A/N:This is a fairly rough smash up of Bones and Castle (two shows I absolutely adore). I am writing it in installments as a way to satisfy writing challenges and different prompts. The prompts/challenge is posted as an installment subtitle. Still ever a work in progress so I appreciate any and all feedback.

Installment 1: Prompt = I'm fine

Her phone blared, the ringtone something close to the imperial march, but with a lighter jaunt to it. She hadn't chosen the ringtone; she preferred it on vibrate. It was something her boyfriend Rick Castle had programmed for her, an attempt to put a smile on her face when duty took her out of their bed too soon. And indeed it did put a smile on Detective Kate Beckett's face - or that could have just been the fact that it was a murder - as she extracted herself from Rick's heavy arm wrapped around her torso and cupping her butt. She had fallen asleep sometime in the early morning hours, curled up in his embrace again, pushing down tears from the new anxiety-fueled nightmares that kept her awake every night this week. She didn't understand these new intrusions, they were filled with nonsense and worries she had thought she buried long ago.

Rick grunted in his sleep at the change in pressure and movement as Beckett sat up to answer the phone. He half opened his eyes to the sight of her gorgeous naked back as she jotted down the details on the little notepad she kept on her bedside table. He was fully awake as she stood and spun around, fully alert to the easy beauty she exuded with every ounce of her being.

"Don't get up. It's just a murder." Kate leaned down to kiss him goodbye, but paused to swallow a roll of nausea that threatened to ruin her morning. The morning nausea was just as new as the nightmares, and she already wasn't a fan. Rick noticed her soft grimace and answered with a blurry questioning look. "I'm fine hun," was his only answer as she completed the kiss.

She continued talking as she slipped her underwear on, "I'll text you the address, just meet us there when you get up." Using her phone flashlight, Detective Kate Beckett traced the path of their passionately discarded clothing through his loft.

Installment 2: Writing challenge = Start each sentence with a different letter of the alphabet.

Detective's Ryan and Esposito - the junior detectives that rounded out her team - had beaten her to the scene. "Par for the course", Beckett mused, taking one last sip of the cold sparkling water she had snagged from the fridge on her way out the door. She pulled her new cruiser up next to the beater the boys shared, windshields facing a clearly abandoned warehouse, sides to the icy Hudson river. Vagrants frequented a place like this, and she was glad that the presence of cops may have spooked them away for now; too much foot traffic made these types of scenes extremely difficult to solve. This murder call was right on the edge of their precinct boundary- territoriality between the different precincts of Manhattan occasionally allowed some grey area overlap depending on who was busier, or how complicated the case was. Flicking a curt but polite "good morning" to the patrol officer setting up the crime scene tape, Beckett blinked the last of sleep from her eyes, the first beams of the sunrise beginning to deepen the shadows around her.

Making eye contact with Esposito as she stepped into the warehouse entrance, she took a customary breath to calm her racing brain. "Approach every scene as a rookie. Look at everything, not just what you want to see, but what you actually see," she let the silent mantra guide her eyes over the scene. Before her lay a woman, young ish - definitely less than thirty, but no longer a teen- sprawled face down on the dirty concrete floor. Neon pink fishnets, ripped and bloodied, tangled the woman's legs together, while a cheap sequined crop top that was once complete pulled down over one shoulder, stabs and slashes having ripped the other side. Curly short blonde hair framed the woman's face, frozen in pain, eyes shut; hair still so perfectly curled and set that a small part of Beckett wondered if it was a wig, and if not, she needed to know what hairspray the woman had used. Obvious drag marks ending under her body lead to where she had initially been stabbed, about one hundred yards farther into the warehouse. Xanthic disturbances in the dust telegraphed the struggle, and Beckett was glad the guys noticed as well, setting the evidence barrier farther back to capture any rogue footprints, hopefully from the suspect. Underneath the body, a pool of blood was partially congealed; Beckett had been doing this long enough to know that this body was only a few hours old at this point. Hell of a first impression.

"ID?" Having completed her initial cursory observation, Beckett turned to Esposito near the garage door entrance, who was wrapping up the rough sketch of the scene from that angle.

"Zinnia Elegante," he didn't normally add small flourishes to information dumps- she had trained them early on to have more respect for the dead and to keep their gallows humor limited to the precinct and each other- but he had a small chuckle as he handed her not only the woman's driver's licence with her given name (Alice Chalman), but also her photo id for the club she was a dancer at.

Quietly cursing the fact that it was around four in the morning, and pushing down yet another unwelcome roll of nausea that reminded her she hadn't had any coffee yet, Beckett had a shorter than normal fuse.

"Explain?" she asked, testing his ability to theorize on the spot, demonstrating their training and reputation as an elite squad. He never got the chance to redeem himself though.

