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Chapter 7

After Kate got rid of the tears in her eyes, she got around to actually eating lunch with the teen. As they worked their way through the table full of food that she and Rick usually ordered, they took to laughing about the silliest things, praising the newest Harry Potter movie, and making plans for when Rick was back on his feet. Sitting there, laughing with Alexis, gave Kate a whole new sense of normalcy that she hadn't gotten from spending sleepless nights with the teen, both diligently watching her father's breathing. While the latter sure brought them closer together, the former, holding each other up with food and laughter, touched Kate's heart.

Now, driving home from the diner to change out of her work clothes – she'd really thought she'd be spending the day at the precinct – the smile remains on Kate's face. Rick is lucky to have a daughter like that. She weaves her way through the midday traffic, eager to get home and back to the hospital where she can meet Rick and Alexis. She pulls into her apartment parking lot before she knows it.

"Glad I picked the place close to work," Kate mutters to herself. "And now I'm talking to myself. Wonderful."

She shakes her head, unlocking her apartment door. It's dark inside and even the furniture smells of disuse. It's been a while since she's done anything but sleep in this space, appreciating it for its convenience rather than its coziness. She spends most of her evenings in Castle's loft anyways, hashing out ideas for his books, hanging with Alexis, or just working a case.

Shaking away the thoughts of how much Richard Castle has come to invade her life, she makes quick work of changing into a comfortable pair of jeans and a long sleeve shirt. On her way back out the door she sees her reflection in the mirror. She looks… plain, in jeans that aren't the pair she knows shows off her ass, and a dark blue, solid colored shirt that's not revealing and not special. The only jewelry she's wearing is her mother's ring around her neck. For a split second, she considers heading back and changing into something else, but when that split second ends she scoffs. It's Rick and his daughter. Rick who loves her and his daughter who's amazing.

Immediately, she expels thoughts of he loves me from her mind, as she'd gotten used to doing every time he mentioned it in the last two weeks. "You're officially going crazy, Katherine Beckett."

"… and so then Ashley said that he totally understood, and that if his dad was moving back home from the hospital in the weekend, he wouldn't want to go out either. So then I said…"

As Kate makes her way down the hospital hallway, bearing the store bought tray of muffins she'd picked up on the way, she hears Alexis railing off details about her life way before she reaches the now familiar room. Her clicking heels alert them to her presence.

"Hi Kate!" Alexis smiles at Kate immediately from her perch at the end of Rick's bed. "I was just telling dad how excited we are to have him home this weekend."

"Mhmm," Kate smiles, putting down the muffins on Rick's bedside table, "only if he's good."

"You brought me a present?" Rick grins widely at her from his hospital bed. "C'mere." He beckons.

She rolls her eyes, coming to sit on his bed with Alexis. "Don't get too excited. It's just muffins. Figured you were getting sick of pudding and milkshakes."

"One can never be sick of milkshakes." Rick says wisely, reaching for a muffin. He's about to put it in his mouth before Alexis plucks it from his fingers, earning a pout.

"Are you sure you can eat solid food?" She asks, taking a bite of the apple cinnamon muffin her father had picked out.

"Yes!" He protests, "give it back!"

"Kate, what do you think?" Alexis and Kate share a teasing smile.

The amused detective fakes seriousness. "Oh, I don't know. We better wait for the doctor to make sure. Just hold off for now, Castle."

"Cruel woman, bringing me baked goods and refusing to let me consume them. It's a blasphemy," he declares. Neither woman misses the joke in his voice.

"Have this," Kate grins apologetically, pushing a pudding cup towards the fake-annoyed writer, and reaching for a muffin for herself. "And don't give me that look. It's not like I baked them myself, writer boy."

He ignores the moniker. Intrigued instead by another layer of the Beckett Onion. "You can bake?" he asks, surprised.

She laughs, "No. My mom tried to teach me a while back, but after I nearly set the kitchen on fire for the third time, she gave up." Her eyes cloud over, lost in the memory for a second.

