Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

If Castle were to rate this homicide—and he does, all of them, in a little notebook that Beckett would kill him for if she ever found out—he'd give it only a two. There was virtually nothing to solve, given the big, fat fingerprints all over the murder weapon, which was a pressure cooker lid. Fat fingerprints is right, he thinks, as he watches the 400-pound perp sign his confession and slide it across the table to Beckett.

"There oughta be a place where I can object, your honor."

"I'm not the judge, Mister Fryer, I'm the detective."

"Yeah, I meant I object to my wife's cooking."

"Your late wife. And believe me, where you're going the cooking will be a lot worse."

After Fryer has been taken away in supersize-me handcuffs, Beckett and Castle are having coffee at her desk. "You know," he says cheerily, "as easy as it was to crack that case, there were parts of it that really tickled me."

"Murder isn't supposed to entertain, Castle."

"I know, I know. But you have to admit there were some hilarious aspects."

"Such as?"

"Such as the murder site being a kitchen and the weapon being part of a pressure cooker. I mean, look at him, he weighs more than the two of us together."

"We're not together, Castle."

He sees her tiny smile, though, the one that her favorite office mug cannot entirely conceal. "He looks like a pressure cooker, doesn't he? That red face and all those chins? Like he's going to explode any minute. And what about his name? Fryer? Doesn't get any better than that." He's beginning to think he should up the case rating to a three.

Beckett takes a big gulp of coffee, but he knows she mumbled something into it.

"What's that?"

"I didn't say anything."

"Yes, you did. You pushed your hair behind your ear while you were holding your mug. Total tell."

"Hmmph."

"C'mon, Beckett. Spill. If you don't, I'll torture it out of you."

"And how will you do that, Castle?"

"Oh, so many, many ways."

She puts her hands up. "Okay, okay. I said 'skillet'."

"Skillet?"

She looks deeply into her regrettably empty mug. "It would have been even better if he'd killed her with a skillet."

He laughs so hard that he almost chokes on his coffee, some of which lands on his shirt. A skillet! The rating for this homicide just went to four.

"You okay, Castle?" Ryan calls from across the room.

"Fine, thanks. Just swallowed wrong."

Beckett pins him with her best cautionary look.

"I won't. I won't. Not saying a thing."

"Good. Now I gotta get to the paperwork."

"Right. I'm just gonna go work on my shirt."

"I figured."

He spends the next ten minutes in the break room, treating the coffee stain with some seltzer and drying it as much as he can with paper towels. He uses the time to think about Beckett the Barber, but gets nowhere. She had to have been there. It couldn't have been a dream, could it? She even said something about his hair looking good. Trouble is, he put extra styling stuff in it this morning because he didn't have time to wash it, so he can't tell if it's that or if his hair really is shorter. She didn't say shorter, anyway, she just said did he get a haircut "or something." What about the shave, though? Shit, he can't tell about that either, because in his befogged state this morning he'd run his electric razor over his face and hadn't even noticed if he'd needed to. He'll have to start sniffing around. Maybe he'll make her another cup of coffee. She's doing paperwork, she'll like that. Might weaken her defenses. He roots around and finds her favorite beans, and makes the best cup of his life. It's a masterpiece, if he does say so himself. He even made the shape of an NYPD badge in the foam.

Castle is almost at her desk when he hears that she's humming softly. Humming! Just like she had at in his apartment at three o'clock in the morning. It's not Barber of Seville, though, or "Shave and a Haircut." Huh. "For you, Detective," he says, placing the mug near but not dangerously close to her keyboard.

"Thanks, Castle," she says. "Oh, that's sweet. A police badge. I'll drink this one carefully."

"How's the paperwork going?"

"Fine, not too complicated with this case, luckily."

"That why you were humming?"

"Humming?"

"You were humming."

"Yeah, sorry. Didn't realize it was loud enough to hear."

"I was trying to guess the tune. It sounded familiar." Actually, it hadn't sounded familiar at all, but there could be a clue here.

"It was an old Elvis song."

"Really? Do tell."

" 'Crawfish,' from a movie of his."

"What brought that to mind, Beckett? The subconscious is a really interesting place, you know."

"Nothing subconscious about 'Crawfish.' It was skillet that prompted it. You don't know that song?"

