CH25
It is now one month later: (November)
Red Skelton
Leo Anthony Gallagher
Gabriel Iglesias
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"How's it coming dad?" Alexis was curious, while Kate was chomping at the bit to read what he was coming up with.
"I'm just about to start chapter 17. I'm thinking there will be 20 or 21 chapters with a little over 300 pages." Castle explains.
"That's great dad!" Alexis was happy her dad was writing again and wanted to make sure he knew it.
"Is there going to be a book after this one?" Please say yes dad, please say yes.
"I'm thinking the two main characters may have lots of books in them. I'm really liking both of them, even better than Derek Storm." Castle was even beaming. "And I have you to thank for it all Beckett." Castle leaned over and gave Kate a longer than necessary kiss to her cheek.
Kate however took Castle's face in her hands and soundly kissed him back with Alexis watching.
After Kate broke from the kiss to get some air. "I'll write you an entire library if you keep doing that." Rick was smiling. It earned Rick a punch to his arm with Kate smiling.
Kate had re-closed her eyes and was floating comfortably when she was suddenly in the water headed for the bottom, butt first. Kate quickly surfaced only to find a massive amount of water being splashed in her face.
Kate had her hands up trying to block the water. "ALEXIS!" Except all Kate could hear and barely see was Alexis laughing at her, when suddenly the water stopped and Kate saw Alexis lunge for the ladder and was up and out of the pool quickly, still laughing.
Kate however was not going to take this lying down and lunged for the ladder herself and was up and out of the pool quickly.
Kate heard Alexis squeal and run for it around the house, with Kate in hot pursuit. Alexis was laughing the entire way, right up until Kate caught up to her.
Kate had already learned from watching Castle that Alexis was ticklish and since Kate had Alexis in her arms Kate let loose with a vicious tickle attack.
There was just one problem with Kate's plan, she was ticklish too. And when Alexis fought back for a second with her own tickle attack and got Kate to back off with a look on her face that said her goose was cooked, Alexis went on the attack.
"ALEXIS!" And Kate was now the one that was on the run with Alexis hot on her heels.
It had Kate stepping onto the ladder and launching herself back into the pool hoping that the pool would be a safe place to hide out.
Alexis stopped at the pool and glared at Kate. "COWARD!"
Kate watched Alexis go back inside. "They're working on my birthday cake." Kate whispered to herself, not really sure how she knew that, but she did.
It was after dinner now and they had eaten BBQ catfish that Kate and Alexis had gone out and caught earlier in the day. Now they were sitting outside on the back patio, except for Rick, and Kate started smiling since she just knew what came next.
Then Castle stepped out with a cake in his hands and he was already singing.
"Today is a birthday, I wonder for whom?
It must be for somebody right in this room.
So look all around you for somebody who
Is smiling and happy, my goodness, it's you!
Happy Birthday Kate, from all of us to you,
Happy Birthday Kate, from all of us to you.
We congratulate you, and hope all your sweet dreams come true,
Happy Birthday Kate, from Richard and Alexis too (boom boom.)"
It had Kate grinning wide having never heard that song before in her life. Leave it to Castle to come up with something weird to sing for her birthday.
"Is this what you two have been up to?" Kate just knew they were up to something. "And how did you know?" Kate had every intention of keeping it to herself.
"Your mother's calendar had a day reminder not to stay late since it was your birthday." Castle explains the how part.
This got Alexis to jump up and run inside and come running back outside and hand a card to Kate. "I made it myself." Alexis whispered, nervously.
Kate opened the handmade piece of paper and noticed Alexis's lovely curvy shape of the words instantly.
"You're not one year older, you're one year wiser, and you affect more people's lives than you think.
And I wish with all my heart that you had been my mother."
It instantly had Kate's hand over her mouth which blocked the sound of her crying, but it did nothing for her tears that started instantly. It also had Kate out of her chair and wrap her arms around Alexis as both of them were now crying.
"I love you too honey, so very much." Kate states out loud. Kate moves her mouth and whispers softly into her ear so that Rick can't hear her. "And you can call me mom when we're alone, because I'd dearly love to have been your mother for you when you were growing up."
That had Alexis crying even harder and she held onto Kate for all she was worth.
Alexis finally let go of Kate and both of them wiped the tears away and still Castle just stood there with a goofy grin on his face. "Would the birthday girl like to cut the cake?" Castle offered Kate the knife laying it on his opposing arm handle out.
