79. 81: Wednesday

81

Kate is supposed to meet both of them in Central Park by the castle (oh he thinks he's so clever), but she finds Alexis there first.

"Hey," the girl says, wrapping both arms around Kate in a quick hug that nevertheless leaves Kate a little off-balance.

"Hey. Afternoon. Where have - what have you been up to?" She doesn't want to say, You weren't home all day yesterday, and your father said you weren't there when he woke up this morning-

"Oh Kate. It's been so awesome. I met all these great people at the summer experience thing, and we stayed up all night talking at this one girl's place-"

"Oh."

"She's like - I don't know, it's weird, but I think her parents are famous. She won't tell us their names, but I keep thinking I should know them, right?"

"Oh wow. Well. She could be a pretty good friend for you, I guess." Kate leans against the wall of Belvedere Castle and watches Alexis laugh in the bright sunlight.

"Dad's not that famous. But yeah - he gets talked about online, he's in the paper from time to time. Yeah. Her name's Star."

"Star?" Kate laughs, then presses her lips together. "Okay. Star."

"Yeah, I know, right?" Alexis bites her lip and shrugs. "So we got to choose our schedules early because we're in the honors college-"

"Oh, did-" Kate bites her tongue to keep it back. But Castle wanted - she remembers very clearly him saying he couldn't wait to help her decide between classes, and he's been thumbing through the catalogue for weeks. "What did you pick?"

"There are the requirements - College Algebra, World Lit, Western Civ, a really dumb gym class that's like Volleyball and Racquetball or something-"

"Don't they have tennis or-"

"Yeah, but our whole group decided to get a lot of those basics together. And that's what we all decided on. It'll be more fun to do it together."

As Alexis continues to ramble on about her classes and her 17 hours of credit this fall semester and the Gen Eds she's picked, Kate realizes-

I don't want to go back to school.

Not at all. She is getting seriously depressed even thinking about having to get into a program and struggle through the higher level courses and worry about her GPA and do homework every night and write papers. That was her life when she was Alexis's age, but it's gone now - she can't go back.

Kate would never go to law school, but she won't do med school, pharmacy school - hell, she won't do cosmetology or technical training either.

She doesn't want to go to school.

What the hell is she going to do?

Castle is crushed when Alexis tells him she's already gotten her schedule for next semester. He opens his mouth but snaps it shut before his daughter can see how much it meant to him. It's stupid really.

But he feels Kate's hand close around his and then her body presses into his side. He glances over at her while they walk through Central Park, heading for the Met, and he sees the sympathy in her eyes. She's in a skirt and ballet flats again, these a sexy leopard print, and she has to lift up on her toes to kiss his jaw.

It helps. It really does. Takes the sting out of it. He's being a little dramatic, but he had these plans, expectations, for how Alexis would come to him and ask his advice, but she doesn't need him.

He clears his throat to reply to his daughter but Kate jumps in.

"You think Columbia will be hard? You should hear what the Police Academy was like."

Rick is grateful for the way she's trying to divert the subject, to distract him, keep him from opening his mouth and letting his hurt show - keep his daughter in the dark about it as well.

"The Police Academy was hard?" Alexis asks, lifting both eyebrows in skepticism.

Castle smirks at that, glances back to Kate. She's narrowed her eyes a little, but she seems to accept the tease. "It was brutal. Seriously. It's in Gramercy Park, but they're opening a new one next year. Anyway. Only two in a hundred applicants are accepted to the Academy-"

"No way," Castle interrupts, surprised to find that it's actually working. He's distracted. "Two percent? That's shockingly low."

Kate presses her lips together, leans past him to glance at Alexis. "We had academics and physical training both. Plus driving, firearms, tactics, the cadet corp. . .We were up at four in the morning and we didn't crawl into bed until ten."

"Wow," they breathe - he and Alexis both in sync. Kate laughs a little at that.

Castle squeezes Kate's hand. He's never heard about her days in the Police Academy before. "Tell me more."

She shrugs. "Not much more. I mean - okay, so the classes were criminal law, criminal justice, a lot of scenario stuff - what do you do if this happens. Um, we had this terrible drill sergeant of an FTO - field training officer. We called him Rambo behind his back, only he found out about it, and we stood outside holding all of our gear on one of the hottest days of the month. It was miserable."

