Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
I woke up to the sweetest reviews/PMs the other day, thank you very much!
Chapter 10
While Castle was gone, Kate put the leftover ingredients back into the fridge and poured three large glasses of juice.
"They'll be here shortly before dinner," Castle announced as he strode back into the kitchen, grabbing one of the finished sandwiches. "And Alexis asked if you wanted to sleep in her room", he informed Louis.
The boy looked at his mother for permission; Kate only smiled and nodded.
"I'd love to," the boy exclaimed happily and took a sip of his juice.
"Alright then. We only have to set up the second bed."
And that's what they did after lunch. Kate took care of the dishes while Castle and Louis prepared the guest bed in Alexis' room.
Before they knew it, they heard the slam of two car doors and the ring of the doorbell. Together, they opened the door to reveal a grinning Alexis and a slightly exhausting looking Martha.
"Daddy!" The excited redhead leaped into his arms and Castle caught her just in time.
"Hey Pumpkin, I missed you," he murmured into her hair as he held her close.
With Alexis still holding onto his shoulders, he leaned down to give his mother an awkward kiss on the cheek. "Hi mother, thank you for joining us."
"Nonsense kiddo," the older redhead waved her hand in dismissal. "I'd never let the opportunity to come out here slip." Only now did she seem to notice Kate, and Louis, who held on tightly to his mother's hand and stood slightly behind her.
"And who do we have here?" Martha directed her question at Castle and gave him a chiding look for forgetting his manners.
"Ah, mother, this is Kate and her son Louis. Kate, Louis, this is my mother, Martha," Castle quickly introduced them.
Kate immediately liked the older woman as they shook hands. She had something warm and maternal about her that Kate felt drawn to.
"You are even more stunning than Richard told me," the older woman said warmly and and a blush crept into Kate's cheeks. Kate needed a minute to assimilate that information and didn't respond immediately but only turned her surprised eyes to Castle.
Sensing the slight awkwardness of the situation, he finally put Alexis down and grabbed the handles of the two suitcases Martha had brought along. "I'll just bring these upstairs," he told them and fled the scene.
"Alexis, why don't you tell Kate and Louis about what happened during recess today?", Martha suggested, as she too, went into the direction of the stairs. "I'll be right back." And with that, she quickly followed her son upstairs, while Alexis happily recited how they had found a tiny bunny in the school yard.
When Martha finally caught up to her son, she demanded for answers. "Richard, what is going on? Why are you here with Katherine and Louis?" And after a pause she added, "Are you two ...?" She didn't finish the sentence, but she didn't have to. Castle knew exactly what she was thinking when he saw the hopeful glint in his mother's eyes.
"No, mother!" he said emphatically, making it clear that nothing was going on between them. "Something happened at work and she got frightened, so she called me. I brought her and Louis here because it was safe."
Upon seeing the worried look his mother gave him, he reassured her quickly. "The threat was eliminated, there's nothing to worry about anymore. Otherwise I would not have asked you and Alexis to join us."
"Why exactly did you ask us to join you?" Martha asked him, slightly teasing. She knew there was something her son hadn't told her yet.
"We figured since we are already out here, we could as well make a mini-vacation out of it," Castle told her with a shrug of his shoulders, trying not to raise any suspicion.
"And?" Martha knew there was more to it.
"Fine," Castle sighed and gave in, he could never hide anything for long from his mother. "Over the last few days Kate and I talked a lot. She opened up to me and I finally got a glimpse of who she really is under that mask of hers she has put on. But I sense that there is still more to her. To her story. Unfortunately, with Louis around, interrupting our little talks or always being in earshot, she won't open up any further. I have the feeling that she doesn't really have anyone to talk to and she wants to open up and let someone in but ..."
He stopped talking when he saw the flashbulb light up in Martha. "Ah," she said with a knowing smile. "You want me and Alexis to distract Louis, so you two can have some privacy."
"Would you, mother? This is really important to me. Kate is important to me."
"Of course, kiddo," Martha patted his cheek lovingly.
"Just to clarify, I do want to spend time with Alexis, and you of course," he added hastily, "but having half an hour to ourselves would be really nice."
"Don't worry, I'll make sure you have more than enough time," and with that, Martha turned around. "Come on, they're probably wondering where we are."