"You need to see this, Beckett," Detective Ryan interrupted with a quiet reverence to his demeanor, kneeling close to the body and snapping photos of evidence as he went along.

"What is that?" Becket, who had switched her usual heels for sensible flats in the rush out the door, sidestepped the dried blood indicating where the dragging had stopped and the pooling began. Jutting out from around the victims fingers was what appeared to be a bone, poking a mere inch out of the concrete floor, the victim's grip concealing anything more.

"Good catch…." Beckett allowed her observation to trail off as she crouched closer. "Keep this one close to the vest," she advised her team, recognizing the bone for what it was - human. Reeling just a little from the sudden change to standing, she slid her phone out of her pocket as she stood. This case was about to get a whole lot more complicated.

Installment 3: Prompt = the moment everything changed

'Whoah,' he thought for a second, suddenly aware of his heart beat. Brennan noticed the softening of Booth's face, a brief moment, his work phone ringing obnoxiously in her hand. She had been attempting to feed their young daughter, Christine, secured in her high chair and gleefully throwing gooey chunks of banana around. Booth had set his work phone on the counter next to his keys and personal phone as he went in for a quick shower, his dawn run delayed this morning due to a little bedroom cardio. He wasn't normally on call until closer to nine am, enough time to get into the office and at least open his email; this seven am call was unusual. Brennen knew enough not to answer it herself, so had brought it to the bathroom, having heard the water stop.

Booth was just standing there, dripping and… 'oh,' she realized, 'so… hmmmm…' Her breath caught in a satisfied hum, his phone in her hand silencing and buzzing to voicemail instead. Although they had already enjoyed each other physically this morning, this thing that she felt just now was different; it hit a different part of her, more cerebral and soulful than just physical attraction and sexual drive.

"Your… uhm… your phone." Talking with him shouldn't be this awkward, but this moment - the one her brain interpreted as love coming back between them - slowed her usual responses.

Booth felt it too, a smile softening his face as he reached for her, the strong, insanely smart and ever endearingly awkward love of his life in front of him now. He wanted to hold her, protect her, see that smile every morning when he woke up, and every night when he finally went to sleep. He had loved her for a long time, but he had allowed the resentment to build that last few months, especially when she had fled. He had let that resentment stew into anger, and as Sweets had so bluntly the other morning, Booth couldn't forgive her for her behavior until he forgave himself for his.

It was at this moment, his gaze darting down to the small piece of banana sticking to her shirt collar instead of her blue, now slightly moist eyes, that he realized. Mundane; everyday; nearly routine to the point of not being noticed; somehow, this was the moment everything changed.

Booth's phone started its obnoxious ring again, the caller apparently not satisfied with leaving a voicemail.

The cosmos had shifted, but apparently reality had not.

Christine could be heard from the other room, irritated at something involving her bananas. Brennan handed him the phone, pivoting quickly away to take care of her daughter. She had Christine dressed, ready, and nearly in her coat by the time Booth reappeared.

"We have a case." He made quick eye contact as he scooped his collection of small things off the counter and stashed them in his jacket pockets, things Brennan solved with a purse: work phone, personal phone, keys, wallet, pen and notepad.

Brennan looked up at him, struggling to get Christine's arms through the sleeve of her jacket. "Where?"

"New York City."

Brennan made a face. She could claim it was because she didn't love the city, but really she didn't love leaving Christine for long periods of time. A small part of her heart hoped it would be an easy and quick case.

Booth kept coordinating as they got Christine settled into the car, "Call Angela on the way to the office. Drop Christine off, then I'll give you the keys to come back here and finish getting ready. We'll leave when you come to pick me up." He tossed her the quick notes he had jotted down from the phone.

H. Rib Bone, concrete floor warehouse

Process of another homicide - victim gripping rib

Coordinating detective Srgt. Homicide Detective K. Beckett and Captain R. Montgomery,

NYPD 12th

"Have they preserved the scene? Disturbed the bone? Penetrating radar?" Brennan ran through her pre-case checklist as they pulled up to the guard at the entrance of the parking structure beneath the Jeffersonian.

Booth simply nodded, a small smile on his face. Of course he had relayed all of that to the Captain who had called him, he had been doing this for years now too, he knew the rigamarole. But he couldn't control what local officers did when they encountered the types of scenes and crimes him and Brennan dealt with. Some knew better, some were so clueless he wondered how they had earned the badge in the first place. He had never worked with this particular NYPD precinct; it would be a fun test for him and Brennan: more than four hours in the car, a few days at some fancy hotel deep in the city, coordinating with local detectives - everything Brennan hated.

Plus they might be able to talk about the moment they both had earlier that morning. But he knew they wouldn't.