Four of a Kind

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I own none of the Castles. Rating: M Time: In the very near future.

Chapter One. Death Sentence.

Rick Castle was sure that someone had used a fire ax to chop open his skull, scoop out his brains and fill his skull with napalm. Having done that, they had used the same ax on his stomach, pulling his entrails out, tying them in knots and beating on them with a baseball bat. Kate and I didn't have that much to drink last night, did we? Sure it's our real honeymoon, but…Kate! Where is she?

He managed to pry open one eye and saw only a blur. He blinked a few times and his vision cleared a little. There! Kate was only a few feet away from him on a couch.

He moved towards her, almost falling off the couch. "Kate! Honey! Wake up, please. Are you okay?" He took her hands and tried to pull her upright so he could hold her.

"What?" She mumbled. "What…"

He hugged her tightly. "Honey, what happened?"

"Mr. Castle?" Kate looked at him with an odd look on her face.

His eyes dropped to her left hand. There were no rings there. "You're not my wife. You're Captain Kate Beckett." He said, almost accusingly.

"I'm your wife, babe." Said a familiar voice.

Castle whirled around, almost emptying his stomach. Kate, his Kate, was on the other end of the couch. "You're my Kate? Detective Kate Beckett? Mrs. Kate Castle?" He could see her engagement and wedding rings on her left hand and she was dressed in the same clothes they had worn arriving on their private island in the Maldives.

She nodded and then held her head. "Yes." She smiled. "And you're my husband, Mr. Richard Castle." She looked like she was going to throw up. "What the hell happened to us? And who is….she?" Kate suddenly realized she was looking at another version of her. "Kelly Neiman?" She said, fearing the worst.

"Who's this Castle guy? You're talking to my muse, Detective Rick Rodgers, and he's not married. I've been following him for three years while writing my books." The speaker was yet another Kate Beckett.

They all began talking at once, which seemed to make everyone's heads pound and stomachs churn. In minutes they were all silent. Castle spoke. "I think I know what happened. I was somehow sent into an alternate universe a while ago. I met Captain Kate Beckett there." He pointed to the captain. "She's who my wife would have become if we'd never met."

"Alternate universes?" Said the third Beckett. "I like science fiction, but be serious."

"And how do you explain that there are three of us here?" His Kate asked.

"Hey! There's just one of me here. I don't know what or who you two are. Rodgers, what's going on here? I thought we were….together."

Castle groaned. "Together?"

"Okay, at first you hated having me shadow you and hated my book, but after three years…."

"Your book?" Rick and his Kate said together.

Writer Kate nodded. "Three books so far. But I did more than shadow you. I'm your partner. We solve crimes together. And we're…together. A couple."

This couldn't possible get any worse. Castle thought.

The universe promptly proved him wrong.

A portion of the wall opened up, three people walked in and sat behind a large desk. One was well known to Rick. "Meredith, what the hell is this? Damn it, I want…" Rick stopped suddenly, pain in his legs almost causing him to fall over. He staggered back to the couch and sat.

"The prisoner will be silent." Said one of the three. In addition to Meredith, there were two older men. The one who had spoken was large, white haired and rather bulky. Castle thought he looked angry. The other man was slender, and appeared older than the first. His hair was also white, but quite sparse. He looked rather bored.

Meredith spoke. "I am Chief Judge Meredith McDonald, Second Interworld Appellate Court. And I am not your Meredith, any more than those other two are your Kates." Meredith shuffled some papers in front of her. "This is your trial."

"My trial for what? I haven't done anything."

The skinny man shook his head. "You must have done something or you wouldn't be here, would you?"

"Circular reasoning?" Castle cried out. "I'm being railroaded."

"You four are being tried." Meredith replied.

"Four of us?" Detective Kate said.

"Correct."

"What did we do?"

The slender one looked over at Meredith. "Perhaps a bit of explanation is in order?"

"What for?" The other man said sourly. "They're guilty."

"Go ahead." Meredith said disinterestedly. "We have time."

Skinny smiled at her and turned back to Castle and the three Kates. "As you suspected, you are in an alternate universe. One in which none of you exist. Our Earth is the only one of what are theoretically an infinite number of Earths that know the secret of moving from one world to the next."

