Disclaimer: still not mine, but i can still dream.

She got to the loft at around 4:30, after spending the day doing menial chores and errands. She was more than a little hesitant about being there with Alexis alone, knowing the topic of them was bound to spring up eventually during the course of the night. She wanted her approval, that was certain. She didn't want this to end because of what she thought, but she wouldn't fight if Alexis was truly against it. Like Martha said before, Alexis is his whole world.

When she arrived and knocked on the door, she was greeted by a brightly dressed Martha just heading out for her acting class. Saying their goodbyes, Kate was ushered in by the departing Martha, and made her way over to Castle, who was leaning against the island, a bright smile inviting her over to him. She gracefully made her way toward him and snaked her arms around his midsection, leaning up on her toes to press a light kiss to his lips that left both parties aching for more. Pulling away, but both pairs of lips still chasing after one another, they opened their eyes to stare off into the sparkling abyss that lay before each of them. Separated, but still clinging to each other, Castle finally spoke, his voice steady.

"I missed you." He said with a loving gaze casting downward at her.

"Caste, I've been gone five hours." She added.

"You make it sound like it's easy. Didn't you miss me at all?" Putting on a face that mocked being hurt by her words.

"Maybe a little." She responded, quirking her lips.

"I guess I'll just have to try harder then won't I?" He inched down to meet her in the middle before she stopped her pursuit to speak once more.

"I guess you will." Their lips met again and their grip on one another tightened. They lent their foreheads together, smiling brightly to each other. It wasn't until this time that they realized Alexis' presence in the living room just a few feet away, sitting with her laptop, researching more colleges. Kate had hoped that she would be hold up in her room and would just call her up if she had needed anything, but that hope was soon dashed. Deciding to cling to the good news that Alexis seemed to either not care or not notice them holding each other, Kate made her way over to sit in the chair that sat next to the couch where Alexis had made her nest for the night. Kate suddenly felt a rather large lump grow in her throat, feeling nervousness boil over in her system. She went up against hardened criminals everyday, and yet an eighteen year old girl has enough power over her to make her sweat glands tingle and over sensitize her skin, making the slide of her clothing over it to feel like a Brilo pad going over a scab.

Castle grabbed his jacket from the hall closet and grabbed his keys, then made his way to bend down over the edge of the couch and press a kiss to his daughters hair. Asking her if she needed anything, Alexis scoffed and assured her that she was fine. "Dad, I'm fine. Besides, Detective Beckett is here." She reassured her father, but not making any move to look over at Kate.

"Okay, well, I'm off. I'll let you know when I get through, sweetie. Make sure to give Beckett a hard time and tend to you hand and foot." He joked. Kate had snapped her head up with scared eyes only to be met with a smirking Castle. She just rolled her eyes and let her bottom lip come into the grasp of her teeth.

Making his way over to the door and on his way out he called out. "Okay, later. I love you." He added quickly and shut the door behind him. Kate was about to respond instinctively until Alexis had called out the same response, making her realize that it probably wasn't meant for her. She couldn't help but feel inwardly embarrassed for herself. An awkward silence now surrounded them, making the air thick with unspoken tension. Kate wondered if it was a stupid question to ask if she needed anything, seeing as her father had just asked her on his way out, but decided to make it known that she was here to help. "So, uh, you need anything?" The shake in her voice fading as she steadied herself.

"No, I'm fine. Thanks though." She spoke, with out breaking her focus on the screen in front of her. Kate then got up and slowly made her way to the kitchen to get some water, knowing coffee, or anything caffeinated would just put her more on edge. Putting her glass under the nozzle on the inside of the refrigerator door, she silently took a few deep breaths until she heard Alexis start to shift on the couch. She looked over to see that she was moving to get up. Quickly, setting her glass down on the counter, she moved over to help the stumbling Alexis, and helped her get her weight shifted into the right place so that she could move on her own. With a thankful smile, she then moved off to the bathroom, and quickly returned. Kate had returned to her spot in the chair, feeling a bit more confident, taking into account that Alexis hadn't shaken off the hand that Kate had offered to help steady herself as she got up.

"So how've you been feeling?" She asked.

"Well, I've been better. It sucks having a broken leg." She said with an 'omft', as she let her weight pull her down to the leather of the couch.

"Yeah, it does. I broke my leg when I was little. I know what you mean." Kate said in a tone that said she was deep in memories. Alexis decided to let her voice them. "What happened?"

"My mother was teaching me how to ice skate at the plaza. It was my first time, and I've never been that good at it, I'm still not. But it was my first time out on the ice and she got out on to the ice like it was nothing, so I thought to myself 'how hard can it be?'. I went out onto the ice and someone skating by had rushed past me and hit my skate by accident and sent my down. Some one else had tried to stop but couldn't in time so they landed on my leg with their skate. My mom felt so guilty for not watching me close enough." Kate finished with a thick and emotional voice.

Alexis was touched, in a way. Her dad had said how closed off Beckett was about speaking about her mother, and divulging a personal memory like the one she just had left her in a wake of shock. She decided to take this opportunity to ask something of Kate, hoping she wouldn't take it the wrong way. "Detective Beckett?" She asked in a frightened voice.

"You can call me Kate, you don't need to be so formal."

With a smile, "Kate, are you and my dad dating?"

