A/N: A few of you asked if Alexis was a part of this alternative universe and some I could answer while others were guest reviews, but simply put; No, she's not part of this universe. I was toying with the idea but it felt wrong to try and push her into this one, it didn't come naturally to me and the story went on without her. Anyway, I hope you guys will enjoy this chapter!


When Kate wakes the next morning she's thinking about the night before. How he'd found out she's a mom. How he's now met the girl he had no idea about. She can't help but wonder if… if he's figured it all out. It takes her a few minutes before she gets herself out of bed and decides to go check her daughter before anything else. She lightly knocks on the door before she opens it.

"Peanut?" she whispers, hoping she's not waking her up if she's still asleep.

"I'm awake," her daughter mumbles and groans. "I don't wanna go to school today, I'm tired."

Kate chuckles at that, it's not unusual for Lily to forget she was sick the day before. Especially when it's the stomach flu.

"Baby, you're not, remember? You have to stay home today and tomorrow," Kate states and the girl raises her head to look at her.

"Oh, right, good," she says and lets her head fall back onto the pillow.

Kate chuckles again, leans against the door frame as she watches her daughter close her eyes for a second. When they suddenly open quicker than quick again and search for her mom's as she sits up quickly.

"Did Richard Castle really come here last night?" she questions but before Kate can answer she shoots out a second one. "And did he say he recognized gram's soup? Do you know him?"

Kate feels her hands start shaking a bit and so she puts her arms across her chest, an old habit of hers from when she was trying to hide her emotions.

"Moom," Lily says in a warning tone, probably reading her like a book.

Damn those genes. "Yes, I knew him for a little bit," she gives in. "But we lost contact a long time ago."

"Is that why he's your favorite writer?" Lily continues to question and Kate bites her inside cheek.

"I think I would've liked them no matter if I knew him or not, peanut," she says truthfully.

"Why did you lose contact? And how come he's helping you on a case right now?" her daughter continues to ask and makes Kate squirm a bit as she's pushing herself off from the door frame.

"We just grew apart and our case right now is staged like the cases in his books," she explains.

"Oh." The girl looks sad, and Kate wonders why but don't dare ask, instead she shakes off the questions.

"Time for some breakfast," she says and the girl nods.

"I'll be there in a minute," Lily says and Kate goes to the kitchen to start making a breakfast she hoped her daughter would be able to hold down.

The rest of the day goes quite painlessly, Lily doesn't ask any more questions to Kate's relief. They spend the day watching movies, playing board games and also making sure Lily did some schoolwork so she wouldn't fall too far behind, all since she was feeling a lot better than she did the day before.

Once the evening falls Kate gets a text from her partners to let her know they have struggles with the writer thinking they're wrong and constantly nagging them about it. The text had her rolling her eyes, but the smile sneaking onto her lips was something she couldn't stop, and she texted them back asking what she was supposed to do about that. Of course that resulted in another text stating he was her writer and that just made her type out a text stating "deal with it". It doesn't take more than an hour after their exchanges before her phone suddenly rings with a call. To her surprise it's him and not them. She considers not answering, but if she doesn't her daughter will probably comment on it if she finds out he's the one calling.

"Beckett," she answers, trying not to show any emotion or indication that she knows it's him.

"Hey, how's it going with Lily?" Castle asks and she bites her lip.

Her heart flutters at the mention of thei… her daughter.

"It's going good, she's a lot better today, if it weren't for the 48 hour rule when it comes to stomach flu she would've been able to go back to school tomorrow," Kate tells him.

"That's good, and well, if she needs to be home tomorrow too then I could swing by and we could go to a park together, like old times," he suggests and she feels her insides squirm.

All their walks in the parks… There had been a day into her late stage of pregnancy when she had gone out to one of those parks, secretly hoping to run into him, and when she didn't…

"I don't know," she eventually gets out in a low insecure voice.

There's silence for a while and she looks towards the door leading into her daughter's room where she hopes her daughter is still studying.

"Kate?" he says in an askance and she hums."Did I do something?"

She wrinkles her forehead. "What do you mean? It's not your fault someone staged the murders like your books."

"No, I mean to you. Did I do something that made you think I didn't… love you?" he explains, and she can hear the hesitation he had before he mentioned 'love'.

"Wha-no, never," she exclaims in reaction.

"Then why did you break up with me?" he questions and she bites her lower lip.

She thinks about it for a bit, how is she supposed to explain? It was never about him, not his love for her or even her love for him.

"I…" she sighs. "I was afraid to get hurt again." She only mumbles it but she knows he can hear her loud and clear, she does hope that her daughter isn't eavesdropping though.

"I would've ne…"

She interrupts him before he can finish his sentence. "I know, not intentionally, but if something would've happened to you the same way it happened to my mom… I would've… died" she just whispers the last word.

They're both quiet for a while and Kate wonders if she's said too much. At the same time she needs him to understand that their breakup had nothing to do with him.

"Oh, Kate… why didn't you just tell me?" he asks, nothing but sympathy and what she assumes is old love.

"I couldn't," she states and freezes when she hears her daughter's voice.

"Mom! Can you look through my homework?" Lily asks as she comes through the door and looks at her. "Who are you talking to?"

"Oh, I should go, your daughter needs you. I was calling you about the case too but we can talk about that once you're back," Castle says and Kate feels her heart skip a beat. "Tell her I said hi."

"I-uh, yeah, bye," Kate says into the phone before she hangs up. "It was just work, what do you need me to look at?"

Lily comes up to her and joins her on the couch. "So, who was it?"

