Doomsday
She interrupted them in the middle of nothing, really, more stalemated silence between his daughter and himself, and when Kate did interrupt them, she came with the laptop cradled in her arms and her whole face alight, brimming.
And if Alexis couldn't see that. . .
Kate dropped to her knees beside him on the bed; she didn't even seem to notice the tension in the room, so intent upon him as she was. Her free hand came to his cheek and her mouth blistered his with the force of her overwhelmed heart. Castle could taste it.
When she pulled back, she was laughing, and he thought maybe there were tears hidden back there, the dark of her eyes shining. "You are amazing," she whispered, for him alone, and her mouth came against his lips again and worshipped.
He'd never felt it like this from her before, awed and humbled and - and so much like his own brand of love that it stunned him.
She pulled back, setting the laptop on the bed so she could put both arms around his neck; he embraced her back, felt her surprise the moment she realized they had an audience.
Kate withdrew with a little laugh, gave him a look of You should have told me, and then she brushed the hair off her face with a hand. "Alexis. I didn't realize you were in here."
Castle wanted to warn her, felt it wasn't fair to let her walk in on whatever this was, but Alexis was staring at her, not saying a word.
Kate smoothed a hand over his thigh, looked back to Alexis. "I'm sorry. I - you surprised me."
"You surprised me too, Kate."
Kate gave him a sidelong glance, evidently catching on to something now, and she pulled back a little more. But she laid a hand on the laptop, drew it closer to herself.
"I wanted - your Dad wrote me something. I was just thanking him," she said, then shot him a heated sizzle of her eyes. Gratitude was not what she had in mind.
"You read my list?" he asked, smiling at her.
"I - honestly, I don't think I finished it. I wanted to - had to come find you first," she admitted with a little shrug, then smiled. A smile for him, that encompassed all of her face, but drifted away the moment she stopped looking at him.
He'd never noticed it before, but it was no wonder that Alexis felt that his relationship with Kate was unequal. She didn't emote around people she wasn't comfortable with.
She'd always been passionate and fiery and fierce with him, but maybe Kate had only ever shown his daughter the reserve of police detective, the calm and in control and professional Beckett.
"You had to come find me?" he probed, realizing that this might be the one way to show his daughter she was wrong.
She flicked her eyes to Alexis, then back to him, as if drawn, unable to resist. Her cheeks brightened as she smiled. All those gorgeous lines as she took him in. "Yeah. I - I wrote my own."
His heart thundered. "You did?"
She cast another look to Alexis, but shrugged and opened the laptop for him, settled it on his knee. She looked nervous; her anxiety always manifested as this quiet and stillness that he was trying to push past, for Alexis.
His daughter shifted, made a movement like she might be leaving. Castle reached out and pressed his hand into her shoulder. "Stay, Alexis."
Kate opened her mouth, looking at him with strain around her eyes, as close to panic about all of this than he'd ever seen. "I - I don't know that - it's not all PG, Castle," she said, twisting her lips - half smile, half grimace.
"I'm not going to read it out loud to her," he laughed. He didn't want to force this, but Alexis needed to see.
Kate was blushing, but she was also studying him. She knew; she could read it in his face, couldn't she? When she gave Alexis another quick look, he knew that she knew.
Her fingers unfurled from her fist, stroked the top of his knee. "Are you sure?" Kate murmured.
Alexis shifted under his grip, her hand coming to his as if to shake him off. "Dad. I should leave you guys-"
"No. We need to talk. All three of us."
Kate and Alexis looked at each other, neither very happy about it.
"Okay," Kate said quietly, pulling her legs up under her, gaining some height as she did. First of the two women to agree with him. Not exactly the Beckett he was expecting, but he appreciated it. "So let's talk. Alexis?"
His daughter gave a short nod, looking resigned, resolute, and Castle suddenly wondered if maybe this was a bad idea, if maybe he should be running interference, acting as a intermediary with each party in separate rooms as he went back and forth, not let them do this face to face.
Too late.
He glanced down at the list up on his laptop, saw she had written her own, number for number. She was concise, mostly, except where she was - uh - not PG. His lips quirked. His biceps?
Her hand came up to the laptop screen; she pushed on it to half-close it. "Castle," she laughed. "Seriously."
He lifted his eyes, sparkling, already filled up with just the first sentence. "Seriously," he breathed back, snaked his hand around her neck and pulled her back in for a kiss, hot and bothered as she leaned into him, her hands on his thighs for balance.
When she broke free, she let out a little stuttered breath, pressed her cheek to his, hiding her face from his daughter. He curled his hand at her neck, stroked her skin until she could settle back, sitting on her feet.
She wasn't looking at Alexis, maybe purposefully, trying to collect herself. "So let's talk," she said finally.
