11. Chapter 11

After Love Me Dead and After One Man's Treasure

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Castle made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I own no Castle. Rating: K Time: See above

Kate Beckett sat on her couch, a glass of red wine in her hand and the first Derrick Storm book she had ever bought laying unopened beside her. She was lost in thought. I really don't understand him. I don't understand him at all. And after knowing Alexis for a little bit, he's even more of a mystery than before. He's right, Alexis is as close to perfect as she could be. She is absolutely nothing like what the daughter of millionaire playboy Richard Castle should be like. She should have ended up like those little thugs that killed Donny Scoville and then tried to cover it up. But she didn't. She's smart, hard-working, concerned, compassionate and in short, a good girl. In every sense of the word. She worked hard to find the owner of that brag book and return it. That's the kind of person she is.

Kate took a sip of her wine. She looked down at the book she had wanted to re-read, but decided she had another mystery to think about. If I look at Castle solely in terms of Alexis, I'd think he was the most domesticated man on the planet. Just the kind of man I'd love to come home to after a long, hard day. He'd be there dandling our child on his knee. I'd tell him all about my day at work and he'd tell me about what he'd written that day. We'd be the picture of domestic bliss. But he's not really like that, is he? She shook her head. He's Richard Castle who sleeps with his ex-wife whom he calls the "deep fried Twinkie." Is that ever a case of the pot calling the kettle black? He's been arrested for stealing a police horse and riding it naked. And he has enough freaking drunk and disorderly citations to paper his whole loft. It's like he has a secret identity. Kate suddenly giggled. She had a sudden mental picture of soft spoken father Richard Castle riding down evildoers while naked on a police horse.

Or maybe the secret identity is as Alexis' father. That fits better, I suppose. The irresponsible playboy is the real Castle and he assumes his secret identity to raise his daughter. But how can he keep the two identities separate? How could he…?

Kate took a long sip of her wine. Castle was a puzzle, to be sure. As proud and as happy and as concerned as he's been about Alexis, he's still the guy who acted like a teenaged boy with an overload of hormones at the thought of two women having a cat fight. And he's the one who said two wives were two too many. One thing I know, Richard Castle will never be my one and done. But what will he be?

I wish I knew more about his two marriages. Was he at fault? His personality certainly indicates that. I've met Meredith briefly. She comes off as just the sort of woman that Castle would marry: Shallow and self- absorbed. I've never met Gina and Castle has never talked enough about her to let me get a feel for what she's like. But they did divorce, although they still manage to work together. I wonder if he still sleeps with her? It would be just like him. But how does that jibe with the man who took sole custody of his daughter and has raised her so well. Castle and Alexis joke about how she raised him, but things don't work that way, do they?

I have the same problem with Castle. There seem to be two of him. One is the happy-go-lucky playboy. He's entertaining and he does make life more fun. I've missed fun. I want fun. But I could never be happy in the long run with that Castle. But there's another Castle. The one who raised Alexis. The one who comes into the precinct late at night to tell me something he just thought of. The one who wants to solve a crime. Who wants the guilty to be punished. Why can't that that Castle be around all the time? Because that Castle doesn't exist as such. There's just the one Castle with the two different personalities. Ying and yang?

Why does he stay? I wonder about that all the time. He does need to do research, especially now that he has a three book Nikki Heat deal. And if those are successful, there could be more books and he could be around for a long time. And that would be…Good? …Bad? ... Complicated. He does enjoy playing cop, as he calls it, but it's more than that. Just as he's proud of how he's raised Alexis, he's proud of what he's doing with us. Then, he likes me. Of course, he likes Esposito and Ryan, too. But he rides along with me. What do I mean to him? Anything at all? No, he thinks I'm remarkable. But what does that mean to him?

More importantly, what does he mean to me? He's a good partner, I know that. He's fun and makes me laugh. That's good. But my one and done? Oh, I could wish he was, but he isn't and never will be.

I still don't understand him at all. Will I ever?