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Disclaimer: I don't own Castle.

Chapter 4

Kate woke up the next morning with a pounding headache. She could only remember pieces of last evening. How she and Lanie toured from bar to bar, flirting with several men and of course she remembered the last man. The one who got intimidating but as much as she wanted too, she could remember how the night ended.

She opened reluctantly her eyes and regretted it immediately when she looked right into a ray of light that got through a gap of the curtains. She turned her head a little and tried it again. This time she could withstand the urge to close her eyes again and looked through the room she was in. The room was unfamiliar to her and she had no idea where she could be. Did she go home with that guy from the bar after all? If so, where was he? Besides, those clothes she was in weren't hers. She looked closer and noticed that she wore a large T-Shirt and boxer shorts.

While she cursed at her throbbing headache, she slowly got out of bed and took a minute to acclimate her body to the new position. As she made her way to the door and opened it, she listened to any noise that could tell her where she could be. But there was nothing. No radio, no TV not even someone talking. Only silence.

The hall she was in was dark. There weren't any windows and the doors were closed, so that she mused that there should be a light switch somewhere in this hall, but she didn't dare to lighten up the hall. She wanted as less light as she could get. She couldn't handle light very well at the moment.

The only light that she saw was coming from downstairs. She groaned at the thought of going down there into the bright daylight, but she couldn't avoid the sun the whole day like a vampire. Not if she wanted to know where she was and what happened.

Gently, step by step, she went down the stairs. As expected she was surrounded by brightness and she suddenly felt more awful than before. But that was her own fault. People who could celebrate, had to face the consequences too.

Kate looked around the room and tried to orient herself. Everything was tasty decorated. It was a big room with different areas. One part functioned as the living room, the next part was some sort of a dining area and another part was a wide open kitchen. Some things really looked expensive and that confused her. He hadn't really thought that the guy from last night would be wealthy.

She glanced back to the kitchen. There was sitting a little person at a kitchen counter with the back facing Kate. The body figure and the red hair looked familiar to her. As she got closer to the kitchen, the little girl must have felt her presence and turned around. Now Kate knew why she looked so familiar. It was the same girl she had met on a very dark day in the park. Alexis. Somehow she never forgot that name. It was burnt in her memory with the very little hope of seeing her again.

When Alexis finally seemed to recognize her, she smiled brightly at Kate and even though her throbbing headache and slightly nausea, she smiled back at the girl. How on earth did she get here? Out of all places, she woke up in the home of that little girl she had met six months ago.

"Good morning! I see that our sleepy beauty finally rose from her deep slumber." Spoke a joyful voice behind her and she groaned achingly. Now she didn't just have to put up with the lightness, but with this painfully loud and overly happy voice too. She was asking herself how someone could be that happy so early in the morning after a night like the last one.

As the person got in her field of vision, she was both irritated and surprised. Irritated because that she had definitely flirted with another man and even if she admitted to herself that she had drunk too much alcohol, she certainly hadn't had imagined another man. On the other side she was surprised that she now met Richard Castle, bestselling novelist, for the second time. She was asking herself now more and more how she got here and what was going on.

For a moment she contemplated if she was still asleep and this all would be just some confusing dream. How big the chance that she couldn't remember anything, woke up at the home of a bestselling novelist and the little girl, who lightened up her mood after her mother's death, was there too? Low. But on the other side, there weren't many people out there that had experienced the exact same thing. She breathed deeply in and out. She wouldn't let herself get intimidated by the presence of him, just because he was a famous author.

"How did I get here?" asked Kate and begun to massage her temples to soften her throbbing head.

"With a cab." replied Castle matter-of-factly. Would she had felt better at the moment, she'd have rolled her eyes at him. That wasn't what she wanted to know and she had the feeling that he knew that.

Castle went to the kitchen and was closely followed by Kate. While Alexis sat at the counter eating breakfast, she watched the situation curiously. With a small smile she pushed her plate towards Kate and offered her wordlessly some of her breakfast, but Kate didn't even dare thinking of food. She felt bad enough. With a small shake of her head and a smile she declined Alexis' offer.

Castle smirked at the exchange. He had already guessed that Kate wouldn't be interested in something to eat. At least not in the state she was in, knowing that she most likely had a throbbing head. "Alexis, I think that she needs something different than pancakes."

"Bubble water?" asked Alexis.

Castle nodded conformingly. "Bubble water."

Kate looked confused at the two of them. She had no idea what they were talking about. Castle got a glass out of one of the many cupboards and filled it with water. She looked briefly to Alexis, who continued with her breakfast, before her eyes settled on the man again. "What's 'bubble water'?"

"Well, if you throw an aspirin into a glass of water, it starts to bubble while the tablet disbands in the water. Alexis calls this 'bubble water' since she saw it the first time."

"It's more fun to watch it than to drink it." Added Alexis and made a grimace. Kate smirked at that, but had to admit that the girl was right. She wasn't a big fan herself of the taste of an aspirin filled water.

