407. Chapter 407

After Time Will Tell

Episode 6.05

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: At this time, I do not own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

Kate had thought about what happened all the way to Rick's loft. She thought about it as she parked her car, as she walked to the elevator, going up in the elevator and while standing in front of his door, knocking. I should tell him. I really should. It's not really relevant to the case any more, but, I should tell him.

Castle opened the door and smiled as she walked in, taking off her jacket and hanging it up.

Kate took a deep breath. I should tell him. He'll want to know. Who knows? It could be important. Or maybe he can explain it. "Castle, I need to talk to you."

He turned around. "Sure. What is it?"

I'm going to sound like a complete idiot. He'll think I'm crazy. Or worse, he'll think I'm right. He smiled at him. "It's nothing. Forget about it." She headed for the kitchen and a glass of wine.

Castle followed her and put his arms around her. "We've had long discussions about nothing before, you know. And do you know what really terrifies me about nothing?"

"Terrifies you?" Kate asked, wondering where that had come from.

"What terrifies me is remembering how close we cane to losing each other because we didn't talk about things." Rick turned her around and pulled her close to him. "Kate, I want to spend the rest of my life seeing your face the first thing every morning. So, please talk to me about nothing. I'd rather talk about nothing with you than wake up one morning and find you're not there because we didn't talk about nothing."

"You'll think I'm being silly." She said, leaning into his chest.

"You think I'm being silly all the time. Isn't turn about fair play?"

She smiled. "You'll tease me. You'll laugh at me."

"Okay, I may do that. But, tell you what. If I tease you or laugh at you, I'll help you do paperwork for a mo…week." He quickly corrected himself.

"Okay. Just after you left, I spilled my coffee on the letter Paul Deschile wrote to Professor Wickfield. You remember the copy of the letter we got from Ward? It had exactly the same stain on it. Exactly. Now you tell me how that could happen."

Castle thought valiantly of a way to get out of a week of paperwork and succeeded, just barely. Smiling, he said, "There's the obvious. Time travel. Which you won't like, so I won't mention. Besides, if it is time travel, we've figured out all we're going to figure out. Everything is in the future. As for other explanations…." Castle thought very hard. "I'll admit I don't have any. Okay?"

"That's it?" Kate asked. "No grand Castlesque time traveling, extraterrestrial, alternate universe, cyborg run universe theories?"

"Maybe next time." Castle said. "But, I'll tell you what. In 2035 remind me to look around and see if you're a senator, if we have three kids, and if I write great literature."

"I'll put that on my calendar for later. Much, much later."

Much, much later.

Castle walked to the door. "Coming, coming, dammit." He opened the door to his loft. "Yes?"

"Hello, Mr. Castle. Remember me?"

Castle admitted to himself that the man did look familiar. "You do look familiar? We're you Johanna's math teacher in eighth grade?"

The man laughed. "No. I'm Simon Doyle. We met in 2013 during the murder case involving Shauna Taylor and Malcolm Wickfield? And the attempted murder of Paul Deschiles?"

Castle nodded. "You're…Simon Doyle? But you don't look any older than you did in 2013? How…I mean...You can really..?"

"Yes. I sure can. I was in the neighborhood, temporally speaking, and thought I'd drop by. So, how have you guys been doing?"

"Not as you predicted." Castle thought back to the long ago case. "For one thing, Kate's retired from the NYPD, got her law degree and works part time as a public interest lawyer. She's not a senator. We do have three children, or four if you count Alexis. She always has considered Kate more of a mom than Meredith."

Simon nodded. "Yeah. I was sorry to hear about Meredith."

Castle shrugged. "Considering her crazy lifestyle, she was bound to die in some crazy way. And it was a longtime ago."

"Relatively speaking." Doyle said.

"And I'm not writing serious literature. Unless you count my poorly received biography of Cannell."

"Not a big seller in the future, I'm afraid. But you're doing okay from the Nikki Heat movies, I guess."

Castle nodded enthusiastically. "It's the biggest movie franchise this side of the Bond movies. Nine movies made, one in the can and one in pre production. We're on our third actress for Nikki. Four if you count Natalie Rhodes." Castle suddenly had an idea. "You don't know if we ever got the Bond/Heat movie done, do you?"

Doyle shrugged. "Couldn't tell you even if I did know."

"And the rest of your predictions didn't come true, either. No neo-fascists, no energy wars, no tachyon generators and no time travel."

"No time travel?" Doyle asked with a smile." I'll take your word for it. But, the explanation's simple. You're a fan of the old Terminator movies, right?"

"Sure. I even have the 50th Anniversary director's cut with Arnie's interview and…"

"You're a fan." Doyle cut in. "And what were they trying to do in the movie? Change the future by going into the past. I got sent back to intercept Ward, just like I said. We managed to find all sorts of things about the people behind him. Got to them before they managed to do much of anything. So, no fascists, no energy wars and no tachyon generators."

"So, wait!" Castle said." If there are no tachyon generators, how did you get here?"

"Paul Deschiles is a genius. But to build the tachyon generators he had truly massive resources put at his disposal. Think of nuclear power. World War Two caused an immense amount of resources to be expended developing nuclear weapons and then nuclear power. But the potentials were known before the Manhattan Project. Without WWII, people would have developed nuclear power, just a lot later. In my case, my older self was involved and called me, my current self to the future to do some work."

"So you did save billions of lives."

"Not without your help and that of Detective Beckett."

"Sure, we did catch Ward and he went to prison for forever."

Doyle smiled. "You did more. When you think of a power mad neo-fascist, does any name come to mind?"

Castle's brow furrowed in thought. "Power mad…"

"Who wanted to kill your wife."

"Bracken?"

Doyle nodded. "And instead of leading the fascists, he was sitting in prison. Where you two put him. Nice work.'

"I'll be damned." Castle said softly.

"Probably not."

When Kate came back to the loft, Rick wondered if he should tell her. I should tell her. I really should. She'd want to know. She should know. But she'll think I'm crazy. "Kate, I should tell you something."

"Sure. What is it?"

Castle looked into the eyes of his ever skeptical wife and changed his mind. "It's nothing. Forget it." He said with a smile. I should have taken a picture. Why didn't I take a picture of Doyle?

"Castle, I know a lot about nothing. One of the reasons I've woken up looking at your face all these years is because we learned to talk about nothing. So, tell me about nothing."

"You'll think I'm crazy."

Kate nodded. "And that'll be different how?"

Castle knew when he was beaten. "Remember that case back in 2013. The woman who was tortured…"