"Baby, why don't you go upstairs and take a nap?" Rick finally pulled back to look at his little girl's tear stained face. There were very few times that he had seen her so undone and it worried him to his core that she might never get passed this. "Come on, sleep will do you good."

Alexis looked from her father to Kate as she wiped away the moisture on her face.

"Okay," she said simply, too exhausted both emotionally and from jet lag, to even consider fighting him on it, even though it was barely eleven in the morning. She started to move away, but then reconsidered. She pulled Kate in tightly to her again and squeezed. "Thanks Kate," she whispered quietly, then turned and went up to her room.

Kate stood shell shocked from the conversation she had just shared with Alexis, and the display of emotion she had just felt pouring into her through that embrace. She was pretty sure that she handled herself fairly well during their conversation, especially having no parental training, and hoped it bode well for the many similar discussions the two would likely share as they days progressed. Kate knew Alexis had more to say.

As soon as Alexis was gone from his view, Rick turned to Kate, his eyes flashing with wonder and worry. "Is she okay?" he asked, surprised that he really couldn't read the situation well enough to know that answer for himself. As the days wore on, he was seeing just how out of his depth he was at helping Alexis, and himself for that matter. The idea of finding a therapist for his daughter was now at the top of his list of things to do.

"No. She's..." Kate looked to Rick, not sure what the right words were. She wanted to reassure him that Alexis would make it through this and be the bright smiling kid of old. But she knew she would be lying to him. She had no idea whether Alexis could find her way through the pain and torture she was feeling.

"Kate?" Rick looked at her in surprise. He thought she'd give him the silver lining. She'd been keeping things light all morning when he was unable so he just figured that she would take over for him on finding the positive side of things too. But maybe there just really wasn't one.

Kate moved in closer to him and put her arms back around his waist. Throwing her head on his shoulder she held him tight, and he responded likewise.

"Castle, I want to tell you everything's going to be okay. I want to tell you that she's going to get through this, that we all are. But you told me before not to say something if I wasn't sure, that you'd never forgive me for it if I did and I couldn't make it happen."

Kate trailed off as she remembered the pain and sorrow in his voice on the phone when she had started to console him several days before. She hoped that she would never have to hear that tone in his voice again. It had cut through the phone lines and pierced a wound in her heart as she realized that there was absolutely nothing she could say to make it better.

Castle had always seemed to have a knack for making the worst possible situation seem not quite so bad. On countless occasions she had found her way to the light because he had showed her where it was. It was one of the many qualities in him that she loved and admired because she had no idea how he did it, and she felt completely unable to do it herself. She was the realist, he was the dreamer. She had no misconceptions that they would work any other way.

"Kate, I didn't mean..."

"Yes you did. And you were right. The cop in me knows not to promise things that I can't be sure of. But it was you, it was different. I just wanted to make it all better. But I couldn't then. Just like I can't now."

Castle hugged her tighter. "Oh God, Kate, what are we going to do?"

Kate was immediately touched at his inclusion of her into the decisions he was faced with making. He wanted her advice; he wanted her to tell him how they were all going to get through this, as a family. A family she was a part of.

"We're going to keep talking. All of us. And we're going to be as supportive and loving as we can. We're going to be there for each other whenever it's needed. And we're going to eat ice cream."

Castle looked down at Kate, still in his arms, trying to figure out if he had heard her correctly. He raised his eye brows delightedly when she added, "Lots and lots of ice cream." She smiled up at him and he placed several light kisses on her lips. Maybe she did know how to find a silver lining.

"Kate, can you tell me what you and Alexis were talking about?"

"Nothing you haven't already heard I'm sure. She was telling me about what happened to her and Sara. She's just trying to figure out how to make sense of everything. I guess she thinks maybe I can understand what she went through because I've been through similar situations myself."

Castle looked off to the staircase that his little girl had just ascended wondering why she wasn't telling him these things. "I've been through things like this too," he mumbled sullenly.

Kate reached up and gently placed her fingers on his jaw, guiding his face back to look at hers. "Castle, I know I'm not her mother but –"

"Kate –"

"No, Castle, let me finish." Castle nodded gently, allowing her to continue uninterrupted. "I'm not her mother, but think about how Alexis is more likely to process all of this. Think about the kind of girl she is, the way she tends to deal with things. Who do you think she'll act more like, you or me?"