'That sounds nice," Alexis says. "You know, dad's the same way with baking."

"Really?" Kate asks, intrigued, while Rick gapes at his daughter, spluttering. "And here he's been bragging about his cooking to the boys at the precinct all these years."

"Oh, cooking yes. But there's something about the inside of a hot oven that makes him want to put his hand on it."

The girls laugh, and Rick splutters good naturedly about being ganged up on.

"You know Ashley taught me how to make some pretty good cupcakes," Alexis adds.

"Whoa whoa whoa," Rick interrupts out of the blue. "Cupcakes isn't code for anything else is it?"

In the next instance, a number of things happen. Alexis rolls her eyes, completely embarrassed. Kate bursts out laughing, and both of them smack Rick on the shoulder.

"Dad! Ew." Alexis shakes her head, as though she was thoroughly disappointed in him. "When have I ever given you any reason to believe that 'cupcakes' was referring to anything other than – baked goods."

"Yeah Castle," Kate teases. They both smack him again. "Don't tell me you're suspecting this perfect daughter of yours."

"Okay! Okay!" He agrees, "I'm injured here. And I was kidding – Kidding!" He raises his arms to protect his ears defensively.

"Like I was saying before dad started kidding." Alexis gives her dad one more glare, "if you two kids wanna learn someday, I'll teach you."

Rick and Kate share a secret smile. They were both having the same image in mind's eye. The scene of the three of them, maybe Martha too, shuffling around the kitchen gathering ingredients, arguing over which color icing looked the best, and then stuffing their faces with their own creations and dissolving into gales of laughter on the breakfast bar. The thought warms both their hearts. When had life started to turn out this way? If someone had told them, three years ago, that the most domesticated afternoon would seem like the most natural thing in the world, both of them would've laughed.

"That sounds great Alexis, maybe we'll do it when your father's home." Kate reaches an arm out and wraps it around the teen's shoulders. Their heads bump together and they laugh, Rick looking on with a tender look in his eyes.

"It's great you guys are getting along." He says simply.

Kate and Alexis look at each other, and in a split second they both decide not to tell him how close they'd gotten. Or how they'd gotten that way. Keeping vigilance by his bed was not exactly the regular way of getting to know your partner's daughter. "Yeah it is," Kate agrees.

The laughter in the room may have stopped, but the warmth it spread stayed in the room, permeating every corner, blurring out the medical equipment and concentrating on the three sitting on the bed until that's all they can see. Kate draws her legs up from beneath her, hugging her knees and resting her chin on them. She watches happily as Rick and Alexis banter the afternoon away, the writer keeping up with the teenager tease for tease, joke for joke, despite his recently recovering from a gunshot wound.

The next time Kate checks her watch, hours had passed, and so had the evening rush hour traffic. Though she hates to tear the teen away from her father, she'd promised her dinner and whatever else she wanted.

"Alexis," she interrupts with a smile, "as entertaining as your father is, it's 7pm, and we should probably be getting you home soon." Soothingly, she runs a hand through Alexis's long hair, having seen Rick do the same thing a few days ago. Alexis blushes slightly at the touch, and Kate knows she's still getting used to her presence in her life.

"Home, as in the loft?" Alexis grins widely. "You called it home."

"I think I heard that too." Rick teases.

"Stop ganging up on me, or I'm changing my mind and kidnapping your daughter to my apartment." Kate informs him without missing a beat.

"Alright, alright." Rick acquiesces right away. "I've seen the contents of your fridge and I wouldn't want her to starve."

It's Kate's turn to blush, but Alexis saves her from having to answer Rick's continuing uncomfortable questions by getting up from the bed. She walks over to her father's side and kisses him lightly on the cheek. "Kate's right, I have to go catch up with some homework," she declares brightly. "I'll wait for you outside?" She directs the question at Kate, who nods.

