90. Chapter 90

A finger pokes him in the eye. A foot in his ribs.

Castle moves away from the little body, but finds he's being followed. He sighs and turns over, sees Ellery in bed with him.

"What are you doing, little cricket?" he says, his voice gruff with sleep. Kate just emotionally blind-sided him about two hours ago, then physically too (pretty much - he is wiped), and now his baby girl is curled up with him, doing what exactly?

"Sleep with you, Daddy."

"Did you have a bad dream?"

She stays silent on that one, and he's not sure she knows what bad dreams are anyway. She sleeps like the dead - seriously, she does, and there's no pun intended, but she sleeps hard, and so if she does have nightmares, they don't usually wake her up.

"Did you not find Mommy?"

"Sleep with you, Daddy."

Well, she's a good sleeper. If she says she wants to sleep, then she will. Unlike sleeping with Dash, Castle won't be getting smacked in the face halfway through his best REM cycle.

"Okay, baby girl, come snuggle with me." He grabs her by the waistband of her pjs and tugs her closer, making her giggle at him, that soft little sound that reminds him of Kate. Somehow. Kate doesn't giggle, as a rule, but he likes to think that she did once, just like this. He thinks he's the kind of parent that Ellery needs to never let her lose that giggle - the same way he's been the one to help Kate find hers again.

Of course, a lot of that depends on Kate, doesn't it? If Kate survives - unlike her own mother - then Ella has no reason to lose her giggle. Man, he's morbid today. It's probably the early morning wake up call, thinking something bad happened, then the discussion about her ring. It's left all this stuff in his head. And dang it, he's on vacation. He doesn't want to have serious thoughts while he's on vacation.

"I need some more sleep. You gonna sleep right next to me?" He smooths Ella's dark hair down, touches her nose with his fingertip.

Ella wriggles closer, drops a kiss to his cheek, then slides over to Kate's side, curls up with her mother's pillow, her back to him. Plenty of room, which is good, because he doesn't want to accidentally roll over on her. She's too tiny. He takes a moment to lay on his stomach, brushes his hand across the back of her head.

"Night-night, cricket."

At her silence, he lifts up to look. She's already asleep.

"All right, you sleepyheads. Time to get up."

Castle swallows and slits his eyes; sunlight pours around her - Kate - leaving her all in shadows. "No."

She laughs and bounces the mattress, his trick for waking the kids, and then he remembers Ellery is in here with him somewhere. "Ell?"

"Asleep. Come on, Ella-bean, we got the beach waiting for us."

As nice as it sounds to sit in the warm sun, he kinda would rather have Kate in here with him, under the covers, curled up. He opens his eyes a little wider to see her, then darts his arm forward and catches her as she's bent over Ellery, snags her by the waist, and pulls her down.

Kate was more off-balanced than he thought, because she flops down hard on his chest and he loses his breath for a second. She slaps her palm against his pec and grumbles at him.

"You almost made me fall on Ella-"

"But you didn't," he shoots back, wrapping both arms around her and keeping her there. "You're too good. Too graceful. And strong. And smart. And sexy-"

"That has absolutely nothing to do with it," she mutters at him, but he hears her laughing too.

Castle opens his eyes, sees her perched on top of him, both not amused and also - yeah - amused too. He loves that, loves making her happy despite herself. "It has everything to do with it. The sexy girls always fall all over me. They don't fall on my daughter. That would be ridiculous."

"You are the one who's ridiculous. As you always are in the morning." But she layers a kiss over his lips and strokes her fingers down his chin. "It's already eight-thirty, Rick."

"Only eight-thirty? Arg. Come on."

She moves to slide off of him but he hangs on, rolling with her onto his side and being careful not to knock her into Ellery. The girl is still asleep - or has fallen back asleep - which just proves his theory that eight-thirty is entirely too early.

"Dash and I have been up for hours," Kate complains, but she lays her head on his arm and closes her eyes.

Doesn't mean he's got her, not yet.

"Let me sleep in a little more and then I won't utter a single word about taking pictures this afternoon."

Her eyes pop open. "How'd you - I didn't say a word about it."

He grins at her. "I used to follow around this hot detective. She might have taught me a thing or two."

Kate narrows her eyes at him, tries to wriggle back, but he traps her there. "Don't wake the baby."

"That is exactly what I'm trying to do. And how did you know I got a photographer?"

"They told me in the office. The lady said she had found their list of photographers and did I want it now or just email like you asked. Then I snooped."

