Disclaimer: I do not own Castle. I do not own IKEA. I do not own Columbia University. I do not own ... this list of non-ownership is tiring. You get the drift.

A/N: Just a bit of fluff for those of us with college or near-college age kids, or those of us who have cut themselves recently attempting to assemble do-it-yourself furniture.

"Okay, next one - Pooolaaarg."

"Dad, this game is kind of dumb."

"Oh, okay," he says with a sigh. He was rather enjoying 'IKEA product or madeup word' but it's obviously not to everyone's taste. "That was made-up, by the way."

"Actually, it's a very tasteful spoon cozy," Alexis says with a prim smile, and goes back to hanging up her clothes.

It's the Saturday before registration begins at Columbia and Castle is helping his daughter move into her dorm room, which mostly involves unpacking, assembling Swedish furniture, and trying not to cry.

He tightens the last Allen bolt on the reading chair, flips it back upright.

"Okay, done."

"Wow," Alexis says, looking at his handiwork. "That was fast."

"Yeah, well, natural talent and all that," he says. He doesn't mention the four identical chairs he spent several nights building for practice and that he now has stashed in his secret lair. Somewhere on the list of benefits to being rich has got to be never having to assemble your own furniture. Sure, he always enjoys going to IKEA, but only for the meatballs and human drama on display. Well, and the funny names. But assembling your own furniture is idiotic. It's not like he gives his readers a random bucket of sentences, has them build their own novel.

Ah, the things he does for his daughter.

She kisses his cheek, disappears back into the hall for another box. He moves the chair into the corner, sets the lamp up next to it. He can see his daughter curled up there, with a cup of coffee and a copy of Swann's Way. It's a fun vision, much better than some of the others he's been having - the dancing on the bar during pledge week - that one isn't a favorite.

Does Columbia even have pledge week? Something to look up when he gets home.

That and discreet bodyguards.

He lets those thoughts go, as Kate will talk him out of them anyway. Kate - hmmm... he wanted to talk to Alexis about that, and it seems a safer topic than any of the lectures he'll descend into if he's not careful.

Alexis walks in, hands him a box. He opens it and starts unpacking. She sits in her new chair, starts flipping through the books and school supplies he hands her.

"Pumpkin, I wanted to talk to you about something."

"I'll be fine, Dad. It's a good school, I'm a responsible..."

"I know," he interrupts, "not a lecture. You'll be great, I know it. Something else."

"Oh," she says, chagrined, but there is a small smile of pride on her face too. "What is it?"

"Um, would you be okay if I was dating?"

"You've dated for years, Dad, and I don't think you've ever asked my permission before."

"This is different. This is more ... serious."

"Like Gina? You didn't ask then, either."

"Well, you were eight," he says, but he hears the tinge of anger in her voice. "And maybe I should have asked then too."

Alexis nods, her anger seems to fade. "This woman. Can I meet her?"

"Um," he says. He wasn't expecting that. Kate and he have been keeping their relationship quiet for the last three months, but even then... "It's Kate."

"Kate?" Alexis says, completely surprised.

"Yes, Kate. Detective Beckett."

"Oh. I thought you said ... you both said that you just work together."

"Well, yeah, but we're friends too. And we've talked..." he says, confused. This isn't going as he'd thought it would.

Alexis stands up, puts her books on the shelf looking away from him. "It's not like I'm going to be around, Dad. I don't see how it will affect me."

"Um..." he says, wondering how all the women in his life can turn him into a blathering idiot. "There'll be Thanksgiving. If we go to the Hamptons for Christmas..."

"You think it'll last that long?"

"I hope so," he says, trying to keep his voice from rising into a question.

"How do you know she feels the same way?"

He huffs at that. It's not exactly like he can mention that they've been sneaking around together for the entire summer, and that he's pretty sure he can tell Kate is in love with him by the way she mentions it, once or twice a day.

Go with something else, Rick, he thinks to himself.

"I mean," Alexis continues when he doesn't speak, "maybe she doesn't... I mean, I know you two are friends and all, but maybe she doesn't think of you, in that way."

"Let's just assume I know, okay?"

"Okay," she says and walks past him to grab the last box from the hall. "What happens when it's over?"

"Over?"

"Well, you and Mom sorta get along, but you and Gina fought a lot and you still had to work with her. Will you keep writing books about Kate when it's all over? Will you keep working at the precinct? What about ... will I have to give up the internship with Dr. Parish?"

