Dinner was awkward to say the least. Kate had been basically silent. Alexis' anger was rolling off her in waves and if Ellie hadn't been there talking all about her favorite Disney movie, which they are all going to watch after dinner anyway, the dinner would have either ended with someone in tears or someone shouting Rick could have bet on it. Alexis didn't have the full story of what had happened between him and Kate, but he knew his daughter was protective of her father and her little sister being hurt so he wasn't really that surprised that Alexis was acting as overly protective of them as she was, but he had thought after all the time that he and Kate had been married that she would have given Kate at least a chance to explain. Kate had been there for all the moments that she had really needed a motherly figure and Rick had hoped that would count for something, but apparently hurting her sister was were the line was drawn. The passion and headstrong fire that is inside of Alexis is going to burn bright until Rick has a chance to talk with his first born and explain that Kate was dealing with something that Alexis cannot understand right now.

"Lexi? Can we watch Frozen now?" Ellie asks her big sister as she shovels in the last bite of ice cream. "Mommy said we could watch it tonight."

"Sure. We can watch Frozen. Do you want to change into your comfy pjs?" Ellie nods her head like this is the best idea ever.

"Ellie if you want to change into your pjs, you need to take a bath first." Kate says calmly, even though she knows announcing bathtime is going to cause a riot.

"I don't want to!" Ellie throws her head back and says defensively. "I just want to wear my Elsa pjs and watch Frozen!"

"How about after you take your bath I'll braid your hair like Elsa?"Alexis says quickly defusing the bomb that was about to explode in the Castle household.

"Really?" Ellie's eyes go wide, not truly believing that she was going to have an Elsa braid but knowing her big sister wouldn't lie to her.

"Really." Ellie's curly hair was easy to braid when it was wet anyway so offering this now was a better thing for both Castle daughters. "So can we go run a bath and grab your pjs?"

"I guess so…" Ellie agrees after a moment of thinking about it. Alexis offers her sister a hand and it's quickly grabbed by the smaller of the Castle daughters.

"Thank you Alexis. You're a lifesaver." Kate says with a smile towards the redhead.

"Yeah, I didn't do it for you." Alexis snears before scooping her sister up and swinging her around so she doesn't have time to register what her big sister said to her mom.

"Weeeeeeeeh!"

"Alexis." Rick's calling of his older daughter's name comes off as a warning to watch what she is saying, especially in front of her sister, but he doesn't have time to say anything else before his daughters round the corner. He had been hoping that once Alexis walked out of the room, the tension in Kate's shoulders would drop, but no such avail. "Kate." He calls his wife's name softly.

"It's fine Castle." She slips into her past habits as she picks up dishes off the table and turns her back towards him as she walks them towards the dishwasher.

"It's not fine and we're not Castle and Beckett anymore." He walks up behind her to set the other bowls on the counter, his own ice cream forgotten as he wraps his arms around his wife's waist. "She has no right to treat you like she is."

"She has every right to be angry with me Rick. In her eyes, I left my own daughter, just like her mom did. She always told me she hated that her mom didn't put her daughter first and I went and did the same thing. Now Ellie gets upset anytime either of us try to leave, but especially when I do. Tomorrow is going to be a disaster and she knows it too. We're being hopeless optimists to believe otherwise."

"Even if all of that was true-"

"I don't want to speak for her and make her more upset but I'm pretty sure it's all true."

"If she knew the real reasons you left, I don't think she would be as angry."

"I abandoned my daughter Rick. She's going to be angry. I did exactly what Meredith did. Exactly what she basically made me promise to never do. I get why she's angry. Worse, I almost want to be angry at myself too."

"Don't. You're not Meredith. You were grieving, you were scared, and you did what you thought was the best for Ellie at the time."

"I still think you should be angrier than you are."

"Not going to happen. We grieve together, but we don't have to be angry at each other remember?"

"I know." Kate turns in his arms to face him. Looking into the blue eyes in front of her, she brings a hand up to caress his face. "I don't know what I did to deserve you, but I'll thank whatever gods gave you to me."

"And here I was thinking you didn't believe in that kind of thing."

"I always believe in karma and things like that. I just don't know what I did to deserve you."

"Well whatever I did to deserve you must have been huge too." Rick agrees leaning down to plant a light kiss on his wife's lips. While Kate wants to push the kiss into something more, she knows there is an angry twenty year old upstairs along with a very innocent four year old that doesn't need to see more than her parents hug and kiss lightly when she comes downstairs. So instead of pushing the kiss forward, she breaks it off and lays her head onto Rick's chest.

"You didn't finish your ice cream?" Her head pops up and looks back into the baby blues she loves. "Who are you and what have you done with Rick Castle?"

"I'm right here. I was more concerned about my wife."

"I'm more important than ice cream?" Kate can't contain her smile knowing that Rick putting her before his favorite junk food is too important to her too.

"Of course you are. For better or worse, for richer or poorer, before ice cream and smorelettes."

