Hi, all. Since it's been so long, I'd advise you all to go back and re-read the first 5 chapters of this story to refamiliarize yourselves with it before you try the new chapter. This is my longest chapter of this story yet.

I've had some bad luck in the recent past with publishing stories on a weekend, so I'm trying one more time because this is finally done, I'm happy with it, and I want to see if everyone else likes it or not. So if not very many people see it, then I solemnly swear to never publish another chapter on a weekend day ever again. I'll stick with Tues-Thurs (since we all know that people watch Castle on Mondays and don't read fanfic) LOL.

For all subsequent chapters, I will issue the disclaimer that I do not own the characters. However, I do reserve the right to claim my ideas that originate from this storyline. There are some ... interesting things that are going to start to happen in subsequent chapters that are independent of the characters, and I do claim those as my own ideas, which may not be copied or used without my written permission.

And lastly, I ask that if you find this story even remotely interesting to the point where you story alert it, then please leave me some feedback either in the form of a review or a PM. I want to make this story the best that it can be, but I can't do it without feedback. That's the purpose of this site, after all, and even the Community Etiquette section encourages this: "Everyone here is an aspiring writer. Respect your fellow members and lend a helping a hand when they need it. Like many things, the path to becoming a better writer is often a two way street." There were a lot (that is, a LOT) of new story alerts for the last chapter with no feedback, so yes, I would really appreciate hearing from those people too. Just tell me what you like. It won't hurt. I won't grade you, promise. :) And you'll make me a happier, better and most likely faster writer. Promise. :)

As he crouched down, hiding behind a dumpster and amidst other piles of garbage, he wondered how it came to this. He was the Most Eligible Bachelor Number Four, for goodness sakes! He was supposed to be coddled, admired, envied. He was not supposed to be stalked at crime scenes and almost mauled when he was just trying to buy bread!

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

It wasn't really such a big thing. Kate even found a parking place almost right in front of the store. Castle just needed to run in and get some french bread, some milk and a few other things. Kate said she'd stay in the car, and he was just going to zip into the store, grab what he needed, and zip out again.

Except nobody noticed the woman who was coming out of the store as he was going in. The woman who recognized him, who did a double-take when she saw him, and who immediately got out her phone and started typing something with an excited look on her face. She stood outside the store for a minute or so, and then after a look around at the street, she went back inside.

Kate did finally notice when, relatively speaking, quite a while had passed and there was still no sign of Castle coming out of the store. She'd parked on the street past the store, so she turned around on her seat to see if she could spot him. And when she turned around, she didn't see him like she'd hoped, but she did see something else that was, unfortunately, starting to look familiar: an unusual number of women appeared to be hurriedly entering the store. And she groaned as she could only guess what was going on. Again.

With the hairs on her neck standing up, she quickly exited the car and locked it behind her as she sprinted toward the entrance to the store, belatedly realizing that she probably looked like what were potentially all of the other stalker women who were entering the store to find Castle. She really realized it when she hit the door at the same time as another woman, who gave her a dirty look as she shoved past Kate through the door.

She quickly walked the length of the store, scanning the aisles for a sign of her secret boyfriend. She didn't see him, but she did see a group of five or six women milling around an area in the back. She instinctively made a decision to adopt a 'normal person' persona as she walked up to them; she got into her 'part' by quickly glancing into the glass of a display case and fluffing her hair just a bit after she grabbed her lipstick out of her pocket and applied some to her lips.

She approached the group, and knew she was on the right track when, despite not seeing Castle, she heard several snippets of conversation that confirmed her suspicions:

"He talked to me!" bragged one woman

"So what? I'm holding his bread," defended another.

"We did wait long enough, didn't we?" interrupted a blonde.

"All I need is a picture! I couldn't get my camera ready in time."

"Picture? Hah! I know how to get him to kiss me! I bet he really knows how to use those lips!" boasted a tall redhead. "And you know what that's worth!"

Beckett, wanting to somewhat irrationally stake her claim on her man, almost blew her 'cover' when she heard that comment, as she felt the urge to go acquaint the redhead with the hand-to-hand combat skills taught by the NYPD.

"Yeah, but I saw him this morning too, so I get more for that," interjected the blond once again.

"If he doesn't come out soon, I'm going to go in after him!"

"If you do, that picture would be worth a lot!"

