95. Chapter 95

They're both thinking too much. If she has to guess, Rick can't stop dwelling on the fact that his oldest daughter just got engaged - and what she might be doing to celebrate - and where they might be sleeping tonight. Kate is thinking similar thoughts, but in a different context.

Like when Allie and Rafe come to visit them. Allie and Ella have always shared a room, but that hardly works now. There's the guest room, of course, but how welcoming is that? To shove Allie out of her own room? And then, well, if they do have another kid, there's no room at all - and Kate doesn't want to do that to Allie, have her think that there's no room for her in her own home. Maybe they could buy a sofa bed for the study, put Ellery in there when Jim or Martha sleeps over, but then if it's Christmas and if they get Allie and Rafe for the holidays too, then where will everyone sleep if there is another baby-

"Okay. Enough," Kate says, grabbing Castle by the shoulder.

He looks up at her, his consternation wrinkling his brow. He puts the knife in the sink and takes a bite of his peanut butter on bread.

"Really," she says. "Let's get out of here. Dashiell! Ella!"

Dash comes running in from the balcony, the dog at his heels. Ellery pops her head out from her room, carrying Totoro with her, shuffling towards them in the kitchen.

"Dash, baby, want to go to the mainland, find a bookstore? Last day of being four."

"We going to get books?" Dash asks, the dog nudging him in the back. "I want to get books. Daddy?"

Rick glances at her, then down to his son. "Yeah. Okay. Ellery, wanna go to the bookstore?"

Ella wraps an arm around Kate's leg, nods her head into the side of her mother's thigh. Kate leans over and picks her up, snuggling her daughter against her chest. "That a yes, cricket?"

She nods again.

"Words, Ella. Use words."

"Yeah, books."

Kate smiles softly at her, kisses her cheek. "Allie and Rafe will be back tomorrow, okay? In the meantime, let's go have some fun, the four of us."

Dashiell gives a little sigh. "But my dog."

Oh. Rex. They've spent a lot of time outside the condo, Rex stuck inside. Rick and Dash took him on a walk when they got back, but more time away-

"We'll bring Rex in the car with us. It's cool enough at night here that he'll be okay. And me or Daddy can take you out to the car whenever you want to see him while we're at the bookstore."

Dashiell pets Rex over and over, thinking on that. "Well, okay."

"Okay," Rick says, then reaches over for Ellery, takes her from Kate. "Okay, yeah. Good idea, Mommy. Let's go to the bookstore."

The drive is quiet, even the kids are quiet, and when he parks at the back of the chain bookstore, the silence still hasn't been breached. He knows it's partly his fault.

"Okay. Guys. Time for books," he says, glancing over his shoulder at the kids. Dashiell's dog has spent the whole drive in the floorboards, Dash's foot rubbing the top of his head. "Guys?"

Ellery leans forward as far as she can in her seat. "Books. Let's go."

Castle grins at her. "That's right. Let's go."

He gets out and opens the back door, unbuckles his daughter. Kate is helping Dash hop out too, and he's determined to not be morose. The kids are taking their example from him, even Kate seems a little depressed, and this is supposed to be a happy occasion; his daughter just got engaged to a really great guy.

"Rick, the windows."

He puts Ella down, opens the driver's door again, and cranks the starter so he can roll the windows down for Rex. "Kate, you got the water for him?"

"Already did that." She shakes an empty water bottle at him across the car and nods to the back. The dog's water dish is filled; Rex is looking at all of them like they're crazy, head tilted to one side, sitting in the floorboard. Dash gives him one last pet and Kate shuts the door.

"Okay, let's go." He grabs Ella's hand again, locks the car as he rounds the hood and comes alongside Kate and Dashiell.

Books. His family's go-to happy.

"You can sneak-sign," Kate murmurs at him with a soft smile. He sighs. She thinks it's funny, and he always ends up giving in so she won't make a commotion in the store.

Ella is dragging her heels, humming a little song to herself. The sky is still that green-blue of a twilight that won't give up, the summer night unable to entirely eclipse the sun, still warm and humid and faintly light. Ellery's hair flares around her cheeks as the breeze catches them; his shirt flaps.

Castle feels funny signing his own books on the sly; he's not sure why. But Kate keeps insisting it's a wonderful surprise for some fan - his signature on the title page. So he usually gives in, because the picture he gets in his head is of Kate Beckett fifteen years ago, still trying to rebuild her life, buying one of his books and discovering he's already somehow touched it, reached out to her with that one small line.

She comes up with the lines too - anything from Surprise! to Never give up on a mystery. She's been cheesy and silly and sentimental with them, and they've spent entirely too much time in bookstores sneak-signing his own novels.

"I want to browse first," he grumbles at her, reaching down to swing Ella into his arms. "Right, baby girl? We'll look at picture books."

"Want maps."

"Maps?"

