Chapter 6

Castle stood just outside the ICU, jacket draped over his arm, a plastic bag of his daughter's belongings in his hands, and a grin on his face. His attitude was completely different than it had been twenty-four hours earlier. He was practically gleeful as he waited for Alexis to be moved from the ICU to her own room on the pediatric floor; it was absolutely the miracle he'd been too afraid to hope for but filled him with more relief than he thought possible.

The prior evening, as Alexis was weaned off the medication keeping her asleep, Castle stood loyally by the foot of her bed, hating to leave even for the few minutes it took him to use the bathroom. He'd sent his mother home as she looked more than a little exhausted after being up for nearly two days straight and barely sleeping on her plane ride to New York. Meredith had been floating in and out for most of the day, but he mostly ignored her, which he thought to be best after their blow-up at mid-day.

Around seven p.m. Rick was overjoyed to see Alexis's fingers and eyelids begin to twitch. She was also successfully removed from the breathing tube. Though she wasn't conscious yet, she was definitely on her way to waking up, which presented a problem for him since visiting hours were nearly over. After informing the nurse manager that he would be camping out in the ER for the night since he absolutely refused to not be there when his daughter awoke, they agreed to let him stay in the ICU as Alexis slowly regained consciousness.

Operating on pure adrenaline (and some coffee) Castle studied his daughter for hours, watching every movement, every twitch, until finally she opened her eyes. She was confused and unable to focus, which terrified him for several moments until she looked at him and whispered, "Daddy, where am I?" and Castle immediately began to weep as he smothered her face in kisses.

The hospital staff shooed him away temporarily while they checked Alexis's vitals and asked her some questions to check her cognitive function. He used that opportunity to call his mother, who sounded greatly relieved, Meredith, who didn't answer, and then Kate, who sounded very groggy. It was only then Castle thought to check the time and realized it was just before three a.m. He apologized to Kate for waking her, but she assured him it was fine and sounded genuinely relieved to hear Alexis was awake. She also promised to visit later that day.

After letting Kate get back to sleep, Castle paced the halls until he was once again allowed to see Alexis. The doctor told him that her cognitive assessment was positive, though she was still confused on some things, which was to be expected. As they were going to take her for a brain scan, the nurses suggested Castle take that opportunity to go home, shower, and change, as the test would take over an hour and he would not be allowed to join her. He hesitated, but ultimately agreed knowing the wouldn't want to take that time away from spending with Alexis when she was able to speak with him.

By the time he returned to her bedside, she'd fallen back asleep, but then awoken at seven and said she was hungry, so he helped her eat some lime gelatin, which was all she was allowed at first. Shortly thereafter they found out that she would be moved to her own room in the pediatric area, which he saw as an even better sign. She truly was on the road to recovery if they were removing her from the ICU.

Ten minutes after he left her side, Alexis was wheeled out into the hall and Castle joined her in the elevator on their ride up two floors.

"You still feeling okay, pumpkin?" he asked while dusting his fingers down her arm.

"I guess." She sighed. "Is Mommy going to come soon?"

"Um," Castle hesitated as he had yet to hear from Meredith despite calling her with the good news almost seven hours earlier. He had told his daughter that both her mother and grandmother had come to visit her, though in hindsight if Meredith was going to disappear (again) maybe that was not the best decision. "She, um, yeah, she'll probably be here this morning, but I know that Gram will be here very shortly and she's very excited to see you awake."

"I wasn't asleep for that long," Alexis said with a slight huff, though Castle didn't fault her for her attitude. As she didn't remember falling off the bridge, he imagined everything surrounding her condition and how she ended up in the hospital was very confusing. Plus, at seven, she would have struggled to conceptualize just how serious her injury was even if she remembered.

Bending over, he kissed the top of her head and said, "Remember, Gram hasn't seen you since before Halloween, so she misses you. You missed her, right?"

"Uh huh."

"So then any visit is a good visit."

"Is anyone else coming to see me?"

"Well…Kate said she might stop by."

Alexis's expression brightened slightly. "Ohhh do you think she'll braid my hair? Her braids are the best."

Castle chuckled. "I don't know, but you could ask."

"Okay!"

A moment later they all exited the elevator and Castle followed Alexis to a room down the hall which had yellow walls and a variety of multicolored stickers for a top and bottom border. "Wow, this is really nice," he commented as the nurse put Alexis's IV and monitors back into the correct positions.

Despite this, his daughter frowned. "Does this mean I can't go home, Dad?"

