Disclaimer: I don't own Castle or any of the plots, lines, or characters

A/N: So this is my spin on episode 11 "Under Fire." It's a what-if story about Castle being trapped with Ryan and Esposito. Due to this obviously I had to change some things around to make it work in the plot and there will be another chapter after this one. I hope you enjoy it!

Her heart stopped almost as fast as her car did when she slammed on the brakes to bring it to a halt. The entire building in front of her was destroyed. Flames shot out of every broken window, crevice, and crack. Smoke billowed out in giant, black plumes that were racing upward toward the starless nighttime sky. Debris was covering what remained of the broken sidewalk. Dozens of firemen and rescue workers were bustling about, hurrying to and fro. Several hoses were attempting to douse the flames, but with little success.

Beckett slowly stepped out her car, her alert eyes taking in everything at once. Her throat was immediately filled with a combination of smoke and soot when she inhaled; causing her already dry mouth to feel like it was full of cotton. Her hazel eyes began to sting and water from the fumes. Slamming her car door shut, she located the fire chief and raced over to him.

"Chief." As the man turned to acknowledge the voice that had called him, she said, "I'm Detective Kate Beckett from the 12th Precinct."

"Chief Miller," he introduced himself. "What can I do for you, Detective? Make it quick; in case you hadn't noticed, I've got a working fire in progress that I need to get back to."

"Chief, I've got three men that building," she told him. At his look of disbelief, she nodded her head to reaffirm what she'd just announced.

"Stay right here," he instructed, and then ran off, yelling out orders to his team.

Not bothering to watch him leave, Beckett pulled out her phone and attempted to call Castle for about the eighth time in the last 15 minutes. When that failed, she dialed Esposito, and then Ryan when her second call didn't get through.

"C'mon, c'mon," she whispered softly. "One of you pick up your damn phone!" Ryan's call went straight to voicemail. The frustrated detective hung up and silently cursed to herself.

Chief Miller came back and asked, "Detective, are you sure they're inside?"

"Yeah, they were checking the building in connection with an arson-homicide and they haven't called in yet," she instantly responded. "You need to alert your rescue teams."

"Detective, the building's fully involved. I just had to pull out the interior attack teams." He pointed towards the fire. "I can't send in a rescue company until it's more contained."

"Wait, more contained?" she asked incredulously. "If my guys are in there, I need you to bring them out."

"If we could get in there, I would. But there's been a partial collapse inside and I almost lost six of my guys. We'll do everything we can, Detective, but the building's a firestorm—every floor." With regret in his eyes, the man said, "If your guys are in there, I'm sorry, but they're probably already gone."

Her breath caught in her throat. Chief Miller was walking away when she called, "Chief!" He turned around and she asked, "The fire—what started it?"

"Shattered windows and structural damage indicate some kind of explosion." And with that, he left Beckett to stand amidst the chaos alone.

Beckett stared at the man's retreating form for a moment and then glanced at the blazing building. I'll get you out of there, she thought to herself. I know you're all alive so hang on. Just hang on, guys.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Castle groaned as he opened his eyes. It felt like he had fallen onto a bed of hot rocks that were cooking him alive. He could barely breathe and had difficulty moving. His back hurt like hell and his knee was killing him. Lifting his head up, he spotted two still forms a few feet away from him. Remembering what had happened, he pulled himself into a sitting position and moved over to the one closest to him: Esposito.

"Esposito," he said as he shook his friend awake. The younger man grunted and sat up.

He surveyed the scene and quickly sprang to his feet, rushing over to where Ryan lay motionless, his legs pinned under a concrete pillar. "Ryan! Ryan!" the Latino called worriedly. The smaller detective finally came around.

"I can't move, bro, my legs are stuck," he announced.

"Here." Esposito grabbed a hold of one end of the pillar. "Castle, come help me!" he ordered.

The writer got to his feet and limped over to the other two men. Bending down, he placed his fingers underneath the concrete, ready to lift.

