The Unexplained

Summary: Beckett hated when her questions went unanswered. (6x15, "Smells Like Teen Spirit")

They didn't want to overstay their welcome. When "their song" ended, and an uptempo beat took its place, Kate and Castle inconspicuously slipped through the crowd towards the gymnasium doors. The dance moves most teenagers started doing were lost on them, anyway. Both prom-crashers were clueless about the fine art of "twerking," and had no desire to learn.

Kate noticed Lucas Troy glancing at them halfway between the dance floor and the exit. The boy then made eye contact with the detective, silently asking if they could talk. "Castle," she said softly, directing his attention to Lucas. "I'll, uh, meet you outside in a minute."

Her fiance nodded, understanding that she wanted to handle this on her own. "Just be careful, Kate." Castle grinned and whispered in her ear. "Watch out for any sudden moments – they could be a trigger for his telekinetic powers."

"Stop it, will you?" she joked. "He's close enough to hear us." Kate allowed a small smile of her own as Castle left the gym, then put on her "cop face" when she turned to Lucas. He'd finally approached her but she could tell he was nervous. His breathing was shallow and he kept wiping sweating palms on his dress pants. Poor kid, she thought sympathetically. He's probably terrified that I'm going to arrest him too. "You're in the clear, Lucas," she assured him. Then she reconsidered her statement. "Well, the principal might have a different opinion on that, but as far as I'm concerned, your involvement with this case is over."

Lucas let out a sigh of relief. "Jordan too?"

"Jordan too," Kate agreed, which significantly helped return his breathing to normal. "We never had a real reason to suspect her, other than her understandable hatred of Madison." She glanced at Jordan Gibbs, who was anxiously waiting for Lucas by the snack table. "Now go over there, tell her the good news, and enjoy the rest of the dance."

Laughing, Lucas answered, "Thanks, Detective Beckett." Instead of taking her suggestion, he paused, like he had one more thing to say. "Um...and, thanks for leaving Jordan out of this. She really didn't do anything, and I hate that my stunt got her in trouble with the police."

That's so sweet, Kate thought. Jordan's a lucky girl. "Well, Lucas, it's like you said – she was innocent from the beginning. If she was guilty I would have arrested her, but she wasn't. Simple as that."

"Oh. Right. You caught the person who did it?" At the detective's nod of confirmation, he replied, "I'm glad. Madison wasn't the nicest person, but...she didn't deserve what happened to her."

"No, she didn't." Before he could walk away, Kate remembered what she'd said to Castle. This is my only chance to ask Lucas about it, so...why not? "Oh, Lucas? I did have...one more question. Just purely out of curiosity."

Surprised, Lucas raised an eyebrow...and Kate reflexively thought of Castle's "trigger" warning. She would never, ever, admit this, but a small part of her wanted to flinch. Damn it, Castle. Thank goodness that Lucas hadn't noticed her inner turmoil. "Um, sure," he said.

"How did you do that trick?" she demanded. "I don't mean the one in the cafeteria, or in the prank...those were done with special effects. But in your house...we didn't find any magnets or wires. Or anything else that would explain what my partner and I saw."

Lucas gaped at her, speechless, instantly fearful again. "Y-you...you want me to explain?" At her unwavering stare, he tried to act offended instead of scared. "Come on, Detective," he said jokingly. "You're a cop. You can't actually believe in telekinesis."

His attitude annoyed her. "Of course I..."

"Is everything okay?" Jordan's trembling voice interrupted them, her hand shaky as she put it on Lucas' shoulder. "You're not going to arrest us, are you?"

Kate sighed. Apparently the stunt would remain a mystery. "No, Jordan. Lucas just wanted to speak with me about the case. Everything's fine." As the two returned to the dance floor, she glanced at Lucas. He was still panicked.

Strange... She stood there at the edge of the dance floor, confused. He's definitely lying...but if it's just a trick, what's there to lie about?!

