Chapter Two

True to his word, Beckett heard a knock on her door a couple of minutes before seven. With a groan at the mess she had likely gotten herself into, she moved to answer it. Out of habit she peeked through the peep hole, just in case, and couldn't help the smile at what was on the other side of her door.

She opened the door and let out a small chuckle as he bobbled the items in his hands. In one hand he held a bag that seemed to have Styrofoam take out containers, on which were balanced two drinks that, if she wasn't mistaken, were milkshakes. He was definitely trying to butter her up if that's what was in those cups.

His other hand was grasping the handles of two canvas bags and what was probably his laptop case and under that arm was a file folder stuffed full of paper. He looked like he was going to drop something at any moment, but she didn't move to help him.

Beckett stepped to the side so he could make his way in. He just gave her a small smile as he carefully made his way towards the coffee table in her living room. She watched as one of the cups teetered precariously before he balanced it again and seemed to slow his pace in an effort to prevent that from happening again.

"You spill that in my house and you're going to be sorry." She informed him as he started carefully setting things down. First the canvas and laptop bags on a chair as he passed, then he carefully slid the takeout onto the low table top, stooping cautiously. Finally, he grabbed the file folder from under his arm and slapped it loudly onto her coffee table. He started to shake and wave his arms around as if they had fallen asleep.

"Somehow I always forget how incredibly uncomfortable things get when you hold your arms in one position too long while you're carrying something." He explained with a sheepish look on his face as if he expected a lecture. She couldn't bring herself to do that when she carried more than she should all the time, just to prevent a second trip all the way back outside.

Another couple of shakes of his arms and he was reaching down to grab one of the cups. He presented it to her with two hands as if it were a prized idol of some lost civilization or some such priceless artifact. "Prepare yourself for one of the great discoveries of our time." he told her with excitement in his voice.

The tone instantly set her on edge as she took the drink and tried to see through the opaque white lid. It was thick and brown, that much was all she could make out. "Chocolate shake?" she asked.

"Oh, no, Detective," his eyes sparkled with glee as he spoke, "It is so much more than a chocolate shake."

Suddenly wary, she tried to pass the cup back to him and he looked at her with confusion as he opened his palms flat refusing to take it back, "If this is your attempt at getting me to try jalapeno ice cream, consider yourself warned. There will be consequences."

"You really have no faith in me." he responded, but his tone was laced heavily with humor as he reached out for his own cup. Castle took a long slow pull of the thick drink through his wide straw before setting it to the side as he started to get out the containers of food.

She looked at what he was laying out and then disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later with some silverware and napkins. "I don't trust your taste buds sometimes, that's all." she told him as she came back to pull up a spot on the floor beside him.

With their backs to the couch and the height of the table, they were comfortable for dining, but still her drink sat there untested. She was curious, but still wary. "Oh, that smells amazing." She commented as she got a full, heady, breath of the lasagna.

"Wait until you taste it." he responded, lifting a bite out of his own container. She watched as the cheese clung, stretching between his fork and plate in a long white ribbon, growing increasingly thinner until it finally snapped, cheese pooling back on his plate and dangling off his fork. He moved the bite to his mouth and savored it, chewing slowly with his eyes closed and he was making a soft humming sound in the back of his throat.

She wondered if he realized how incredibly sensual the act was when mixed with that throaty sound of pleasure. Shaking the thought off, she took a hasty bite herself. Once the pasta hit her tongue, however, she felt her own eyes slide shut as she savored the tastes and textures mingling perfectly in her mouth. She let out as soft "Oh," that sounded like a moan in her head as her eyes opened again.

She found him staring at her with a look in his eyes that told her that it had in fact sounded like a moan to him as well. His reaction probably mirroring her own from a moment before. Trying to avoid letting her thoughts run away with her, she reached for the drink and took a sip. It was thick and took a moment for her to pull up the straw and into her mouth.

As she felt the cold hit her tongue, she smiled. "Coffee?" she asked. "That's the 'so much more' you were talking about?"

She almost laughed at the triumphant little grin on his face, "It's like drinking heaven." he explained. "Alexis brought me one a few weeks ago and I've been dying for an excuse to break tradition and bring you one."

"You could have done that anytime this week, no complaints from me." she said, taking another slow drink and letting the thick frozen treat melt on her tongue a moment before swallowing it. "That has got to be a whole trip to the gym all by itself, though."

