A/N: okay, so timeline wise, this is March/April 2010. Kate first met Castle in January '04; Harriet was born in September of '04. Alexis was born in March '07, Castle and Meredith divorced early '08 and Gina hasn't made an appearance. And I don't know when it was that Kate actually made Detective, but for the sake of this story, let's pretend it was '03 and her mum was murdered in '97. This is only vague estimates as I don't know how long it takes for you to go through the academy and then get to cop, but again PRETEND THAT I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING. Not entirely sure about this chapter. BUT HO HUM what ya gonna do about it.
Also, I apologise if I slip into Britishness and call Kate Mum/Mummy or call a cell phone a mobile. It's not on purpose.
Disclaimer: my boyfriend's birthday is the 16th of April. Am I more excited for his birthday... or Headhunters? HMM.
Her hairs getting long again. She says long, it's only just started to brush her shoulders. Everyone's been getting at her to grow it out, especially Harry (We really could be twins! Only you're just bigger), but short hair is just easier to look after. Doesn't necessarily need a style, just a brush. Maybe she'll grow it a bit longer. She'll see.
Kate Beckett pushed a lock of stubborn hair behind her ear, glancing up from her dog-eared copy of In a Hail of Bullets to find her daughter. On the slide. Perfectly happy. Perfectly safe. That was the worst thing about being a cop. You expect murderers and kidnappers and thieves to be lurking around every tree. Sure, she has her gun but she'd rather not have to use it in front of all these kids and parents. Though how many of these kids would find it cool rather than traumatising she has no idea. She's lost count of how many times she's seen seven year olds with war games now. Ridiculous. She glances back down to her book, runs a hand through her hair and sighs. She doesn't know why she's feeling so melancholy today. It's not that she misses her mom badly today, she's had the past three days off, and normally she loves coming to the park. In a job filled with death and shootings, it's nice to surround yourself with screaming and laughing children. Remind yourself there's still some good left in the world, even if you have trouble seeing it sometimes.
"Mom! Mom! Mommy! Mom!" if there's one thing Harry Beckett is good at, it's making herself heard.
Her daughter crashes into her knees with an oof, eyes shining with excitement, her hair resembling something that was dragged through a bush. "Careful, Harry. Less speed, remember?"
"Sorry!" the five and a half year old grins. "But Mom you have to come and see this!"
"See what?"
"What me and Alexis found!" she's practically dragging her off the bench, and Kate stands up, reaching for her bag and tucking her book under her arm. "Who's Alexis?"
Harry pointed across the playground to where a girl, maybe a year and a half younger than Harry was stood watching them her hands clutched around something. "She's my new friend. We found something."
"What did you find?"
"That's a surprise!" Harry shook her head. "Mommy, you're useless with surprises. You don't like them."
"Perk of the job, Harry. But come on; show me what you've found."
It was a dormouse. An actual dormouse. They'd managed to find a dormouse. Which was ridiculous and all kinds of... amazing? Alexis was looking at it with the kind of reverence that a three year old has when they find something completely new and wonderful and exciting. Harry was bouncing next to her, eagerly recalling the story of how they'd found it while playing Pirate Ninja Space Cowboys. "Can we keep it, Mom? Please, please, please? I'll look after it, I promise!"
"Harry, this is wild animal. It already has a home. You can't take it. Imagine if someone found you and thought you were cute and decided to take you home with them. How would you feel then?"
Harry shrugged. "They might let me have ice cream before bed." Kate reached over, running her hands up Harry's sides utility the girl was shrieking with laughter. "You'd come and get me back."
"Maybe. The apartment would be a lot tidied without you around." she pulled Harry closer in a one armed hug. "I'd come and get you back. But let's go put this guy back where you found him. Let him go home too."
"Are we going home?"
"Soon. It's almost dinnertime."
"But we have to go and show Alexis's dad first!" Harry grinned at the younger girl who nodded. "Where's your Daddy Alexis?"
The girl tuned and pointed at a bench where a broad shouldered man was hunched over a large notepad, scribbling furiously, only looking up when Alexis appeared in his field of vision. There's something about the man that feels familiar, but she can't quite put a name to a face. "Hey, Pumpkin. You okay?"
The girl nodded, holding out her hands. "Found something."
"Is it a dinosaur eating spider?" Alexis shook her head. "Is it an alien, fallen from the skies planning to take over the world?" Alexis giggled, shaking her head again. "A borrower? A rock shaped like America? No? Okay, I give up."
"It's a mouse!" Harry exclaimed. "The bravest most honourable mouse that ever lived! He fights off crows and badgers and foxes with nothing but his bare hands. Everybody is scared if him because he can rip your head off with a single bite! And he lives high up in a tree so he can keep an eye on his kingdom, and then when he hears somebody in trouble he climbs down from his tree and defeats the bad guy!"
The man raised an eyebrow, his smile growing. "Quite the imagination you've got."
"S'not 'magination! It's real!" Harry pouted, arms folded. "He's called Dexter."
"Well, Dexter needs to go back to his tree home." Kate interrupted before Harry could carry on with her story. "And so do we. Where did you find him?"
Harry pointed to a nearby tree. "Over there."
"Right, over there it is. You two go on ahead, I'll follow."
The man closed his notebook with a snap. "I've always wanted to see the home of Dexter the Mouse. I think I'll follow on behind."
"They're quite the pair." he says, watching Harry and Alexis together. "One fairly outgoing, the other not so outgoing."
"Yeah, Harry's never had trouble making friends. She just comes up and starts talking to you. You have no choice in the matter. I suspect Alexis never saw it coming."
