Castle ducked and rolled, poked his head around the wall that would make him vulnerable to the stairs, but saw no signs of movement. Silently, he crept downwards, keeping his weapon raised, but just as he reached the landing, his gear lit up and screeched with a sound of defeat.
Rick spun on his heel to see Alexis standing triumphantly at the top of the stairs he had just tiptoed down, her plastic gun in her hand and a victorious smirk on her lips.
He gaped up at her. "How?"
She blew at the imaginary smoke swirling up from her gun and shrugged. "I'm just that good."
"You cheated. I don't know how, but you did."
Alexis rolled her eyes as she trotted down the stairs, bypassing him as she stripped the glowing laser tag gear from her frame, prepared to store it away in the front closet for the evening.
"C'mon Dad, don't be a sore loser," she chided, taking his gear for him as well and arranging it neatly in its place at the back of the closet. "You'll have another chance to beat me tomorrow."
He threw her an exaggerated pout, trudging after her petulantly while she skipped into the kitchen and settled on a high stool at the bar while he retrieved two containers of ice cream from the fridge, their usual post-laser tag snack.
He scooped two servings of mint chocolate chip into a bowl for Alexis and the same amount of rocky road for himself, but before Alexis could dig into her serving, he threw his arms out in a dramatic gesture of panic.
"Wait!"
Alexis paused, her spoon already lifted in preparation while her eyes lingers on him with impatience.
Castle swung the refrigerator door open, retrieved the whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and small container of cherries, nearly spilling the ingredients across the kitchen floor as he juggled the items.
Alexis huffed in exasperation, patiently twirling her spoon between her fingers as she waited.
"Hey Dad?" she asked once he finally had the toppings safely spread out on the countertop.
Castle uncapped the whipped cream bottle and created an impressive, swirling hill atop her melting pyramid of ice cream. He drizzled the chocolate sauce on next and finished his edible artwork with the signature cherry on top.
"Yes, Pumpkin?"
"You know you can talk to me, right?" she inquired, digging her spoon into the side of her ice cream. "I know I'm only thirteen and you're the adult, but I'm here for you," his daughter assured him with her wide blue eyes shimmering in sincerity and fixated on his.
Rick lowered his own spoon of ice cream back into his bowl, his brow already beginning to crease.
"I – yes, I realize you're a very good listener and you know I always enjoy our conversations, but is there something specific I should be talking to you about, Alexis?"
She diverted her eyes, a shyness he knew all to well settling over her as she shifted in her seat and stirred the melting ice cream around in her bowl, mixing it with the whipped cream and chocolate, leaving the cherry to float alone in the mess of sugary sweetness.
"Well, I saw the paper today…"
Oh no.
"Alexis, I thought we had a deal."
"I didn't know you were going to be on Page Six," she defended and Castle sighed, mimicking her actions with his spoon and sloshing his ice cream around with his toppings.
It was their rule that Alexis never read any articles about him, whether they be on the internet, in the newspaper, or on the television. He didn't want his daughter's view of him marred by what was spewed about him in the tabloids.
"Are you going to divorce Gina?" she asked suddenly and Castle's eyes darted up.
She didn't look hopeful about the idea, but not necessarily mournful either. He had always hoped Gina would fulfill the role of a mother figure for his daughter, it had been one of the main draws of marrying her, but he realized now that his second wife and Alexis had remained acquaintances at best.
"I don't know," he admitted, because he might as well tell her the truth. It was better than allowing her to believe what the Ledger had published about his very public fight with Gina at Le Cirque last night.
"Do you…" Alexis tucked a stray strand of her long red hair behind her ear. She was attempting to grow her bangs out and he saw with a heavy heart that the layered style currently framing her face made her look older. "Do you love her?"
Castle released his spoon and cradled his jaw in his hand as he stared back at his daughter. Alexis copied him and he smiled gently at her.
The concept of love while raising a teenage girl was a tricky one, but he wanted Alexis to grow up knowing what it truly was. He had never been able to give her a great example of it, not with her own mother and obviously not with Gina either. Alexis was smart, too smart sometimes, and he feared that sooner or later, her belief in love would wither away into nothing but an untouchable fairytale.
"I think I love Gina as more of a friend," he hedged, choosing his words carefully. Gina was hardly his friend right now, but even at the best of times, he would definitely categorize their relationship as nothing more than platonic. "The way I feel about her is… ordinary. And I don't want ordinary, I want…"
"Magic?" she whispered with a tiny smile. "Like the butterflies I get when I see the boy I like in class?"
He glared at her for that, but when she laughed he couldn't help smiling at her for it.
"Yes, something like that," he conceded.
"But if you don't feel that way about Gina, why did you marry her in the first place?" Alexis questioned, serious again, yearning to understand, always craving the answers.
Castle shrugged. "I guess I hoped I would feel that way about her in time."
Alexis pursed her lips and tilted her head to one side in thought. "Have you ever been in true love?"
"Maybe once or twice."
"Gram said the only woman you ever truly loved was your girlfriend in college," she pointed out, her eyes alight with the knowledge, and he needed to have a talk with his mother about which discussions were off limits with his daughter.
