Alexis: Home for the Holidays, Part 1

Saturday 15 December

The intoxicating blend of fir and pine hugged her as she pushed her large suitcase against the wall by the front door. She sighed contentedly as the humdrum of daily life dissolved as she gazed over every familiar yuletide feature of the main room of her home. The enormous White Spruce stood in all its magnificent glory in its usual position, declaring Christmas to have arrived in the Castle household. A million Christmases ran through her mind, a scattergun of images. There she is beneath the tree unboxing her laser-tag gun as her father reveals his with mania in his eyes and shoots first. There is her father sneaking back to his room dressed as Santa unaware that she is spying on him from the top of the stairs wearing her red pyjamas that she had opened earlier as per their Christmas Eve tradition - she has known the truth of Santa since she was eight, but she doesn't want to disappoint him by bursting the bubble of illusion. Now she is unwrapping her first violin and tracing the grain in the shiny resin-soaked wood.

'Alexis!' her father called out. He was hidden somewhere behind the tree.

'Hey, Dad,' she replied.

'Hi sweetheart, you're home for the holidays!' She found him leaning over the train diorama, his arm buried up to his elbow in a tunnel, his face straining with effort.

'What's up, is everything okay? Where's Gram?'

'She's on a forty-eight-hour acting workshop. And Beckett is taking a nap and Erin is in her room. There's just a… blasted kitten that I can't get out… of…the... There! Got it!' He held the bemused tortoiseshell aloft by the scruff of its neck in triumph. Two more skipped out from behind snow-capped trees; one sunk lazily across the track reminding her of scenes from one of her favourite films as a young child, Digby: the Biggest Dog in the World; the kitten was a giant to the model people of the set. Her father had already admitted over the phone that his frosty attitude towards the kittens had thawed, and they had seduced him with their playful yet harmless ways, so she was not surprised to find them downstairs running amuck. He had told her that he was grateful to have exorcised a childhood fear and that she shouldn't hold on to any anger on his behalf about their presence.

To be honest, her own anger had thawed somewhat too. She had had time to become accustomed to the presence of Detective Beckett and Erin in her home, and it was unpleasant holding on to bitter feelings – they made her throat and stomach hurt – so she had decided it would be best to try to move on. She had told her father enough times that of the two of them she is the grown up and so she ought to live up to her own claims. Furthermore, returning to the same welcoming Christmas warmth reinforced that she had been quick to give in to her initial fears: Erin and Beckett living in the loft didn't make her home any less her home, or her father any less her father.

'It's two-thirty in the afternoon, why is Beckett in bed?' Her father did a double-take at the lack of the use 'detective'. 'I thought she was getting better?' She looked towards the bedroom as if she might appear any second.

'Oh, she is, sweetheart. It's just she gets tired.' He lowered the kitten to the diorama and pulled her in for a hug. He lowered his voice to a whisper as if he too thought he would be discovered. 'She isn't very good at knowing her limits and yesterday she went out the for the afternoon. And then, well, when she got back, we had to deal with Erin.'

'Gram said she's been suspended from school!'

'Yeah. It's not great. It's until the end of term which is just a few more days and she is not allowed to participate in any clubs. I think she is more upset about missing her soccer game tomorrow morning.'

Castle lifted the three kittens from the diorama and placed them near the tree where they immediately competed for the lowest hanging baubles. Alexis noted gratefully that her favoured baubles had been placed much higher. She was used to coming home to find her father having decorated the tree. One year when she was still very small, he had asked if she wanted to help decorate it, but she loved the thrill of finding it there without warning, often when returning home from school. Each year the same ineffable feeling caught her by surprise for a moment and she treasured the fleeting magic of wonder that was harder and harder to hold on to with each passing year away from childhood. She pitied people who dismissed her father's sometime childishness: they didn't understand that it was his superpower to hold onto the parts of youth that so easily can be lost.

