It's a slow, quiet day.

Very slow. The store has been empty since ten o'clock this morning, and that was the first one since eight o'clock. The store does well, the old man they bought it from wasn't lying. It's just slow for a Wednesday. She's trying not to look at the clock on the wall to the right of the entrance, but every time she does, thinking that at least twenty must have gone by, it never fails her today that it's only moved three minuets. Reading an old copy of Storm Fall left forgotten and abused behind the computer monitor in the office, Kate sits on the stool behind the register just waiting for something to happen.

Kate grits her teeth as she gets to the last line on the page and flips it, testing the time for the umpteenth time this morning. After seeing the time is barely passed twelve-fifteen, she slumps forward on the stool, groaning loudly. "Ugh..."

She swivels the stool around and leans forward on the glass display counter, setting the paperback down, flattening out the book and resting her cheek on the palm of her hand on a hard sigh. Another paragraph later, the bell attached to the top of the door clangs as it opens, catching Kate's attention. She looks up from her book and sees a teenage girl in a green polo shirt and black slacks walk in with a brown paper bag inside of a white plastic one.

Her brow creases, "Can I help you?" She asks in as friendly a tone as she can muster.

"I have your order," the girl says, lifting up the bag and sliding it onto the counter.

"My order?" Kate asks again, sliding her book off to the side and standing up off the stool.

"Yep," the girl continues, lifting up the receipt, "A double garden burger with curly fries and a salad with French dressing."

Man, that actually sounds really good right now. "Oh," she manages, at a loss until she realizes the food needs to be paid for. "Here, let me pay you."

"Oh, no need, ma'am." The girl waves at her.

Kate looks up from reaching under the counter to start to rummage through her bag, "Excuse me?"

The girl smiles. "You paid already, ma'am, tip included." The girl says with a smile and turns away. "Enjoy."

Kate nods to herself as the bell on the door rings again, "Thanks." She calls out, left standing with a bag of food sitting in front of her. She had to leave for the store without eating, talking with Castle left her drained of energy, and she can't leave the store unattended with her dad not coming back until tonight. And as wrong as it was, the sex they had taken a lot more out of her than she initially thought. And the more the smell of the food inside the bag teases her senses, the more ravenous she gets.

With one motion, she reaches inside and grabs the first container she feels, twisting the bag underneath it to look at the receipt. Holding the container of salad in her hand, she leans down to read the receipt, wondering who sent it to her, until she hears a small, quick sound echo off a surface of the store. Kate moves her eyes away from the bag, looking over to the door to see the parking lot empty and the road quiet, waiting to see if the sound shows itself.

When she hears the sound again, she can tell it's the sound of something hitting the window that faces out toward the dock for the rental boats behind her. She sets the container down on the counter and leans over the back counter to look out the window just in time to see a small pebble hit one of the small, square panes of glass. Her brow creased, Kate blinks and looks out to the dook.

His arm cocked downward across his chest, she sees him sitting on the top of the picnic table at the right end of the dock, clad in a dark grey dress shirt and a charcoal sport coat with dark denim jeans. Kate feels a smile shine across her face when she catches his eyes, looking startled as he drops the handful of pebbles down to the dock below him then lifts his hand up in a nervous looking wave, giving her a smile.

She can feel her heart swell and flutter at the same time as she quickly turns around and grabs the container she took out of the bag, sliding it back inside and grabbing the bag, heading outside through the back door. A chill hits her as she goes outside. It's a windy, cloudy day. She can feel rain in the air, but it has yet to fall. But she can tell it's getting ready to by the dark, grey, lumpy look in the clouds.

As she strolls down the stairs, brushing her hair behind her ear as it whips into her face with the wind, she looks over to see him leaning forward against his knees as he sits on the surface of the picnic table.

"I suppose I have you to thank for this." She says to him as she walks toward him, gesturing to the food by lifting the bag up.

Rick smiles somewhat nervously and slides down to the dock and off the table, brushing his palms down his thighs. "I figured I now's a good a time as any to make up for the dinner I skipped out on last night." He says, trying to keep his tone under control. He has too much on his mind that his head is starting to ache. His skin feels touchy, like the inside of his clothes are made out of sandpaper.

Kate smiles honestly as she steps up to him, the wind dying down to a gentle breeze. She looks into his eyes, seeing something that makes her focus, want to make sure she's really seeing it. He looks... like he's nervous, like a teenage boy on his very first date almost. "That's really sweet of you, Castle."

Rick forces another smile and looks down to the planks of wood on the dock. "You have time to sit down?" He asks, motioning to the table behind him with his shoulder.

She's quick to nod, giving him another smile. "Sure, I have time." She quickly reassures him with a light nod, moving around him to the other side of the table.

