Author's Note: More of the weekend in the Hamptons.

The Best-Laid Plans

Chapter 10

Kate awoke abruptly when a stray shaft of sunlight snuck between the blinds and landed on her face. She turned her face away, reluctant to wake up fully, but it was too late and she blinked her eyes open, for a moment disoriented before she remembered she was in Castle's house at the Hamptons.

Remembered, too, the dream she'd been having and jerked fully awake in the flare of dismay, almost panic. Oh god. She might have almost been relieved because for the first time in days, she hadn't had an erotic dream about Castle, which was a little surprising because sexy dreams about Castle had been a constant feature of all her nights since their first time. But the dream she'd had instead had been rather worse than a sex dream because it hadn't been about physical lust but about emotions. In her dream, she'd been in Castle's arms, nestled against his shoulders and chest, feeling his heart beating beneath her ear, and he had just held her. Held her as if… well, as if she belonged in his arms, with him, and in her dream, she'd been comfortable, more than comfortable even, had been happy, felt safe and warm and sheltered.

And it was all nonsense, she told herself firmly, her subconscious mind playing tricks on her. She was fine on her own, didn't need anyone else to take care of her. It would be nice to be able to be held, to have a real relationship–but it would be nice to have a unicorn too, she cut off any wistfulness. And she wasn't the kind of person who spent her time wishing for things that couldn't be.

She turned her head to look at the clock to see that it was still early, just a little after seven. There was no need for her to be awake this early but she didn't want to go back to sleep either, didn't trust her own dreams anyway. So she might as well get up, enjoy a quiet morning in a beautiful setting.

After finishing her morning ablutions, Kate padded quietly downstairs, noting that there wasn't even a hint that either Castle or Alexis were stirring yet, unsurprisingly, since Castle had said they liked to sleep in while out here.

Once downstairs, she was briefly distracted by the beauty of the ocean as it was clearly shaping up to be another picture-perfect day, the sky a clear blue with only a few fluffy clouds, the sun sparkling off the water. The beach was deserted at this hour, although she noticed a couple joggers, clearly getting in a morning workout. She could imagine waking up and going for a morning run herself on some future visits before she pulled herself up short. She shouldn't be assuming there would be any future visits.

She turned towards the kitchen and coffee. She found the coffee beans in the second cupboard she tried and then was ready to tackle Castle's coffee machine. Tackling it proved to be a more accurate term than she'd expected because the machine was some high-end, obviously expensive, machine that no doubt produced very good coffee, if one were an engineer and could figure out how to make the damn thing work. She scowled at the machine, to no effect, and jabbed at a few more buttons crossly, before, after some combination she could not remember, the machine appeared to click into gear. She beamed, just barely refraining from punching the air in triumph, and after watching the machine for another minute or so to confirm it really did seem to be doing its thing, she retreated into the library to wait.

She hadn't really had a chance to look closely at the room before and she couldn't help but be curious about it because, aside from the master bedroom, or so she assumed, it was probably the one space in the house that was more purely for Castle's use, the decor more masculine in tone than in the rest of the house.

A large desk was the clear focal point of the room, Castle's computer on top along with a few notebooks. She valiantly resisted the temptation to peer at even the first page of the notepad on the desk, only noted that the desk featured a couple framed pictures, all starring Alexis at various ages, one that made her smile showing Castle standing with a pint-sized Alexis perched on his shoulders and another of Alexis when she looked to be about 10 or so, wearing a swimsuit and striking a pose by the pool, with Martha in the background, seated on one of the pool chairs. And another one, clearly the most recent, made something in her chest feel a little tight for no reason she could identify, also of Castle and Alexis, with him squeezing Alexis to him, Alexis smiling so wide her eyes were scrunched closed and Castle, also with his eyes closed but the look on his face was one of so much love that even seeing it in a picture felt almost intrusive.

And Kate found herself remembering Kyra, abruptly, remembering the look on Castle's face when he'd seen her, his tone when he'd called Kyra 'the one that got away,' the picture of the way he'd held Kyra when he kissed her. Castle had loved Kyra all those years ago, a real love, and she couldn't help but wonder if it had been hurt over Kyra that had started to sour Castle on relationships, only to become much worse after whatever had happened with Meredith and Gina. She hadn't considered it in such a light before but she wondered now if Castle's playboy attitude was a defense mechanism. Keeping relationships shallow was a good way to avoid being hurt, as she herself was all too aware.