He laughed. "Alexis can be quite the little charmer when she wants to be. That hair and the blue eyes? She'll be a heartbreaker."
"She is a beautiful kid."
"So is yours. Spitting image of you."
"Worst compliment ever." Kate replied, biting down the urge to laugh. "Think of a better one."
She stopped behind Harry, hands on her shoulders, watching as Alexis carefully placed Dexter the Mouse under a pile of leaves. He lifted his head up, sniffed the air and then disappeared. Harry waved at him. "Bye, Dexter!"
"Okay, home time Harry. Let's go."
"Woah, hey, wait a sec." he reached over, hooked a finger around the strap of her bag. "I know they've only just met and everything, but charmer or not, Alexis doesn't get the chance to make friends much. And they get on so well, and I was wondering if you'd want to arrange a play date or something. We could swap numbers. Give me a ring when you're next free?"
"Either you're genuinely concerned about your daughter's social welfare, or you're abusing it to get my number." Kate smirked.
"Maybe a bit of both." he grinned. "Is it working?"
Kate looked over at Harry and Alexis who were pretending to shoot each other. With dramatic deaths (overly dramatic in Harry's case) included. They were getting on. She sighed. "It worked."
She dug her phone out of her pocket, read out her number. "And what would I be saving that under?"
"Kate."
"Just Kate? Am I not privy to a last name?"
"No."
He laughed, tapped eagerly at his keyboard and it wasn't long before Kate's phone buzzed with a text from him. "The name's Rick Castle."
"I know that name!" Harry piped up, while Kate stood frozen staring at the screen on her phone. "Mom, where is it?" she was tugging at her bag ineffectively, but it caused the book to slide out from under her arm and hit the floor with a dull thud. "There!" she picked the book up, thrusting it up to show Rick. "That says Richard Castle."
"Aah, you're a fan!" he grinned. "How many times have you read this? It looks like a dog got hold of it."
"I-"
"She always reads it. She has all your books." Harry interrupted, grinning up at him. "I'm not allowed to touch them."
"Really?"
"Come on, Harry. We need to go. Now." She pushed Harry in front of her, heading over for the nearest exit, willing herself to not look back until they were safely back on the street.
Rick laughed, reaching out for Alexis's hand. "See you around, Kate."
She waits until Harry's asleep before phoning Lanie. "Kate, you better be ringing me to let me know there's a glass of wine with my name on it sat on your coffee table." the M.E. sighs.
"Not tonight, sorry."
"Then why on earth are you calling me?" she demands, but Kate knows she's not really angry. Or at least she won't be when she hears what Kate has to tell her.
"I met him."
"Met who?"
"Him!" Jeez, keep up, Lanie.
"Him being... Harry? You met Rick Castle?"
"And got his number."
"What?" Kate held the phone away from her ear as her friend shrieked in her ear.
"Harry made friends with his daughter, and he said he wanted to arrange a play date for them."
"For them. Riiiiight."
"Lanie." Kate sighed, picking at a loose thread on her blanket.
"So, he has a daughter too?"
"Yeah. She's younger than Harry though. About three, I think."
"So, what are you going to do?"
"I don't know, Lanie. I mean seriously, what are the chances? How exactly do you go about telling someone that the girl your kid made friends with is actually your own daughter?"
"Well, I won't tell you I told you so-"
"You just did." Kate growled.
"-but you dug this hole yourself and you're getting yourself out of it."
"Thanks for the support." she grumbled, sinking further back into her pillows. "Oh, this is bad. So, so bad."
Lanie laughed. "Just be thankful Harry takes after you. Blue eyes aren't a giveaway, this time. Just ease him into it. I mean, he can't exactly hold it against you. All he gave you was a first name. There are numerous Ricks in New York. Hard to find just one."
"Because every things just that easy."
"You've got to think about Harry when it comes to this, Kate. You of all people should know what it feels like to not have a parent. And I know you can handle Harry on your own, and you've done a fantastic job, still are, but do you really want to keep her from her own father?"
"Yes, but-"
"Kate, he's not going to steal your daughter away from you. I mean you never know… you could give it a proper try."
"It?"
"Yes, you know, do that thing that grown-ups do. Find a man, fall in love, and get married."
"Lanie, I barely even know the guy!"
Lanie snorted. "Right, and you don't devour his books like you haven't eaten for days, and you don't run out to the book store to buy whichever one is out, and you didn't spend two hours in a queue to get your book signed only to get the jitters and run out of the store faster than Esposito running towards the doughnuts. Or is that another Kate Beckett I know?"
"That's not what I meant."
"Look, he's obviously a nice guy. Otherwise you wouldn't have given him your number. And you've already gone home with him before, so obviously you like him."
"I was drunk at the time, Lanie. It doesn't count."
"Does so count! And the drunken Kate I know doesn't just let any guy buy her a drink. So, he must have been nice. And you didn't shoot him through the kneecaps when he tried it on with you. If you ask me, you should just marry the guy now."
"Lanie!"
"What? He's famous!"
"If you want him, he's yours."
Lanie laughed. "Don't think you're getting away with it that easily. Anyway, I have to go. I'm supposed to be cutting up a guy."
"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow. Bye, Lanie." Kate threw the phone onto the bed with a sigh. As much as she hated to admit it, Lanie was right. Could she really keep Harry from her own father? Sure, it was something when she had no idea where the guy is, but something else entirely when he's in her phonebook. And flirting with her. It's not like he remembers her. But then again, she wouldn't have recognised herself either.