AN: Firstly, thank you to everyone who has reviewed! I find constructive criticism (and of course encouragement) to be greatly useful. I'm updating again today because I happened to have the chance and as I'll be busy moving house over the next couple of days and won't have much time to write. Hope you all enjoy this next instalment!

Chapter Ten

"That's not true. At least, not in this case. From that phone call, it sounds like he only has himself to blame this time," Alexis grinned quickly at the detective.

Beckett glanced away from the road for a moment to shoot a quick smile at Alexis. As she watched the girl's bottom lip trembled slightly and her smile dropped.

"But he could really be in trouble though? This time?" Her voice was low, measured as she spoke, her eyes on her hands folded in her lap.

"Yeah, Alexis. He really could be. We don't know what this woman is capable of. We don't even know if she's working alone. The fact that your Dad hasn't waltzed back here of his own accord isn't exactly an indication that what he's facing is a walk in the park." Beckett chewed on her bottom lip as she spoke, still unsure about exactly how honest she should be with Alexis. As calm and controlled as she was, it didn't take away from the fact she was still just a kid worried about her father. Alexis merely nodded in response to Beckett's honesty and continued to stare at her hands, the severity of the situation becoming more real to her as the night wore on. Truth be told, she found the detective's presence and demeanour incredibly reassuring. As long as Beckett was fighting this hard, they had to find her Dad before anything drastic happened to him – more drastic than being snatched off the street by an obsessed fan anyway.

Their conversation ebbed away as they reached the loft, both women lost in thought. Little did they realise, they were both thinking about how glad they were to have the other to depend on during Castle's unintentional absence. Both were enjoying the new intimacy of heartfelt honesty and openness to their relationship, all the while wishing it had come to pass under different circumstances.

They reached the elevator and neither could bare the tedious wait. Standing still was just too frustrating. They made their way to the stairs and took them two at a time, panting by the time they hit the right floor. Alexis hastily unlocked the door and led Beckett to the study. The computer buzzed to life under her hands and Alexis sighed and tapped her finger impatiently, waiting for the desktop to load. Once it had loaded, she quickly navigated to the program for the app.

"It needs a password for the GPS tracker to be activated," she groaned. "God, it better be something simple. My Dad can be kind of crazy when it comes to passwords. He likes inventing words." She attempted to roll her eyes, but her heart wasn't really in it – she was clouded by worry.

"Is there a hint?" Beckett questioned quietly, sensing the girl's anxiety.

"Uh," Alexis glanced round the screen, quickly spotting the hint button. "Right, it just says, our word. What the heck does that mean? Maybe it's pumpkin," she typed the word as spoke it. Beckett knew – the second Alexis read the hint – Beckett knew what the password was.

"Always," she breathed, her heart thudding painfully loudly, threatening to jump out of her chest.

"Huh?" Alexis muttered, not really paying attention, distracted trying incorrect password after incorrect password. Beckett didn't respond straight away so Alexis drew her eyes away from the screen and turned to her. The detective had a faraway look in her eyes and had clutched a hand to her chest, gripping her necklace and her mother's ring tightly. "Kate," she entreated softly, "what did you say?"

"It's always, Alexis. The password is always," Beckett snapped herself out of her thoughts, sure of the password. Alexis nodded briskly and typed the word. Beckett let out a breath she didn't know she was holding as the password was successful. She couldn't believe Castle had made the password their word, it was like she was the only one he wanted to find him if he went missing. Of course, she was reading too much into it, he had just made a simple, easy to remember password for if he lost his phone. Surely, he wasn't thinking about himself being missing when he'd established their word as his password. Beckett needed to stop analysing it and start reading the results of the GPS tracker that Alexis was bringing up on the screen.

"I've got it, I've got the address. Let's go," Alexis practically flew from the room, tugging Beckett alongside her as she spoke. Beckett pulled herself from her thoughts and matched the girl step for step as they raced down the stairs. As they reached the cruiser Beckett handed Alexis her phone.

"Call Ryan and Esposito. Tell them to meet us at the address," she demanded, breathless from sprinting down the stairs. They hastily jumped into the car, before Beckett planted her foot and they were off in the direction of Richard Castle's phone, and by default the man himself.

Alexis was practically bouncing in her seat as they drove towards the address. Without turning to look at her, Beckett knew it was nerves that kept the girl fidgeting and her heart broke for her. If anything happened to her father she would never be same. Beckett knew the feeling of losing a parent all too well; she was going to do absolutely everything in her power to ensure that Alexis wasn't left virtually orphaned – when it came to parenting, Meredith didn't really count in Beckett's books. Plus, there was the additional factor that if anything happened to Richard Castle, Beckett would never be the same either. When it came down to it, Castle had three women who were depending on him for their future happiness.

