A/N: Thank you all so much for all your wonderful reviews! I really, really appreciate all of them!

Thirteen

Castle could hardly believe it when the beginning of the holiday season was upon them. It felt like just weeks ago he'd been chasing Alexis around Central Park, sweating through his t-shirt as she raced away on a scooter. Now, he bundled them both in sweaters and scarves to drop her off at the airport.

Against his better judgment, Castle had given in to his daughter's pleas to go to California and visit her mother over Thanksgiving break. Putting it bluntly, he was uncomfortable with every aspect of her trip. He did not like her flying alone even if it was a direct flight and, as a minor, she was escorted by airline personnel to and from the gate. More so, he was not a huge fan of her being alone with her mother, Meredith, for an extended period of time, particularly after what happened the last time.

The prior year, Alexis had visited her mother for a few days between Christmas and New Year's. As far as he could tell, the trip was going well until he received a call from Alexis asking him how much money she should tip a cab driver. Naturally, he asked why she was asking, only to discover Meredith had sent Alexis, an eleven year old girl, home in a cab in downtown L.A. by herself so she could go out with her friends.

Simply put, Castle had been furious and threatened Meredith that she would never again be allowed to spend any alone time with their daughter. After the incident Alexis's appeals had softened his attitude, but he was by no means comfortable with the situation. Thus, after putting her on a plane Saturday morning he headed to work desperate for a distraction.

That year, he and Kate had the misfortune of pulling a shift on Thanksgiving Day. As much as he didn't want to work holidays, he couldn't say he was too angry about this one. Alexis was out of town, after all, so it wasn't as though he had to leave her home with a babysitter while he went to work. Besides, he wouldn't complain about getting to spend the holiday with Kate. Theoretically, it would be a slow day for them so it wouldn't be that bad.

As a tradeoff for their holiday working time, the partners had off on Monday and Tuesday of that week. Castle decided that would be a perfect time for he and his partner to catch up on some alone time. Specifically: alone time in his bed. Kate had already told him she would be getting together with her father the weekend after Turkey Day, so he knew he would not be interrupting her plans.

Sly grin on his face, he walked into the bullpen and went directly to her desk and sat in her guest chair. They exchanged pleasant hellos before Castle leaned in towards her and lowered his voice. "So I was thinking…maybe Sunday evening you'd want to pack a bag and come over to my place."

She blinked at him. "A bag of what?"

"Clothes. Toothbrush. Any sex toys you want to use in inventive ways," he added with an eyebrow wiggle.

"Castle!" she scolded, glancing around quickly to see if anyone was in earshot. Fortunately, no one was. She turned back to him and saw his smirk had widened.

"So whadaya say?"

She arched an eyebrow at him. "Why…would I do this?"

He leaned back in his chair and shrugged. "Because it makes the most sense. Alexis is out of town so I thought we could, you know, hang out…and stuff," he said, refraining from going into more detail about any "stuff" they might do in case anyone was walking by at that moment. "That way you won't have to keep going back and forth to your apartment."

Kate clasped her hands together and rested them on her desk. Leaning closer to him, she spoke slowly, "So, just to be clear: on my two day break from you, you think I'm going to want to hang out with you?" She watched a panicked expression cross his face and laughed. "Just messing with you, Castle. I'll come over for dinner on Sunday night, okay?"

He beamed. "Perfect. You wanna go out?"

"How would we go out if I'm going to be tying you to the bed?" she replied. A half shocked, but partially turned on expression crossed his face and she laughed harder. "Oh my god! You are an easy mark today. Don't worry, Castle. I'm not really in to bondage," she informed him quietly.

"Really?" he said deeply, leaning his forearm against her desk. "Because I think we could use our handcuffs for-"

"Shh Castle!" she hissed to him when she spotted McCreary approaching. Castle turned his head, saw the detective, and nodded quietly to his partner. He pushed himself upright, walked casually back to his desk and sat down. Then, from his pocket, he pulled out his phone and tapped a text message to his partner expressing his thoughts on creative handcuff usage.

Sunday night shortly before six p.m. Kate arrived at Castle's apartment with a duffle bag slung over her shoulder. The bag contained her toiletries, two changes of clothes and no sex toys despite Castle's initial suggestion. (While packing, she briefly considered throwing one in just to see what he'd say, but then decided against it.)

