A/N: Soooo very sorry this took a bit longer to come out. So much for my shorter chapters equal faster updates theory. For some reason, I seem incapable of writing short chapters. Le sigh.

Anyhow, once again, thank you so much for your feedback! I've gotten a lot of incredibly nice reviews, and I'm just so honored that people seem to really enjoy this. Thanks for your support, and here be the next chapter!


Chapter Seven


Rick woke up early the next morning.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say that Alexis woke up early the next morning and decided that Daddy needed to wake up too. And the best way of doing that was, of course, to jump on him. Repeatedly.

Needless to say, Rick woke in a flash. He glanced blearily at the 6:02 a.m. blinking cheerily on the LED display of the bedside clock and groaned. "What're you doing up so early, pumpkin?"

"Lunch with Kate today, Daddy! Lunch with Kate!"

"Oh."

Oh.

He'd forgotten about it in light of all the excitement from last night, but Alexis was right. They had a lunch date with Beckett. As in he and Alexis were going to have lunch. With Beckett.

Ah yes. This was a very good morning. Even if it wasn't completely light out yet.

"When we gonna go?" asked Alexis, settling down on top on him with her knees pressed into his stomach.

A pang of melancholy shot through Rick when he thought about the fact that his little girl wasn't going to be small enough to kneel on his abdomen much longer. God, he hoped that she didn't grow up too fast.

"Daddy," she dragged out when he didn't respond quickly enough.

"Pumpkin, I know you're excited, but it's only six. We're not having lunch until twelve."

"But that's so long," she complained and started bouncing on her knees again.

"Oof!" Rick exhaled with a laugh, rolling onto his side so that Alexis spilled off of him and onto the bed next to him. "Since when did I become a trampoline, huh, you little monkey?"

Alexis giggled as she struggled to sit up. "I'm not a monkey. Monkey-Bunkey is a monkey," she said with all seriousness, holding up the previously unseen stuffed animal in front of his face.

He took the brown-furred monkey and studied it intently. "Hm…are you sure you're not related to Monkey-Bunkey? 'Cause you keep crawling all over the place like him."

"Daddy, stop being silly!"

"Silly? I'll show you silly!" he announced dramatically before descending on Alexis in a flurry of tickling fingers and raspberry-blowing lips.

Alexis giggled madly and squirmed to escape, but she didn't struggle hard enough to actually get away. Rick learned a long time ago that the term tickle torture was a severe misnomer. She loved it.

"Do you surrender yet?" he questioned in his slightly accented, villainous voice.

"Never!" Alexis shrieked in reply, her little body contorting and shifting with glee. Her startling blue eyes crinkled with laughter.

Rick wrestled with her for a few more minutes before deciding that this was a little too much stimulation for six in the morning. In general, Alexis wasn't an overly excitable child, but like many children, she often had nightmares during naps if she played too hard during her hours awake.

His wiggling fingers smoothed into a calming hand pressed gently over her belly as Alexis lay sprawled on her back, heaving large gasps of air and still giggling intermittently. Stray locks stuck to her sweaty face, and he marveled once again at how the color her hair had mellowed from its vibrant carrot-orange when she was a baby to this serene copper tone.

It killed him to think about all the boys he was going to have to fend off with sticks and guns (and maybe a severed head or two) when she grew up.

He chuckled at himself. He wasn't usually this maudlin, but something in these past couple of weeks triggered a sudden onslaught of 'my little girl is growing up too quickly' thoughts.

He didn't regret divorcing Meredith—to be honest, Alexis was better off without that particular influence—but he did regret his inability to provide a strong female guidance in her life. It wasn't that there was a complete dearth of feminine presence around Alexis. Despite her nomadic ways, his mother could be counted upon in times of need, and even his publisher Gina, who outwardly seemed to be all about the bottom line, had an unacknowledged soft spot for his daughter.

But it wasn't the same. His mother, Gina, and the handful of other women he worked with who weren't completely insane were more like a traveling troupe that darted in and out of the duo's lives, not necessarily with careless abandon, but certainly with syncopated irregularity.

He'd grown up without a dad, and he'd turned out mostly okay—if he didn't say so himself—and he knew that Alexis would be okay too. He just… He didn't want Alexis to just be okay. He wanted her to have the best everything, and that included the best childhood that he could provide.

Intellectually, he knew that just because he was a single parent didn't mean that he couldn't give Alexis a full and loving home, just the same as he knew that having a two-parent household didn't automatically equate a healthy family. He wouldn't go so far as to say that he wanted a mother for Alexis, but he wanted someone he could trust to have Alexis' best interests at heart, someone who could and would protect her, even if something should ever happen to him.

