Castle blinks at her, unseeing. Okay. Maybe she shouldn't have given him the sleeping pills because they seem a little strong for him. Kate's fought insomnia along with her nightmares before- one reason she figures she can live with the nightmares is because they mean she's actually asleep and that beats the hell out of not sleeping and walking around like the living dead. She dips her hand into his back pocket and hands him his passport.

Castle's eyes widen as he focuses on Kate. "Where did you get that? You had your hand in my pocket and I didn't even feel it? Do it again!"

She laughs and rolls her eyes. "No. Just- be ready for passport control, okay?"


They make their way to the hotel and Rick finds himself waking up properly in the taxi. He cracks the window, and the cab driver glances at him but says nothing. Kate had given the driver the hotel's name and address, and he can tell her French is clumsy, but it's a hell of a lot more than he can do, and his mind is blown once again when he realises that Kate speaks French on top of Russian, and possibly Ukrainian. Will this woman ever cease to amaze him?

She easily charms the man at reception, and again, he doesn't know exactly what she's saying, but it doesn't matter because she beckons him to follow her to the lift and presses the button for the third floor. "You speak French," he finally says, as the elevator begins its assent.

She nods. "Yeah. A little. Not very well. But I spent a week here and took a language course at the end of my semester abroad."

"So- what other languages do you speak?" It's easier to ask questions, easier to block out the sudden fear that's in his stomach, because what if this wasn't just a stunt, and Meredith really wants custody of his daughter?

"Russian. And a tiny bit of Ukrainian."

"But Kiev is in the Ukraine," he says stupidly. "And that's where you lived, right?"

"Right," she agrees. "It is in Ukraine. But my course was in Russian, and people speak Russian, mostly, anyway." The lift chimes and the doors open. "Room thirty four," Kate tells him, and it's on the tip of his tongue to tell her that he does know the numbers in French, but given that she can apparently tell the difference between Russian and Ukrainian he figures he'll just sound like an ass, so he trails behind her dumbly.

He raises his hand to knock at the door, and he takes a moment to look at Kate. "Thank you," he tells her, and she presses a kiss to his mouth.

"You're welcome." She squeezes his hand before nudging him toward the door. "Go ahead."

He knocks, and hears footsteps, and the door swings open. "Rick?" Meredith's look is one of dismay, and possibly disgust, and she eyes Beckett with a disdain that makes him uncomfortable.

But then his daughter is flying into his arms as though it's been months- "Dad!" She throws her arms around his neck as he scoops her up, damn, his baby girl is getting big. He doesn't know the last time she leapt at him like that and absurdly he worries for his back, but all too soon Alexis is scrambling down and hugging Kate, who grins and hugs her back.

"Well- come in then-" Meredith says dryly.

Rick steps into the suite, and pulls Kate in after him. He's pulling his overnight case behind him, and Kate puts down her own shoulder bag, extracting Monkey Bunkey from it, presenting the worn doll to Alexis with a wry grin.


The scene has escalated quickly. One second there's deadly silence between Rick and Meredith, and the next, voices are raised and poison is spilling from their lips.

"...She's my daughter- and how you even got her passport from my locked safe-"

"-I don't know why you're even so sure she's yours," Meredith spits out, and much as Kate wants to see Rick's reaction to that lie- it must be a lie, right?- all she can see is Alexis' eyes widen even as her face crumples.

"You two-" she hisses, interrupting them, and hating that she's tarring Rick with the same brush as Meredith, but in this moment Alexis is her only priority, her instinct to get the girl the hell away from this driving her to a rough kind of action- "sort this out. Alexis and I are going for a walk and a coffee, and when we get back, I expect you will both have civil tongues in your head."

She pulls Alexis toward her and folds her into a one armed hug, even as she propels the child out of the hotel suite and into the long hallway. She hears Meredith's voice before the door shuts- "Oh, so when I take my own daughter away for a few days it's kidnapping, but when a perfect stranger does it, you're not going to stop her?"

Alexis is crying as they take the lift from the third floor to the lobby, but she wipes her face determinedly as Kate leads her through the doors of the hotel and into the little laneway. "Are you okay?" she asks Alexis at last, when they've gotten at least two blocks away from the hotel.

Alexis nods. "Where are we going, Kate?"

