I have been asked why I have the chapters start at 100. It's so I can keep my 2 stories straight. I almost messed up and posted to the wrong story.

I can't express my gratitude to LadyAilith for her beta and editing. She has greatly improved the quality of this story.

Also Mrs. Kingdaddy and Ms. Kingdaddy for their support.

Again I own nothing.

Chapter 110

"No."

"No?"

"No," he said with a smirk.

"What the hell, Castle?"

He topped off their wine glasses and reached for her hand. She took his hand, looking up at him through her eyelashes. He led her to his office. She was bewildered and vexed by his response. She knew she blurted the proposal out, but she expected a different response from him than the one she received.

When they reached his office he sat down on the chaise lounge by the window. He spread his legs and pulled her down to him. She sat in the vee of his legs and leaned back against his chest. She could feel his heart beating so hard as though it was going to jump out of his chest.

After what seemed like an eternity, but in all actuality was only moments, he began to speak. "Meredith and I only dated a couple of months before she got pregnant. So I did what you are supposed to do, I asked her to marry me."

Kate relaxed back into him as his baritone voice began to tell his story. She always marveled at this side of him. He was the introspective man who had loads of emotional baggage with no one to help him with it. "That is going to change," she thought. She was going to be there for him just as he had been for her in the past.

He continued after catching his breath. "She didn't want a child, barely wanted to be married. But I was desperate for a family so I talked her into marriage and carrying Alexis to term."

Castle felt Kate pull away slightly and he paused, letting his words sink in. After a moment he continued. "There were conditions placed upon me for her to accept becoming a family. She wanted a home in Bel Air for us when she was working. She wanted a personal trainer at the house as soon as she was out of the hospital. She wanted her pre-pregnancy body back as soon as possible."

He shrugged and continued, looking at the staircase picture behind his desk. Focusing on it, but not really seeing it, he was remembering that time in his life. "She also wanted Meryl Streep's agent and acting lessons from the same teacher that Meryl used when she first went to Hollywood."

Kate was appalled. She couldn't believe that Alexis, that wonderful, beautiful, smart young woman almost didn't come to be. "She blackmailed you."

"Yes, she did, and I would gladly pay it again tenfold. But she wasn't ready for marriage; she sure wasn't ready to be a mother. I am telling you this because I don't want you to feel you have to rush into anything. I will always be here, I'm not going anywhere. But I want you to see what rushing in could do. I want you to be ready, I don't want you to feel you have to because of the hangar. I want you to want to because of us. Do you understand?"

Kate was blindsided by what he said. He was pouring out his heart to her like she never thought possible. She so wanted to know the rest of the story. "Why did you and she divorce?"

"Infidelity." It was the one word that she was afraid of. The one reason she had held him at arm's length for years. She was sure that he was not the Ledger's Page 6 man she met three years ago, but this scared her.

Castle could feel Kate stiffen against him and could almost hear her thinking. He waited for her to get her thoughts together before continuing. "I was gone on one of my assignments overseas…"

"Oh god," she thought, "he really is going to tell me that he cheated on her."

"It was midafternoon when I arrived home. I could hear Alexis crying through the door even before I opened it. When I came in I ran to where she was. She was in my office at the bedroom door; when I made it to the office door I could tell she needed changing and maybe even feeding."

"Okay, I am thoroughly confused," Kate thought.

"I was panicked. I was sure that there was something seriously wrong with Meredith. When I opened the door I found her in bed with her director and producer. She looked over her shoulder at me and screamed for me to get out."

Beckett raised her hand to her mouth. How had she gotten it so wrong? How could she have thought that this man would cheat? "Oh Castle, I am so sorry."

Kate could hear the catch in his voice and noticed his breathing was getting more and more ragged. It was the same as outside the hangar a few nights ago. "I cleaned Alexis up, packed some of her things, and left for the Plaza. It took me about twenty minutes to get out of the loft and I never saw her or her 'boys,'" he said with air quotation marks.

Kate could not believe what she was hearing. She knew that Meredith wasn't the most reliable person. She had heard plenty of stories from both Castle and Martha, but she never thought Meredith would be so stupid as to throw away a life with Rick for... for whatever it was that she thought she wanted.

"Three days later I went to my lawyer to file for divorce. While I was there I was served with divorce papers from her attorney for both physical and emotional abandonment."

Kate was livid now. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me!"

"Nope. She wanted the Bel Air home with all of its furnishings and the cars there as well as a cash settlement of twelve million dollars plus five grand a week."

Kate could not believe what she was hearing. "Please god tell me she didn't get that!"

"I gave her everything she wanted... well kind of. The home was placed in a trust for Alexis when I bought it, I wanted it to be hers. So Meredith is living there until Alexis decides that she can't. And she only got the five grand a week until Alexis turned eighteen." He paused to take a sip of wine, his breathing back to normal.