Together they descended the stairs and went into the kitchen where they found Alexis entertaining Kate and Louis. When Kate noticed them, she sent Castle a slightly worried look. They must have been upstairs for quite some time.
"What's for dinner, daddy?" Alexis asked.
"I thought I could go get some pizza. Everyone fine with that?" He was met with four enthusiastic faces. "There's this place nearby that makes the best pizzas in a ten mile radius," Castle explained as he grabbed his car keys, "But unfortunately they don't deliver. You have to pick up the food yourself. Do you want to join me, Kate, and pick out something for you and Louis?"
Kate hastily got off the barstool she had been occupying. "Eh, sure."
"My mother will watch Louis and Alexis, don't worry." Castle winked at his mother and Martha smiled back at him, already smitten with seven-year-old Louis.
Half a minute later, they were already out of the house and in the garage, but Castle was hesitating to open the door.
"Would you maybe want to walk to the restaurant? It's not even two miles and we've been stuck inside the house for days now."
"Taking a walk sounds like a good idea," Kate replied with a smile.
XXX
They were walking next to each other on the sidewalk, enjoying the last rays of sun on their faces, when Kate began to let her mind wander. She thought back to how Castle had just taken her and Louis in, without even knowing what exactly was going on, and how he hadn't asked for anything in return. Quite opposite, how he was even reluctant to let her make a big deal out of this.
Castle must have noticed her frowning because he nudged her with his elbow. "What's up?"
Kate took a deep breath. "I was just thinking," she side-stepped, not offering him any more.
"About?"
"About how I can repay you for everything you have done for me."
"But Kate, I told you, I don't want-"
She cut him off quickly. "I know you don't want anything in return. But I ...- How can I not give you anything back?" She was beginning to be frustrated with herself. Why couldn't she simply accept what he had done for them? Why did she feel like she had to make it up to him?
"Do you really want to do something for me?"
"Yes! Please!"
"Alright," Castle sighed. "There is something you could do for me. I know it's a lot to ask for, and you don't have to ..."
"Castle, what is it?"
"Have you been reading the papers for the last couple of months? Specifically Page Six?"
Kate shot him a confused look and shook her head.
"If you had, you would have known that last spring, after six months of being engaged, Gina broke up with me."
"Gina? Your-"
"My publisher, yes."
Kate was stunned. She was a fan of Castle's book but she had never had the time to keep track of his personal life. She couldn't believe she had missed the announcement of their engagement and their break-up! It must have been plastered all over the tabloids.
She shot Castle an apologetic look but didn't really know where he was going with this. What did his ex-fiancée have to do with anything?
"After the break-up, I didn't really feel like going out," Castle went on. "Paula, my agent, has been fine with that for a while. But the past couple of months she has been pressuring me to go out again. I went to public events twice this year and both times were a disaster. You see, I have two choices," he explained to her. "I can either go alone, only to have women throwing themselves at me, making a show of being seen with me. Which is so obnoxious by the way," he shook his head in disbelief, "Or I can go with someone. But do you know how hard it is to find a date, that wants to go out with you because of who you are, not because of who the papers state you are?"
Now Kate got a faint idea of what he was going to ask her, and all of a sudden she wasn't so eager to repay him anymore.
"What I'm saying is, next weekend I got invited to attend a gala opening and I have already confirmed that I'm going. I really don't want to go alone, but I also don't want to go with someone who doesn't really care about me." He took a deep breath before turning his head and looking at her. "Kate, I would love for you to go with me."
She had expected him to say that, yet, when he finally did, she sucked in a startled breath. She looked at him hesitantly. She didn't fit into his world at all, she had never been to a gala opening and didn't know what to expect of one.
Noticing her gaze, Castle smiled at her. "As I said, you don't have to, it was just a thought. I'm sure I'll think of something else, if you still really want to pay me back."
"As whom would you introduce me?" she asked after her heart had finally stopped fluttering wildly in her chest.
Castle thought about that for a second. He would love to introduce her as his date, but he didn't think she was ready for that yet. "As a friend who is interested in art," he told her instead.
Kate knew she wasn't completely able to mask her disappointment. A little insecure, she told him she would think about it.