He's gone over this with Kate at length, had a fight that left them both exhausted. He'd known they couldn't avoid it, not with his previous marriage history and her habit of running away. They'd had four years of leaving things unsaid that neither could afford to ignore.

"If it ends, then yes it will be difficult and awkward for a bit, but we agreed that we'll find a way to work through it so that I can keep writing Nikki and helping at the precinct. You too."

"You already agreed? So you've talked about it?"

"Um, yeah."

"When you were in the Hamptons last month?"

"Um."

"Or when she came over on the Fourth of July?"

"Um."

"Or when you disappeared after Cirque D..."

"Okay, I get it. You know already."

"Yep," she says, chirpy rather than angry.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because it was funny."

"Funny?"

"You think you're James Bond, Dad, but you're really Mr. Bean."

He laughs. "I can live with that."

"Besides... it seemed like the more you thought you were getting away with something, the more you threw yourself behind the blow-out list."

"Oh. Honey, I..."

"You're happy."

"I am," he answered, though it hadn't been a question.

"Good. I like Kate."

"Then why all the questions?"

"Other than to mess with you? I like Kate, a lot, but you two never seemed to be on the same page."

"We fixed that. We're on the same page now."

"So you're saying you're bringing a date to Thanksgiving?"

He nods.

"Can I?"

"Are you?"

"No," Alexis says. She looks out her door into the hallway for a second. "But there are a lot of cute guys here, and my Dad has shown me that sneaking around can be fun..."

"Okay, okay, dear daughter. I get it. I screwed up. We should have come clean when we first started."

"Yeah. It's not like we didn't all see it coming."

"We?"

"Mr. Bean, not James Bond, Dad."

He shakes that off, though it will be something to bring up with Kate when he sees her later.

"So, you ready for all this?" he asks.

"Yeah, I'm ready. It'll be good."

"Sure you don't have any other things for me to put together. I think we left a box in the car."

"Dad," she says, comes over and hugs him. "I'm not far away. Still on the same island. It'll be fine."

"You aren't quite done unpacking..."

"I can't miss you if you don't leave. Go... have dinner with Kate, tell her she has kid approval and doesn't have to sneak out before dawn tomorrow. Bring her to parents day next month."

"Okay," he says, and takes his daughter into a big bear hug. He's all grown, but he can still engulf her. He kisses her golden crown, tries hard not to cry, since it would just embarrass her. He holds her as long as he can without breaking down, gives her one last squeeze, and heads to the door.

"Call me," he says.

"Love you."

He retreats quickly, doesn't stop to look at anything until he's down on the street. He's struck dumb by this feeling that when he passed through the doors out into the sun, that was the moment she stopped being his little girl. She'll always be his daughter, but he has crossed through a threshold that has left him a father but no longer a dad.

Being a parent just means saying goodbye, in ever more painful increments.

He makes it back to his car before he breaks completely, feels the waves of grief pound at his head, his back, his chest. He feels like he's dying and only his pride in his daughter is keeping him here, in the world, at all.

He sits in the car for a long time, taking long cool deep breaths to push back at the constriction of his chest. His phone rings and he only answers it when he sees Kate's smiling face on the caller id.

"Come back to the loft," she says without preamble.

"You're not at work?"

"Lab won't get us anything until Monday, so we all left. Come home."

The "home" is what gets him. "How do you know I'm done?"

"Alexis texted me. By the way, I'm having Thanksgiving with you guys?"

"You're not?" he asks, starting to feel a little better, a little playful. He turns the car on, pulls out into traffic.

"A woman likes to be asked, Castle."

"You, me, your Dad, my Mom, Alexis, some honking big bird..."

"You're going to deep fry the damned thing, aren't you?"

"Oooh, there's an idea. Where does one get a deep fryer, I wonder?"

"I figured you, of all people, would have a deep fryer guy."

He laughs, finally realizing what she's doing. He's feeling better. He'll see Alexis soon, and Kate will help him fill the hours until then.

"Thanks."

"Of course, Castle. Now get your butt home."

Okay, he thinks, things change. But the big things, the good things, they don't go away. And maybe Kate will play the IKEA name game with him. Or some other game.

He's a man of forty with an adult daughter our on her own, and he's just getting started.

He can live with that.