She pushed aside the thought. The reason why wouldn't change the reality.

She turned away to focus on the bookshelves lining the walls instead. Unsurprisingly, Castle had an extensive collection of mysteries, not just modern ones like Patterson, Cannell, Rhys Bowen, and Anne Perry, but also classics like Wilkie Collins and Agatha Christie and other old-school mysteries, Dorothy Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, Dashiell Hammett. But his library wasn't only mysteries either, contained a decent selection of nonfiction and all kinds of other fiction, including a collection of children's and YA books, which, knowing Castle, were probably not all for Alexis's benefit.

Of course, she'd already known that Castle was well-read but even so, the breadth of his library still surprised her a little. His being well-read was one of the things she appreciated about him and it occurred to her that her dad would like Castle too.

After a moment's thought, Kate settled on one of Ellis Peters' Inspector Felse mysteries, and wandered back into the kitchen to find to her delight that the coffee had finished brewing. She fixed herself a cup and then thought she may as well take advantage of being in the Hamptons by taking both book and coffee outside.

There was still a morning chill in the air at that hour so she also grabbed a light throw from the living room and then settled herself onto one of the deck chairs to enjoy her coffee and her book in decadent fashion, considering the setting.

She was on her second cup of coffee when she heard the sound of the French doors opening behind her and looked up to see Castle, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and tried to ignore the little leap of her stupid, traitorous heart at the sight of him. "Morning, Castle."

"Morning, Beckett. I see you've made yourself right at home."

She felt some color creep into her cheeks. She wasn't sure but there seemed an odd intonation in his voice, something in his expression, that she couldn't read. "I hope you don't mind," she managed.

He grinned, whatever she'd seen or thought she'd seen in his expression clearing. "Of course I don't mind. You're welcome to help yourself to anything. Anyway, I know how you are before you get your coffee and I'd rather not deal with that monster," he faked a shudder.

She threw him a mock glare. "I'm not a monster before my coffee, thank you. I'm just not at my best," she corrected with a show of hauteur.

"Not at your best, nice euphemism," he teased.

"Oh, shut up." As repartee went, it was not her best effort and Castle smirked.

"What time is it anyway?" she hurriedly asked, because she hadn't bothered to put her dad's watch on this morning, figuring there was little point if they were going to be spending the day by the pool, as she assumed they were.

"About a quarter after 9. How long have you been up?"

"Just a little over an hour." She closed her book and set it aside automatically and he glanced down at the cover.

"Nice choice," he approved. "Don't let me interrupt."

"It's okay. I have read it before so it's not like I don't know what happens. I can come back inside now," she offered.

He waved a hand at her. "No, don't bother. I'll just grab my own coffee and join you outside. Might as well take advantage of being here."

He suited action to the words and disappeared inside only to reappear in a couple minutes, a mug in his hand, before joining her on one of the other deck chairs, letting out a satisfied little sigh as he relaxed into his chair.

"It really is beautiful," she observed after a long minute. "I can see why you love it out here."

"Yeah, this might be my favorite part of being out here. The sound of the ocean, the privacy. Out here, there are other celebrities, bigger names, so people don't really care who I am so I can just be me, spend time with Alexis. Enjoy the peace and the serenity."

It was, for once, a rather modest thing for Castle to say but she understood and while his house wasn't small by anyone's standards, even she could see that it wasn't the largest or grandest of the houses along this stretch. "Peace and serenity are certainly worth spending millions on."

"If that's what a person wants, then yes," he agreed, his tone pensive. "I know quite a few people out here who bought their houses just as a status symbol and spend their time showing the house off to as many people as possible. Having a lot of money doesn't change a person, just frees them to be more who they really are."

"My mom used to say that money magnifies," she found herself saying.

She sensed his spike of interest at the mention of her mom, as usual, although he didn't react outwardly. "That's a good way of putting it," he went on carefully.

"So what would you say your money magnified about you?" she asked, somewhat abruptly, aware it was a rather personal inquiry but wanting to move on from the subject of her mom.

He flashed a quick smile. "My inner child."

She huffed a small laugh at that. "No surprise there."