Castle considered what she had just said. Realizing she was right, he reached up and took one of her hands in his and gently kissed her palm. His eyes softened with appreciation. "I'm so glad she has you. I'm so glad you're here."

Kate smiled. "She'll come to you too, Rick," she said softly. "Just be patient with her. She'll come."

"I know. I just...I just want to fix this. I just want to make it better."

"Rick, this isn't something you can fix. I know you love Alexis and you want the best for her but this is something she's going to have to work through on her own. If you push her, it might backfire. Remember when I came back to work after I got shot and we had that sniper case? You were so wonderful. You gave me the space and time I needed to work through my PTSD on my own. And when you knew I needed help you got Javi to step in and get me back on track."

Castle looked at her surprised. He had listened when Javier told him to wait, to be patient, to give her space, but he didn't realize that she knew he had recruited Esposito to step in when he could see her spiraling out of control.

"Don't look so surprised, Castle," she said, laughing at his expression.

"You knew?"

"Of course I knew. You guys think you're so clever, talking in whispers in the break room, colluding half hidden in the hallways. Give me some credit, Castle. I'm a pretty good detective you know."

"Yeah," he whispered, nodding his head, "a damned good detective."

"Well, my point is that you were patient with me. You let me work through as much as I could on my own and you recognized when I needed help, but you accepted that you couldn't help me yourself. You got me the help I needed and then stepped out of the way. But even though I wasn't leaning on you, I knew you were there if I needed you. I knew you would catch me if I fell."

"I wanted so badly to go to you."

"But you didn't, and that was the best thing you could have done for me then. It's the same with Alexis now. She knows that you're here for her whenever she needs you, so you don't have to hover over her or remind her of that. You don't need to try to do things for her that you're not qualified to do. As much as you'd like to think so, you're not superman. You can't do all things, be all things for her. You just have to be patient and be ready when she comes, and find her the help she needs if you see her spiraling."

"Do you know that I love you very much?"

"I had an idea."

"No, I mean it. I can't imagine my life without you in it."

Kate's breath caught in her throat as she stared up into Castle's eyes. This was the closest they had come to talking about their future since they had started dating. Kate wasn't sure she was ready for this discussion yet, and she also wasn't sure she wanted to hear it in the wake of a tragedy. She knew people tended to get caught up in the fear born of a tense situation, say things without thinking, and then feel regret later at getting locked into something they didn't really want. She didn't want this to happen with them, not now.

"Castle –"

"Look Kate, I know what you're thinking."

"You do?"

"You may think you're special being able to read me and the boys, but I know you pretty well by now too, you know. You're not the only good detective around here."

Kate smiled. "So what am I thinking?"

"You're thinking we've only been dating a few months so it's too soon to be talking about forever. You're thinking that I'm speaking out of fear and some sort of near-death after effects. You're thinking you like things how they are right now and that you aren't ready for anything more than that." Kate stepped back surprised by how well he really did seem to know her.

Taking her silence as proof that he was right, Castle continued. "But I'm telling you Kate, we haven't just been dating for a few months, we've been together for five years. So while I was afraid for myself and Alexis, I'm not speaking from fear of nearly dying. I would be saying this even if none of that had ever happened because this is how I feel. We hid our feelings for so long, and I'm just not willing to do that anymore. But I also think that you're right. You're not ready to deal with this yet and so I'll stop talking about it now."

Kate's eyes had dropped to the floor as Castle spoke, his words clearly hitting the mark. But now, needing her complete attention, he reached down and lifted her chin until her eyes were forced to stare back into his. "But not before I say that this is real Kate. What you and I have is real. And it's not something I take lightly. And it's not something that I am ever going to give up on. So you take all the time that you need to figure this out for yourself because I'm not going anywhere. As long as it takes Kate, I will wait for you."

Kate stood holding him at arms length watching his chest rise and fall from the effort it had taken him to get that speech out. She was struck by the seriousness of his tone, so unlike him that she knew he was being completely honest with her. She found it entirely overwhelming. He had rendered her speechless and her mouth opened and closed trying to form words, but her brain didn't know what they were.