Kate sits down in the center of the bench across from him, setting the bag on the bench to her left, taking out her salad from the bag while Rick sits down on the other side of her, clutching his hands together tightly. She watches him closely as he leans forward, seeming to wring his hands together as best he can with his fingers entwined. She looks up to his eyes, trying not to get noticed examining him as she loudly pries open the plastic lid off her salad, and notices the nervous glint in his eyes.

"So, how's the case going?" She asks, wanting to just break the silence with something neutral as she pokes the prongs of the fork through the plastic wrapper.

He looks up to her and gives her an awkward nod. "Fine," he starts in a tight voice. There's a pause as Kate opens the packet of dressing and squirts it over the salad, then an even thicker pause when she stirs it up. He seems to take his cue to continue when she jabs the first piece of lettuce. "The chief of police called me this morning." He states in a usual, casual tone. "He's a pretty good guy," he says with a smile to himself. "He said that someone confessed to the murder."

Kate's brow knits as she shifts the salad to one side of her mouth. "Really?"

"Yeah, which didn't make any sense to me, because the case has all the markers of going cold." He explains in a heavy voice.

Her heart tugs, a cold, sinking feeling going low into her gut. "So, there wasn't any evidence then? The canvas didn't turn up anything?"

Rick shakes his head as he looks down to the table. "No, the scene was clean, they weren't getting anything back from the canvas, nothing was taken. So when chief told me that someone confessed, it didn't make sense to me." Kate watches as his face twists into concentration, the looks he gets when he used to stare at the murder board with her when they were in an impossible situation. He was always great in those situations. "So, long story short, the kid who confessed didn't do it. He just wanted to go to prison to get away from an abusive stepfather."

Kate stops mid-chew, having to replay what she just heard. "How'd you find that out?"

Rick shakes his head meagerly, the firm expression falling. "His school record showed a report from the school nurse when he went in for a shoulder injury. When the nurse asked him if it happened at home, apparently, the kid got furious with her and he was suspended from school for three days. The form that was signed about it had to be signed by a legal guardian and the person who signed it was a male with a different last name."

She can feel her heart flutter wildly around her chest as admiration quickly swells inside of her. "You got that from just one form?"

Rick looks up to her with a humble shrug of one of his shoulders. "Well, he kind of overplayed the whole 'I'm an evil, ruthless killer' bit when I asked him what happened." She fights a face splitting smile when he meets her eyes. After a second, he looks away again. "But since he gave the police a statement about the murder-"

"He must've seen it happen." She finishes on instinct. She looks up from her salad after getting another fork full, seeing he's met her eyes again.

He nods as he continues. "He did, but I don't think it's going to turn up anything. He said that the killer was wearing all black, had a hood pulled up, was anywhere between five foot seven and five foot eleven, and could have been a man or woman and that he couldn't tell."

"So," Kate starts for him, "they're calling the case random?"

Rick shakes his head and looks to his side and out toward the lake next to them, seeming to stop and listen to the sounds of the nature around them. "They said they'd call me when something new came up and I said I'd do what I could." He says heavily. She can tell neither of them like the outcome. He's been with her through all of it, he never liked having to just step back for a while. She knew that, understood it. "Until then, the chief gave a very long, very loud, and very scary talk to the kid's stepfather while Sierra cataloged his injuries for social services."

Kate feels a heavy smile tug at the ends of her lips, wanting to be glad this kid, whoever he is, got the help he needed. But at the same time, wishing she could have been there to help him, to back him up like he always was. "It's great that you could help, at least."

She watches out of the corner of her eye while eating her salad as his expression twists not into nervousness, but into some kind of anguish she's not familiar with on him. "I uh..." he starts in a shakey voice, "I just can't imagine that kind of..."

Kate stops her fork, setting it down inside the container and letting her hands fall into her lap. "That kind of what, Castle?" She asks in a soft voice.

His eyes harden in a form of anger she's only seen once before. As she watches him, she sees his hands wring together again, his knuckles turning white. "Abandonment." He says through clenched teeth. "I mean," he says, shaking his head and narrowing his eyes, "this kid was more afraid to go back to his own home than he..." he cuts himself off on a hard sigh. "He was willing to go to prison for the rest of his life... just to get away from his own parents."

Her heart tugs at the heaviness of his voice. This is why she wishes she could have been there. Just... all of it, she wishes she could have been there for. "It must be hard."

All she hears is his breath leave his nostrils in hard pants. "Kate, how do you remember your childhood?" He asks, pretty much out of nowhere.