"I know, isn't it great?" that boyish smile and excited tone were back again and she had to admit, this wasn't going as poorly as she assumed it would when he invited himself over.

"It's almost like a Frappuccino." She said and then watched a look of horror cross his face. "What?"

"Bite your tongue." he replied, anger in his tone, humor in his eyes. "This is not a Frappuccino." With a shake of his head, he explained, "Frappuccino is a drink that's made with crushed ice and usually powdered drink flavoring or chocolate sauce, all mixed together in a blender. This marvel of the culinary world is almost entirely chocolate milk that is slow frozen with the coffee and sugar already in it."

"My apologies to the culinary gods, then." she smirked and he smiled back, accepting her apology on behalf of those gods with a nod.

They finished their meal in small talk as Castle described finding this little coffee shop and making it their new regular place. She was amused that he said 'their' when he always just showed up with her coffee and it hadn't really mattered to her where it came from.

As she moved to clear away the mess after they were finished, Castle gestured her away from the task. He slid his leftover lasagna into her tray, added in the last two breadsticks and popped the lid closed as he stood and gathered the remnants.

Technically, he was a guest in her house, but as he had invited himself over, Beckett decided not to protest his efforts. Instead she moved up to sit on the couch, cradling her almost untouched frozen coffee in her hands as she watched him move through her kitchen.

He came back into the living room a few moments later and grabbed his laptop bag before settling into a seat near her on the couch. "You better not let that food grow legs and wander out of there." he said as he pulled the computer out of its case and started booting it up.

"There is very little chance of that." she responded, "It may end up being breakfast in the morning. That was amazing, where did you go?"

He shrugged, avoiding the question as he typed in his password and started to pull up an internet browser.

"Oh," she said, "is it one of those places you're not going to tell me about because I can't afford the price tag? Because you better just spill; that was worth whatever price was on it."

"Nothing like that." he assured her. "It's about four dollars a serving." He explained and she cocked her head to the side, waiting for him to acknowledge the silent question, "It's a Castle special." He finally said, his eyes not diverting from the screen as he started typing in a search engine. "I can leave you the recipe."

She decided to let the thought of him cooking dinner for her slide right past both of them. "So, what's the plan?"

His sigh was heavy, the lightness of earlier gone in an instant, "I don't have a plan, just a bunch of scattered ideas and thoughts."

"No clowns?" she asked, receiving the pursed lip, squinted eyes, half glare she had been shooting for. "What's all this, then?" she asked as she reached out and slid the manila folder towards herself.

"Those would be my scattered thoughts." he responded.

She went through the large stack of printouts, flyers, booklets, leaflets, pamphlets, catering menus, and whatever else was in this mess of a folder. By the time she was done she had organized each into a pile based on the type of information it contained. There were piles for food, entertainment, venues and activities, though looking through them had pointed out that very little would likely be useful.

"This isn't working." she told him, reaching over and shutting his laptop. He just managed to get his fingers out of the way before the lid gave a quiet click as it latched. "Plan B." she explained, clearing the materials into piles on the floor and pushing his laptop into his hands so that the table was bare.

"What's plan B?"

She gave him a look that told him to just trust her and then got up to grab a tablet of paper and something to write with. Returning to her seat, a little close to him this time so they could look over the same sheet of paper, she wrote 'Alexis' in the middle of the page and circled it before drawing lines out from the center and giving each a category. They would then be able to structure their knowledge about Alexis into the one of the categories and come up with sub-groups if they needed to. "You're thinking too much about this being a party type of party and not enough about making it simple and practical."

He nodded, though she could see the thought of not going all out for his daughter was taking a toll on him as he fidgeted in his seat a moment.

"We have to go about this differently. It's the old adage about insanity." He nodded, but she could see he wasn't sold, so she continued, "If we stop focusing on the details and just brainstorm a little about Alexis, maybe we'll come up with a theme we can work around. Something that's perfect for her."

She watched him settle and still in his seat as it sank in, "You're right. I asked for your input and I'm going to go with the flow this time. Perhaps the less involved I am the better it will be for her."

He seemed almost sad at the thought; she was quick to reassure him with an admonishment, "Don't even think about it. You're in this as much as I am; you're not shirking this off on me."

He smiled, "I wouldn't dream of it. Where do we start?"

