"Thank you so much for coming, Andrea," Beckett greeted, motioning the girl to sit on one of the couches of the conference room, while she and Castle took a seat opposite her.

"How are you holding up?" Castle asked politely, a warm smile on his face.

"As well as could be expected, I suppose," Andrea answered, her puffy eyes an unequivocal sign that she had been crying. "The apartment feels so empty without her…"

"I can only imagine how hard that must be," Beckett told her in a soothing tone. "But maybe we can help. We have new information regarding Lauren's murder."

The girl shot them a look of shock mixed with fear in equal measure.

"What... what is it?"

"We didn't tell you this when we met with you the first time," Castle started to explain, "but a few of Lauren's belongings were missing from the scene."

"Oh, so, it was a robbery, then?" Andrea inquired.

"You know, at first, that's what we thought as well. But luckily, all of those items were recovered earlier today," Beckett announced, and she proceeded to list all of the objects that were pulled from the nearby dumpster, including the murder weapon. Andrea's right eyelid started to twitch, and she wiped a drop of sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand.

"But our findings are puzzling," Castle continued. "Apparently, the killer was careful to wipe all fingerprints from the items, but failed to dispose of the objects further away from the murder scene."

"That tells us the murder wasn't planned, and it definitely wasn't perpetrated by an experienced criminal," Beckett explained. "Sadly, we couldn't recover any evidence from the murder weapon to point us in the direction of the killer."

"So, if you have no idea who did it, why did you call me?" Andrea inquired, after a pause.

"I didn't say that," Beckett informed her, her tone as conciliatory as ever. "I just said we didn't find any evidence on the murder weapon."

"The contents of Lauren's laptop, however, were most interesting," Castle commented with a friendly smile.

"Did you know Lauren was accepted for an internship at a big publishing house?" Beckett questioned.

"I... I think she mentioned something, yes," Andrea stammered.

"Mentioned? Funny, we were under the impression you two applied together, right, Beckett?"

"Yes, I recall seeing both applications on Lauren's computer," she confirmed, exchanging a nod with Castle.

"Okay, fine, we applied together, and she got it," the girl confirmed. "But that doesn't mean anything. I didn't do anything to her."

"Really?" Castle asked, feigning surprise. "Even after you found out she had been bad-mouthing you to their human resources department?"

"I... I don't know what you're talking about," Andrea mumbled.

"We're talking about this," Beckett said, handing the girl a few pieces of paper. "These are the emails Lauren exchanged with them. We found them on her laptop, sent from a different email address than the one she usually used. That's why we missed them at first."

"I've never seen these before," the girl denied, trying to return the papers to Beckett, but she wouldn't take them.

"That's not what the representative from the company told us when we spoke to them a little while ago," Castle explained. "According to them, they had second thoughts about giving the internship to Lauren after they realized how underhanded her behavior had been. They decided to come clean with you about what she'd done."

"They sent you an email explaining everything about thirty minutes before Lauren was killed," Beckett told her, her voice now cold as ice, as she produced another piece of paper from her folder and thrust it into the young woman's hands. "I don't believe in coincidences."

"You knew she was at the convention, so you went there to confront her," Castle said.

"But I have an alibi. I was at the library all day," Andrea defended. "They have a security camera at the door. You can check it."

"We did," Beckett assured. "It's true that you entered the building around four-thirty and came out at midnight."

"So how can you accuse me?"

"Because, as you pointed out, the camera is at the front door," Beckett explained.

"And you were aware of that," Castle intervened. "But we did a little asking around at the library. Turns out, there's a back door that's often used when people want to have a smoke during study breaks. And you, being a smoker, would have known that."

"What you didn't know," Beckett informed the girl, raising her voice slightly and growing more determined, "is that back door is right across the street from an ATM, whose security camera registered you leaving the library in a hurry at 7:43 P.M., and returning about an hour later, looking very shaken."

"You went to confront Lauren," Castle said, his eyes hard now, his voice demanding. "You found her at the convention and accused her. Maybe she was embarrassed, or tried to placate you, but somehow, you ended up in the alley behind the hotel, surely to escape prying eyes."

Andrea was shaking now, silent tears streaming down her face, unable to meet their eyes.

"You probably didn't go there intending to hurt her, but you were beyond angry by that point," Beckett resumed the narration. "And there she was, enjoying herself, an award in her hands. And you couldn't think of anyone less deserving of a prize."

"So you took the award, and without thinking, hit her over the head with it," Castle continued. "When you realized what you had done, it was too late, and you panicked. You took her laptop and her purse, trying to make it look like a robbery, and ran away."

"It was a smart move," Beckett complimented. "And you almost had us fooled. If only you hadn't thrown everything away so close to the scene. Had you walked just a few more blocks to dispose of it all, we probably wouldn't have found it, and it would have looked like a simple robbery attempt gone wrong."

