Disclaimers: If I owned 'Castle,' my real life wouldn't suck as badly as it does.

Summary: Kate spends a day with her dad and Ariel.

A/N #1: I love it when a baby laughs for the first time. It's the cutest sound in the world. Kate and her dad get to experience that in this chapter. Don't worry; I'm not saving all of the milestones just for Kate.

A/N #2: This is another short, by my standards, chapter.

Chapter 6: Fun with Grandpa

August

"Katie, she is getting so big," Jim Beckett commented as he adjusted baby Ariel in his arms.

Kate smiled, watching her father with his granddaughter. It was a hot day, but Kate had driven into the city to visit her father. He hadn't seen either of them in over a week, although she talked to him every day as well as sending him pictures of Ariel on her phone. But seeing him in person was so much better. "Was I as happy as she is?" She asked, watching Ari coo and grin at her grandfather.

"You smiled more for your mother than you did for me, but yeah, you were a happy baby."

"Mom would've been crazy about her."

"Yes, she would've been. You know that she watches over her all of the time."

"I know," Kate gave him a sad smile. "I think she'd tell me that I'm spoiling her. Between me, Castle, Martha, and Alexis, she's never put down. Somebody's always holding her."

"She needs to learn how to amuse herself, Katie," her father reminded her.

"I know. Dad, do you remember when you told me about mom having the miscarriage?" Her father nodded. "Did you ever talk about having another baby after it happened?"

"We talked about it, and we even tried, but it just never happened. Why? Do you think about having another baby?"

"Well, not right now. But I don't want to wait too long. Did I tell you that Kevin Ryan and his wife are having another baby?" Jim Beckett smiled. "He told me right after I had Ari. It's funny because they had so much trouble getting pregnant the first time and number two was a breeze."

"I think it's like that sometimes," he smiled at Ariel, who'd started to fuss. "I think somebody wants her mommy."

"Yeah, she needs to be changed and fed," Kate got up and pulled the changing pad from the diaper bag.

"Speaking of being fed, how about lunch?"

"Great, because I'm starving."

"How does Ariel like the rocking chair?" Jim asked as he went into the kitchen and got things out for lunch.

"Oh, she loves it. So do I."

"I bought that chair for your mom when she was pregnant with you," he told her as she looked surprised. "You didn't know that?"

"No, I knew that it was always mom's favorite chair, but she never told me why. Thank you, dad."

Jim smiled as he fixed lunch. He looked across the counter to his daughter nursing his granddaughter, taking time to listen. It took him back more than 30 years, watching Johanna sitting with Katie, giving her a bottle or later reading to her.

Kate looked at him and smiled. "What're you thinking about? You looked like you were a million miles away."

"You hum to her," he pointed out. "Your mother used to do that."

"Really? I hum to Ari and sing to her because it seems to relax her. Its better that I sing to her than Castle. He can't carry a tune," she said as her father laughed.

"Tell him I understand because neither can I. Your mom had a beautiful singing voice. I'm glad that you inherited her voice and not mine. Anyway, lunch is ready."

Kate finished burping the baby and placed her in the travel crib that her father kept at his house for her. She then came over to the dining room table where her father had placed chicken salad and French bread along with a salad. "I thought about making tuna salad, but then I read on the Internet that you can't eat fish while you're nursing."

"Dad, I can eat most of those foods that the Internet says to avoid in moderation. However, I've learned to avoid Mexican and Thai food."

"Too spicy?" He guessed as Kate nodded.

"I saw that Alexis posted on Facebook that she babysat while you had a date night. How did that go?"

"Well, she had to put a Beatles CD on, so I suspect that she had a few glitches. But, she did well enough that Castle and I decided we're going to have date night once a month."

"So, are you ready for Rick to leave on his book tour?"

"No," she shook her head. "I have nightmares where the minute he gets on that plane, everything's going to go horribly wrong."

"Katie, you can do this. I had to go to a lawyer's convention in Chicago when you were four months old. I think it was harder on me to leave than it was on your mother to be on her own."

"Rick got his dates changed because the idea of being away from us for two months was making him physically sick. So he's going to be back on the 22nd of October instead of the 10th of November. He threatened to get a new agent and a new publishing house if they didn't change his dates."

"Isn't his ex-wife also his agent?"

"Oh, don't even get me started on Gina," Kate rolled his eyes. "I like Meredith even though she's a vacuous airhead. But Gina? She's so phony."

"I have to say that I'm glad that Rick's taste in women has improved," Jim smiled.

"So am I," Kate smiled back.

After Ariel woke up from her afternoon nap, Jim got down on the floor with a toy that Kate had brought with her. She rolled her eyes as her father bent down and began to blow raspberries on Ariel's stomach. But then she heard a sound coming from her daughter that she'd never heard before. "Dad, is she . . . giggling?" Kate got on the floor with her father and daughter as the baby laughter continued.

"She hasn't laughed before?" He asked in surprise, his eyes lighting up.

"No, this is the first time. Get her to do it again," she pulled her phone out. "I've got to send a video of this to Castle."

Jim moved from Ariel's belly to her neck as the baby laughed and kicked her legs. Kate found herself laughing as she watched her. It was the cutest thing she'd ever seen.

Kate's phone rang seconds after she sent the video. "Are you kidding? Ariel laughed for the first time and I missed it?" Castle's voice came over the line.

"Isn't it great? Dad got her to laugh. She's so funny, Castle. I didn't know such a tiny baby could make such big sounds."

"I'll make her laugh later," he told her. "Be careful coming home."

"We will. Bye."

"He's jealous," Jim guessed as he hauled himself off of the floor.

"A little. It's okay. He'll get over it."

Castle ran out of the house when Kate arrived home later that afternoon. "Ooh, I missed my baby," he gushed. "Can I make her laugh?"

"Castle, she's asleep. I'm not going to wake her up so that you can make her laugh," Kate walked past him into the house and up the stairs to the nursery.

"But I want to hear her laugh," he was pouting as he followed Kate upstairs.

"Castle, I have one child. I'm not ready for a second one, yet. You can make her laugh when she wakes up from her nap."

"But, you're open to the idea of having a second child?" He looked hopeful as she rolled her eyes.

"Castle, we have a three-month-old. Can we please put this particular conversation on hold for about a year?" She turned and went back downstairs.

After dinner, Castle had Ariel in his lap, shaking a stuffed toy as the baby cooed and smiled, but didn't laugh. "Okay, what did your dad do?" He looked at Kate, who was reading in a corner of the sofa. "How'd he make her laugh?"

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," she deadpanned.

"Come on, Kate! Please?" He wheedled.

"He blew raspberries on her," Kate told her husband. "You've been through this before, Castle. It didn't take rocket science to figure it out."

Castle gave Kate a look before blowing air against his daughter's belly as she began to chortle. Kate looked at the two of them and started laughing. "I can't help it," tears were rolling down her face. "That's the cutest sound I've ever heard in my life."

"Well, until she says her first words," Castle smiled as he blew on Ariel's belly again, laughing as the baby continued to giggle and kick against him.

Kate cuddled up close to Castle as they both continued to make their daughter laugh. She couldn't believe the amount of love she had in her heart for this small creature that she now shared with her wonderful husband.

A/N #3: Somebody had something posted on Twitter last night called '10 Things You Should Know About Castle.' One of the things is that we all hate Demming, Gina, and Josh. I don't know what it is about Gina that I don't like, but give me Meredith any day.