They reached the address to find Ryan and Esposito already there, canvassing the area. She ordered Alexis to stay in the car, and desperately hoped that the girl was better than her father at following instructions. Alexis looked like she was tempted to disobey, but Beckett turned to her, "Please, you have to stay here. There is no way your Dad would ever forgive me if anything happened to you. I wouldn't forgive myself. You shouldn't be here in the first place. But, I couldn't bare to leave you. I need to know you're safe," she entreated softly. Alexis withdrew her hand from the door.

"I'll stay," she replied at a whisper. Beckett smiled gently and took her hand from her lap and squeezed it briefly before leaving the car. Esposito jogged to meet her.

"Hey Boss, this street's pretty dead. Half the houses are scheduled for demolition. About the only resident left is down there in number 4, an old guy called…"

"George Farmer," Ryan cut in as he reached them.

"Right," Esposito continued, "said he heard a car here a couple of hours ago, which is unusual because no one comes out here these days, especially in the dead of night." Beckett was formulating a response as she heard the faint sound of a ringing phone, and if she wasn't mistaken, it was Castle's phone.

"Hear that?" She made her way up the street, glancing carefully around her with every step. The ringing grew louder than stopped as she reached a trash can. She pulled a glove from her pocket and reached her hand into the bin. After a few moments, she fished Castle's phone from the trash. The screen was still lit up, with a missed call from Alexis. The girl really was a genius. She hurried back to the boys. "Still got that friend in forensics who owes you a favour," she asked dryly to neither member of her team in particular. Ryan shot her a wry grin.

"Actually, I do…"

X-X-X-X-X-X

The wedding video drew to a close and Castle was deeply glad to see the end of it. The weird mixture of delusional and reality was doing his head in. It was somewhat ironic coming from Castle, seeing how often he mixed reality with fantasy in his novels, but the whole Kate Beckett-Nikki Heat paradox made a hell of a lot more sense than the muddled world that was being played out before him. The madwoman sighed contentedly and leaned into his side. They stayed like that for several moments, Castle frozen by both his bonds and an overwhelming sense of being uncomfortable, whilst the madwoman ran her hands up and down his chest.

"Oh, we need some wedding pictures," she purred to Castle. "There's a camera in my car. I'll be back in a moment," she extracted herself from Castle's side and he began to breathe more evenly once again. She was only gone for a minute or two. Castle suspected she had practically skipped to her car as she was puffing softly as she re-entered the room, camera in tow. "It has a timer," she grinned, settling it on the rickety television stand that was still in the room. She nestled back into his side. "Smile, darling." The camera whirled to life, flashing rapidly in quick succession. Castle managed a dull grimace. Suffice to say, they probably weren't the best photos that had ever been taken of him. The madwoman was satisfied with the final products though, grinning broadly as she flicked through them. "Look at this one," she shoved the camera under Castle's nose. "We make such a gorgeous couple, don't you think?" Castle managed a brief nod.

They settled into silence for several more moments, the contrast between them stark. Castle's silence was sullen whereas the madwoman's was content, a faint smile plastered on her face. "You know what?" she added, breaking the silence. Castle turned to glance at her, still nuzzled against him and shook his head. "I'm going to go print these photos off, so we can hang them on the wall in here. Make it homely," she beamed. "Won't that be nice? I'll miss you while I'm gone though. Wait here for me, honey," she finished with a chuckle. Castle managed a choked –

"Bye," as she made her way out the door. He fell back into his sullen silence. Not that he begrudged her it, but Beckett sure was taking her time rescuing him. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could tolerate. He was going to break into a rant soon, because that was all that was really in his power to do under the circumstances – talk. He'd been working hard to keep the talking to a minimum, in case he said the wrong thing and it angered the madwoman. But this silence, intermitted with delusional conversation, was positively maddening. He wanted to rant and rave and scream about his love for Beckett, and love in general – how you couldn't steal someone's love like this. Stealing a person and telling them you loved them wasn't enough to cultivate true love. Richard Castle was a believer in true love and fate, he'd seen enough of the other side of love to know that it had to get better, there had to be soul mates. Admittedly, he was an optimist when it came to love. He had to be, otherwise he'd give up hope and he'd lose a piece of himself – the happy go lucky childish part that kept him optimistic in the face of defeat.

The creak of the door signalled the madwoman's return. Castle surmised that she'd been gone for a mere twenty minutes meaning that her house must be nearby. Although, captive as he was, that was a fairly useless piece of information. She smiled at him and proceeded to glue large copies of their "wedding" photos to the walls. It was a slow process, as she had to hold each image against the wall for a minute or two for the glue to start to dry. About ten minutes after the madwoman had returned, Castle was surprised to hear the door creak open once again, although this time it was flung sharply and slammed against the wall adjacent, the handle leaving a jagged crack in the wall. Castle turned his head to see a middle-aged man and was shocked to find him strangely familiar.