Disclaimer in Chapter 1.

"Beckett, could you step into my office please."

Kate didn't pretend to mistake that for anything other than an immediate order and so made her way as efficiently as possible through the squad room at her boss' expected summons. Upon entering she realised that she and the Captain weren't alone.

"Detective, this is Sally Anderson from Child Protective Services."

Kate shook hands at the introduction. "I take it you've located the child's family?"

Her question wasn't as entirely case orientated as her voice would have them believe. Letting her eyes wander briefly to the view in the bullpen, she caught site of her partner, currently rocking the baby through another nap. Both the paramedics and then the paediatrician had said the kid would sleep a lot still as the drugs worked their way through the tiny system. Since the medical examinations, Castle hadn't let the kid be anywhere other than with him. And she had a feeling that if he hadn't deemed those medical interventions in the child's best interests, he wouldn't have let go then either. To say that he was going to have a hard time giving the kid up was perhaps the biggest understatement of the decade. Not that Ryan and Esposito would be much easier. They were already apparently vying for the title of 'coolest uncle'.

But Kate had known from the moment they realised there was a baby involved in their crime scene what was inevitably going to happen and so she had remained purposefully and necessarily detached. Yet even she wasn't as immune to the sight of Castle cradling that baby as she'd like to be and it was making her professional mask harder and harder to wear.

"Not as such," the interruption to her thoughts brought her sharply back to the room as the CPS Officer continued. "From what we've so far been able to piece together, it seems that the child was used as collateral in a drug payment. The mother couldn't pay, so your dead dealer slash murderer took the child as security."

Kate felt the bile start to push past her professional detachment. She had thought herself hardened; having witnessed the very worst that humanity had to offer. But this was something else entirely. "The baby…?" She trailed off, not knowing how to voice the thought.

"It seems that the one decent thing the mother did in her life was stay clean during the pregnancy. The child has no signs of pre-natal addiction, thankfully. From all the accounts we've managed to find, the mother was a binge user. Not a thing for weeks, months even, and then an all out bender lasting as long as she had the cash to fuel it."

"The mother – past tense?" Ever the detective, Kate had picked up on the salient aspect of the information.

"Yes. I'm afraid that the mother's act didn't remain clean post-pregnancy. She was DOA two days ago at St. Luke's. Drug OD. Judging by the medical reports the doctors believe that is roughly around the time the child was 'taken'." Kate swallowed hard. Two days? That innocent baby had spent two whole days drugged and stuffed in a dirty hole of a cupboard? Suddenly the single gunshot to the chest that Lanie had issued as COD seemed far too easy a way for the piece of filth to have died. It should have been slower and much more painful.

"There is no record on the father…" Captain Montgomery supplied as he shook his head in disbelief, once more bringing Kate back to the matter at hand. "CPS have been unable to find any other relatives of the deceased and therefore the child is to be taken into care, Detective."

Kate eyed her Captain, aware of everything he wasn't actually saying.

She nodded, resigned, and squared her shoulders. "I'll tell him, Sir." She almost smiled at the Captain's breath of relief. "If you would excuse me?"

Kate assumed permission and with a quick nod to Ms Anderson, she left the office and made her way over to her desk. Swallowing at another lump in her throat she let herself take in the scene. Castle was sat just where she had left him, still holding the baby, still gazing with such tenderness that she could feel it from across the room, Ryan was hovering over? his right shoulder, Esposito over the left and all three were mesmerised by the little one.

She could do this. This was her job.

"Castle?"

The object of her focus snapped his gaze up to her and in that unguarded moment she saw clean through his artifice and games, there was no page-six playboy, no pigtail pulling man-child here. There was just a guy whose paternal instinct shone strong and true, his smile eloquent of his contentment, until the moment he read her face. She should have known he wouldn't need her words. One of his greatest strengths was his perception, most especially in regards to her. She watched as he looked away from her, into Montgomery's office, his emotions, so easily readable, flashed quickly in his eyes as he realised what – or rather whom – she had come for.

She noticed in her periphery that the boys had taken a subconscious, self-protective, step away. Knowing that their moment was over and the harsh reality was about to kick in.

Castle, however, looked back at her, down at the baby and then back up at her once again.

"CPS?"

Kate gave him the unspoken answer and watched his arms tighten protectively around the infant. Watched as his face altered before her eyes, his posture eloquent of what she knew had been inevitable from the moment she'd seen him at the crime scene. Holding that previously dirty and barely breathing little bundle of life, she'd known exactly what Richard Castle was going to do.

Ryan and Esposito swung looks over the scene, easily deconstructing what wasn't being said and then shared a quiet but heartfelt high-five behind Castle's back.

But Kate only had eyes for the man in front of her, feeling the calm determination radiate from him as he spoke.

"No, Detective. She's mine."

She swallowed.

He had the time, the money and, as she knew well, the connections. And even if he hadn't had any of those things, it wouldn't change that one startlingly unassailable fact.

That little girl, sleeping quietly in his arms, was indeed his.

Kate held his gaze and smiled.

TBC….

AN: I know Castle may seem a little OOC here, but stick with it, I promise it works out.

Please make my day and let me know what you think while I write the rest as fast as I can.