Infinite thanks to all of you for embracing this story in a way I hadn't even dared to dream you would. I hope you continue to enjoy the ride.
What could have been mere moments, or several hours, later, the door to Rick and Kate's ICU room opened, and Alexis peered around it. "Is it okay for me to come in?" she asked tentatively.
"Absolutely, pumpkin," Rick said, his voice still hoarse. "But you should really go home and get some real sleep and some real food."
"Soon," Alexis promised. "I really need to talk to you guys first."
Alexis moved the visitor's chair from beside Rick's bed to in between Rick and Kate's beds so that she was facing both of them and could look at them both while she spoke. Rubbing her palms nervously on her jeans-clad thighs, she took a deep breath, then, her gaze taking in both her father and her stepmother, opened her mouth to speak.
"I didn't get it until recently," Alexis began. "You two. This whole thing. I thought I did, but I really didn't. I guess I needed to grow up some more before I really understood it. But now I do. I finally do."
Kate and Rick exchanged a look, then both looked back at Alexis. "Understand what, exactly?" Kate asked. Neither she nor Rick was sure where Alexis was going with this.
"How much you two truly love each other. How far you would go for each other, to keep each other safe, to save each other's lives," Alexis said. She looked at Kate now. "There were times when I was younger that I was so mad at you, Kate. I was mad that Dad kept putting himself in danger to be near you. But now I know that it wasn't you. Well, it was, but it wasn't." She chuckled a bit nervously. "This all makes a lot more sense in my head, I swear it does. It's just been a really long 24 hours."
"We can talk about this later, Alexis, after you've had some real sleep," Rick offered.
"No, Dad, we can't," Alexis said urgently, turning to look at him now. "This can't wait one more day, not one more minute. It's waited too long already." Then Alexis surprised both Rick and Kate by leaving her chair to sit on the edge of Kate's bed.
"I don't remember my parents being married to each other," Alexis began. "But I do know that from a very young age, my mother has always just flitted in and out of my life whenever it was convenient for her, so I knew from the time I was little onward that I couldn't depend on her to be there for me, the way I've always been able to depend on Dad to be there for me.
"And when Dad married Gina... Since I've been old enough to really understand it, I've felt that Dad's marriage to Gina was a matter of propinquity."
"Propinquity," Kate repeated.
"Yeah," Alexis replied. "Proximity. She was his publisher, before Paula she was his agent, so they were always talking, they'd see each other, he was single, she was single, and Gina was just...there. But even when they were married, Gina and I never got very close emotionally. Some of that was Dad's doing. Subconsciously, I think he knew it wouldn't last for very long, and he was protecting me, like he always does. He didn't want me to get hurt when Gina left. I was too little to really be hurt when my mother left. And then over the years, I got used to not having her around, and her being too flighty and self-involved to have any true concept of what a mother is supposed to be. But I had Dad, and I had Gram, and that was all I needed.
"Looking back, I don't think Gina and I ever would have gotten close emotionally even if Dad had allowed it, because Gina isn't a very 'mother-ish' kind of person. She's all about the books, the business, the way my mother is all about herself." She paused, then looked at her father. "I know that Meredith loves me as much as she's capable of loving anyone, Dad. And you never talked her down or badmouthed her to me or put me in the middle of you two, and that's a gift that not every kid whose parents are divorced gets. Believe me, I know. I used to hear all kinds of horror stories growing up from my friends whose parents were divorced, and I couldn't relate, but I didn't really want to relate to that kind of pain. Thank you for making sure I never had to."
"I'm your dad, that was my job," Castle replied, but at the same time he felt relief that he had succeeded in this very important aspect of parenthood.
Alexis turned her head to look at Kate again, then continued speaking. "At first, I thought you were 'Gina: The Sequel,' that Dad was spending all that time with you because you were there. And then I thought he was spending so much time with you because he was attracted to you, and then I realized that he was spending as much time as he possibly could with you because he loves you. But the longer it went without anything happening between the two of you, the more I thought that you were giving him the runaround, or stringing him along, and then I was mad at you for that.