She had barely knocked on the door when Castle let her inside. Her nostrils were immediately met with a medley of delicious smells. It appeared Castle had decided to make them dinner instead of taking her out or ordering in. Kate was not disappointed about this in the least. Castle was an excellent cook and she would never turn down a meal from him.

"Have you heard from Alexis?" she asked as she poured herself a glass of wine.

"Oh, yes," he said with a slight eye roll. "She's having a wonderful time and Meredith hasn't done anything too crazy yet, but it hasn't even been forty-eight hours so just give her time."

"At least you're optimistic," Kate commented.

"It's just," he sighed and dropped his hands to his sides. "I cannot shake this fear that she'll come home with a tattoo or her head shaved. Then you'll be investigating me for murdering my ex-wife."

She laughed. "It can't be that bad."

Castle gave her a pointed look. "You haven't seen what I've seen."

As they ate, they chatted about a variety of topics. Though they tried to stick to a "no work talk outside of work" policy, they rarely succeeded in avoiding work subjects entirely. That evening, they spoke not about a case, but about one of their coworkers: a man in his mid-twenties who had the unfortunate affliction of early-onset male pattern baldness. Instead of accepting his receding hairline or shaving his head entirely, the man had resorted to a Donald Trump-esque comb-over, which looked worse and worse by the day.

As they were cleaning up, Kate caught sight of one of Castle's book cases and it reminded her of the question she'd been meaning to as him. After recovering from her initial shock from discovering his past life as a novelist, Kate became endlessly intrigued by his former profession. She read both of his books and enjoyed them; the first more than the second, though neither were bad in her opinion. She could understand being stymied when dropped by his first publisher, but she had always been curious why he hadn't pursued other writing avenues.

"So, ah, can I ask you something?"

"Hmm?" he grunted to her.

"Why, ah, why'd you choose to enter the police academy? Instead of pursuing writing, I mean," she asked him.

"Oh…well," he sighed and leaned his hip against the kitchen counter. "I needed a good job – a solid job with benefits. It seemed like a reasonable idea at the time."

"Didn't you miss writing, though?"

He nodded then shrugged. "I suppose but, ah…well, writing and I had a tumultuous relationship."

Intrigued, her eyebrows raised. "How so?"

Castle grabbed his glass of wine from the kitchen counter and led the way out into the sitting room. When she joined him on the couch, he continued.

"Well after my publisher dropped me, I was really kind of down on the whole writing thing. I mean, I was barely twenty-three, but I'd come out of college with a published book and a second one all the way and I just thought I was invincible, you know? I'd tried so hard to get my first book published and I had a lot of rejections then, and with this rejection I was just kind of like, 'Now what?'"

He paused to take a sip of wine and sink deeper into the couch cushions. "Now this was right around the time I met Meredith and fell stupidly in love with her. I mean stupid in love with her. I was completely blind to all her faults and the fact that she had stars in her eyes when she looked at me because I had my name on a book jacket."

"Had she read your books?" Kate asked.

"Before we met? No. We met at a party one evening and spent half the night talking. Then, a few days later, after our first official date I brought her back to my place and she saw the books," Castle explained; Kate nodded. "Anyway, ah, Meredith is an actress—did you know that?"

Kate thought for a second. "I think I recall you mentioning it."

"Well anyway, after only being with her a few weeks I decided it would be a great idea for me to write a play and for her to star in it."

She arched her eyebrows. "You're kidding?"

"I wish I was," he said with a slight groan. "But, sadly I'm quite serious. I'll just chalk it up to being naïve and in my early twenties, but yeah I wrote a play and it was completely awful."

Kate laughed, not expecting this. "Oh I'm sure it wasn't that bad."

"No seriously," he assured her. "It was awful. Really, really awful."

"Did it ever make it into production?"

"Ah no," Castle told her with a bemused expression. "Before I could ever officially finish it we found out that Meredith was pregnant."

"Ah," Kate nodded, reaching for her wine glass. Some pieces of his life were certainly starting to fall into place now.

"And that was kind of it…I knew I had to get a good job with steady pay and health insurance; I couldn't be a free-lance artist kid in my twenties just seeing how life went. I had to be a real adult," he explained.

"Not a real adult!" she proclaimed with a smile.