Castle walked to the kitchen, beckoning her to follow. 'Beckett was busy and so I had to pick her up. I never had to deal with anything like that with you.' Alexis self-consciously pushed a strand of hair behind one ear. 'I didn't even know what to say to Erin on the way home and she barely spoke. She seemed pretty shaken up so I didn't think I should shout at her, but I did tell her we couldn't tolerate violence.'

'What did you decide to do?'

He sighed and rubbed his face, which she now saw looked more tired than usual. 'We haven't decided yet. We had a very long talk last night and one of the things we are still… in negotiation about is how to discipline her. To be honest, I'm not sure if I should be talking to you about this, about Beckett.'

'Dad, you always shared everything with me about her,' she shrugged.

'That was when we were only working together, now, we're in a romantic relationship. And you didn't hate her.' He looked at her over invisible glasses.

'Okay, hate is a strong word,' she stammered, crossing her arms. 'I don't hate her, but I guess I have had trouble trusting her, you can understand that. I have been angry with her, but I am working on it. I know she makes you happy and I don't want to get in the way of that.'

'I appreciate that, pumpkin, thank you.' She felt a warm flush as she saw his eyes dampen. 'I know where you're coming from, and despite everything, I do trust her. I wouldn't be in a relationship with her if I didn't.'

He looked over his shoulder as he spoke and opened the freezer door. 'And she's had to learn to trust me too. Early on I went behind her back in opening her mother's case. She might have been pleased in the end that I did because it helped us uncover her killer, but she was very angry with me, and rightly so.' He pulled out an oversized tub of chocolate chip ice cream. 'But we're here now, and all of that is behind us. We call ourselves partners at the precinct, but we were never really that: she is always the cop in charge, the responsibility for the outcomes, and for my safety, is always on her. But now at home we are partners for real.'

He placed two sundae glasses and two long spoons on the counter between them and scooped out several balls of ice cream. He added chocolate sauce, crushed nuts and, with a flourish, whipped cream on top. He didn't squirt any cream into his mouth but instead he fidgeted with the can. He was nervous, she realised.

'So, that being said there's something I wanted to talk to you about.' He took a deep breath. 'Kate and I want to officially adopt Erin, together. Beckett currently only has a temporary legal guardianship courtesy of the mayor, but we need to finalise it into something permanent.' He slid the stuffed glass under her nose.

'That was really some conversation you guys had! What?' she said, picking up a spoon, 'are you bribing me or are you asking for my permission?' She gave him a hard stare.

'Permission?' he yelped. 'Another big word. Erm, no not your permission exactly but I do want-' he stopped his stammering as he twigged the twitch of her mouth which unfurled into a warm smile.

'I'm only teasing, Dad,' she said, shaking her head. 'I'm eighteen, I'm at college, and I'll be leaving home properly sooner rather than later.' Castle gulped. 'You don't need my permission, you're a big boy now, but I am glad you wanted to talk to me first, thank you. I like Erin and I think she's really lucky to have you. It's maybe a bit sudden, though, what made you decide?'

'It kind of just happened, a bit like choosing to move in together. Maybe the biggest decisions can be made on a whim. You know when they're right. I didn't have a second's doubt when Kate brought up what we should do about her legal status. We need to have a back-up plan if one of us is unavailable, and after what happened yesterday, we want Erin to know that she is secure here, that this is her forever home.'

'Beckett asked you to adopt her?'

'No, but she was so pleased when I suggested it, it seemed such an obvious solution.'

'Being a grown up is hard,' he pouted and then squirted cream into his mouth, making her giggle and shake her head in mock disgust. 'One minute we were "discussing"' – he emphasised the word by waggling his fingers and in a tone that suggested discussing had been closer to arguing – 'our different opinions about how to discipline Erin (for both her obnoxious behaviour at home and the incident at school) and the next we were deciding we both want to adopt her. That's how far we've come, Alexis,' he said, his eyes widening abruptly as he ate a large spoonful of ice cream, 'we know we can do this together even if we disagree about the minutiae. We haven't told Erin yet, I wanted to run it by you first.'

