Aftershocks
It had been hours since Alexis and her father had arrived back at the loft. She had kept her game face on for everyone for most of the day as she found herself being hugged constantly. Lanie, Ryan and Esposito had all stopped by for lunch and a new round of her being passed around and hugged. They had all worked so hard to find her and bring her home and she wanted them all to know that she was all right.
Only she wasn't. She knew she wasn't. She had done her best to be strong for Sara during their ordeal, tried so hard to escape, but she had failed. They had been far less gentle with her after that, and she had bruises in places she was glad her father couldn't see.
She had stood in that cage and watched helplessly as guns were pointed at her father, That man Volkov counting down from ten to shoot him while she watched helplessly. Because she had failed to get away. Watching him be blown to pieces by the explosives planted in the walkie talkie.
She was actually relieved when everybody left. Keeping up the smiling, happy facade that she was okay, that everything was back to "normal" (whatever that was) had taken far too much out of her. She was also glad that Detective Beckett had stayed to keep her father company.
There was a time when she would have been squeamish about the fact that they were having sex, but now she was glad they were. (not that she would ever want to walk in on them, because, like, ew) Kate would keep her dad distracted, because she just couldn't face him right now, not broken like this.
She was standing naked in front of her full length mirror after getting out of the shower, looking at the collection of bruises on her abdomen and her back from when she had fought to escape and been forcibly subdued. The garish purple of them standing out in stark relief against her pale porcelain skin.
She shuddered at the thought of those rough men having their hands on her after she had been knocked unconscious, and hugged her arms to her chest at the thought and dressed in the most conservative pajamas she owned. She knew she had not actually been violated, nor had any of Volkov's men even cast a suggestive glance in her direction, but the very thought of them touching her in her sleep made her skin crawl. She was glad they were all dead.
She tried hard to stay awake, but she was wiped out and jet lagged so sleep forcibly claimed her anyway, only to wake two hours later in the throws of a powerful nightmare, of crude men and their hands all over her. Her father lying in a pool of his own blood, shot while she watched. The scream that started in her throat when she snapped awake died there as no sound would come out.
"Daddy..." she moaned out loud before she fell apart sobbing into her pillow.
Rick and Kate had been all over each other as soon as all their guests had gone home and Martha and Alexis had gone to bed. It was like she had wanted to put her hands on him everywhere at once. The first time they had barely made it to the desk in his office. Round two came shortly thereafter in his easy chair near the bedroom door, she was completely insatiable in the way she attacked him.
They slowed down enough to enjoy round three in Rick's shower before they put on pajamas, and dropped sated onto his bed, where she wrapped herself around him as they cuddled with each other.
They didn't have long to bask in the afterglow before there was a light, tentative tapping on his door. Neither had any doubt who it was.
"Daddy?"
Rick opened the door to reveal a clearly distraught Alexis, her hair disheveled and dark circles under her tear stained puffy eyes. When she saw Kate rising to a seated position on the end of the bed, she tried to backpedal.
"Oh...I'm interrupting...I'm sorry..." she stammered quietly, fresh tears threatening to fall.
Rick tugged his daughter into his embrace, soothing her with nonsense words and rubbing gentle circles on her back.
"Nonsense Alexis, what's wrong?" he asked softly.
"I...had a nightmare...again...do you think you could...you know...check for me." Alexis replied, sounding more like a lost, terrified little girl, than the self assured, confident, nineteen year old woman she had grown into before all of this happened.
"Of course, Pumpkin, anything." He replied, flashing back to that moment when she was still in the cage, and she had been crying because she thought he was going to be killed in front of her. He was "Daddy," knight in shining armor was his default setting when it came to his baby girl.
"Can Kate come too?" She asked in a small shaking voice.
"Of course she can." Castle agreed, waving for Kate to join them as they headed upstairs to check under her bed and in her closet for monsters.
Alexis had learned an important lesson in Paris.
Sometimes the monsters were big enough and scary enough that even "Daddy" needed backup.