A/N: If anyone wants to see how all this affects things later in this episode or others, I might play with this concept again, so let me know. (Any requests for timeframe? Because I'm seeing some possibilities in the second half of Season 2, or when Beckett would've started writing earlier in the season, but I'd love to know your interests.)

I'd say this is it for the hours between the wine and the pancakes, though. Hope you've enjoyed it! And thanks again for the feedback!

Part Five: Dropped

After stealthily restoring the notebook to its place on the shelf, Castle collapsed on the sofa, closed his eyes, and tried to get back to sleep, because as far as he was concerned, that dream of his had not been resolved.

Just because he had backed off in an effort to protect her—and yes, admittedly, to protect himself and the secret that he'd discovered—it didn't mean that he didn't still want her. And considering where he was, and where she was, and where she was not, it looked like his dreams were the only place he was going to get any action.

Truth be told, he was still hot and bothered from that dominatrix case they'd just cracked and all the flirty innuendo that came with it, not to mention the past year's worth of tangoing with the detective. From the emergence of Jealous Beckett to his dream and the saucy reading material, this entire evening simply reignited him like someone blowing on smoldering wood.

The real Beckett had quickly returned to her room, but Dream Beckett's words still echoed in his mind as though she had actually said them: "What am I going to do with you?"

Mm. I don't know, Beckett. What are you going to do with me? Can you . . . do that thing with your tongue again?

But something was off, and much to his dissatisfaction, it wasn't their dream-clothes.

He couldn't seem to write the ending—was Dreamer's Block even a thing? He couldn't fantasize about her. He wrestled with that.

She was his muse, and if she went AWOL from his imagination now, would she still be there to inspire his writing? How interconnected were these two states of mind, exactly?

He fought the niggling urge to go back for the notebook. He wanted either a distraction or inspiration, but he stayed put, still the gentleman, and that's when the anxieties found him.

From memory, he began sorting out the parts that were clearly drawn from his interactions with Beckett, innocent enough as they were, and the parts both steamy and casual which he had attributed either to her inner desires or just plain invention. Now, though, he wondered which elements were purely from her imagination and which were based on her actual experience—experience that didn't involve him.

"Usually a 'journal' implies writing about stuff that actually happens to you," he'd said in the dream. But for all of his research, maybe he was the one fabricating the details of his fiction.

He wondered if her muse was a real lover, some old flame not yet extinguished in her heart. The portions of her writing that he had recognized—those that made him think his influence was not so carefully encoded—suddenly seemed to carry less weight than the numerous parts that had no obvious link to him. It made him feel ill.

What if the oddly specific, non-steamy details were not Beckett's artful meticulousness, but actually just her way of capturing the quirks and tastes of another man she knew?

What if the steamy details were not the fantasy of him, but rather the reality of someone else?

He pictured Beckett in another man's embrace, doing all those things to him. Doing those things in her bed, or in his, and not just in her mind.

He realized that he was gritting his teeth and worked to relax his jaw.

"No, she's right," he'd responded to Jordan Shaw's accusations and Beckett's prompt denial. "Aside from my second wife, this is the most sexless relationship I've ever been in."

Then why did it matter so much?

As if he needed to ask.

But even if some of her work had been based on previous experience, the look in her eye that night was unmistakable. So what if she still incorporated some other guy into her love scenes? Whoever got her motor running before was probably history now. Even if Castle himself wasn't entirely her Rook, he was fairly sure now that at least some part of her wanted him to be.

Which raised another concern.

What if, after all the buildup, after all her writing, he didn't measure up—not just to the ex, but to the ideal?

Castle had always been so confident, but this fear became very real to him very quickly, and he wondered if Beckett ever had those concerns—that Nikki Heat was somehow a better version of herself, or that Castle and Beckett wouldn't be as good as their banter-foreplay and their vivid imaginations would have them believe.

He remembered the exchange once again: "It would've been great," and "You have no idea."

When it came down to it, the problem was that they really did have no idea. They had never even kissed.

Could he really act like it was a given that they'd be good together—what, because her breath tickled his ear when she leaned in close? Because she knew custom-made leather cuffs when she saw them? Because his pants tightened every time she bit her lip? Because she set a steamy scene in a film projection room?

The memories were more than welcome, but he shot down the defeatist train of thought like a railroad bandit. Of course some things were still a mystery, but all the more reason to invest in the investigation. And Castle was a hands-on sort of investigator.

"He, um, touches things," Beckett had explained, when Castle found Shaw's federal agent toys. And it was true. But if only she knew just how much he held back on a regular basis.

