CH12
Kate and Alexis arrive at her desk in the precinct. "I don't have anywhere else to take you." Kate tells her and grabs a chair and places it next to her desk. "Here have a seat."
"I'll be quiet Kate, I promise." Alexis tells her truthfully.
Soon Espo turns up. "Who's your friend Beckett? Something you want to tell us?" Espo teases.
"This is Alexis and I'm looking after her for the day. Alexis this is Javier Esposito, he works with me." Kate introduces them.
"Hi." Alexis holds out her hand.
Espo is a taken a little of guard but recovers quickly. "It's a pleasure." And shakes her hand back. "Does the captain know about this?"
"Captain Montgomery?" Alexis asks.
"You know the Captain?" Espo is shocked.
"Him and my daddy are friends." Alexis answers innocently.
"What have you got Espo?" Kate asks him before this gets out of control.
"Lanie is still working on what happened to our, … guy." Espo only just caught himself. Just not used to being around children and being careful with his words.
"We also found a strange substance that the lab is processing. And Ryan escorted the wife to the hospital to have her checked out. He should be on his way back now. He did leave a couple of uniforms on her door just in case." Espo adds.
"Run both of their financials, let's see if we can figure out why? And check with dispatch; see if uniforms have been called to that residence before and why." Kate tells him.
And Espo turns and heads for his desk. This leaves Kate to sit at her desk and do a search on her computer.
"Someone was playing scrabble?" Alexis asks.
Kate stops to look at Alexis and sees that she is studying the murder board. Fortunately there were no nasty photos on the board for her to see.
"They were playing scrabble when something happened." Kate explains.
Alexis gets up to look closer at the scrabble board in the picture. "Not very imaginative words to be playing." Alexis gives her 2 cents on their playing style.
"Well not everyone is a writer like your father." Kate tells her while still watching the screen mostly.
"Kate?" Alexis call for her.
"Hhmm sweetie." Kate is still distracted by the screen and the task she is trying to complete.
"Why are some of the tiles different?" Alexis asks not understanding something.
Now she has Kate's attention. "Different? How different?"
"See these little triangles here?" Alexis points out one to Kate who gets up to look closer. "This one is blue, this one is red and this one is yellow. Each one is from a different game. My friend Paige and I tried playing one time but one game didn't have enough letters so we took some from another game. We never did know if we had the proper number of letters to play the game right." Alexis explains.
"Alexis you are a genius! Come on; your with me, we are going to get a closer look at those letters." And Kate takes her hand and takes the elevator downstairs.
Once downstairs Kate stops at a door. "You wait right here sweetie I'll be right back, don't move." And Kate goes into the room beyond.
"Hey girlfriend, what happened to you earlier?" Lanie asks.
Kate however ignores her question. "Can you put him away or cover him up completely?"
"You turning squeamish on me? Oh god, you're not pregnant are you?" Lanie is shocked.
"What? No I'm not pregnant. You have to have had sex first for that. No I have someone outside the door who doesn't need to be seeing dead guys. Especially ones who are cut open like this one." Kate answers.
Lanie is lost at this. "Uhm sure, let me get a couple of cloths and cover him up.
Better?" Lanie asks after she is done.
"Yea thanks." And Kate moves over to the door. "Ok sweetie you can come in now." As Kate holds open the door.
Alexis steps inside and looks around. "WOW, is this where you keep the dead guys? This is soooo cool!"
"I like her already girlfriend. And who do we have here?" Lanie bends down to ask.
"Alexis this is Lanie, my best friend. Lanie this is Alexis."
Alexis holds out her hand. "Hi, you work down here all alone?"
"Yup all alone. At least until Kate here or someone else decides to bother and come down to see me."
Alexis turns on Kate. "You leave her down here all alone?" Alexis gives Kate an evil eye while crossing her arms.
"Oh I like her even more now. So why are you following Kate around?" Lanie asks Alexis digging for information.
"Daddy had to go out of town and Kate rescued me today." Alexis answers beaming.
"Oh and who's your dad?" Lanie is really interested now.
"How about we look at those scrabble letters sweetie so we can leave Lanie to her work." Kate heads off this conversation at the pass.
Lanie gives Kate her now patented look of 'you can suffer now or suffer even more later. So what's it going to be Kate?'
Kate sighs heavily knowing Lanie is like a pit bull. Once latched on she never lets go. "His name is Rick." Kate moans out his name.
"Rick, I don't think I know a Rick. Rick what?" Lanie presses on enjoying watching Kate squirm.
Kate swallows, oh this was going to be bad. "Castle, Richard Castle."
Lanies eyes bug out. "Richard Castle the author? That Richard Castle? … And you're walking around with his daughter? …. You come right over here sweetie and tell auntie Lanie all about it." As Lanie takes Alexis's hand and guides her over to her desk.
"I think you are here to look at letters Kate, I don't want to keep you." Lanie is grinning.
'Oh why didn't I think this through before I came down here? And I left my gun upstairs so I can't even shoot myself and put me out of my misery.'
Kate resigns herself to her fate knowing Lanie is soooo going to let her have it later.
While Kate is studying the letters and poking them around and flipping them to get a better look at them, she can hear. "Zoo?" and "Cook?" and "All of them?" and lastly "Who's Meredith?"
That last one is the straw the broke Kate's back and she heads over to collect Alexis and retreat back upstairs while she still has some dignity left.
"Come on sweetie lets go back upstairs so Lanie can get back to work." As Kate picks her up to carry her out. "Say good bye to little OLD, AUNT Lanie." Kate tells her.
"By Lanie." Alexis tells her.
"Bye sweetie. We will talk LATER girlfriend." Lanie warns of the grilling that is now headed her way.