He sobered. "But really, what I learned is that what I actually wanted was just freedom–freedom to spend time with Alexis, freedom to write. The money just allows me to live life on my own terms."

"I can understand that. You sound like a grown-up," she added teasingly.

He laughed. "Well, not entirely, I think you know me too well for that."

She grinned. "I guess I do. I'm surprised you don't spend more time out here," she went on after a moment. He could, after all, write anywhere.

He slanted a look at her. "Nah, a month or two in the summer and occasional weekends throughout the year are enough. As much as I love it out here, I love it in the City too, the energy of it, all the people with their stories."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. But it is nice to have a place like this to retreat from the City for a while."

He made an expansive gesture with one hand. "You're welcome anytime. Mi casa es su casa."

There was something in his tone that made her cheeks heat and she hurriedly looked away from him, back out over the water. "Thanks but my dad has a cabin upstate that's where I usually go when I want to get out of the city. He's actually there this weekend."

"That sounds nice too."

They were quiet for a while and Kate was a little surprised at how companionable the silence was as they both stared out over the beach and the water beyond. He really could be, when he was actually quiet, restful company, even if the word seemed surprising and hardly fitting to describe Castle, and yet somehow, it was true.

After a little while, he stirred. "I'm going to go get another cup of coffee. Want one?"

"Oh, sure, thanks."

He duly collected both their mugs, only to return a few minutes later with both mugs refilled.

She accepted hers with a faint murmur of thanks while he settled back on his chair.

"Say, Beckett," he began after a minute, "I don't know if Alexis mentioned it but I usually get semi-legal fireworks–"

"Semi-legal?" she repeated, raising her eyebrows at him.

He had the grace to look a little sheepish. "Okay, so maybe they're not technically legal. Anyway, in deference to your cop sensibilities, I was thinking instead we could just watch the legal fireworks that the town puts on tonight."

"My cop sensibilities thank you," she told him rather dryly. "And that sounds like fun."

His expression lit up with his usual enthusiasm. "Great. And tonight, I was going to fire up the grill, do the quintessential American summer thing, burgers, corn on the cob, followed by s'mores as we watch the fireworks."

"Look at you, Castle, planning ahead and all. How very adult of you," she quipped.

He grinned. "I have my moments."

"Very few of them."

He pretended to fall back against his chair, clutching his chest melodramatically. "You would insult me when I'm going out of my way to be a good host? I'm wounded, Detective."

"You'll get over it," she advised dryly. "If I've learned anything about you, it's that you're incorrigible."

"Good word and thank you, I'll take that as a compliment."

"You would."

He opened his mouth to respond but before he could, the door opened behind them and they both turned to greet Alexis.

"Good morning, Dad. Kate, did you sleep well?"

"Morning and yes, thanks, I did."

"Morning, sleepyhead. I was wondering when you were finally going to grace us with your presence," was Castle's greeting.

Alexis made a face at him. "It's not that late, Dad."

Castle laughed as he stood up and slung an arm around his daughter's shoulders, dropping a kiss to her hair. "Sure, pumpkin. Now, I was thinking, how about we go to the Sand Dollar for brunch? What do you think?"

Alexis brightened. "Oh, yes, let's do that!" She turned to Kate. "The Sand Dollar is a cafe in town. It's super-cute but more importantly, it has a great brunch."

"With an endorsement like that, how can I say no?" Kate agreed.

Castle drove them into town for brunch, in his Mercedes. She wasn't sure why she was surprised to learn he had a Mercedes but she supposed it made sense he would need a more practical car for everyday use than the Ferrari, especially with Alexis around.

The Sand Dollar was, as Alexix had said, a cute cafe, overlooking the water, with a patio area for outdoor dining as well as indoor dining. And judging from how busy it was, Alexis's words about the quality of the food appeared to be borne out as well.

They were seated at a table outside and Alexis automatically took a seat across from Castle leaving Kate to sit next to Alexis. Castle's eyes were soft, a faint smile curving his lips as he viewed the two of them across the table from him and Kate felt an absurd little flutter inside her chest before she could stamp it out. Stupid, to be doing it again, reacting to an expression that was for Alexis and not her.

She hurriedly bent her head over the menu. "Do you have any recommendations, Alexis?"

"Oh, pretty much everything I've tried here has been good," the girl assured her blithely. "Wouldn't you agree, Dad?"

