Chapter 27 - Jim's place

"Katie, Alexis!" my dad exclaimed with a bright smile as he opened the door.

"Hi dad" I said and hugged him.

We let go and he bent down to pick up Alexis and hug her too as she said hello. Still with Alexis in his arms he looked up and I saw the blood in his face disappear as he saw I wasn't alone.

"Dad, this is Alexander, he's a good friend of mine" I introduced Castle with his middle name, like we had agreed to in the car on our way over.

"Hello nice to meet you" Castle said, trying to sound british, as he extended his hand towards my father.

My dad looked at his hand a few seconds before he reached out and shook it.

"Nice to meet you too" he said before he moved a bit to let us inside.

I walked inside with Castle close behind me. I walked into the kitchen and heard my dad follow us after he had closed the door.

"So, what drags you kids here?" my dad asked and looked at Alexis. "Is it my famous waffles with whipped cream and raspberry jam?" he thought out loud before he attack Alexis with tickling.

She started to laugh and squirm in his arms as she tried to get away from his attack. I couldn't help but chuckle at their small war and when I looked at Castle I saw a small glimpse of sadness in his eyes.

"How about Alexis help you make the waffles and I'll show Alex around the house?" I suggested with an innocent smile.

My dad stopped tickling Alexis and looked at me before he shot a glance towards Castle. He looked suspicious and I definitely knew that look. He was trying to figure out if there was something going on between me and Castle, the man he hopefully thought was british with the name Alexander.

"Suure" my dad said dragging out the word as he tried to think about me and how high the chance was that Castle was a potential boyfriend.

I quickly pushed Castle out of the room yelling back to my dad and Alexis to start on those tasty waffles. I checked over my shoulder to make sure my dad wasn't looking after us and saw her hadn't followed us by moving to the doorway I took a new grip on Castle's arm and dragged him to the door leading to the basement, where he earlier had said the tape would be. I opened the door and pushed him inside before I followed him, closing the door gently behind me.

"Light?" he asked and I clicked on a button to turn the lights on.

He smiled small but I could still see that saddened glimpse in his eyes. We walked down the stairs to the end of the basement before I broke the silence.

"What's wrong Castle?" I asked carefully and he looked at me with a questioning look.

"Why would something be wrong?" he defended and I sighed.

"Something upset you up there, but you're right, you don't need to tell me unless you want to" I decided, shot him a comforting smile and looked around the big space with no walls or whatsoever.

Our basement had basically been the labyrinth of stuff that every kid would love to have. I used to play hide and seek, build fortresses and just find toys around here when I was a kid. It was my favorite place and I only showed it to my best friends. It was my holy playground.

"It's just..." he started before going silence again and when I looked at him he bit his lip.

I walked up to him and placed my arms around his neck as he looked down on the ground. I pecked his lips before I whispered "talk to me".

"Seeing how comfortable Alexis is with your father, and thinking about how much time he's spent with her as a father figure while I couldn't makes me feel worthless. Don't get me wrong, it's amazing she's so comfortable with him, it just... it kills me a little" he confessed and I could see how deep of a wound it had become.

That wound would never heal completely. It would heal as much as my wound about loosing my mother, which was nowhere to be healed. I had been forced to live with the constant pain, learn to live with it, accept that the wound was a part of me that would never go away.

"Hey" I said softly, putting my hand on his chin to make him look at me, "you're an amazing father, it wasn't your fault. And I know if will forever kill you but... I'll be right here when you need a reminder how to live, and Alexis will never blame you. To her you're the best father anyone could ever ask for" I told him, looking into his eyes.

"How can you be so sure? She probably hates me for letting them take her" he whispered with tears coming to his eyes.

I quickly wiped away the tears before they could ruin the makeup.

"Because that's what she's told me, at least once since I took her home with me" I told him and I could see a small smile appear on his lips.

He suddenly put his arms around my body and pulled me close, hugging me tight.

"Thank you Kate" he whispered in my ear and I smiled, hugging him back.

"Always" I whispered back giving him a light kiss on his cheek as we parted.

Our eyes locked and we couldn't help but stand and stare into each other's eyes for a few minutes before we got out of the trance.

"Now, let's go find that tape" he suggested and I smiled.

"Sounds good to me" I agreed before we looked around in the basement.

