Chapter Two
Before the Fall
The months before the Votan Ark ships arrived was an interesting period of time for Alexis and the Castle household. After much soul searching and discussion with her dad, Kate had declined the job offer by the Department of Homeland Security and had instead elected to accept Captain Gates' sponsorship to take the lieutenant's exam to replace LT who would be retiring soon.
Kate had explained to Alexis later that she didn't want to leave New York for a job that would likely consume her life like Jordan Shaw had done and put an unnecessary strain on her now expanding relationship with her dad, even though she still wasn't comfortable putting their private life out there for public consumption yet.
Not that she loved her dad any less, she just wasn't yet prepared for the media scrutiny that would be sure to follow and neither she nor her father could blame her it was a very scary concept. It would be the last hurdle for them to cross to truly be one hundred percent committed to their union and was likely terrifying to her.
They had, however, finally broached the topic of where their relationship was going, including the prospect of marriage and eventually children of their own. They agreed that it was where they wanted to go in the long term...just not quite yet. She remembered being happy for Kate and her dad and so very hopeful for the future.
Kate did, however accept a training assignment with homeland security to better prepare herself for the lieutenant's position, which would be officially announced when she came back from Quantico, Virginia in six weeks.
The rumors of their burgeoning relationship in the tabloids soon turned to uglier rumors of a breakup prompting her flight from New York. Rumors fueled by a silly argument in Drago's. One that had gotten heated and gone farther than either of them had wanted or intended which had led to them sleeping in separate beds for the first time in months.
They had both been miserable the entire night, neither able to sleep and they made up in the 12th Precinct's break room the next morning. A tearful apology and affirmation of love that, unlike the fight the night before, never made the papers. The feeding frenzy over their "inevitable breakup" had begun.
To soften the blow of her eventual departure, Kate finally accepted her father's invitation to move into the loft and informed her landlord that she would not be renewing her lease. Without thinking, she had given her forwarding address as "Quantico Virginia" as that was where she would be for the next month and a half.
The week before she was scheduled to depart, she was seen by paparazzi loading her boxed up belongings into a U-haul truck with the help of Ryan and Esposito. Rick was back at the loft clearing space for all of her things. He had turned the guest room into a storage area for the things she wanted to sort through when she got back. The rest, Kate herself was helping integrate as seamlessly as possible into the new home she wold be sharing with her and her dad.
The last thing she did before she boarded the train for Virginia at Grand Central Station, was take the necklace holding her mother's ring and hanging it around her father's neck, taking off her father's watch and pressing it into his hands before she kissed him thoroughly with tears streaming down her face.
Alexis saw this act for what it truly meant. Kate was not one who was gifted with finding the right words to convey what she truly felt, what was in her heart, so she preferred to let her actions speak for her. With this seemingly benign action (though Alexis and her father were well aware what those two simple objects signified and how precious they truly were to her) she let them both know, that although she was going away for a short time, she was not running.
When this training cycle was over, she would be coming home to them.
Erik Vaughn had tried to make another bid for her affections not a week after she had arrived. She had rebuffed him much more harshly than she had in the presidential suite that night when she was tasked with his protection, and in the interrogation room the following day.
To her credit, she didn't wait for it to hit the scandal sheets, she took the next train home to New York, and was up front to Rick about what happened, and her reaction. She had pushed him away when he tried to lean in to kiss her again, and when he tried to smooth talk her and try again, she decked him.
Before she had gotten to the loft, Vaughn's public relations people had leaked a doctored tape of her assaulting him (edited to make him look innocent, and her the aggressor) to the tabloids, leading to her being suspended from the Homeland security program pending a formal review, and the Chief of Detectives to place her on suspension from the NYPD pending a formal hearing.
By the time she had gotten to the loft it was all over the news, leaving her in tears that the man would try to destroy her career, simply for refusing to sleep with him. Her father had held Kate all that night, put her to bed, and when she was sure she was asleep, he called Paula Haas, his own publicist while she was in bed.
The resulting media shit storm Paula laid down swiftly swung public opinion back into Kate's favor. The unedited video, complete with sound had somehow "found" its way to the same tabloids as the doctored one and since Vaughn was the bigger fish, they pounced on the chance to attack his far too squeaky clean public image.
She was summarily cleared of all charges within a week. Paula Haas had worked her witchy PR powers so well, and outwitted his public relations people so soundly that Erik Vaughn had actually been forced by his own investors to publicly apologize to her in person on national television for his "poor judgment and unprofessional behavior" toward her. When she shook the hand he offered, she "served" him with a restraining order barring him from being within one hundred feet of her. There was enough media scrutiny on him not to make sure he obeyed it.
When she received word from Homeland security that she had been reinstated to the training cycle, she boarded the train to Virginia sporting a brand new piece of jewelry on her left hand. An engagement ring. One he had purchased for her way back when he had first added "be with Kate" to his bucket list. It came complete with a full page photo spread on page six of "The Ledger" featuring Rick on bended knee in the middle of Le Cirque, slipping it onto her finger. The world now knew that Richard Castle and Kate Beckett were officially off the market. They set the date for a week after her return from Virginia.
Their wedding day was a small, intimate affair on the lawn outside of the vacation home in the Hamptons. Dad had arranged for the altar to be placed on the very spot where he had told Kate that of all of the other women he had brought here, none of then had been her.
The pool had been drained and converted into a dance floor with the addition of temporary flooring over top of it. Alexis would remember for the rest of her life with fondness and deep sadness the first dance shared by Mr. and Mrs. Richard Edgar Castle. (Kate had insisted on taking his name legally, but he only agreed if she kept her maiden name at work to preserve her reputation.)
Of all of the people present, the reaction of Captain Victoria Gates surprised everyone. When the happy couple first stepped onto the dance floor, "Iron Gates" promptly burst into tears, revealing her inner sappy side. She cried at weddings.
Kate and Rick had been truly moved that the captain had not only known about them from day one, but had been quietly been rooting for them all along. She had even won the office pool. (nobody had known that she had anonymously put herself down for a hundred dollars that they would wed exactly two years to the day from when she had first seen them together.
Halfway through the reception, the alien ships arrived, penetrating the light puffy cloud cover with their silvery pointed hulls. In that moment, Alexis Castle knew that her life would never be the same.
The Votan survivors had arrived.