"Gram likes to tell over dramatic stories."
She huffed and returned to her dilapidated ice cream, scooped a soupy spoonful into her mouth.
"What about love at first sight?" she questioned next, because apparently they were going to discuss every form of potential love he had come across in his life today.
"Well, I don't…" He paused for a moment, thinking back to a time almost a decade ago, to one of the rare occasions when he had left Alexis with his mother and forced himself to go out clubbing to ensure Richard Castle remained an active name in the papers. "Actually, I met a girl once, at this party."
Alexis leaned forward on her elbows in interest, her lips pursed in quiet excitement as her eyes widened with anticipation. His daughter was always up for a good story.
"I can't really remember her name." He squinted at the blurry vision he still kept tucked away in his mind, tried yet again to produce the name she had whispered to him in the crowded night club, but as usual, he came up blank. "But in the space of maybe two hours - we met, we talked, we danced, we fell in love."
"And then?" she urged.
"She, uh, had to leave early," he explained, rubbing the back of his neck with his palm at the memory of her silhouette disappearing down the alleyway, feeling the regret from that night coming alive in his stomach. "I spent an entire year trying to find her."
Alexis's face fell.
"But you never did?"
"No," he sighed, reaching across the counter to pat her frowning cheek. "I never learned her last name or if she even lived in New York, all I had was a first name and now I can't even recall that."
Alexis plopped back in her seat looking utterly disappointed, yet slightly optimistic despite the odds he had just listed against ever meeting this woman again.
"I hope you find her one day, Dad."
His memory of the woman he had just described to his daughter was hazy, but there were still pieces of that night that he remembered clearly, fragments that still made his body come alive with heat.
He chuckled. "I wouldn't mind if I did."
"So divorce Gina and go find the love of your life," she announced with a dramatic wave of her hand that was far too similar to a gesture he saw his mother use all too often.
"It wouldn't bother you if Gina and I weren't married anymore?" he asked, casually attempting to steer them back towards the real purpose of this entire series of conversations about love and magic.
Alexis looked up at him, meeting his eyes. "I just want you to be happy."
Rick moved around the counter separating them, wrapped his arms around his not so little girl, and hugged her tight.
"As long as I have you, Alexis, I'll always be happy."
When Kate returned home to her shabby New York apartment after her meeting with Gina Cowell, she dumped the contents of the larger manila envelope onto the stained wood of her dining room table and took a seat in one of the mismatched chairs. Her place in Harlem wasn't ideal, definitely on the low side of her budget, but it was a place where she could lie low and undetected while on the job, and privacy was a requirement she would not sacrifice if she was to continue leading this lifestyle.
She spread the contents out neatly on the flat surface, arranging Richard Castle's contact information, the addresses to the properties he owned - including the loft he called home in SoHo - and the travel arrangements for LA in organized sections like she always did. She placed his picture in the center of the categorized array, but picked it up a moment later and held it close to her eyes in scrutiny, confused by the strange flash of familiarity it elicited. It was a photo from one of his book jackets she was sure. She had never read the man's work, but his face…
Memories she had repressed for so long now suddenly flooded back. A nightclub, the dancing, the alley-
Kate dropped the photo and shoved away from the table, paced across the expanse of her living room and dropped her forehead against the wood of one of the boarded up windows. She closed her eyes, cringed when she saw the image of his face plastered across the backs of her eyelids.
"Fuck," she whispered to the empty apartment.
She shook her head, shook off the minor flurries of panic, and returned to the table with resolution burning in her blood. The fact that she had met him once changed nothing. This assignment would be no different than the others.
Kate went back to work at planning, going over the information Gina had provided her with and researching as much as she could on the author on her secure laptop. She stayed awake for hours learning this man, reading every newspaper article and journal entry, watching every video interview and footage from the red carpet of his last book launch party.
Her eyebrows rose at the very public reveal of a messy divorce with his first wife, even threatened to reach her hairline when she hacked into the Twelfth Precinct's server for good measure and found that he had a record.
A smirk crawled across her lips as she read of his encounter with a police horse a few years ago. It said in the report that Mr. Castle had apparently been nude at the time and somehow, she wasn't surprised.
Kate closed her laptop when sunlight began to stream through the cracks in the wooden boards. Richard Castle came across as just another arrogant, self-centered jackass to the media. And she found herself disappointed by it, by this less than appealing, alternate version of a man she had met over half a decade ago.
She knew she should sleep, she had a meeting with her 'employer' at noon, but her mind was still buzzing as she entered her bedroom. She had a few days before she would leave for LA, but she started packing to keep her mind occupied.
The fact that she had met him once changed nothing.
She scraped a hand through her hair as she tugged her duffle bag down from the top shelf of her closet, cursing when it fell from her grip and dislodged the shelf holding her modest collection of shoes, spilling stilettos across the floor. When she reached for a pair of her heels, she realized her hands were shaking.
Kate lowered to her knees in the tiny closet, balled her hands into fists at her thighs.
It changed everything.