I love and adore The Fugitive. If you haven't seen it, please just go watch it right now. This is a take on that story, very much leaning on the movie, but with the characters from Castle.

It is dedicated to Polly Lynn with a hundred million thanks for all of her help in turning this from a silly idea into an actual thing with a plot and words and stuff. She's the reason it exists. I made the mistake of saying how neat I thought a Castle-version of The Fugitive would be in my outside-my-head voice. She then telepathically tricked me into writing it.

ILLINOIS DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS: INMATE TRANSPORT

Richard Castle shuffled onto the inmate transport bus, his shackles clinking, and settled wearily into the nearest seat. The guards took a final head count and nodded to the driver, and the bus rumbled as the old engine kicked into gear. Rick sighed, sinking back against the uncomfortable vinyl seat.

First-degree murder.

Lethal injection.

He didn't remember hearing the words. He'd gone completely numb in the courtroom. Later his attorney had told him about the gasp from the observers, Alexis and his mother sobbing, the judge calling for order. A murder mystery novelist charged with murdering his wife had turned into the trial of the century, and within minutes, the news had hit every media outlet in the country: Richard Castle, bestselling author of the Derek Storm series, found guilty of murdering his wife, Meredith Harper.

His lawyers had immediately started chattering about appeals and motions and stays and other things, and they were probably right, but he'd seen the expressions on the jurors' faces. Heard the stony resignation in the judge's voice. They all believed he did it. Twenty-six bestselling books that now stood as proof that he not only thought about killing people; he had turned it into an art.

The sound of retching pulled him out of the grim solace of his thoughts and back to the bus. Hal Lockwood, a few seats behind him, was coughing, frothing at the mouth, his skin greyish and covered with a thin sheen of sweat. Coonan, next to him, started barking at the guard. "Do something! This guy's dying here!"

The guard, a rotund, sour-faced man who'd clearly stopped caring about a decade ago, lumbered to the back, muttering. "All right, what's -"

It all happened in the blink of an eye - Coonan grabbed the guard's the gun, there was a bang, suddenly the driver was slumped over the wheel.

The bus veered sharply, bumping hard as they drifted off the road, sending Castle sprawling onto the floor, grunting in pain. The guard's hoarse shouts were drowned out as Lockwood, clearly not dying anymore, threw him down and found his keys, unlocking his shackles.

The bus lurched to a sudden stop, and Castle crawled back up to his seat to discover they'd come to a stop on a set of train tracks.

And there were lights. Train lights, barreling down on them.

Ignoring the yells from the other inmates, Castle took a deep breath, frantic. Lockwood was fumbling with Coonan's shackles; Coonan had grabbed his arm and wasn't letting go, screaming there was no way he was leaving him behind. The key fell from Lockwood's hands, skittering across the floor to Castle, who grabbed it. Lockwood came after him; Castle swung his legs up and kicked him in the face, watching him drop to the floor, unconscious. The guard had bailed out the front gate, pulling it shut and locked it behind him; Castle unlocked himself, tossing aside his shackles. Shit. The train let out a blast. Too close.

He pounded on the window by his seat; it didn't give. So he leaned back in his seat, kicking. Still nothing.

Alexis, I'm not going to die here.

He gritted his teeth and kicked harder, once, twice, finally feeling the window break away, letting in a blast of cold night air.

With all his strength, he threw himself out of the window, just as the train came bearing down on them in a deadly crash of steel and breaking glass and a shower of sparks. The train shuddered, scraping at the tracks, and as he scrambled up the embankment and out of the path of destruction, he watched the two vehicles plunge down into the ravine. The bus was a crushed mess of twisted metal and flames; the locomotive was smoking. He saw an engineer scramble out of it, clearly not seriously wounded.

He was about to step forward, but then he remembered: lethal injection.

What could they do to him now?

He ran off into night.

The early spring air was crisp, a hint of ice hanging on the fringes of the cold Midwestern night, as Kate and her team stepped out of the black SUV and into the chaos of the train crash, floodlights and flashes and police everywhere. She shook her head.

"What a mess."

Lanie had already spotted the coroner and headed over to confer with him. Kate took a long look at the crash site, noting the crushed mess of the bus, the snapped trees, the light dusting of snow over the ground. The train was still half on the tracks, the rear cars intact, but the locomotive and first few were a lost cause.

