A/N: I'm kind of big puffy hearts in love with this chapter.


"Hey Pumpkin. How was your day?"

"It was fine. Where's Kate?"

"She's working for a couple more hours. Kicked me out because I kept making paper frogs and jumping them all over her desk. You alright?"

"Yes. Well, no. I'm not really sure."

Rather than question her further, he did what he'd learned in the last few months was significantly more effective. He stood up from his chair and crossed the room to her, taking her in his arms like she was a little girl again and holding her tightly for several minutes. He didn't say a word, didn't even silently ask her to spill her guts, he just stood.

Her soul reveled in the feeling of safety and for a moment every part that was hurting seemed to dim. No matter how old she got, she would always believe that her father could fix nearly everything, and that he made the sun rise in the mornings and could make a balloon reach the moon. He'd always been peace and security and today he stood as simplicity, the reminder that home was always there for her.

"What's wrong?"

"Just… things."

"You'd rather talk to Kate?" he asked, his voice not masking the hurt. It wasn't that he was jealous or that he didn't want the two of them to bond, but occasionally he wondered when Alexis would start to depend on him again.

"Not rather, dad. She just listens differently than you do. Lately I just need to spill everything out and organize it again before I can find the right words to talk to you and she really helps with that."

"Are you okay though?"

"I'm fine. Nothing to worry about."

"Okay. As soon as you're ready, I'll have ice-cream waiting."

"Thank you daddy. I'm going to go lay down for a bit."

"Want me to send Kate up when she gets here?"

"Please. I love you."

"I love you too Pumpkin."

He kissed her forehead then let her go, and she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, shutting the door quietly. She had things to get done- a resume to finish revising, cover letters to write, and course work for her summer classes to start. But for the first time in her life, her to-do list wasn't nearly as important as climbing beneath her covers and sleeping off a trying day.


"Alexis? You awake?"

Alexis rolled over and yawned, noting the position of the sun and its indication of how long she'd slept.

"I'm awake."

"Your dad said you wanted to talk to me."

She nodded and sat up, rubbing her eyes and indicating the bed next to her where Kate took a tentative seat.

"What's up?"

"Ashley is engaged," she confessed quietly, eyes downcast.

"Oh, that's gotta hurt."

"I don't love him, I don't want to be with him, but for some reason when I found out it was like a punch to the gut. It shouldn't bother me. Other than the fact that I think he's entirely too young to get married, it should be a non-issue. Instead…" she trailed off weakly, hand falling back into her lap.

"Instead you're sleeping in the middle of the day and wrinkling your nose to keep from crying."

"Why?"

"Because it's a change, Alexis. Because no matter how you've moved on, you did love him once. Things like that aren't easy, honey. And don't get upset, but if you're honest with yourself, there's a little part of you that would like that stability, isn't there?"

"No," Alexis answered quickly, sniffling and resting her head in Kate's lap. "Why do you think that?"

"I don't know. I just get the feeling that his life looks pretty happy and easy right now and that little girl in you wonders if everything would be that way for you, if you would have stayed with him."

"You know, if the cop thing doesn't work out for you…"

Kate smiled and tucked Alexis' hair behind her ear.

"It's okay to feel whatever you feel. You don't have to explain it to anyone else and you don't even have to fully understand it yourself."

There was a long pause and Alexis regained some of her composure, not thinking as she composed her next sentence.

"I don't want to hate you."

"What?"

Alexis sat up and swiped at her eyes, then stared hard at the woman in front of her, wondering why she suddenly felt so nauseous.

"I had an appointment this morning," she started slowly. "We were talking about all the things that have happened in the last few years and even though I know most of it's not your fault and even though we've talked through a lot of things, I felt myself getting so mad at you. I don't want that and it's not fair but I couldn't stop it. I started to hate you. I don't want it to be like it was before. I need you."

"Alexis, you will always have me whether you hate me or not."

"Then I realized how much I worry. What if something happens? It's not just dad I worry about anymore, it's you too. Every time you two are on a case I get so stressed that I can't sleep. I'm so afraid something bad will happen, I mean what are the odds that you guys will cheat death again? I don't know how to stop worrying and I don't know how to lie to myself and say everything is fine."

