Chapter 5

They had a new game now.

It seemed that once she had quit fighting him, once she'd stopped pushing him away, he no longer felt the need to stick to her side like glue. She would probably have been insulted if she wasn't so relieved to have regained a little personal space, if she wasn't secure in the knowledge that he wouldn't actually ever leave her, but most of all, if she didn't find this new game so damned entertaining.

The first night she'd woken up alone, she'd –well 'panicked' might be a bit of a strong word – more like 'worried' that, on some bizarre impulse, he had gone out and gotten himself into trouble.

'Uh huh. Admit it – you felt the same icy cold fingers of panic tighten around your heart as you did when you first woke up in that hospital bed,' she sighed at the stray thought, not really sure when Lanie's voice had officially become the little voice in her head that called her out on her own bull.

It hadn't taken her long to notice that his pillows and the spare blanket were also missing from the bed. Five minutes later, she'd located the writer in the master bathroom, bunked down in the oversized bathtub, sound asleep, arms and legs akimbo, poking up out of the tub that, despite its size, was no match for the man it was trying to contain.

The second night she woke up alone she went directly to the bathroom, expecting to see the missing writer once again curled up in the bath. She stood staring at the empty tub for a good five minutes before her sleep addled brain registered that he wasn't in there. It took her significantly longer to find him this time – sound asleep on the floor of the front closet. She wouldn't have found him at all if not for his legs sticking out into the foyer, too long to actually fit within the closet's tight confines.

It seemed to have become a game; every night they curled up in bed together and drifted off to sleep in each others' arms. At some point in the night, without waking her at all, he would climb out of bed, grab his pillows and the spare blanket that always lay at the foot of the bed, and find some obscure and oftentimes ridiculous place to curl up and go to sleep. And like clockwork, usually no more than a couple of hours later, something would wake her up and the hunt would be on: tucked under the breakfast bar behind the stools (she doesn't even know how he wedged himself in there without seeming to move the stools at all), under his desk in his office (his feet sticking out unceremoniously), underneath the staircase (she'd spotted him the minute she'd left the room), under the bed (that one had taken her the longest since it was the one place that he actually fit completely into), and even out on the balcony (she was surprised he hadn't frozen to death first).

Every night after she found him she would shake him awake and drag his half-awake form back to bed where, thankfully, he would stay for the rest of the night. By the third night, she'd found herself enjoying not only the challenge of finding him, but the reward that came with it - she blushed a little thinking about how talented Castle's hands were...and his mouth...and his...well, everything, really.

Tonight, the hunt had been going for an hour already and she was starting to really worry. She'd checked every spot she could think of, including the ones he'd already used just in case he'd run out of ideas, 'as if that were even possible'. She was starting to seriously consider waking Alexis up to enlist her help, despite the fact that it was now 4:30 in the morning. 'If I don't find him in the next 20 minutes, I'll ask Alexis for help.'

That was when it finally clicked.

Alexis.

She grinned in relief, feeling the smugness of victory creeping over her face as she tip toed as quietly as she could into the young girl's room. It took her minute to spot him, hidden as he was in the pile of stuffed animals in the corner. Silent as a cat she made her way over to the sleeping giant among the little stuffed woodland creatures. Not wanting him to speak out when she woke him, she decided to press her lips to his, grinning at the appropriateness of kissing her prince charming awake as he slumbered in a pile of stuffed animals.

To say she was surprised with the speed and intensity with which he seemed to wake up and respond would have been an understatement, and she quickly found herself deepening what had started as a perfectly innocent gesture designed to wake him as quietly as possible.

Reality soon came crashing down on both of them in the form of one red-headed teenager's horrified voice.

"Dad? Kate? What are you guys doing in my room?"

The significance of how bad this was had them leaping away from each other as though they'd just discovered the other was on fire – which was a pretty apt description for her flaming cheeks at that moment.

"Oh my god, Alexis! I'm so sorry!" she couldn't continue – she didn't even know how. She'd never been more mortified in her entire life.

"Seriously guys! Making out in my room. While I'm sleeping? Eww."

"Pumpkin, I can explain," Castle spoke for the first time, stuttering to put the words together to explain the inexplicable to his daughter, the end product of his efforts resulting in the three occupants staring open-mouthed and red-cheeked at each in horror.

It was Kate who broke first, and though the first snort of laughter surprised even herself, she found herself helpless to stop once she'd started and within seconds she was curled up on the floor clutching her sides with tears streaming down her face, struggling to catch her breath between hoots of laughter.

