A/N: This is a collection of various theories kimmiesjoy and I have about the rest of season Four. SO this is the product of the two of us fangirling like crazy, and coming up with wild theories Richard Castle himself would be proud of. And without further ado... on with the first theory:


Castle Theory # 1

He doesn't understand what pulls him from sleep. What it is that stirs his senses when nothing in the world should be able to wake him and drag him from the warmth and comfort of his bed.

Not tonight.

He smiles down at her sleeping form, arm draped across the pillow as she sleeps. He rolls towards her, in a vain effort to fall back into the satiated haze they created for themselves, wrapped in his sheets. But he's too wired, and looking upon her, hair fanned out in a beautiful mess and her entire back exposed to him, he finds his mind drifts to someplace outside his bedroom.

He sighs, tangling her fingers with his and squeezing them before he slips from the warmth of her body. He never thought he'd experience her next to him like this. But he knows leaving the sanctuary by her side, is something he must do, even on this night, the few hours after they finally bridged the gap, broke through the tension within which they so blindly lived these past years.

He stands by his doorway pulling pajama pants and a loose t-shirt on to cover his naked frame, and stares at Kate a moment before he shuts his door to a crack. He tiptoes into his office and looks upon the one thing that could ruin what they had just created.

The smart board looms in the darkness. It seems bigger and more menacing now, in light of everything he's just left in his bed. But he must go to it. Sitting on the edge of his desk, he leans forward, and taps it lightly, illuminating his office in a bluish light.

He still plans to sit here night after night, because even when his heart was broken from her lie, he sat here. She healed it, made him whole again the moment she explained why. Why she remembered and pretended she didn't, why she hid the truth for as long as she did. And though she didn't have the gall to tell him herself when it came down to it, she loved him and that was enough.

Castle knows that no matter what has happened between them, he will always be led here, to this board full of mystery he's not sure he can solve, just like the woman asleep in his bedroom.

And whether it's believed to be out of morbid curiosity, or a need to fix things, he will know in his heart, that it's all for her.

Always for her.

He's understands that there is pain coming, pain he will cause and of course she deserves her mother's case to be solved. She's been through enough things that he will forever blame himself for. Since the moment he looked into her mother's case. In the very beginning.. before he knew her...

But, Kate Beckett is still the same woman he's steadily begun to know.. to love. She's still the strong, stubborn detective. But it's the betrayal that has gotten him twisted up inside.

His betrayal.

As angry as he was, he knows she has a right to be angrier, that she willbe. Castle shakes his head, trying to push away the negative thoughts. Love has gotten them through a lot and he has to have faith in her.

He does have faith in her.

His eyes dart back and forth between the pictures that fill the board, moving them with a shallow brush of his fingers as he rearranges suspects. Castle sighs and shakes his head, again, tapping on the motives section and dragging the words, spreading his fingers so they enlarge and he can re-read them.

He needs her to see these things, the conclusions he has drawn. He aches to share them with her and hear her input. Together, the way they do it best. And he will. In the morning when they can sit over coffee and he can explain, or try to, when he can attempt to balance the betrayal with love and devotion.

He sighs again as he starts to read the next file. Castle knows them by heart, but he carries on anyway. Each line causing the pain in his chest to intensify. He stands, mouthing the words that started out as clues and leads and possibilities, now they are dead ends and repetition.

They will cause pain and anger, they will bring crystal clear memories of things he would rather forget straight to the front of her mind. They stir and poke at his conscience. But he doesn't stop.

When Castle reaches the last line in the box, closing the endless stream of seemingly useless information and his finger lands on her. Her picture enlarges, moving to the forefront of the entire board.

Johanna Beckett, her face frozen forever in a smile eerily similar to the woman now sleeping in his bed. He taps at it again until it fills nearly the entire screen before he steps back, staring.

Every time he looks at this picture, set upon a morbid slab of grey and black, surrounded by death and tragedy, he imagines inevitably, Kate's photo plastered here. The same reason her mother's face stares down at him, the same fate could so easily have befallen her.

He feels his heart falter, just for a fraction of a second the beats stutter out of rhythm, and at the same time, he hears the sharp intake of breath behind him.

Castle closes his eyes, denying the possibility even as the soft scent of her fills the room and he turns. He pushed his luck too far, he woke her from their first night together and dragged her into a living nightmare with no idea of how fully, wholly and completely he has been lying to her, but it's hardly relevant now.

She stands, silhouetted in the doorway of his bedroom, the meager light from his nightstand pooling in ever deepening puddles around her feet. It casts shadows over her face, the long line of her legs. It draws his attention to her eyes, eyes that shine too brightly in the darkness.

She's clearly been standing quite a while, her hand gripping the hem of his shirt. He moves towards her then, a thudding step as realization dawns. She woke alone in his bed, stumbled from it bleary eyed and cold, throwing on the first thing she found, the dress shirt she had so painstakingly slowly peeled from his skin the night before. All her memories of their night together wrapped up in a piece of material. And from the look that burns in her eyes, he has tainted it all.

