Castle 1. This Too Will Pass

_This is my first Castle fic, so please bear with me. I'm trying to get all the details to be as accurate as possible so I can make the story realistic. Please provide feedback and any ideas you may have!_

_Unfortunately, I don't own the rights to Castle and/or the characters or he and Beckett would already be together._

**Full Disclosure**

Chapter 1

'_This Too Will Pass'_

"What have we got?" Those famous, yet pointed, words echoed from Detective Kate Beckett's mouth as she entered yet another New York City apartment building that had the unfortunately luck of being dubbed the 4th crime scene of the week.

She took her left hand and casually, almost automatically, swept it through her hair as she took a deep breath and let out an even longer sigh. It had been a long week. It wasn't just the two homicides on Monday that had rattled her, but instead the murder-suicide the following day. A young mother with an even younger child had reached a breaking point and had decided life wasn't worth living anymore. Worse still, she took the child with her. Here it was Thursday and even a seasoned officer like herself couldn't help but feel the sleepless nights catch up with her.

"Lanie has yet to call the COD, but if I had to guess I'd say home invasion gone south," Detective Ryan answered, stealing the thunder of Javier Esposito, who usually gave Beckett the rundown.

"ID says the vic is Donald Rubio," cut in Esposito, not to be outdone by his counterpart. "As in _the_ Donald Rubio…banking tycoon, financier, you name it" he continued not even pausing to look down at his notes that he held clutched in his hand. "This guy is known all over Wall Street. He became the youngest hedge-fund manager in the city when he was 24…been on the fast track ever since."

Beckett pursed her lips slightly and looked from Ryan to Esposito and back to Ryan, who was slightly nodding his head, as if his thoughts were in sync with those of his boss.

"Yep…3rd one in three months" he added as if to finalize his gesture. He then pointed through the doorway and into another room.

Beckett nodded curtly and walked into the next room, taking a minute to look around her surroundings in the apartment. Penthouse Manhattan apartment, elegant furniture, even Persian rugs from the look of it..if she didn't know the vic it would only take a second to realize he, she, or they had money. Taking a knee next to the body on the opposite side of Lanie, she looked over at the M.E.

"Hey Lanie, we got a cause of death?" she asked as she pulled out a pair of white latex gloves, almost knowing what her best friend would reply. She starred at the body of the man, dressed in slacks and a clean-pressed button down, laying flat on his back in the middle of the living room floor.

"No external injuries, no visual signs of trauma, or struggle for that matter" Lanie explained, pointing at the victims fingers, knuckles, and face. Her fingers lingered a little longer over the man's face, though, for a simple reason. Placed over his eyes were two silver dollar coins.

"I'd say he knew his attacker," Beckett began, "but no signs of struggle?" she finished, confused. Reaching into her pocket, she stood up one more time and pulled out her phone. Flipping it open, she pressed the '2' button and held the phone up to her ear, tossing her head back to get a few free strands of hair out of her face. She heard the familiar tone of the phone ringing as Esposito walked towards her attempting to say something. She held up her finger in a 'one second' gesture as a familiar voice greeted her on the other end of the line.

"Castle, you're going to want to get down here...Park Avenue Residences..penthouse. We've got one that's right up your proverbial alley." Clicking the phone shut, Beckett looked over at Esposito who looked remotely like he might wet himself if he didn't say what he had clearly come over to say. "You gonna spit it out sometime today, Esposito?" she asked her eyes sliding to her right and her eyebrows rising up to form a slightly annoyed but amused position.

"Ryan and I have been through this place with a fine-toothed comb" he started, shifting his weight from one foot to another in a nervous but excited manner. "We even borrowed some of CSU's sweet new toys to make sure that we weren't missing anything." He paused, "By the way, did you SEE that new UV light they got..that thing is…" he stopped short as Beckett had whipped around with her left hand on her hip and her right palm resting on the butt of her sidearm.

"Uh..right..later…but there are absolutely no signs of forced entry." Esposito hastily finished as he walked over to the front door. "See," he pointed to the door jam, "no broken wood, no signs of any object used to force it open. The same goes for all the windows that open in the place…and there's only four of those" he added with a bewildered look toward Beckett.