"Maps," she says, setting her jaw.

"That's my fault," Kate sighs with a little laugh. "Ellery and I went into that travel bookstore down the street from your publisher."

"Oh, yeah. Thackery's?"

"Yeah. I pulled down some atlases. We had fun naming people we knew in all the states."

"Cool. Ella, we can look at maps. I'll show you some countries I've been to, people I know there."

"Countries?"

"I'll explain," he laughs, then turns to Kate. "You got Dash?"

She nods as they enter through the automatic doors of the bookstore, cream and green decor meeting them, dark wood fixtures. "We'll be exploring. Meet you at yours in say, an hour?"

"Sounds good." He leans over and snags the back of her neck, kisses her quickly. She tastes like mint gum and a smile, and he's glad she suggested this. "See you."

Dashiell is already slipping out of her grip and running for the display of board games, so she turns quickly and follows.

"Okay, Ella, let's find you some maps."

"Countries."

"Yeah. Countries. Daddy has been to England and France and Germany. Mommy has been to the Ukraine and Russia," he starts, heading for the section of world maps and atlases along the far left wall. "And then Mommy and I have been to Canada together."

"I not know them."

He laughs at her and pulls down a huge world atlas, gets down in the floor with Ellery in his lap. He opens the atlas across his knees and her little legs, starts with the map that looks like a sliced up orange - the globe laid flat.

"Here's the world."

"The world?"

"Earth. You know when we learned the planets? My Very Educated Mother-"

"Just Served Us Nine Pizzas!" Ella grins at him, kisses his neck in her excitement. "I know them."

"The planets, right. We're the E for Educated. Earth. And this is the map of the earth."

"This?" Her little finger trails across the atlas.

"Yup, this whole big thing. And we live here. In New York City."

"In the US."

"That's right. That's our country, but see, it's this whole big place." He uses her finger to circle the States. "Oh, and these two as well. Alaska up here by Canada, and Hawaii way over here in the water."

"Little bitty. What they do there?"

"Hawaii is a group of islands. They surf and have volcanoes and-"

"I surf too!"

"Ah, yeah. You just learned how to surf; you're right."

"I go to Hawaii."

He smirks at the top of her head, glances around to see if Kate is nearby, but no dice. Too bad. He's been trying to convince Kate to go with him to Hawaii for ages. "Yeah, you and I will work on Mommy about that one, kiddo."

"Where's me again?"

He drags her finger back to New York and taps it. "Here. New York City."

"Where's me now?"

"Down here, Texas." He stays on the mainland of the state rather than trying to explain that they're staying on an island off the coast. Easier. "And then, here's where Papa lives, just outside the city." He drags her finger back up and she giggles.

"Gram?"

"Gram is in the city too. In Mommy's old apartment."

"Where's. . .Allie?"

"Well, Allie is usually here, in Chicago."

"Illinois."

"That's right. Mommy teach you that?" He taps her little finger on Chicago, then draws her hand off the map. "Okay, so that's the States. But there's the whole rest of the world too, cricket. Look. On top of us is Canada. Mommy and I went there to chase a bad guy one time." He squints, but the tiny city isn't labelled, so he lets it go.

"Who's there?"

"Uh, well, a guy named Carlyle. But he's in jail."

"He in jail? He a bad man."

"As it turns out, he was," Castle kisses the top of her head and moves her finger down to Mexico, naming a few people he knows in Mexico City. He tries to think of people she might have met at the family-friendly charity events, names them as he comes to their countries, circles around England and Scotland for people he's met dealing with the international rights for his books.

"Oh, actually. Remember your friend from preschool? Ana? She and her family are from Brazil. They moved back a couple months ago."

"My friend Ana," Ellery sighs, her finger flicking over the country in South America. "My friend Ana play with me. We play dinosaurs."

"Oh? Dinosaurs, huh." Castle hugs her around her torso, growls in her ear. "Dinosaurs can eat you up."

She giggles and squirms in his arms as he pretends to eat her up. "No, Daddy. My people in countries."

He sighs and gives her a sloppy kiss on her cheek. "Okay, okay. Let me think. Oh, well Uncle Kevin? His family is from Ireland. Uncle Kevin has an uncle still there."

"Uncle Kevin's uncle?"

"Yup. I think his name is Miles. And let's see, Mommy's family - you remember going to visit Papa and seeing pictures of your Mom's mom?"

"Mommom."

"Yup, that's what you and Dashiell call her. Her parents are from a couple different countries. They came to New York from Italy, here. It looks like a boot. That's how you can always pick out Italy. But before that, Mommy's grandmother, Mommom's mom, she was from Yugoslavia. Which doesn't exist anymore."

"It's extinct?"

"Ah, like dinosaurs?" At her nod, Castle grins, tries to figure out how to explain it. "Well, not exactly. It's still there, but now they call it a bunch of different names. They all decided to be their own countries. So the part Mommy's grandmother is from - that's Croatia. See? Right here."

