She got up carefully, removing her arm from behind Alexis's back while making sure not to disturb her, and shut off the TV. She began cleaning up from dinner, throwing away the empty containers and putting what little was left over in the fridge.

When she closed the fridge door and turned around slowly, trying to figure out what she could do next, she was surprised by a tall, broad figure standing behind her, too close. She yelped and instinctively reached for her gun, which she wasn't wearing. When she saw who it was, realizing it couldn't have been anyone else, she relaxed. "Castle, God. I thought you were asleep."

He put a finger to his lips. "I woke up when you turned the TV off," he whispered, "but I didn't want to wake Alexis."

"Just a little warning, that's all I ask for," Beckett sighed.

"Sorry."

"You're just lucky I left my gun in my car." She smiled, although she was a little unnerved by Castle's proximity. She was backed against the fridge now, but he was still closer than he needed to be, even for their hushed conversation. "How're you doing?" she asked him.

"Better," he assured her. He was whispering so he didn't wake his daughter, so she couldn't tell whether his voice had improved. But there was something off in his expression, something she couldn't quite place. He almost looked… torn.

"What's up?" she asked him gently.

He shook his head, an almost sour look on his face. "Just Alexis. I hate when she's sick. And this time it's my fault."

She nodded her head for him to follow and headed toward his office, wanting somewhere where they could talk at a normal volume. He followed her in and closed the door behind him. "It's not your fault," she assured him, leaning against his desk.

"Yes it is." His voice hadn't fully returned, but it was beginning to. "If I hadn't…" he tapered off, not finishing his thought.

"If you hadn't what? If you hadn't come to see me last night? If you hadn't stayed? I'm as sorry about Alexis as you are, Castle, but I'm glad you did. Besides, if it's anyone's fault, it's mine."

He frowned. "How do you figure?"

"I shouldn't have let you see that I was sick. Or I should've stopped you from coming over. Or sent you home right away."

"Okay, that's silly."

"Maybe we're both being silly. It was Alexis who said it, right? People get sick. It happens."

"Thank you for taking care of her," he said softly.

Beckett resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I barely did anything."

"Are you kidding? The teddy bear, the hand on her shoulder… and how in the world did you get her to let you feel her forehead?"

She smiled guiltily, not entirely proud of her method. "Threatened to use force."

"That's it? Never worked for me."

"Maybe because she knows I actually could," she teased.

"Hey, when she was five, I could've. In fact, a couple of times I did. She still wouldn't voluntarily let me. And it's only gotten worse as she's gotten older. The worst was right after she took a self-defense class at school. She did this thing where she twisted my arm around… I don't know how she did it, but it hurt."

"Well, I don't have any answers for you, Castle. Maybe she just likes me better."

"You know, originally I was joking when I said that, but you just might be right."

She rolled her eyes.

He took a step closer to her, again invading her personal space. She briefly considered that she needed to stop placing herself in front of large, immovable objects. "Do you know what I thought when I saw your hand on her shoulder?"

She felt her face burn. "That I was butting into your family moment?"

"Butting in-?" he began, indignant, before cutting himself off. "No," he sighed. "That I wanted to kiss you."

"Okay, you must still have a fever, because you're delirious," she muttered, pressing her fingertips to his forehead in a mocking way.

"No," he murmured, brushing her hand away and moving still closer, his lips just a whisper away from hers.

"Castle," she reminded him, "Gina."

He made a frustrated noise. "I don't care about Gina. Where the hell is Gina now? She's never taken care of Alexis like that, not even when we were married."

"So this is about Alexis?"

"Yes. No." Another frustrated noise. "Beckett, I love you."

Time seemed to freeze. "What?"

"You heard me. Can I kiss you now?"

"No! Castle, what the hell?"

"I don't know what else to say."

"Well, that's a first."

"Can you notmake fun of me for five seconds? I'm being serious." He paused, realizing what he'd just said. "Wow. That's probably the only time I will ever say that to you." But then he sobered his face, and went back to his declaration. "I love you. What do you think?"

She sighed. Honestly, she would've liked to let him express his feelings, and to let him kiss her. Although she wasn't yet ready to express it, she felt the same way. She had for a long time, even while she'd been in a relationship with Josh. Even while she'd been in a relationship with Tom. But she was unable to overlook one critical point. "I think you're dating another woman."

"Would you stop worrying about her? She's not important."

"Of course she's important. I'm not about to start having any kind of a relationship with you when you're still with her. You might be that spontaneous, but I'm not. And how can I trust that, if we would get together, you wouldn't just cut and run the first time you meet someone else who's nice to Alexis?" This was really the crux of the matter. The way she felt about Richard Castle… it was completely unlike anything she'd ever felt before, any relationship she'd ever had. And she'd had several. She'd dated bad boys before, but Castle was different. In high school, even college, half the point of dating a bad boy was the thrill. They were for fun, not for real feelings. Certainly not for falling in love with. Rick Castle was a different animal altogether. He had the potential to break her heart, and break it hard. She didn't know if she was ready to put herself out there, to expose herself to the possibility of that. She didn't know if she'd ever be ready.

"Cut and run? Dear God, Kate. Is today the first day we've met?"

"Well, no, but—"

He interrupted her. "And how many of the women I've had in my life have I allowed to get close to Alexis—even to meet her?"

"How would I know that?"

"You'll know it because I'm going to tell you. Three."

"In what, the last year?"