"Not tonight, Alexis, but that's okay, because I'll be here with you."

"When can I go home?"

"I don't know; I haven't talked to the doctor yet, but I'm sure it won't be too long." He walked over and gave her shoulder a squeeze, not wanting her to be too upset. "Do you want me to bring you something from your room? Like your bear?"

She gave a little shrug. "No. I'm okay, I guess."

"Well just let me know and I'll get you anything you want," he promised. Then, he pulled up one of the spare chairs in the room and sat down beside her bed, knowing he wasn't going to leave again until they were ready to leave together.

Using the back of her hand to suppress a yawn, Kate climbed out of her squad car at the unpleasant hour of five-twenty a.m. As a blast of chilled air whipped towards her body, Kate zipped her coat up a little higher and ducked back into the car to retrieve her take-away cup of coffee. The discovery of a body in an alley outside a bar very early that morning solidified the fact that Kate would not get to sleep in any morning that week, though that morning's call was a far less welcome one than the day before when she'd found out that Alexis had woken up. She wasn't angry about that wakeup call at all. As for this one…well, it was her job, so she wasn't angry, but she had wished the trash collectors had discovered the dead woman an hour later.

"Morning Lanie," she said to the ME already crouched beside the crumpled female figure who wore only a short navy-blue dress—no coat or shoes.

Lanie glanced up at her friend with slight surprise. "What are you doing here?"

Kate shrugged and took a sip of coffee. "What do you mean? There's a body. I'm here."

"I thought you were taking off to be with Castle."

Kate's brow wrinkled as she was unsure how her friend got that idea. "What? No, I never did. I just checked in…besides, everything is basically fine now. He told me that Alexis should go home tomorrow—well, I guess today since it's early morning. Assuming everything is still okay with her when the doctors do their rounds."

Lanie nodded. "Well that's a relief."

"Tell me about it!" Despite hearing the good news, the knots in her stomach did not completely subside until she arrived at the hospital to see Alexis wearing a pink gown and sipping juice from a cup with a straw. When she enthusiastically called out, "Kate!" and tried to clamber out of bed while her father held her back, Kate knew the young girl was going to be okay—and thank god, because she had no idea how she would have handled the opposite situation. Worse, she feared she would have lost her partner to the horror and grief.

Getting down to business, Kate crouched down beside the body and attempted to see the victim's face, but it was difficult with the woman's head tilted towards the ground. "Did she have any ID on her?"

"No," Lanie said. "Maybe you can have some uniforms sift through these dumpsters. Thank goodness she was found before the trash was taken away."

"And COD?"

"Well, there are some marks around her neck and throat here. Could definitely be strangulation. I'll know more once I get her back to the morgue."

"Sounds good." Kate agreed. She then continued her visual sweep of the scene until she heard Lanie ask, "So are we going to talk about it?"

Kate turned to see the ME pulling off her blue gloves and then planting her fists at her hips. "Talk about what?"

"You and Castle?"

"What about me and Castle?"

"You know that you two are…"

"Are what?" Kate asked, having no idea what her friend was implying.

Lanie grumbled and rolled her eyes slightly. Then, she waived her right hand and nodded her head suggestively. "You know…"

Kate's jaw dropped with immediate offense. "Oh my god Lanie, do you think I had sex with Castle while his daughter was in the hospital?" What a horrifying concept! Obviously not because she found Castle to be repulsive but being intimate during such a scenario would have been incredibly inappropriate.

"Of course not! But its interesting that's where your brain went…" Lanie added with a sly smile.

"What? No. Not interesting. My brain went there because you did the…'you're having sex' implication face."

"Because I thought you two might use this opportunity to explore how you really feel about each other."

Shaking her head, not wanting to play into whatever drama Lanie was trying to stir up, Kate said, "He's my partner."

"And?"

"My friend."

"And?"

"No and."

"Kate!"

"What!" she retorted, a little impatient.

Lanie held her hands out wide as though she was pointing out the most obvious thing in the world that Kate had been clueless about for a decade. "You like him; he likes you!"

"Wha—I… No," Kate said. This was certainly not the first time that Lanie had suggested that Kate and Castle were more than just professional partners, but all other times were clearly in jest, whereas this one definitely seemed more serious. Despite that, Kate used the same argument she had previously. "He just got divorced."

"Over six months ago," Lanie pointed out. Then, she gave her head a little shake and took a step closer to her friend. "Okay let me ask you this – let's say it was…I don't know, Detective Ryan's sister who had fallen through some ice and was in the ICU. Would you have reacted the same way?"