"See, I gave her everything she wanted but I got full custody of Alexis so I absolutely got the better end of that deal. I wanted Alexis to learn how to manage her affairs before she went to college, so she started managing the property when she turned sixteen."

"Wow Rick that's pretty smart! I am really impressed, who would have thought that you could be such a grown up?" Kate was definitely trying to lighten the mood.

"You wound me detective," he said, responding in a like manner.

"There's more. You need to know about Gina as well. You see, I'd been divorced about five years. Alexis really needed a stable mother figure in her life. So Gina, who was and still is my editor at Black Pawn, and I started dating. We got along well and she seemed to care for Alexis. Six months later I asked her to marry me."

"As time went on, it became clear to me that it had been a mistake to marry Gina. Her main focus was her career; there really was no room in her life for my little girl. Our divorce was amicable, thank god. And she didn't demand a huge settlement like Meredith. Five million dollars later, she was happy and we were done."

"But Rick, I hope you know that I'm not like Meredith or Gina, I know what I want. I want a family with you. It might have taken me a while to get here but I am now and we are going to do this, okay?"

"Okay." Castle started taking off her necklace that held her mother's ring, when she reached up and stopped him. "Not this one, I'm saving this for Alexis. I want her to have it someday."

Kate could feel his ragged breathing return. "Why?" was all Rick could manage to get out.

"My mom would have loved her. She is so funny, smart, beautiful, and caring, just like my mom. I want Alexis to have a little piece of her. Is that alright?"

"It's more than alright, Kate. And yes, I will marry you. But wait right here."

Castle jumped up from behind her and ran out of the room leaving a perplexed Beckett in his wake. She could hear him rummaging around in the kitchen.

"Ah, there's one!" And he was back in a flash.

"Katherine Beckett I don't have a ring so this will have to do," he said as he got down on one knee. "I am asking you to get engaged to be engaged to marry me."

Kate smiled at his statement. "Run that by me one more time, please?"

"Well, since I don't have a ring and I don't want to ask you without one, I'm asking you to get engaged to be engaged to be married. Basically we are pre-engaged until I can buy a ring for you."

"Rick that is the craziest thing I have ever heard of and so befitting us. So yes, I will get engaged to be engaged to be married."

She let out a belly laugh as Castle took her left hand and wrapped a bread tie around her ring finger on her left hand.

"I want everyone to know that you are taken."

"By who, the Wonder Bread man?"

Xx

Alexis was sitting at the kitchen counter having hot coco with the Montgomery girls. They have really bonded over this experience. None of the girls had much of an idea about what was going on back in the city but they knew something must be bad to be in the Hamptons with so much security.

Just as they were finishing their coco Alexis's iPad chirped signaling that she had a FaceTime request. When she looked down she saw it was from Kate. She looked over to Mary and mouthed "Can you get Mr. Beckett?"

"Hi Kate, how are you and dad?"

Trying to hide her smile, she replied, "Pretty good. I haven't killed him yet, so that's something."

Alexis could hear him mutter from off screen about doing something else besides shooting him. She really didn't want to know what he was talking about. "Kate, I asked Mary to get your dad, he should be here any second."

"Can you get Martha as well, please? We need to talk with you guys." Just then all of the adults walked into the picture and Kate could see the concern on her dad's face.

"Katie, is everything okay?"

How was she going to do this? Castle had teased that it was her place to tell everyone since technically she was the one to propose. She had told him that it was no problem; that she chased down criminals for a living, she could announce whatever the hell this engagement thing was. But now her nerves were getting the best of her and her mouth seemed to stop working. It wasn't helping that Castle was poking her in the side telling her to go on and tell everyone.

Kate took a deep breath and just went for it. "Alexis, Martha, and Dad, I have something to tell you. I proposed to Castle tonight." She paused to let that sink in but before anyone could speak she continued, "And he said no!"

She could see all of their faces on the screen; they had their mouths hanging open so she added, "Close your mouths, you are going to catch flies." She smiled the mega-watt smile that always made Castle happy.

Alexis sputtered, "You proposed?"

Then it was Jim's turn. "What do you mean, he said no?"

Leave it to Martha to break the tension. "I need a glass of wine. You two are exhausting!"

Now it was Castle's turn to speak. He had held out as long as he could but he couldn't leave Kate to face everyone alone. "Yes, I said no. I felt we had a few things to work out before I could say yes. I wanted to let her know about my failed marriages and make sure she wasn't just jumping in without really thinking."

Still the mouths in the Hamptons were wide open. But Martha, with the aid of a glass of wine to calm her nerves, spoke. "How mature of you, Richard. I guess all of the work Alexis did with you finally paid off."

