A/N: I didn't plan on doing a post finale fic (again) but I was talking with alwayscastle2 about how I wished Jim had been in the episode, so here we are… It just took me a lot longer than expected to getting round to posting this.

"Rogan O'Leary?!" Martha questioned, "Well who is Rogan O'Leary?"

"A guy she met freshman year at Stanford," Rick answered while Kate hid her face in shame.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," she finally muttered, refusing to raise her head from where it rested on her hands, staring at the ground with her elbows propped on her knees.

"And you married him?"

"Not really," she answered Alexis, desperate to point out that at no point during her drunken night in Vegas or her hangover the next morning did she think that a drive-thru chapel would provide legally binding marriage certification.

"Except she did," Castle added, explaining for his mother and daughter's benefit exactly how his fiancée had come to be someone else's wife.

"Yeah, I did but I never thought that it was gonna be for real. And I broke up with the guy a couple of weeks later when I found out he was a compulsive liar, degenerate and a thief." The more they talked about it, the more embarrassing it became. She, a detective of all people, married a liar and a criminal.

"Yes but before you tied the knot," Rick said, patting her leg almost patronisingly as he reminded her of the one time he'd asked whether she'd ever been married. "And here I thought you were a one and done kind of girl."

Before she could pinch his leg in retaliation for that comment, Martha asked, "Does your father know about this?"

"I really am gonna be sick."

"Oh God!" Kate exclaimed as she grabbed the last of her things and organised them in her travel suitcase, "What am I going to tell my dad? How am I supposed to explain this, he's going to be so ashamed! Hell, I'm ashamed." She was so keen to avoid having to tell her father that she was actually contemplating not stopping at his apartment on her way out to Willow Creek.

"Kate, relax," Rick said, pulling his fiancée down into his lap and folding his arms around her. "You were young and you were drunk. You made a mistake. Your father's going to understand."

"But what if he doesn't, Castle?"

"Kate, he loves you. He'll understand," he assured her, resting his chin on her shoulder before turning his head to press a kiss to her neck.

Although he would be disappointed, he was sure, if Alexis came to him with news of that kind; at the end of the day she was his daughter, his flesh and blood, and he would always forgive her. Ignoring how hypocritical it would be of him, considering his two failed marriages and how many similar mistakes he'd made during his own college years, he would hardly be a good parent if he didn't. Every father wanted to believe that their daughters would stay their little girls forever. Jim Beckett, he was sure, was already long used to the fact that Kate had long ago grown up. There was a crucial difference between what Kate's teenage years had been like and his own responsible daughter. Perhaps that would lessen the blow for Jim. Rick didn't know the full extent of Kate's rebellious wild child phase, but he was sure that her father would be all the more forgiving of a mistake made then in the aftermath of her mother's death since she had matured and changed so much since.

She tried to keep those words in mind as she pulled up outside her father's place a half hour later, asking her driver to wait around until she was done. Hopefully, Rick would be right and her father would be filled with nothing but reassurances and sympathy.

She'd let him know she was coming, but she still had to wait a moment to be let in.

"What calls for this visit then, Katiebug?" Jim Beckett asked as he opened wide his door and allowed his daughter into his home. "I thought you'd be with Rick going over the final plans and relaxing since you don't have to work."

"I've got some news," she finally managed to say, her shaky voice drawing her father's attention to her face and the lip she was chewing.

"Sit down, sit down," her father insisted, fussing to fix her a drink as she took off her coat and folded the leather over the back of his armchair before she perched on the edge of the seat, anxious to get it over with. Without asking, he began making her a cup of tea, smiling reassuringly as he secured her hands around it without noticing her look of confusion. Her father knew she was a coffee drinker – they both were. "So, how long have you known?"

"I just found out today," Kate answered absently, not really focusing on the fact that her father had yet to actually ask her what her news was. "I can hardly believe it myself. This is- Of all the things I planned for my life, this was never on the list. These few days before the wedding were supposed to be filled with excitement and longing, not stress."

"Rick's not supportive?" Jim asked in confusion, prompting his daughter to realise that clearly she and her father were not on the same page here. Why would her future husband be supportive of her previous marriage?

"What, Dad? What are you talking about- Oh my God, you don't think-"

"Well, aren't you?" Jim asked, not quite understanding her reaction. There was nothing shameful about falling pregnant out of wedlock any more.

"No! I'm n-No!"

"Well, what's this news then? I just assumed that you and Rick were expecting. It wouldn't be surprising, you know. You've been living together for a few months now and your old man is under no allusions that you don't share the same bed-"

"-Dad, please stop," Kate requested, looking away to keep from flushing. "I'm not pregnant. I'm…" She took a breath before trying again, finding that she could only whisper the words. "I'm already married."

Her father laughed, actually laughed, before he took in her serious expression.

"I'm married, Dad."

There was a terse silence as Jim blinked in shock before shifting forwards in his chair, clasping his hands together as he hunched over his knees.

"I'm assuming it's not Rick we're talking about?"

Kate shook her head, staring at the ground.

"How did this happen, Katie?" She flicked her gaze to his face, expecting to see his brow furrowed into hard, unforgiving lines but instead her father looked at her openly, eyes solemn and disappointed, but somehow still loving.

She sighed. "It was when I was at Stanford and I went out to Vegas with my boyfriend at the time. It was a mistake. I-we were drunk, and apparently we thought it would be a good idea to go to a drive-thru chapel," she answered, imploring him to understand. "I had no idea it was real until Rick and I went to get our marriage license sorted." The words came out in a rush, the bare minimum of information that she hoped would help him understand. She didn't think detailing exactly how much she had drunk – under-age – and exactly what kind of person her boyfriend had been would be beneficial to the situation.

Jim steepled his fingers for a moment, making Kate feel more worried than ever. Finally though, he looked back across at her and said, "So what are you going to do?"

"Wait, you're not mad? Or disappointed? What about the sanctity of marriage? And the fact that I got married when I was twenty?"

"Do you want me to be mad at you?"

"Well, no-"

"-Good, because there's no use in being mad. We have to focus on how you're going to get out of this mess. So what are you and Rick going to do? You can't go ahead with the wedding if you're-"

"-Still married, I know," Kate said, finishing her father's sentence, relaxing back into her seat and leaving her untouched cup of tea on the coffee table. "Rick's going to keep a handle on things here while I go and track my…husband down and get him to sign the divorce papers."

Jim nodded, pleased that he and Johanna had instilled in Kate a sense of pragmatism. He wasn't sure it would be easy for her to find her way out of this mess, but at least she wasn't sitting around doing nothing. Before she left, needing to get out onto the road and get divorced, he squeezed her hand and told her he'd see her at the wedding.

"Honestly it went better than I thought it would," she told Rick from the backseat of her car. "He wasn't angry at all."

"I tol-"

"-Seriously?" she interrupted. "You're going to say I told you so?!"

"Well, I did tell you so," he pointed out, not missing her groan in response. "So how far away are you from Willow Creek?"

"Probably about ten minutes. Babe, I just got a text from Ryan. I'm gonna have to go. I love you."

A/N: I was originally going to have this as one whole chapter before I really thought things through and started writing it. I thought, however, that it made more sense to have a split. Let me know what you think. Thanks go to alwayscastle2 for reading this through for me a while back.