A/N: Since watching Castle, the song If U C Kate by McFly has taken on a few new meanings for me. Originally, I wondered about making a fanvideo running on the storyline that Kate disappeared after Castle proposed, and I was going to make a whole fake newspaper article about it, but I don't know, I just never did. Then one night I was listening to the song and imagined this instead. I hope you enjoy what I've written. There will be a couple more chapters to this but not many.

1998

She's just browsing, staring at the shelves filled with classics, literature that has been read and loved for decades and centuries. She loves those kinds of books, the ones that tell stories of an old world so different from the one she lives in. Most of them she's read before. Emma was her first, though she's long since worked her way through Jane Austen's entire works, moving through Steinbeck before her high school class even touched one of his novels. She fingers the spine of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, recalling the evenings she'd spent curled in an armchair, entranced. But it's 1984 she picks up, opening to read again what has become the familiar opening sentence.

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

"Excuse me."

The small voice startles her. She hadn't even realised she'd been lost in her mind, completely oblivious to the rest of the bookshop. Now that she's jolted back into the real world she can hear the loud chatter coming from a few shelves over where some famous author sits signing books. She glances down and finds that it's a small, red-headed girl who has spoken to her.

"Yes?" she asks uncertainly, hoping that the kid's not going to tell her she can't find her parents or something.

She watches the little girl grimace before saying, "You're in the way."

Confused, Kate glances around, wondering how on earth this impossibly small child can't move past her in the aisle before it dawns on her that, as absurd as it sounds, the girl wants to get to the shelf she's currently standing in front of. She blinks, tries to make sense of the notion, before stepping aside.

The girl is quick, decisive almost, in picking up Moby Dick, stretching onto her tiptoes to reach the shelf that houses the book. It bewilders Kate. She's only nineteen and she didn't read that particular book until she was twelve; the girl standing in front of her doesn't look as if she's even started school. She wouldn't normally talk to a kid, especially one that's quite clearly unaccompanied, but there's something about this girl and it isn't just that she's picked up Moby Dick, plonked herself down on the carpet and started reading.

"Are you…okay there?"

The girl hums an affirmative, not once taking her bright, electric eyes off of the pages.

"You don't need me to go and find your mom or something, do you?"

"No, she's in California."

That sounds odd. Kate scrutinises the girl before deciding that she's too well dressed to be homeless.

"Right," she nods. "And your dad-"

"-Over there somewhere," the girl replies, pointing somewhere to Kate's left. "Have you read this?"

"Yeah, I've read Moby Dick-"

"-I like the bit when Queequeg finds Ishmael in his bed. It's funny," she interrupts again, giggling slightly.

"You've read it before?!" Kate is astonished. Just who is this girl?

She nods. "Daddy likes for me to read, so do I. Daddy read it to me before."

"How-" She stops speaking as a loud trilling sounds in her bag. She pulls out the black cell phone her parents bought her when they discovered that no matter what they tried they wouldn't be able to stop her sneaking out every night unless they nailed her windows shut and decided that perhaps it was better to just give her a cell phone (even though it had been darn expensive) so that they could always reach her. "Hello?"

"It's me."

"Oh, hey Babe, what is it?

"Alexis?" someone calls loudly at the end of the aisle, spotting the girl sitting on the floor and exclaiming, "Oh there you are!"

Kate covers the phone and looks at the girl. "Is that your dad?"

"Yep!" she answers, shutting the book to send a smile at her father. Distantly Kate hears the electronic buzz that is her boyfriend speaking to her.

"Who is this, Alexis?"

Alexis shrugs and replaces the book on the shelf.

"Kate?" It's a half yell that she finally hears properly.

"Kate? That's your name?" Alexis' father asks, smiling easily at her. Her eyes flick down to his lips before meeting his again, seeing the same luminous colour in them as in his daughter's.

She nods, returning her cell phone to her ear, as he reaches out his hand to her. She cradles the phone between her cheek and her shoulder, so that she can shake his proffered hand as he introduces himself.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Rick and you've obviously already met Alexis here. Sorry if she was bothering you, by the way. She's only four, so she doesn't always realise she's being a pain in the tushie."

