In the season 2 episode "Tick, Tick, Tick," Castle offers Beckett a glass of wine, which she turns down. In the morning, however, there are two empty glasses on the coffee table. A late-night tryst has taken place. Next installment in my series of unrelated one-shots chronicling Caskett's budding romance.

She slips into unconsciousness. Castle the novelist hopes it's a swoon brought on by his confession of love. Castle the realist has to acknowledge a terrible reality: Kate Beckett is dying, right there, in his arms.