"As usual, you're right, daughter. But if you want a specific recommendation, their waffles are great."

Their server returned with glasses of water and took their drink orders, Alexis ordering orange juice while Kate followed Castle's suggestion and ordered a mimosa, while he asked for a bloody Mary.

Their server returned with their drinks after a few minutes and then took their orders, with Alexis ordering the waffles, Castle pancakes, and Kate the smoked salmon eggs benedict.

Once the server left again, Alexis turned to Kate. "Kate, I wanted to ask, you went to Stanford, right? Did you like it there?"

She had rather wondered if Alexis had wanted her to join them this weekend to talk about colleges and it appeared she'd been right. "I loved it," she answered honestly, a smile curving her lips at memories of Nebula 9 marathons, ice cream socials, even some of the classes and discussions with the professors.

"What made you decide to go there for college, if you don't mind me asking?"

Kate sobered, thinking back, even as she felt a pinch of pain at some of the memories. "Well, at the time, I wanted to get away from home and thought going far away would be my chance to finally be independent, the real adult I thought I already was," she added with wry humor at her own youthful silliness. How young she'd been–and how innocent, with no idea just how soon her world was going to be ripped apart and how much of a child she would abruptly feel like when it did.

"Rebel Becks," Castle commented with a small smirk and lift of his eyebrows.

She narrowed her eyes at him, even as she was relieved at his distraction pulling her out of her thoughts. "Maddie talks too much."

Alexis laughed a little. "Were you really a rebel, Kate? That's hard for me to imagine."

Kate laughed a little as well. "Well, believe it, I was a handful as a teenager. To this day, my dad swears he went gray because of my teenage years."

"And you are not to take that as encouragement," Castle pointed a mock stern finger at Alexis. "I'll have you know I'm far too young to be going gray so you shouldn't try to hurry the process."

Alexis stuck her tongue out at him. "I think you should grow up a little faster," she teased.

"He does act like a 10-year-old a lot of the time," Kate agreed, exchanging grins with Alexis.

Castle huffed. "Do not."

"Do too," Alexis smirked as she baited him.

"Do not."

"We rest our case," Kate cut off this puerile exchange and laughed along with Alexis as Castle folded his arms across his chest in a pose of exaggerated offense.

The teen turned back to Kate, sobering again. "So, do you think it was good to go far away for college?"

Kate considered, ignoring Castle making faces across the table, no doubt to persuade her into telling Alexis she should stay close to home for college. "I do think so. College is the time to spread your wings, explore, and be adventurous. But," she added after a moment, taking some pity on Castle, who looked on the verge of having a coronary, "there's no right or wrong about going far away or staying closer to home for college. Any college is going to be a big change from high school and will provide plenty of opportunities to try new things and meet different kinds of people as long as you're open to it and take advantage of the opportunities."

The girl looked pensive as she nodded slowly. "That makes sense. It's one reason I think this summer program will be good too. It's close but still just far enough away to make it feel different, I think, so it'll be a nice test run."

"Just remember you're still in high school and not old enough to be doing all the crazy stuff college kids do," Castle inserted.

Alexis gave him a look. "Dad, this is me you're talking to."

Kate laughed. "She has a point, Castle. I'm sure Alexis has better judgment than you did at her age and possibly even now."

"Thank you, Kate," Alexis flashed a smile at her.

Their conversation was interrupted as the server returned with their food and they all started to eat. Alexis had been right; the food was very good. Kate thought this might be one of the best hollandaise sauces she'd had in a while.

Conversation was desultory and light as they ate, not returning to the subject of colleges.

They were almost done with their food when a voice exclaimed, "Oh my god, you're Richard Castle, aren't you?"

They all looked up, Castle's lips twisting in a wry grimace for a fleeting second, and Kate remembered what he'd said just that morning about mostly being left alone out here. Apparently, he'd jinxed himself.

She was somewhat less amused at the sight of his fan, a young blond woman in a rather skimpy sundress who was hurrying towards their table.

Castle automatically stood up to greet her when she arrived. "Guilty as charged, I'm afraid. And you are?"

The woman clasped his hand a little too fervently for it to be a regular handshake. "I'm Tricia and I swear you're my absolute favorite author! I could hardly believe it when I realized it was really you. I've read all your books."