"But... you said there were no fingerprints on her belongings, or evidence on the weapon. How can you prove that I didn't go out the back door to get a coffee, or just to take a walk?" Andrea's eyes darted between them frantically, her voice desperate.

"Because your nicotine addiction isn't just bad for your health, Andrea. It's bad for your alibi. Your fingerprints were found on a empty pack of cigarettes that was in the dumpster next to Lauren's belongings. I recognized them as the same brand you were smoking yesterday. Apparently, you needed a smoke to calm your nerves after killing your roommate," Castle concluded, and that's when her facade of innocence truly crumbled.

"Please, you don't understand..." the young woman pleaded. "It was an accident, I didn't mean to kill her!"

"But you did," Beckett said, standing up and signaling the girl to do the same. "Andrea Higgins, you're under arrest for the murder of Lauren Grant."

When Beckett walked into the ballroom that was hosting Castle's panel, the event was already in full swing. The space was jam-packed, with quite a few people who had settled for standing-room-only admission lining the walls. There were a handful of writers sitting on the dais, and she was pleased to see some familiar faces alongside her husband, Alex Conrad to one side of him and Dennis Lehane on the other. In the middle of each aisle was a microphone with about a dozen people queued up, waiting to ask their questions. And not surprisingly, most of them were being directed at Castle.

She watched with pride as he addressed a fan in a Nikki Heat t-shirt at the front of the line about staging the more complicated action scenes in book, specifically Nikki's race through a snowy Central Park as she tried to make it to Belvedere Castle in Heat Rises.

"I knew I had to make the circumstances as dire as possible without venturing into impossibility or ridiculousness," he explained. "The key for me was actually going down to the area where the scene was to be located, actually walking the paths I have Nikki walk, knowing how far it was from one hiding spot to the next, what obstacles she would face getting there, but also the areas where she could lie in wait and use those places to her advantage."

Beckett looked around the room, the faces in the audience riveted on him as he spoke, absorbing his explanation with fascination. He really did know how to work a crowd.

"Of course, for all of the technical police jargon and procedure, I had an amazing guide to help me. In fact, she turned out to be so amazing, I've written eight books about her. Married her, too."

He turned to her and winked then, which didn't go unnoticed by the crowd, several hundred heads swiveling in her direction all at once. She didn't even realize he had seen her come in, and she blushed furiously but waved to the group as Castle proceeded to introduce her as Kate Beckett, my phenomenal wife and Nikki's real-life inspiration to huge cheers and a round of applause.

When the crowd settled down once more, the next attendee stepped up to the mic.

"Hey, this is a question for Mr. Castle. My name is Dan, and I'm a big fan of all your books. I've been writing on and off for years. I started off writing fanfiction, and I've been working on more original material lately. I'd really like to make a career out of it, but I've struggled with writer's block a bunch of times, and I'm scared of what that means to me as a writer. Like, maybe I'm not cut out for it? I'm wondering what you think."

Beckett held her breath for a moment, because this was exactly the kind of question she knew Castle had been fearful of due to his own recent struggles. She watched as he paused and lowered his head for a moment, appearing to be deep in thought, but when he raised his gaze to the audience again, he looked... thoughtful. Serene. She didn't know how she knew it, she just knew: he's got this.

"You know, Dan, that's a great question, and I'm glad you asked it. Because the truth is, every writer, whether you're just starting out or you've been doing it for years, is going to get hit with a brutal case of writer's block at some point. I'll be honest with you guys, I've had my own struggles with it over the years, and I think what I've realized is that it's a natural part of creativity. Inspiration ebbs and flows, the once-unstoppable flood of words evaporates, and the well of your imagination feels like it's run dry. But that doesn't mean you're not talented, and it doesn't mean your days of writing are over. Take my word for it... I've been there." He paused again, and Beckett could practically see the gears in his mind moving as he considered what he wanted to say next. "In fact, I've had a terrible case of writer's block lately. I'm sitting here in front of you guys, a living, breathing example that it happens, even to those of us who do this for a living."

Mumbles and murmurs broke out through the crowd at his declaration. Apparently, a writer as prolific as Richard Castle admitting to writer's block was a big deal.

Castle broke in before the crowd could get too noisy, and they all settled down again. "But let me tell you something, Dan, and I really want you to take this to heart. Having writer's block doesn't make you any less of a writer. There can be any number of legitimate reasons for feeling blocked. Sometimes, that thing you so loved writing about just doesn't evoke the same excitement for you anymore. The ideas don't fight their way out of you and onto the page like they used to. I've been there.

"Derrick Storm was my go-to character for years. How many books did I write about him in the end? Eleven? But my passion for writing him suddenly dried up without explanation, and I just felt... stuck. There were days I feared I'd never write again. My publisher was breathing down my neck for new work, my own mother was making jokes about how I was spending my days idle, my daughter was worried about me. My personal life was a mess at the time. I felt like I was going nowhere, fast."