"But I was wrong, Kate. I was so wrong, about all of it, and I'm so ashamed now that I ever, for even one second, thought any of those horrible, and totally wrong, things about you. You're nothing like Gina, or Meredith. You could never be like them. But for the longest time, I didn't know that in here." She placed a hand over her heart. "But now I do. I finally do."
She paused for a beat before continuing, still addressing Kate. "You've never been anything but good to me. Whenever I've come to you for advice, you've given it, and it's been really great advice. When I've come to you for help, you've helped me every time, willingly.
"And all these years, through so many things...probably at least half of which I don't even know about, and I don't even want to know about now...you have kept my dad safe, and you have always, always brought him back to us in one piece, no matter what."
Alexis reached for Kate's hand now, holding it in both of hers and looking her right in the eyes. "When Meredith and Gina were causing trouble outside the hospital earlier, I told Meredith that you have been more of a mother to me in the last eight years than she has been in my entire life. And after I said the words, I realized how true they are."
Both Rick's and Kate's expressions softened at this. "Alexis..." Kate said, touched beyond words.
"You're different, Kate. You have been all along. Dad saw it first...right away, I think," Alexis said, looking over at Rick for a moment before returning her attention to Kate once more. "He'd been going through the motions for quite a while, and then you showed up at that book party and flashed your badge at him and took him in for questioning, and a couple of days after that, I saw him smiling again, his real smile, not the one he puts on for the press. And he was bouncing around the house like Tigger, and he was playing with his phone, which I didn't think anything of at the time, until I passed by him while he was sitting on the couch with his phone and I glanced over his shoulder and saw that he was entering your name and cell number in his contact list. After I saw that, thinking I knew all the answers because I was 15 and that's how you think when you're 15, I asked Dad, 'So, you're going out with the lady detective that hauled you away from the book party the other night?'"
"And he looked at me in all seriousness, completely earnest, Kate... Have you ever told her this story, Dad?" Alexis interrupted herself, looking over at Rick again.
"No," he replied, and both Alexis and Kate were surprised to see that he looked genuinely sheepish at this.
"Eight years, and you've never told Kate this story?" Alexis asked, shocked. She glanced back at Kate before returning her attention to her father. "Maybe I shouldn't, then. It's not my place."
"Actually, I think it is your place," Rick replied.
"You're sure?" Alexis asked.
Kate was losing patience now. "One of you better tell me!" she exclaimed.
"I'm sure," Rick replied.
Alexis nodded, more to herself than her father, and returned her attention to Kate. "So Dad is looking at me so seriously, so earnestly, with something in his eyes that I'd never seen before in all my life. I didn't know then what it was, but now I do. He said to me, 'No, pumpkin, I'm not going out with Detective Beckett. She wouldn't have me now.'"
"And then, it wasn't long after that that Dad told Gram and me that you had a wall built around yourself, and he was going to go over it, or through it, or tunnel under it, whatever it took, but he would get past that wall someday. He never did that with anyone else before. He never even wanted to. But with you, he would never give up. He never will give up when it comes to you, Kate. And before you, the only people he felt that way about were Gram and me." She looked embarrassed now. "Some of it was jealousy on my part too, at least when I younger. You were the first serious relationship of my dad's life. I didn't want to deny him that, but I didn't always give you and Dad and your relationship the respect it deserved, and that was wrong of me. And he did get past the wall eventually."
"Yeah, he did," Kate agreed, looking over at Castle before returning her gaze to Alexis.
"It's supposed to be a cliche," Alexis continued. "'There's nothing I wouldn't do for her...' or 'him.' It's this grand, romantic phrase, and for everybody else, it's just words. But not for you two. I've seen it so many times, and I know it, really know it, now, in a way that I couldn't before. There is literally nothing you two would not do for one another, because that's how much you love each other. You're two halves of the same whole. You were born to be a couple. I'm just sorry that it took so long for me to really understand that. I only hope that one day, I'm as blessed as you are and I find a love like the two of you have with each other."