Ellery leans forward over the map to study the country intently.

"In Croatia, they speak the same language Mommy speaks to you and Dash."

"Volim te."

He laughs, a little stunned, and maybe proud too, to hear it come out of her mouth. "Yeah. That. Do you know what that means?"

She nods, but doesn't give him anything else. He wonders if Ellery knows just the feeling it evokes, the way it's said, rather than a word for word translation. There's no doubt what Kate means when she speaks it.

"Where else, Daddy?"

"Um, let's see. Here's where Mommy was for a semester. Ukraine. That's in Asia. Wait. No, it's Europe. I think. Uh, I'm not up on my continents."

"What is that? Con-"

"Continents. See, there are seven continents. Well, if you're American, there are seven continents. If you're from over here, I think there's only six continents. And then there's an argument for only five continents. So it depends on-"

He stops, glances at her confused face.

"Seven continents," he decides, and then takes her finger and begins to name them. "Antarctica, South America, North America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia."

"Say them again."

Castle goes through the list, pointing her finger at each of them, tries to come up with something funny or interesting to help her remember. After a while, he realizes it's been longer than their allotted time, and they should be meeting up again.

"Hey, let's go find Mommy and Dash."

Rick closes the atlas and stands up, an arm around Ellery to let her slide out of his lap. He puts the atlas back, but then thinks better of it and takes it down again. "Do you - you want the big book of maps?"

Ellery gives him a strange look. "Mommy already got me one."

He laughs and shakes his head, puts the atlas in its place again. "Right. Of course she did. Never mind, cricket. Let's go get the other two."

Kate chases Dashiell to the back of the store, loses him for about a minute in the confusing arrangement of bookshelves in world history, then snags him by the hand and marches him back to the kids' books, thumping his ear.

"Stop running off."

"But I saw-"

"You come ask me, Dashiell."

"Okay, okay, ow. My ear." He rubs his ear fiercely, giving her a glare, and she nudges him with her knee.

"Get over it."

He drifts away from her again, heading for the train table set up in the center of the children's books. He's a little old for the trains, but he still hasn't lost his love of things with wheels, apparently. He gets on his knees and begins driving the train off the tracks and around on the carpet, then along the books he's already picked out to buy.

Kate feels a hand at her back and jumps, finds Castle grinning at her. Ellery rushes past them to grab a train, falls to her knees beside her brother. Dash starts showing her the picture book he chose for her - Knuffle Bunny - and he's reading it to her, sort of, trying to do voices too.

She turns to Castle with a grin. "Hey there."

"I thought you said to meet at my books?"

She checks her phone for the time. "Sorry. I just ran down your son halfway across the store. I lost track of time."

He laughs and takes her hand, kisses her knuckles in some grand gesture of gratitude. Something. He looks happier than he did when they left for the bookstore, and his eyes are clear. Kate smiles and lifts up on her toes to kiss his mouth, rubbing her thumb over his bottom lip when she pulls back.

"Stay with the kids. I'll go get your books," she murmurs.

He sighs at her, but she squeezes his hand and he relents. "Go get 'em."

She grins and heads for the regular fiction; she staked out the area earlier with Dash in tow, found Castle's name, his spot. The bookstore has the last five titles in hardback and about a dozen in paperback. Multiple copies of the last two Nikki Heats too. It makes her happy, in a ridiculous way, because she has nothing to do with his novels being on the shelf but she still.

Well, except for being his muse. But that's not - there's no claim in that. Only a surreal pleasure of being, somehow, allowed to witness it.

There aren't any employees in this area at the moment, so she won't have any trouble taking a handful of the paperbacks, two of the Nikki books, and not be too conspicuous. They have the novel she first read, the one her mother had checked out from the library. She brushes her finger over the spine, taking a moment out of time.

Richard Castle.

She married him. She has kids with him.

All because her mother-

Died?

Kate takes the paperback off the shelf, lets the smell of book glue and the printed page waft up at her as she thumbs through it, all the passages she knows practically by heart.

No.

Her mother's murder is no more the cause of her life than ineffective birth control or the Butcher. Those things didn't cause Kate Beckett to fall in love with her favorite mystery writer. They are pieces of the puzzle of her life, elements that spice things up, but the bad times, the shadows, they didn't give her this life. She has this life because-

Because she loves him. Because he loves her.

It's not fate. It's her choice. Richard Castle is who she wants, life with him is what she wants. She chose it.

This is good, and right, and beautiful. And they've done it together.

Anything else - the 12th, buying Black Pawn, Allie getting married, having another baby - those are just more things they do - or don't do - together, more choices they get to make, yes or no, good or bad.

Kate gathers up his novels and heads back for the kids' section, her waiting family.

Rick.