The last comment was followed by a few giggles as the women looked again toward a door at the back corner of the store. Her eyes followed them, and she noticed the sign that was on the door.

Restrooms.

Castle was in the restroom?

"Hey," Kate interrupted the group, affecting her voice with a slightly giggley, breathy sound that was so different than her normal way of speaking. "Is he really here?" she asked excitedly.

"Yeah," said a brunette with a short pixie haircut. "But you have to get to the back of the group," she warned. "We were here first."

"Well, there's probably enough to go around," Kate hinted suggestively, trying to take the persona of a rabid fangirl.

"You got that right!" laughed a blonde standing off to the side. "I hope he comes out soon though. I need a picture, or something! Just being here isn't enough," she finished dramatically.

Just then, Kate's phone vibrated in her pocket. She glanced at the screen, and seeing that it was her secret boyfriend and the object of these women's strange but apparent mania, she judiciously stepped back to answer it, as she put the put the phone to her ear and said, "Please do not tell me that you're calling me while you're taking care of bathroom business."

"No!" came the whispered hiss from the other end of the phone. "I'm outside in the alley. I had to escape. They're here too! God, they're all over!"

"I know. I came into the store when you didn't come out. I can see them. I was even warned about cutting in line to see you," she told him sarcastically, rolling her eyes to herself. "But wait, how did you get into the alley? They think you're in the restroom."

"There's another door that ... never mind. I'll tell you later. Now I just need you to pick me up."

"Pick you up?" she hissed in a whisper into the phone. "Just come back in here. There's only ..." She glanced over to the group to see how many women were waiting for him, only to find that three more had walked up in the short time she was on the phone with him. Uh oh. Crap. "Oh, forget it. Where should I pick you up?"

"The alley comes out over on the next block. I'm going to make a run for it." He whispered it like it was some sort of top-secret plan to overthrow governments or something. "Go south, and then one block over and you should see me."

"Okay. I'll be there in five."

"Oh, hey, Kate?"

"Yes, Castle?" in a tone that was the verbal equivalent of rolling her eyes.

"Can you pick up the french bread and the other stuff? I didn't get a chance to get everything before I was forced into hiding."

"Yes, I suppose I'll have to grab the stuff if I want to eat tonight. But you'll owe me for this, Castle."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"So, suppose you tell me why you just couldn't come back into the store and tell your throng of admirers to get lost?" Kate wanted to know once they were safely ensconsed in the privacy and security of his loft. She tried to ask him as soon as he was in the car, but he quickly slunk down in his seat, turning his head to peer out the car windows, trying to get the jump on potential stalkers. She thought if there was a vending machine around, he would have hidden behind that too, like he had earlier at the precinct.

"Are you kidding me? I was looking around in the store, minding my own business when I notice there's a woman following me." He'd started stalking around the living room, clearly agitated. "She tried look like she wasn't, but every time I turned around, she was there. I know she was following me," he stressed, trying to make her believe him. "Then there was another one. A woman. Then there were two more. It was just like this morning with the coffee ... they just ... materialized."

Even though she'd seen the women going into the store, his description and his obvious befuddlement struck her as funny. Trying to contain a smile, she asked him, "Materialized, huh? Like Scotty just beamed them down from the Federation Starship USS Stalkergirl?"

He stared at her for just a moment and then pointed his finger at her. "You don't know what it was like! I went to look at vegetables, they went to look at vegetables. And then in the fruits...this blonde picked up a melon and started squeezing it and giving me the eye, like she was thinking about ... you know ..." His voice lowered when he finished, "... not the melon. From the way she was looking at me, it was like I was going to be her next course! My God, we were in public!"

He was relating everything in typical Castle dramatic fashion, but she did have to admit that not all of it was dramatics, because she'd seen them herself. "So you escaped to the men's room?"

"It was the only place I could think of where they couldn't follow me! I shoved my food at them and got away as fast as I could. Kate," he whined, "they were really creeping me out. Especially the melon girl."

She shook her head. "So how did you end up out in the back alley?"

"There was another hallway that had a swinging door that separated it from the rest of the store. The restrooms were beyond that, along with an employee breakroom and the door to the alley. I sneaked out behind another guy when he left the men's room. He went into the store, I went out the back door. I hid behind a dumpster just in case some of them decided to come and search for me. I wouldn't put it past them, you know. Especially melon-girl."

