Please excuse any grammar errors or obviously stupid mistakes. I might have been too lazy to edit this. Also, I just wanted to remind you that I don't own Castle, but if all 5 of you that read this wanted to get together and buy me Castle... I would not object. :)

MILE FOUR:

As they crossed the carpet laid out, tracking their 5K split time, Kate turned to Castle. "Okay, I grant you a request."

He laughed. "You can't think of a story, can you?"

"I can! I just thought I'd grant you a chance to make your own demands." He turned, raising an eyebrow. "Okay, fine, I can't decide which one is right, and I see that hill ahead. I wanted to give you the best possible story as we climb it."

Castle looked in the direction she pointed and swears. It's endearing, really, the fact that he's running all these miles for her. She never thought she would fall in love with someone who would run because she loved it.

Castle muttered, "If I have to go up that, then I need a good story, one that will make me laugh. Because oh, my poor shins!"

She reflected on her life. Oh! That night… well, that would be a funny story for him, mortifying for her – but entirely inappropriate for the still-packed streets around them. She would save it for later, once the crowds have thinned. There was the red solo cup story, and he would enjoy that, but it would be too quick, wouldn't last them for the length of the climb.

"Kate, that hill's getting awfully close," Castle's voice broke into her stream of conscious.

"Patience, little one."

She laughed as he clasped an hand over his chest at the word 'little'. "You wound me, Beckett."

A flash of inspiration shot through her head. That'll work to get him revved up during the climb, she thought to herself. "Will a story heal those wounds?" He nodded, a small smile forming on the corners of his lips. "One of the things I loved best about Stanford was the quirkiness. After four years on the East Coast at a high school that took tradition very seriously, I was just ready to escape it all. I had been fighting the system for years then, terrorizing my parents, and a school that had an university-sanctioned night for making out and streaking on the main quad seemed like a good choice."

"They have that?! Thank god Alexis didn't go there."

"Complete with bingo cards. It's a big deal." She smiled at some of the memories – racing with friends to compete the bingo cards, purposefully screwing with guys' bingo cards by signing inconvenient squares, catcalling when a friend made out with a football player.

"My story isn't about Full Moon on the Quad, though. It's about another Stanford tradition. Every freshman dorm plays Assassins. And I took the game very seriously."

They swooped by a water station, grabbing a cup of water and Gatorade each. For a moment, they lost each other in the bustle of people, but then the crowd thinned and they spotted one another. Settling back into a rhythm, Castle spoke, "So… Assassins. You won?"

"No, and I still call it unfair I lost! I developed strategies for months."

Castle interjected. "Let me guess. Seduction."

"Couldn't shoot someone in their bedroom or in a classroom, and if you lured them in any other place, you were opening yourself up to fire. Besides, it would have been a public place, and public places had witnesses that would invalidate the shot."

He pondered for a moment. "Super soaker? Sniper water gun?"

She shook her head. "Only allowed the tiny little water gun provided by the dorm. Unless it broke, in which case you got another tiny little water gun provided by the dorm. Want to venture any other guesses?"

"One more. Did you end up stalking your targets all across the campus, hiding in bushes, wearing combat gear, and launching out with a yell to assassin them?"

She smiled slightly. It was the closest to the truth he had gotten so far. "Minus the whole yelling thing, more or less, that was closer to my strategy."

"Alright then, Beckett, tell the story. How did you survive Assassins but not emerge victorious?" He looked at her eagerly, completely ignoring the hill he was climbing. Yes, Kate thought to herself, this was a good choice.

"Well, when one has an entire year to prepare, one tends to be pretty ready come spring. I had a good collection of outdoor gear, I invested in some supplies from the army surplus store one town over, and I bought a number of non-perishable items. My screen was removed from my bedroom window a month earlier, so as not to arouse suspicion about my plan (or encourage any copycats). And on the day Assassins began, I went off the grid."

Kate laughed. "Nobody knew where I was, EVER. I went to some classes, but not to others. When I showed up for class, I'd sit in the lecture room for hours, so nobody would know when I'd get there or I'd leave. I sat through more random lectures for classes I didn't take during those three weeks than any other time at Stanford. I slept outside on different parts of campus, occasionally barricading myself into buildings for a warm night's sleep. I used to climb in my window at 4 am to get my shower, my clothes, and more food, before I'd head out again. My goal was avoidance for the first week, let everyone kill each other before I would start killing my target. The beauty was it gave me a week to learn the motions of my target, gave him time to take down his guard too."