Kate meets those hazel eyes she got from her and sees the girl's determination reflect the same way she supposes hers does. With a sigh she decides there's no point in telling anything but the truth. "It was Castle, he says hi."

"Really?" Lily says with a smile on her lips.

"Yeah, he was calling about the case but we agreed to talk more about it once I'm back at work."

"Will you go back tomorrow? I can stay with grandpa," she shrugs her shoulders and Kate shakes her head.

"No, I'll stay home with you tomorrow, remember?" she asks and Lily smiles.

"You're my mom first," she repeats the words Kate has been telling her almost her whole life, making sure Lily would always remember she didn't prioritize her job.

She had been, at first, it's how she became a detective so fast. Still so sore after her mother's death, but when she'd realized Lily was going to feel neglected if she continued like she did she totally changed her way.

"That's right, I'm your mom first, besides I think we're due for some family time," she says and the girl's smile widens.

"Really? Can we go to the zoo?"

Kate chuckles. "Not tomorrow, even if I don't think you're contagious anymore I think going to a place with a lot of animals won't do any good. Though I do agree outside is good," she agrees and thinks.

"Can we go to a park? Like we used to do when I was little," Lily asks then and Kate thinks back to the phone call just a few minutes ago. Would it be weird to take him up on it? "Mom, what are you thinking about?"

Kate shakes her head and looks at her daughter who looks back with curious eyes. "Well, I think that's a good idea, but for now we should look at that homework of yours so we can both go to bed."

Lily looks at her with questions in those hazels but doesn't say anything. She just goes to fetch her book and they sit down on the couch to look through her work. Once they've looked it through together Kate can see Lily's in her own head and so she nudges her with her elbow.

"What's on your mind, Lil?" she asks and the girl looks at her.

"If you were best friends… why didn't you tell him about me? It must've been… hard?" she asks, her eyes never leaving the book of homework in her lap.

Kate sighs sadly. "I-I just couldn't."

Lily changes demeanor and looks at her. "Can you tell me more about when you met him?" The girl puts her head onto her shoulder and makes that same puppy eyed face she inherited from him.

Kate bites her cheek, damns herself for still not being immune from it. "Well, there was that one time when we got into detention."

Her daughter's eyes widen in shock. "You, detention?!"

Kate chuckles. "Yeah, it was for the stupidest thing too. We had this one teacher and he was always out for him, mostly because he was always onto something. And sadly, this time the teacher thought I was helping him with his daily mischief and so we both got detention." Kate can't help but think back to that time, of course she'd been in on it and helped him change the teacher's powerpoint into another language with a bunch of inappropriate pictures, but she couldn't let her daughter know that. "We ended up… playing games as the detention teacher left the room."

There might have been something else but Kate tries not to think too much about it.

"You told me about that storybook, was he any good?" Lily asks and Kate thinks back to all those stories and letters he wrote.

"Yeah, he's one of the best ones. When I first found out about the book and what he was writing in it I thought he was just goofing around, like usual, and didn't write anything serious at all. But as we started to hang out more I got more and more curious about it, he always took such great care of the book and never let anyone else touch it. When he was writing, he was so into it that he seemed to forget everything around him. At one point I looked over his shoulder, and I remember him not noticing until I'd read what he'd been writing for the past hour. We'd decided to meet up in the cafeteria and when he was late I figured I would find him in the library. Right then he was writing a story about a guy realizing he was in love with a girl, a girl with chestnut hair that smelled of cherries, a girl with hazel eyes constantly changing with the lights reflected in them, a girl with a laugh that made his whole world brighter every time it was sounded thanks to him," Kate recalls his words and can't help but feel those same feelings for him she did back then.

"Wow," Lily says and brings Kate back to the now, and it has her blushing because she's not allowed herself to think back like this in forever. "Is that when you got together?"

Kate bites her lower lip. "Yeah, right after him scolding me for reading his most private thoughts." She takes a deep breath and shakes her head. "We should get to sleep."

"Oh, can't you tell me more, please mom?" Lily asks as she snuggles closer again.

"Not right now sweetie," Kate says as she feels her heart ache. She really does miss those days. "I-ah, if I talk more about him I-ah," she can't finish the sentence, feels her eyes watering as she once again regrets her young decisions.

"Okay," her daughter says and raises to take her hand and drag her towards the bathroom where both of them start brushing their teeth.

To Kate's surprise her daughter doesn't say much, but she guesses she's gotten enough information to think about for a while. It isn't until she's tucking her in that she's opening her mouth again.

"Hey mom?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you miss him?"

Her voice is careful and her eyes look up at her with caution, as if she's afraid the question is too much for Kate, but it's also too important not to ask. Kate lets her fingers push away a few strands of hair from her daughter's cheek and bends down to kiss her forehead.

"Sometimes," she whispers before she raises and wishes her daughter a good night.

"Night mom," Lily yawns and snuggles into her pillow, which is Kate's cue to leave.

All this talk about him has her shaking once she gets back to her own bedroom. She remembers so many times when Lily had just been born and she was strolling around in their park hoping to run into him and being confronted by him about the little girl in her stroller. And then she'd found out he was being published and her wish to be confronted by him faded, if he knew he'd leave his career for her, and that was nothing she'd want. Not when he was such a great writer.

Kate walks into her closet, as far as she can go and sits on her knees to get out the box she hasn't looked at in years. It is filled with memories, letters, pictures, along with that charm she'd gotten on her birthday. The charm was of the infinity sign, a silent promise from him that he'd be there with her always. She sighs. Always. Without any more thought to it she puts everything back in the box and hides it once again.


A/N: Hope you enjoyed it, now I should go back to writing some more. Until next time, xxxx