"Lucky your throng of admirers didn't follow you through the swinging door in the first place, huh?"

His eyes got wide as he imagined it, and then he gave an all-body shudder.

She walked closer to him, and then thought better of it. "You know, I'd give you a hug to console you, but I have to tell you, Castle, you really reek. Did you go dumpster diving when you were in that alley?"

"No. I didn't. It was nasty back there. Ugh." He headed toward his bedroom. "I'm going to take a quick shower. And I expect you to console me properly when I'm clean." When he got to the doorway, he turned around and said, "Just so you know, this 'Most Eligible Bachelor' thing is not fun. Now I can't even hug my girlfriend in the privacy of my own home because I smell. That is just so not fair."

He disappeared into the bedroom, and she sank down on the couch, pulling out her phone. Something had been niggling at her ever since she'd seen the women at the store, but she was still debating if she should say anything to Castle about it, especially with his skittish and suspicious behavior today.

Luckily, Alexis answered right away. She identified herself, told the girl that her dad was fine (for the most part) and then launched into the reason for her call. "Alexis, when your dad was on the Ledger list the last time, how strange did things get? You said something this morning about women trying to get to him. But how far did that go? Were there a lot of women?"

"Umm ... he had that date, I remember. Mostly what I saw was from school people ... my German teacher, my vice principal. It wasn't a lot of women, I guess. It just seemed like it because it was school and it was in front of my friends. And it was kind of embarrassing to think of my vice principal on a date with my dad. Ugh." She paused for a moment. "So why are you wondering about before? Are random women stalking dad or something?" she laughed, sounding as if she wasn't asking seriously at all, but was making a joke.

"Well, uh," Kate said, "actually, there have been a few stalkerish incidents today."

There was a pause before Alexis said in a disbelieving voice, "You're kidding."

"I wish I was."

"What? I was joking! You mean ... women ... really?"

"Unfortunately, yes. I've seen it myself."

"Really?" she said again. "That's kind of creepy."

"Tell me about it."

"No, tell me about it. And how is Dad taking it? Please tell me he's not being a jerk about it."

Kate began to relate the incidents to Alexis, starting with the apparent calls to the 12th by Bambi and Thumper and whatever other cutesy names there were, and then what she'd been told about Castle's coffee encounter that morning. She went through the day, even describing how Castle was hiding behind the vending machine in the precinct, which garnered a laugh from Alexis. Then Kate started on the last incident from the store just now.

"You know, I originally thought it was fame, and the fact that your dad was higher up on the list this year, but now I'm not so sure," Kate told Alexis, grateful to have someone to discuss this with other than Castle, because he wasn't exactly entirely rational about the situation right now. "I mean, I get the whole fame and celebrity sighting thing, but hasn't been this bad the entire time he's been shadowing me. And your dad just isn't that level of famous where he has to deal with that type of thing, right? You know, to this extent anyway."

"Well, sometimes he thinks he is, but no, I don't think he generally has hordes of random women swarming over him, not unless it's a book signing or a launch party or something."

"That's what I thought. So ..." Kate trailed off contemplatively.

"You think there's something else going on, other than that stupid Ledger list?" Alexis picked up on what she wasn't saying; Castle had always said the girl was smart.

"That's just it ... I don't know. But I heard a couple of the stalker types in the store just now, and they said some things that were ... strange." How did she explain her sixth-sense that she'd developed during her years as a detective? She just had a vague feeling that something wasn't quite right with the situation, but she had no proof at all; just her feeling.

"You heard them?" Kate had given Alexis the condensed version of the story, and she'd glossed over how she'd gone into the store after Castle, so she briefly explained to Alexis how she'd gone into the store once she determined that Castle was MIA from his bread-buying mission. After she was done, Alexis asked, "What did they say?"

"One of them talked about seeing him for the second time today, so she'd 'get more' for that. There were a couple of comments like that. And a few of them were standing around talking about talking to him or getting him to kiss them—"

"Eww! Really? They were talking about him like he ... like you two weren't..."

Kate knew what she was talking about. "Well, yeah, but we're not public with ... us ... yet, so they wouldn't have known about that."

"But still! So what did you do?"

Kate smiled to herself. "Well, honestly, I had to stop myself from doing something painful to that redhead that wanted to kiss your dad." Kate heard a quick little chuckle from Alexis' side of the conversation. "But they were all talking, and I was still trying to figure out what the intense fascination was, and then your Dad called me to rescue him. So I grabbed the groceries that he'd tried to get, and I got out of there."