A rookie in a uniform just a bit too big for him walked up, clearly about to politely ask her to leave. Kate opened her jacket, revealing her silver star. "Hi. Who's in charge?"

He pointed her towards the sheriff, standing right in the middle of the perfect example of why she hated media circuses. She sighed. "Wonderful."

Esposito just laughed. "You know how to pick 'em."

"Next time, remind me how much I love the boring cases."

Lanie was nearby, still talking with the county coroner, several tarp-covered corpses next to them. "Beckett, we've got a count so far. Prisoners confirmed dead: Simmons, Vulcan; Coonan, Richard; Tyson, Jerry; Maddox, Cole; Tisdale, Harrison."

"That leaves us with -" Ryan checked his notes. "One. Richard Castle."

She blinked. "The author?"

"The same." Ryan tucked his notebook into his pocket. "I'm going to take a closer look. Yell if you need me."

He headed towards the wreckage, pacing carefully down into the ravine. Kate and Esposito followed the cameras to find the local sheriff, basking, interviewing a dusty, rattled, bruised man in a prison guard's uniform.

"Excuse me, Sheriff Sorenson? Deputy U.S. Marshal Kate Beckett."

The square-jawed sheriff held up an impatient hand. "I'll be with you in a minute." He turned back to the guard, yammering about how heroically the guy had essentially run away from a crash, and Kate couldn't help but notice their profiles were perfectly silhouetted in the sun. Well, well. Sheriff Cheekbones must be up for re-election.

"Any of the prisoners run? Looks like we found most of 'em already," he asked the guard.

The guy shook his head. "All in the bus when it got hit. I don't think any of 'em made it out."

Finally, Sorenson thanked him and turned back to Kate. "I'm sorry you came out here for nothing, ma'am. My men have already done a search, from point of impact, and we've got nothing."

Kate wanted to tell him where he could take his pathetic search efforts, but remembered - media. He was young for a sheriff. May as well cultivate a spirit of cooperation. "With all due respect, may I suggest checkpoints starting at a 15-mile radius on I-57, I-24, Route 13 east of -"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa...for what?" Sorenson shook his head. "Prisoners are all dead. The only thing checkpoints will do is get a lot of good people out here frantic and flood my office with calls."

The hell with it. "Well, shit, sheriff, I'd hate for that to happen. And that's why I'm going to take over the investigation."

Esposito, beside her, let out a snort. She didn't often bother with profanity. The sheriff sputtered, glaring, and clearly wanted to say something sharp, but mindful of the TV cameras and microphones, he just growled. "On whose authority?"

"By authority of the Governor of the State of Illinois and the office of the United States Marshal, 5th District, Northern Illinois. Espo?"

Esposito smiled sweetly, handing over the official warrant. The sheriff read it, glowering, sending Kate a look of death. She wished he'd hurry up. Her toes were freezing.

Finally, he shrugged. "You want jurisdiction over this mess? You got it." Sorenson looked around. "All right, boys. We're heading out. We got Wyatt Earp and her posse, gonna take it from here."

Kate rolled her eyes. How clever.

"Beckett!"

The shout came from Ryan, who was trotting up the hill, holding up -

"Well. Look at that, Sheriff." She raised an eyebrow, turning back to the guard. "We're always fascinated when we find leg irons with no legs in them. Who held the keys?"

The guard got a look Kate knew well from interrogation rooms - it was the visible squirm.

"Me."

"Your name?"

"Bill Davis."

"Where are those keys at now, Davis?"

"Um...I don't know."

Ryan made a face, pulling out his notepad again. "Care to revise your statement, sir?"

The cop blinked at Ryan. "What?"

Esposito stepped in to clarify. "You want to change your bullshit story?"

Davis stammered for a moment, but even before he spoke, Kate knew exactly what he was going to say.

"That guy, Castle. He - he might have gotten away."

The press erupted in cameras and questions, the sheriff swearing at Davis, and she had to raise her voice to reach the officers.

"Alright, listen up, people. Our fugitive has been on the run for ninety minutes. Average foot speed over uneven ground, barring injuries, is 4 miles per hour. That gives us a radius of six miles." She held up six fingers for emphasis. Might as well make it simple. "What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area. Checkpoints go up at fifteen miles." She paused. "Your fugitive's name is Mr. Richard Castle. Go get him."