She snorts at him and her arm comes around his waist, settling in it seems. "Okay, fine. I scheduled one. I want a family picture on the beach even though that's so cliche-"

"It really is. It's horribly overdone-"

"Hush. Allie and Rafe can both be in it this way. And then pictures of the kids, with the sun about to set, and not on my phone for once-"

"Some of you with the kids too-" he adds, nuzzling her nose. "Then you alone. Lots of you, that black bikini you brought but haven't worn for me yet-"

"I'm not looking to go overboard here, Castle. And no, we're not taking dirty pictures either." She laughs a little at him, looking like she won't move any time soon.

He slides his fingers to the waistband of her jeans, slips along her skin.

She shuts down his wayward hands with a squeeze of her knees around his thigh, warning or encouragement, he can't tell. But he does make it a little more PG, kisses her softly, remembers what they already did this morning. And who else is in the bed with him, even if she is asleep.

"Did I dream sweaty Kate this morning?" he murmurs, his mouth close to her ear.

"No dream, stud," she laughs back, that rich and throaty thing that always puts him right back there - in the mood, ready for more.

"I like it better when you call me baby."

"All night long?" she says absently, as if she's quoting something, and then she extricates his hand from its so very nice spot, shaking her head. "I never mean to call you baby."

He nods, grinning back, rolls a little closer to her. "I know. That's what makes it special."

"You're such a girl," she complains, but her eyes are still warm and laughing. She encircles his neck with her arms and gives him a sound kiss, hard and with a little hint of her tongue, before pulling back. "It's time to get up. Last day of Dashiell at four and I want to do stuff."

"Oh, that's awesome. I hadn't thought of it like that."

"It's not awesome, it's making me stupidly sad," she says back, wrinkling her nose at him as she sits up in bed. Her hand goes out to Ellery and instead of shaking her awake, Kate brushes her fingers over the little girl's cheek, into her hair.

"Aww, Mommy's getting sappy?" Castle sits up with her, slides an arm around her shoulders to lean in and blow a raspberry against her neck. She gasps and shoves him away, laughing again.

"Like always, you're an overgrown kid," she shoots back. He doesn't even need to look in her eyes to know she's also grateful, that his goofiness keeps her from dwelling on it.

"Don't worry. It only gets better as they get older," he says, brushing the hair back from her neck to give her a better kiss. She flinches when his lips get to her skin, but then she hums and leans into him when he's gentle.

"I hope so," she murmurs, bringing her hand up to his cheek, holding him there. "Because it's pretty great right now."

"Well, when he turns 12 or so, we'll have to pay strict attention. That's when boys get surly."

She laughs at that, as he intended, and turns her head to kiss his nose. "You were surly?"

"I was something."

"I wish Dash could stay a sweet little boy forever," she says on a sigh.

Ellery stirs and flops an arm out, smacks her lips, but stays asleep. Castle looks back to Kate and she's watching the girl with that same tender regard, that same bittersweet feeling.

"Hey," he says, nudging her. "No more of that. If you wanna be all weepy and stuff, at least let me sleep through it."

"I'm not weepy," she grunts, elbowing him. "I'm - I'm just thinking out loud."

"Do it a little more quietly so I can get back to bed."

"No, you're a part of this," she says quickly, tugging on his ear to keep him from turning away. He really wants to sleep.

"How? You can lament our son's last day of being four just fine on your own."

"No, because - wait, Castle."

He sighs, leans his head against her shoulder, tries a little bit of pouting. She pats his cheek.

"Okay, stay there. Just don't fall asleep on me."

"I'm listening."

"I think we should forget my plan."

"Uh. I don't - about the dinosaurs?"

"Dinosaurs?"

"For Dash's party?" He closes one eye; this would go better if he had more sleep. He's pretty sure of that.

"No, Rick. For the 12th. For you coming back."

"But I-"

"Hush, give me a chance to explain. I think - I don't know what I think actually - but I want to try - I think I want to-"

He lifts his head, frowning at her as she tries to get at whatever it is she's been thinking about. "You want to what?"

"Quit."

"What?" He jerks back, sitting on his feet to look at her. "You want to what?"

"I want to quit. Or - or retire? Can you retire before you're even forty? Maybe not. I might lose my pension and-"

"Wait, whoa, hold up. First - who cares about your pension? We have plenty of money. But most importantly, Kate, shiiiip, you just - what are you saying here?"

She lifts a baleful eye at him. "I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying here. I haven't even thought it through, Castle, which drives me nuts, but you're the one who keeps getting upset when I don't include you on these things and I-"

"Wait, hold on, love." He wraps his fingers around her wrist, squeezes. "I do appreciate your including me. That's not it. What I want to know is why - what made you come to this?"