She's been standing so still she's unsure if she's been breathing. Dragging air into her lungs she refuses to meet his gaze, staring instead over his shoulder at the face that looms. The spectre in the room.

She had been so lost in his attentions, watching his movements as he determinedly went over all the facts, things she hasn't seen herself, things she had never been aware of. And yet here they are, each line and piece of new information for her ignorant eyes to look upon with denial.

Whether she's ready to or not.

She was so lost in all the information, the way he stood so firmly and aggressively in front of it, she almost missed it when her mother's face became the center of his attention. She saw the way he breathed in a ragged breath. It was heartbreaking and all together defining. Because it wasn't a breath of anger, or frustration. But an inhale from a man intent upon his deadly task, absorbing the pain for her and forging ahead. When he had turned, she saw it there in his face.

His eyes show her the safety he tried to bestow on her by keeping this a secret. But, staring past him at a photo of her own mother, rises such anger in her. A hurt she never thought he could make her feel. The betrayal not just to her, but the heart she had so carefully guarded.

She turns, ignoring the way his voice quivers when he calls her name. Dawn is breaking as she stumbles through the loft, but it's midnight in her heart and the world is black again.

She forgoes shoes pulling the door of the loft open wide and stepping through it. Not caring enough to close it behind her, not feeling because somewhere inside she knows the pain will crush her.

Kate just needs to distance herself from everything.

"Kate!"

The echo of his voice reaches her as she steps into the elevator, her eyes finally rising to meet his when he slams into the closing doors. Whatever he sees there knocks him back, the colour draining from his face. And she watches with a morbid sense of satisfaction as he reaches out, his mouth open wordlessly, and she turns from him.

Good.

The descent is a blur and she steps out onto the cold sidewalk. She doesn't look back as she storms down the deserted street. She will not break and she refuses to run away like she has done something wrong.

Like a damsel in distress.

Her anger keeps her upright and her determination not to give in drives her forward. Outwardly she looks the same as always, a force to be reckoned with, the effervescent Katherine Beckett.

Inside, she is a raw crumbled mess. The walls are down and she has no protection, everything has been decimated. She shakes with it, the pain, the timid truth of the Kate she wanted so much to be,is cracking and falling apart on the streets of New york.

She doesn't get very far before she hears her name being called again, and then the heavy breaths of Castle as he himself hits the cold air of the city. She hears his weighty footfalls as he jogs to catch up to her, calling all the while.

"Kate, stop!" He begs, not even caring that his voice carries on the wind, a painful cry edged with heartbreak as he pleads. He chases her down, following her as he always has, his out of breath calls falling on seemingly deaf ears. "Kate... stay...with me...please."

She stops, fists his shirt so tightly in her hands that it hurts. She doesn't want to stop, she can't.. she shouldn't, but the sound of her name on his lips, it brings back the image of the night before, when it left his mouth in a gentle caress across her skin. Along with the agony of his pleas as she bled to death in the grass.

"Kate?"

Just her name, and it elicits so many emotions in her.

It's the agony now etched in his words that ceases the beating in her heart for just a moment. She lets out a heavy sigh, her shoulders sagging ever so slightly.

He takes that as a sign, "Please, let me explain." There is a hint of hope in his voice.

Kate closes her eyes for a moment at her own sense of hope. Something she will always hold onto no matter what. Only now, she can't hide behind it, she needs to clear the air however painful. "I'm tired of explanations, Castle." She finally says into the odd silence of the sidewalk.

Castle. He closes his eyes as the bluntness of her voice, the lack of emotion, ricochets through his chest. He's been reduced to the Castle of old. The formal and the distant. He can no longer conjure her voice, the soft curl of his first name, breathily leaving her lips on a hum.

She breaks the spell by uttering his name as though it no longer holds meaning and the moan of desire and need when she had clutched at his naked flesh to anchor her, turns to ash in his memory.

"I know." He says truthfully, because he is too. He's tired of talking, of the pain they cause one another when he knows how easily they could make each other happy. Last night was too brief a glimpse to risk forever on. He wants more and as tired as he is... the explanation is needed to get them back to where they should be.

The start of them.

Castle steps back, dragging a hand through his hair as he waits for her to speak, and when she doesn't he sighs, readying himself.

She stands ever so still, waiting, always waiting for something. She can hear him take in a breath, the words about to spill from his mouth, and she cannot turn to listen. She expects to hear his reasons, ones she thinks she already knows. But what she does not expect, is the screech of tires, and the sudden smell of burning rubber.

It happens so fast. The sound of a door sliding open, and then a scuffle. Her name dies on his lips and she turns towards the cry of desperation only to be met with the sight of a dark van disappearing into the distance and an empty sidewalk.


So what are your thoughts on our theory?