A/N: It's been ages, I know, and I apologize. Those of you still reading this story, thanks for sticking around. Beta by Diana, but I made some last minute changes so any mistakes you see are mine.

Disclaimer: still not mine!

Castle was back in the precinct the next morning. After Esposito managed to talk him down the previous evening, Castle spent the rest of his time contacting his personal security firm and hiring additional bodyguards for his daughter.

He'd admit that his hopes were up when they all headed over to Jill's B&B. He'd thought that he would finally be able to catch Tyson and put him behind bars. His loved ones would finally be safe.

When he found Tyson's message on the computer he couldn't take it anymore. Something inside of him snapped. To come so close, so close, only to find out that Tyson was still a step ahead of them - that had been hard to swallow.

He remembered telling Alexis the developments in the case or, more pointedly, the lack of developments in the case. He hadn't wanted to worry his daughter too much; after all, it was his duty to protect her. But then again, she needed to know the gravity of the situation, and Alexis wasn't the sort of girl who liked to remain ignorant.

After hearing about the current situation, Alexis had finally relented to the additional security Castle wanted to hire. She would be sticking out even more than before, but she could see that her father was very worried.

Even though the back of her head still burned from all the stares she had received when she walked around campus with two uniformed policemen, and her ears still burned from all the hushed whisperings going on behind her back, it was a small but affordable price to pay for her dad's peace of mind.

She knew he hadn't been sleeping well, the worry eating at him. He had dark circles under his eyes and he looked… haggard. There had to be more on his mind besides 3XK, but if her dad had chosen not to let her know what it was that was bothering him, it wasn't Alexis's place to hound him with her questions. He'd go to her when he was ready.

The bullpen was still empty due to the early hour, but when Castle got to the conference room, it was bustling with muted activity. The whole team was already there and hard at work.

Most of them were too busy and engrossed in their work, but Ryan spared him a glance and greeted him, calling him over.

"What's our progress?" Castle asked, looking around curiously, picking up on the little bits and pieces of what each member of the team was doing.

"We've identified the victim as Hanna Alexis Jordan. She's in her final year at NYU. Espo, Cooper, and Lee are contacting next of kin and arranging to bring her friends in for an interview. Dom and Grey went to check the place she lives but she wasn't there. They're checking the other possible locations, but nothing so far. Beckett and I are scrubbing through Tyson's videos to see if we can get any more information off of it. We still haven't found her body though."

"What?" Castle asked, bewildered.

"We're in the final stages of the decryption. The results should be ready in minutes," Beckett told him, walking over to Castle and handing him a folder.

Castle flipped the folder open, thumbing through the pages quickly before returning to the first page which he began speed-reading. "What's this?"

"Our notes and analysis of 3XK, and all the information we've gathered on Jenna and Hanna – places they frequented, events they'd attend, things like that. Let me know if there's anything inside there that sticks out to you, or if there's anything that you deem we should dig into a little deeper."

"I'll get right to it," Castle replied, giving her a quick nod as he began pulling out a chair. But before he could even begin warming the seat, another voice called out to him.

"Dad?"

Alexis' voice floated across the bullpen and into the conference room. She did not sound happy.

Looking up, Castle was greeted by the sight of his daughter stalking over to the conference room, with her bodyguards trailing behind her. All six of her bodyguards.

Alexis stormed in, furious at her dad.

"Dad, what were you thinking?! I can barely see where I'm walki-"

Alexis broke off midsentence as she suddenly spotted a familiar face as the whole room turned to look at her as one. Normally she wasn't one for theatrics, but this time, her dad had gone too far.

"Kate? Kate's back?!" she asked her dad, forgetting about the other thing she was mad about.

"Dad, when- why-" Alexis spluttered, having a hard time putting her thoughts into coherent sentences. "What's she doing here?"

"Uh, well, the feds got involved with this case, as you already know, and uh, Beckett, she uh, she got sent over to lead the case."