It didn't take very long for the other two occupants to join in her mirth, the teen's giggles and Castle's hearty chuckles soon adding their voices to the chorus of laughter filling the silence of the room.

"What the hell is going in here?"

The laughter stopped for a whole five seconds as the trio started at the red-headed matron standing in the doorway, her face as bewildered as it was bemused.

If asked, Kate would swear that she'd tried, she really had, but beyond her control a shrill whistle of laughter escaped her like air leaking from an over-inflated tire, the sound and the sight of her hands slapping themselves over her mouth to try and stifle the coming guffaws were enough to set the other two off all over again.

"My first night back and you three have all gone completely mad," she rolled her eyes before turning on her heal to leave the obviously demented trio to their ridiculousness.

It took them ten full minutes before any of them could even look at each other without bursting into fresh fits of uncontrollable laughter. By the time they'd gotten even a tenuous hold on themselves, both Alexis and Kate's faces were wet with tears and Castle's face was red from laughter.

"Ok, seriously guys, what the heck were you two doing in here?"

"I'm so—so—sorry," Beckett managed to choke out between a few leftover giggles, "but I was really trying not to wake you up…" she trailed off seeing the incredulous look on the girl's face, and turned her eyes to the girl's father for help.

"That still doesn't explain why you're both in my room in the first place," she asked, still wiping at the wetness on her face.

Sighing, Beckett realised she was going to have to come clean about Castle's new found game, seeing as the man himself was choosing a most inconvenient time to have gone mute. "Your dad's started a new game. Every night for the last week he's gotten up at some point during the night and gone to sleep in some ridiculous corner of the house – and every night I've had to go and find him and put him back to bed."

"But why?" this time the teenager's question was squarely directly at her father.

Hanging his head, he muttered something incomprehensible.

"What?" the two women found themselves asking at the same time.

Finally, he sighed, squared his shoulders and looked the woman sitting in front of him on the floor square in the face as he answered. "I don't know why I started doing it, it just seemed like the thing to do at the time," he shrugged a little casting his eyes back down to the floor, "but then I found that I liked that you would come and find me, no matter how long it took. I liked it a lot."

She would've found herself smiling in response if he hadn't sounded so forlorn, and a little…awed? Reaching out to cup his chin so he would meet her gaze she addressed the lost little boy that she saw in the depths of his eyes. "I will always come and find you, Castle. Always."

"You don't know that," he smiled sadly, the two of them temporarily forgetting the room's third occupant. "You'll get tired of me eventually."

"I won't," she answered simply and with as much sincerity as she could.

"How do you know?"

"Because I love you."

The look in his eyes as the truth of her words, and the bravery that this extraordinary woman had to speak them, without flinching and without hesitation had him leaning in to claim her lips.

"Not that I'm not thrilled for you two," Alexis' voice cut through with only a whisper of space left between, them causing them to pull back slightly.

"I love you both, I really do. But could you guys get out of my room before I'm in therapy for the rest of my life?"

Random side note:

Have you ever had one of those moments when something happens, and it's not really all that funny - but you just completely lose it? My best friend exploded my coffee in class once (it's a long story, but trust me, it was impressive). We were mortified - and yet, I have never laughed so hard in my life - seriously, I had slapped my hands over my mouth to try and stay quiet so that we didn't disturb the lecture and more than we already had. When I finally got a (tenuous) grip over myself, I couldn't even look at my friend sitting next to me - not even in my peripheral vision - I had to but my hands up as blinders to I couldn't see her at all or I was gonna lose it again. That's what I kind of envisioned in this chapter.

So there you have it - the new chapter! I hope that it could live up to your expectations, and thank you all SO MUCH for your patience!

More serious side note:

I'm not even going to make excuses for myself and my delays in posting new chapters anymore. All I can do is apologise to all of you and thank you for sticking through this with me. You're readership means the world to me, you have no idea, but I feel like this story has gotten away from what I had originally intended it to be and I'm just about ready to give up on it and start over again.

Please let me know if you think this is worth continuing on the track it's currently going - or if you think it's just become kinda pointless. I'm admittedly feeling a little lost in it right now and I feel like it's affecting the quality of my work so your opinions on the matter would really mean the world to me.

Again - thank you to everyone who has reviewed - I'd like to think that I've stayed on top of replying to all of you - but if I missed you, I'm so sorry and feel free to send me a PM to give me shit for it! If you take the time to review, you totally deserve a reply!

Thank you so much, so much, so much and a thousand times more.