"I want to be here. I want to be alive - I want to have the luxury of not worrying about Russian mobsters who might have or might not have killed my husband-"

"Whoa, okay," he murmurs, gathers her by the shoulders and tugs her against him. But she fights him off; she's not sad. She's passionate. She pushes back and shakes her head at him.

"No, wait. Listen. Also? I think maybe if I had a different job, we'd have another kid."

"What?" Can she seriously up-end their entire family life this quickly?

"It's just a thought. Struck me this morning that I'm going to miss having a baby - Ellery's not even really a toddler anymore, not the way she's growing up so fast. And I just got the hang of this, being a mom to a couple of little ones, and now I don't want to - well, that's kind of stupid, I know, but-"

"Kate," he sighs. "We don't need another one. We're perfect. We talked about this."

"We are perfect," she says, giving him a soft and lovely smile. Her fingers reach out from the snare of his hand and stroke his wrist. "We really are. And if it happens, it would be more perfect. I'm not saying I want us to get pregnant. I'm saying, I don't want to have to worry about it, either way. Trying to arrange leave from work, trying to balance, every day, the risk of putting myself out there on the job with whatever little life might-"

She breaks off on a shrug and he stares at her, stunned. He never thought about it like that, about how every day she worried over just going in to work pregnant, and what might happen. Every day. How miserable she must have been, in the darkest part of her heart, knowing that there was always the possibility it didn't end well.

"Okay," he says slowly and shifts back beside her, leaning against the headboard as he tries to breathe through it. It's not a conversation about having another baby - they've had that conversation and it's done, settled. This is about her - quitting.

"Castle. I need you to tell me what you think."

"I'm still a little stunned, babe."

"Do you think I can do it? And still be me."

"Of course," he says. Easy. "Why would you not be you?"

"Would I lose - lose the part of me that you fell in love with? The part that keeps you here."

"Never," he growls, wrapping both arms around her. "Never, not in a million years. There's not one part that keeps me here, Kate. Just you. You keep me."

"And our kids," she adds. Her voice is strong. No hesitations or questions in it. Good. She does know, then.

"And the kids. If you do want to stop being a detective, that doesn't stop you being you. You just end up using those things differently. Now if you said you wanted to quit and spend all day on the couch, watching tv and eating chocolate, then I'd be worried."

"Hm, maybe I do."

"Yeah, right."

She hums and kisses the side of his neck, then shrugs her shoulders to dislodge his grip. "Back still hurts. Easy." He lets go, draws his hands down to her waist as she goes on. "I'd never - lazing around on the couch would never happen. I was thinking - I could do something like Alexis."

"Uh. . ."

"Crisis counselor. Or work in the lockdown unit. I think I might be good at that."

"You'd be amazing at that."

She smiles against his skin; he can feel the little hum of pleasure at his words.

"I don't know anything yet. It's just thinking out loud, Castle. Okay? So don't go - making plans or getting your hopes up or-"

"No, no. I got it. I understand. You want my help thinking out loud. Okay, so what does this look like? You retire from the NYPD. You get a different job. There's some training involved, some probationary period, usually 90 days. A whole new system of paperwork and bureaucracy and-"

"Okay, yes. Kinda sucks when you put it like that."

He laughs and feathers his fingers over the side of her face. "That's because you don't like change. I love the idea of having to learn all that new stuff. Also, I could totally follow around a hot crisis counselor. Good stories in that too."

"Oh," she says softly. "Nikki. I didn't think about that. Does it make it difficult to write?"

"No, love. Nikki is set."

She snuggles in closer to him. "I like that. Nikki is set."

"But apparently, you're not set."

"I don't know what I am. Missing my four year old already and maybe feeling like what happened six months ago was a warning."

"You've had a lot of those. We both have." He brushes his fingers along the scar at her wrist, remembering.

She sighs. "Okay, then maybe it feels like my ninth life."

"Sure, I get that," he says, and he does. He gets it all too well.

"Plus, stud, if you really plan on buying Black Pawn, you're gonna have a lot of work to do. I might have to take over the Mr Mom duties."

"I think," he laughs. "I could be wrong, but I think that it's just called Mom duties by that point."

He glances down at her and she's smiling at him too. She lifts up and kisses him, scratches her nails lightly over his unshaved chin. "Okay, Castle. Time to get up, time to go. Enough talking."

She turns away, gets out of his arms, and scoops up Ellery. The little girl is still out, but Kate's heading for the door, smacking kisses into Ella's exposed neck to wake her.

Castle sits, still a little shell-shocked in their bed, and watches her leave.

She might retire?