That got a snort from Castle and giggle from Beckett. Castle looked at her and said, "That may be the most beautiful sound in the world."

Evelyn spoke up. "If you said no, then why the call?"

Castle turned to Kate and said, "See, she's a Captain's wife. She cuts straight to the chase." He turned back to the iPad camera. "Well, we agreed to get engaged to be engaged to be married."

Again everyone in the Hamptons was awestruck. "I told you, Rick, no one would understand what you were saying. It took you three times explain it to me."

"Son, I think you should explain yourself to me," Jim stated in a way that would instill fear in any man Kate dated, if it wasn't for the smile on his face.

It was Kate's turn again. "Well, we decided that we want to get married but he doesn't have a ring. So we are, for lack of a better word, promised to each other. As soon as he gets a ring we are getting engaged for real, hence the engaged to be engaged to be married." She waved her hand showing off her bread tie ring.

A totally confused and smiling Martha asked, "Is that a bread tie ring? Honestly Richard, go down to Tiffany's tomorrow and get that poor girl an engagement ring. That is an embarrassment to the Rodgers name."

"Well then it's a good thing I'm a Castle, now isn't it. Good night guys we have to go."

"Now future Mrs. Castle, how does one celebrate an engagement to be engaged to be married?" he said with a smirk.

"Naked of course!" she called out as she sauntered to the bedroom. When she reached the door she called out. "You coming?"

"Woman, you are going to be the death of me."

Xx

The following day was filled with tracking financials by Beckett's team as the FBI canvassed the SRO where Lockwood had been staying. At a quarter past noon the elevator dinged and everyone heard Lanie's voice as she exited the car.

"I was coming up here to see if you guys were hungry and look who I ran into."

There was a young delivery boy with enough Chinese food to feed the entire Homicide Division at the Twelfth Precinct. "I am looking for, and I quote, 'the best detective in New York.'"

Esposito turned to Ryan and said, "That can only be one person. Karpowski, it looks like someone sent you some food." A pen went flying in his direction from Beckett, but he continued. "Jane can you think of anyone who would send you enough food to feed the entire floor?"

Karpowski enjoyed the happiness that was spreading over the floor and she chimed in. "Well there is this good looking writer that has been hanging around and I know he is unattached so maybe it's from him." Kate gave her one of the patented Beckett glares. "Okay, okay, Kate. He's all yours, geeze."

Sorenson watched the whole thing from the solitude of one of the conference rooms. The FBI had commandeered one of them setting up a make shift command center. As he stared out into the bull pen, he couldn't remember a time that Kate seemed so at ease.

As the delivery was set up in the adjoining conference room, Kate called to Sorenson and the other Feds to join them citing free food. Of course, that got everyone's attention.

They ate and the conversation seemed to turn from being case related to a more personal one. When it was revealed that Lanie spent the night with Esposito in his room at the Plaza, Kate covered her mouth to stifle a laugh.

Lanie, who missed nothing when it came to Kate, squealed. "Just what is that on your finger?"

Kate felt a blush creep up her neck. "Nothing Lanie, it's nothing. I really don't want to talk about it in front of…" She looked over to the Feds. "No insult intended fellas. I just don't want to discuss my personal life with people I don't know."

But Lanie was having none of it. "Don't tell me writer boy proposed." Watching for a reaction from Kate and getting the one she was looking for, she continued. "He did, didn't he? That's what that is, a make- shift engagement ring!"

"Lanie!" Kate said, annoyed, as she saw the entire room staring at her. "Oh what the hell," she thought. "I am only going to say this once. It's an engagement to be engaged to be married ring. Now let that soak in because I have said it so many times that it ties up my tongue. And no he didn't ask me I asked him."

Will added his two cents. "I knew writer monkey didn't have the backbone to ask a woman like you. He will be the girl in that marriage."

Will felt pretty good about himself until Kate reached across the table and grabbed him by his tie. "Two things Will. One: if you were half the man that Richard Castle is, you and I would be married and half way to a basketball team of a family. Two: if I ever hear that derogatory name again I will turn him loose on you, and trust me, you wouldn't last two minutes with him. He would chew you up and spit you out."

She was so angry that her hands were shaking when she let him go. "Now get out of here! You are no longer welcome to eat the lunch that Rick sent us." Will looked shell shocked but didn't move. "I SAID GET THE HELL OUT AND I MEANT IT!"

With that Sorenson got up and tucked his tail between his legs, apologizing to Kate as he left.

A/N

I really think that at this time in the series Kate and Alexis were close. At least I want them to be, Alexis needs a strong woman besides Martha in her life.

Swordwriter put the idea of Kate going off on Will in my head. For that I thank you.

Please review. Reviews are what helps me keep going when I am stuck.