He decided then and there that, even if she was still going to play hard-to-get, even if this very personal mystery unfolded more gradually than he could bear, he needed to hear Beckett agree to take on the case with him.

He didn't just want to protect her. He wanted to adventure with her. And he didn't just want to solve her; he wanted them both to solve the "us," whatever that might mean.

Somehow he managed to sleep again, and the first and last things on his mind were the words that he would offer to Beckett when she came back. By the time Castle got up and straightened the throw pillows, he knew that he would not speak with words alone.

Everything would need to be perfect. He would prepare a nice breakfast, with fresh coffee and the newspaper ready for her at the table. He'd serve her a plate of eggs and bacon, sit down with her, share a smile over the goodness of hot food and warm company (warm food and hot company?), and wait for just the right moment to talk to her.

He wouldn't tell her that he had found her private writings—that would be an invasive beginning to the conversation.

Besides, Castle didn't want to say or do anything that might discourage her from writing, whether it was hobby, release, or craft. Maybe someday she'd even join him in co-authorship, which in their case, he mused, could be a step up from mutual debriefing.

But he'd find a way to talk about their obvious attraction, their natural rhythm. He'd find a way for her to begin to express her true desires if it killed him, and he wasn't so sure that it wouldn't.

He was all nervous energy as he bustled about the kitchen. It didn't help that the eggs were expired and the bacon was looking a little like a Chia pet. Now what?

Pancakes would do. He didn't think that they carried the same weight as an edible way of saying, "I want to take care of you," as the protein-rich meal he'd planned, but they did require more care and time than cold cereal or a stop at a bagel shop on the way to work. Hopefully she would get the intended message.

She rose soon after him, having barely slept all night because she knew that their search for the third victim still awaited them—among other reasons.

While Castle spent the night in her living room, behaving himself like a gentleman, she imagined pulling him into bed and pondered the ridiculousness of longing for someone in the next room when she could have just woken him and invited him to play.

She was just sated enough and stubborn enough to stand by her decision, and she, too, managed to sleep uneventfully well for the last few hours. Upon waking, she hoped that he actually had gone home after their last encounter so that the circumstances of her pleasure were that much less ridiculous.

But by seven, she followed the scent of home cooking and the sound of scraping metal to the kitchen, where she was surprised to find him working diligently at the stove. "You're still here," she observed aloud, "and . . . you're making pancakes."

He explained about the bacon and eggs—just the unfortunate state the ingredients were in, and not what he wanted the meal to tell her. He was hanging onto the hope that the pancakes and coffee would communicate enough now to make it easier on him later to say what he had to say.

He'd had plenty of time to craft. He just needed to get the frenetic energy out of his system so that he could articulate properly.

"Yeah, well, I mostly order in," she admitted, briefly wondering if she should have gotten dressed before she came to investigate. She hoped the aromas from the kitchen overpowered her pheromones.

"I figured that from the Styrofoam Temple you've got going on in your refrigerator." Castle didn't miss a beat. "Coffee's brewed. Think your coffee filter's broken, though. I'll order you a new one later."

"Looks like you thought of everything."

He snapped his fingers. "Except the paper." Damn. He'd meant to have that at the table already, but he'd gotten distracted. He turned on his heel and headed like a man on a mission to the front door.

Beckett resisted the idea of a leisurely breakfast, already in work mode.

"Castle, we don't have time for the paper," she called after him, pouring the coffee. She had her priorities in check: work and caffeine both trumped news. "There's a body out there I've got to find."

And when the body dropped at Castle's feet, an abundantly clear sign that their leisurely breakfast was not going to happen, he somehow managed to make the obligatory quip instead of the gut-wrenching groan of exasperation that he truly felt.

"Looks like it found you."

What the writer could not know in the midst of his frustration was that this victim had essentially saved Castle and Beckett's relationship—or at least their chances for one.

Yes, Castle had prepared to be straightforward without putting either one of them on the chopping block. But certain looks from Beckett had a way of tying the words up in his mouth and making them come out in ways he didn't always intend. He easily might have revealed too much too soon, not just admitting his guilt but humiliating her while she was particularly vulnerable.

The pancakes and coffee had said, "I want to take care of you," and some part of her knew it. She knew with every morning's cup of coffee and so much more. But if she understood yet that the meal also meant, "I'm sorry," and why, she would not have had the strength to accept it. She may not have had the courage to work toward forgiveness the way that she did after he'd opened her mother's case file.

Because, in this case, her forgiveness of Castle would have been tangled up with forgiving herself, and she was still working on that.

When the body dropped, so did the impending conversation.

But newly aroused and confronted feelings remained intact, and that, in itself, was enough of an exposition for a story meant to be continued.

/