She took a moment to think and layout the apartment in her head before looking back at the other two detectives. "Go…" she didn't even have time to finish her sentence.

"Knock on some doors and see if anyone heard or saw anything…got it boss..er..Beckett.." Ryan added in almost an exasperated tone. He and Esposito moved off towards the hallway as Beckett smiled as she turned back towards the dining room that held the body. As much as she loved to give them hell, mostly for fun, they were easily the best two partners a detective could ask for. They were far and away the best she had ever worked with, she thought to herself as she let her thoughts wander back to the crime scene.

She looked around through the dining room for anything that could have been used as a weapon, or something that seemed odd or out of place. Nothing was jumping out at her. It seemed clean, almost too clean, but even the most seasoned 'professional' criminals left some thread or fiber behind. No one was perfect, and that's why she was still in business. She checked the windows Ryan and Esposito had mentioned. Sure enough, the latches were still secured, the glass intact, and no signs of fracture or stress anywhere along the rim of the window sills.

Moving into the bedroom, she saw that the CS unit had already determined the safe hadn't been tampered with and no valuables seemed to be missing. Had it not been for the coins strategically placed on the victims eyes, it would have looked exactly like a death by natural causes.

She brought her hands up to massage her temples slowly. This was going to be a tough case- she had a sixth sense for these things, and all her instincts were screaming at her like a caged lion trying to rip its way to freedom. She found that when her gut told her something, she may as well listen to it, because nine times out of ten it wound up being right in the end. In this case, she didn't like what her gut was telling her.

However, before she even had a chance to ingest her thoughts, she was jerked back to reality by the voice of Rick Castle intruding on her solace.

"Wow…no way!" he practically shouted.

Beckett looked up, strongly fighting the urge to roll her eyes. Castle had finally arrived and the first thing he had seen was the body, more specifically, the coins on the man's eyes.

"Beckett! Did you see this?" he said excitedly, pointing at the coins. Castle's eyes practically bulged from their sockets, giddy like the little boy. "It's like the greek stories! Ya know, where the mourners would place two coins on the deceased's eyes so that he could pay the boatman to ferry him across the river Styx. Ooh oh, what if this guy was part of a Troy reenactment and…."

"Castle. Stop." Now Beckett was rolling her eyes and holding her hand up with mock exasperation. She could always count on him for some elaborate story about how the vic died, most _never_ proving true, she quickly reminded herself.

"Oh, but I thought you loved my keen, creative mind, detective" he whispered in a low voice as he walked past her, sporting a small grin. After all this time working together, he knew exactly how to push all her buttons and it was always entertaining to see her squirm in the presence of coworkers. As he circled around her he took another look at the victim's body on the floor as Lanie was removing the coins from the man's eyes to place in evidence jars.

"I realize it's hard for you, Castle, but try and focus for another few minutes until we can get back to the precinct" Beckett said, walking back towards the front of the apartment. "We'll know more once Lanie can get us a COD," she said. She paused for a moment, expecting to hear the familiar footsteps dogging her from just a few feet behind, but she didn't.

Twisting around to see where he went she said, "Castle, you com….." She never got the entire sentence out. Castle was standing in the same spot she left him, transfixed at the body on the floor. His mouth was slightly agape and his eyes just as wide and shocked as when he first saw the body, but obviously for a much different reason.

"Castle?" Beckett immediately sensed something was wrong and started back towards him. "What is it?"

"It…it's..Don Rubio" Castle started, pointing limply at the man on the ground.

Beckett almost shrugged, as if to say 'so, what?' At this point, she had seen so many murders and bodies that it got hard to keep track, and while she cared deeply and sympathized with the families of the victims, it was still a rough, impersonal job sometimes.

"Yeah, Esposito said he was…" she started before Castle cut her off.

"My college roommate."

