Occurs years into the past. For timeline purposes, assume this is the book signing Sorenson remembers Beckett mentioning to him once. So it is well before Beckett and Castle meet in season one. It's pre-season one.

I do not own Castle.

She would never tell him. Never tell him that going places with him embarrassed her. That she wasn't the only one to notice the smell of alcohol leaving his lips with every breath he took. He was her father. Even though he had done his share of embarrassing her, she was never going to do it to him.

In the morning he would wake up sober enough to feel the constant hangover and regret of remembering. Remembering the look on her face, the slight disappointment in his daughter's eyes and the whisper of worry across her face. Remembering that his wife was gone, never coming back.

You can't come back when you're dead. All that's left are the memories of you, and he was having trouble remembering the good ones. All he could see was her lifeless form, in the dark alley and at the funeral. So he'd pour himself another drink. His only form of therapy. It nursed his thoughts and eased his head, made it harder for him to remember. And he wanted so much to forget.

So many times in-between the drinks and the pounding headaches he wanted to stop. Stop drinking, stop sulking, stop making his daughter clean up his messes of alcohol bottles, and stop making his daughter wear a sympathetic smile whenever she saw him. He wanted to stop but it's hard to once it's become routine. He's tried to stop before. He had gone a day without a drop and then gave himself a reward. The reward refilled itself until there wasn't anymore.

She hates it. Hates having to get up extra early to make sure the bottles, broken from being thrust against the walls, were cleaned up. Hated cleaning up so her father could walk through the house and not keep closing his eyes which were ridden with guilt. She felt the guilt too. Not being there when her mother took her last breath. For not being the person lying in the alley instead. For some nights not having the strength to take the bottle of scotch from her father's firm grasp. For yelling at him for acting like a child when she was the one who needed comforting. For pretending things were okay when her dad was half lucid, making it easier for him to pour another drink. Her words soothing his ears so she wouldn't have to see him cry. No child should have to see their parent cry.

She had to get out of there. She needed more. She needed to be more. She needed to spend her time finding the person who took her mother away from her family. Getting justice because she realized no one was going to do it for her.

The day she realized that was the day she read one of his books. The same day she realized why her mother liked to read the books written by Richard Castle. Because the bad guy always seemed to get caught, the cases many times, wrapped up with neat little bows. But there was something else to the books too. The way they were written. It was somehow graceful even with the addition of words like strangled, shot, dead, murdered, and so many more words of the same caliber.

She went to a book signing. When she neared the front of the line she saw his smile. It was genuine, not forced. Not the smile of someone who has had to sign an endless stack of books with words of sentiment towards people he didn't know, and probably never would. She remembers his smile when he saw her. He didn't give her that sympathetic 'I'm sorry for your loss' half grin, half acknowledgement she got from everyone else.

He didn't know her story, and it was refreshing. She finished walking up towards him and he signed her book. She had him sign it to her without asking him to add any clichéd phrases or words of fake sentiment. She thanked him adding he was Johanna's, well her mother's, favorite author, and that he was quickly sliding in to her own top ten.

Shortly after her mom's death she started to refer to her mom using her first name. Somehow it made talking easier.

He had said a warm thank you and to tell her mother she had a lovely daughter. She just nodded. He said "It really was nice meeting you Beckett." She smiled. The first real upward turn of her lips forming into a smile that she had had since before January 9th.

She ignored the fact that he mistook her last name for her first. She didn't say my name is actually Kate, not Beckett. She let it slide, liking the way her last name sounded leaving his lips. She would never admit she had a crush on him. She told herself she didn't. There was just something about him that seemed inviting and like home.

She waited until she was outside the bookstore before looking at his signature. She expected a simple thing like To Kate, From Richard Castle. So when she opened the front cover and read his writing, she was taken by surprise. When he signed the book, she didn't think he had it long enough to have even written anything extra. It wasn't what she was expecting and it actually made her laugh. She couldn't remember the last time she had laughed.

Kate Beckett,

Thanks for reading my book and supporting my expensive choice in pens.

-Rick Castle

After she read it over a few more times she was just starting to make her way home. Someone called her name. Well, her last name.

"Beckett."

She turned around, it was none other than Richard Castle. She had no idea what he could possibly want, but she didn't wait to find out. She turned around, walking back towards him and said,

"Yeah Mr. Castle?"

"Oh, you can call me Rick."

"Okay, what is it Rick?"

She was trying hard to keep the feeling of butterflies in her stomach from increasing.

Castle had his hands behind his back.

"Well, you had me sign the book to you and I just thought maybe your mother wouldn't mind one too.

(At that moment he took the hand that was holding one of his books and held it out to her.)

I signed this one to her, hope I spelt her name right. For a writer, you'd be surprised how much I rely on spellcheck."

Beckett tried to hold the tear in her left eye from escaping down her cheek, but with no luck. She hoped her now favorite author, because even though he didn't know her or her mother he seemed to care, didn't notice.

He did.

"What's wrong, did I do something? Did I butcher her name, it is Johanna right?"

She wiped the tear from her face and looked up at him shyly.

"Her name is Johanna and you didn't do anything wrong. It's just, she died not too long ago."

Castle felt so stupid. Of course there was a reason why she wouldn't have come with her mother. Especially since Kate had told him he was her mother's favorite author.

"I'm so sorry, I should have put two and two together when you said I was one of her favorite authors and yet she wasn't with you."

"It's not your fault Rick. It was really nice of you to think of her though, sweet actually."

"Here, you should still take the book, I mean, I already signed it and if it can't actually go to her then you should keep it."

He left out the part about how he had wrote a little something inside Johanna's book too. Didn't want to embarrass her, or himself. He hoped she would wait to open it until he was back inside. Not that what he had written was bad or anything. It was just not something he normally wrote. It said,

Johanna,

From what I can tell your daughter is extraordinary. Thanks for introducing her to my books.

-Richard Castle

She brought her hand out with a slight reluctance and he gave her the book. She couldn't help but notice when their hands brushed ever so slightly that she felt something. She looked back up at him and thought he felt it too.

"Well I should probably get back inside. I've heard people get mad when you leave in the middle of your own book signing. And the one who will be angriest just so happens to write my checks."

"Of course, I didn't know you still had people waiting."

"It's alright, it's always nice to get away for a little while. It was really nice to meet you Beckett."

She couldn't help but smile at the sound of her last name. Allowing the small smile to make its way onto her face she said,

"Likewise Castle. And thanks for the book."

Beckett turned to walk away and Castle watched her leave. He couldn't help but replay, on a loop, her last words to him. Nobody had called him Castle before. At least not without the Mr. in front or Richard. Never just Castle. He couldn't help but think that from anyone else's mouth it would have sounded off. But there was something in the sound of her voice and way his last name escaped her lips.

And he really hoped, someday, he would hear her say it again.

This was kind of a bittersweet piece but I figured I should write something new for Valentine's Day. That's my excuse anyway.

Reviews are greatly appreciated, I won't know if you liked it, hated it, or anything in-between if you don't tell me.

Happy Valentine's Day.