"One the count of three," Esposito instructed. "One…two…three!" With twin grunts, the two heaved with all of their combined strength. Unfortunately, the concrete hardly even budged the slightest.

"Wait, wait," Castle said. "We need leverage—something that'll act as a lever and fulcrum."

The Hispanic detective spotted an iron bar and a hunk of metal lying on the ground. He moved the metal closer to where they needed it and said, "Castle, get behind Ryan. When I say so, I want you to pull him back and get his legs free."

For once in his life, Castle didn't argue or say anything back to him, but did as he was told. He looped his arms under Ryan's shoulders, prepared to yank him out from beneath the concrete, and watched as Esposito jammed one end of the iron bar under the piece of confinement.

"Ready?" he asked, glancing at his two friends. When they nodded, the man took a deep breath and pushed his entire body weight down on the bar. With the added help of the chunk of metal, he was able to lift the pillar up just enough so that Ryan would be able to move out of the way. "Now, Castle, go!" he roared.

Said man, hauled the trapped detective out from under the concrete. As soon as it was clear, Esposito released the bar, letting the pillar fall to the ground. Gasping for air, he asked, "You alright, bro?"

Ryan nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Can you walk?" Castle inquired.

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "Help me up and we'll find out."

The taller man pulled the Irish man to his feet. After testing the waters, Ryan concluded, "Yeah, I can walk. I just gotta be careful."

A loud crash from above cause all three heads to look up in alarm. All they could see was a large gaping hole and fire blazing everywhere.

"How far do you think we fell?" Castle asked.

Esposito shrugged. "Don't know. At least two stories. Looks like we're in some sub-basement. We're lucky we're not as injured as we could have been."

"Yeah, well if we don't get outta here soon, we're gonna be worse than injured, Javi," Ryan replied. The smaller man's blue eyes darted around every corner of the room they were currently in, not finding any obvious escape routes. "How the hell are we gonna get out of here?"

The other two men stared worriedly at him. Neither of them had an answer.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

It was taking all of Beckett's willpower to not go rushing into the burning building and look for her team. She hated feeling helpless and this was the ultimate time for such a feeling. All she could do was stand back and impatiently wait for news from the fire chief.

Standing back with her hands in her pockets, she stared at the fire as if she could magically put it out with her mind. Thoughts of Esposito and Ryan floated in and out of her head, but the one person constantly there was Castle. It was her fault that he was trapped in there with the other two. He had wanted to go along with them and she'd idiotically agreed. And now…now he was as good as dead.

She felt wetness on her cheeks and realized that she was crying. Her fiancé was stuck in a burning building and there was nothing she could do about it. She wasn't even entirely sure that they were all still alive.

A loud crash brought her out of her self-pity. The chief was shouting for everyone to move back as well. "What's going on?" she asked him.

"This building's gone; we have to move through defensive attack. The other structures are in danger," he told her.

"So you're just giving up?" The disbelief in her voice was evident.

A guy standing next to the chief in some rich-looking suit babbled on about saving the other buildings on the street, but all Beckett could think of was her boys and how they were still in the collapsing building. A voice calling her name caught her attention.

"Kate?"

Beckett turned around and saw Lanie standing there with a scared look on her face. Stunned, the detective could only stand there and stare at her best friend. She didn't know how to tell her that their guys were in the building.

"Kate, what's going on? Where's Javi?" she demanded to know.

"Look, Lanie—"

"No, Kate. Tell me." The stubbornness shone brightly in the shorter woman's eyes.

Beckett sighed then walked over to her friend. She grabbed her hand and held it tightly. "Castle, Espo, and Ryan were in the building when it caught on fire. It exploded actually." Beckett heard the hitch in Lanie's breath, but continued. "We don't know where they are in there or even if they're still alive, but the fire department can't go in to get them. The structure's too weak and could collapse at any moment."