_Still kicking around a lot of ideas for where this could go, but I have a pretty good idea what general direction I want to take it. There will definitely be romantic elements to this story as well as plenty of drama._

_Let me know what you think of Chapter 1! Thanks for reading!_


	2. Off Guard

_I'm SO thankful for everyone that signed up to follow this story! Thank you, thank you, thank you! And without further ado…I give you, Chapter 2._

_And as always..wish I actually owned Castle._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

'_Off Guard'_

Silence permeated the room- almost like a thick cloth had been placed over the windows and shut out all the light and sound from the rest of the world. Time stood still for a brief moment and out of the two ladies who had heard Castle's admission, no one seemed to want to be the one to break that silence.

"He's your _what?_" Beckett asked incredulously, her eyes going wide as saucers- something people rarely witnessed. Being a cop, she was accustomed to being caught in surprise situations that might temporarily catch her off guard. It was something she was trained for. Something that was drilled into her at the academy. But this…this was something that ever ounce of her willpower couldn't stop from exploding out of her in the form of raw surprise.

Lanie too seemed at a loss for words, and for a brief second after Beckett graciously broke the silence, she resumed her work with the body, almost as if Castle had never spoken. Things certainly would be less complicated had he not spoken, but there they were, the words that snap-froze the atmosphere of the crime scene faster than even the most highly trained detective could react. Even the members of NYPD's crime scene unit stopped what they were doing and instead focused their attention intently on the pair standing by the body, straining their ears for more information.

Castle still refrained from saying anything. His brow was wrinkled up in a knot; his eyebrows pinched together like if he thought hard enough this might all be some sick, twisted dream. The wrinkles that were usually hidden by his jovial attitude stretched over his face like lines drawn on a map. His right hand moved from hanging limply by his side to cover his mouth as his lips twitched slightly. He wasn't getting emotional, he was simply suffering from the raw shock that had hit him moments before. Bringing both his hands up, he ran them through his hair. First backwards, drawing in a deep breath, and then rubbing them furiously back to front as he tried to comprehend what exactly it was that he was seeing. His mouth opened and closed multiple times, producing not so much as a whisper, before finally finding some air in his lungs.

"This can't be right.." he started, unconsciously biting his bottom lip, something that he had picked up from Beckett in the past year. "We were college roommates my..my junior and senior years" Castle said, taking a few cautious steps forward towards the body. "We both wrote for the college newspaper, although my stories were always better," he added, with a brief touch of his usual humor appearing before it disappeared just as fast as it had show itself. He took a knee next to Don Rubio's body, titling his head from side to side as if to get a better angle on it. "May I?" he asked Lanie without looking up at her. Before she even had a chance to respond, he picked up the man's right wrist and twisted the limp hand to the side.

"It's him" Castle said, confirming something that they all already knew, but the way he said it made it sink in like a heavy stone tossed into rough seas. "This scar on his hand…" Castle said, indicating a thin, white, line between his thumb and pointer finger, "was from him not paying attention while trying to iron his shirt before a sorority formal. I always warned him that girls would get him in trouble," he added ruefully, slowly returning Don's hand to its original position next to his body. He was about to get up off his knee when he felt a hand rest on his right shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Castle." Beckett said in a low, soft voice. While she would normally be kicking herself internally for displaying so much emotion not only at a crime scene, but in front of all her friends and coworkers, she didn't care right now. "Why don't you go wait outside and get some air while we finish up in here" she added in a still soft voice, but with her tone dictating that it was more of an order than a suggestion. She allowed her hand to gently slide off his shoulder as he regained his footing once more and watched as he took a long, lingering look at what used to be his friend before making his way slowly out of the living room. She too bit her lower lip in a small sign of frustration and pity as she watched him depart. She wanted to go over and grab him, hug him, look into his eyes and tell him that everything was going to be alright. She wanted to be there with him, but she knew that….

"What do you think you're doing?" Lanie's voice interrupted the internal debate going on inside her head, forcing her back to reality.

"Huh?" Beckett said, shaking her head back in Lanie's general direction. "What?" she added with a hint of confusion on her face.

"Girl, I said what do you think you are doing?" Lanie repeated again, putting more emphasis on her words this time. "I can handle this-we're pretty much done anyway. _You_ need to go make sure Castle is alright" she added.

