Title: The Right Kind of Hangover- Fashion Fun with Alexis? And Castle
Rating: M
Pairing: Castle/Beckett
Disclaimer: Castle may be my one obsession / I love it 'cause it breaks depression / But to take what's Marlowe's is a crime / The story's his, the words are mine.
Author's Note: Wow. I'm flabbergasted at the amount of views I'm getting on this thing. Wow. Y'all really know how to make my world go 'round. Thank you very, very much.

Props to Spittel, jasnrob and lv2bnsb1 for the reviews. I knew I liked you guys! And jasnrob, you should be my factoid police. I dub thee factoid police, so when I screw up, you can hit me over the head with a copy of Heat Wave. Hehehe… I sometimes forgot the nitty gritty details. So thank you for the corrections. I hope to do better later on.

Also, did you all know I didn't really have a plot for this fiction until yesterday? Sometimes meandering through the fluff reveals some of the most interesting tidbits… And YES, this fiction is now going somewhere. There will be an actual story besides the cute Caskett fluffiness. Just stay tuned… the other shoe's going to drop...

Kate: That sounded very ominous. I'm not going to end up dead or anything, am I?
Me: You already escaped how many death sentences this past season? Do you really have to ask that?
Kate: And if you put Castle in danger, I will shoot you.
Me: With the gun you don't own?
Kate: There's licenses to fix that.

Enjoy.

She had to be dreaming. What in the world was she doing here? Kate's eyes widened as she stood outside the revolving glass door, staring upwards at the neutral cream backdrop an all the lights… enough to make the dead of night look like midday, warm and inviting. The designer labels through the looking glass windows looked close enough to lift from behind the flawless and dirtless surface. Pedestrians carried bags stuffed to the brim with shoes, scarves, dresses, and other apparel that would take her years to even save for one. Solitary. Item. Or would have, if she had a job anymore. Which she didn't. But even she couldn't believe she was standing here, stiff as stone, and someone was telling her she could have anything she wanted.

Gucci. The sign said Gucci. She normally would be lucky to have a handbag with "Gutchi" on it if she really wanted to go through the trouble of knocking off a name brand. And here she was, Castle's hand in hers, his smile splitting his face in two, and he was telling her she could have anything and everything she wanted from this specific, designer store.

"Are you serious? Do you realize how much this stuff costs?"

It took her a beat or two to really, REALLY get why he was so amused. "Yes, Beckett, and I have to penny pinch for the rest of my life because I just… can't… afford it…"

She punched his shoulder. "Not funny."

"Seriously, let me worry about the big bucks. I make enough green, so you just go in and look good in it. Ok? Besides, you know I'd just spend it on something you'd roll your eyes at."

"What? Like property on the moon?"

He rolled his eyes. "Oh come on. When the world succumbs to a nuclear-powered fallout that eats the ozone for breakfast, you're going to be dying to have a little real-estate in my crater." He paused. "That sounded so dirty all of a sudden."

"Focus, Castle."

"What I'm saying is, put my money to good use. I got it, I want to spend it, and I want to spend it on you."

"Are you two done making a scene?" piped up Alexis, her arm wrapped around his on the other side. "Because if you aren't, you can walk back to the car and finish it there."

"Hey, I thought I was the parent," said Castle, adoring his daughter with a smooch on top of her red head. "But you're right. We need to be adults here."

Kate smirked, and caught Alexis doing the same. "Castle, you're middle name is 'Trouble'. Asking you to be an adult is like asking birds to croak, or frogs to sing."

His blue eyes twinkled, and he leaned close enough to kiss. "Quite right," he nodded his head backwards. "But I promise to behave as gentlemanly as possible. We can't have everything on the tabloids, can we?"

That's when she noticed something shiny behind his left shoulder, about fifty feet from where they were standing. She squinted, frowning. Somebody was watching and that somebody was watching through a digitally-zoomed lens. Photographer. They always did, and it crashed her back to reality again. She wasn't dating Castle, pain-in-the-butt-amateur-detective… she was dating Richard Edgar Castle, author of 26 bestsellers, graphic novelist, and celebrity debutant. Richard "Rick" Castle, the face on a million Vogues and Vanity Faire's, US Weekly's and part of Fortune's Top 100. One of the most eligible bachelors to date, the "White Whale" if she remembered correctly. Everywhere she went with him from now on, it would be a circus of tightrope walks and party acts to avoid or attract attention, whichever was appropriate, and that was definitely something she wasn't used to, not at that level. This morning was beautiful. It was just her, and him and the simplicity of domesticity. Now… the whole world was watching. Something to think about…

Was she ready for that?

"Don't worry about it," whispered Castle in her ear. "They're just looking for their next exposé. And later, I'll teach you how I screw with them a little bit by making scenes that aren't real." He winked. "What good are paparazzi if you can't mess around with them?"

Alexis vaulted at the rotating door and put her hands on the turnstile. "Ready?"

"Yeah…" Kate murmured, slightly unnerved.

"Your new wardrobe awaits," said Castle, escorting her to the door. "And let my credit card start screaming."

No sleeves were very in this year. Kate made the mistake of walking up to the desk clerk and declaring her ineptitude with expensive fashions, about how she could knock off designer looks but definitely had nowhere to turn when it came to the actual tags. Sooner rather than later, a pile of clothes dumped into her arms, she stood in a dressing room with a discontented sigh, trying on what had to be the fiftieth pair of slacks, the twelfth dress, and three hundredth set of accessories. A bracelet for every occasion, a bag for every occasion, a cocktail gown for every other occasion that required some sort of fancy attire. EVERYTHING was expensive, everything was flouncy, and everything seemed to scream "fake" at her like an animal protestor at a test lab. The more things she tried on, the less and less she felt like herself in them. This was so weird, so new to her to have these clothes, these purses, these scarves…

Big Castle sat in the "lobby" area, no doubt trying to picture her in the lingerie that she had a sneaky suspicion he snuck into her pile. Little Castle, however, had parked it in the stall next to hers, and decided this was the perfect, opportune time to have "the chat". God, help her…

"So… Beckett. You and my dad."

"Yeah."

"Finally."

"Yeah." Awkward.

Beat. Beat. "So, when did that happen? I thought you guys were fighting."

"Last night." Oh, bad choice of words. She bit her lip.

"…Oh really?" Good ol' Alexis, playing nonchalant. "Well, I'm happy you two got together."

"Yeah. Me too." When's the shoe going to drop?

"So… can I ask you something?"

"Sure. What's on your mind?"

"Do you promise not to hurt him?"

Bang. That shot straight to her heart. "W-why do you think I'd hurt him?"

"Look, you two have been doing this thing for four years now. You're off again, on again, and I know that there've been times where you did something stupid, or he did something stupid, and you fell apart. He really, really loves you. Every book, every movie based on it, all the time he spent with you at the precinct, it's all written on his face. He loves you, and I don't want to see him get hurt again. I've seen him after that happens, and I know he tries to hide it from me. He doesn't want me to see how bad it is, but I do. And Gram and I don't… we want Dad to be happy. Mom didn't work out, Gina didn't work out, all the girls he's dated didn't work out. And for the longest time, he's been unhappy. I just… I don't want that to happen again. So… please? Would you try not to hurt him? Make this thing between you two last?"

Kate's heart fell dead to the floor. She hoped it would too. She really, really hoped it would. "Yeah, Alexis. I'll try. I promise you, I will."