Author's Notes: First multichapter fic for Castle. This is...we'll call it AU-esque. The majority of the events for the story's basis are cannon, but I've messed with the timeline a bit: Beckett and Castle are the same age, and certain people meet earlier than they do on the show. The title comes from a poem I wrote awhile ago. Spoilers for "A Rose for Everafter."

Disclaimer (applies to the whole story): I own Castle. Riiiiiiight.

Synchronized Beating of Broken Hearts

Chapter One

It was a pouring winter day in New York City. Kate Beckett could hear the rain hitting the roof as she and her friend Lanie sat in the former's bedroom, where Kate was sitting cross-legged on the bed and Lanie was pacing back and forth.

Kate glanced out of the window. Between the never ending flow of rain and its current sad gray color, the sky was depressed. Pathetic fallacy, she thought to herself. It was something she'd learned in AP English literature the year before.

"Girl. You're sure about this, right?" Lanie asked, breaking her reverie. She looked concerned.

"I wouldn't have gone through all that paperwork if I weren't sure," Kate replied wryly.

"I mean, you know I love that you'll be in the same state as me instead of literally across the country, but do you think more drastic change is a good thing for you? Especially right now?"

Kate was quite for a moment and then explained, "I need to be…here. Not in Stanford. I want to be closer to everyone, at least geographically, after…"

In point of fact, after the events of the past month, California was the last place she wanted to be. She had adjusted to college well and it had been a good semester, but after everything that had happened with her mother, she had hated the thought of being so many miles from the majority of the people in her life.

If her mother's murder had taught her anything, it was that people could be gone instantaneously.

Lanie sat down next to her friend, "I get that. And you're sure you won't regret it later? I mean, you did spend a good part of senior year telling me how you wanted to go out of state for school."

She let out a sad little half-laugh, "I did go out of state. And now I'm coming back. I'm completely comfortable with the decision, Lanie."

Lanie nodded.

"Hey, um, thanks for coming the other day," Kate said after a few moments, "To the…"

Her voice trailed off, but Lanie knew what she meant. She had made a point to be there; she wasn't the type to miss the funeral for the mother of her best friend. And inevitably, she wasn't hurting as much at Kate was, but Lanie missed Johanna. In the time that she had spent with the girls, she had always been kind and insightful.

"Of course," Lanie replied, "So when does Vassar start up again?"

"Few weeks," Kate made a face, "Ugh, I still need to find somewhere to live."

"Girl, you better get on that," Lanie commented. She grinned, "Of course, you could've gone to NYU and moved in with me. Would have been like the old days, going to school together again."

"Yeah, but it's a bit close for me. I don't want to lose all of my independence. Two hours or so is a happy medium."

00000000

Richard Castle was spending the day, much like the one prior to it and the one prior to that, staring at the phone.

A few weeks before Vassar had let out for winter break, his girlfriend Kyra had told him that she needed space. He knew that her family had never particularly liked him and that they had been pressuring her about this as of late, and Rick was fairly sure this was the reason why she had been edging away from him.

Difficult as it was for him, he had respected her wishes. He hadn't called her. They hadn't spent any time together. They hadn't shared any form of communication whatsoever since she had told him that she needed to think about things.

But it had been almost two months since they'd talked. He missed her, and it had gotten all the worse since Vassar's winter break had started. He'd tried spending time with friends, hanging out and going to parties, but in the end he just felt empty. He and Kyra had been together since their sophomore year of high school, and it didn't feel right to have her gone.

And then there was the matter of the house. It had seemingly come to be his out of nowhere, but Rick didn't have much of an issue with this. It was a bit of a mystery. He liked that. The house had been bequeathed to him and was conveniently close to school, so he had every intention of living there. He was even partially moved in. He'd wanted Kyra to live there with him. They were young, but they'd been together for a while and what they had felt real. But all of the sudden she'd needed space, so he doubted that it would happen.

He needed a new plan. He wasn't particularly fond of the idea of living alone, especially in a house that size, so he had been haphazardly searching for a new roommate. The trouble was that he wasn't having much luck. None of the guys he had met at school wanted to move out of the dorms midyear, which he understood. He'd really wanted his high school friend Kevin to move in, but he went to school in the city and it was just too far to be practical.

For some reason, he didn't find any of this overly concerning. He had this feeling that everything with the house would work out in the end — and if it didn't, he would be able to deal with it. And he couldn't explain why, but he was so confident that it would. Perhaps it was kismet.