Alexis stalked over to where Kate was standing, memories of her broken hearted father jumping to the front of her mind. She remembered how worried she had been, how she had decided to return to the loft to keep her dad company, and before she could think twice, Alexis spat out what was on her mind.

"I should slap you for what you did to us three years ago."

Alexis's hands fisted tightly by her side, the force that she used to clench her hands great to the extent that they tremor.

"Consider this your only warning to stay the hell away from my dad."

The venom that coated her warning surprised everyone in the room. Beckett unconsciously took a step backward, looking at her with a thin layer of apprehension.

Alexis frowned, looking as though she had more to say to the agent, but she turned to face her father instead.

"Dad, a word?"

Alexis walked out of the conference room, her dad following closely behind. When her bodyguards made to follow them, Alexis bit out a single word. "Alone."

Her bodyguards stayed back, lingering in the hallway as father and daughter went in search for somewhere to talk.

Back in the conference room, the agents and detectives made a show of suddenly being busily occupied, pointedly avoiding looking at Beckett.

Castle and Alexis eventually rounded a corner leading to the storage room and stopped there. The walk over had given Castle enough time to gather himself and determine how he was going to deal with his daughter.

"Dad-"

"Alexis," Castle raised his hand to stop her from talking, telling her in a patronizing tone, "Count to ten."

"Dad, I just-"

Castle interrupted her, finishing his earlier sentence. "If you're going to behave like a three year old, tossing out threats and making decisions that are above you, then I'm going to treat you like a three year old."

Alexis took a deep breath as she flushed in embarrassment.

"It wasn't my fault, dad, I mean, Beckett-"

"You shouldn't be handing out threats whenever you feel like it."

"Wasn't what she did three years ago provocation enough?" Alexis muttered to herself, staring at the floor.

"What was that?" Castle asked, his tone suggesting to Alexis what she had said didn't go unnoticed.

He remained silent, letting her stew for a bit. When he deemed enough time had gone by for Alexis to come back to herself, he continued. "I know you're only looking out for me because you love me, but you don't have to go around handing out threats. I'm better now, I've learned from the past. I won't make the same mistakes twice."

Alexis' head shot up, staring at her dad.

"Won't you? Dad, I've seen you pine after Kate for years, going back to her time and again no matter how badly she's hurt you. And even though I know you want to stay away, you can't help it. Don't think I haven't noticed how distracted and tired you've been these past few days. I know 3XK's on your mind, but Beckett's partly responsible for that as well, isn't she?"

Castle looked forlornly down at his daughter, before quirking the corner of his lips upwards. "Shouldn't this conversation be held the other way round? Why am I always feeling like the recalcitrant child?"

"Da-ad!" she whined, glaring at Castle. It was one of his defense mechanisms, and Alexis has been around him her whole life to be able to detect when it was being employed. He always deflected or changed the topic whenever he felt uncomfortable, throwing in some humor in an effort to sidetrack the conversation. Sadly, it worked most of the time.

"Don't think I don't know what you're doing, dad," she warned, looking at him intently.

"Alright, alright. I hear you. Don't worry about it, okay? Just give me the chance to work it out on my own; I'll be better this time round. Now, I believe you came to the precinct with something else on your mind?"

Alexis crossed her arms in front of her and raised an eyebrow, giving Castle her best stare down as she remembered her original reason for dropping by the precinct that very morning.

"My bodyguards."

Castle waited in silence, encouraging her to elaborate.

"Dad, I agreed to the additional bodyguards, but I didn't know that would mean six people surrounding me. I can barely see where I'm walking! They- they're like a… a human enclosure around me, my personal human wall, shielding me from all other human contact."

Somehow Castle's expression gave Alexis the impression that his whole point was to shield her from all human contact.

"Call them off, dad. You have to cut down some of them."

Alexis stepped closer to her father, looking around nervously before she continued. "Especially that lady, Roxy, the slightly larger one, she's got crazy eyes, dad!"