"I managed it." Castle said.

"And committed a crime to which he's now confessed." Said the bulky man. "Trial's over. Can we get on with this?" He pointedly looked at his watch.

Skinny smiled. "You moved between worlds, but you have no idea how you did so. Only we have the secret. And we must protect that secret."

"Why?" That was writer Kate,

"Many reasons. Some Earths are dangerous. On one Earth, the fascists won World War Two. They rule all of that Earth. If they could find a way to other worlds, they'd invade them. In another, World War Three was fought. They used not only nuclear weapons but biologicals. One was so dangerous, it killed off humanity on that Earth. The virus is still there. Should anyone cross to that world without proper precautions, another Earth could be devastated."

"Of course we're not totally altruistic." Meredith said.

Skinny nodded. "In the forty or so years since we learned to go between worlds, we've explored over twelve thousand, to one degree or another."

"There are about a hundred that are at about our level of technology, but none more advanced than us." That was Meredith.

"At least that we've found." Skinny added. "But, when one Earth makes a new medical advance, or designs a better computer, or whatever, we arrange to buy it clandestinely and ship it back here. And, voila, it's our new medical advance, or whatever. We have the best of a hundred worlds. They do all the work, we get the benefit. For free."

"And we get more." That was Bulky, speaking up. "There are three Earths where mankind never existed. Perfect copies of this Earth otherwise. We go to those Earths and if we want oil, we know exactly where to drill in what would have been Saudi Arabia. We know exactly where diamonds are in South Africa, or coal in Appalachia. And we don't have to worry about the environment. Our land, seas and skies remain pristine."

"So you're parasites?" Castle asked.

"We prefer to think of ourselves as being at the top of the food chain." Skinny said with a smile.

"And we intend to stay that way." Bulky added. No smile there.

"Which brings us to your trial." Meredith cut in.

"I was hoping you'd forgotten about that." Rick said under his breath.

Meredith went on. "You got ahold of, and activated an incredibly ancient device that also allows passage between worlds. It has two functions. One, allows what happened to you, Mr. Castle. You were temporarily in the mind of another Richard Castle. However, in using the device, you started some sort of chain reaction and began another function. This allows people to travel from one Earth to another. Captain Beckett and Miss Beckett, the writer, were somehow pulled into your world. There were other things that happened that do not concern us here."

"I'd like to know about them since we only have your word that they don't concern our trial." That was Kate Castle.

"Denied." Bulky said.

"Naturally, both the police captain and the writer headed for 12th Precinct. As you can imagine, when two Kate Becketts showed up…"Meredith smiled. "There was pandemonium."

"We cannot allow any technologically advanced society to have evidence that there are other, alternate Earths." Skinny said. "It could end our monopoly."

"I'm heart broken." Castle said.

"You should be." Meredith said coldly. "Because of your actions, I'm sentencing the four of you to death."

"With no trial?" Rick's Kate cried.

"You just had your trial." Bulky replied.

"We want to appeal." Captain Beckett said.

"There is no appeal from this court." Meredith said, gathering up some papers. "As is my duty, I'll escort the condemned to the execution chamber."

"Do you need help?" Bulky asked, entirely too eagerly for Castle's taste.

"Not necessary." Skinny said. "We need to meet with the Coordinating Council's subcommittee. We're late already. Judge McDonald can handle this."

All four prisoners shot to their feet and strode towards Meredith after the two men left. All four stopped, their legs on fire with pain.

"One of the things we picked up on another Earth is this." Meredith held up something like a TV remote. "I can control your nervous systems. Make you feel pain, or just make you go where I want you to." All four turned involuntarily to the doorway and started walking down a hallway.

"The execution chamber is very humane. You won't feel a thing." Meredith said conversationally.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Castle asked snidely.

"No. Not at all." Meredith said honestly.

Rick reached out and took his Kate's hand. "Sorry, babe."

"Not your fault."

Surprisingly, Captain Kate took his other hand. "Is it okay if I hold his hand, too?" She asked.

Kate smiled. "Sure. How about you, Writer Lady?"

The third Kate reached forward and put her hand over Rick's and his Kate's hand. "Now I wish I'd pushed harder to get Rick. So much wasted time."

"We're turning here into this alcove." Meredith said.