All because of what Castle said to Martha. "I really thought we had a future together. I was a fool."
Richard Castle is no stranger to the dream of a woman. In fact, he's no stranger to women at all.
He's had many, too many.
But he's only dreamt of a few.
First there was Kyra. In hindsight he can't really put his finger on it, on why. Why she was the first woman to go beyond catching his eye to catching his heart.
The dream of first love; the fantasy of a happily ever after maybe.
Then came Meredith; aloof and free spirited. To be honest he never really dreamed about her. She was just a colorful distraction to the nightmares brought on by his trampled spirit.
However there was a time, it was brief, that she made an appearance beyond the veil of his consciousness. But even then she never played the starring role. She was just the vessel, the container, the temporary quay of a more precious cargo.
Meredith was only ever a surrogate, first for his lost love, then for his found purpose.
Alexis.
The realization of a dream he never dared to dream. She was, still is, the oasis to his parched soul. She ended his nightmares; brought light to the cavernous places inside.
She brightens his vision; illuminates his world.
But there came a time and somehow Gina was just there. She was always there; working with him; for him, but also for herself. She didn't sneak up on him unaware like first love, and her seriousness, the complete antonym to his first wife's triviality, was never enough to distract.
Sure, she grounded him, brought him back down to earth, somehow. For a while he needed that; needed their almost business-like marriage to obstruct his delusions of love, but eventually she just thwarted his vision; stymied his musings.
She blocked him; his writing, his work, her only reason for being with him.
But now there's Kate.
Or was Kate.
He has no earthly idea where she came from. She caught his eye in a sneak attack, used diversion to capture his heart, and penetrated the fortification of his soul with a slow but uncalculated assault.
Oh, he's dreamt of her; he dreams of her.
Daydreams.
Night dreams.
Every other kind of dream a hot-blooded man could have for a woman like Kate Beckett.
And sure, like so many others before her, she's been the subject of many a fantasy.
Many times he's imagined her long slender body, somehow both sharply angular and comfortably curved, fit intimately against his, beneath his, on top of his.
And similar to Kyra, she's been the cause of many a nightmare, both waking and sleeping. Albeit, on a much more horrific scale.
He's imagined Kate blown to shreds; every last beautiful part of her devoured by flames white-hot enough to consume flesh, but never near hot enough to erase her image from his mind's eye.
She's inexplicably burned there; charred into his psyche.
He's imagined her laid out on the grass, bleeding out. Her heart, with all its depth, pumping the life-giving fluid from her veins. Her body dispossessed of nourishment, her lungs deprived of oxygen, her eyes devoid of life.
Yeah, he's imagined it more times than he can count; lived it one time too many.
But where Kate Beckett differs from Kyra, Meredith, and Gina; even from Alexis, is in this one thing. She's given him what none of the others before her ever have. Something he never dared imagine without her.
Hope.
Hope for a future.
Hope for long walks on the beach; hand in hand - hers in his.
Hope for late night pillow-talk about nothing and everything.
Hope for car-trips to see the country and plane flights to see the world.
Hope for a shared home with shared beds, couches, love seats, showers, bathtubs...
Hope for a family. Complete with babies that have both a mommy and a daddy to love them.
Even hope for a chance to have his name one day engraved next to hers in a slab of cold granite.
Hope for a forever, an eternity.
Hope for true love.
Hope for always.
And as he watches the elevator doors close slowly; him on the inside her on the out. He has only one thought…
'Was it all a pipedream?'