When she finished, she could see tears rolling down Lanie's cheeks. Beckett had a few of her own to match her friend's.

"And how are you holding up?" Lanie asked her.

"Me?"

The darker-skinned woman rolled her eyes. "Yes, you. Your fiancé's in that building along with two of your best friends. Don't even try to tell me you're okay."

Beckett sighed. "It's my fault, Lanie. I-I shouldn't have let them go in there. I shouldn't have—"

"Kate Beckett, this is not your fault," Lanie reprimanded her. "You aren't the one who set the fire. There's no way you could've known that the arsonist would pick this place."

Just then, Beckett's cell phone rang and she pulled it out of her jacket pocket. Checking the ID, she saw that it was the one person that she didn't want to have to talk to right now: Jenny.

Beckett glanced at Lanie who'd seen the ID and said, "Maybe she's heard from them. Maybe they're actually alright." Lanie looked skeptical.

The detective answered the phone. "Jenny?"

"Kate," she heard a sigh of relief. "Thank God. Um, h-have you heard from Kevin?"

She swallowed down a lump in her throat. "No, I haven't. Have you?"

"No, I've been calling him to test our system, but he's not answering. I'm freaking out a little bit," the other woman admitted. "Do you have any idea where he is?"

Beckett locked eyes with Lanie, deciding whether or not to tell Ryan's wife the truth.

Her long pause must have alarmed Jenny because she heard her say, "Kate? Kate, are you there?"

She looked back at the fire before responding. "Yeah, yeah, I'm here."

The worry in Jenny's voice could clearly be detected as she said, "What's going on? Where's Kevin?"

Reaching a decision, Beckett said, "Jenny, I need you stay calm, okay? Something's happened."

"What is it? What's wrong?" the pregnant woman asked.

"We've been investigating a murder that happened due to a serial arsonist," she began. "Castle, Ryan, and Esposito were checking out a building that had caught our attention and…and it exploded with them still in it."

"Oh my God," Jenny gasped. "Are-are they alright? Is Kevin alright?"

Beckett took a deep breath. "We don't know. They're both still inside and the building is still on fire. There's no reason to panic, though, Jenny. We're gonna get them out."

The detective's trained senses picked up the sound of muffled crying on the other end of the phone. "Jenny?"

"I-I'm fine, Kate," the blonde replied. "I just-I have to go. Thank you for telling me."

"We're doing everything we can right now."

"I know you are. Goodbye, Kate."

"Goodbye, Jenny." The brunette hung up the phone.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

The three men were standing among the rubble, frantically searching for a way out. Finally, Esposito located something.

"Look." He pointed at a grate on the ceiling by one of the walls. To reach it, though, they would have to clear tons of debris and that just wasn't possible with their limited strength and time. "Looks like that was our way out."

Ryan and Castle stared at their only escape route before the latter commented, "Yeah, I don't think we want to go up anyway." They could see the flames peeking through the metal bars of the grate.

The Hispanic detective pulled out his phone only to find it smashed beyond use. "My phone's busted from the fall."

Ryan took his out and saw that he had no service. It really didn't surprise him in the least. Being this far down in the building; it would take a miracle to get any kind of service at all. Castle searched for his phone, but he couldn't find it.

"Guys, I can't find mine. It must've fallen out of my pocket when we fell."

"Well, as big as this thing is," Esposito told them, "the fire department's gotta be out there. They gotta be out here soon."

Ryan looked up. "We should let them know that we're down here." As soon as he said that, Esposito started yelling, trying in vain to grab anybody's attention if they were around. Castle and Ryan soon joined in, but to no avail.

"The fire's too loud," Castle observed. "No one could hear us scream over it." He was panting and coughing, his lungs not getting the oxygen they required.

Esposito glanced around at the ground and eventually spotted what he was looking for. "I got an idea." He picked up a metal rod and whacked a giant metal pipe. "Maybe the sound will carry up. Maybe they'll hear us then."

