OMG, these two. Seriously. First they won't shut up, now they won't talk. Sorry this took so long and is so short, it's all I could drag out of them for now.

BTW, there is no douchebag arc in my season 4. Castle suspected in Rise that she'd heard him, and that's good enough to justify his accusation in Always without needing a whole lot of utterly unpleasant nonsense.

He's still trying to read her, finds that this is one of those times that he just can't. Of all the responses he thought he might get once she found his summer project, no, no take it down wasn't really one of them. He's not sure whether he should be worried, or just be glad he's not going to have to go nine rounds to convince her to hear him out.

'I may already have a plan,' he admits. 'Or, well...I started a plan.' She watches without comment as he moves behind her, lifts the huge photograph of the stairway off the wall. He's never worried too much about hiding his safe – he'd always figured that if anyone did actually get in to look for it, better they could find it without tearing the place apart. Until last summer, there was nothing in it anyway but some deeds and a will and a few thousand bucks. And then Beckett got shot. And he made a plan. A wild, crazy, feverish plan, spawned in the tedium of an entire summer spent waiting for her to call. Until he gave up hope, and frankly, forgot about what he'd done, shamed by the realisation that he was acting like some Disneyfied white knight, dashing off to rescue the fair maiden from her dragon captor.

And then Smith had called, and he'd put part one of the plan in action. Just in case. Just in case Smith failed. In case Montgomery had lied more than they'd realised. In case the dragon was really on the hunt for Kate Beckett after all.

She's watching him like a cop watches a suspect who's reaching into his pocket for some ID - wary, but willing to give him a chance to explain himself. It looks wrong with her mussed hair, the angles of her body lost in the soft folds of his robe. Wrong with the real fear he can see smouldering in the back of her eyes, now momentarily under control.

Castle takes the thick envelope out of the safe and empties the contents on the desk. Five smaller envelopes, each with a name. He picks out the one he's looking for and hands it to her, heart in his mouth, avoiding her pointed look. He already knows what the envelope contains. Canadian passport and drivers licence, debit card for a bank in the Cayman Islands, all in the name of Caitlin Alice Jones.

She looks at the passport, at her own picture it in. 'Castle…how?'

'Remember my old buddy, Sal?' Clearly not, by the blank look on her face. 'Years ago, that case with the mobster.'

'The case that got my ex-boyfriend shot?'

He swallows strongly. Yeah, he'd kind of forgotten about that part.

'The case where you gave my mom's casefile to your doctor friend behind my back and I didn't talk to you for the next three months?'

Now he can't even swallow. Her face is closed, shuttered, her voice absolutely neutral. Yeah, like she's talking to a suspect she's got cornered. God knows he feels like one. 'I went back to Sal. After. After you got shot,' he starts. The other time you didn't talk to me for three months, he almost adds, but for once in his life manages to hold his tongue. 'We couldn't get a lead on the guy, couldn't figure out why you were still a target. We didn't know Montgomery had a file. So I went to Sal and I got...insurance.'

She reaches for the next envelope he hands her. It's his, Frederick Jones. Two more envelopes, one for his daughter and one for his mother, both passport only. He's not crazy enough to give his mother direct access to his money and his daughter doesn't need it. And the last. He lets out his breath and inadvertently holds it again as she opens the passport to see the picture and the name Samuel Jones.

'I knew if it ever came down to using these, I wouldn't want to leave my mother behind,' he rasps. 'I thought you might feel the same about your dad.'

She's absolutely frozen and he can't tell if that's good or bad.

'Kate, if we just-'

She shoves the passports away and abruptly stands, heading for the balcony doors as if she needs some air. And then turns away from the doors, her look a little too wild, a little too windows! windows!, brushes by him and heads back into the bedroom. He gives her a second and then follows, finding her standing with her back to the wall, staring at the mussed bed as if it's a rhinocerous or something equally out of place. Or as if she is. He realises he shouldn't reach for her just as he does, but instead of leaping away she turns towards him, reaching up to wind her arms around his neck.

'I didn't want us to start like this. With this hanging over us. That's why I didn't say I'd heard you. Not because I didn't want you, Castle, but because I did.'

He raises his hands to her back, spreads his fingers over her shoulderblades. Even through the thick robe he can feel how thin she still is, even now. Cannot imagine how fragile she must have been a year ago. 'It's okay, Kate. It was bad timing, I know that now.'

A sharp laugh goes through her, rattling into his own chest. 'It was terrible timing.' She raises her head, nuzzling against the corner of his mouth while his body freezes, unsure whether or not to be hurt, finding it kind of hard to concentrate on anything while she's doing that. 'But it was chivalrous and romantic. And also completely melodramatic and soap operaish-'

'Okay, I think I get it, I was being a-'

She pulls him down, kisses the words right out of his mouth. 'Thank you for thinking about my dad.'

He stares at her, heart pounding, and not just from the force of her kiss. The fact of her kiss. Well, okay, and that. He's still not used to that. He thinks maybe he's never going to get used to that, and maybe he never should. Just like he's never going to be able to predict the way she'll react to anything, because he certainly didn't expect to be kissed and thanked for going behind her back and doing something as crazy as this.

She puts a hand to his face, lightly rubbing at the stubble around his chin. He realises he's about to get lost in some fantasy Beckett who's angry at him, which is utterly stupid when the real Beckett is right here, looking at him like...

Wow. Like that? Like...maybe he did something right this time. Or at least not wrong. Like it's okay that his armour is old and the visor keeps dropping over his face and when he falls off his horse he's not very good at getting back up again. Like he's her knight regardless, tarnished and battered, but loved.

'You're really not mad at me?'

Tarnished, battered and squeaky. Great.

She drops her hand and steps away to gather the little blue booklets together, replacing each one in the proper envelope. 'I might have been. Before. Now...now I just want to be done. With this case and every single thing about it. And it just keeps coming back.' He hears the sharp edge to her voice now, grief and fear. But mostly fear. 'I can't keep us all safe here, Castle. I have no badge, no weapon. My backup was in my apartment. And the badge was never really going to help. I know that now. So, no, I'm not mad at you. Although your mother might be a bit surprised to find out that she's apparently married to my father.'

He catches the strain beneath the attempt to joke it away. She pushes the stack of envelopes towards him and he picks them up, wondering yes, really, what he was thinking when he picked out those names?

'I thought…it would look less odd if we were all one family, travelling together.' She looks up at him at last, face so much softer than he was expecting. 'We could be brother and sister, we don't have to—'

'Castle, don't. Are we in this?'

He drops the envelopes and comes around the desk, reaches for her and pulls her into his arms before she can have any doubts about his intentions. 'Yes. Yes. Kate, I'm so sorry I opened the case, I'm—'

'No, I'm sorry I brought my mess to your doorstep. I didn't want this like this, but this is how it's happening and I'm not—' She stops short, presses her face into his chest, her whole body going completely still. And then, after a long moment, she draws a slow, shaky breath and lifts her head. 'I'm not letting them have this.' Her fists are wound tight into the back of his shirt, her face as set and stubborn as he's ever seen it. She takes another breath, stronger, deeper, as if raising herself up to Beckett-height, growing the three inches she usually gets from her heels. 'I don't know what it took for you to get those passports. How much it cost, Castle, five of them. But I know why you did it. And I'm done being stupid about that. So yes. I want you. I want this. And if the only way for us to have this is to run away, then yes, okay, let's run like hell and take everyone we love with us.'