Hello there! Thought I'd give you this. If you ignored my warning in the description... this contains finale spoilers. So if you still haven't seen it... I suggest you stop reading now.
I personally haven't read anything like this before... but with all the Season 4 speculation going around there are probably dozens of these stories and I just don't even know it.
Hopefully it's not too OOC. I just kind of let the characters go where they wanted to go and this came out. Maybe it's not show worthy... but it certainly sounds like an argument that could happen in my life... hahaha. Oh boy... that's pathetic.

Disclaimer: If you recognize this... I don't own it. This is just my speculation.

When Rick walked through the door to his apartment that evening, the only thing he wanted was to grab a drink of something strong and immediately go to bed and sleep for the next three years. He thoroughly intended to do just that as he locked the door behind him. He knew that Alexis hadn't had any plans and had spent the night in, and his mother was putting some last minute touches on her acting school, so his plan seemed full-proof.

He was exhausted in every sense of the word.

It was the first time Rick had been back in the loft since Kate had been admitted to the hospital, four days before. His mother had packed him some clothes, and he had been washing himself in the sink in the bathroom down the hall from Kate's room and eating in the hospital's cafeteria.

Kate had woken up two days before, in a considerable amount of pain and completely shocked to discover that Castle had not left her side. She questioned the bump on the side of his face, and he admitted that he had gotten into a little bit of a tussle with her boyfriend. She was not amused. Neither was he, but what mattered was that he had earned his right to stay by her side. Kate didn't seem to mind him being there.

But half an hour earlier Kate and Rick had gotten into a disagreement that had made the monitors go crazy. The nurses had run in while Kate and Rick were screaming at each other, and eventually her doctor came in and physically forced him out of the room and told him that he wasn't allowed to come back for at least a day.

Rick rubbed his stubbled chin with his hand and began to walk towards the kitchen towards his liquor cabinet. He found Alexis, sitting at the bar with a steaming cup of tea in front of her and a book lying flat in front of her, headphones in her ears.

As Rick passed her, he leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek before moving further into the kitchen. She looked up, surprised. She immediately took out her ear buds and closed her book.

"You're home?" She said, shocked.

He mumbled an affirmation, "Doc finally kicked me out."

The answer hung heavy in the air between them.

"Any… reason why?" she pressed.

Rick stopped rummaging around the cabinet and took up a stance leaning against the island in the kitchen. He sighed.

"Kate and I got into a little spat. Doctor was convinced it was hurting her recovery." He shrugged.

Alexis knew he wasn't telling her everything. She lifted herself off of the barstool she was seated on and went to stand on the other side of the island.

"You fought? About what?"

Rick gave her a look that said he wasn't going to talk about it. She gave him the look that said he certainly was. He caved first.

"She keeps asking the hospital staff when she is going to get out of the hospital." He sighed, "She wants to get right back out there and dive into her mother's case. She thinks we're so close. I told her that she wasn't ever going back to that case. Not after this. She said I had no authority to tell her what to do, and then I told her that she was going to get herself killed… Regardless, hurtful things were said on both ends and our blood pressures rose quite high and then they told me not to come back until tomorrow."

Alexis mumbled something under her breath.

Rick looked at her curiously, "Hm? What was that?"

Alexis looked at him for a moment, deciding if this was the right time for this conversation. She seemed to make up her mind as she took a deep breath and repeated what she had just said.

"I said… maybe it would be better if you didn't go back at all."

Rick looked at her, his brow furrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She shrugged, trying to look as if this conversation wasn't making her heartbeat go crazy.

"Exactly what it sounds like. Perhaps it would be better for both of you if you never went back."

"Where is this coming from?" He asked, exhaustion seeping into his voice.

She just looked at him, "Really? You know exactly where this is coming from."

He did. He had seen his daughter's face at the funeral and later at the hospital. This conversation had everything to do with the events that had transpired just a few days before. But he wasn't ready to have this conversation yet.

"Alexis… I'm tired. We'll talk about this in the morning…"

"You do that all the time!" She said, her voice raising slightly, "deflecting any important conversation to another time. If we don't talk about this now, we never will."

He tried to play the strict father at another attempt to avoid having this conversation right now. He really wasn't ready. "Hey, watch yourself. Don't talk to me like that… I'm your father."

She scoffed, "Occasionally…"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh… you're my dad alright… whenever Kate doesn't need you."

"Is that what this is about?" Rick sighed, exasperated, but relieved. "You don't like that I spend so much time with Kate?" He looked at her and watched as her face became slightly redder. His daughter was jealous. Well, that was something he could easily fix. "Pumpkin, we can spend more time together if you want. You know you'll always be my number one girl."

