I'm terrible with descriptions so if you've made it this far, thank you! (I shall consider that a victory).

This story involves two time frames, 2011 (Alexis' final year of High School) and 1993 (before Alexis was born/when she was a newborn). I understand that time jumps can be confusing so I will write the year at the start of the alternate time frames to try and make things clearer.

2011

It had been just like every other Tuesday Alexis Castle had lived for over a decade. She woke up around 6am, showered and got dressed in the dark green uniform of Marlowe Prep. At around 6.45am, she made her way down the 'floating' stairs at the loft she shared with her father and headed straight to the kitchen to start on the breakfast.

She'd always been quite independent; from an early age, it was her who had taken on the role of parent, ensuring that she (and her father) were up and at it and out the door on time each morning. Alexis knew that if she left him to his own devices, her dad would rarely be up early enough to shower, shave and eat breakfast and you could forget about him getting to work on time. God only knows how he coped before she came along! As it is, the smell of brewing coffee wakes him each day along with the sweet smell of pancakes, bacon or something equally delightful.

Alexis was good to him and Castle knew it. He couldn't imagine a day without her in his life; his little ray of sunshine.

This Tuesday was no different.

"Mmm, can I smell coffee?" Castle asked, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand as he stumbled through to the kitchen on autopilot, still half asleep and in his pyjamas.

"You can," grinned Alexis while her father planted a kiss on her forehead, "with a side order of blueberry muffins."

"Have I ever told you how amazing you are?" Rick plonked himself down on the seat next to his daughter at the breakfast bar. "How did my DNA produce a daughter as remarkable as you? I mean, it's a miracle I survived long enough to even have a child, especially since that time I –– wait, I can't tell you that…that would be highly inappropriate." He took a sip of his coffee to give his mouth something to do other than spill his wildly charged, youthful stories. "Without you, I wouldn't have breakfast most mornings."

"…or clean shirts to wear. Speaking of which, there are three hanging up in the laundry room to tide you over 'til the weekend when you can do some more. I put a few through with my uniform."

"You're so good to me" he smiled sleepily.

"And don't you forget it" Rick lifted two fingers to his temple and waved them away again in a silent salute of 'Aye aye, Captain' to his daughter since his mouth was full of breakfast. Alexis left to clear away her plates, diligently stowing them in the dishwasher and putting away the carton of orange juice and the remains of the muffins before heading off to ready herself for school.

'How did I get so lucky?' Castle thought to himself. He had always wondered how he had created such a fine specimen of humanity when he himself was so far from embodying anything even remotely as extraordinary as Alexis.

Every day she made him proud to be her father; the A grades she always brought home on her report cards, her unfailing yet gentle honesty, the steadfast direction of her moral compass, the strength of her character and the humility and compassion she always showed for others. Every day, she made him a better father, a better man – without her, his world would crumble and he would be nothing. Every day, he thanked his lucky stars that such a beautiful person was part of his life.

By the time 7.30am rolled around, Rick had managed to drag himself off for a shower and Alexis was just about ready to leave; she had a standing arrangement with a couple of girls in her grade to meet at the entrance to the subway to walk to school. The school was big on 'going green' this year and the girls had decided to see how much energy they could save between them and how many people they could get to 'switch off' or take alternate, environmentally friendly transport and present it as a project at the end of their Senior Year; walking to school instead of riding the subway was just the beginning.

"See ya, Dad!" she called through to the bedroom

"What time do you think you'll be home tonight? I was thinking we could go out for dinner, an early birthday treat for Gram. What do you think?" he casually replied, strolling through the loft in his robe and roughly towel-drying his hair as he went, clearly not sensing Alexis' urgency in getting out the door.

"Erm, I dunno, probably around four? Maybe 4.30. Either way, I'll be back in time for dinner. Sounds like a great idea. Oh, and don't forget you promised Beckett you'd stop by and take her a late lunch after court this afternoon. Right, I gotta go, Dad – Sarah and Becky will be waiting! Love you." Alexis placed a quick kiss on her father's cheek and began to close the door behind her.

"Bye, Pumpkin. Have a good day."

"I will!" he heard as the elevator doors slid shut.

After spending the morning and half the afternoon procrastinating, shuffling his papers around and generally not achieving very much, Castle decided it was time for a break from all this 'pretending to work' and set about getting that late lunch he promised his partner.