"I wasn't being a pain," Alexis mutters sulkily.

Before she can assure him that her daughter was extraordinarily polite, she hears Jason ask, "Are you there? Kate?"

"Yeah, sorry. Someone was just talking to me," she says, shooting Rick a look.

"Rick. Castle," he says again, pointing at his chest, eyes searching hers for some kind of reaction or recognition. Something vaguely rings in the back of her mind, but she's stuck trying to focus on whatever it is her boyfriend's saying to her.

"Who was that?"

"The guy who's talking to me," she answers, rolling her eyes as Rick mouths questioningly, 'guy?' "What were you saying, babe?"

"I asked if you still wanted rescuing." He's speaking louder now, obviously frustrated that her attention isn't solely on him. But she finds that instead of worrying over that, her cheeks are flushing because she can see that Alexis and her father can now hear every word of their conversation, not just her side of it. And the look Rick Castle is giving her makes her want to dive behind another bookcase.

"Erm, I have no idea where my mom is now, whether she's still in the queue or what so a ride out of here would be great."

"Which bookstore are you at again?" Jason asks.

"Barnes and Noble," she tells him.

"Okay, be there soon," he promises, hanging up without so much as a goodbye.

"Sorry, you were saying?" she asks Rick, thoroughly confused from having two conversations at once.

"You need rescuing? What are you, some kind of damsel in distress?"

"Not quite," Kate assures him with a laugh. "No, I was meant to be going out with some friends, but my mom dragged me out here with her instead. Said that there was some book she just 'had to buy.'" She shrugs because she still doesn't quite understand that mentality. It's just a book, after all, a book that will still be in the bookstore the next day and a thousand other days after that. "So Jason, my boyfriend, offered to come and pick me up so we can still go ice skating with everyone else. The rink is never as busy once Christmas has been and gone."

"I see," he nods, trying to keep the disappointment off his face. Really she's quite something this woman. She's not just pretty, she's classically beautiful.

It's only a beat, a passing moment, but they can both feel the awkwardness descending upon them. "Well," she finally says, "I should probably head out front so that Jason doesn't have to park his bike."

"Sure," he replies, giving her another gentle grin and sweeping his arm aside to gesture her first.

"You're walking me to the door?"

"Well, you are a damsel in distress, after all," he tells her, taking Alexis' hand as they follow her. Really, he's seeking any excuse to spend more time with her. They've only just met, known each other for all of five minutes – and he doesn't even know her surname – but that's enough for him to be thoroughly captivated. There aren't many strangers who'll talk to you like she has.

"It's a bookstore. And it's the middle of the day. I hardly think someone's going to be brave enough to mug me or something in front of so many people," she laughs, the sound warming his heart. It feels like weeks since he's laughed.

"You never know," he counters, opening the store's door for her. "New York's a dangerous city."

She rocks on the balls of her feet on the sidewalk, pushing her hands into her pockets to combat the chill. It reminds him that although Alexis is still wearing her duffle, the coat isn't buttoned up. He's crouched on the ground, making sure she doesn't catch a cold when the Ducati pulls up to the curb and its rider removes his helmet.

Kate skips over; the sound of her Chuck Taylors scuffing the paving slabs draw his attention, and he watches as she elegantly slides one leg over the seat of the bike, somehow managing to fit on in the tiny space behind her long-haired boyfriend.

"Thanks for escorting me, Rick," she calls before she pushes the helmet Jason has given her onto her head.

Jason fixes him with a stare, quite clearly sizing him up, so he just replies, "No problem," and turns back to Alexis so he doesn't have to watch them leave. "Come on, pumpkin, let's go home."

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this first chapter. I think there will probably be at least three chapters. There could be more, but I haven't decided yet whether I want to include them or not. Anyway, let me know what you think!

Sidenote: I'm not sure how quickly this will be updated at the moment. I was meant to be doing the sequel to the Wedding of the Century, of which the first chapter is ready, but you know, working on two stories at the same time doesn't always work that well. Still, we'll see how it goes.

Thanks for taking the time to read.