"Educate me, please," he says, resting his chin in his hand.

Beckett sings, sotto voce, " 'Now take Mr. Crawfish in your hand, He's gonna look good in your frying pan'."

"Why do I have a feeling there's more to that song than meets the ear?"

"There is. You can look it up. Some of us have work to do."

"Why Detective Beckett, you sound a little snappish. Have you not been sleeping well?"

"I've been sleeping like a baby, Castle, which is why I have the energy to plow through this paperwork so quickly. Assuming I'm not interrupted, of course."

He pushes himself up from the chair and stretches. "I can take a hint. It's late and I'm heading home."

"Gotta make dinner for Alexis?"

"Nope. Mother's in Florida all week, and Alexis is at Model UN in Albany until tomorrow night. "

"Oh, that's nice. Good for her."

"But I've got a lot of other things to do at home. To, you know, look into." He looks levelly at her, but she just smiles as usual.

"Night, Castle," she says, and returns to her papers.

He's no closer to knowing whether she was a dream than he had been hours ago, but there should be some answers at home. He can hardly wait to get there.

As soon as he closes the front door he goes to the kitchen. He hadn't tidied up before he'd left for the precinct, hadn't even been in there. There should be evidence of the hot chocolate they'd had—mugs in the sink, a saucepan with residue, a tin of cocoa powder on the counter. But there's nothing. Nothing at all. Wait, the housekeeper! She'd come, obviously run the dishwasher, everything. He takes out his phone and calls.

"Hi, Alicia?"

"Rick? Is something wrong at home?"

"No, no, everything's fine. I just had a quick question. By any chance did you clean up some hot chocolate in the kitchen? A saucepan? Mugs?"

"No, there was nothing like that. Nothing on the counter, and the sink was empty except for half a glass of water, that's all. Did I miss anything?"

"Nope, it's perfect as always. I must have cleaned up without realizing it. Half asleep or something." He chuckles feebly. "Sorry to have bothered you, Alicia."

"It's ever a bother. I'll be in day after tomorrow."

"Right. Thanks again. Night."

"Night."

There was one more possibility: the doorman. No. No. No. He bangs his head against the fridge. He had given Beckett full access to the garage when she had stayed in the loft a year ago after her apartment had blown up. So last night she'd have driven in, parked and come up without the doorman, or anyone else, knowing.

There are two explanations. A, he's missing something or B, he's crazy. He'd rather it were A, even though it would wound his pride to overlook something, than B. Or maybe there's a C. It was just a very, very vivid dream. That's it. That's a reasonable and sane explanation. He's going with C. A dream. A dream within a dream. He was dreaming about Beckett and then he thought he'd woken up and seen her but that was also a dream. Perfectly sensible. Everybody dreams.

He needs a drink.

He has one.

He makes a grilled-cheese sandwich and sits down at his desk to chew over the situation. Okay, if it was a dream, why was she cutting his hair? Does he think of them as Samson and Delilah? Please. Ridiculous. Maybe it was just a safe way to dream of her. Not an actual sexual dream, a sensual one. Sensual and sexy even though she was wearing that coat and sneakers. Erotic without being X-rated. Well, that sucks. If he's going to have an erotic dream about Beckett, couldn't she at least be naked? He needs to have a word with Hypnos about this. Funny, he hadn't known anything about the god of sleep until Beckett told him when they were both trying to stay awake during a stakeout. She knows a lot about Greek mythology. She knows a lot about a lot of things, which is one of at least 500 reasons he loves her.

Oh. Oh.

It's not that he didn't know, doesn't know, it's just that he's never said it out loud in his head. Because then he might say it out loud, period, and that would be—.

No wonder he's been dreaming. It's so safe.

He's going to go to bed. He strips down, tosses his clothes in the hamper, and picks up his toothbrush. Hmm, does he smell sandalwood oil? In your dreams, he thinks. Yeah, in your dreams would be good, if they're anything like last night's. Beyond good.

He gets into bed, contentedly, and pulls the covers up to his neck. Sweet dreams, he tells himself, before he falls asleep.

The doorbell rings.

TBC

A/N I loved the theories about the last chapter, especially those reviewers who thought that Beckett was sleepwalking! Thank you all.