Kate took the knife and noticed that Castle was still smiling at her. Did he know what Alexis had put on her card? "We need plates Castle." Kate points out while standing there with a slice of cake on her hands.
"Oooo, be right back." And Castle runs off into the house.
"What about dad?" Alexis asks quickly knowing her dad would be back in seconds.
"I'm getting there honey, I'm getting there." Kate smiled at Alexis because Kate knew it was true. She just needed a little more time.
It is now one month later: (December)
Kate found Alexis in the kitchen and had taken to hugging Alexis and kissing her head. "Morning honey, have you thought about what we talked about?" Kate asks her.
"Four years of college in Oxford since England has proven to still be infection free." Alexis reminded herself and Kate. "Go to medical college and become a lead medical examiner for a state somewhere, maybe even New York."
"You told me that your father had placed enough money for a four year degree at a top college into a trust that is waiting for you. Oxford is definitely a top college. … Robert did tell us that Oxford is still open during all of this." Kate points out.
"You get to be captain of an entire precinct and I could be the state medical examiner that goes out to murder sites with you. It does sound pretty cool, and I could stay really close to you." Alexis was warming up fast to this idea.
"Hey does this mean you could be detective Jane Rizzoli to my Maura Isles?" Alexis suddenly lights up. Alexis however sees the blank look on Kate's face. "Don't you watch TV? Rizzoli and Isles!?"
"I love that show!" Castle steps into the living room and over hears Alexis. "Morning you two." And Castle steps into the kitchen to hug his daughter and kiss her head and then switch to Kate and hug Kate and give Kate a quick chaste kiss to her lips, getting Alexis to smile at Kate with a knowing smile.
Kate smiles back at Alexis and turns to Rick and takes his head in her hands and kisses him soundly. "How is the book writing coming Castle?" Kate asks him.
"Almost finished the last chapter actually, maybe 20 more pages to go I think. I'm still trying to work out the ending in my mind and get it onto paper. So it may be the next to last chapter. I don't know just yet but I'm close." Castle answers her question.
"That's great dad!" Alexis was excited and by the look on Kate's face, so was she.
"I'll download it onto a flash drive so you can plug it into your own laptop pumpkin." Castle offers since he didn't want to use up the paper or ink to print it all out.
Rick was outside in the storage building getting ready to go pig hunting. The plan was to have smoked BBQ ribs for Christmas dinner with BBQ pork shoulder later and bacon for breakfast.
"Have you figured out what to get your father for Christmas?" Kate asks as they are searching the new boat again and looking it over.
"I think so. … It's hard to figure out what to get both of you. Access to things is so limited." Alexis was having trouble, mostly with what to get Kate.
"I know the feeling. After mom died, dad and I just stopped celebrating Christmas. Dad would disappear up to our cabin to get away from everyone and I would offer to work the holidays. I didn't have anyone to celebrate with or a reason to enjoy the season, so I gave my time so other officers could have the day off." Kate explains her holidays.
Kate instantly had Alexis's arms wrapped around her. "I'm sorry Kate, I know you were close to your mother. Now she's not here to see you accomplish your goals or make the pain go away. … But you've got us now. You feel like family now." Alexis explains.
Kate hugged Alexis. "I know honey, it's just that it's been a long time since I had a family, this is unchartered territory for me, but I'm trying." Kate wanted to open up like she used to do. It's just that she had spent a lot of years guarding her heart and hiding.
Work had become her life and until these two had come along she didn't understand what she was missing out on. Now she did, and she was trying to open up to these two. Kate was just starting to see a magical future with them.
"BBQ ribs for a Christmas Eve dinner, no snow, no tree not even one Christmas light, no fireplace to hang stockings. It's not even cold outside." Castle moans.
"Not Christmas enough for you Castle?" Kate smiled while she rubbed spices onto the ribs.
"You want to see us celebrate Christmas Beckett, you should have been in the loft last season. … We had two Christmas trees, life size nutcrackers, enough garland to turn anyplace green, glass snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, enough stickies on the windows they almost blocked out the sun.
You want Christmas, you should be at our house." Castle was proud of what he did to the loft in the past.
"What no mistletoe Castle?" Kate teases.
"Enough to make you lips fall of from fatigue." Castle offers.
"Guess you haven't seen what my lips can do yet Castle." Kate teases and watches Castle's shocked face and his inability to speak.
"Elf got your tongue Castle?" Kate teases while swiveling her hips. "Maybe you can write to Santa to have him give you one for Christmas." Kate was on a roll and was smiling wide.