"What else?" he says, the three of them walking so slowly now that old couples are passing them.

Kate gives him a swift look and grins, shaking her head. "All you can think about is studying and finishing your training. By the time you're in it, you just want it to be over. And then I got assigned. Mike Royce was my TO - he taught me. . .a lot."

Castle squeezes her hand, but they've been through this already; they're good. She's good.

"Was it scary?" Alexis asks, both women leaning around him to talk.

"It was exhilarating," Kate says, her voice tenored with joy, relish, pleasure. He watches her as she debates her next words, that deliberative pause before she starts again. "Each day was a challenge. And I felt like I was actually helping people for a change. I did everything by the book and filled out my forms and bent over backwards to do it right. I was also - it felt like just the beginning. It seemed that I was closer than ever to figuring out what happened to my mother. . ."

Alexis lets out a little sigh. "And that was like ten years ago. It's been a decade," his daughter says, glancing back at Castle with a twist to her mouth.

"I've learned a lot. With your dad's help," Kate says, but Alexis is staring up at him, eyes filled.

Yeah. It's like that, Alexis. "That's why," he says quietly.

His daughter drops her cheek to his shoulder and wraps her arm around his. "I got it now."

"What?" Kate murmurs at him, and he shakes his head at her. Later. Later, Kate.

"It sounds like you loved it. I can't believe you quit, just like that," Alexis sighs.

Castle takes a deep breath.

He can't believe she quit either.

The Met took all day and she could have spent even longer there. She got stuck in the Greek sculpture; why, she doesn't know. But the blank eyes and white faces seemed to stare down at her, their ancient tragedies coming alive through their expressions. When Castle came and found her still there, he pulled her along to the Roof Garden and they drank iced coffee amid the modern sculptures, the city skyline spread out before them.

She came home with him for dinner and discovered that he has a plan for tonight.

Kate perches on the arm of his sofa, brushes her hand through Castle's hair, but she's not really paying attention to the trash talk.

Castle has invited Ryan and Esposito to play the Arkham Asylum video game with him. The two partners are still a little hesitant with each other, but it seems like Esposito has stopped ignoring Ryan at least. They shoulder bump and high five when they do well on a certain level - okay, yeah, she knows nothing about this Batman game, but the graphics are amazing - and the boys are all sucked into it. So much so that they don't even notice when Kate lets her fingers trail over her partner's forehead, down the side of his face to his jaw.

He does kiss her fingers when they wander close.

Kate watches Castle stick his tongue out as he plays, his body rising and falling back into the couch as if he could help his player jump. She bites her bottom lip against her own stupid, mushy thoughts, (but she can picture him as a little boy now, and wouldn't-). Kate drops her hand from his head and stands.

"Hey," he says immediately, cutting his eyes to her and then back to the video game.

"Keep playing," she says, shaking her head at him.

He does; his attention is almost totally caught up in that game. He asked her to stay while they got started, so you can keep them from fighting, but he's got this. The boys are behaving themselves.

Kate heads into his bedroom and finds her phone, unplugs it from the charger. She checks her email out of habit; it's her work email, and she's still got access, but she only gets memos and reminders and bulletins. Nothing real.

But she's still on the duty roster, just like Ryan told her, even if suspended.

Kate clicks out of her email app and scrolls through her contacts instead.

She's not - she can't go back - she won't. Sometimes just the very thought of heading back into that life makes her chest tight. She chose this, him, having an actual life, getting a chance to be a part of something. . .extraordinary.

She needs a job though; she needs a career, a direction for her life.

She lands on Margaret Mason, her thumb hovering over the contact information for the woman who used to work with Kate's mother at Carney Law. Her heart pounds as she stares at the entry.

Margaret told her to call; she asked to keep in touch and said they could use someone with her extensive knowledge of criminal law.

Kate lifts her head at a noise out in the living room, hears Castle crowing about his video game, something about the level he reached, and it pulls her enough out of her own head for her to realize-

she has so much. She has been given so very much, but she's also had to work for it, claim it. They're just at the beginning of this - there are all kinds of avenues available to them.

And it can't hurt; it actually cannot hurt her at all to call Margaret Mason and ask about a job.

So why not?