Oh look, two updates in two days (technically for me at least). Please, please, PLEASE review! I want to know if you are enjoying the direction this is going!

Castle spent a few moments staring between the handwritten letter and the small box of mints. He couldn't believe that she actually remembered the words he said on their first case together. What she was doing was…sweet. But he just couldn't. He wouldn't.

There was too much to lose anymore. The place he went for months after her death was not a path Rick wanted to head down again. His daughter was counting on him and that was more important than anything to him. Even if that meant ignoring the woman he used to love.

The package was hidden in his office so no one else could find it. There was nothing to think about right now, but somehow his mind continued to wander to the small package in his drawer. It made him so agitated to not get it out of his mind.

Alexis got home from school a few hours later, hustling around the kitchen to get snacks before going up to her room. She had noticed the slight difference in her father since he had been home from his forced vacation. It was a different kind of sadness than what she had seen before. A sadness that crept into his soul was there before. Now he was more of a shell. Not sad, not happy, not anything.

She couldn't decide what was worse.

When she appeared downstairs a few hours later, her father was in the same position. No food was on the fridge, there rarely was anymore, so Alexis picked up the phone and called out for pizza. It took a knock at the door to startle Rick out of the depths of his mind. A brief look of disappointment crossed his features before his face was once again a blank slate.

They ate in relative silence in the kitchen. Rick asked about school and Alexis asked about writing. It was how their relationship had been for longer than either of them had really wanted, but neither had the power to really change it. Time was supposed to heal all wounds, but it wasn't.

Alexis knew something had happened but hadn't pushed. Now that something could almost be felt when she stood near her father and she had to know.

"Dad…don't take this the wrong way but what happened? What happened while you were gone?"

"Nothing. Everything is fine Lex."

"Bullshit."

Rick looked up in surprise. "Alexis! Don't speak like that!"

"I'll speak like that until I get my dad back. I need you just as much as Beckett did but I am still here and she isn't. Maybe you should think about that when you just stare at your computer."

She left the room and went upstairs in a huff and Rick continued to sit at the table. He wished that he could tell her about what happened. But as much as he hated Kate right now, there was no way that telling people wouldn't hurt her somehow. And he wouldn't risk her getting hurt or actually dying just because he was angry at her.

But Rick wouldn't lie that the thought had crossed his mind.

xXxXxXxX

It took Kate a few hours to figure out what her next move should be. She spent most of that time on her rickety couch staring at the pile of Castle's books. When the flash of conversation from their first, officially legal, case crossed her mind, she smiled at the memory. It was a cross of happiness and sadness, with a faint hint of love.

She stopped at a store on the way to Castle's apartment to pick up what she had in mind. The walk to his home was not far from where she had her little apartment, so she continued along the sidewalk. The wind had begun to cool, more so than usual for a September evening. Kate's hair whipped around her face, temporarily blocking her view. By the time she had pulled the strands up into some semblance of a ponytail, Castle's apartment rose from the street in front of her.

The drop off was quick and the elevator never left the floor it had traveled up to with Kate on I, so she was able to avoid detection once again. Worry knotted in her brain as she hoped that he remembered the brief but funny conversations they had on cases together. If not, Castle could remember.

xXxXxXxX

Rick had thought Kate would have come near the same time the next day, if she came at all. So when the door sounded into the evening, he wasn't expecting the small colorfully wrapped square placed on top of another envelope sitting in the hallway.

His name was written across the envelope in a similar fashion to yesterday's note and he immediately walked into his study. Alexis had popped down the stairs from her room to see who it was and Castle quickly waved a hand over his shoulder and told her not to worry.

As if that would stop her.

The letter was the first to be opened once Rick sat in his office chair, reclining slightly. The handwriting was a shorter this time, but just as beautiful.

"Rick-

Maybe sometime we can play strip poker and it will be a mystery to us both.

Always,

Kate"

Castle's brows knitted together and he reached for the next package. Inside were a deck of cards with illustrations from books in the New York Public Library. A smile tugged on his lips, but he forced them down again.

He placed the gift next to the first and turned back to his laptop.