"So what did you get me for Christmas Beckett?" If Kate was willing to talk maybe she wouldn't stop.
"Wouldn't you like to know Castle." Kate was smiling wider now.
"You show me yours and I'll show you mine?" Castle leaned forward.
"How elementary school of you Castle. You're a writer I expected better of you." Kate leaned in closer and stopped cleaning her fish.
"I'll use Alexis's color crayons and draw you some mistletoe." Castle offers and leans in closer till his lips are just an inch from Kate's.
"Chapstick." Kate whispers out.
Castle's eyes go wide. "Chapstick?"
"I'm not kissing those lips. They're dried and chapped. It's like kissing a brick." Kate tells him.
It had Castle up and running for his bathroom in search of Chapstick. It did however leave Kate smiling wide and Alexis laughing her ass off.
"What are you laughing about?" Kate asks, not caring that Alexis had heard that entire conversation.
"We sell Chapstick down in the store." Alexis manages to get out between laughs, and soon they both see Castle running back into the area and out the door that lead to the store on the other island.
"Are you going to kiss dad?" Alexis asks.
"Yup, maybe until his lips fall off." Kate smiles at Alexis.
Alexis slapped her hand over her mouth to keep Kate from seeing her wide smile. When they first got here Kate wasn't smiling much, now she was smiling almost all the time. Alexis could only hope that Kate was made a member of the family.
A little later Kate was smiling wide when Castle sat back down and placed a tube of Chapstick, cherry flavored down on the breakfast bar. Kate motioned for Rick to lean forward and when he was far enough Kate leaned across and gave Rick a quick kiss.
Dinner was over and all three of them were sitting outside looking up at the stars, something none of them could do in downtown New York City. "Do we wait for Santa?" Kate asks, meaning do they stay up all night and maybe catch a glimpse of him.
"I can't wait." Castle jumps up and runs inside.
"We usually open presents Christmas morning, finding out what Santa brought us." Alexis explains Castle tradition. However she also knew her dad was a kid at heart, and that part of him only got bigger at Christmas.
Alexis was missing snow, tree, lights, garland and everything she did with her father to help decorate the loft. All of the stuff was supposed to be on one of the boats that would come out with food for the freezers and other things. Now she had no idea where all that stuff was.
Castle was soon back, but didn't sit down. "We don't have any Christmas paper so I couldn't wrap them. I couldn't even find a suitable box small enough for them to use the Christmas paper on." Castle was a little sad about that.
"Soooo, here is your Christmas present and this one is yours." Castle hands over a small flash drive stick to each of them. Kate got Batman and Alexis got Iron Man. "I thought about using R2D2 and Yoda, but these seemed to fit better." Castle shrugged his shoulders.
'DAD! … Does this mean, …." Alexis couldn't finish her question.
"It really needs to be edited by someone, but this is the book you wanted me to write. I've even got notes I'm going to use for the next one. I think it's some of my best work yet." Castle was smiling.
"You can plug it into your laptop pumpkin and I left my laptop in Kate's room for her to use. It was too much to print it all out so you need to read it using a laptop." Castle explains.
Kate was simply sitting there hoping beyond hope that Castle had figured it out. Her mother and Castle's idea of how she died and who killed her based off of her mother's journal that some guy in the CIA had deciphered was all on this little memory stick she had in her hand.
Right or wrong it was more than Kate had ever had before in her life. Years of her trying to solve her death just might be in her hand.
It finally got Kate moving out of her chair and wrap her arms around Castle and kiss him openly, not caring that Alexis was watching or what she would say later. Likely tease her about it. It's just that this was big. Like really big.
After breaking from the kiss, Kate started grinning and lifted the flash drive over both of their heads. "Electronic mistletoe." Kate offers.
It did what Kate intended, it got Castle to kiss her softly and deeply as each sought out the taste of the other. It was a kiss that took Kate's breath away and left her panting and wanting more, so with her arms wrapped around Castle's neck, she did just that. Kissed him again.
Kate broke from the kiss and placed her lips at Castle's ear. "Thank you, you're an amazing man." Kate whispers softly and follows by kissing his ear.
"I'm going to go read." Kate tells both of them and removes herself from Castle's arms and strides inside and into her bedroom. "You two will get your Christmas presents in the morning." Kate calls out over her shoulder before closing the patio door.