That unwelcome feeling of nausea flooded back in her system, and it left her wondering if she was accusing her of something. Steeling herself, she let out the last bit of air she had in a short breath. "Yes, we are." Not being able to gauge the young girls reaction, and not being able to read into her silence, she prodded gently. "Is that okay?"

"It's just he's been chasing after you for years now, and I can't help but wonder. Why now?"

The question left herself wondering. Why now, indeed? Why not last summer, or when he came back? Why not the first time he had asked her, or the second time, or the third? Him asking her for something along those lines she had always taken as a joke after a while, and she knew he didn't mean anything by it. But what drove him to ask those questions in the first place? The need to see her smile, or the witty responses she always gave? Did he mean anything by it? What if he had? Would they have been ready of they decided to take this to the next level sooner than they did? Are they even ready now? Alexis deserved to know why her father has been chasing after this road runner, and why it wasn't until now that Wile E. Coyote finally caught up to it.

"Well, when he started shadowing me, he was annoying, he was a pest, and all I wanted was him out of my way. But then his insight into things, and his way of thinking started to help out little by little. Then, eventually, it got to the point where I don't think I could solve a case with out at least his input into it. He has become my partner and the best one I could ever hope for. I don't like to admit that a writer has saved my life, after all, I am the cop, and I should be the one saving his life but, he has. And it wasn't until this last time that he did that I finally saw him as more than a partner."

With a smile growing in the girls face, she looked relived to know why. "He cares for you a lot, Kate. I don't think he would ever do what he's done for you for any one I've seen him with. After he left Gina, he started dating a lot of women that he cared nothing for, and I just looked away when I would hear them fawn all over him, throw themselves at him. After a while, I didn't really care what new girl he would walce in with, because they all would be leaving the next morning. Sometimes I would ask him about the new girl in his life and he would always say the same things. She was pretty, she was his biggest fan, she loved his books, but I highly doubted that any of them could actually read. I could tell he was getting tired of it. He would come home from a release party with a sunken and worn out look on his face. I could tell he was getting sick of playing the playboy part. It all seemed to end when he started shadowing you, Kate. He talked about you differently, saying you were intelligent, strong, courageous, frustrating, challenging, and beautiful. I haven't heard him call a women beautiful in a long time."

As much as Alexis' speech had touched her, she asked, snapping her out of her focus. "Why's that?"

"Well, you know him as well as I do, and he loves to see himself as a poet. He says that true beauty doesn't take work, it doesn't need to be prepared, or made up. It just happens naturally. He says that beauty has mostly nothing to do with looks, but with a persons heart. He says that if he thinks a woman is beautiful, then she doesn't need people telling her that she is." Alexis spoke, thinking that she was just making conversation, when hearing of what he thought beauty was sent butterflies raging in her stomach. He was a poet, indeed.

"He cares for you, Kate. I think he might be in love with you, and I don't want to be the one to ruin it so if what you are looking for is my blessing, that I won't stand in your way." Alexis said, voicing Kate's inner thoughts.

Still shell shocked, Kate shook her head to clear away the contoured face that had crept up. "I... uhm, thank you, Alexis." She said, coming to look into the girls glittering eyes and smile.

They sat there in a much more comfortable silence until Alexis slowly made her way upstairs to go to bed. It wasn't until now that she realized that Castle has now been gone three hours. After another half hour if sitting in her chair, she felt her eyes slip shut, saying to herself that she was just resting her eyes. She soon fell into a rather deep sleep.

She let her eyes flutter open, only to slip shut once more, and borrow herself deeper into the embrace that surrounded her. She subconsciously smiled contently, until her shifting caused the arm that was around her waist to tighten. She moved her head against the bicep that lay underneath her hair and moved to stretch her sleep strained muscles, only to have her feet brush against another pair. She soon was fully snapped out of her sleep filled state, and became aware of her condition. She was spooning with Richard Castle on his couch. The first thing that shocked her was that she was actually spooning with him. She never spooned, she always felt cocooned, trapped. But something was different. His body perfectly held hers, and her body molded itself to his. They fit. She didn't feel restrained in anyway. She felt safe, she felt secure.

She felt loved.

Her mind now drifted to how she ended up on the couch in the first place, and how Castle ended up sleeping behind her. Feeling the swell and depress of his chest against her back, she decided to let it go, not wanting to question a good thing. A large breath in, that brushed air past her hair, and caused the chest that she leaned against to expand largely signaled that he was awakening.

With a low and sleepy moan, he greeted her. "Mmm, morning beautiful." Tightening his already tight grip on her midsection, she sighed warmly and rested her arm on top the one around her and let the other fall off of the couch and ran it down the length of his, and came to entwine their fingers. "Morning handsome."

Feeling a kiss bin pressed on the back of her head, she spoke. "I thought I was asleep in the chair."

"You were, I got home around nine, and you had your head slumped off to a weird angle and I didn't want you waking up with a crick in your neck, so I moved you over to the couch, and then you looked so lonely sleeping all by yourself on this big empty couch, so I decided to fix that too."

When he was met with silence, he was afraid he had done something wrong. "Why is, is there something wrong?"

"No, nothing at all."

A/N: It's been a while since ive written for this story ever since I started my others. But this story still has my most views and the most followers. And i couldnt leave you hanging. *Hi-five*