"I wanna read your list of why you love me," he said, giving her a slow, pouting look.
She rolled her eyes. "Later. We can do that later. First - Alexis."
She was putting his daughter first.
He should add that to the list.
Alexis shifted to sit on the bed beside Castle; Kate glanced once more to him, trying to determine how serious he was about this. Pretty serious. Something had been said, then. Alexis wasn't happy with her - but these days, when was she?
Kate had no idea where to start. But she wasn't going to be led, wasn't going to be railroaded either. She'd have this conversation on her own terms. "So. Alexis. You have questions?"
Alexis gave her a long look, hesitance written over her face.
"Ask," Kate said, crossing her legs and putting her elbows on her knees. "Nothing is off limits."
Castle raised an eyebrow at that, as if to say Oh really? but she ignored him.
Alexis opened her mouth, closed it again, shook her head.
Kate tried again. "Maybe I should have warned you. I would have, if I'd known. But I didn't see it coming."
Castle chuckled; she shot him a look, thumped his knee with her finger.
"You didn't see it coming?" Alexis asked. "How could you not know you wanted to marry him?"
Kate bit the inside of her cheek and tried to find an answer that didn't sound - too terrible.
"Pumpkin, yesterday Kate and I weren't even - weren't together. You know that."
"Yeah but I really thought." Alexis sighed, rubbed at her forehead. "I thought it was because, sorry Kate, but I thought you just didn't love him enough."
Her heart clenched. "No. That's not-" She shook her head, had to suck in a breath to steady herself. "Maybe it's because I love him too much." She glanced at Castle, felt like her guts were being spread out before him. She wouldn't mind it - well, it would be less painful if it weren't also in front of his daughter.
But Castle reached out and took her hand, fingers tangling with hers. "We agreed to stop. Agreed to stay out of danger. We'd both been holding out on each other trying to keep the other person safe."
"Like blackmail," Alexis said.
Kate jerked her head to his daughter, jaw dropping. Blackmail.
"Well, and now it's all miraculously gone?" Alexis snorted. "The danger's past?"
"No," Kate admitted. "But we always do better together. We have each other's backs."
Alexis's face twisted, a sour look. "I know Dad does better with you. And you? You're better with my dad?"
Kate nodded, throat closed up.
"So you guys get married and then what?"
"Are you asking if we've thought this through?" Castle said, laughing at her. "Alexis. Sweetheart. Seriously? I think we're both old enough to-"
"I just mean. Sorry, Dad. I mean that it's sudden. And how can you know?"
"I know," Kate said intently. "This is it for me."
Alexis shot a startled glance to her, cheeks flushed. She opened her mouth, shut it, didn't seem to have anything else to say to that.
"Some things are clear." Kate let out a long breath and looked over at Castle. These were things she should have said to him before this, before a confession in front of his daughter. "It's been clear. For a long time. But it had to be right. Done right."
"This is how it's done right?" Alexis said, brow furrowed.
Castle leaned forward, wrapped an arm around his daughter's shoulders to pull her into a side-hug. "Yes, maybe it looked like blackmail on the outside, what Kate and I were doing, keeping apart. But I did it because I love her-"
"Same for me," Kate interrupted, squeezing Castle's fingers, watching the two of them. "And you, Alexis. You don't deserve to have my issues, my mother's case mess up your life. And I don't want that to take another person I love. I couldn't - it's not right to do that to you."
Alexis lowered her eyes, hands clasped in her lap.
Kate shot Castle a look, wondering if it was enough, if she'd managed to make it okay.
"Alexis?" he called.
She glanced up finally, meeting Kate's eyes. "I didn't meant to act like a child," Alexis said quietly.
Castle made a noise, pulled her in tighter. "But you are a child. You're my child."
Kate disagreed - she had been childish, sulking off the moment they'd told everyone, treating Kate for a year or more like a distasteful but necessary part of her life - but Kate didn't feel the need to dwell on it now. Hopefully they could clear this out, get past it.
"I'm not a child though," Alexis said softly. "And I just want it to work out for you, Dad. I want someone to love you right."
"It'll work out. It does work," Castle murmured, kissing the top of her head. "It's right."
"Alexis?" Kate reached out her free hand, curled her fingers around Alexis's, squeezing a little. "I promise. I promise - it'll be okay."
The girl seemed to remember, knew the weight that promise held. Her shoulders slumped and her face cleared. She nodded, then held out her arm to Kate, brought her in for a hug.
Kate embraced her. She wondered, for a brief moment, if she and Alexis would ever get past her job and the danger it put her father in.
It was asking a lot.
Kate had wondered herself if it wasn't, in fact, so very selfish of Kate to want him with her. For everything.
But she couldn't say no to him. She couldn't keep herself away.
They'd tried that all this past year. Tried and failed.