Castle managed to retrieve his hand, even as he kept a polite smile on his face. "Well, thank you, that's always nice to hear. Tricia, this is my daughter, Alexis, and a friend of ours, Kate Beckett."

Kate pasted on a small polite smile as she murmured a "hello," but her effort turned out to be entirely unnecessary.

"Hi," Tricia addressed somewhere in between Kate and Alexis before she returned her attention to Castle. "Oh, your daughter is adorable!"

Kate blinked. Adorable, to describe a teenager? That seemed a little much. Especially considering Tricia appeared barely a handful of years older than Alexis as it was.

She glanced at Alexis to see the girl had smiled politely. "Thank you. It's nice to meet you," she responded with almost saccharine sweetness, but her hand moved, falling below the table and Kate automatically glanced down, noted that the girl had crossed her fingers. Kate sternly suppressed a laugh.

Not that it mattered as Tricia's attention didn't stay on Alexis for long, her eyes immediately returning to Castle. "I'm here with some girlfriends of mine and they would love to meet you too, if you don't mind."

"It would be my pleasure," Castle assured smoothly and then glanced down at his daughter and Kate, his lips twisting a little, in apology, she thought, but all he said was, "Excuse me for a moment."

He dutifully trailed after Tricia who led him to a table across the way where two other young women were sitting and Kate caught one of them straightening up, a position that she couldn't help but note, made the woman's chest that much more prominent, while the other automatically lifted a hand to her hair.

Well, bully for Castle, to run into three such eager fans, all so young and pretty, she thought sourly, trying to ignore the strange tightness inside her chest as Castle greeted them all.

She pulled her eyes away, told herself she didn't care what Castle did, didn't need to watch to see if he was flirting. It wasn't as if they were in a relationship, he was a free agent, she had no claims to him, and she didn't care. But for all that, her eyes returned to Castle of their own volition. He wasn't flirting, as far as she could see, but he was smiling. Of course he had to smile to be polite, she told herself–and it shouldn't matter to her anyway. Was she imagining it or did his smile look a little… different, not the smile she was used to seeing? And then stomped down on the little tendril of something like hope that maybe he was just faking, being polite.

But for all her attempts to tell herself she didn't care, she couldn't quite help the little twist of something in her chest when she saw Tricia laugh at something Castle said and worse, lift a flirtatious hand to touch Castle's chest briefly. She was–oh shit–jealous, she couldn't seem to help it and couldn't deny it either. Oh damn.

"Poor Dad," Alexis commented quietly.

The comment, the rather strange sentiment, was enough to make Kate hurriedly turn to look at the girl. "Why do you say that? He doesn't usually mind when people recognize him." She left unsaid that as far as she knew, Castle all but basked in the flattery of his female fans. He'd certainly appeared to, at both of the book launch parties she'd been to.

"Oh, he's good with his fans, always says that since they make it possible for him to keep on writing and make a living at it, they have a right to some of his time and attention. But he doesn't like it when fans interrupt him when he's with me and usually, when we're out here, we're not interrupted."

"Yeah, he did say something about that," Kate agreed a little absently, her eyes again pulled back to Castle as if he exerted a sort of magnetic pull. One of Tricia's friends was now twirling her hair as she leaned towards Castle. "Well, your dad doesn't seem like he's suffering at all," she noted and then could have kicked herself at the edge that snuck into her tone. Way to sound indifferent.

She caught Alexis's glance at her and forced herself to meet it with a small smile.

"Dad puts on a good show but he's not really that guy," Alexis told her, her tone changing slightly on the last two words.

For once, Kate decided playing dumb was the better part of discretion. "What guy? I'm not sure what you mean."

Thankfully, the girl appeared to accept this at face value. "Oh, you know, the Page Six guy, the one with a woman on each arm," she added with a small grimace. "He's not really that guy." She paused and then went on with a rather rueful look, "Or rather, he can be that guy but it's not really him, it's more like a role he plays. In some ways, Grams isn't the only actor in the family."

Of course, his daughter would defend him but in spite of that, Kate couldn't dismiss Alexis's words as just an example of his daughter viewing him through rose-colored glasses. For one thing, Alexis was a smart, sensible girl and she also had to be the person who knew Castle best. Even if Kate assumed that Castle would keep his daughter shielded from that part of his life, Alexis wasn't that young anymore to be that innocent and nothing Kate knew of Castle indicated that he was capable of such a sustained pretense, not in front of his own family.

