7. Chapter 7

Rick Castle has never wanted Kate Beckett to be the stereotypical preschool soccer mom. She doesn't wear a locket with her children's smiling faces inside, or two piece sweater sets and chinos. She won't drive a minivan (neither will he, never, not if it's the last thing on earth); she will never dress their children in smocked outfits or get their initials scrawled into the tea towels, the backpacks, and the diaper cloths.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just not. . .not Kate.

Somehow, though, Kate has gotten it into her head that by *not* being the stereotype, she is also not being ideal. And that has got to change. He doesn't know how, but he's hoping that a week away from everything will help reassert her natural confidence.

Why is that that two children under five can shake her so badly, but taking down an armed suspect from the flying leap off a fire escape in four inch heels doesn't?

It astonishes him; it really does. Like tonight, as they lay in bed with Ellery sleeping on top of him, Castle can feel Kate's shame, her guilt, radiating from her like heat off the pavement in July.

With a hand on Ella's back to keep her balanced on top of him, he brushes his fingers over Kate's spine, up to her neck, tangles up in her hair. She rolls over on her back and looks at him and Ella, then curls up closer. Not as close as Castle might love, but close enough.

"I dropped Alexis's favorite monkey in the toilet when she two," he says softly. "And I couldn't bear to have her touch it after that-"

Kate chuffs in the darkness and leans up to kiss his cheek. "I know what you're doing, and I appreciate it. But-"

"Listen."

She sighs and settles back down.

"But Alexis found monkey before I could figure out how to fish him out. She stuck both hands in and-"

"Was it a flushed toilet or. . .or a full one?"

"Flushed. Still."

"Still," she echoes, and he can hear her amusement in the darkness.

"She pulled him out and latched onto him, and I gagged. I seriously thought I was going to vomit all over my child, right there in the bathroom-"

Kate laughs now, putting a hand over her mouth to muffle the noise.

"And I gagged over the toilet, and Alexis freaked a little and dropped her monkey back in-"

"Oh my word, Castle-"

"And I picked Alexis up and put her outside the bathroom door and shut it in her face, locking me and monkey in."

"You did not."

"Yeah. I fished Monkey out and put him right in the trash. When I opened the door, Alexis was on the other side, sobbing."

"Oh."

"I told her Monkey had gone to heaven."

She hummed. "Pixies."

"What? Oh. Wow, yeah, hadn't thought of that. Wait. You know that song?"

"This monkey's gone to heaven? Yeah. Man is five, devil is six, God is-"

"Seven. Huh. Pixies fan. Still unraveling layers of the Beckett onion." He brushes his hand along her arm and she must take that as a sign to settle closer, her head on his shoulder, a hand to his ribs. He tries to envision Kate Beckett at a Pixies concert and fails. Maybe Kate Beckett in her early twenties? Still. . .

"So what did you do about the monkey?" she asks, brushing her fingers along his ribs, gentle circles.

"I got her a new one, which she primly put on her desk chair every night for a week, as a kind of protest, until one night she had either a bad dream or a sleepless couple of hours and got up and grabbed him. And then it was like it had never happened. In fact, I bet Alexis doesn't even know that monkey she's got wasn't her original."

Kate's fingers curl at his pec, but she's quiet. He can hear Ella breathing, feel the girl's body sprawled all over chest, the wet circle of her mouth. He'll move her in a minute, maybe to his other side so he can curl his own body around Kate for awhile, for as long as she'll let him, but for right now, uncomfortable as it is, it's also nice, reassuring.

"You're saying Cricket won't ever remember I did this to her?" Kate says softly.

He grins at the nickname. He hasn't heard Kate use it in. . .almost a year, not since Ellery started being independent and strong-willed and toilet-trained and all that. After Ella stopped making those little chirpy noises, her happy baby sounds, as Kate called them.

"Cricket will be just fine."

He can feel her smile start up at the corners of her mouth, spread outward against his skin. "All right. So it worked," she mutters, turning her face into his shoulder, laughing a little.

"Good." He curls his arm around her and brushes his fingers along her ear. "Good. Because I love you. And my daughter loves you. And my son loves you. And my littlest girl loves you."

She twitches under his arm, lifts her head to look at him. "Your daughter loves me."

"Yeah. You know that she does. She just. . .has all that grad school work."

Kate nods her head, but he still sees it. Something like rejection being whitewashed over in her eyes.

"Kate," he says gently.

"No. I know. It just. . .it's disappointing she couldn't come. And I didn't realize how much I wanted her here until she couldn't."

Castle squeezes her tightly, wondering how to say what he knows needs to be said. Nothing for it; he's just got to plunge right in. "Have you told Alexis that?"

"She doesn't have a lot of free time," Kate hedges.