"Ehm... why... what are all of this?" Castle asked after he had looked around us.

"No idea, all kinds of junk along with toys and empty cartoons, loved this place as a kid but now I just fear the day I'll have to help out cleaning it" I confessed picking up a creepy clownmask.

"Any... no, forget it" he started on a question which he quickly regretted according to his tone.

I looked at him before I shook my head.

"Any what?" I asked as I started to look through a box in front of me.

I glanced over at him seeing he started looking through a box of his own to avoid eye contact.

"Any boyfriend scenarios?" he breathed out, probably half-hoping I wouldn't hear him.

I dropped the doll I had in my hands down in the box again before I looked up at him with wide eyes. He looked up when the doll hit the box and I saw he had a curious but scared glimpse in his eyes.

"I... uhm..." I stuttered before I shook my head again, "did it say where my mother hid the tape more than in the basement?" I questioned, changing the subject.

He shrugged his shoulders, "do you have some secret hole in the wall or anything?"

I thought back on all those times I'd been down here as a kid. The times I had hidden in the back of the room and searched through the stuffs.

"One time I caught my mom down here" I thought out loud as I tried to reliving the memory as I went on, "I asked her what she was doing and she looked at me with surprised eyes as she shuffled with something behind her back" I tried to locate what part of the walls she had been close to.

I felt Castle's eyes on me as I looked around before I saw the cheerleader cup I'd won once upon a time. I quickly moved towards it and looked in the gap between the box and the wall.

"As in she tried to shuffle something inside a secret hideaway?" Castle asked and I nodded as I examined the wall.

"I think it was about here" I said roaming my hands on the wall.

Suddenly I heard a click and I felt the wall change at my fingers. I stopped and looked at the opening that the wall now had, I pushed one side of the box-alike wall and it opened even more.

"You find it?" Castle asked and I took out my phone to turn on the flashlight.

I held the light towards the gap and looked into the box. There were papers, which I presumed were my mom's notes, but I couldn't see anything else.

"Well, I found the hiding" I said before I stuck down my hand to take up the papers.

I looked at Castle and once I got up the papers I looked at them before I handed it to him.

"Notes?" he asked as he started to look through them.

I looked down in the box again and I couldn't stop the smile forming on my face. I stuck down my hand again and took up the object we had been looking for.

"What do we got here?" I said as I held up the tape for Castle to see.

He quickly looked up at me and he immediately smiled when he saw the object in my hand.

"We can finally find out who's behind all this" Castle said and I could hear the joy in his voice.

I nodded and I closed the box again before I walked out of the small area.

"Wait, is this you?" Castle suddenly exclaimed and pointed to a big photo in one of the boxes laying on the ground.

I looked at the photo and saw it was indeed me, in the costume I had when I went to a Nebula 9 comic con as a teenager. I quickly stepped in front of him to stand between him and the photo my mom had taken.

"Could be but we have other things to do" I said and he looked at me with a knowing smirk.

"I bet you still have that costume" he said and I bit my lip in frustration.

After a minute of silence he shook his head before he headed back for the stairs and I let go of a relieved sigh. I followed him but before when we reached the beginning of the stairs I grabbed his arm to stop him and turn him towards me.

"I might have it left somewhere but it's not going to see the light of day anytime soon, our priority should be locating who's on this tape" I said holding up the evidence.

He nodded with an understanding smile before I could see his eyes glance down to my lips and up again to my eyes. I stood on my toes and let my lips slowly connect with his. It was a gentle and soft kiss, only there to reassure each other that we were here, together.

"Ehm... the waffles... are done" my dad's voice came out of nowhere and I jumped at the sound.

I had pulled away from Castle the second I'd heard my dad clear his voice and once he was done talking I looked up at him to see his shocked facial expression before he turned in the doorway to go back to the kitchen. I felt my cheeks grow hot before I gasped and ran my free hand through my hair. This was so not how I hoped the meeting between Castle and my dad would go.

"Did-did that just happen?" Castle asked and when I looked at him he had his eyes towards the doorway at the end of the stairs where my dad had been standing only minutes ago.

"We should-uhm... we should just go and... eat waffles" I trembled with my words. "Then we'll go home and we'll check out the tape" I planned and added a "yeah" before I took his hand and dragged him up the stairs towards the kitchen and the stares I knew my dad would be giving us during the coffee and waffles.