Thank you guys for your comments and for putting my story on alert, it seriously makes my day when I check my email and it's full of stuff from you guys.

If I owned these characters, I probably wouldn't have so much student loan debt…

Married. Alexis and Martha were laughing about the fact that Kate and Rick could have possibly got married. Both of their jaws hit the floor the second Martha said married. Now they all stared at each other. Rick knew that Kate wasn't ready to tell anyone about their weekend just yet, and he didn't want to force her.

"Of course not!" Rick said, breaking the awkward silence.

"What?" Alexis asked.

"Right Kate…" Rick stammered. "Not married, right?"

Kate didn't answer. She didn't know what to do. Should they just tell Alexis and Martha that they were married? Or should they wait and tell everyone together. Was Alexis going to be mad that she wasn't able to go to their wedding? Was Martha going to be upset? Probably not, she had been to his first two weddings. Her father. All that Kate could now think about was what Jim Beckett would say once he found out his little girl got married, in Vegas, while she was black out drunk.

Her dad always talked about how he was going to walk her down this isle at her wedding. Now what was he going to do? She was now feeling guilty. Jim only had one daughter, that was his only chance to walk someone down this isle, and she blew it.

"Hello? Earth to Kate." Alexis chimed in, breaking Kate from her thoughts.

"What?" Kate answered.

"I was just telling my mother and Alexis how we did not get married over the weekend." Rick replied.

"Of course we didn't." Kate answered. "But I'm feeling kind of tired from the flight, I'm going to go lay down. Dinner later?"

"Sure." Alexis answered. "But Gram is going out tonight, so it will just be the three of us."

"Wonderful." Rick replied.

"I'm so glad you're home, and I'm glad to see you here too, Kate." Alexis said, kissing her father and then Kate on the cheek, then running back up the stairs to her room.

"What's going on here?" Martha asked.

"Nothing, Mother. Why would yo think something is wrong?" Rick answered, trying to hide the excitement in his voice.

"Well, one, we haven't seen Kate in nearly a year. Two, when you left Friday, you had a girlfriend, Julie, Janet, Julia, whatever her name is. Three, I'm now wondering if Kate is cheating on her husband." Martha said.

"Wait, cheating? Husband?" Kate said, clearly confused.

"I'm assuming that you've gotten married in the past year, darling."

"Why would you think that I was married?"

"You're wearing a ring." Martha answered.

Kate absentmindedly ran her thumb over the back of the ring. She had completely forgotten she was wearing it. Martha was staring at Kate, waiting for an answer. Out of the corner of her eye, Kate saw rick slide the ring off of his finger and slip it into his pocket. At least she wasn't the only dumb one who wore a wedding ring back to New York.

Kate glanced at Rick, he looked just as shocked as she was. Martha always had a way of picking things up, even little things. Rick gave Kate a small nod, saying it was okay to tell Martha, if she wanted to.

"Well, I did get married." Kate said softly. "But I defiantly am not cheating on my husband."

"Care to explain?" Martha asked.

"It's a long story, Mother." Rick said before Kate could get out anything else.

Rick and Kate watched Martha pull out her phone and send a quick text.

"Well thats very convenient" Martha said. "It seems like my night has just opened up. I'll go grab a bottle of wine and some glasses and you can tell me all about it."

Martha walked into the kitchen and pulled down three wine glasses. Rick nudged Kate's arm, "None for me." She said. "Me either" Rick said also. This was going to be harder than she thought.

"If you can't drink, then neither can I." Rick whispered into her ear, kissing her forehead before pulling away. "We were so close to getting away with this."

"I forgot the damn ring." Kate whispered back. "I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry about, I forgot mine too. And I guess it's for the best. One less person to tell."

Martha returned to the living room and found Rick and Kate sitting on the couch. She poured a glass of wine for herself. She leaned back into the arm chair, "Lets start from the beginning." She said to Rick an Kate.

"Well, I went to the airport with the girls on Friday. And once we landed in Vegas, we wasted no time, we were on the strip within an hour after checking into our hotel. Then we went to a few bars, had dinner, went to a casino, and thats when we ran into Rick, Espo and Ryan." Kate said, "Rick, care to take over?"

