I started writing when I was only 7 years old, and now, 9 years later, I still love it. It's been a while, about 6 months ago since I last wrote on a story. That's an incredibly long time for me, because I'd love to write every day.

Since it was one of my New Year's Resolutions to start writing again, here I am, settled behind my computer again.

Before you start reading I want you to know that I'm not actually English, or American, or Australian, which means that my first language isn't English. This makes it harder (sometimes) to avoid mistakes. Mostly grammatically, I think. So please just keep on reading, try and understand what I'm trying to say. If you don't, you can always ask me.

Last but not least: please review after reading! I would really appreciate that.

Love,

Sharon

The story: The story picks up from the end of season 2, where Castle and Gina go off to the Hamptons, leaving Beckett - who just broke up with her former boyfriend Demming, to confess her love to Castle - behind. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about: start watching Castle at ABC, because it's really awesome XD

Chapter 1

"Gina, honey, could you get me another coffee?" Rick smiled smoothly at his not-always beloved wife. She gave him the look in return.

"For you always," she sneered.

He rolled his eyes when she was out of sight. He put his sunglasses on and tried to relax in the heat of 90 degrees. He had always been sensitive to the extreme weather - it didn't matter if it was extremely high or extremely low.

Gina came up the porch of their house again. "Here you go." She gave him the coffee and he thanked.

Rick stared at the kids playing before with a basketball. He suddenly felt seriously old, like a grandfather watching his grandchildren from a porch: the old, clichéd scene that was over and over described in so many books.

"Do you feel like doing anything today?" she asked, as she sat beside him.

"Nope," he answered.

She was quiet for a sec, and then she answered with a simple "K."

It had been like this for two weeks now and Rick didn't think he could go on like this for much longer. They got into so much fights and if they weren't busy fighting, they were both quiet. The first days had seemed so good, but after Alexis had left, Rick had started to miss her so badly. Luckily for him she was coming back to them tonight, after ten days camping with her best friend Lauren.

Still, he was so bored he could barely stand it.

"I'm just gonna take a walk." He got onto his feet and turned to his ex.

"O.K."

"Wanna join?"

"Nah, I've laundry waiting for me." She smiled at her own very bad joke.

"Good luck."

"You too."

He nodded, waited for a sec and got the hell out of there. He started walked in a random direction. He saw the trees, other houses. All lovely and gorgeous, but he felt empty inside. Now that he could see everything he thought needed to see, he knew that trees weren't the things missing in this vacation. He needed inspiration. To do something. To not feel bored all day long. He needed to be inspired to relax, as weird as that sounds.

"Castle?"

He turned to the voice that said his name. He realized he had already walked to a place he had never seen before.

"Yes, hi."

He looked into a familiar face, but he couldn't place it.

"Are you O.K.? You look a little…" He didn't even finish his sentence.

"Yeah," Rick answered. Then he realized. "Demming! Sorry, I was… thinking."

"Yeah, I can see that." Demming smiled the smile that every girl would fall for. Made Castle wanna punch him in the face.

"So… Is Kate here?" he asked, and his stomach looped at his own words.

"No, she isn't, I've…" He frowned. "Wait, you don't know?"

"Don't know what?"

"About… us?" Demming grinned.

"How can I not know? I mean, it was kinda obvious that you guys…"

"I mean that we broke up?"

Now it was his turn to smile. "You broke up?"

"Yes."

That just made his day, even though he didn't know why. It wasn't like he was gonna see Kate any time soon.

"Whoa. Didn't see that one coming," he said, as though feeling sorry for Demming. Inside, on the other hand, he had just begun to love Demming.

"So why?"

"Er, don't know." He seemed to have been thinking about the last three weeks. "She… she just said that she wasn't looking for… the things I was willing to give her."

"Then what was she looking for?" he asked, before even realizing what he had said.

"I asked, but she didn't answer."

Rick frowned, because it was hard to believe. Why wouldn't she tell a guy that she was probably never going to see again in her life? But then again, we were talking about Kate: the one person who seemed to be unable to talk about herself or her feelings.

"Okay, well, thanks, have a nice summer," Rick said and he turned around before Demming could say anything else than 'bye'.

It was twilight on the same day and the temperature had dropped a few degrees to about 80. That was as far as it went at night, and it was awful to sleep in. So far, it had been a very hot summer.

The bell rang and Rick almost ran to the door.

"My little…" He hugged his almost 17 year old daughter and was surprised at how not-tired she looked. Her hair was a little messy and dry and her face was a little more tanned than it was when she left.

"Dad…," she sighed.

"How was it? Did you get enough sleep?"

"I did actually. I had a good time." Alexis smiled.

He sighed again.

"But I'm glad to be back!" she tried to soothe him.

"Me too." She smiled back at him.

Rick sat back down on the couch and turned the volume of the TV down.

"Did you manage to write a little?" she asked him.

"No, not really. I don't know, I just…" He didn't finish.

Alexis didn't ask anything for a while and then her voice came, really softly. "You miss Beckett, don't you?"

He looked at her as though she had said something shocking. "I guess, yes."

"Then why don't you go back?"

He was quiet and started thinking for a second. "Yes, why don't I?" He jumped to his feet and called Gina.

The next day they were already in the cab back to their apartment downtown New York.

"Dad, are you O.K.? You've been grinning like an idiot for an hour now," Alexis murmured, slightly irritated.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm good."

"I can see that, yeah."

Rick looked at her. "If you don't want to go back, you could've stayed with Gina, you know."

"I know. I'd just rather be with Gram and you."

He smiled. "My girl." He hugged her clumsily.

"Not that I don't love her, though!" she said, slightly shocked by what she'd just said. "It's just, she keeps talking and talking and talking… About nothing, really."

"I know. I know exactly what you mean." He looked away, thinking about her.

There was a brief silence between them.

"Beckett would be different though," she said.

Rick looked at her with a surprised look. "What do you mean?"

Alexis grinned. "You know what I mean. She's not like that. She's real. She talks about real stuff. Not only about shopping and beauty spa's, like Gina and Mom and anyone else you've ever dated."

Rick swallowed, not knowing what to say. In the end, he simply nodded, running out of alternatives.

Why would Alexis say something like this so suddenly? They hardly ever talked about his love interests, especially not about Kate. Well, they talked their cases and victims and stuff, but not about his personal relationship with her. And he didn't really know how to answer her, because how do you tell your little girl that your heart has been broken by that woman? And how do you explain to her that she broke up with her boyfriend some time before you walked in with your ex-wife, breaking her heart? It just wasn't possible to explain that to your 16-year-old daughter.

Right?