"I love you." Before Rick can reply, they hear their daughter calling as she runs down the stairs.

"Mommy, Daddy! Lexi gave me Elsa hair!" She turns the corner and her braided curls chase after her as she runs towards her parents. "Look, look, look!" She spins around to show off the braid that her big sister has done and her parents can't help but smile at their daughter.

"Wow, someone must have replaced our Ellie with a princess, Kate. There's no way that this beautiful young lady is the same little girl that went up stairs for a bath a little bit ago." Rick says with a smile.

"Daddy it's me! It's Ellie!"

"No, it can't be. This must be Princess Ellie. Right Kate? That has to be a princess standing in our kitchen."

"Daddy, it's meeeeeeee." Ellie whines.

"Is Daddy being silly Ellie?" Kate picks up her daughter and holds her close.

"Daddy is always silly! That's what Lexi says." Ellie replies, laying her head on her mother's shoulder.

"Well it sounds like your sister is right about that Ellie. Daddy is very silly." No matter how Alexis might feel about Kate, Kate would never say anything bad about her to Ellie. Ellie idolizes her big sister and Kate loves their relationship.

"Well you know what else is true about Daddy Ellie?" Rick asks his daughter.

"What Daddy?"

"Daddy loves his Princess Ellie very much." Rich places a kiss on the braided hair of his daughter.

"I love you too Daddy!" A bright smile is let out from the head on Kate's shoulder. "I love Mommy too!"

"I love you too Ellie Bellie." Kate places a kiss on Ellie's forehead. "Now who's ready for Frozen?"

"ME!" Ellie nearly screams in her ear and she almost regrets asking.

"Indoor voices Ellie." Rick scolds lightly.

"Me!" Ellie tries once again. "Lexi's ready too! She has Olaf PJs on too!" Kate thinks back to Christmas when Ellie had been so excited to give her big sister the matching Frozen PJs even though they couldn't be worn until the summer time so it's not a huge surprise that the redhead had brought them to the beach house.

"Well let's go watch some Frozen then!" Rick says quickly, placing a hand on Kate's lower back leading his wife and daughter towards the living room where his older daughter is already waiting for them. "Is it stuck?"He asks his daughter looking towards the TV that is paused ready to start playing once they're all settled in.

"No? It's paused." Alexis replies looking over at the TV.

"Huh. Well it looked quiet Frozen."

"Dad." Alexis groans.

"Rick, doesn't that joke ever get old?" His wife asks.

"No I don't think it does." He says with a smile.

"I want to sit with Lexi!" Ellie says trying to get out of Kate's arms.

"Ok sweet girl." Alexis opens the blanket up on the loveseat she's sitting on so her baby sister can crawl under the blankets with her. Rick pulls his wife onto the main couch and even though it can easily sit four or five people, they end up sitting with their legs entwined.

"Do you want a blanket?" Rick asks her softly.

"Maybe." He pulls the throw off the back of the couch and wraps it around them before his arms wrap back around her waist like they had been in the kitchen. They can feel Alexis' eyes on them in a judging manner, but the bubble around them makes them not care. Rick loves being close like this with his wife and if Alexis wants to continue with her anger than that's something that will just have to affect her. He won't let it affect him.

"Can you press play Alexis?" Alexis says nothing, but hits the button and suddenly Rick realizes the iciness in the film isn't the only iciness. They'll have to address it after Ellie goes to bed, but for not they can let the story swirl around them.

Author's Note: Thank you for reading! Real quick I wanted to address a couple of reviews since they were left by people without accounts so I can't reply to them privately.

To the guest that talked about the quote "was it even my baby": So most of this story was published in 2012-2014 which at the time I was 16-19 years old dependent on what time it was. That was fairly early on in the story so I would have been 16-17 when it was written. I wanted Castle to lash out and those words are what came to mind and I didn't have as much knowledge back then as I do now about how certain words can be different when they are used in real life situations. Looking back at those chapters now I regret some of the things I wrote at the time in this story and other ones because being real I was a child when I wrote that. However I have left them because I don't want to go back and rewrite the whole story. There would be too many things to change so I'm leaving what I had and I hope I can improve it in the future. But I agree this wasn't the wording I should have used. I am growing as a person and a writer and hopefully this shows from here on out.

And to the other guest that left the in depth review about Alexis being angry: I'm hoping that in the next couple chapters it will be more clear on how Alexis will react to everything but I wanted to address your comment about the nickname. I'm one of four biological siblings and my mom use sweetheart for all her kids. My friends parents also have one nickname/pet name that they use for their kids instead of having one for each child. Therefore when I was writing I came to a point that it just felt like that was a nickname he would use for both of them since I'm used to hearing one used for multiple children. Yes he could have come up with something different but I just did what I felt more comfortable writing and that was using pumpkin.

I'm thinking this only has a couple of chapters left mainly because its not bringing me the happiness it once did and I'd rather put my focus into other stories, but I want to finish this up and not leave it hanging.