Alexis looked over at her dad and, feeling the tears well up in her eyes, didn't even bother trying to hide them. "I've always known how lucky I am to have the dad I have," she said as she looked at Rick. Then she shifted her gaze back to Kate as she continued, "But I'm really lucky to have you as my mother figure too, Kate, and now I can finally say, and know that you hear me, and that you know that I mean it, that I love you, Kate. I love you almost as much as Dad loves you, because nobody will ever love you as much as he does." Then she shifted, moving closer, and the next thing Kate knew, her arms were full of Alexis, hugging her carefully. Kate's arms went around Alexis, hugging her back, as Rick looked at the two of them, misty-eyed himself.
"I love you too, Alexis," Kate said, blinking back tears of her own. "I always have, and I always will. And I'm honored that you think of me as a mother figure."
They held the hug for a long moment before Alexis released Kate, still sitting on the edge of her bed. "For all the times I was snotty to you, Kate..." Alexis looked over at her father now. "...and for all the times I gave you a hard time about Kate, Dad, I am so, so sorry. You deserved better from me."
"Alexis, there is nothing to forgive," Kate said. "You were just being protective of your father, and of his heart. I understand that. I respect you for it. And I was a teenage girl once myself. It's not an easy time for anyone, and you were scared that your dad was putting himself in danger by being around me so much. And it had been just the two of you for so long...We all had adjustments to make. It had been just me for so long before I met your dad. If I had been in your shoes, I would have felt and acted exactly the way you did."
"Dad has never loved anyone...could never love anyone...the way he loves you. You're the one he was waiting for all along," Alexis said. "And in you, I have the mother I never even knew I wanted...until now." She brushed at her eyes, and Kate and Rick both had tears in their eyes now too. "You're the one Dad was waiting for, Kate. You're the one that we both needed for so long, and it was worth the wait. You were worth the wait."
Kate looked from Alexis to Rick and back again. "So was your dad, and so were you. I never thought I'd have anything like this. I never thought I'd have a family. I didn't think I wanted one after I lost my mother. But this... This is what I was waiting for." She looked at Rick again now. "You were what I was waiting for, Castle. You, and Alexis, and Martha."
There was a knock at the door then, and the door swung open to reveal Martha standing there. "Is everything all right?" she asked.
"Everything's terrific, Gram," Alexis replied. She gave Kate one more hug and kiss on the cheek, then moved over to give Castle a hug and a kiss.
"And now that it is," Rick said hoarsely, "I want the two of you to go home and get some real sleep and some actual food."
"Are you sure, Richard?" Martha asked anxiously.
"Yes," Rick replied. "You two have been here for more than a day by now, I would guess. You need real sleep and actual food, neither of which you will get here. Kate and I aren't going anywhere. We'll be here waiting when you come back, we promise."
"All right," Martha agreed, albeit reluctantly. "But we'll be back later. That's the one good thing about ICU: 24-hour visiting hours."
Kate knew that like her, Castle was thinking, "Lucky us," on the one hand. But on the other hand, it wasn't like they were in any condition to get started on expanding their family...yet. She felt a few butterflies in her stomach at this, wondering how much longer it would be before her gynecologist arrived. She and Rick had time now for all the things they'd been putting off before, which reminded her of the two most important things she wanted to talk to him about. Of course, she needed to talk to her gynecologist first before she and Rick could talk about having a baby.
"Oh!" Alexis exclaimed, bringing Kate back to the present. "That reminds me. I had one more thing I wanted to ask you guys."
"No, you may not have any boys over unsupervised while we're in the hospital," Rick said.
All three women rolled their eyes at him, but Castle couldn't keep the goofy grin off his face.
"Okay, I'm actually serious here," Alexis said, looking nervous again. She looked from Rick to Kate and back again. "I want to redo the kitchen."
Now Rick and Kate looked at each other. They understood where Alexis was coming from. Kate spoke first. "I think that's a very good idea," she said. She gave Rick a rueful half-smile. "We don't need any more triggers than we already have."
"Triggers?" Martha asked, somewhat puzzled. She hadn't been there, had been spared that horrible, nightmarish scene that would never completely leave Alexis's mind, or Kate and Rick's minds either.
