This idea has been in my head for a week now, ever since I saw the Canadian promo for this episode it's been percolating, but not ready to pour out of my head and onto the paper – until today, when the episode airs! I better post it now, before it becomes obsolete in about half an hour… but at least it will live on in the world of fanfiction, right? Not all that likely going to happen, but it sure was fun to write! Please enjoy.

SPOILERWARNING: Contains spoilers for episode 4x10, "Cuffed". Based on a tiny glimpse of a scene from the Canadian preview.

Scene set-up: Castle and Beckett wake up and find themselves locked into an unfamiliar room, hand-cuffed together (left wrist to left wrist), on a mattress (fully clothed though), with no memories as to how they got there or what has happened.

She hates not being in control. Control is what got her through the tough years, what gets her through life. This, she can't control. She cannot get away; no escape, no hiding. She feels naked without her badge, her gun. The truth is, she's scared. Not knowing the whys and who's and how's, not having any memories, it makes her queasy, her tummy fluttering like she might throw up at any moment. She takes a few deep breaths, trying to quell the oncoming panic, in through her nose and out. She can't lose it now, not with him tied to her side, when he relies on her. She is the trained officer, she needs to protect him. She can't let him down, he has a daughter, he's her partner, her… everything – she can't think about that right now.

She can't just sit here, she needs to do something. She twists around, trying to get up, but snapping back like a stretched rubber band, tethered to his wrist. As if she forgot for a moment how she was bound to him, her movement entirely out of habit.

"Oww," he winces behind her, hissing air through his teeth.

She sits down on the mattress again, her back closer to him so their wrists can relax against their sides within the confines of the metal of the handcuffs.

"Sorry Castle," she acknowledges, tries to stroke his fingers with hers for a moment because she can't twist her hand enough to reach the wrist that she just inflicted pain upon.

They are silent for a few moments; she huffs in frustration, her spurt of activity quenched for the time being. So she just sits, listening to his breathing behind her. She can feel the faint warmth of his breath fluttering in her direction, against her neck, and it's strangely comforting. His silence, the rhythm of his breathing tells her he's thinking. When did it happen that she knows him so well?

"How is it we don't remember anything?" He suddenly questions. He's quiet another moment, but then he continues.

"I sure was hoping I'd remember every nuance when we finally spent a night together!" He says this part with a teasing lilt, and it makes her smile, just like he intended. Her tummy jitters with flutters of a different kind and it startles her, the realization that she missed this, the teasing Castle, the flirting and the innuendos, the fun. He's been so careful with her, giving her the time and space she requested, and that warms her too. When did she get so messed up? If she is sending mixed signals even to herself, how must he feel? She sighs.

"Alien abduction?" he muses. "CIA? Oh I know," he sounds excited now, "we went through the StarGate portal to a foreign planet!"

"Castle!" She chuckles, though more for his benefit. 'Idon'tbegrudgeyouyourcopingmechanisms!', he had protested earlier, when they had woken up, finding themselves handcuffed to each other, with her cuffs no less, and she couldn't help but snap at him because she was confused and frightened and it was the only familiar reaction she could reach for. She realizes that he had a point; she knows him well enough to know how he handles stressful situations, as much as he knows how she manages, and she needs to give a little too.

"I don't recall the SG-1 team ever suffering from memory loss when they reached their destinations, and I don't see the portal; do you?"

"Good point, Detective," he concedes, but she hears the layers in his voice, the smile, the trust, the admiration for her knowledge of all things 'geeky'. She smiles too, far brighter than the situation calls for, and she twists around, trying to look back at him.

A searing pain in her back makes her hiss, and his hand is on her immediately, holding on to her side.

"Kate, what's wrong?"

She takes a deep breath, but realizes now that she's no longer moving, the pain only lingers faintly.

"I don't know," she straightens her back carefully, trying to locate where it came from. "It's on my lower back, toward the right," she explains to him. "Like a stab, or a burn."

She grabs her shirt, pulls up the hem. "Can you have a look?"

Chilly air hits her skin and she realizes she didn't think this through.

There's a moment with no movement, heavy with silence, weighed by things unsaid. Her heart hammers against her ribs. She wants to pull her shirt back down, cover up, she wants to rip it off and sit in front of him, baring her skin, her soul.

And then his fingers are on her, and she has to tell herself to breathe evenly. His left hand is holding on to her, spanning her butt cheek and it tingles, even through the strong denim.

"Oh Kate," he almost whispers, soft fingers now tracing the skin on the left of her lower back.

"What is it?"

"It's," he skims along her skin, circles, ghosts of touches. "A needle mark. A big syringe, it looks like. The skin around it looks slightly infected, about an inch in diameter." She winces when he skims across the rim of the mark, but only a little because it stings and a lot because it's his fingers, on her skin, finally, and she forgets how to think.

"Must have been a heavy sedative, I guess," he continues talking but he may as well have been reciting the multiplication tables because she feels lulled and she can't concentrate and she wants more. She can't help it when she leans back just a little, leaning against his touch.

"I probably have one too," he rambles on, but his voice is lower now, a dark whisper in the emptiness of the room. His fingers slide along her waist, spanning her sides, slow, barely-there touches, and she bites her lip to keep a moan inside because these, they are some of her most sensitive spots and damn how does he know just how to touch her?

"Kate." He whispers, his voice full of longing and ache that a heavy heat pools within her, unfurling slowly, unraveling her. For this one moment it doesn't matter where she is and why, she doesn't want it to matter, she wants to feel, has forgotten how goodit is to just feel.

He scoots closer, his front against her back while his hands wander around her waist and along the soft skin of her tummy. His fingers skim and linger, explore and rest, a haphazard rhythm, music against her body.

Her breathing is heavy, she feels her ribcage lift and fall under his strong hands, and so she lets her head fall back, rest against his shoulder next to his face. Entrusting herself to him.

"Kate, Kate, Kate," he murmurs, and it's like a prayer against the rim of her ear, making her shiver. He worships her with his fingers, running up the sides of her body, exploring along the underside of her bra.

She is molten lava, hot and viscous and deliciously slow against him. She laces her left hand with his, fingers interlinked where the cuffs have already brought them close, and pulls him tighter against her body.

His lips are on her neck now, soft kisses peppered against the hollow of her collarbone and behind her ear, hot breath skirting along the rim of her ear, and then he pulls her earlobe into his mouth, nibbles, sucks. No amount of biting her lip can hold in a moan now, it's deep and throaty, her bedroom voice.

"Cas… ," she breaths out, turns her head, feels feverish and she doesn't know what she is asking for until he gives her what she's asking for, his lips on hers, firm and demanding, his tongue sweeping inside her mouth that's already open, waiting for him. She meets him stroke for stroke and just like the last time, the only time they did this before, it spins out of control so quickly that she can barely comprehend it. It's needy and desperate, this kiss, and so achingly perfect.

Sounds of footsteps echo in the distance and they tense, frozen in their embrace. She listens above their heavy breathing, but he still holds her close, not letting her go even an inch. The steps seem to be coming closer in a long empty hallway, and they scramble apart as much as is possible in their condition. She adjusts her shirt, can't adjust her breathing quite as easily. She tries to prepare for the battle ahead, when she is tethered to him and with no weapons available except her kickboxing skills.

"Kate," he takes her chin between his fingers and turns her head.

"When we get out…" and his voice is serious, eyes glittering darkly. This time it won't remain ignored. This time he won't let go.

She takes a deep breath, locks her eyes with his. "When we get out."

End of Scene