"Where's Dad now?"

"In the shower because he smelled like the garbage in the alley where he was hiding. I didn't want him to know I was calling you, or what I heard quite yet. He's already dramatic enough about all of this. Some of it justified, yeah, but I thought a shower would be better for him first."

There was a short pause in the conversation, and then Alexis summarized, "So there's all of these women, pretty much everywhere he goes, and they seem to be ... in competition for him or something?"

"That's just it ... I don't know. It seems like there's something going on, but I just can't—" Kate broke off as she felt her phone buzz in her hand. "Shoot, Alexis, the station is calling me. I have to take this."

"Okay. Thanks for letting me know though. If anything else strange happens, call me, okay?"

"Will do." Kate took the call, which only turned out to be from an overzealous lab tech who was calling to report some inconclusive matches on some of the preliminary evidence collected from their case that morning. It was news that could have waited until the morning, but she figured it was a slow night in the lab and maybe the lab tech was trying to seem important by calling her with the results.

But Castle was coming out of the bathroom then, shirtless, with his hair still wet. And momentarily, she forgot all about newspaper lists, or weird stalking women, or even dinner.

She got up off the couch and walked over to him, immediately slipping her arms around his bare sides. Burying her face in his neck, she gave his neck a little nibble before she told him, "Mmmm, you smell a lot better."

Finding her own neck with his lips, he murmured, "I like what happens when I smell better. I'll try to smell really good from now on."

She pulled back to look at him. In a sultry voice, she told him, "You make sure that you do that." And then she went for her lips with his, and dinner, for the moment, was forgotten.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Later, much later, they found some leftovers in the refrigerator, along with some cheese, and some apple pie. To go with the cheese, Rick said they needed some wine. So they opened a bottle of wine, and they had a picnic, of sorts, sitting on the floor in his living room, strange combinations of food on the coffee table, with him in his boxers and her shrugged into one of his dress shirts. Because only one button of that shirt was haphazardly holding the thing closed, it resulted in all sorts of teasing moments from Kate and subsequent leering looks from Castle. And they sat, alternately grinning at each other, engaging in highly suggestive innuendo, and generally trying to forget the strange events of the day while they enjoyed a little bit of their own little piece of privacy.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Later that evening, at almost midnight, the two of them were lounging in his bed, with the fact that Kate was sleeping over again just a foregone conclusion. And because it was relatively late, Castle was rather startled when his phone rang, jolting him out of that state of contented almost-sleep that he was in. But he was instantly on alert when he recognized his daughter's ringtone. "Alexis? Pumpkin, it's late! What's wrong? Are you hurt?" He couldn't stop his mind from jumping to conclusions, or stop his voice from uttering those conclusions out loud.

"No! I'm fine," she replied. "Hey, I'm in the living room. Can you come out? You and Kate? I know she's here. And with ... uh ... clothes on?"

"Alexis!" He'd been asleep, but now he was definitely embarrassed enough by what his daughter had said. "I ..."

"Oh, can it, Dad. I'm eighteen. She's here; it's not an off-the-wall thing to say. So just get out here, okay? I need to talk to you. Both."

Castle nudged Kate into wakefulness as he pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and then she grabbed his robe and put it on before they both ventured into the living room, where they saw the girl sitting in a chair, staring at her iPad.

"I thought you were staying at school tonight," Castle told his daughter. "It's really late, honey."

"Dad, I'm in college now. This is early. And I was going to stay at school, but then I found this, and I knew you had to see it. Now." She held out the iPad to them.

Castle was put on guard by something in her voice. "What is it, honey? Did you get a bad grade?"

Alexis rolled her eyes at him. "God, Dad ... no. I was talking with Kate earlier, and ... well, just read this."

Kate knew what they'd been talking about, so she asked the girl, "Alexis, what is it?"

Alexis took a breath. "I think I know why all of those women have been stalking Dad today, and why they're so creepy about everything."

Well, that's it for now.

Like it? Hate it? Found it really boring? Whatever it is, let me know.

And yeah, the 'Federation Starship' line was something that popped into my head after reading all of the spoilers and tweets for 5X07. And it seemed like something that geeky-Kate would say to geeky-Rick.