"Thanks dad!" Alexis was happy that her dad was writing again. It was what he was supposed to be doing. "I'm going to go inside and start reading too. Merry Christmas dad." And Alexis kissed her father's head as she walked past.
"Merry Christmas." Rick responds and stays where he is to look at the stars.
Castle finally went inside and got a glass of water and put some ice in it and was standing in the kitchen sipping. "NIKKI HEAT!? WHAT KIND OF NAME IS NIKKI HEAT!?" Kate was yelling from her room. It placed a big smile on Rick's face as he headed for his room.
It is now New Years day:
"Hi, I found some tea downstairs." Jim offers and sits down next to her.
"Thanks." Martha picks it up and starts sipping. It obviously wasn't one of her favorite flavors, just beggars couldn't be choosy so she kept sipping.
"They're supposed to check in soon." Jim offers.
"Has Katherine told you anything? I know you told me that she is a private person, it's just I can't help but wonder if she has opened up any. I know my son can be a handful, I'm just hoping that Alexis is running interference between them." Martha had listened to everything Jim had to say about Katherine and Johanna over the last several months, after they both found out that their children were on an island together.
"I don't know how she feels about Rick. It's not like she is going to tell her father that she has found a boy that she likes. Her mother yes, me, not a chance.
I do know that she sounds a lot more happy lately. I can almost see and feel her smiling over the phone. Even the pictures they send of themselves shows that Katie doesn't look as serious as she used to. And living her life wearing a bikini all day." Jim was still processing that one.
"I know I'm reading in-between the lines, but the way she talks about Alexis and what she thinks of her mother makes me think she thinks a lot of that young woman." Jim confides.
"Alexis is a darling, she is the only good thing to come out of my son's first marriage. I told him not to marry Gina, that it was a mistake, but he didn't listen." Martha moans.
"Kids stop listening to their parents the second they become teenagers. Katie went through a terrible wild child faze as a teenager. I swear she brought home boyfriends just to get a reaction out of us. I'm just thankful that she finally came out of it without getting pregnant.
As close as she was to her mother, Katie didn't listen to her either.
Katie has closed herself off from almost everyone, she doesn't risk her heart for anyone. I haven't helped her with that." Jim was still kicking himself over how he had reacted.
"Don't beat yourself up Jim, you lost the love of your life. You're supposed to be hurting, it's expected." Martha reminds him again.
"Still disappearing into the bottom of a whiskey bottle was a bad choice." Jim knew he was still only one drink away from screwing it all up again.
They both soon had smiles on their faces when Espo came walking towards them carrying his cell phone and handed it over to Jim. "Katie?"
"Hi dad, just our weekly check-in to see how things are going." Kate tells him, not knowing Jim had put the phone on speaker.
"We're down to one main meal each day, it's good so we're not starving and the water is still running somehow and they keep pouring gas into the generators so I guess we still have some." Jim offers, still not willing to talk about their living conditions, as he looks out across the 4th floor that he, Martha and a lot of others had been assigned to.
There were TV's spread out all over and each one had a DVD player connected to it. However now that they were on emergency power only select TV's actually worked anymore and those were mostly for the children. They even had an X-box however it was on a different floor.
It was beginning to have the feel of a prison with the only outside access they had was going up to the roof to move around, until it got dark.
Kate had gotten most of a complete breakdown from Espo already and she felt guilty about how she and the Castle's were living, even if they were going to start to have serious trouble in about 5 months or less.
"I'm still just glad you're safe dad, what we've been hearing from the guy in Alaska and England isn't sounding optimistic." Robert had stopped hearing from his guy in Poland recently, it had been 3 weeks.
"Tell me your doing good Katie, that's all I care about." Jim would suffer all he had to if it meant his daughter was good.
"We're fine dad, we exchanged Christmas presents even. It was a lot of fun Castle and Alexis have been amazing, I'm glad to have them. … I'm going to give the phone back to Alexis so she can talk to Martha now. … I love and miss you dad." Kate was missing all of her friends.
"Girl is that you?" Lanie yelled out over the cell phone getting Kate and Alexis to start laughing.
"You sound a lot better Kate Beckett, I need details girl. How are you and Castle getting along?" Lanie knew Kate was alone with hunk Castle and was still praying Kate would open her eyes.
"Castle and I are fine Lanie." Kate rolled her eyes since Lanie still sounded like Lanie.
"Dad and Kate are kissing." Alexis yells from the edge of the desk in the office.
"ALEXIS HARPER CASTLE!" Kate was going to shoot her for that.