"Well…" Kate considered that alternative scenario for a moment, but it seemed like an improper analogy as the reality of her relationship between Alexis and Ryan's sister, who, now that she thought about it, she did not recall the name of, were very, very different. "I've never met Ryan's sister."

"Fair enough, but not entirely my point. If Ryan's sister fell through ice, would you have gone to the hospital? Would you have sat with him for hours?"

Kate's brain immediately answered to the negative; she would not have sat at the hospital with Ryan for hours. Checked in on him? Yes. Visited? Perhaps, but certainly nothing more. Then again, she rarely saw Detective Ryan outside of work. The three of them along with Castle had gone to a Mets game that summer, and perhaps they'd grabbed a drink after a shift a handful of times, but nothing more serious or intimate than that.

"Ryan and I just don't have that kind of relationship. I would have checked in on him and brought him food if he asked but-"

"You wouldn't have sat up all night with him. That's all I'm saying."

As Kate went about her morning, she realized that Lanie had been entirely correct: she did care for Castle. A lot, actually. For longer than she realized he was more than just a partner to her; he was almost like part of her family. Thinking back over the prior forty-eight hours, ever since learning about Alexis's accident, she realized all the things she had done without even realizing or thinking twice. She had sat with him loyally without ever thinking of leaving, she had hugged him and cradled his head against her shoulder as he cried. She had gone home with him, slept beside him on the couch, and cuddled against his body when he'd woken in the wee-hours and seemed too stressed to go back to sleep. Not one of those actions seemed awkward or out of place—not even in hindsight. In fact, they'd felt natural, normal which said to her that she had been subconsciously thinking about him as more than just her colleague for quite some time.

God, she had feelings for Castle—when the hell had that happened?

Not that she was mad, of course. He was a good man. Kind, sweet, funny, intelligent. He challenged her—sometimes to the point of aggravation, but she always knew that he meant well.

She thought back through their partnership, trying to find the moment that changed them. Maybe there wasn't one—maybe that's why she hadn't noticed, because it snuck up on her gradually. That certainly was likely in a lot of respects, but the more she thought, she did recall a specific moment that contributed or perhaps even lit the kindling of her feelings.

Back in August while working on a case, she and Esposito were racing across town to arrest a suspect they feared was about to go on the run; he was driving. During their trip, a squad car following along with them had swerved to avoid a bicyclist and in that action clipped the rear corner of their vehicle. Esposito lost control and hit a parked car. In the accident, she had been rattled, and obtained a nasty bruise on her chest from the seat belt, but otherwise no harm had been done.

A day later, Castle found out about the incident and had been genuinely considered for her welfare. He'd begun to check her for injuries even though they had been having a normal conversation for five minutes beforehand. When she finally managed to convey that she was fine, he'd hugged her tightly—the first real hug they shared.

Though she'd blocked it out in the immediate aftermath of the incident, she recalled then how nice the hug had been and how that, in combination with spending more time with Alexis to help her trust police officers again, had truly been the shift in their relationship. They spent time together outside of the Twelfth, outside of cases, and, without realizing, she'd grown closer to him.

When it came to her relationships, Kate knew her life was, at best, complicated. In her mind, her career came first, which was both a result of her desire to become a successful NYPD detective and because in the wake of her mother's untimely death she had closed off her heart to avoid being hurt that way again. If she dated, it was mostly casually. If she had something more serious—like she had a year prior with her admittedly slightly boring FBI beau—she knowingly kept one foot out the door and didn't like to open up, to trust too willingly.

The more she thought about it, that wasn't the case with Castle. She trusted him as a colleague certainly, and with her personal life. She'd opened up to him more about her mother's case than she had with anyone before and with great success. He never pushed or prodded even though he'd been known to do so with other topics. She really felt that he understood how such a tragic event made her feel, both as a daughter, and as a cop who strived to solve every case.

She trusted him and cared for him and, the more she thought about it, she realized that—god help her—she wanted more. Not 'let's have sex and maybe eat a meal together beforehand' way, but in a real, life-sharing relationship sort of way—a way she hadn't experienced…well, ever in her adult life, which meant this was not a relationship she wanted to rush into. The month of December already felt too complicated with holidays, so many of her coworkers taking vacation time, and general year-end things. But in January? In the new year? Having something more meaningful with Castle was definitely something she wanted to explore.

A/N: thanks for reading & reviewing everyone!