After Alexis leaves the room, a momentary silence falls between Rick and Kate, who stands up and makes her way slowly closer to him. "Hey." She mutters, trailing a finger down his cheek.

"Hey." He echoes. Impulsively, Rick caught her hand and brought is close to his lips, smirking at the blush that coloured her cheeks once again. "I could get used to that."

She says nothing because she knows she could too. Maybe she's already gotten used to being close to Rick. Maybe she's so used to it she can't live without it anymore. "Yeah, I'm glad you didn't die," is what she finally settles on.

His hand stays twined with hers. "Me too."

"That doesn't mean next time you couldn't." The words rush out of her mouth without passing her brain and she almost wants to smack herself. Now's not the time.

"I know," he says quietly, "but it's the same for you."

She shakes her head right away. "You have a family, a-a daughter. I'm a cop."

"You have a family and you're a cop." He corrects. "You have me and Alexis and mother."

Kate looks embarrassed, but Rick continues. "Listen, you're taking my daughter home, to my apartment, to cook her dinner and let her get some peace and quiet to keep up on the homework she can't do in a hospital room. That's more than her mother's ever done."

"I'm happy to. You have a wonderful daughter."

"Keep this up and you may get her to fall in love you like I am." He says absentmindedly, toying with her fingers.

"You say that like it's a bad thing." Kate teases, settling down next to him.

"mmm…" he hums, kissing her hand again, "just don't ever leave."

Don't ever leave. Kate lets the words take root in her mind. They sound natural coming out of Rick's mouth, a simple request, easily fulfilled. But for her, it's a huge step. It means diving in, head first, removing that one foot from outside the door she usually keeps as a safe guard, fearless, with him. She can't say it doesn't scare her and exhilarate her at the same time, but Kate knows there's no one other than Rick she'd want to take the risk with.

"I'll try." She breathes, as truthfully as she can.

"What's going to happen to us at work?"

She thinks for a second. Selfishly, Kate wants Rick to keep shadowing her, and she knows the boys at the precinct want the same thing. Rick has a way of shedding humour and hope on what seemed like desperate situations. He knew how to keep them feeling human after a day chasing a ghost of a killer. He's smart, and he has insight that no one else can muster. They've come to need him.

At the same time, Kate doesn't know if she can take another incident like this. Doesn't know if she can tell Martha one more time, or hold Alexis as she cried for her dad.

"I don't know yet."

He nods, "I trust you, Kate."

Smiling at him, despite the indecision hanging in the air between them, she says, "I know, and me too." Slowly, Kate lowers herself closer to him, their lips inches from meeting.

"Hey," Alexis yells, peeking around the doorway with her hands firmly over her eyes. "Teenage daughter waiting outside?"

Kate's forehead lands on Rick's instead, both of them chuckling softly. "She always did have the best timing."

Alexis keeps up a steady stream of chatter with Kate as she unlocks the front door to her and Rick's loft. Kate smiles as she notices the picture dangling from her keychain. "Is that Ashley?"

Slightly flushed, Alexis pushes open the door. "Yeah," she confirms, "we took that one the day we spent up at the beach last summer. Sorry about the mess," she adds, looking around.

Kate's eyes sweep around the living room, falling on the pile of blankets on the couch, the DVD player still popped open, and a slightly wobbly stack of movies on the edge of the coffee table.

"I meant to clean up a little," Alexis continues, nervously rambling, "I guess I forgot."

"I've been here how many times?" Kate raises an eyebrow, "don't worry, Alexis."

"Yeah I know, but dad always keeps things so clean and organized when you're around."

Kate smiles at Alexis before popping open a door of a cupboard in the kitchen. She laughs and ducks when a book falls out of the crammed contents. "I had a feeling this was Rick's idea of organization." She grinned.

"Dad always was a secret slob."

The two women giggle, more at the prospect of having Rick home soon than because of finding a book where it shouldn't be, but it feels natural nonetheless.