Castle looked down at Alexis in confusion. "But Roxy's the best, she came highly recommended by the agency."

"She's scary, dad!"

Sighing, he gave her a look. "Isn't that the whole point? For her to scare off other people? This way, she's already downsizing the number of people that your bodyguards will have to protect you from. You know, eliminating the weak and all that," Castle finished, smiling happily.

"Roxy stays," he tells her decisively.

Alexis groaned, realizing that her dad wouldn't budge on that choice. "Okay, fine, but the others all go. Even the NYPD uniforms, especially the uniforms," Alexis added. When Castle shot her a curious look, she shrugged and elaborated. "What? Do you know how bad it is, walking around campus with two uniformed NYPD officers following you around everywhere? Who knows what the other students think about me? My reputation is in tatters."

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic, leave the theatrics to your grandmother. I don't care what the other students think; I just want you to be safe. You're keeping the NYPD officers, Roxy, and one of the guys. What about the tall one, with the crew cut hair? He looks like he can take down a tiger," Castle mused aloud, looking at Alexis to see what she thought of it.

Just then, Ryan popped his head over the corner, interrupting their little conversation. "Hey Castle, we've got the address for the body. You coming?"

Castle hesitated, looking uncertainly at Alexis. In the end, she made the decision for him.

"Go, dad, I'll be fine."

"You sure?" He asked, taking a few steps in Ryan's direction, getting ready to leave with him.

"Yeah, I'm sure, dad. Go get 3XK."

Ryan turned and headed back, Castle following closely behind. He threw out a quick "Keep your bodyguards!" behind his shoulder right before he lost sight of Alexis.

The four of them rode Beckett's car, with Castle in the passenger seat while Ryan and Esposito sat in the back. Castle had barely buckled his seat belt before his phone buzzed. It was a text from Alexis.

Stay safe, dad. And that includes keeping your heart safe too! Ps. If you ever need a kickass bodyguard to protect it, you can always have Roxy. Just saying!

Her little text put a smile on Castle's face, which didn't go unnoticed by Beckett. Catching her look, he gave her an all-encompassing explanation. "Alexis," he said, gesturing to his phone as though that explained everything.

His two thumbs flew across the screen of his phone, forming a quick reply to his daughter as Beckett drove them to their destination. The four of them rode in silence for a few minutes, each of them preoccupied with their own thoughts.

"So why'd Alexis drop by this morning? She seemed pretty pissed even before she saw…" Esposito trailed off, uncomfortable with bringing up the topic of Beckett and Alexis, and subsequently, their little spat.

Castle quickly jumped in, turning his head to face the detectives sitting in the back. "She ahh, we had a, uh, slight disagreement regarding her bodyguards."

"So she's keeping them?" Ryan asked, thinking back to the last part of the Castles' conversation that he had overheard.

Castle's face fell reflexively, his disappointment showing through before he could reel it in. "Not all of them," he admitted. "We're cutting down the numbers – two of the people I hired, and two NYPD uniforms. Alexis doesn't like all the attention she'd be getting."

"Bro, she's going to get a bunch of attention regardless of how many additional bodyguards you hire for her," Esposito told him.

"Yeah man," his partner picked up, "I mean, turning up on campus yesterday with two uniformed officers already sealed her fate. The other students would be curious anyway regardless of how many bodyguards she has today."

"Surprisingly, that actually makes sense. I should have used that against her just now. Maybe I can get her to change her mind," Castle thought aloud.

"Sorry to cut things short, but we're here," Beckett announced.

And just like that, they lost the semi-casual atmosphere. 3XK's second victim was waiting for them.

A/N: Please review! On a side note, for those of you who haven't heard, CastleBinge is happening this Sunday. I'll be tweeting (amandaOtweets) along with the other Castle fans, so go check it out if you haven't heard of it, and spread the word!