"I don't know either. All I can promise you is that we're always careful. Your dads' first priority is coming home to you."

"It still scares me."

"It probably always will. No one will ever be able to say anything that makes it better."

"I haven't slept in three nights because you guys have been out there and every time I close my eyes all I can think about is the knock on the door or the phone call and the hospital and blood and I can't make it stop. And then I get so mad because if it wasn't for you then I wouldn't feel like this but I know it's not your fault, my dad wanted to follow you in the first place. And I know you would do everything you could to keep him safe and I feel guilty because it's not fair to be mad at you. And then it just cycles back to the fact that I need you and I couldn't lose either one of you."

Kate didn't have anything to say that would help so she stayed quiet while Alexis composed herself.

"What do I do?"

"I don't know. I think you just have to find a way to deal with it. Things are harder for you right now so maybe it feels like it will always be like this, but I know it won't be. Things even out and you figure out ways to cope."

"What kinds of ways?"

Kate was quiet again, mulling over the answer in her mind, wondering if it was the best one at the moment. It might be a shot in the dark, but something was telling her it just might work.

"Want to take a trip with me?"

"Where?"

"Out of the city. We'll take a long weekend, me and you and your dad. Forget the bad stuff for a while and just relax. It will give you a little fuel to deal with everything when you come back. Can you get away this weekend?"

"Probably. Can you?"

"I may have a few smudges on my record but I've still got some pull. You want to go?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. I'll get everything ready. We can get out of here and you can deal with some of this stuff at your own pace. As for the worrying, the case we're on right now isn't dangerous. We're both safe, I promise you that right now. I don't know how to help the worrying in the future, but for now I want you to know that everything is just fine."

"Okay."

"Honey, I don't want you to feel like today is a setback. It's just a speed bump. You just reached a point in the healing where you ran into something else to work through. You have more resources now to deal with things than you did at the beginning. This isn't something you should let pull you off course."

"How did you know I was worried about that?"

"Because it's something I worry about for myself every time I have a hard day."

"It's kind of strange how you can talk to me for ten minutes and I feel human again."

"I have a gift. Don't tell anyone."

"I love you Kate."

"I love you too honey."


"Why do you two insist on watching not only tragedies, but period pieces with singing?" Castle whined, pulling at his eyelids in frustration.

"Castle, this is the most-"

"No, I don't want to hear it. Hugh Jackman is Wolverine, he's not supposed to sing everything he says."

"But-"

"And Anne Hathaway is Catwoman."

"Dad would you just shush?"

"You have it turned up so loud!"

"Because you won't shut up!"

"Well if you hadn't laughed at my Master and Commander joke at the beginning I wouldn't have been encouraged to keep talking."

"Castle, I'm going to have to pause it and start over because you're messing up the flow."

"Okay, okay!"

They continued the movie in silence for a few minutes, while Castle made the coasters dance across his lap.

"I think Enjolras is just jealous that he's never had a woman," Alexis chuckled. "That or he wants Marius to fall in love with him."

"Most guys that age run around a locker room whipping each other with towels. French Revolutionaries sing about their emotions as different colors."

"Hey Marius, totally know you're in love and all, but you're an adult now. It's time to Occupy France."
"I don't care that you really, really need some lovin'. You're the quickest draw here."

"How come I can't talk during the movie and you two can?" Castle asked, exasperated.

"It's different when we do it."

"Yeah, you were talking through the parts we talked through last time, so it's been longer since we've seen them."

"You've watched this movie more than once?"

"We've watched this movie more than five times."

"Why?"

"Because it's good! You'd know that if you'd shut up and pay attention, dad."

He groaned and stood up from the couch, heading into the kitchen and figuring he was going to need some dessert to get through the rest of this.

"I never had you pegged as a fan of musicals," Alexis conceded after a moment, quietly.

