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Chapter Six

Upon finishing the movie they had an uneventful dinner, after which Kate and Arriana made a move to go home. She lingered back a bit after bundling Arriana up, giving Castle the chance to sidle up to her as they shared a brief good night kiss.

Kate sent him a text upon entering her unit, just so he would know that they had got home safely. Giving Arriana another quick bath before slathering her in lotion again, Kate finally put her to bed. The young girl put up no resistance, and complied quietly after the eventful day she had. She was asleep within minutes of resting her head on the pillow.

Kate then proceeded to take a nice long shower. The hot water pounded onto her body, massaging her tired muscles. She and Castle were just too tall to sleep comfortably on a couch. She'll have to remember not to repeat that. Her mind was still on Castle as she exited and went through her nightly ritual of putting on lotions.

Settling down next to Arriana on her bed, she quickly sent him another text.

You there?

Barely five seconds later, her phone chimed, signalling a reply. She quickly turned it to silent, so she wouldn't accidentally wake Arriana.

Sure. What's up? Wanna talk?

She called him and it took only two rings before he picked up.

"Hey you, that was fast," he greeted.

"Yeah, I missed my best friend. I just had the most amazing day ever, and I wanted to tell my best friend all about it."

"Oh really?" he asked playfully. "Well I'm all ears, Detective."

"See there's this really great guy, and he's my partner, and I've been crushing on him for forever," she started, "and we got together today. It was the best thing ever."

"You don't say? I'm pretty jealous of this guy, stealing my best friend and all. Was he a good kisser? Is that why you're with him? You just couldn't say no to him after he kissed you, could you?" Castle joked back.

"Don't tell him this, but yeah, he's a pretty great kisser," Kate whispered back. "He doesn't have to worry about anyone else though, he flat out blows away all the competition."

"I'm sure he's glad to know that," Castle murmured through the phone. "So what are you doing?"

"I'm in bed," Kate replied softly.

"Really now?"

Rolling her eyes, Kate whispered back, "With my daughter, Castle. Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm in bed with my sick daughter, who is currently sleeping like a little innocent angel."

"Another time then, detective."

"I'll hold you to that. Have you spoken to Alexis? How's she taking the news?" Kate asked.

"Well, she seemed to take it pretty well. I sat down with her and spent some quality father-daughter time bonding after you left. It was good to just catch up with her again. I've been so busy recently, Kate, and she's just turning into this amazing woman right under my nose, and I'm so worried that if I blink or sneeze I'll miss it all," he prattled on.

"You're a great dad, Castle, and I know how you feel. I just want to document every little thing that Arriana does. I really want Alexis to be okay with us, though. Maybe when Arriana isn't sick anymore or when I have a day off I should spend more time with her, have an all-girls day or something," Kate suggested.

Even though Castle knew that Kate had already said that she would try her hardest to make this relationship work, it still surprised him each time she offered a bit more of herself. To make the effort to go the extra mile; especially since she was such a private person.

Trying to keep his voice steady, he whispered back, "Sure, that'll be great. I'll talk to Alexis about it. While we're on this topic, I think I'd like to spend more time with Arriana as well, if you don't think that's moving too fast. I know she's just a kid, so it's a different approach than with Alexis, but –"

"Rick," she interrupted his monologue, "Rick, you're rambling, but of course I'd love for you to spend more time with her. Do you want to come over tomorrow?"

"Yeah, that'd be great. Oh how many days did Gates clear you for? Do you need help watching Arriana? Cause I'd be more than happy to cover for you," he offered.

"You're such life saver, Rick. I got two days off from Gates, so I've still got tomorrow, but it would be great if you could watch Arriana for me the day after that. I've got this weekend off, so we could all spend time together."

"Sure thing. How long is her daycare closed for? If I recall correctly they normally close for ten days after an outbreak like this, right? I'll cover you for the next week as well, if you need," he offered.

"We'll work out the details later on, but that sounds about great to me."

"Are you sleepy? You sound tired," he remarked when her voice progressed to become softer and softer throughout their conversation.

"Yeah, kinda. I didn't really get a good sleep last night," she explained.

"Me neither. You should sleep. I'll see you tomorrow," he whispered.

"Goodnight, Rick."

"Goodnight."

Hanging up her phone, Kate charged it on her nightstand and turned off the lights as she curled next to her daughter, drifting off to a peaceful sleep.


True to his word, Castle turned up at her apartment the next day. Arriana began getting comfortable around him and wasn't as quiet or shy anymore. The day after that, Kate had to go in to work. Castle went over to her place early in the morning, giving her a good luck kiss as she headed to work. Hopefully there wouldn't be a body drop.

It was hard for the single mom to leave for work after spending three days being in with her daughter. To make things worse, Arriana decided to throw a tantrum just as Kate was leaving. Trusting Castle enough to let him handle Arriana how he saw fit, Kate kissed them both goodbye and quickly left for work before the images of her crying daughter could change her mind.

Esposito and Ryan were curious when Kate turned up at the precinct and Castle didn't show up with her daily cup of coffee when nine o'clock rolled by. When they asked, she just told them he said he had some things to handle and would be away from the precinct until the following week.

The detectives did their paperwork that morning, hoping there wouldn't be a murder in the city. However, body calls do not pay heed to anyone. It was right before lunchtime when the call came in.

The three detectives canvassed the scene. It seemed pretty simple, and they had a few good leads to run down. Back in the precinct, they definitely noticed Castle's absence when there was no one around to spew wild theories about the deceased victim.

Noticing that it got to the boys, Kate teased them, "Come on, boys. We've done this long before Castle came in spewing his wild theories. Don't make me tell him the two of you were like puppies who lost their master in his absence."