Minutes later, Kate hurried to keep up as she ran down a Faircroft hallway after her fiance."Where are we going, Castle?" When she'd found him outside the gym, he'd been frustratingly cryptic as he suggested they take another detour before going back to the precinct. While she could understand that revisiting his old school made him nostalgic, she was in no mood for a trip down memory lane.

"I swear it won't take long," he assured her. "It's just something I've wanted to do for a long time..."

Kate smirked. "We're not making out under the bleachers, if that's where this is headed."

"Oh! Good idea, let's earmark that for later. But no, this is much more personal."

Even though she was a little intrigued, Kate didn't let it show on her face as they continued to wander the maze of locker-lined hallways. "We shouldn't be doing this," she hissed. "Technically there's no reason for us to stay here. If we're busted, we'll get in trouble...and Gates is way more scary than any detention hall."

"You don't have to tell me. I've been in plenty of detention halls to make the comparison." He slowed down his pace, zeroing in on the lockers they passed. He seemed to be checking the numbers. "Chill out, Rebel Becks," he teased. "It's harmless juvenile delinquency. They won't catch us."

"Was that what you were thinking when you put a cow on the roof?"

Castle laughed, looking back on the incident with a fondness in his eyes. "Yes it was, actually."

"And somehow, even after shadowing detectives, you've never learned your lesson." Aggravated, Kate stopped walking and let out a deep breath. Then she noticed that he was still examining numbers. "Hold on...did you drag me across the entire school, just so you could look at your old locker?"

"Yes, but for a reason! I'll tell the story when I find it."

Needing a moment to calm her nerves, Kate sat on a nearby bench while he continued his search. Her mind drifted back to the gym incident as she leaned back against the wall.

There has to be an explanation for that trick, she thought sleepily, fighting the urge to close her eyes after a long day. Telekinesis isn't real. Maybe there weren't any magnets or wires, but...it had to be done somehow. If you ask Castle later, he'll be able to come up with dozens of theories on it.

That's why you told him. So he could make you feel better about the whole thing.

Normally, Kate wouldn't let an insignificant detail affect her. She never did. There have been so many weird cases, but...they always had a realistic, palatable conclusion, one that she could write up in the reports without any misgivings. A few months back she told Castle that she only believed in what she could see, the magic of every day, and that was the absolute truth. Throughout her life, nothing had ever convinced her otherwise. But knowing that there was no "unknown" comforted her. If she did open her mind to the possibility, all of her weird cases would be much more daunting.

Over time, she even began to like those cases. They gave her the opportunity to see Castle's imagination run wild. True, when she was working a case she preferred theories she could actually use, but his ramblings about telekinesis or whatever else they "encountered" gave her perspective. She teased him and rolled her eyes when he really got going on a rant, but deep down it comforted her that his scenario could never be real.

Or at least...that's how it used to work.

Then she spilled that damn cup of coffee. Her love for coffee was strong and true, but that so-called "time travel" incident tested her devotion. There were some dark days where she could only sip her latte from Castle, discreetly tossing half of it in the trash when he wasn't looking. The unsettling thought of wasting more caffeine helped her recover.

But while Kate conquered her loss of appetite, the mystery overwhelmed her. She felt...small, like there was now so much more of the world beyond her grasp. Her dependable skepticism had inexplicably left her high and dry. One coincidental coffee stain, the first time she'd witnessed anything that seemed impossible, and right away she starts questioning her beliefs. She despised that she was so easily shaken. Anyone else would have dismissed with some far-fetched "logic" and left it at that. Maybe they were just two different coffee stains that happened to have similar shapes. It wasn't probable, but it was certainly possible. Kate stubbornly held on to the thin reasoning. It built her confidence back up and made that "small" feeling disappear.

Was she really going to fall apart again...just because some amateur magician wouldn't explain the secret behind a magic trick?

No, you aren't, she thought, mentally replying to her own rhetorical question. You never told him about the coffee stain because you were too afraid to admit that you had doubts. But you weren't ashamed this time. You were able to make light of it, because you know there's an explanation. All you'd have to do is dig a tiny bit deeper.