His thoughts inevitably wandered to Beckett. He wasn't about to pick out rings or anything drastic like that, but the detective intrigued him. She was good with Alexis, yes, and almost unbearably sexy, hell yes, but there was something else about her that appealed to the writer in him. There was an air of tragedy wrapped around her. It wasn't so thick that it was overwhelming; quite the opposite actually. It was a barely-there cloak that draped her in mystery.

And Richard Castle had always been a sucker for a good mystery.

At 11:53 a.m., Rick was sitting next to Alexis in a booth at Remy's Diner and belatedly panicking over the fact that he wasn't sure whether or not Beckett was going to show. Sure, she was the one who'd suggested lunch, and she was definitely not the type to back down on her word, but a lot had happened last night.

Maybe she needed time to regroup or something. Or to fill out the paperwork he'd prevented her from completing last night.

Or to heal, he thought with a grimace when he remembered the slick run of blood down her side.

He really should have gotten her number last night, but he'd so preoccupied with making sure that she got home safely that he hadn't really thought much beyond seeing her to a taxi.

But now that he was sitting down next to an Alexis squirming with excitement and with only a handful of minutes before Beckett was officially late, he could tell that he was starting to obsess a little because, okay, really, it's only 11:55, and even if she doesn't show up at twelve on the dot, it didn't mean that she wasn't coming at all.

The waitress came by to drop off a glass of water for him and a plastic kid's cup of orange juice for Alexis.

"You ready to order?"

Rick visibly startled at the question. The waitress, a kindly middle-aged woman whose nametag read Clara, lifted an amused eyebrow at him. "You doing alright there, sugar?"

He cleared his throat and let out an embarrassed chuckle. "Yes, great. Good. Uh, we're waiting for a friend, actually. Do you mind giving us a few minutes?"

"No problem." Clara smirked. "Must be some friend."

Rick didn't know what to reply to that.

At five minutes to noon, Kate found herself hesitating just outside the doors to Remy's Diner.

She was being stupid. She knew she was, but she couldn't help it. It had just now hit her that she was about to have lunch with Richard Castle and his daughter.

It really shouldn't be such a big deal, considering how any and all ice basically shattered last night when he came bumbling into the middle of her sting and annoying her until she went home to take care of her wound. (Yes, okay, she'll admit that that was kind of sweet.)

Yet, despite their (mis)adventure and the ease with which they'd slipped into teasing banter last night, the clarity brought on by the light of day made the fact that she was meeting up with her favorite author rather glaring. Glaringly crazy, glaringly ridiculous, glaringly fangirl-squeal-inducing…

Yeah. All of the above.

She shook her head, slightly disgusted with herself. She was so not the type to fangirl all over celebrities. (Never mind the fact that yes, she subscribed to Castle's website, and yes, she'd once stood in line for over an hour to get a book signed by him. Both were facts that Castle didn't know and definitely would not ever know.)

She was a detective, for goodness sake, not some top-heavy bimbette looking to score her fifteen minutes of fame by associating with a best-selling author.

Man up, Beckett.

She glanced down at her watch, mildly surprised to see that only a few minutes had passed during her mini meltdown, then she squared her shoulders and pushed through the door before she had time to question herself again.

The familiar tinkling of the bell fixed atop the entrance calmed her nerves, and she found an easy smile spreading across her lips when she spotted Frankie behind the counter. Frankie and his wife Clara owned and operated Remy's pretty much on their own. Kate was a regular customer, especially during their odd hours, and they'd become friends of sorts.

"Hey, Frankie," she called out to the heavy-set man whose jaw was lined with graying stubble.

"Detective! Good to see you're actually eating food for lunch. For once," replied the cook-cum-owner.

"You shouldn't be complaining about my eating habits. I give you way too much business as it is."

"Yeah yeah yeah. What'll you be having today?"

"Oh, I'm actually meeting up with some friends. I'll order in a bit."

Frankie nodded and turned his attention back to the patties grilling over the stove.

Kate glanced around the diner and immediately caught sight of Castle and Alexis sitting in a corner booth. Clara stood next to their table with a notepad in one hand and the other resting on her full hips. She had that look on her face that spelled all kinds of trouble—Kate easily recognized it having been on the receiving end of that far too often—so the detective made her way over before Clara embarrassed Castle too much. Clara was hilariously down-to-earth, and while it was a trait that Kate adored, Clara's blunt attitude tended to create awkward situations more often than not.

