Disclaimer: They aren't mine and I'm actually happy with the person that owns them.

A/N: Not sure where this second part came from but I hope you enjoy it...Thank you for the reviews and follows on the last chapter. I'm not a writer at all so knowing that there are people who like what I do manage to get out is amazing. Please forgive the mistakes I've made it's 3 am and I have no beta.

One-hundred-fifty-six…That's how many Tuesdays pass when she finally gives up. She gives up and goes to see him.

She never thought time could pass so quickly and yet so slowly at the same time. That time without him would pass at all…without his smile bright and shining when directed at her, his eyes so blue and clear like crystals the color of the ocean on a sunny summer day. But it has passed and the pain may sometimes be just a dull ache but it's there just the same…she's different than she was back then… three years without him, of course she is.

Time has changed her just as much as he did.

Tuesday sixteen had left her more broken than the first one had. The small promise that she thought she had of seeing him again in that moment and then to have it taken away from her so quickly was crushing.

Her life as it had been would never be as it once was…that's what Tuesday sixteen had made her realize.

She had started marking her life by Tuesdays…she knew just after Tuesday six. Tuesday eight made it even harder to disregard. She had made living in denial into an art form by Tuesday eleven.

Lying in that bed after the sixteenth Tuesday, the tears she had refused to let fall beginning to escape, the denial she had lived in for the past weeks had finally came to an end.

The slight flutter she felt caused her heart to skip. It was quick but there just the same. A quick flutter and she knew she had to pull herself out…he wasn't there to do it for her this time.

She had written off the sickness that had forced her to her knees in front of the toilet that week of the sixth Tuesday to the late night visit to the Chinese place on the corner. She had written off her want to dip her fries into her chocolate milkshake at Remy's on something she'd once seen him do, and blamed the tightness in her jeans on her lack of time in the precinct gym.

But that flutter after Tuesday sixteen had changed her.

Was going to change her much like he had.

Tuesday seventeen and she was sitting in an office ready for the confirmation she really didn't need.

A formality.

Tuesday thirty she painted the guest room green…the color of growth…Life.

Life.

Tuesday thirty-seven she held it in her arms.

The life they had made together, the life that was a perfect mix of her an him…was hers now, her alone...His eyes were blue.

He was born on a Tuesday.

He rescued her, saved her from what she was sinking into. He changed her.

Martha stops by once every week, Alexis moves back in and Kate wouldn't want it any other way.

As happy as her son makes her, that is how sad knowing Castle will never know this life makes her.

Eighty-nine Tuesdays…her son is a year old and he is her reason for being.

Much like his father had been.

She's not on the streets anymore…she won't risk it. She misses it. She doesn't miss it enough to chance leaving her son without his only parent.

Her son changed her.

The boys visit every now and again. It hurts more when they're all together…because they will never really be all together.

Alexis meets someone somewhere around Tuesday one-hundred-twelve and it's serious. By Tuesday one-fifty-five they're married. Alexis had always been different from Kate. Losing her mother had made her build walls; the loss of Castle had made Alexis live a life more open and unafraid than Kate could have ever done.

It's Tuesday one-hundred-fifty-six. Three years now and the loft quiet again.

Alexis has moved her things and there's a box she left on the desk inside Castle's office. The past week's events have kept her from opening it but the loft is to quiet and she needs something to fill the time until her young son wakes from his nap.

She's not sure what to expect, she imagines old books Alexis had had in her youth, something she's now giving to her younger brother.

She's wrong.

'Found this in the storage space. Guess dad moved it there when you moved in. See you and the little monster on Sunday. Love you both.'

Under that there's an array of random memorabilia. A newspaper clipping from his first case with her, a folded up piece of paper with names…all of them ending with Heat…and she's happy to know that Crystal Heat didn't happen. He saved the movie stub from their movie night watching "Forbidden Planet" He was a romantic…she loved that about him. There was a notebook that had his scribbling's in it. She knew he loved to hand write some of his work but after flipping a few pages she sees her name written more than once.

He had a journal…this was news to her.

She doesn't stop to read it now, wanting to discover what is still inside the box, but will definitely come back to it later.

There were things in the box that had other meanings…not all of it about them alone.

But the last thing in the box is what makes her throat tighten.

It's a photo.

She's not sure who had taken it. But neither one of them had known at the time…of course he must have soon after because the edges are frayed and it's a bit faded. It was the first night at the Old Haunt. They're both looking at one another and she can see so clearly now what she wasn't ready to see then.

She loses time while staring at the two of them from those years ago.

The sounds of mumbling from the baby monitor drifting in from the bedroom bring her back to the here and now.

Soon she's lifting her son over the bars of his crib and yes he may be over two years old and ready for a toddler bed but she's not ready for him to hit that milestone yet.

He's grabbing for the photo that she still hasn't put down.

"Momma" he says pointing to the Kate in the photo.

"Yeah, that's momma," she tells him.

He looks at her and then back to the photo. Points to it again and then points to the man beside her. "Dada," he says and she knows it isn't a question. He knows his father.

One-hundred-fifty-six Tuesdays and she knows she has to do it, knows it's time.

She has only been here once.

That was the day they had all said goodbye.

Before the marble stone had been brought in and marked his place.

One-hundred-fifty-six Tuesdays have passed and she's standing at his feet staring at his name etched into the stone. Their son on her hip and the words trying to push pass the lump in her throat.

"Castle, this is Alexander…I thought it was time you met."

Sensing his mother's need for comfort, not understanding what this moment means, he places his head on her cheek.

"I 'ove you, momma," he says to her in his soft baby voice.

She smiles and pulls back to look at the boy in her arms with eyes so much like his father.

"I love you, baby boy, so much." She pulls him closer and kisses his forehead.

One-hundred-fifty-six Tuesdays and it's still hard. The letting go is still hard. Her son makes walking away from where Castle was laid to rest three years ago slightly easier.

The missing will never stop. She may not always measure time by Tuesdays then again she may always do so. But their son rescues her.

Alexander rescues her.

And he was born on a Tuesday.