He laughed. "I know, right? But seriously—don't get me wrong, Alexis is the best thing that ever happened to me. Even if I had the chance to go back and change things, I wouldn't, but the fact of the matter is her existence did fundamentally change things for Meredith and me. We moved in together, got married and I went into the police academy, which, I should point out, is something Meredith doesn't understand to this day."

Kate nodded with a sad smile; though she knew very little about the woman, this did not surprise her in the least. "So what happened between you guys?"

"Oh you know…we drifted apart. What little we had in common was mainly the artsy side of things and I didn't have time for that anymore. She continued with her acting and ultimately had an affair with her director."

"I'm sorry to her that," Kate informed him.

He shrugged and finished off his wine. "'s okay. It was a long time ago and I'm probably better off for it."

Kate smiled across the couch at her partner, admiring him them more than she ever had. He was a good man—a truly good man. He loved his daughter and wanted to do the best things for her including sacrificing the things that he loved so she could have the best future. Given his tendency for jokes and pranks at work she sometimes forgot the depth of his heart and was glad she had this story as a reminder.

"So," Castle began after several minutes of silence. "Let's talk about you."

"Me?" she laughed lightly, adjusting her position so that she sat sideways on the couch, her back leaning against a pillow and the armrest. She bent her knees and placed her feet in front of her, her toes nudging the edge of Castle's thigh, until he grabbed her ankles and pulled her legs into his lap.

"Yeah, you. What would you be doing if you hadn't become a cop?" he asked. The real question he wanted to ask was: what would you be doing if your mother's death hadn't changed the entire course of your life? Of course, he couldn't ask that question directly without upsetting her, so he hoped his question was veiled enough for her to answer.

Her answer was quick and simple. "Oh, I'd be a lawyer."

"A lawyer?" he asked, intrigued.

She nodded. "I was pre-law at Stanford. I grew up in a law focused house since both of my parents were lawyers."

"So your parents wanted you to be a lawyer then?"

She shrugged. "Sure, I guess, but they never outwardly pushed me into it or anything. I think…I think they probably thought if they pushed me too hard towards law I wouldn't want to do it."

He smiled at her. "Kate Beckett, ever the independent thinker."

"Right," she smiled. "You know it's funny. Back then I never thought of anything other than being a lawyer. I was going to be a lawyer, no question about it. But now…now I can't see myself being anything but a cop."

"Things happen for a reason?" he suggested. Then, when he saw an uncertain flicker cross her face he immediately backtracked. "I mean, not that your mother-"

"No, it's okay," she assured him. "I knew what you meant, and you're right. I'm not a huge believer in that sort of stuff—fate, destiny, higher powers at work—but I can definitely buy into a little bit of 'things happen for a reason.'"

"Oh, I think everything happens for a reason," he informed her. "Like Captain Tuttle at the ninth. If he hadn't been in with those mobsters, I never would have met you."

Kate laughed. "That's one way to think of it."

"So…tell me what you were like in high school."

For the next several hours they talked, laughing and sharing stories about themselves and their past. Kate learned that Castle had been quite mischievous during his youth, which did not surprise her in the least. Oppositely, Castle learned that Kate had a very rebellious period towards the end of her high school days, which shocked him entirely.

It was nearing one thirty in the morning when Castle realized Kate was being more silent than usual during his latest tale. When he spotted her eyes closed and her head resting against the back of the couch, he skimmed his hand against the top of her foot and gently said her name. "Kate? Are you sleeping?"

"Mmm no," she replied in a sluggish voice.

"Yes you are," he told her with amusement. Lifting up her legs, he scooted out from underneath her and stood from the couch. He then slid one arm beneath her knees and the other around her back to scoop her up. She protested, but only verbally; her body was limp in his arms.

Castle carried her back to his bedroom and placed her down on the mattress. With her settled, he returned to the main area of the apartment, turned off all the lights, and picked up her overnight bag from the hall. He carried it with him back to the bedroom, where Kate was sloppily struggling with her jeans. He grabbed the ankle of each pant leg and dragged the item off her body. As he folded them neatly and tossed them atop her bag, she slid under the blankets.

Castle took several moments to undress before switching off the light and joining her beneath the covers. He spooned himself around her and slipped his hand around her waist. Dropping a kiss onto the back of her neck he sighed, "G'night, Kate," but she didn't hear him; she was already asleep.