The boys shot back comebacks vehemently, as Kate had expected them to. It did get them out of their funk to begin running down leads and that was all Kate needed.

While eating a sandwich she grabbed downstairs, Kate glanced at the clock hanging on the bullpen wall. Time to take a break from going through their victim's financials. Pulling out her phone, she called Castle to check on how things were.

After talking to her daughter, she spoke to Castle, giving him a quick run down of the case since it seemed that he missed their daily action as well. Finally, she told him about the boys. Murmuring goodbye to both Castle and Arriana on the phone, Kate hung up with a brand new determination to catch this murderer.

The sooner they got him and throw him behind bars, the sooner Kate could go back to her daughter and Castle.

Unfortunately, it took another day before they had the right guy and filed all the paperwork necessary to build a solid case against him. But the moment she was done, Kate left the precinct, not to be back until Monday morning.

Alexis joined them at Kate's place for the weekend, and she was doing a marvelous job at distracting Arriana from her chicken pox. Now that she was recovering, the drying skin was even itchier than before. Kate had almost resorted to tying on mittens just to prevent her from scratching off the drying scabs.

All too soon the weekend was over. On Monday Kate dropped Arriana off at Castle's place before heading in to work. He was eager to train a new laser tag protégé now that Alexis was going off to college soon. The small girl was too excited with the prospects of such cool toys that she didn't notice Kate giving Castle a good bye kiss before slipping out the door.

Halfway through the day they made plans to spend dinner together at the loft. It was nice to have so many people eagerly awaiting her at the end of the day. It had just been her small family for so long that Kate had forgotten how it felt to be heading home to people. People who she cared about and cared for her in return.

The days morphed by quickly, and Kate normally made it through to work uneventfully. In the evenings when she headed home with Arriana, Kate would be amused by the constant chattering of her daughter as she proudly regaled her day. Somehow Castle seemed to be able to find new things to do with her every day, and Arriana was loving it. Kate in turn was just overjoyed that her daughter took to Castle so well.

Each night she would call him and continue talking to him until one of them forced the other to sleep. Even though they spent less time together, each felt as though they were getting closer to each other.

On Monday morning Kate noticed that her daughter was being uncharacteristically quiet as she was driving to her school. "Hey honey, it's your first day back in school, aren't you excited to see Ms Jane and all your friends?" Kate tried to get her daughter pumped up and excited to be back. However, she just shrugged and looked out the window. Hmm.

Kate gave her a kiss on the forehead before handing her over to the teacher. Kate looked on worriedly as her daughter slowly trudged up the steps into the building, finally disappearing behind the doors. Kate shook her head to clear her thoughts. Arriana would be fine, and she had to get to work. Nonetheless, Kate had a quick word with the teacher to keep an eye out for Arriana today, just in case.


At the precinct, Castle was already talking to the boys animatedly. Smiling when she walked past, he greeted, "Good morning, Detective Beckett. It's nice to be back. Your coffee is on your table."

"Morning, Castle. Nice to have my daily dose of coffee back," she teased, trying to act normal. Something must have been off though, as the boys began looking from Beckett to Castle and back to her again. Deciding to escape before they could try to piece anything together, Kate went over to her table to drop her things and enjoy her coffee.

It was another slow day in the precinct. They caught a murder the previous evening, so the warrants were just coming through. That meant a whole lot of data to be going through. However, before the hour was done, Kate got a phone call from Arriana's school.

It seemed that there was an incident during their morning break between two students. However, when the kids involved started crying, it irritated the rest of the class, most of whom were fresh in the post-recovery stage. Ms Jane reasoned that most of the children were not used to being back to school after they had spent the past few days with their families.

Their routine schedules were interrupted and some kids just take longer to get back to the way things were. Arriana, unfortunately, was one of them. She threw a tantrum when the rest of the class began crying and just wouldn't be consoled.

Besides that, one of the caretakers was out with food poisoning so the school was short on staff too. That was why Ms Jane strongly suggested for Kate to pick her up from school. She needn't worry, other kids had gone home as well, and Ms Jane assured her it was perfectly normal for young children to be more easily agitated and anxious after being separated from their family following a prolonged duration spent together.

Kate delegated her leads to the boys, saying she'd be back in an hour, and that she'd do the tracing and going through records for the boys instead. Although curious that she would volunteer to do grunt work, the boys agreed and went on with their jobs. You don't look a gift horse in the mouth. They would find out soon enough. After all, they were detectives.

Kate left the precinct with Castle in tow, explaining things to him in her car. The original plan was to drop off Castle and Arriana at either his place or hers, and she'd go back to the precinct. However, when she picked up Arriana the small girl had other plans of her own.

She refused to leave Kate's side. Even Castle could barely get the girl to say two sentences to him. It was very out of character for her daughter to behave like that so Kate was in a conundrum. Kate's motherly instinct was to cuddle her daughter until all was well but she had to be back in the precinct soon.

It was Castle who suggested she take Arriana to the precinct. After all, they were having a slow day, and who knows, maybe Arriana would feel better being around her mom. And when she broke out of this mood she was in, Castle could bring her to his place if Kate didn't want the small girl hanging around the precinct.

Seeing sense in his suggestion, Beckett agreed albeit with a hint of apprehension. When she got to the precinct, Arriana refused to walk, wanting to be carried by her mother. Kate complied because she was still a tad worried about her daughter's behavior.

Might as well get this over and done with soon as she can. Castle helped her carry Arriana's backpack as they entered the precinct and rode the lift up to the homicide floor. Time to face the music.


A/N: Cue the music. Dun dun dunnnnn. Please review!:)