"Alexis, why don't you go to your room and start packing the things you need for the sleepover at Page's?"

Alexis looked briefly back and forth between the two grown-ups, but eventually seemed to listen to her dad. She finished with her breakfast anyway. Her dad always made too much and in the end he was eating her leftover, not caring that he had his own huge portion.

Kate's eyes followed the girl until she disappeared upstairs and turned back to Castle who pushed the water glass to her. She had to smirk again when she observed the disbandment of the aspirin tablet. Bubble water.

"Is she your daughter?" asked Kate without trying to look too curious. Not only had she another awkward meeting with this mystery writer, he was even related to the only other person she had a strange meeting at the park! If Kate would believe in supernatural things, she'd really think that destiny had planned something.

"Yes, she's my little star."

She massaged her temples again while she tried to process the information. Maybe she should try to get more information so that she had the whole picture of all events that took obviously place. "Okay, I'll try it again. How did I get here? And don't you dare telling me it was with a cab! I want a real answer and you know that."

"I dragged you out of the Old Haunt. I even saved you from waking up hung-over in the bed of the man who had gotten intrusive."

"Oh really? Instead I woke up hung-over in the bed of another man that once got intrusive with me. The outcome is the same." Replied Kate sarcastically.

Castle coughed. "With differences regarding the activities."

At this Kate listened up. She hadn't really thought about that yet. Did they…? "We didn't…?"

Castle rose one eyebrow and smirked knowingly at her. "That was definitely a night I haven't experienced yet."

"Oh God!" exclaimed Kate. This was all a nightmare.

"I've heard that a lot. Hadn't thought you'd be loud in the bedroom. It was definitely hot."

Kate hid her head in her hands. She was horrified and embarrassed. That couldn't be! That all was even worse than a nightmare. She felt humiliated. As she sat there, cursing herself for being so careless, she suddenly heard a chuckle. She looked through a gap between her hands and saw that Castle had a hard time suppressing a laughing fit.

"Relax! Nothing happened. Firstly you were too drunk for something to happen and secondly, as soon as you were in that cab you fell asleep and nothing I did woke you up again. That's the reason why I took you here. You fell asleep before I could ask for your address."

"And you are making jokes about this now?! For a moment I really thought that we did it!" Even if she was a little angry with him, she was really relieved that nothing happened. As much as she had wanted it to happen yesterday evening, in the end she wasn't like this, searching for meaninglessness. If anything at all, she was searching for things to get out of the meaninglessness she was in since her mother died.

Castle grinned. "Hey! It's your own fault that you're in this situation now!"

"And my clothes? Did you change them?" Kate pried that he hadn't undressed her. As much as she'd have felt humiliated by sleeping with a stranger, getting undressed by one wasn't that much better. Besides, it made her feel like a little child and that was nothing she wanted people to think about her. She was a responsible, young grown-up.

"No, my mother changed you into more comfortable clothes. I don't think that it would have been fair."

"You're living with your mother?" asked Kate surprised. She hadn't thought that a successful, good-looking, grown-up man like him would still live with his mother.

He scoffed at her. "My mother lives with me."

"Sounds more like a threat." teased Kate when she heard his tone.

"Ouch. And that after I've gotten you safely into bed last night. Thank you very much."

Kate drunk silently her water while he washed up the dishes they used for breakfast. This was certainly a morning she'll never forget.

She thought of Alexis again. Though she hadn't really thought that she'd ever see that girl again, but there had always been a little sparkle of hope inside of her. She had no idea why she liked her so much, after all she didn't really know her. But there was something that Kate admired at her. Maybe it was her grown-up behavior a child at her age should have. Maybe it was something entirely else that fascinated her so much.

When she looked at Alexis, she saw life, joy, love and hope and Kate hadn't known that you could see all that in the eyes of a child. Many people she knew where like her. They had already too much seen in their lives that they weren't able to carry such pure emotions. Not anymore.

Kate pushed the empty glass towards Castle and though that little movement was caught by a ray of sun. Suddenly she knew what fascinated her of Alexis. She was like the sun! She just had to beam a little smile and one would immediately feel light-heartedly again. Free.

Alexis came back downstairs with a packed bag hanging of her shoulder. It was a funny picture since the bag was almost bigger than the girl.

"Do you have everything, Pumpkin?" asked Castle who got a nod as an answer.

"Alright. Let's get you to Page." Castle put away the dish towel. He took the bag from Alexis and looked at Kate, who suddenly felt like she was somehow intruding the family routine. She felt like an outsider. Like always these days. "Can we drop you off somewhere?"

Now she was looking at two sets of eyes and while she wanted to decline and tell them that she could take a cab back home, she couldn't help but notice the hope in their eyes. Oddly enough, she like the two of them, even if she didn't really know them really well. But they didn't know about her mother and didn't look at her with pity in their eyes. They treated her like a normal human being, without prejudices and she missed that. Even if she had got to know Lanie now, it felt good to have two more of these kind of people in her life.

But she'd never tell him that.

I think that Kate is warming up to him...slowly :)

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