"PTSD triggers, Mother," Rick said quietly.
Martha uttered a silent "Oh."
"Go to it," Castle told Alexis. "You have our blessing."
"I was thinking the fridge and the sink can stay, but everything else will be brand new, especially the floor," Alexis said.
"Yes, the floor," Kate said emphatically. "Start with the floor." Castle nodded his agreement, not wanting to have to look at the floor where he had fallen, where Kate had fallen and crawled to him, where they had lain bleeding until the cavalry arrived.
"I'll get started on it right now," Alexis said.
"No, you'll get started on some sleep right now," Rick corrected her. "And some food. It doesn't matter what order you do them in, eat and then sleep, or sleep and then eat, but that's what you're going to do first. Then you can start remodeling the kitchen."
"I'll bring my laptop the next time I come, or maybe tomorrow, so you guys can pick out what you want," Alexis said.
"Sounds like a plan," Rick said. "And going home to eat and sleep goes for you too, Mother."
"A nap in an actual bed does sound like a good idea," Martha admitted.
The others were still lingering in the corridor outside the open door to Beckett and Castle's room, and Esposito stood in the entrance to the room now. "I'll make sure they get home safe, Beckett, Castle," he promised.
"Thank you, Espo," Kate said. "For everything."
Esposito nodded. "We're family," he said softly. Then he looked at Martha and Alexis. "Ladies, shall we?"
"We'll be back later," Martha said, going to hug and kiss Rick and Kate. Alexis was right behind her, and hugged and kissed her father and stepmother again.
"We'll be here," Rick said. They started to leave but Rick said, "Alexis?"
"Yeah, Dad?" she asked, turning back to look at him.
"How did you get the hospital to agree to put Kate and me in the same room?" he asked.
"I told them that an exception should be made because Kate's a highly decorated NYPD Captain and you're a New York Times bestselling author," Alexis replied, "and everyone else backed me up." Martha and Esposito murmured their confirmation of Alexis's explanation. After a beat, Alexis continued, "But if that hadn't worked, I was going to donate a wing to the hospital, figuring then they couldn't possibly turn me down."
"That's my girl," Castle said proudly.
Alexis smiled back at him, a tired smile, but a genuine smile. "I'll be back to see you two later tonight," she promised. "I love you both."
"We love you too," Kate said, feeling emboldened enough to speak for both herself and Rick.
"All of you," Rick added.
After Esposito had left with Martha and Alexis, Kate called for her dad. Jim entered the room. "Yes, Katie? Can I get you or Rick anything?" he asked anxiously.
"You can go home and get some sleep and something to eat," Kate replied. "Alexis and Martha are going to do that right now, and you need to do it too, Dad." Before he could protest, she said, "I haven't forgotten that I want us to talk. I'm not going anywhere. We will have our talk, after you've had something to eat and some actual sleep, I promise."
Jim looked at Kate like he was afraid she was going to disappear, or at the very least, change her mind about talking to him, which only strengthened Kate's resolve to start rebuilding her relationship with her father in a more complete way. "We'll talk, Dad. I promise you we will, if not later today, then tomorrow. I'm not going anywhere this time, physically or emotionally. But I need to get my bearings a little bit before we talk, and you need some sleep and some food."
Jim nodded. "All right," he said. He stepped forward to give Kate a hug and a kiss, and he closed his eyes when she returned his hug carefully. "You get some rest too," he said as he released her.
"I will, Dad," Kate replied.
Jim then stepped over to Rick's bed, and rested his hand on Rick's good shoulder. "I'm really happy you're awake and going to be all right, Rick," he said, and Kate knew what her father wasn't saying: that he was relieved to know that she wouldn't have to go through what he had when Johanna had been cruelly, brutally taken from them.
"I'd never go anywhere without Kate," Rick told Jim earnestly. "Whatever we're in, we're in together, the whole way."
Jim smiled. "That's good to know," he said. "Very good to know." He removed his hand from Rick's shoulder and said, "I'll be back to see you both later."
"We'll be here," Kate said.
Jim gave Kate one more kiss, on the top of her head, and then took his leave.