Kate suffers in silence and goes back upstairs.
"She's nice, how long have you been friends?" Alexis asks sweetly.
"We meet just over 2 years ago when I worked on my very first case. That was when I found Jill." Kate confides in her.
"And Jill helps you in your work?" Alexis asks.
"Yes she does, but that's a secret. You can't tell anyone about Jill. You understand sweetie?"
Alexis nods her head. "Or about Jack." Alexis adds.
"That's right, or about Jack. Would you like a soda, there is a vending machine around here somewhere."
"Yes please." And Kate pulls some change out of her desk and walks Alexis over to the machine so she can select what she wants, then back to her desk.
Kate was sitting at her desk typing trying to get this machine to tell her what she wanted to know, when Alexis speaks up. "Captain Montgomery."
"Hi Alexis, what are you doing here?" Roy asks a little shocked.
"Daddy is out of town and Kate is looking after me." Alexis states leaving out her mom.
"Uhm sir I can explain, …" Kate starts but is interrupted.
"Just keep her from being underfoot and be careful what she sees." Roy tells her and heads for his office.
"Well that went better than I imagined." Kate talks to herself.
Except for another trip to the soda machine and a bathroom break Alexis had been as quiet as a church mouse on Christmas.
Kate shuts down her computer and tells Espo and Ryan she is headed home. "What would you like to eat? I'm afraid I'm not like your father I don't do much cooking." And suddenly Kate finds herself craving Castle's home cooking. Damn that man he has gone and spoiled her.
"Pizza?" Alexis offers.
"I think we can do that. May I ask why Pizza?" There were other foods available. Maybe she doesn't know since Castle cooks so much.
"Dad can't put yucky stuff in it if someone else makes it. And I like Pizza." Alexis explains.
Somehow that made sense to Kate even if it did come from a six year old. "What kind of pizza do you want?"
"Hawaiian?" Alexis offers timidly.
"Well what a coincidence, I like Hawaiian too." Kate tells her.
"Dad says there are no coincidences. It's all part of the Universes great plan for us all." Alexis counters. "That and a little magic."
"You believe in magic?" Kate asks with a partly shocked voice.
"You don't do you? … Kate can I ask something?" Alexis asks softly.
"Of course sweetie ask me anything you want."
"If you don't believe in magic how will you ever find it?"
"And if it doesn't exist there is nothing to find."
"But magic is everywhere. How did it feel when you were young and you got your first present from Santa Claus? When you did something for the first time and found that you loved it? When you went camping far outside the city and lie in the grass and look up at all the stars for the first time. And then watch as one of them fly's by leaving a trail of magic dust?
Read a book that moved you to tears or touched your soul with its words? There's magic everywhere, you just have to watch and listen." Alexis does her best to explain.
Kate finds a quiet place to talk to her."When I was young, well older than you but still young. I had police come to my front door to tell me my mother had been killed. There was nothing magical about that day sweetie."
Alexis launches herself into Kate's arms and hugs her. "I'm sorry Kate. No wonder you don't believe in magic any more. You had a bad man take it away from you." And Kate can feel her crying in her arms.
"It's alright sweetie it's not important."
Alexis while still crying whispers into Kate's ear. "Yes it is." And Alexis swore to herself that she was going to find Kate's magic and give it back to her if it's the last thing she ever did.
It seemed to mean so much to Alexis that now Kate had a few tears. "Come on let's get our Pizza and go home."
Once home. "Why don't you select a movie for us to watch while we eat our Pizza." Kate offers. "I don't have the same library you and your father have but hopefully you can find something."
Alexis heads off to look for something while Kate puts slices on paper plates and pours out something to drink they got along the way.
"So what are we watching?" Kate asks after reaching the sofa and putting everything on the coffee table.
"Is UP ok?" Alexis asks.
"That's a good one, excellent choice." Kate tells her.
They both sit quietly while they eat and watch the movie.
"It's sad." Alexis tells her. "It's the only movie I can remember that makes me cry at the beginning instead of the end. His wife dies and he's forced to go on without her. It's sad."
"Yes it is." Kate agrees. "They loved each other a lot and he misses her for the rest of the movie."
"He lost his magic and then found it again at the end." Alexis tells her.
Kate decides not to argue the topic. "It's still not bedtime, what would you like to do now?"
"War?" Alexis offers.
"You mean the card game?" Kate prays.
"Paige and I play it sometimes, it's simple." Alexis tells her.
"I think I have some cards around her somewhere." Kate searches the shelves and finally finds them in a junk drawer in the kitchen.
Kate soon learns that Alexis plays with enthusiasm slamming some of her cards down on the table. Alexis soon had Kate slamming them down on the table also with remarks like. "Boom, or Take that, or Pow."
It was a stupidly simple game and Kate was having fun playing it with Alexis. Ultimately Alexis won and got Kate's last card.
Kate was laughing. "Let's get you ready for bed sweetie. You go change and brush your teeth and I'll be right behind you."
Kate lets Alexis get ready for bed and slide in under the sheets, while Kate gets ready.
When Kate comes out of the bathroom with the intent of sleeping on the sofa she finds Alexis has turned down half of the bed and is waiting for her. Kate looks at her and Alexis raises her arms and invites Kate into bed.
Alexis doesn't say a thing just lays there with her arms up in the air while Kate hesitates.
Kate can feel her heart rate increase and the beginning of the tug of tears. Kate blinks them back and slides into bed next to Alexis with the intent of giving her space. Alexis however instantly moves in and wraps her arms around Kate. Leaving Kate little choice but to wrap her arms around Alexis.
"Good night Kate."
"Good night sweetie."