top of my head. Everyone left to go to the scene and I stayed at the precinct, nothing else to do but mull over all my racing thoughts.

Two days have gone by since Timothy was killed by the hit and run driver. The precinct has pretty much hit a dead end with the case since they've found the car. When they found it, it was wiped down of all prints, and it turned out to be stolen a couple of days prior to the fatal incident. So all they had left to go on was some grainy video footage of the suspect stealing the vehicle from a gas station and a couple of differentiating eyewitness accounts. I wish I could do more for Timothy, but all I can do, is wait until my aunt and the precinct find the man responsible for this heinous crime.

Today I had to go to school and so did Mike. Since Timothy didn't go to this school, Mike and I were the only two really affected by this whole incident, and we did see the whole thing go down. But just because Timothy didn't attend our school, doesn't mean it wasn't the biggest topic everyone conversed about. As soon as I walked through the halls, that's all I heard as I made my way to my homeroom. Most students talked about how their parents won't let them go too far now that Timothy was hit by a car and some were saying how it could've been them or their sibling.

I tried to ignore most of the conversations throughout the day, same with Mike. We both mostly kept to ourselves throughout the school day because we both know what happened and practically lived it. But staying out of people's conversations stopped during my fourth period class. We were all sitting in math class and four kids near the front of the room were working on their assignment together because our teacher gave us a collaborate worksheet.

I ignored the group for a while, until I heard one of the boys in the group say, "I heard the kid stopped right in the middle of the road while skating, how stupid."

"I heard he wanted to get hit by the car," one of the girls in the group giggled.

"And he went to a magnet school… Not too smart if you ask me…" another boy chuckled.

My anger was rising and I felt my hands clenching as they continued to make fun of poor Timothy. After a couple more minutes of their rude comments and assumptions about what happened, I had enough of it and stood up at my desk.

"Don't talk about him like that," I yelled.

All eyes landed on me and one of the boys asked, "Why? You didn't even know the kid."

"I did and I was there. I watched the blood drain from his body, I held his fucking hand. You don't have the right to talk about something you don't know!"

"Emily," Mike said quietly from next to me.

"Miss Roswell, please go to the principal immediately," my math teacher said sternly from the front of the room.

"Yes, ma'am," I said as I grabbed my stuff.

I went to the principal's office and I told him everything that happened and why I was sent down. He gave me some sympathy, but I still got a strong warning about bursting out in class. Since I was still pretty hung up about Timothy's death, the principal decided to call my aunt and have her pick me up early from school. I didn't mind being sent home early, I'd rather be there than here with a bunch of kids who think this isn't serious.

My aunt came to pick me up pretty quickly and after the principal filled her in on what happened, we headed to the precinct. It was pretty quiet during our ride until we stopped at our third red light. My aunt was the first to speak up and she said, "Are you okay, Em?"

"Yeah… Of course it's still pretty depressing, but the things they were saying about him were… They were horrible. They didn't know anything about him or what happened," I said.

"I understand, but a lot of young kids these days thinks everything is a joke. You just have to try to ignore them."

"I know, but it just made me angry. Especially since I was there."

"I know, but you have to try and be the bigger person. Don't let them get to you. You know the truth and that's enough."

I nodded and said, "Yeah…"

"And about the cussing," she said, giving me a side glance and raised brow.

"Sorry, it was the heat of the moment. It just came out."

"I understand, but next time, control it. I don't need you getting suspended."

"Yes, I'll make sure I won't, Aunt Kate."

"Good."

The light turned green and I asked, "Do you think we'll find his killer?"

"I'm sure of it."

We got back to the precinct and I sat by Aunt Kate's desk, doing my homework while she worked on some paperwork from her other case. While we were sitting there, my aunt's phone started to ring and she picked it up quickly.

"Detective Beckett… Yes, are you sure? I understand… I'll grab a team and we'll check it out… Yes… Thank you," she said hurriedly over the phone.

"Ryan, Espo, we've got something. Someone who matches our suspect in Timothy's case was spotted at a motel in Manhattan," she said.

"Really?" I asked looking up at Aunt Kate with hope in my eyes.

"It might be."

They all grabbed their stuff and quickly left the precinct. I hoped that this was the right guy and we could finally close this case and have Timothy rest peacefully.

About an hour later, they returned with a young man in his early twenties, getting dragged in by a uniformed officer. He led him to the interrogation room and Aunt Kate walked in along with Castle. I went to the observation room, so I could see the interrogation take place. I watched intently as my Aunt Kate and Castle took a seat across from the potential murderer.

"Mr. Dresden, have you seen this car before?" my aunt asked him as she showed him a picture.

He pushed it back at her and said, "Nope…"

"Are you sure about that?" Castle asked.

The young guy rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah… Don't I have to wait for my lawyers or something?"

My aunt chuckled roughly and said, "Sure, if you want to do it that way."