He spent a good five to ten minutes summoning the motivation to actually leave his plush office chair and make himself 'presentable'; his hair was kind of scruffy, his stubble rough and he was still in the decade old sweatpants and oversized t-shirt he classified as 'pyjamas' when he was wandering around the loft…not exactly the image a bestselling author wanted to be splashed across the gossip mags. He was surprised at how hunger-inducing doing nothing was. Then again, it was 2.30 and breakfast was hours ago.

What to get, what to get…

Thai always went down well, with the boys as well. Lunch for Beckett undoubtedly meant lunch for Ryan and Esposito as well, so Thai seemed like a safe bet. Castle phoned ahead, engaged in a mighty helping of banter with the guy who took his order who then assured him that it would be ready to pick up on the way past.

At exactly 3.21pm (he noticed because he loved the fact that the numbers were in perfect reverse order, like a countdown almost), Castle arrived on the Homicide floor of the 12th with the late lunch he'd promised.

"Grubs up!" he announced, emptying the bag on the break room table. It didn't take his detective friends long to follow their noses right to the treasure he'd unearthed.

"Thai?! Way to go, bro" Esposito was clearly delighted. Ryan on the other hand just managed a thumbs up and cheesy grin since he'd already tucked in.

"I thought you'd never turn up, I'm starving" Beckett added, allowing her hand to graze the length of Castle's arm on her way to looking over the food at the table.

"So how was court this morning?" Castle asked no one in particular.

Ryan shrugged his shoulders, tilted his head and took another mouthful – clearly it had been a long day and nothing was more important to him than food right now. Fair enough, Castle supposed. He shouldn't have asked while it was feeding time at the zoo. Esposito didn't offer much up by way of a response either so Rick turned to Beckett.

"Went pretty much as expected" she replied, chewing that little bit faster to try and clear her mouth before she spoke. "We might get called back tomorrow or the day after but for now, we're all wrapped up. Looks like we've got a conviction in the bag, too." She smiled.

"A good days work well done, then!"

"What about you…how was your day?" she managed between mouthfuls.

"Well, funny you should ask. I rearranged my office, attended a top secret meeting, made a mad dash to the edge of the earth, saved the Universe and made it back in time for lunch with my favourite Dectective" Ryan and Esposito glared at him. "..sss" he added. "Favourite Detectivessss, plural. Of course."

Now it was Beckett's turn to stare him down.

"Eurgh, ok" he gave in, "So I moved around a few papers, the meeting was so secret its time and place were never published and the only edge I walked to was the balcony. BUT I did save the universe." He winked. Beckett still wasn't buying it. "What?! I did! I fed you three, didn't I? And you catch the bad guys and make this a better place, thus you are saving the Universe from being overrun by vagrants therefore I am saving the Universe by feeding you." Castle seemed rather impressed by his reasoning. "Ha" he added just for good measure.

Beckett's hard fast exterior melted a little, enlightened by his childish good nature, crazy theories and unhindered imagination.

"And here's the rest of us with real jobs" she teased.

"Hey, I have a real job! Just because I don't have office hours and ––" his indignant would-be speech was interrupted by Beckett's cell ringing. She pulled it from her pocket, swallowed what was left of her food and answered.

"Beckett"

"I'm not done!" Castle whispered. "Just you wait!" Beckett hushed him, pressing a single finger to his lips.

"Mmhmm…Yup…OK. We'll be there in ten." And she hung up. "We've got a shooting, fourteen seriously wounded, six critical. Numerous others with minor injuries. They're requesting assistance on scene." She was hesitant as she spoke, clearly holding something back.

"Ooooh, this sounds like a big one. Finally, something exciting round here. It's been a while since we've had anything juicy." Castle jumped to his feet and was rubbing his hands together gleefully.

"Where we headed?" Ryan asked, reluctantly leaving his Thai food on the table.

Without saying a word, Beckett acquired the attention of her counterparts, the forlorn look on her face enough to alert them that something was up.

"Marlowe Prep" she divulged just as Castle's own cell phone began to vibrate on the table.

A/N:

As always, I hope you enjoyed it and won't hold back on letting me know what you think - good, bad or otherwise!

I have a decent amount of this already written (11 chapters), so providing everything goes well updates should be pretty regular.

And a special thank you to .Kate for encouraging me to post this.

A.