The apartment was silent for a moment. She locked her jaw, and Rick knew that this was about to spin out of control. Quickly. He had never seen his daughter look so defensive.

"That's not what this is about and you know it…" She said lowly, the edge so sharp it could cut through the countertop in front of her.

"Then what is this about?"

"Dad!" She snapped, "Stop avoiding the conversation!"

"Alexis…" He sighed

She cut him off.

"How can you be so blind, Dad?"

He almost asked her what she meant, but her glare stopped him. She was serious. He had always made it a point to listen to everything she said whenever she was upset before cutting in. It had worked for him in the past, so he stuck with it. A moment passed, and Alexis began to speak again.

"I don't understand, Dad. You see what's happening around her and yet you still go through with it. You see what it does to her, and we see what it does to you. It's not a game anymore, Dad. And how does she not see what it's doing to the people who love you? It's not fair..."

She was rambling, and not making much sense. He tried to cut her off.

"Alexis…"

Her voice grew louder.

"…This isn't your job. It's not right. And it's so wrong of her to keep you there when she knows what can happen…"

"Sweetheart…"

She was screaming now, her blue eyes shining.

"…It's not okay anymore, Dad. Alright? You've seen what can happen and I can't happen to you, too…."

"Alexis!"

The next words that came out of her mouth were prefaced with a sound that could only be characterized as a growl.

"Dad, she's going to get you killed!"

The silence that echoed throughout the room was deafening. Everything else fell away except for Rick and Alexis, standing on opposite sides of the island in the middle of the kitchen, palms flat on the table.

Rick looked at his daughter. Her cheeks were flushed, red from anger and emotion. Her nostrils were flaring, and while he knew she was trying to control her breathing, he couldn't hear it. The tears he had seen brimming in the corner of her eyes finally spilled over, running down her cheeks silently as she glared at him with eyes full of anger and something he couldn't quite point his finger on at the moment. However, it only took him moments to realize that the underlying emotion was fear.

"Dad! She was SHOT. At a FUNERAL."

Rick found himself unable to think of anything to say. The thoughts were running through his head at a mile a minute and nothing was making sense. Alexis kept going.

"You tried to push her out of the way, Dad."

He knew what she was implying and dropped his gaze to the countertop in front of him. If had been quicker, he would've been the one to get shot. He would've been the one bleeding out in the cemetery. He might not have been as lucky as Kate was.

Rick wanted to defend himself. He wanted to say that it was protective instinct that made him try to knock Kate out of the way, a subconscious reaction to comprehending imminent danger and trying to make sure no one was hurt. It wasn't entirely a lie. Rick doesn't really remember what had been going through his mind in the brief seconds that spanned between his recognition of the sniper's gun in the distance and watching Kate crumple from her spot at the pulpit in front of Montgomery's friends and family. He lifted his eyes away from the surface in front of him.

One look in Alexis' eyes and he knew that she knew everything.

He didn't regret trying to jump in front of her. His only regret about the entire situation was that he didn't realize what the flash in the distance he said he saw in his statement was until it was too late.

She knew that if a similar situation arose in the future, he would jump in front of her again in a heartbeat.

And he wouldn't regret it.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and started to speak, "Alexis…" He quickly found that he couldn't find anything else to say.

"What, Dad? Are you going to try and tell me that it won't be you? That you're going to fine? You were FIVE FEET AWAY from getting shot, Dad. And if you had been faster, it would've been you…" Alexis took a deep breath, but her voice didn't lower in volume as she kept on yelling. "What I want to know, Dad… is how many times this has happened before and Grams and I haven't known about it. How many times have you pushed her out of the way of a bullet? How many times have you tried to save her life by undoubtedly putting yourself at risk? How many times have you tried to die for Detective Kate Beckett, Dad?"

Every time a mention of Kate came out of his daughter's mouth, she sneered her name as if it was a curse; the name of a dirty demon from Hell that needed to be exorcised from her tongue.

It broke his heart.

He had absolutely no intention just how many times he had saved Kate's life. If he had anything to say about it, Alexis was never going to find out about any of the things he's done. He wasn't ever going to tell her about Coonan (he told her that Kate shot the man who killed her mother. He never told her that it was because he was holding him at gunpoint). He wasn't going to tell her about beating up Lockwood in that warehouse because he was about to shoot Kate (she had seen the bandages when she got home, but he just said he hurt it during a dare when he had to fight Esposito). She was never going to find out about just how close they had been with the radiation in the storage locker. She never had to know about how close to death they had come in that freezer (she had known they had been stuck in one, she didn't know that they lost consciousness). Alexis was never going to know that there was a dirty bomb in the city and that they had been saved with a second to spare. She wasn't going to find out about any of that. Ever.