"When a week went by, the dorm changed the rules. You had to assassinate at least one target a week. I had twelve hours to get to mine before I was disqualified. It was easy; he left the dining hall at brunch alone, I was behind the bushes, and he was wet before he even saw me. The kill was reported, I had my new target, and I went back into deep cover. My friends were gradually eliminated, meaning I had a network of spies operating for the purposes of my winning the competition."

Kate chanced a look at Castle. He was engrossed. His legs were pumping hard, and he was looking at the ground, but his lips curved in a smile, his forehead creased with attention. It was working.

"I took out my next two targets easily: one of the girls from the floor above me ordered a pair of shoes; I assassinated at the post office in the cove where her PO Box was located. The other I got as he left his lab late at night. I was golden. By all reports, we were down to the last seven or so assassins, and nobody had been as determined as me."

She sighed. "And then the betrayal."

"Your story has a betrayer? This is actually an epic saga." Castle's words came out as pants, betraying how hard he was working to climb the hill, but his amusement was obvious.

"Yes, and how terribly tragic the betrayal was! You see, I had run into a friend one night as I entered the English building – a building that locked all its doors at 6 pm, rendering me safe as I wrote a paper that night on the computers. I should have changed buildings, but I desperately needed to write, and the English building was the only secure building with public access computers. So I risked it, swearing her to secrecy."

"She ran to your assassin, because it was the man she was madly in love with?"

"Better story, but no. She was smarter than that, and she was a decent friend. She was tricked, though. A mutual friend of ours, one that I knew was most likely still in the game, as no one could confirm her kill, sat with her at dinner. They were making conversation, and my friend mentioned me, not in the context of Assassin. The evil assassin, still undercover, went, 'Oh, where is KBecks anyway?'"

Castle laughed, and she shot him a glare. "I still can't get over the fact that they called you that in college! KBecks! It's too good. Oh, god bless that murder at that sci-fi convention."

"Hey, how about a little respect for the dead? And I'm still regretting not pulling you away before you got to see that photo. Anyway, back to the story. After my friend asked her if he was still playing, which of course he denied, she told him that I was in the English building. At three am, I had a very rude awakening as he emptied his entire water gun onto my face. I acknowledge that I was very impressed with his ability to get into the building; all the doors were locked, I checked that, which means he entered by climbing through open windows from the building next door into mine. Not an easy feat. But it would have been impossible for him to have known where I was without it!"

"So how close were you?"

"Turns out that I was the third place finisher. I ended up getting my revenge by helping the eventual winner kill my assassin. Took a couple more sleepless nights and days of stalking, but it was totally worth it." Kate looked around. "And hey! We've crested the hill and right there –" she pointed, "is the mile four marker. Perfect timing."

Castle laughed sarcastically. "My shins are on fire. How can I carry on?!"

"What about you, me, and camouflage tonight? Does that motivate you sufficiently?"

He growled lowly. "Careful, Kate, or we might not finish the race."

She winked at him. "You have to keep running for the stories. You want more stories, don't you?" The tone was light, but there's an undercurrent. Kate knew these stories would motivate him, because as much as she tries, as much as she's getting better at letting him in, there's still a lot of herself that she's kept hidden away. And that's why twelve stories can motivate him to run a half marathon.

"Hey." Castle touched her arm. "I'm grateful for the stories. But I'm mostly grateful for you."

She stared at him for a moment, a serious look on her face, before turning back to the road with an eye roll. "What a sap."

"And that –" he leaned over past the mile marker, "-is mile four. New story. You owe me after that hill."

With a shake, Kate began a new narrative to push Castle on for another mile.

Author's Note: Hi there. Do you all even remember me? Yeah, so about that... apparently graduating is a lot more time consuming than I thought. BUT the good news is I think I'm back for a while! WOOT. Although given I've been reading too many scary stories today I may have just scared myself shitless and won't be able to write for at least a day without evil spirits and shit haunting my words.

Oh, and reviews are appreciated. Especially if they include tips on HOW TO FORGET THE SCARY STORIES THAT YOU'VE JUST READ. :)