"No, the last seventeen." He ticked them off on his fingers. "Meredith, Gina, and you. Meredith is her mother, so that's inevitable, I married Gina, so again, inevitable, and you… Don't think for a second that doesn't make you special."

"Okay, but we're friends. I'm sure you have other friends that Alexis knows."

"Not really."

"Castle, come on. You're Mr. Popularity. You know more people than I've ever seen."

"One, that's an exaggeration. And two, yes, I know a lot of people. I have a lot of contacts. I throw big parties. But how many of those people could I really say I'm friends with, like you and I are?" He shrugged. "Almost none."

"So, what, am I supposed to feel bad for you? Poor privileged Castle?"

"No! That's not what this is. I'm just trying to tell you that you matter. To me. And to Alexis, who is the single most important part of my life. And that I love you. And that I want to kiss you."

He was moving dangerously close to her again. She didn't want to stop him, but she knew what would happen if she didn't. But would that be so bad? Yes, she reminded herself. It would. But… His lips brushed her cheek gently, and it felt good. If he kissed her… why would that be such a bad thing again? She couldn't remember right now.

But at what seemed like the last possible instant, his lips just a twitch away from touching hers, she remembered. Gina. She pulled back, just a little, but enough that he got the idea. "Castle, I can't. Not now."

"When?" he breathed.

"That's up to you." She didn't know why she said it. Her mouth moved before her brain engaged. It invited all kinds of possibilities that she didn't know if she was ready for—no, she did know. She wasn't ready.

"I'll call Gina right now if that's all that's holding you back."

"No." She knew from recent, firsthand experience what it felt like to end a relationship over the phone, and would not be responsible for Castle making the same mistake that Josh had, no matter how much she disliked his ex-wife.

"Then what?" he pleaded. "What do you want me to do?"

She sighed, recognizing that her situation was impossible. God help her, something Castle had once said rang through her head: The heart wants what the heart wants. She wasn't in the habit of paying much attention to what her heart had to say, but she knew what her head was screaming: Step back.

But as she looked into the eyes of the man who stood before her, she found that she had no interest in stepping back, even if there hadn't been a desk behind her. It was just him. Castle. Rick. The same man she saw every single day. The one who drove her crazy in so many different ways. But the one who had allowed her to open up sections of herself that she'd thought were forever closed. The one whose family she adored, in spite of, or maybe because of, the fact that it was so different from the family she remembered. The one who'd proven that he'd be there for her when she really needed him to be, even when she didn't want to admit it. The one who she was beginning to find that she would do anything for, even if it was against her better judgment.

But wasn't everything about Castle against her better judgment? Allowing him to shadow her in the first place had been, and that had worked out alright. Granted, that hadn't exactly been her choice, but still, it had turned out okay. Better, in fact, than she could ever have imagined. If nothing else, what he'd said went both ways: she'd gained an unlikely friend. A real, true friend.

As she tried to think this all through, she studied his eyes. Blue-gray. Soft. Sincere. A little bloodshot. Lids drooping slightly. Dark circles beneath. Even if he really was feeling better, he was exhausted, that much was clear.

"I want you to go to bed," she finally said.

He looked as if she'd just suggested he take a long walk off a short pier. "No way. I have to take care of Alexis."

"Alexis is asleep."

"What if she wakes up?"

"She knows where to find you."
Castle rolled his eyes. "You don't know my daughter. She won't."

Kate nodded. From what she'd seen of Alexis today, he was probably right. "Well… I'll be here," she decided.

He raised his eyebrows. "For how long?"

"As long as you need me to be."

Now it was him that was studying her face. She squirmed a little, uncomfortable with the scrutiny, although she should've been used to it from him by now. "You're tired, too," he told her. "I can tell you're still recuperating. You need your sleep as much as I do. Go home."

She shook her head. "I promised your mom I'd take care of you two."

"You're not going to be able to take care of us very well if you don't take care of yourself, too."

"I'm fine. I'm really not that tired."

She'd seen the face before, and more than once. Like many of his expressions, it was at least eighty percent in his eyes. This particular face, she found particularly unnerving, maybe more so than any other face she'd seen him make. It seemed like he was looking straight into her, and not just into her eyes. Into her mind, into her soul. She could tell he couldn't believe her, and he was right. She was tired. But she wasn't going to leave them, especially when, no matter what he told her, how many times he tried to convince her otherwise, she felt like it was her fault they were sick. He didn't even say anything, to her surprise. He just stood there looking at her, into her, that way, until she felt like she had to say something, to defend herself from his unsettling stare.

"Fine, I'm a little tired," she conceded, "but I'm not going anywhere."

He half-smiled. "Fine with me. But if you stay here, you have to get some rest. I won't have you getting sick again, not on our account."

She shrugged. "I can live with that. You have a nice couch."

He rolled his eyes. "We also have a nice guest bedroom. You can sleep in there. And I'm sure Alexis has something more comfortable that you can wear," he said, gesturing to the clothes she was wearing, still unchanged after work.

Grudgingly, she nodded. She could deal with that.

I'm kind of torn about how this chapter turned out. I really like parts of it, but there are other parts that I don't like so much. I'm also fully aware that I probably didn't edit this as much as I should've, but I really just wanted to get it up. The last couple of days have been really, really crazy for me in so many different ways. I want to especially thank everyone who reviewed between Friday night at midnightish and late Saturday afternoon. Saturday morning was... not good... and the reviews I had waiting for me when I finally got home helped sooo much more than you realize. So thanks, guys. :) And I hope you like this chapter.