They had finally arrived at the restaurant and while they ordered their pizzas and waited for them to finish, Kate went back to feeling disappointed. 'A friend who is interested in art', really? He was the Richard Castle, and she was just Kate Beckett, homicide Detective, but some small part of her had really hoped ... What had she hoped? That Richard Castle would be interested in being more than just friends? That Richard Castle saw more in her than a cop and a single mother? She snorted at her own ridiculousness.
The pizzas arrived and Castle paid for them, while she gathered the boxes in her arms. With the smell of freshly baked pizza in their noses, they quickly made their way back home, where they were greeted by an overly excited Alexis.
"Pizza is here! Grams, Louis, the pizza is here!"
They settled down at the dining table which had already been set by Louis and Alexis. They dug in and had light conversation. Alexis told them again about the bunny in the school yard and how she and her grandmother had run lines all day long, and Martha was still convinced Alexis would be great on Broadway.
After dinner, Martha excused herself. Friends of hers lived in the Hamptons and since she hadn't seen them in a while, she decided to drop by. That left Castle and Kate with the two children. They decided to play Chutes And Ladders, Alexis' favorite board game. After the exhausting day the girl had had, her eyes began drooping quite soon, though, and they decided to put the kids to bed.
Alexis was sitting on her bed, dressed in a frilly purple nightgown, with Castle sitting behind her, struggling with her red hair as he tried to put it into two side braids, when Kate and a pajama-clad Louis entered the room.
Louis crawled under the covers of the guest bed while Kate watched Castle with amusement. "What are you doing?"
"Alexis wants to have wavy hair in the morning, so I'm putting her hair into two side brides," he explained to her, while Alexis nodded her head and Castle lost hold of one of the strands.
He groaned and tried to pick up the strand without having to let go of the other two.
"Wouldn't it make more sense to put the hair into two French braids if you want to have wavy hair?" Kate asked and Castle shot her a frustrated look.
"Daddy can't do French braids, he's barely mastered a normal one," Alexis explained.
"Give me some credit," Castle grumbled behind her, "I never had to deal with hair before. And do you know how fine your hair is? And how large my hands are?" Castle wiggled his fingers in front of Alexis' face, making her giggle.
"Move over," Kate told him, as she too sat down on the bed. Castle let go of the fiery red hair and made space for her. Expertly, Kate parted Alexis' hair down the middle and with nimble fingers began the first French braid.
In the mean time, Castle went over to one of Alexis' bookshelves and grabbed a book.
"A bedtime story, yes!" Alexis cheered. Castle watched in fascination how Kate didn't even seem to notice that the girl had moved her head, and continued to braid untroubledly.
He sat down on Louis' bed and began to read in his rich voice. He was halfway through the story, when Kate finished with the second braid. Alexis leaned back into her chest and looked up at her with a grateful smile. Kate smiled back at her and made herself comfortable against the headboard. Slightly hesitant, the little girl leaned back against her, not knowing if she was allowed to do that. Reassuring her, Kate pulled her more firmly into the vee of her legs and started to stroke her shoulder and upper arm. Gratefully, the little girl rested her head high on Kate's stomach, and continued to listen to her father's calming voice.
Closing the book with a soft thud, Castle looked up to see his daughter falling asleep against Kate and smiled at the lovely picture they made. He rubbed Louis' back once more before getting up and helping Kate extricate from behind Alexis without disturbing the sleepy girl too much. While he dropped a kiss against Alexis' forehead, Kate sat down on Louis' bed and wished him sweet dreams.
They whispered their final goodnights into the darkness of the room, before closing the door and Kate had to smile at the domesticity of it all.
In the hallway she bid Castle goodnight and turned to leave.
"What? No goodnight kiss for me?" Castle joked and dramatically placed a hand over his heart, feigning to be hurt by her actions, or rather, inactions.
She turned back to him with a saucy grin. "In your dreams."
"In my dreams," Castle retorted, recovering fairly quickly from his dramatic climax, "you-"
Kate hastily covered his mouth with her palm, effecitvely shutting him up before slipping away into her room.
A little confused she went to brush her teeth. What was it with all the innuendo but only wanting to introduce her as a friend, if she were to accompany him to the gala opening? Shaking her head, she tried to rid her mind of his mixed messages and curled up in her bed with Castle's copy of Anna Karenina.