She explained her thought on compiling information about Alexis until they had a clear picture to draw a starting point from. This set Castle off on a volley of points as he listed the things Alexis liked.

At first, her pen had a hard time keeping up, but as he continued to explain the various facets of Alexis Castle the stories got longer with each example she needed to write down. She felt relaxed in this task, more comfortable than she had originally expected. She attributed it to that little extra light he always got in his eyes when he talked about his daughter.

Pride and love shone through him, bright as day, and his smile was warm as he remembered things from his time with his daughter. It was a side of him he didn't show very often, perhaps because it didn't come up much at work or maybe he was hording those memories and thoughts. Tonight, however, he let them all out in the open. One story seemed to lead to another and before she knew it they had a three page web of Alexis laid out on her coffee table.

He had taken over the writing halfway through and she was slightly surprised at how well he could write while explaining the details behind putting an item on the list. His last story faded, something about how many times Alexis had begged for a pony before he caved and bought them a couple horses that were housed at a nice ranch in upstate New York. Alexis loved to ride, had even got into competitive roping for a while, but had to give it up when it took too much of her time from studying and her other activities.

"I used to love going riding." Beckett filled the brief silence. His little nod with a hint of a smile was his silent request for the story behind her statement. Nervousness warred with the sadness of those thoughts and she felt the fond smile fall from her face. "Mom used to take me once or twice a year. Dad never liked horses." she transitioned easily enough away from the harder things to think about and on to a safer topic, something more fitting the light and humorous night they had been having. "He said he couldn't get past the smell of them, but I think at least part of it was the idea of being on something that big that didn't have a motor in it. Or a brake pedal."

Castle laughed at that, "Yeah, my first reaction was a big fat 'Oh, Hell no!', but Alexis was persistent and I'm a sucker for her big blue eyes." He smiled wistfully, "Some of my fondest memories are of taking a ride on a trail and having a picnic. There's this waterfall a few miles down from the ranch that is beautiful and lush. The water is freezing, being run off from the mountains, but we still go swimming. Then we have lunch on this huge flat boulder that is amazing for sunning after the frigid water."

Kate could picture the scene easily; a young Alexis wading slowly into the cold water, Castle jumping in with a gleeful holler and splashing her mercilessly with a cannon ball. Lush green woods, the sound of the water falling, she could almost feel the sun heated rock under her. "It sounds wonderful." she said before she could stop herself.

He didn't have a response, and when she turned towards him he was looking at her with a curious expression on his face. She couldn't place it, but he leaned forward in the seat, bracing his arms across his knees and looking at her with the quiet thoughtful expression he sometimes got. "You should come with us."

"What?" she was only slightly confused, she knew what he was asking, but it seemed an odd request.

"I'm serious." he said, obviously realizing she knew what his request meant but wasn't accepting of it. "It would be fun. Get out of the city for a while, reconnect with nature? Alexis would love it."

"I don't know, Castle." she responded, but she did know. It would be fun, things with him usually were, but she wasn't looking to make things more complicated than they already were. A horseback ride leading to a picnic in a private wooded setting was not a way to keep things from getting more confusing.

"I'm serious, Kate." Oh man, he was breaking out that earnest tone and her first name, pulling the big guns out for this. "We can call it research on our project to gain Intel for this plan we're hatching?" he suggested, his tone was light, but his eyes burned with something that she was sure was determination. She wouldn't hear the end of this.

"I wouldn't want to impose." she finally responded.

When he smiled, she realized that hadn't been the right choice of words. "You wouldn't be. Not at all." He grinned as if she had said yes.

As she replayed it in her head, her reasoning for not going being imposition on their family moment which he had brushed off, on some level she had agreed. She almost groaned at that knowledge, but reassured herself that she'd find a way to back out of that when and if the time came.

x.x.x

A/N: My daughter went to my sister's house to watch the Justin Beiber movie with her girl cousins and left me alone at home to work in the middle of the day. It's like free writing time… between chores, of course, but it's laundry day so there's a lot of down time. So, while I posted a chapter on my main fic today, I was also able to get this done.

Review that made my day: lisahoo1, cracked me up. It reminded me of family vacations. Yes we're going for a ride. Where we're going is a surprise, but sure we can get some ice cream along the way. I'll take that into account in a future chapter just for you.

Thanks to everyone for reading.