Our Always is Forever

"Flowers For Your Grave"

'They had been dating for 6 months, never did they think he would be brought in for questioning  from a murder...'

 Richard Castle loved the spotlight, he enjoyed being the center of attention. That was before he became a father, a father to his beautiful, redhead fiery, high spirited baby girl. 

Now when Gina throws him his book signings and his launch parties or even when he's the celebrity guest on talk shows he doesn't want to be that guy anymore, the guy who's always in the spotlight. 

He hates that he has to put on the playboy persona, that's not him, at all, period. He makes sure it never goes past a date and maybe a kiss at the door, other than that he will not be that kind of guy, no matter how much Black Pawn and the press want that bad boy persona. 

And now there's his girlfriend, his amazing, gorgeous, girlfriend that he hopes soon to be Fiance'. They had met when he was at a book signing for his first Derrick Storm book, Gina had begrudgingly given him a small 10 minute break. 

So he had walked around the store a bit with Alexis to stretch out his legs. She had dragged him to the kids section and asked him to read her a Disney story, preferably Cinderella. "Please daddy." She whined, bottom lip sticking out to work her plea. 

Rick had chuckled and plopped on one of the bean bags pulling her on his lap as he read to her. "And the mice and birds helped Cinderella by repairing her dress for her.." He read, stopping quickly when the piercing scream rang through the aisle.

 He had quickly stood up, moving Alexis aside and ran to the sound of the scream, there were two men fighting, punches were being thrown left and right. His eyes landed on the little girl sobbing, he figured out the scream came from her. 

He quickly stepped in to stop the fight, both men were smaller than his 6ft frame so they coward a bit. Rick made sure they wouldn't act worse than the already before turning back to take care of the little girl. 

 He was about to look for her when he spotted the little girl around the age of Alexis was clutching onto a woman who seemed to be calming her down. "It's okay." the woman was whispering to her. "Is everything okay?" He ran up, offering help.

 The woman looked up, meeting his eyes. He sucked in a breath when he saw her face, she was..stunning! Maybe a model even! "Yea, she's fine, she's just a little shaken up from the fight, one of those men is her dad."

Rick gasped and realized, "Oh." 

The woman smiled and placed the girl down who finally seemed to be calming down, "Hey what's your name?" He asked, crouching down to face the girl. "Mandy."

 "Hi Mandy, I have a little girl named Alexis who is your age, you wanna play with her?" He asked, hoping to take whatever happened of the girl's mind. Mandy quickly bobbed her head, following Rick to the back where Alexis was waiting. 

The two quickly hit it off and were playing instantly. Rick made sure they were settled before walking off to find the no named, gorgeous woman. When he found her he was shocked to see her putting the two men who were fighting in cuffs.