Care Package

Kate shrugged inside her leather jacket, felt it drop crookedly over her shoulders. She had to shift the package from one hand to the other and readjust her sleeves, then get the jacket squared up, and the whole time she kept mounting the old wooden steps of the dorm and thinking it was so very stupid to have come.

But it was too late now.

Why hadn't Castle stopped her?

This was going to be awkward.

Well, if they weren't together, she'd do it. She'd intended to do it before. So why not now?

Kate came to the middle of the hall, faintly intimidated by the stone and cold feel of the place, the vibe of old money and prestigious people that seemed to seep out of the woodwork.

Alexis couldn't possibly be comfortable making this long, dark walk every morning to class.

That thought forced her hand against the door, her fist accidentally thudding down in the police knock that frightened even the peaceable. She winced but Alexis answered the door immediately.

That guilty what have I done look transformed to surprise. "Detective Beckett!" Alexis tilted her head as if she were looking for someone just past Kate.

Beckett stalled out, just for a moment, but jumped in with a smile and waved her hand back in the direction of the stairs. "Your dad's not with me. He's actually supposed to be groveling at Captain Gates's feet, presenting her with a set of new, vintage-"

At Alexis's confusion, Kate stopped, shook her head.

"Anyway. Your dad said that he told you?" Kate paused but got no feedback from the girl. "That we were together."

"Oh, yeah," Alexis said, shrugging as if that was old news. "He told me."

"Oh. Good. Well. I just thought I'd come by and see-"

"Hey, don't worry," Alexis interrupted, and now her shrug was elaborate, affected; she shifted backwards into her dorm room and away from Kate. "No big deal. I mean, I don't even live there, so don't worry about me."

Kate paused, her hand still fisted in the plastic bag that held the package, knocked a little off course by that. And then she realized her instinct had been right all along, and she strode forward into the room, shutting the door behind her.

Alexis jumped and turned to face her. Kate set the bag in the floor; she felt like she needed her hands free for this.

"Alexis, I didn't come here to ask. . .permission," Kate finished slowly. "I came by to see your dorm room, how you were settling in, and. . .well, to give you your graduation present. Meant to give it to you months ago, but I. . .got distracted."

Alexis lifted startled eyes to Kate, a laugh puffing out of her chest seemingly without her control. She clapped a hand over her mouth and wrinkled her nose, shaking her head.

"Ew. You got distracted by my dad."

Kate pressed her lips together in a smile, only raised an eyebrow.

Alexis laughed at that, rolling her eyes, and Kate bent to retrieve the bag. She handed it over to the girl, waiting until she took it, and watched as Alexis let the plastic fall to the floor so she was just holding the package.

"What's. . .in it?" Alexis asked, lifting questioning eyes to Kate.

It was just a cardboard box, taped shut with plastic packing tape, Alexis's name addressed on the front.

"You can open it later and see," Kate said. "But the best part of freshman year - or well, the thing I looked forward to the most? Care packages from home. My parents sent me one a month that whole first semester. Cookies, brownies - those usually didn't survive the trip - stickers my dad had found, still thinking I was thirteen, just stupid stuff that meant they'd been thinking about me-"

Alexis's grin was wide, her arms cradling the box.

Kate went on. "Just - pieces of my family. Things I missed, things you can't get. And yeah, I know you're five miles from home, but when I thought of this, I still didn't know where you were going." She gave Alexis a quick smile. "But then I couldn't sneak your address without your dad finding out what I was doing. And it's way more fun to tease him with what he doesn't know."

"Dad doesn't know you did this?"

"Well, he knows I was making you a care package, but I wouldn't tell him what's in it. Let him come up with his own ideas."

Alexis was chewing on her lower lip as she stared down at the box. Beckett squeezed her hands into fists and knew - for sure this time - this might have been a terrible idea. It'd been her plan all along to just throw this together and give it to Alexis at or around graduation, make her move it along with all her stuff or leave it at home, whatever she wanted to do. Kate just hadn't known what to get an eighteen year old whose father could give her everything. This just seemed. . .meaningful as well as easy.

She'd even rifled through the boxes left at the foot of the stairs the other day, pulled out a couple of things while Castle was in the bathroom. She'd swiped one of his handkerchiefs and dipped the corner in his cologne - she remembered wishing desperately for one of her father's hard hugs and the smell of him around her. And Castle had a set of pens he raved about; she'd taken one of those too.

And of course, the stupid unicorn and rainbow stickers. A few other silly things. Just stuff.

Kate shoved her hands into her pockets and sighed.

"Look, don't open it until you want to. Okay, Alexis? Just. . .wait until that day you come back to the dorm and you can't get any privacy anywhere and you want to run back to the loft but you know you'd look like such a baby or a brat if you did, and you just want - something of home."

