She knocked on his door, nervous, heart beating fast. What would she say to him? She thought she knew what she would say, she knew that she wanted to get to know Castle better and give this, 'thing' a shot. She was embarrassed to admit that there was an attraction between them, after all the times she had dodged his flirting and kept up her attitude about his annoyingness.
Somehow she knew she still had to talk to him and that she couldn't chicken out now. She took a deep breath just as the door opened.
"Kate?" It was Alexis.
"Alexis, hi, is your Dad home?"
"He just popped out to get us some more ice cream but he will be back in a minute, come in, you can wait for him in his study," she dragged Kate into the apartment.
Kate took off her coat and rested it on the sofa, and walked towards his study, it was just as she remembered it from the last time she'd been here. He had his laptop set up at the desk, and there was a story planned out on a digital board. It was a lot like the murder board really. She smiled. He had his whole book planned out the same way she solved murders. Everything about the room screamed Castle.
She decided to take a seat, in his chair at his desk. She noticed the scribbles on his blotter, most of them were just that, scribbles. However, upon further examination she noticed her name written amongst the scribbles along with some little hearts and stars, it was cute. She glanced around the room, she couldn't hear Castle in the apartment yet, so she grabbed a pen quickly wrote 'Rick' and drew a heart around it. She giggled, how juvenile it was but still it was cute, and he must think about her a fair bit to be board enough to scribble things like that down.
"Kate," it was Castle she hadn't heard him enter the apartment during her musing.
"Hi," she smiled.
"It's funny, I was hoping you'd be at my desk all day, only in my version I was in the chair," he smirked.
She just kept a wry smile in place and stared at him, until she stood up, and then sat on the desk, leaving the chair unoccupied. She looked over her shoulder at him and his eyebrows shot up. Turning around she smiled to herself, this could get interesting.
Castle sauntered over to the chair, turned to face her, never losing eye contact, and put his hands on her hips while lowering himself into the chair.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked.
"I missed you at work today Castle," she said honestly.
Castle look astonished that she would admit it, and he saw that she was obviously enjoying throwing him off balance. He knew this dance, he would play.
"I missed you too," he replied.
Kate was even more taken aback, she was sure he would jump right in with a joke, make fun of her, but he didn't. Serious Rick was back, or was he?
"Are we trying to out-shock each other right now?" she snorted.
"I don't know Kate, are we? I mean if I wanted to shock you I wouldn't tell you I missed you because you know it's true. On the other hand, shocking you does sound like a lot of fun," with that he pulled her forward of the desk and into his lap.
Kate squeaked in surprise, sounding far too girly for her liking. Her eyes were wide, her mouth opened slightly in shock. Castle was just smiling and holding on to her tightly.
"Castle!" she grunted, smiling anyway.
"It's Rick when we are at home," he whispered in her ear making her shiver.
He'd said Home like it was theirs. She drew back and looked at him before rubbing noses again just holding each other.
"Rick..." she breathed his name and slowly made her way to his lips. The kiss was slow but it was passionate.
"Dad?"
It was Alexis out in the other room.
"The ice cream is going to melt if you don't come out and eat it soon," she demanded.
By this time Kate had pulled away remembering where she was and how she was positioned in Rick's lap. She blushed, getting out of his lap slowly and holding out her hand. Rick got up and took her hand, kissing the back of it softly.
"Want some ice cream," he smiled.
"Sure," she accepted.
He kissed her on the cheek and went out of the study into the kitchen to prepare some for her. She followed him out hoping she didn't look too flustered.
Alexis was sitting on the couch watching Kate as she exited the study.
"Hi again," she smiled at Kate.
"Hi Alexis," Kate wasn't entirely sure what to say to the girl.
"I hope you and Dad sorted everything out. I was worried when I realised he'd been home most of the day," she whispered to Kate who was now next to her on the couch.
"Oh, we weren't fighting Alexis. There just wasn't any new murders to work on today so your Dad thought it would be better to come home and work on his book," she replied matter of fact.
"Oh, well that's good then, I was worried you may have been fighting, Dad is always depressed the most when you aren't happy with him," Alexis told her.
Kate blushed, poor Castle, how many times had they fallen out because of something that had happened.
"He really does like you, you know. You have to understand that it really is unusual for him to come home even if there isn't a murder; he likes to just watch you work sometimes. I really did think that something bad must have happened," she sighed.
"You don't have to worry Alexis, I try not to be too hard on your Dad, I kind of like having him around. Don't tell him though," she winked at Alexis, she didn't really care if she told Castle.
"That's nice detective, I'm sure Dad would be happy to know that," Alexis giggled.
"You can call me Kate, Alexis. Detective is just for work," Kate announced.
Just then castle jumped onto the couch next to Kate, almost on top of her in fact, from behind. Startled Kate turned towards him, and he handed her a bowl of ice cream smiling stupidly.
"What are my girls talking about," he questioned.
Alexis's eyebrows shot up "My girls?" she asked.
Kate blushed; Castle just shrugged at his daughter, pulled Kate closer and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
"Does this mean what I think it means?" Alexis asked.
Kate looked at Castle who was smiling happily and eating his ice cream, leaving Kate to field the question.
"Umm your Dad and I have gotten closer these past few days I guess," Kate shrugged embarrassed.
"So you guys are together then?" Alexis was curious.
Castle looked at Kate waiting for her answer, she hadn't actually said anything to Castle yet about where they stood relationship wise, but she had not negated it either.
Rolling her eyes at Castle, realising that she was under pressure to answer the question honestly she looked him and simply replied, "Yes."