Castle open another drawer in hopes to find his favorite tie. Today there was a big gala that he had to attend to under the treaths of Paula and Gina.
"Alexis" he screamed out to his daughter that was getting ready in her room. "Have you seen my favorite tie?"
"Wich one?" his daughter yelled back.
"The blue one."
"Third drawer." she prontly answered.
"Thank you."
He opened the drawer that his daughter had pointed out and flumbed with the clothing that was perfectly folded there in search for his tie.
There it was. Right there.
He reached for it, making a little victory sound.
"Found it." he announced. When he was about to put it around his neck, something caught his eye.
In the fardest end of the drawer he saw a piece of purple silk. A ribbon. The kind that you used to tie little girls' hair. Maybe it was Alexis. She used them a lot when she was younger. He liked to used them to tie her pigtails.
He smiled at the memory of a young Alexis with her hair tied with purple ribbons and a pretty summer reached for it, wrapping it around his fingers.
Something caught his eyes. In one of the ends of the piece of silk there was something written in tiny but perfect letters.
Katie B.
What? No way. No way in hell.
Surely it should belong to another person. Katherine Beckett surely didn't wore purple ribbons when she was a young girl. Did she?
Flashback
"Richard, don't run around or you'll fall on your face." his mother warned him from the bench where she was currently sitting, in the outskirts of the park.
He absent mindedly nodded an run to the swings where a pretty girl was sitting, kicking her legs and swinging gracefully.
Running torwards the vacant swing, he quickly hopped on it and started moving his legs and upper body in order to make the swing move. The girl in the swing beside his giggled and made her swing go higher, giving him a defying look.
Okay, he thought, game on.
Taking that as a chalenge the boy made his swing go higher as well, until it was going as high as the swing of the beautiful girl next to him.
They were both going pretty high at the point that they were in serious risk of giving a full three hundred and sixty degree turn around the bar that sustained the swing.
"Katie, you're going to high. Slow down." the girl made a little huff and obeyed, slowing her swing down, until it come to a full stop. As soon as the swing stilled the girl, Katie, hopped off and runned torwards the slide, givning him a look over her shoulder.
Rick didn't even waited for his swing to come to a full stop. He jumped off of it and runned after the girl.
She had already runned torwards the slide and was on the top of the stairs looking down at him with a smirk, so he decided to go to the other end of the slide and wait for her to reach the bottom.
"Hi, I'm Rick." he said as the girl got to her feet in front of him.
She gave him a smile and extended her hand- like the grown ups did -for him to shake.
"I'm Kate. You wanna go play?"
"Yeah. What do you wanna play, Kate?"
"How about..." she bit her lip in concentration "pirates. You wanna play pirates with me?"
Rick nodded with a smile.
"Then follow me matie! Let's steal some gold!" she started saying with a pirate accent.
"Let's matie." Rick agreed.
And then she run off, not waitting for him. He couldn't help stare at her mesmerized. He got caught up in the way her pigtails swiveled from one side to other while she runned. Each of her perfect pigtails tied in the end with a purple ribbon.
The girl stopped when she realised he wasn't following her.
"You comin'?" Kate asked looking over her shoulder.
He smilled and run after her.
They had been playing for a while and now they were playing at the monkey bars when some boy come up to them.
"It's my turn to go on the monkey bars."
Kate was almost reaching the end when the boy pushed her off the monkey bars, making her fall on the ground, scratching her knee.
"What are you doing?! You hurt her!" Rick screamed at the boy.
"Who cares. I said it was my turn."
"You dind't have to push her."
Kate clutched her knee, but didn't cry.
"You're mean and stupid and an idiot." she yelled.
The kid moved as he was going to hit Kate, but Rick put himself in his way.
"Hey, back off. You're just a little boy. You can't do nothing to me." the boy said laughing at Rick's face.
He clenched his jaw.
"Say you're sorry."
"What?!"
"Apologize to her. Say you're sorry."
"No." the bully said mocking him.
Rick didn't think twice, he pushed the kid hard, making him fall on his butt.
"Say you're sorry." he yelled
The boy taken aback by Rick's attitude and his clenched fist, apologized.
"I- I'm sorry I hurt you." he said, getting up again and running off.
"Good." Rick smiled and turned to Kate that was still cluching her knee, staring with wide eyes at him.
"Are you okay?" he asked her "Where's your mom?"
Kate looked around trying to find her mother. She spotted her by the bench talking to a red haired woman.
"There." she said pointing at the bench.
Rick smiled.
"She's talking to my mom. Wait here and I'll go get her." He gave her a kiss on the cheek, making her blush and run off to call her mother.
After Kate's mother had checked her knee, she had decided that it was time for them to go home.
As they were leaving Rick noticed that Kate's ribbon had fell near the monkey bars. He runned to get it, so he could return it, but when he turned around he couldn't see Kate or her mother anywhere. He dusted the purple ribbon off, noticing that in one of the corners of the ribbon there was little black letters saying: Katie B.
Castle smiled at the memory. Who'd knew that he and Kate Beckett had crossed paths before. And played pirates.
"Dad. Are you coming or what? Paula and Gina will have your head if you don't hurry." he startled.
Looking up he saw his daughter that was already wearing the dress that he had bought specialy for the ocasion.
"Yeah. Can you just help me with this tie, please?" she shook her head at him, but steped closer in order to help him.
Before they left for the gala, Castle placed the purple ribbon saying Katie B. on his nightstand a huge smile still playing on his lips.
Kate Beckett was sitting at her desk, doing the paper work from their last case when a cup of coffee was placed in her desk. She looked up to thank Castle for the coffee, but her eyes caught the purple ribbon that was wrapped with a neat bow around her cup of coffee.
She looked up at him in confusion.
He just smirked and sat on his chair sipping his own coffee, avoiding her eyes.
Carefully she untied the ribbon from around the steaming cup of coffee and stared at it in confusion. Then the tiny lack letters on the corner of the ribbon caught her eyes.
Katie B., was written with her mother's hand writing. Her eyes got wide. And she glanced up at Castle. Her mouth open in a perfect 'o' of disbelieve.
"Castle. Where did you got this?"
"Third drawer. Apparently little Kate Beckett liked to play pirates, if my memorie doesn't fail me." he said with ahuge grin.
Kate's mind traveled to the moment when she had met a pretty boy in the park. The same day she had lost her favorite ribbon.
She stared at him dumbfounded.
"No way."
It couldn't be. Simply couldn't.
"Apparently the universe likes getting us together and then separate us again. Good ting I respect the universe."
He smugly smiled at her and got another sip of his coffee.
So, the universe intended to tell her that the boy that she had considered her knight in shiny armor was actual Rick Castle. Looks like the universe liked to mock her.
Well, at least she got her favorite ribbon back.
Suddently Castle snatched the ribbon from her and tied it neatly to the reading lamp that she had on her desk, giving her a smile and grabbing his coffe again.
Kate smiled and looked at the neat bow. Then she turned back to her paperwork, a smile playing on her lips.
"Argh, matie!" Castle murmured, making her smile grow.
A/N: So, I kinda messed with their ages here, just ignore it and I hope you enjoyed it.