"Hey guys," Kate greeted, noting that Castle already looked a little flustered.

Clara shot Castle one of her patented I-see-what's-going-on looks, and Kate almost laughed out loud at the confused expression on his face. Poor guy. Actually, she was a little surprised that Castle hadn't already been a victim of Clara's matchmaking machinations if he came here often enough for Alexis to know that the shakes were the best around.

The waitress turned at her voice, but before she could say anything, Alexis had somehow managed to crawl over Castle's lap and launched herself at Kate's legs with a happy squeal. "Kate!"

Kate staggered back a step, surprised by the force of the four-year-old in motion, and then laughed as she bent to pick up the girl. Scary how quickly the action had become second nature. "Whoa, hey kiddo. It's good to see you too."

"Detective! I didn't realize that you were friends." Clara purposefully emphasized the last word, and Castle choked on his water.

Oookay. Kate definitely missed something.

She didn't get a chance to comment on it though as Clara, with a wicked twinkle in her eye that Kate didn't bother to discourage (it'd be a waste of effort), told them, "I'll come back in a few to get your orders."

"Okay. Thanks, Clara," responded Kate. Her lips flicked up in a small smile of greeting at Castle as she tried to set Alexis down next to him in the booth. The girl refused to let go, so Kate slid as best as she could into the seat across from him all the while holding an armful of four-year-old.

"Detective, good to see you," Castle greeted when Kate finally situated herself and Alexis. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

She frowned a little, looking up from where she was removing her leather gloves. "Why? I was the one who suggested it."

He shrugged, and she caught a glimpse of the surprising insecurity she'd seen last night when he'd been worried about her safety. It didn't exactly jive with the obnoxiously self-assured playboy that the gossip columns painted him as, but then again, she wouldn't have expected the man on Page Six of the New York Ledger to be sitting in a small diner with his daughter for lunch.

She of all people should know that appearances did not reality make.

Castle didn't give an answer and she didn't exactly want to press him for one, so she went with the flow when Alexis provided the perfect subject change.

"Look, Kate, look what I drawed." Alexis leaned over the table to drag the kid's menu that doubled as a coloring sheet over to their side.

"I would love to see what you drew," Kate subtly corrected, then flushed a little when she realized that she was in no position to be policing Castle's daughter's use of grammar. But when she glanced at Castle, there was a small, soft smile on his lips.

"I drew a picture for you," Alexis repeated, picking up the correction with that natural ease kids were gifted with.

Kate helped her turn the paper menu so that it was right side up. Much of the sheet was covered in colorful scribbles and indecipherable blobs, but there was one section partitioned off where it was clearly meant to be a specific drawing.

In fact, now that Kate took a closer look, the crayon-created illustration was actually pretty well-done for a four-year-old. A carefully drawn stick figure with long brown hair sat atop a large oval with four sticks protruding from the bottom half. Two lines—one with spikes running along the top—connected the large oval to a smaller, elongated one, which had a face drawn in.

Huh, interesting. The stick figure's shield looked suspiciously like her detective badge, and—wait, was that a crown?

"A princess on a horse?" Kate murmured her best guess.

Alexis beamed at her, as if proud of Kate for getting it on the first try. "Yup. It's s'posed to be you, Kate. See, you save me like a knight, and you so pretty like a princess!"

Oh gosh, that might be the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for her.

It was absolutely ridiculous, but a sudden wellspring of tears surged up behind Kate's eyelids, and it was all she could do to keep them from falling. She hadn't cried in years, and now this little girl with her earnest little face and her too-sweet words was going to make Kate bawl like a baby.

Alexis' face fell when she saw the watery glint to Kate's eyes. "Why're you sad? You don't like it?"

Kate tightened her grip around the girl's waist. "Oh no, I love it Alexis."

"Then why do you cry?"

Kate internally laughed. Great question. Now if only she could come up with something better than I don't know.

Gathering her wits about her, she carefully replied, "You know, people don't just cry when they're sad. Sometimes they cry when they're very happy too. Your picture made me very happy."

"Oh." Alexis furrowed her brows as she tried to decide whether or not she trusted this logic. Eventually she must have decided to take Kate at her word because she let out a big sigh. "Big people are so complicated."

Kate let out a startled laugh as her gaze shot up to find Castle. "She has quite the vocabulary."

Castle grinned, fatherly pride written all over his face. "What can I say? I'm a writer. Her first word was denouement."

Kate shook her head with a chuckle, even as she felt herself relax. There was something about the Castles that just made her want to drop her guard.

A part of her cautioned that as a problem in and of itself.