The other two men quickly followed their friend's example. The metal on metal clang made their ears ring, but they wouldn't stop—they couldn't stop. Adding their shouts to the noise, all the three could hope for was that someone from the fire department would hear them so that they could be freed.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Lanie led Jenny to the ambulance as Beckett stared after them. Jenny's words kept ringing in her ears.

"Jenny, you should be here," she'd told her.

"The hell I shouldn't. That's my husband in there," the other woman had retorted. Just then, another contraction hit here like a sledgehammer. She nearly doubled over from the pain.

"What's going on?" the detective had asked, worry written on her face.

"She's in labor, Kate," the medical examiner had informed her.

"Jenny, you shouldn't be here. You need to go to the hospital," Beckett insisted.

Jenny had recovered from the pain and replied, "No, I won't leave. Not without Kevin."

"Jenny, you—"

The blonde interrupted her. "Kate, Rick is in there too. Would you leave him?"

Beckett's silence was her answer. Of course she wouldn't leave him.

Thank God, Lanie had more sense than either of the other two women. "Okay, at least let me get you in an ambulance. You need to lie down so that we can make sure everything's okay."

Jenny agreed to that and was led away.

She still couldn't believe that this was happening. Her fiancé, the love of her life, was trapped inside a burning building. She didn't know whether he was alive or dead. She briefly thought of calling Alexis and Martha, but it wouldn't help anything. Part of Castle's Christmas gift to them was a trip to Europe, just for the two of them. He knew that Alexis hadn't had much time to spend with her grandmother lately and both missed each other, so to his daughter, it was a very special gift indeed. Calling them could do nothing when they wouldn't be able to reach New York in time.

All of a sudden, Beckett felt anger flood her veins. This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't how her life with Castle was supposed to end. They were supposed to get married, start a family, and grow old together. Their life together forever hadn't even started and yet it was about to end. It just wasn't fair. She needed to find a way to get Castle out of that building so that she could wrap herself around and never let him go. He was supposed to be her husband, damn it, and she was going to make sure it actually happened.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Castle had stopped hitting the pipes and yelling. He wasn't too much older than the detectives, but he also wasn't in as great of shape as they were. The smoke and heat didn't help either.

"Guys, stop!" he yelled. "It's no use. Even if they're here, they obviously can't hear us."

"Well, what are we supposed to do then, Castle?" Esposito asked. "Give up?"

"No, but we need to save our strength," he replied.

"For what?" Ryan sat down on a chunk of concrete and loosened his tie before yanking it off. "No one knows we're down here and it's only a matter of time before the fire sucks all the oxygen out of the room."

"There's gotta be some other way outta here or at least some other way to let them know we're down here," the writer said.

"Hate to break it to you, Castle, but unless you've got an oxygen tank, a pair of wings, and fire-proof suit…we're gonna cook," Esposito said grimly.

Ryan laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. "Castle's right, man. There has to be some way." He studied the room and spotted a partially intact telephone and a bunch of loose wires. "Hey, Castle. C'mere, I have an idea."

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Beckett was standing by her car, lost in thought. She'd just gotten off the phone with Gates who'd told her that every person in the homicide division was now working on this case. She could only hope that someone would get a break through at the precinct. All she had was McCann's two folders and so far they were telling her nothing. She'd been over them again and again ever since Jenny had been placed in the ambulance, but she couldn't find anything.

Her phone ringing brought her back to reality. She didn't bother looking at the caller ID, but instead answered with her usual "Beckett."

At first she was confused. No one replied and all she heard was static.

"Hello?" she asked impatiently.

The static continued, but gradually cleared until she could hear a voice saying, "Beckett? Beckett, can you hear me? Beckett? Kate?"

Her jaw dropped slightly and her eyes widened. "Castle? Castle, is that you?"

Thank you for reading this chapter and there will be one more after this. Feel free to review, favorite, or follow if you wish to.