"Psh… This is stupid. You don't have anything on me anyway. As soon as my lawyer gets here he'll be able to let me leave."

"We'll see about that."

Just a few seconds later, a man walked into the room with a black briefcase and sat next to his client, "I'm Jesse Laurent, and I'll have to ask you to refrain from the questioning of my client."

"Mr. Laurent, we have reasons to believe that your client stole a vehicle and was involved in a fatal hit and run," my aunt said to the man.

"I am aware of the allegations against my client. Do you have any sufficient evidence that links my client to both of these offenses?"

"We have surveillance videos and witnesses that spotted your client at Mecca Bar which is just a few minutes away from the gas station the car was stolen from. We also have evidence that the same vehicle was used in the deadly hit and run."

"Just because my client was in that area, does not mean he committed any of these crimes."

"No, but isn't this you in the photo Michael?" my aunt asked as she pushed another picture in front of him.

"Don't answer that," the lawyer said to Michael before looking back at my aunt, "You can't even tell who it is in that footage. It's too grainy."

"No, but that looks like the same hat your client is wearing right now. The same one from his frat house that had a party in that bar the night of the carjacking."

I could see Michael starting to get nervous as he started to pick at his fingers. His lawyer gave him a slight glance before going back to Aunt Kate, "Many people have that hat, alumni, current student, and even some family members of someone who went there."

"I admit, not much of this is evidence, until we did a second sweep of the car. We found a crumbled piece of paper advertising the party at the bar. I'm sure the prints we got off of it will match Mr. Dresden."

Michael looked over at his lawyer, looking even more nervous than before and the lawyer said, "No, you don't have to say anything further. I'm sure we'll be able to get this thrown out in court."

"But…"

"Don't say anything. I'm sure we can get this all worked out."

"Michael, a little boy's family is grieving their son. Do the right thing," Castle said to him.

Michael ran a hand down his face with a groan and said, "I didn't mean it. I really didn't. I just… I had too much to drink that night and I honestly thought it was my car, but when I woke up the next day it wasn't. I was going to try and dump it somewhere, but I got so many compliments on my new ride. The day I hit that kid… The day I hit him, I was actually going to dump the car somewhere. I didn't even see him there. Then when I heard the thud and saw him on the ground in the review mirror, I freaked. I'm so sorry… I really am. I was going to graduate next year."

"I think my client is done here. Do you think we can work out a plea deal?" his lawyer asked with a masked face.

"I'll see what we can do," my aunt said.

"Thank you."

I met with Aunt Kate and Castle by her desk after they finished with the interrogation and said, "So he did it."

"Yep," she said.

"It's sad, a young kid himself having his life taken away for killing another young kid who barely had a chance to live," Castle said.

"I guess that's just the cruelty of the world," Esposito said as he walked over with Ryan.

"Yeah… It's really sad when you think about it. It makes me want to go hold my little girl even more tonight," Ryan said.

"It really shows that life is truly precious," Castle said.

Everyone nodded and I was happy that we finally caught Timothy's killer. Now his family could have some sort of closure even though it'll never bring him back.

Wednesday was Timothy's funeral, but Mike and I weren't invited because I think the family sort of blames us for what happened to their son. But not being able to go to the funeral didn't deter me any, I decided to go anyway. It was taking place about an hour after school, so I made my way there right after. It was pretty much halfway through by the time I got there. I made sure I stayed away from the ceremony, so no one would see me, but I still stayed close by so I could watch it.

And the funeral happened to take place at the cemetery my mom was buried, so I stayed by her grave as I watched his funeral from afar. I rested my chin on top of my hand as I peeked over my mom's grave. I saw Timothy's mother, father, and sister sitting up front as they watched the priest read from his bible. I watched as everyone at the funeral wiped their fallen tears away, whether it was with their hands or with a handkerchief.

As the funeral came to an end, people placed flowers on his newly covered grave and left one by one. It was starting to drizzle a bit, so I put my hoodie over my head and waited until everyone was gone. Once the coast was clear I went over to Timothy's grave and kneeled by it, placing my hand on the tombstone. I read what was engraved on the headstone and it said: "Timothy Edgar Raven, January 6, 2002 – October 10, 2014. The best son, brother, and nephew a person could ever ask for."

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you Timothy. If Mike would have let me, believe me, I would've tried. I know we didn't know each other well, but I was happy to have you as a friend. I think Mike would have said the same thing," I took an item that I brought with me from my backpack and placed it against his headstone, "I remember you said you liked Oreos so I brought you some in case you get hungry. Anyway, like I said, I'm real sorry. I just hope you're able to rest easy now that we found your killer. I'll try to come by when I can. See you around, Timothy."

I stood up and I felt a soft breeze rustle through the air. I smiled briefly, thinking that Timothy accepted my apology and all was well between us.