"He just needs some air," Beckett said, dismissing the not-so-subtle innuendo that she knew was coming. "He's a big boy, he'll be ok" she finished, matter-of-factly, immediately going back to her usual cop mentality. She knew Lanie had always had suspicions-maybe even fantasies- of something going on between her and Castle, but that's all they were- fantasies. She remembered back to when a seemingly deranged serial killer Castle fan had been toying with them, practically begging and daring her to stop him. One of the bodies had conveniently found its way to her apartment the same night that Castle had slept over for the first time. _Nothing_ had happened-as far as she was concerned there wasn't anything between her and Castle then, and there certainly wasn't now either. _But_ that argument hadn't worked when trying to convince Esposito, Ryan, and Lanie that the fact that they found her in her PJ's and Castle making pancakes was pure and innocent coincidence.

"Mhmm" was Lanie's only response as she finished placing Don Rubio's hands inside the black body bag on the ground. Zipping it up, she, Beckett, and another officer placed it on a gurney that had been sitting nearby, and after strapping it down, Beckett walked out of the apartment and down the stairs to the lobby of the building. As she approached the front desk, she saw Ryan and Esposito coming towards her, the former with an excited look on his face. He appeared to be holding an evidence jar too.

"Hey Beckett, so none of the neighbors remember hearing or seeing anything suspicious in the past few days" Ryan began, flipping through the notebook he held in his left hand. "They say Mr. Rubio was a pretty social guy, actually. He hosted a poker night once a week in the lounge down here that a few people in the building attended, he would bring flowers or gifts to a few of his neighbors on their birthdays, ya know..those kind of things" he added with a look of intrigue on his face. "I never get gifts from my neighbors…but maybe it's cause I'm a cop" he added, seeing the impatient look on Beckett's face.

"Ok…" she started, staring pointedly at the evidence jar in his hand, "so what's got you so excited then?" she asked as Esposito got a smile on his face.

"See man! I told ya you couldn't hide your excitement! And you wonder why you're terrible at poker" Esposito laughed, punching his partner's arm, earning him a sideways glare from Ryan.

"Right..well _anyways_" Ryan started with a smirk, "while we were coming back down the rear stairwell, we found _this_" he said, holding up the clear, plastic jar. Inside, resting on a thin patch of cotton was a single, seemingly pristine .220 caliber rifle shell casing. Wrapped up and placed inside was what looked like a piece of paper. "All it said on it was 'stop.'" Ryan added, his face getting a little more serious than it had been a moment before.

"This is starting to look a lot more like pre-mediation," Beckett said, taking the jar from Ryan and examining the shell inside by rotating the small jar around. "Still doesn't explain how the killer managed to pull it off, though. There were no bullet holes in the windows, walls, or body for that matter," she added, handing it evidence back to Ryan. "No forced entry, no missing effects, so what's the motive?" she asked, thinking out loud. "And what the hell is this supposed to mean…stop?" she added, raising an eyebrow before looking at the two other detectives. "Why are they warning us to back off and run the risk of leaving evidence that can link them to the crime? Let's get everything back to the precinct and then we can start looking into our victim's background and maybe we can find someone with a beef against him" she said finally, heading towards the door that led to the street.

Esposito and Ryan nodded silently, following behind her. "20 says we don't find a single print on this thing, though" Esposito mumbled to Ryan as they walked out into daylight.

As they exited the building, Beckett stopped thinking about the mysterious shell casing long enough to look up and see Castle leaning against her car with his hands stuffed in his pockets. He was staring at the ground like he was trying to figure out some deep mystery. That's when it hit her. She'd been so caught up with Ryan and Esposito that she had forgotten to tell them about Castle's personal connection to their murder victim.

Turning around she had just enough time to open her mouth in an attempt to yell their names before a single, bull-whip sounding crack echoed through the air and she watched as Kevin Ryan's body arched backwards. Surprise was briefly painted on his face as he landed on the concrete steps and went limp with the echo of the shot still resounding across the concrete jungle of buildings around them.

* * *

><p><em>Chapter 3 is being written as we speak! Thanks so much to the overwhelming number of people that signed up to follow the story after just the first chapter! Your support is awesome!<em>

_As always, please let me know what you think!_


End file.
