Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Rick and Kate rarely spoke again of the dark days of the summer of 2011. The memories of that terrible, but pivotal summer were just too painful for either of them to contemplate other than to note that the nightmare of those three months finally brought them together. Finally made them look at each other in a new light and see the love that was truly there for both of them. There were still fights and slammed doors and hurt feelings, but they managed to get through it together. In 2013 they were wed in a small intimate ceremony on the beach outside Rick's house in the Hamptons and honeymooned in Maui.

Alexis graduated Magna Cum Laude from Columbia University, then went on to Johns Hopkins to study forensic medicine, much to the delight of Lanie Parrish, who had become something of a mentor to the young woman. Her trust issues involving Kate did lead to tension between them, and some arguments with her father from time to time. Eventually the two of them settled their differences amicably, in time for the birth of Rick and Kate's first two children, a set of fraternal twins. One, a green eyed fiery redhead they named Rebecca Marie Castle (the older by a minute and a half) and the other a blue eyed raven haired little girl they named Johanna Alexis Castle.

In the fullness of time, Kate Beckett Castle moved up the promotion grid. Ending her twenty year law enforcement career as the chief of detectives for the NYPD. Rick went on to write ten more Nikki Heat books, each one a love letter to the woman who finally tamed him, before helping Kate write an autobiographical account of her side of the story of the Armen/Beckett murders and the Dragon conspiracy. They had two more children a boy they named James Royce Castle (whom they nicknamed Roy) and another girl they named Miranda Elaine Castle. Their large albeit unconventional family was a source of great joy to them both for the rest of their lives.

They lived happily (mostly) ever after.

Always.