He was starting to get giddy. His palms were sweaty, his knees trembling, small beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He didn't remember feeling like this when he had married Kate. Actually, he didn't remember much at all about the minutes before she had walked down the aisle towards him.

He had been half-comatose with feeling, his mind almost blank, but somehow calm. He had known that all was going to be well. He had known, when her beaming smile and her shining eyes had met his, he had known. He had known - deep inside, mind and heart - that this was "it".

Now, as he was waiting for Alexis to round the corner so that he could wrap his arms around his little girl for one last time and lead her down the carpet towards her future husband, his nerves were getting the better of him. He swiped the back of his hand across his forehead.

"I mean, just yesterday she graduated from high school-"

"Rick, she's had her college degree for 3 years now. She's 26, she's marrying the love of her life. Get over it!" Lanie shut him up unceremoniously. She was standing next to him, waiting for Kate so that they could take their place in the front row.

Lanie was a wedding maniac. She was a master of organization and after successfully making Kate's and Rick's wedding seven years ago the event of a lifetime, she had been "hired" by many friends and colleagues to work her magic for them. Since Alexis hadn't wanted to hire a "real" wedding planner, mostly because she thought it was snobbish and unnecessary, Lanie, Kate, Alexis' best friend Paige and the bride herself had done all of the organizing that came along with the horror and wonder that was a wedding.

The result was astounding. The room that had been chosen for the ceremony was an hour away from downtown New York, which was to their convenience. It was a lot closer than the Florida Keys, the groom's first choice, but still far away enough from the lingering mess of paparazzi that all Castles had to constantly put up with.

It was marvelous. High marble walls, large open windows, a paradise garden just outside – it almost felt as if they were outdoors. Flowers everywhere, between the chairs, on the small stage, hanging from glimmering chandeliers. All kinds of colors, just like the wedding assembly, a rotating, whispering mass of people of all ages and origins. A cream white carpet down the entire length of one hundred feet, from the delicate glass door to the mesmerizingly decorated stage.

On that stage, the groom stood next to the judge, anxiety clear to see even from the distance, his fingers tapping on his thigh, his expression torn somewhere between overwhelming fear and overflowing joy. Rick studied him, took him in with a writer's concentrated eyes, partly out of curiosity, partly to distract himself from his own feelings, the ones that threatened to take him under.

He remembered the day the boy – he was only a boy, really, compared to himself anyway – had come into the loft to ask for his daughter's hand. He had been pleasantly surprised, pleased by the boy's manners, even though he knew him well by then and shouldn't have expected anything else. It had been a bittersweet moment, though. In a small piece of his heart, the part that had picked Alexis up after she'd fallen from her first bicycle, it had felt as if he was stealing her from him.

...

In her eyes I'm Prince Charming

But to him I'm just some fella

Riding in and stealing Cinderella

...

When Rick saw the man's – because really, honestly, he wasn't a boy anymore - face light up and tears that he didn't attempt to hide dwell to his eyes, he knew that Alexis had walked in.

He turned around and just like he had suspected, there she was. His little girl, all grown up.

She looked beautiful. Her hair partly done up, partly down, curling around her bare shoulders. Her eyes sparkling with an intensity that brought tears to his own eyes. He swiped his sweaty hands on his expensive pants and then offered her his arm. She wrapped hers around it and leaned up to kiss his cheek.

"Hi, dad" she whispered. A tear slipped down his cheek.

"Hi, pumpkin."

She brought her tiny hand to his face to swipe away the tear.

And then they were suddenly at the stage with the altar and she was unwrapping her arm from his and taking the hand of the other man in her life. For a moment, it seemed as if he didn't exist for her anymore, but then Alexis turned her head towards him, let go of the man she was going to marry in a couple of minutes and threw her arms around her dad. Her makeup left smudgy traces on his dress shirt as she hugged him tightly.

Then she let go again and as quickly as she had thrown herself at him, she was back at the other man's side, giving him a last watery smile over her shoulder before turning towards the judge, her hand clasped tightly in her groom's.

Next thing he knew, he was sitting next to his wife in the front row and his mother was sniffing into his shoulder.

"You're crying. Why are you crying?" he asked dumbly, his brain somehow short-circuited from everything that was going on.
"Because she's getting married, you big oaf! Because she's getting married and it's perfect and...I…I'm so happy but I don't want to see her go" Martha sobbed, even more dramatic when she was emotional.

"You...you were the one who told me to lighten up and now you're crying? You're pathetic!" Rick told her, but his own eyes were wet and as he looked at his side to his wife, she was holding a torn tissue to her face. Her red-rimmed eyes still managed to glare at him.
"Shut up, Castle. Just...just shut up."

A/N: I have the feeling that my chapters get more fluffy and teary by the minute. I'm honestly sorry for that. I wasn't going to write this today, but I'll be out of the country for a week and I didn't want to leave you hanging for that long.

The song is still Chuck Wicks' "Stealing Cinderella" and it still doesn't belong to me. I don't even want it to belong to me. If it weren't for this Challenge thingy, I wouldn't even know the song.

And no, I'm not telling you who the groom is. Not because it's some huge surprise or anything, but because I feel as if it's not important for this story. My prompt actually said that it's supposed to be Ashley, but I think it's highly unlikely that their relationship is going to last this long. Well, I guess if you're a hopeless romantic, this can still be Ashley. So to please everyone, I will say no name and you can just imagine the guy to be whoever you want to. That alright with you?