And maybe...if she wasn't busy wrapping up a case, she would.

That's why she didn't bother following up. It wasn't a priority.

Shaking her head, Kate decided that staying on the bench wasn't good for her mental health. She determinedly pushed herself to her feet. "Castle?" she called, starting to walk down the hallway. It turned to the left so she kept going, surprised she didn't see her fiance yet. This corridor split at the end. "Where did you go?"

"Over here, Beckett!

Hearing his voice, she chose the hallway on the right and saw him immediately. Her jaw dropped.

Her fiance was vandalizing school property. Castle stood on his tiptoes about five lockers ahead of her, pressed against one of the doors. There was a house key in his hand...which he used as a tool to pry off the silver number plate.

"What in the world are you doing?!" she hissed, rushing towards him.

"I want to see if it's still here!" Castle either missed or pretended not to notice her anger, solely focused on his mission to remove the plate. "When I was a student, I discovered that if you slid your key under the plate, it popped right off."

Kate had to laugh. Only Castle. "How exactly did you make that discovery?"

Fiddling with the key some more, Castle grinned triumphantly when one side of the plate swung loose from its hinge. "Well, one day I was looking at it..." he began, grasping the edge to pull out the other side. "And I got the idea to do this."

The plate dropped into his waiting palm. With a dramatic flourish he flipped it over, like revealing whether a coin was heads or tails. Even though she didn't know what he was expecting...she mirrored his disappointment when the back of the plate was nothing but smooth metal. "I don't get it," he muttered, scratching his head with his free hand. "I'm absolutely certain that this is the right number. When you change schools as much as I did, you develop a system for remembering important details like your class schedule...or your locker number."

"Well, it was probably a long shot," Kate said, rubbing his back soothingly as she leaned her head on his shoulder. "They must have replaced the lockers since you were here."

He sighed. "Yeah, I guess so."

Glancing at the plate, which was still in his hand, she became curious about the rest of the story. "Don't leave me in suspense, Rick. What were you hoping to find?"

"My initials at the time – 'R.R.'" He was happy to share the memory with her, even if he didn't have the evidence for it. "I'd used my house key back then too." Staring at the key in his other hand, he shifted his gaze towards her and smiled. "Are you going to arrest me if I commit one more act of vandalism?"

Realizing what he wanted to do, Kate picked her head up and leaned against his locker. "I can't arrest you if I don't witness anything." She smirked at him before closing her eyes. "Go ahead." Listening to the sound of keys scratching metal, Kate wished he would hurry up so they could clear out. The halls would probably stay empty while the dance was still going on, but she'd feel awful if the cranky old principal caught "Mr. Rodgers" breaking more rules.

And, yes, she wanted to get out of there. The unresolved "telekinetic" phenomenon, that conversation with Lucas...she had to move on from this case.

"Done. Open your eyes."

Kate followed her fiance's instruction...then gasped. Instead of the "RC" she'd anticipated, he'd written both of their initials. "RCKB" spanned the entire back of the plate.

"I love it!" she exclaimed, kissing his cheek. "Now I really won't arrest you for vandalism."

Laughing, Castle proudly held the plate up in front of them at arms' length. "I figured including your initials would sway you. Much more original than a tree-trunk carving, don't you think?"

"Definitely." Smiling mischievously, Beckett gave him a accusing glance. "Were you planning to add 'minor theft' to your growing school record?"

Much to her surprise, he shook his head. "Nope. Got a better idea." She moved aside as he approached the locker, replaced the number...then smacked the plate so it jammed back into the slot. He winced. "That was a little loud, huh?"

"Little bit."

"Well, so what?" He continued to stare at the plate as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, both admiring his romantic gesture. "It was worth the risk. Now Faircroft will know that Rick Castle was here too."

Kate kissed him again, this one a passionate lip-lock. If he didn't care about getting caught, then...neither would she. If only she could dismiss her fears of the unknown just as easily. As they strolled down the hallway towards the nearest exit, Kate decided that at least one of her remaining questions would be answered.

"So...where did you get that cow?"