It was, as she said to him, faster than she might have imagined but knowing her father as she did, it made sense that he would want to adopt Erin. He would only ever give himself fully and as the weeks had passed, she couldn't doubt his commitment to Erin, and to Beckett, and truly who was she to stand in their way? She had studied them discreetly at Beckett's birthday dinner and the frequent moments when her father and Beckett disappeared into their couple-ness, when they became oblivious to everyone and everything around them, had been the trigger point for her to try to put her anger behind her. She had never seen him look quite that way with anyone else and no woman had ever looked at him like that either.

'Well, you both have my blessing. But Dad, can we just talk about Beckett for a moment. How is she, really, after the accident?'

He scraped the glass clean before he spoke again. He let the spoon drop on the counter with a loud clatter of frustration. 'That's what she keeps calling it, an accident. I love her but my God she can be bloody-minded sometimes and when she doesn't want to see something, she won't.' He walked to the couch where she perched beside him, her back straight as a poker as she had been taught by her grandmother, and her mother, when she was around.

'Ryan told us that when she got her heel stuck and she fell it was because she was diving out of the way because the guy had seen her and was shooting directly at her. Kate makes it sound like he was just spraying bullets randomly.' He mimed shooting a machine gun to the ceiling. 'The thing is, she had PTSD from her shooting and she's a lot better now, but I wonder if she's in denial about what really happened because she doesn't want to go down that road again, particularly now? I even mentioned that Erin's therapist had said that denial is something adults and children alike experience and she didn't even blink. It didn't occur to her at all that I was hinting that she might be in denial herself.'

Alexis furrowed her brow. 'And the bump to her head?'

He threw his arms up in exasperation. 'Another thing she is being dismissive about. She has been put on leave for an extra week because when Captain Gates visited, Kate was really hazy in the conversation, cutting her off mid-sentence and getting confused. The hospital said she didn't have a concussion but told me to look out for delayed symptoms which can come on days after a bang to the head. It's only mild, they know she doesn't have a brain injury, but she is definitely showing some symptoms like fatigue, irritability, and confusion.'

'What does Erin think about it?'

'What do you mean?'

He looked genuinely nonplussed. Honestly, hadn't he talked to Erin about Kate's behaviour? She pushed further:

'And what did she say about punching someone?'

'She pretty much slammed the door last night in our faces and has barely spoken since we came home yesterday.'

I'm gonna go and see her,' she said. Was anyone talking to anybody properly?

A/N So an abrupt and under written ending. This chapter was meant to be a long one with three scenes: the above, then Alexis and Erin, then Alexis, Castle and Beckett. Scene 2 is 70% there and I'm sketching out scene 3. But what I keep doing is abandoning those scenes and coming back to this and honing and working it. Which is no good to you, the reader.

I am also sick, my kids and husband have been sick for days and now I've succumbed so the reality is I won't be writing for a few days. So I thought best to just get this posted even if I'm not entirely satisfied that I've completed the content as the next two scenes thematically link as one chapter and as I write them I'm triggered back to this scene. But the way it's set up if I feel I've missed anything out here, it can be worked into scene three. So the next two chapters are going to be parts 2 and 3 of this chapter.

I've kind of fallen in love with Alexis. I never intended her to be a part of this story but I have really enjoyed getting inside the character's psyche, and I hope you enjoy my version of her. Here I think she comes back to being a bit more canon - she is very self-confident, I think it's totally in character that she would try to fix everything (oops, spoilers). Yes she does think she knows it all but I'm finding that endearing of her.

I'm watching Castle through from the beginning with my own 12 year old and I had the weird experience of looking up and thinking' what are my characters doing there?' Writers talk about characters walking around inside their heads and that has totally happened to me with this story - do other Castle fandom writers find that happens?! I could just be going mad because I'm ill!