Looking up to him, seeing he's looking to her for an honest answer, that it wasn't just a question levied at her to change the subject, she smiles and gives him a shrug, picking up her plastic fork again. "I don't know, I had it pretty easy, Castle." She says to him, taking another few pieces of lettuce, a carrot, and a slice of cucumber into her mouth. "I mean," she continues, shifting the food, "both my parents were lawyers, we were upper-middle class. I went to a private school. I-"

"No, no," Rick slowly stops her, "that's not what I mean. I mean..." he struggles, leaning over his hands for a moment, "when you think back to your childhood, what's the... what's the first thing you think of?"

Swallowing her food, she thinks and gets an image in her mind, a warm feeling buzzing through her. "I guess... when I'd get sick or... when I was having trouble with a boy or drama with my friends or whatever...my mom would take time off work and we'd just stay home and, you know... watch TV or we'd... go to the park, go shopping together. Sometimes my dad would take us up to his cabin." She tells him with a warm smile. "I don't know, I think of that kind of stuff, Castle." She shrugs, stabbing her salad again, casually moving to go back to eating until she notices his expression falling, his eyes drifting shut and his neck craning. "Why, what..." she hesitates, sensing something go wrong in his demeanor, "what about you?"

As she takes another mouthful of her salad, Rick stares at the lake to his side with a hard glare. There are two forces working against him, making him indecisive. There's anger and frustration in his heart, with fear and cowardice of she might think of it that's keeping him from speaking honestly. "You know," he starts quickly in a blurt, looking back over to her, "I never really gave it much thought until I had Alexis." He tells her, giving her a softly arched brow. "When you're growing up, you just sort of... think that whatever you're given is how things are supposed to be."

Once Kate realizes what he's saying, or what he's trying to say, what he's trying to convey, her heart seizes.

"You know, I thought I was ready for her." He says with a smile, his eyes softening when he looks back up to her, but they soon fall away, drifting into faraway memory. "I thought I couldn't love her anymore than I already did when she was just a... blue line on a pregnancy test in the hands of a frantic freaked out redhead." He takes a pause, and she can tell that he's replaying the memory of Alexis's birth in his mind by the soft, knowing smile that plays across his lips. "Then I heard her cry for the first time... and then saw her for the first time, got to hold her for the first time, saw her look up at me for the first time..." his voice sounds so heavy, she just wants to wrap her arms around him. When his eyes start to harden, she can tell instantly that something is darkening his mind. "It wasn't until..." he struggles, "until Meredith made it clear that she wasn't as interested in Alexis as she was in Meredith that... I..."

On a breath that makes her aware of just how closed her throat feels, she reaches over the table and puts her hand on top of his.

His eyes find her hand, and it makes him sick, knowing that taking the gesture of comfort would just be admitting that he needs it. That would only make it worse. "I just couldn't understand why she didn't love our child as much as I did. And no matter what I did, I couldn't get her to see it. So, she left." He says on a long sigh.

Kate nods for him, petting her thumb across his knuckles in a show of support. "Seeing you with Alexis was the first thing I fell for, you know."

The statement seems to go unnoticed as his eyes harden with memory again. "When Alexis first started preschool," he starts, adjusting his seating on the bench, looking up to her again, "I'd pack her lunch every day, and I'd drop her off every day... pick her up every day. After Meredith left me, I would pick Alexis up from preschool, I'd bring her home, make her a snack, all the usual stuff, but... a few days after Meredith filed for divorce, I'd bring Alexis home and she'd uh..." he says, his voice shaking, "she'd just... ask me to play with her."

Despite how much emotion he's showing, she can't help but smile warmly, imagining the man she loves playing happily with a four-year-old little girl, playing house or having a tea party.

"Every day... for almost a month, I'd bring her home and she'd just ask if I could play with her." He says, taking a pause as his eyes blink rapidly a few times, looking back down to the table. "After a month, I realized what was going on."

Kate stops, pulling her hand away. "What was that?"

He looks over to her with a furrow in his brow. "After the news got out that Meredith had cheated on me, some of the kids in Alexis's class were picking on her because she didn't have a mom anymore." His eyes fall away again, his mind drifting back into his thoughts for a moment before he looks back up to her. "Kids don't ask to talk about their day with you, Kate." He explains, his expression softening. "They ask you to play with them."

Kate can only feel the smile that goes across her face as both sad, loving, and honest. And as his eyes fall away again, she can't help but wonder what he did.

"So that's what I did," he continues, his eyes still far away. "And that's how Alexis knows I'd do anything for her... because every time she asked me to play with her, I would."

Kate tries catching his eyes, leaning her head down but to no avail. He just keeps staring off into nowhere. "What'd you do?" When he doesn't respond, she tries again. "When you were growing up?"

She watches as he swallows thickly. "I wrote."