"But have you told her you'd like her to come? That you want her to show up more often at home?'

Kate is quiet beside him; he wishes he *couldn't* see the direction her thoughts are headed, but he can. She's going to take this as a critique of her parenting. It's not though, it's just that Kate sometimes. . .holds back too much, stays reserved when people like himself, like Alexis, require a little more affirmation. Neither side is better, just different.

"Hey, think about it," he murmurs. "She's a busy young adult; she's got her boyfriend, classes, that research paper, the community service hours, the volunteer work with Youth Villages-"

"That's why I haven't said anything. I didn't want to add another pressure."

"Except we're family; it's not pressure when it comes from family."

"Sure it is. It especially is. I think if she wanted to spend more time at home, she'd spend more time at-"

He waits a moment, can practically hear Kate's gears turning as she processes.

"All right, okay," she whispers, rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling. "Damn. I am such a hypocrite."

Castle chuckles, but when he turns his head to look at her face, he's worried by the shimmer in her eyes. Like tears. He curls an arm around Ellery and slides her slowly off his chest onto the bed beside him, then turns on his side to draw Kate into his arms.

"That's not where I was going with this," he murmurs, pressing a kiss into the side of her neck. "You're beating yourself up for nothing, Kate."

"Not for nothing. I should-"

"Stop. Just stop. Not here." He's so tired of this, hearing how much she wants to change, ought to change, but her not seeing just how much she already has changed. "I was trying to say that Alexis feels like she's intruding on us-"

"What?"

"And she didn't want to interrupt family vacation."

"But she *is* family," Kate hisses, sitting up to glare down at him.

"I told her that. But she hasn't heard it from you."

"Sure she has. All the time. When I asked her if she's coming, and she said she doesn't know, and I asked her to come anyway? What was that?"

"Being polite."

"And why didn't you tell me this before?" she cries, reaching over to shove on his shoulder, making him flop back onto the bed. He tugs her down after him, easily. "Castle-"

"I'm telling you now."

"Well, I'm calling her then and she *will* get her ass over here-"

He muffles a laugh into the side of her neck, rolling them a little further away from the baby. "She really does have observation on Tuesday. She said she can get out of everything else though."

Kate tilts her head, squeezing her neck and shoulder together to capture his jaw. A little rough, but not altogether unpleasant. He really wishes they could put Ella back in her own bed, but Totoro is missing, and they'd end up with a different kind of sleepless night.

"You should've told me this stuff, you idiot," she mutters, her hands coming up to his face and pushing him back onto the pillow. She raises above him, sliding a leg off as if she's going to get out of bed.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm gonna call her-"

"No. Jeez, Kate, it's like midnight-"

"So?"

So. Good point. Alexis is probably up. "So it's my vacation and I want my wife. Get back here."

She's already out of bed and searching through their clothes. "I'll text her. And then I'll crawl back into bed with you. . .two."

Castle follows her line of sight to the little girl, sighing noisily. He's rewarded with a small sound of Kate's amusement, and then she's holding up her phone in triumph and crawling up to him from the foot of the bed.

"It's a good thing this one takes after me," he mutters.

Kate gives the bed a little extra bounce, rattling his teeth, and of course, Ellery sleeps through it. Ellery could sleep through a tornado. She's a champion sleeper. She slept through the night after only four weeks of being home. Kate had to wake her up for feedings (until Castle pointed out that was stupid, and just let her sleep; she was ravenous when she woke, but still such an easy baby).

Kate sits against the headboard and texts Alexis; Castle grabs the phone to see her message before she can hit send.

I love you, Alexis Castle. Get your ass over here ASAP!

Castle laughs and hands it back to her. "Oh my word, Kate. You are just. . .you."

She shrugs at him and sends the text, drops the phone onto the bedside table. "Lucky for you."

He studies her, the stringy hair, pale face, too-large eyes, overripe mouth. The elements of her face that, no matter how he looks, how hard or how long, he just sees Kate now, just this strong, fierce, brilliant, courageous, determined woman who somehow loves him back, loves him with all of those characteristics he loves her *for* and more besides.

"I am so damn lucky," he whispers and lifts up to press his mouth against hers, soft and reverent, adoring her. "So lucky. And proud. Is it wrong to be so proud of something I really have no part in? Because, Kate Beckett, I am so proud you're mine."

He's not sure what he's said, but she curls her whole body into him, wrapping around him, her mouth sweet and languid. "You are an amazing man, Richard Castle, and I love you."

His chest breaks open, his throat closes up. He wraps his arms around her and squeezes. "I have no idea what that's for, but I'll take it."

Kate's hands move to cradle his face, dropping another liquid kiss onto his mouth, painting his cheeks with it, dusting his eyelids. "Whatever I have to be proud of, you - you - are the integral part."