As the panic slowly crept into her eyes, Castle leaned down and took her lips with his. He started slowly, reassuring her that he would be patient. He waited for her to catch up to him, for her brain to stop processing his words, and start reacting to his actions. He pulled her body towards him until their hips pressed together. Gently, he turned them around until her back was up against the kitchen island, and he brought his hands up to her face and carded his fingers through her hair.

Slowly, Kate's mind registered that Castle was pressing his body up against hers. When his lips left hers and ghosted lightly along her jaw, she finally found the strength to attempt words. She barely got out a syllable before he pulled back and placed his finger on her lips.

"Shhh. I said we weren't going to talk about this anymore. Not until you're ready."

"Bu-"

"No, Kate. Not until you're ready."

When Kate again attempted to speak he cut her off once more. "Are you ready, Kate? Are you really ready to have this discussion? Ready to talk about our future? About living together, and marriage, and babies, and maybe a dog...are you ready?"

She stopped and looked at him, the panic choking the words in her throat and creasing her forehead. With his finger still pressed to her lips, she shook her head silently.

"Good. Then stop interrupting me. I'm busy." He reached down again and pulled her into a deeper more passionate kiss. His tongue tickled her lips until the sensation caused them to part. He pressed forward again, tasting her, exploring her mouth, coaxing her tongue to join in the dance.

Once again his lips sought her jaw and trailed soft wet kisses to her ear, her neck and back up again.

"Cas-"

"Kate," he said, almost annoyed at her interruption. "I thought we agreed to no more talking."

"I was just going to say, take me to bed."

Castle looked up at her with disappointment, thinking that he had pushed her too far, that she was emotionally overwhelmed and exhausted, and like Alexis needed a nap. But he saw a twinkle in her eye and the way her tongue jutted out from between her teeth that told him she wasn't tired at all. A smile of understanding grew on his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes, and he swooped down and pressed his lips firmly against hers. Just as quickly, he stepped away, grabbed her hand, and pulled her hurriedly to his bedroom, as she giggled in his wake.

"Now that we can talk about," he said jokingly.

"Alexis?! No! Alexis! I can't...where are you? I can't...No...Alexis? Baby, where...oh god Alexis! ALEXIS!" Castle thrashed wildly in bed, tangled in sheets and blankets. His body writhed with fright as he grappled with the demons haunting his dreams.

Kate had been dozing lightly beside him until his tossing and turning brought her to her senses. She looked over in concern at his body, glistening with sweat and frantically grasping for some unreachable goal.

"Castle? Castle wake up. You're dreaming, it's just a dream." She tried calming him with a gentle touch to his shoulder, only to have her hand smacked away defensively as if she was the threat he was fighting.

"Castle," she said with more force. "RICK!" Kate rolled up on her knees and grabbed him by both shoulders, shaking him hard and calling sharply to break through the darkness clouding his dreams.

Like being jolted awake by a deafening thunder clap, Rick lurched forward, springing upright in bed. "Alexis!" he called one last time as the last tendrils of the dream fought to hold their terrifying clutches on his mind.

"Hey, Castle, it's okay. You were dreaming. It was all just a dream." Kate tried to reassure him but he was having none of it.

"No, Kate, it wasn't just a dream. It was a nightmare, but it was real. It happened. To my baby. They took her, right out from under me. They took her away and I had no idea. For a whole day I didn't even know she was gone, and even when I did, I couldn't help her. Kate, I lost her. The most important thing in my life and I just let her...vanish." Castle's eyes roamed frantically around the room as he tried to gain his bearings.

"Castle, you didn't let her vanish. She was taken. They took her and there was no way you could have known. Castle this isn't your fault."

Rick struggled angrily to extricate himself from the tangle of bedding surrounding him. "No, you're wrong. This is entirely my fault."

"How do you figure that?" she asked simply. She could see he was spiraling as he had done when Alexis was first discovered missing. He was inconsolable and the only thing she could think to do was to make him work through his ranting logically. Facts and logic would help him. They had to.

"I let her go off to college, to live in that dorm, to leave."

"Castle," Kate replied softly. They had had this discussion before. "You know Alexis needed to go out on her own. It was time for her to start making her own way in the world." Fact.