"Umm… after we ran into the girls, things start to get a little hazy."

"So what you're telling me, is that you got married after a full day of drinking?" Martha asked, the two of them just nodded. "Just making sure we're on the same page, carry on."

"Then the next morning I woke up an Rick was sleeping on the floor. At first I thought it was Lanie, but then I got a text from her saying she went back to Javier's room. And now here we are." Kate explained.

"So, what are you going to do? Get another divorce?" Martha asked, staring at Rick when she said 'divorce'. "Stay married? Have adorable children? I could use a few more grandchildren to spoil, you know. And I'm sure that Jim wouldn't mind either."

"As of now, we're going to stay married." Kate said, smiling as Rick reached out and held her hand.

"Well, it's about time!" Martha said, standing up to hug them both.

Rick and Kate both let out a sigh of relief. If Martha was so happy about them being married, why wouldn't the rest of their friends and family be happy too. Martha took her wine glass into the kitchen then walked up the stairs, not saying another word, just smiling at them.


Rick was laying in bed, waiting for Kate to finish brushing her teeth. When she came out of the bathroom, she noticed that he had a blank look on his face. She crawled over him and laid in her usual spot, pressed up against his chest with her face in between his neck and shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her back and pulled her closer.

She missed sleeping like this. Ever since they broke up, she hadn't gotten one decent night of sleep. She spent most of the night tossing and turning. He bed was too big, too cold, she needed two people to sleep in it to feel comfortable. But now she wouldn't have to worry about sleeping alone. She was now committed to this man, Richard Castle, for the rest of her life. He was her favorite author, her partner, her best friend and now her husband. Her life was finally starting to fall into place.

"You're thinking too loud," Kate mumbled into Rick's neck. "What's up?"

"Alexis." Rick said. "I should have told her that we got married while we ate dinner, she can handle it. I feel like she should know. My mother knows, and we both know how well she can keep a secret, I don't want her to find out from someone else."

"Want to tell her now?"

"Kind of."

"Well it is only 11:15, so she's probably still awake."

Rick sat up and thought about telling his daughter that he was married, again. He stood up out of bed and pulled Kate with him. They walked through his office and up the stairs to Alexis' room.

"Sweetheart? Can we talk to you?" Rick said, knocking on the door then pushing it open.

"Yeah, dad. What's up?" Alexis said, looking confused. She closed her biology book and turned to face her father and Kate.

"We have to tell you something." Kate said.

"Shoot." Alexis said. Rick pulled Kate's hand and pulled her down next to him, sitting on Alexis' bed.

"Well," Rick started, "While we were in Vegas, we got marr.."

"Married. Yeah, I know." Alexis cut him off.

"What? How do you know?" Kate asked.

"I noticed you both were wearing wedding rings when you walked in. And you were in Vegas for the weekend, that turned into an extended weekend. And I saw Lanie this morning and she asked me about a million questions."

"What questions?" Kate requested.

"When you two were coming back, if I had talked to you recently, if you told me anything 'big'." I just kind of assumed." Alexis said, opening her book again.

"You're smarter than you look," Rick said, standing up, dragging Kate along with him. "And thats saying something because you look pretty smart."

"Thanks dad, but if you don't mind, I have a biology exam in two days and I really need to study."

Rick and Kate both said their goodnights to Alexis and made it back into the hallway.

"Dad?" They heard Alexis call. He peaked his head back in the door. "I'm really happy for you guys, I've been waiting for five years for this to happen." Rick smiled and closed the door once more.


When Ricked walked downstairs, he saw Kate walking through the office to bed. Rick went to the sink and got a glass of water, looking out the window as he did so. Thats strange, he thought. There was a running car with the lights on sitting outside the loft. There usually wasn't ever people outside at this time on a Monday night. He finished his glass of water and returned to bed for the second time that night.

Rick turned off the lights and crawled into bed next to Kate, she was taking the day off tomorrow, so they would have a whole day together. Alexis would be going back to college in the morning and his mother had acting classes all day.

Rick pulled Kate closer, rubbing his hands up and down her back. He could tell that she was exhausted, so he wouldn't try to seduce her with his rugged handsomeness.

"Love you," Kate mumbled just before she fell asleep.

"I love you too, Kate. Always."

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