Kate grimaces, and releases Alexis, running both her hands through her hair as she assesses. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes at the girl. "Don't know," she admits, and gets a shy smile in return. She looks around. Okay. Cafe across the street. Her stomach rumbles, at the thought of food, and she wonders when Alexis last ate- had she thrown up on her plane ride over and been unable to stomach any food? Crap. Too late, Kate realises she's only got American dollars in her wallet, and not many at that. "You don't have money on you, do you?" she asks, feeling faintly ridiculous for asking a nine year old for a loan. Alexis shakes her head. Right. Of course not. Kate looks around again, casting her eyes further down the street, and spotting an ATM. Well, that's what her credit card is for, right? She tilts her head and motions for Alexis to follow her again. She stops in front of the cash machine, hoping her card will work here, and that whatever cash advance fee is involved for a foreign withdrawal isn't going to hurt too badly when she gets her bank statement next month.

She sits them down in the cafe she'd seen. "Have you eaten?" she asks Alexis.

"No."

Kate orders a petit déjeuner for each of them, her own with espresso, and hot chocolate for Alexis.

"You speak French?" Alexis asks.

"A tiny bit." Kate holds her thumb and forefinger close together. "Are you really-" she starts, and then stops. Because asking the girl if she's okay sees truly redundant. "What happened, Lex?" She tries out the nickname without thinking, and second guesses herself right away, but Alexis doesn't seem to take it as anything amiss.

Alexis shrugs. "Mom wanted to show me Paris. She told me it would be fun. And it was fun, in a way. She took me out of school- but I didn't want to go on another plane." Alexis sighs, like the weight of the world is on her shoulders. "I didn't know she hadn't asked Dad if she could take me, until I woke up and heard her on the phone last night." A tear rolls down Alexis' cheek, and she hiccups, but pushes on, sipping at her hot chocolate. "I shouldn't have gone, I should have told her I had to stay at school-"

"No- Alexis. No. It's not your fault. And you know your Dad's not mad at you, right?"

"Kate, what Mom said, when she said I might not even be Dad's- do you think that's true?"

Kate's eyes widen. Fuck. This part of the conversation- she does not know how the hell to navigate this. Well. She tries to make a habit of truth telling, and she's not going to start lying to Alexis now. "I don't know, Alexis." She bites her lip. "I think the important thing to remember, no matter what, is that your Dad loves you, and so does your Mom." She pauses. "For that matter, I do too, okay, Alexis?"

Alexis leans across the table into an awkward hug. "I love you too, Kate." She leans back, and giggles, suddenly looking a lot more settled as she liberally spreads Nutella across her croissant. "Hey, will you teach me some French before we go back and rescue Dad from Mom?"


"I do love her," Meredith tells him.

He rubs the bridge of his nose. "That's not in question, Meredith. I know you do. But you can't just take her to another country without consulting me. And you cannot go around telling me, or anyone else for that matter, that she's not mine. Especially not in front of her."

"I'm sorry, Richard," she says, and he thinks she really is. "And I do think she's yours."

He exhales slowly, willing himself to remain calm and not focus on the fact she only thinks Alexis is his. Their marriage and any pretence of fidelity is long over, he reminds himself. The door opens before he can say anything else he'll regret, and he's happy to see his daughter looks much calmer, even if her eyes are still red. Kate's eyes are suspiciously pink as well, and he wants to get down on bended knee and thank the heavens for the way she loves his daughter. He settles for steadying himself by kissing her cheek and gripping her arm with his right hand, even as he hugs Alexis to him with his left.

"Well, Alexis." He hates to say it, just wants to get back on a plane and get back to New York city, but while he and Meredith were alone they agreed she could have the day with Alexis in Paris today. "How about you and your Mom go do some shopping, and get some lunch, and then you, Kate and I will fly back home this afternoon?"

Alexis nods uncertainly, but Kate smiles at her reassuringly. "You know what you can do at lunch, Alexis? You can practice the French I taught you." At that, Castle just about melts. He's been in here, discussing the terms and conditions of shared parenthood with Meredith, and Kate's been teaching his daughter French.

He turns to Kate. "Are you good with this?"

Kate smiles. "Spending a day in Paris. I think I can do that."

Personally, Rick thinks if he never sees Paris again it will be too soon. He shakes his head, and addresses his ex-wife. "Four o'clock, Meredith. No later."

"Four o'clock," she agrees, so he kisses Alexis and leaves the room with Kate.

"Are you okay?" she asks him, as soon as they're out of earshot.

He shrugs. "I'm exhausted. This is not how I pictured our first trip away to an exotic location."

"So you've pictured our first trip away, have you?" Kate teases him softly, and he finds it in himself to smile.