Kate shrugged, throat closing up, because she remembered now that her mom had said the same to her - all of this - that the care packages from home were stupid, yes, and all the cookies smashed into tiny crumbs, she'd known that too, and Katie was too old for stickers and cat notebooks and notes in her lunchbox, but that she'd need it. She'd want it one day.

And she had.

She'd ached for those notes and stickers and crumbs for the rest of her life since that Christmas, but her mailbox would always be empty.

This was a really terribly bad idea.

"Your mom made you these - these boxes?" Alexis said suddenly. "Care packages."

Kate froze, but the girl was already lifting her gaze to cut straight through Kate, all soft-hearted Castle, and she could do nothing but stand there and take it. And hurt for her.

Because now she realized what had been prodding her at the girl's graduation, what had niggled at her at the beginning of the summer, and tried to capture her attention this past week-

Alexis's mother hadn't shown up.

For any of it.

Oh, Alexis.

"I'm sorry about your mom."

And they both said it, exactly at the same time, for entirely different but so similar reasons.

Kate cracked first, a wide smile that she couldn't help, not when it was a Castle standing there apologetic, and not when it was half her fault to begin with, as usual. She reached out and hooked her arm around Alexis's shoulders, pulled her in for a side-hug, squeezing for an instant before letting her go.

"Yeah. Well. We won't mention it."

"I really appreciate this," Alexis said, holding the box close for an instant before putting it reverently on her bed. Kate backed away, heading for the door, but she turned at the last second.

"You know, feel free to throw out the stupid stickers," Kate said, giving her a smile as she reached for the door knob.

Alexis laughed. "Yeah. But the cookies better have survived the trip."

Kate smirked and opened the door, still couldn't make her feet move. "Well, you'll just have to wait and see." She turned, finally able to escape, but another thought occurred to her. "Oh, and Alexis?"

The girl lifted both eyebrows, her hand already reaching for the door in preparation of closing it after Kate.

"Your room looks great. I like all the orange and pink."

Alexis gave her a beaming smile, the brightest Kate had seen yet, and glanced back over her handiwork. "It took all day to get it right."

"You did good." And as Beckett left, she felt Alexis at her back, standing in the doorway watching her leave.

"Thanks, Kate."

"I was right," she said softly to him, finding him in the quad just down the sidewalk from Alexis's dorm. He was sitting on a stone bench, playing with his phone, and when she came up on him, she couldn't help slipping her fingers through his hair and pressing him into her hip for an embrace.

Castle slid his hand to her back and kept her there, just an instant longer, his cheek against her abdomen, before letting her go.

"Oh yeah? Which part?"

"I had to do that alone."

"Was it all that scary?" His lips twitched and he stood up from the bench.

"I don't know. Why don't you tell me if Gates was all that scary?"

He made a face, comical but also half-serious, and she bit on her lip to keep from laughing.

"Not funny, Beckett. Not even the replacements were good enough."

"I told you. That doll was hers from childhood. You can't replace that stuff." She nudged his hip to get him moving, knowing by the list in his body that he wanted to go see his daughter. "Money can't get you out of all the consequences, Castle."

"Sure it can. It has so far."

She snorted and pushed on him. "No. Back to the loft. You're not gonna burst in on her now."

"But she's been there all week. Alone."

"She's got her room mate - I saw her in the hall. And friends. And freshman mixers. And parties-"

"You mean study groups. Right, Beckett? You mean study groups and library sessions and-"

"Hot Spanish tutors."

"You are cruel," he growled, and twisted on the sidewalk to move past her. "And she's not taking Spanish; it's French. So there."

She effortlessly blocked him, which was how she knew he wasn't serious, and turned him back around, brushing her hand over his ass as he moved.

He chuckled and glanced back at her, that deep, eye-crinkling smile on his face. Not quite what she was hoping to inspire - looking for that leer, or the flare of lust in his eyes - but she'd take his amusement and happiness.

"Why, Beckett. I do believe you groped me in public."

"I swatted."

"Groped."

"Lightly palmed. Like a handshake. Only. . ."

He huffed a laugh at that, more serious about it now, and reached out to snag her by the wrist. His thumb stroked the soft skin over her veins and then down into her palm, erotic in a way she'd never thought possible.

"Castle," she murmured, lifting her eyes to meet his.

And she didn't even have to say it.

"Thank you for checking in on my daughter so I didn't have to," he murmured.

"That's what partners are for," she answered, her throat thick with all the things deepening in his eyes. His need to look after his daughter, his soft heart, the gratitude directed at Kate and the mix of love as he regarded her. His thumb swiped up over the back of her hand and he leaned, his mouth hovering over hers.

Sometimes, Rick Castle could be so very enchanting.

"Ah, Kate." His warm breath skirted her lips. "Now I've got a care package for you."

And then he had to ruin it.