His voice had grown quiet, but it hadn't lost any of its strength. Kate knew this man inside and out, knew how he'd struggled with writer's block, knew about the flood of inspiration she'd brought back to his life. She was so very proud of him, and so proud to have played that role for him. But right now, she wondered if she'd ever felt this level of pride in him, as he shared his struggles with the people who looked up to him. He was being absolutely, utterly human.

"I honestly thought my career might be over. I'm a writer, it's how I define myself, how I've built and measured my successes. And all I could think was, who am I if I don't have this? If I don't write anymore? It was low time for me, Dan. I can only tell you, inspiration came walking back into my life at the most unexpected time and place. I just had to have an open mind and be willing to let it in when it finally appeared. I also had to be escorted to a police station to be questioned about a homicide, but that's a story for another time."

A burst of laughter rippled through the crowd; Castle's fans knew the story of how he came to shadow Beckett backwards and forwards.

"The point I'm trying to make, to all of you writers sitting in the audience, is that you're going to feel blocked at some point. But if you have the talent, and if you have the determination, you will break through it eventually. Sometimes, there are external forces that you have no control over that impede your process. But also consider that your block might be your psyche's gentle way of telling you it's time to move on to the next project, the next thing that inspires you. Don't be afraid to recognize it and go in search of that next big idea. And if you're lucky enough to have it find you instead, grab onto it with both hands and never let it go."

Their eyes met over the sea of attendees and he gave her the softest of smiles, but it was enough. She understood.

Before they could stare at each other too long, a bubbly, bouncy young woman hopped up to the microphone and said, "Seriously though, could you two be any cuter?" Laughter rang out through the crowd again, interspersed with a few wolf whistles and shouts of get a room! while Castle just chuckled.

"All kidding aside, guys, most of you know about the case that Beckett and I were involved in last year, and the injuries that we sustained as a result. Our recovery has been difficult at times, and I've found myself struggling with writer's block again." More whispers flowed through the crowd, sounds of concern and distress emerging from his fans, but he quickly held up a hand in placation and everyone quieted down again.

"But I'm getting there. We both are. And honestly, being at an event like this, seeing the love you have for the characters who have meant so much to me, it's the greatest feeling in the world. I wouldn't be who I am without you guys. Just talking with you, hearing your ideas and your perspectives... this is the best inspiration a writer could ask for. It's an honor to be a part of this, to experience your enthusiasm, and your love for the written word. So, I thank you all for that."

The crowd broke out in a round of raucous applause then, and Beckett joined in without hesitation. After all, she counted herself as one of his biggest fans.

When the room grew quiet again, the bubbly young woman who had accused them of being cute finally took her turn. "Mr. Castle, my name is Carolyn and I just want you to know how much I love Nikki. She has been such an inspiration to me and I would honestly be really okay with you writing her forever. But as sad as it makes me to think about her story ending, I'm sure you'll want to move onto other projects eventually. Have you thought about what you might want to do next?"

"Well, Carolyn, I'm pretty fond of Nikki myself, obviously, and while I don't know what the future holds for her, I can't tell you what it means to me to know how much you love her. And you're not wrong in that I have given some thought to what I might do next. I have been feeling that urge to branch out, explore new subjects, maybe even an entirely new genre of writing..."

Beckett slipped out of the ballroom then, satisfied that Castle had things under control. If there was one thing she knew about that man, it was that adversity would never hold him down, and writer's block never stood a chance against him in the end.

Kate walked into the loft later that evening at what she considered to be a reasonable hour for once, another case solved and her desk clear of paperwork. She kicked off her heels beside the door and cracked her cramped toes against the cool hardwood as she looked around the space. Where was Castle? He was scheduled to be home before her, and he'd promised a delicious dinner to feed her and "their little gnocchi" in his text earlier. But the whole room was dark save for one lamp in the living room, and there were no delicious smells emanating from the unlit kitchen.

Huh. What gives? she thought.

She was about to call his name when she heard it: a faint but unmistakable sound coming from the direction of his office. She tiptoed stealthily across the room, hovering just beyond the door so he couldn't see her. And there, sitting at his desk, intense and focused, was her husband, typing away at his laptop, his fingers flying furiously over the keys.

Writing.

She felt happy tears burn at the corners of her eyes at the sight (seriously, these pregnancy hormones were out of control), and she blinked them away just as fast as she turned and quietly padded over to the kitchen to get a drink and fish the menu for their preferred Chinese place out of the drawer. She'd let him keep at it for a while; after all, she didn't want to interrupt him when he was so clearly on a roll. But in a little while, she was going to order all of his favorite dishes and crack open a bottle of that red wine he loved so much.

This was cause for celebration.

Episode beta work by acertainzest, ivyandtwine, and amtepe

Castle Season 9 is produced by Team Planet and the writing team of Castle Season 9. Executive Producer is acertainzest.

For a full list of season 9 authors, please look at our ffnet profile.

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