"I could have made her stay," he said quietly, knowing the fallacy of his words before he'd even spoken them aloud.

"No, Castle. You know you couldn't have. Alexis was determined to have her space." Fact.

"I could have called her more. I could have gone to see her more." Kate sat silently as Castle worked through what she could only assume were stages of grief. She could see that the guilt was simply eating him alive. They had already had this same conversation days ago, but clearly he wasn't past it yet.

"I could have kept that tracking software on my phone and just told her I'd deleted it," he continued berating himself.

"Castle, do you remember what happened when Alexis found out you even had that app? Do you remember how that turned out? What do you think she would have done if she knew you lied to her about deleting it?" Kate thought back to the day she warned him that spying on his teenage daughter would only end in disaster. She'd been totally right and Alexis had tore a strip off him for it. "Plus, she dropped her phone. You wouldn't have been able to use the app to find her anyways." Fact.

"It's still my fault!" He argued.

"Castle..."

"No. Kate. When I found her vlog, I let her convince me that she could take care of herself, that it wasn't such a big deal even though I knew better. I should have made her take it down, stop posting. Look at what happened because I didn't! They found it and they used it, just like I knew someone would."

Now he was in entering the anger stage. And as much as he was trying blame himself, trying to be angry with himself, he really wasn't.

"Castle, that wasn't you. They didn't find her because of you. They didn't even go looking for her because of you." Fact.

" No, not directly. But it was because of my father Kate. My father. That's on me," he replied stubbornly.

"A father you never met." Fact.

"But my father nonetheless. I should have tried harder to find him. I should have figured out who he was years ago. But no, I had to see it for its mysterious potential. 'If I don't know for sure who he is, then he could be anyone,'" he said mimicking himself. "God, I was such a fool!"

"Castle, even if you had looked for your father, it's not likely you ever would have found him. He's CIA. He's trained to hide." Fact.

"But I should have known that something like this could happen. I should have expected he was into something dangerous. Who just walks away and never calls? Who does that?"

Kate crawled across his outstretched legs, taking his face in her hands. She leaned forward and kissed his lips with heavy pressure. Short, but strong. When he didn't respond, she pulled back and looked in his eyes, lifted his chin higher until he was forced to stare back at her, just as he had done earlier in the kitchen. Kate leaned in again and pressed one more kiss to his lips before settling back, straddling his lap.

"You are a good man," she said simply.

Castle tried to lower his head. When she refused to let his face drop from her hands, he looked down, avoiding her steely but loving gaze.

"You are a good father, Rick Castle, and this was not your fault." Kate's voice was strong and clear. She was resolved to show him that his feelings and fears about his own competence as a parent were unfounded.

"There was absolutely no way you could have known that this would happen. No way you could have planned for it, or prevented it. No way that you could have done anything that would have changed your father's enemies from the course of action they took. This is not your fault."

Castle closed his eyes and let his shoulders slump forward. He cocked his head slightly to the side and let his cheek rest in the palm of her hand. She gently caressed his other cheek with her free hand and ran her fingers through his hair.

When he didn't speak, she continued. "You are a good father, Rick. Maybe the best. And it's probably the reason why I first fell in love with you. You take such good care of your little girl. You have been a selfless and loving dad, and you have raised a wonderful daughter. You have no reason to feel guilty. You have no reason to blame yourself. And you have no reason to doubt who you are or what you have accomplished as a father."

Castle reached forward with both hands and gently rubbed Kate's thighs. Her words were breaking through the self-doubt and fears that had built up inside of him. He knew what she said was the truth but he was at such a loss for how to deal with his daughter's kidnapping that he was allowing himself to force blame where it didn't belong. Now that his father's enemies were dead, there was no one to direct his anger towards.

He sighed quietly, finally looking up into her eyes. The strength and pride he found in them expressed as strong a sentiment to him as his words had to her when they stood together in the kitchen. It made him smile as he realized fully that even though she wasn't ready to talk about their future, she knew their future would be together. She loved him just as much as he loved her. He leaned in and kissed her, bringing his arms around her waist and pulling her body flush to his.

"Tell me the part again where you said I'm the best dad."