"Confession time," Kate sighed. "My mom was in the stage production when I was little. She just did it for fun one season. She didn't have a big part, just in the chorus, but I used to go with her and sit in the dressing room during rehearsals and every night when they performed I'd be in the middle of the theater with my eyes glued to the stage, waiting to pick her out of the crowd. I remember wondering how humans could create something so beautiful and perfect out of a story of misery. My mom talked about that a lot; fighting injustice, standing up for those who suffer. I think it was this story that lead her to do all that she did. Once I got older and I understood more of the story, it was like I finally got to know her a little more. So every time I read the book or see the show or watch the movie or turn the soundtrack on as loud as it will go, it's like I remember all the reasons why."

Alexis was quiet; she'd always been under the impression that talking about Kate's mother in any way was bad, that every memory brought sadness and Johanna should never be brought up. But that seemed to not be the case at all.

"Did… did you ever tell her that?"

"No. By the time I put it all together, she was already gone. I think she knew though. I think she made it a big part of my life because she knew I would need it. Not that she had some premonition of what was going to happen to her, but I think she knew that I would need the reasons at some point in my life. She often gave me little bits of advice that were completely out of context but made sense later."

"Like what?"

"On my eighth birthday she woke me up, opened the window in my bedroom, then laid down with me and told me to listen hard. At first I thought that she meant I should be listening to the birds outside but then she said "Always listen Katie. Especially when you don't want to." I think about that a lot. Listening to understand rather that to reply. Listening when you're busy. Listening when you think you don't care. Listening when you care so much that it hurts. There were times that I was upset with your dad and I didn't want to listen to him but I did anyway because she told me to. And maybe it didn't solve everything but it helps. I never would have stopped to listen to him if I didn't have her voice in my head telling me to."

"What was she like?"

Kate sighed softly and got a faraway look in her eyes as she tried to come up with the words. So often all anyone ever talked about was how and why her mother had died, rather than how she'd lived. Johanna Beckett was so much more than her death, so much more than her career even. It wasn't often that Kate got a chance to share any of that and now that the chance was sitting there before her, she wasn't sure which part to tell first.

"She always smelled like lemons and mint. She hummed a lot, especially when I was little. Part of her was always moving, her feet would twitch when she was sitting down and I remember that my dad used to grab them just to see what she'd start moving instead. She had this amazing laugh, it seemed like it just filled you all the way up from your toes and you couldn't help but laugh too. She was strict with me but she was fair. She never fought with me or told me I was never leaving my room again, but she was very clear about being disappointed in me. She could run circles around my dad, prattling on and on, not letting him get a word in edgewise, until he agreed to something but had no clue what had just happened. She loved to bake, I remember her hands always being dry from the flour. She had an old apron that was ripped and faded but she never wanted a new one, said the old one had been there for one thousand pies and it would be there for one thousand more. She held onto things for the memories but she hardly ever explained what they meant or why she kept them. I guess it was her way of having a secret. And she always knew just what to say. Even if that meant keeping quiet, she seemed to have some kind of sixth sense about what people needed. She was always so warm and gentle, it was like she could fix every problem in the world."

"I wish I could have known her."

"Oh Alexis, she would have loved you. Probably would have said you were the most precious thing in the world. There would have been cheek pinching, no matter how old you were."

"Do you miss her a lot?"

"Yeah. Most of the time it's not too bad, I've learned how to deal with it. But there are times when I wonder what she would have done or what she would have said and I worry that what I do or say is wrong because it's not what she would have done. There's times I wish I could call her up and vent about something or talk about nothing or just know that she's there on the other end of the line."

"What do you think she would say about you and dad?"

"Probably "Thank the good Lord this one actually has a pulse!" She always said there was no use falling in love with someone who had never fallen in love with anything else in their life. She said if you had no passions for anything but love, then you were as poor as a man who had never been loved a day in his life. Always told me to date someone who was full of sass and ginger. I think I know what she meant now."

"You say as you stare dreamily at the middle aged-man reenacting Risky Business in the kitchen."

Kate blushed and nodded.

"Thanks for telling me about her, Kate."

"Thanks for asking."