She turned to look towards Castle again to see that he had managed to extricate himself from Tricia and her friends and was returning to their table. His eyes met hers and brightened and Kate abruptly pulled her eyes away, turned back to Alexis.

"I guess you're right," she acknowledged slowly, not quite certainly. Was Alexis right? She tried to believe it was only a daughter's understandable bias but found she couldn't convince herself of that. Even after Ellie Monroe, even with his divorces, she was starting to suspect that the playboy party animal wasn't really him. Oh, he liked women and she had no doubt had been with his fair share of them–he was too good in bed not to be experienced–but for all that, he wasn't shallow and he wasn't really that much of a celebrity playboy. After all, in the last year since they'd started working together, he hadn't partied much at all aside from the Halloween party at his home. Instead, he had been more than willing to spend a lot of evenings in the not-at-all glamorous precinct and when he wasn't, had been at home with his daughter. Certainly, she couldn't imagine that any of the other men who'd made the Ledger's Most Eligible Bachelors list would willingly spend so much time in a grubby police precinct and being helpful enough to earn the respect of cops.

She'd wondered at the contradictions in his character, the playboy man about town and the devoted family man, and now she thought maybe it wasn't so much a contradiction but rather, as Alexis said, that he was really the devoted family man and the playboy party-goer was just a role he played. For fun, for publicity, maybe, as she'd speculated earlier, as a defense mechanism, but whatever the case, it was an act.

"Sorry about that," Castle apologized as he resumed his seat. He made a small face. "I swear that sort of thing usually doesn't happen out here."

"You can hardly be rude to your fans," Kate agreed equably.

Castle almost visibly relaxed at her easy acceptance of his having to greet Tricia and her friends.

"At least they seemed nice," Alexis offered diplomatically.

Castle gave her a wry look. "That's one way of putting it. I would have gone for silly, but sure."

Kate sternly suppressed the little spurt of pleasure at Castle's apparent indifference to them. She shouldn't care and there was no reason to think that Castle's lack of interest in Tricia and her friends had anything to do with Kate at all.

Alexis grinned but only scolded mildly, "Be nice, Dad."

He faked surprise. "I'm always nice!"

"Sure you are," Alexis responded dryly in a tone of someone indulging a small child.

Kate couldn't help but laugh.

But any further reaction from Castle was forestalled as the server returned to clear away their plates and ask if they wanted anything else.

Castle looked inquiringly at both Kate and Alexis but accepted their demurrals to assure the server they were fine and ready for the check.

Kate volunteered to get the check but was firmly refused by Castle, ably seconded by Alexis, who sounded horrified at the mere thought that Kate might try to pay for their brunch. "Well, thank you for brunch," Kate gave in. She hadn't really expected Castle would allow her to pay; he never did. "It was delicious."

"I'm glad you liked it."

Something in his smile made her cheeks flush, her stupid traitorous heart flip, and she hurriedly turned to Alexis. "So, what do you think we should do next?"

"Why don't we walk around downtown for a bit? There are some cute little stores and stuff."

"As always, daughter, you're brilliant," Castle seconded her suggestion.

"That sounds good to me," Kate agreed.

Castle paid the bill and then made a show of offering an arm each to Alexis and then to Kate in an exaggerated courtly gesture. "Well, then, shall we, ladies?"

Alexis laughed as she linked her arm with his and after a moment's hesitation, Kate placed a hand on his arm. Oh, why the hell not? It was just for fun, going along with Castle's playful show of gallantry so as not to be a spoilsport.

She pretended not to notice the momentary tension in his arm. She had surprised him by putting her hand on his arm.

She remembered what Alexis had said about Castle not really being 'that guy,' the one with a woman on each arm, and then bit back a laugh as it occurred to her that Castle did have a woman on each arm now, just not like that.

And if in some small part of her, she allowed herself to pretend for a moment that the picture they made right now wasn't just a facade, that she belonged there at Castle's side and had the right to claim his arm–well, no one needed to know that. Just a brief, silly little daydream that she would never admit out loud and where was the harm in that?

~To be continued…~

A/N 2: Thank you, as always, for reading and reviewing!