Before he could even stop it, one of the few thoughts that had been consistently spinning around in his head tumbled from his lips, the sound ripping violently from his throat as he yelled back at his daughter. They rarely fought and Rick absolutely hated to raise his voice at his daughter, even when it was warranted.

"Alexis, she needs me!"

There was a brief moment when the shock flittered across Alexis' face at her father's voice, but it was quickly replaced by disbelief at what Rick had just said.

Then she started laughing.

"You really… think… that she needs you?" She said, leaning over her side of the counter. Then, with a speed and strength Rick didn't know she possessed, she threw herself away from the counter, all traces of laughter gone and the mask of anger in anger.

"You really think she needs you, Dad?" She screamed. "Well… I'm sorry to inform you, but you've got that ass backwards."

Rick gave her a look for the swear, but she kept yelling with vengeance.

"She doesn't need you, Dad. YOU are the one who so desperately needs her. You cannot think for a minute that she doesn't know why you follow her around anymore. And you know what? At first, it was cute… that you were so… smitten with this beautiful woman who didn't treat you any different than she would treat her other friends. And she was good for you. She made you serious. You wanted to be better to be… I don't know… worthy of her affections. Well the show is over, Dad and I hate to be the one to say it but since you can't see it yourself, someone has to." By now she had migrated out of the kitchen and was standing by the edge of the living room, one hand on the back of the sofa, the other angrily pointing at her father.

"You have to know that you don't have a chance in hell with Detective Beckett..."

As soon as she said it, she instantly regretted it. But there was no going back. Not anymore.

"You've been following her around for three years, Dad. If she wanted to be with you, it would've happened by now. And now she's had a boyfriend for almost a year and you are still here… pinning… over some pretty little brown haired Detective who is never going to want you back!"

At this point, Rick had moved towards the kitchen, his fists clenching with anger. He attempted to lower his voice, "Alexis… stop."

"Why, Dad? So you can lie to yourself some more?"

"Alexis…"

"My goodness, Dad. Your books are basically three hundred page love letters, complete with dedications. Do you think she doesn't know?"

His voice rose, trying to be firm, "Alexis…"

"You're doing all of this for nothing!"

"I mean it…"

"She doesn't love you, Dad!"

"STOP IT." Rick yelled, losing control of everything. His right arm lashed out with anger and sent the lamp on his end table flying through the air and shattering on the floor beside them.

They weren't sure how long they stood there, glaring at each other, Alexis' eyes filled with rage, Rick's filled with anguish.

Alexis spoke again, her voice taking on an icy quality that Rick didn't know his baby's voice could possess.

"You know? I thought that she would understand. I stupidly thought that she cared enough about me to protect you with everything she had so I would never have to understand what it felt like to lose a parent so violently… but, I guess I was wrong."

Alexis broke eye contact and moved towards the staircase. When she reached the bottom, she turned back towards her father again.

"I think you need to straighten out your priorities and decide which is more important; your family, or your detective."

Rick didn't remember watching Alexis walk up the stairs, but he certainly heard her bedroom door slam shut. Shortly after the sound stopped echoing in his ears, he collapsed, exhausted, onto the couch and put his head in his hands. His eyes filled with moisture as he was left alone to think about everything his daughter had said. She was right about so many things, but wrong about so many others.

His head hurt.

His heart hurt.

And the silence that fell in the loft had never been so loud.

So... reading over it again I feel as though it's kind of rushed.
And not as good as I expected it to be.
But... we all know I am my own worst critic.
So I'll leave the judgment up to you.

editAugust9th* Alright... I told myself that I was just going to let you all think what you wanted to about the ending, but in typical me fashion, I'm now here defending where I went with the argument. Alexis saying Castle doesn't stand a chance with Kate: OOC for Alexis? Yes, normally. I wrote Alexis as an extremely angry teenager. We've never seen that side of her before. Besides one stint in Law & Murder, I don't think we've ever seen her really angry. So, as a person fueled by anger, she said some things that she didn't mean. I'm sure you all can recall an argument in which you were so angry you said something just to intentionally hurt the other person, or someone said something to you the completely knocked you back. You/They might not have meant it... but once you say/hear something it can't be unsaid/unheard. That's why that's in there.
But... to appease you, I added an extra sentence in the story. I think it makes her seem a little more like the Alexis we normally see.
Now I'm done...
Love it? Hate it? Let me know what you think.