"I have." He raises an eyebrow at her. "I was thinking something beachy. You know- you in a swimsuit, me rubbing lotion…" He sighs. No. This is not what he pictured at all. "Instead, I'm fighting with Meredith about my daughter. Can we maybe just kill time in a cafe until we meet Alexis?"

"Sure. I'll take you where I took Alexis this morning- it's where I take all the Castles when they're upset." Kate's smiling, and he appreciates her levity. She sits him down in a corner booth at the cafe, and impresses him yet again as she easily orders coffees. "Castle- what Meredith said-"

She breaks off, and he can hear her hesitance. "About whether or not I'm Alexis' father?"

"Yeah," she breathes. "That."

He grimaces. "I'm her father, not that Meredith will ever know for sure."

"What do you mean?"

He sighs. "I checked. I had it checked out, years ago. When Meredith first left. Because of how she left- I couldn't trust her. Not because I-" He pauses, wants to explain himself properly. "I don't think I could ever love Alexis any less. But I needed to know, in case anyone ever tried to take her away from me. I had to be sure. And- thank God- she's mine."


The flight home is a lot calmer than the flight over, Kate reflects. There's a certainty to it, a comfort in taking a scheduled commercial flight, and going home.

The afternoon had passed almost too quickly. After they'd had some coffee she'd insisted that Rick eat something, and then that he walk with her. They'd passed a half dozen cheese shops before she'd decided- she'd gone in and chosen a blue, and a cheddar, and a baguette. Rick had caught on quickly, and insisted on getting a bottle of wine, and Kate had ducked into a tiny market and lucked out by finding plastic cups, and a knife for the cheese and baguette. "Who says we can't enjoy a day in Paris in the spring?" she'd asked him as they'd found a patch of grass amongst the crowds under the Eiffel Tower.

He'd grinned, and poured the wine into the empty cups. "And, Officer Beckett, for you, enjoying a spring day in Paris means drinking in public, does it?"

She'd smiled back. "I have a feeling it's not completely legal here," she'd admitted. "But I think it's okay for a lunch picnic, they just enforce the ban at night." Rick had taken a sip of his wine, and stared up at the tower, unconsciously stroking the scar on his wrist that was still there from the car accident. Kate had caught his hand with hers and run her fingertip along the scar with him.

"Remember the first glass of wine I got you?"

She'd rolled her eyes at him. "I can't believe actually I called you after that." She shook her head. "Busy couple of months, huh?"

He'd looked at her, and she'd been overwhelmed for the hundredth time by the impossibly blue eyes meeting her own. "Busy indeed," he'd agreed, leaning in to kiss her. She'd kissed him back, surprised by her own sudden need to be as close to him as possible, and as she'd pulled him closer to her, she'd found herself moaning into his mouth. He'd reached a hand around her waist, and damn, he was practically laying her down on this lawn right here, and she had a sudden flash of awareness of just how public the park was, and she'd pushed him away. "What?" he'd asked, before looking around, and chuckling softly. "Oh. Right." She thinks he's almost blushing, and for a man who stole a police horse when naked, she thinks that's quite the testament to just how quickly they'd both nearly lost control.

By the time their plane departs, it's dark. Alexis has been assigned a seat across the aisle, but as soon as the seatbelt sign is off, Kate lifts the armrest between Rick and herself, and the girl scrambles over and settles between them. She falls asleep somewhere over the Atlantic, her head in Kate's lap and her legs sprawled over Rick. Kate looks at Rick, taking his hand, even as her other hand brushes soothingly through Alexis' hair. "I'm looking forward to going home," she tells him, and he smiles back at her, his eyes sleepy.

Kate's drifting off to sleep herself. As her eyelids grow heavier she feels him lean into her and kiss her hair. She's not sure if she's already dreaming when she hears him whisper into her ear. "Love you, Beckett."


A/N: Whether you read through this over the last few months, or if you just caught up all at once, I thank you! When a few stray words leapt into my brain then spilt through my fingertips onto the keyboard just after Christmas, I didn't foresee this and the way it would overtake my life. I really thought that was ambitious and unlikely to be finished, and then I naively thought I'd wrap it all up in a maximum of twenty chapters, and - evidently I had no idea! I wanted younger, less damaged Castle and Beckett, and I had read quite a few of these which were awesome, and I wanted to write Alexis' first trip(!) to Paris with Meredith, which I have only read maybe once- guess I took the long road there!

If you have a review for me now it's all done, I'd be glad to read it, and I'm open to prompts for sequels for this one. I'll be posting something new soon (CastleFicathon! I'm so in!) so hopefully you'll follow me so you can read that.

Thanks. x