Disclaimer: All things "Castle" belong to ABC.
Author's Note: This is not at all an appropriately seasonal fic, although in my defense, I did get the idea for it at Thanksgiving and it's just taken me until now to finish it since RL and other distractions got in the way. A three-part fic, taking place after 2x10 "One Man's Treasure."
Thankful
Chapter 1
Castle hurried into the precinct, heading straight through the bullpen for Beckett standing by the white board with the boys, feeling his heart lift a little in that way it had taken to doing whenever he saw Beckett. (He was always happy to see her. What? She was his friend; a man was allowed to be happy to see a friend. Really, that was all. And one of these days, he might even believe his own lies.) "Hey, guys. Sorry I couldn't make it earlier. What'd I miss?"
"Well, well, look who finally decided to grace us with his presence," Esposito greeted him dryly.
"Yeah, Castle, you missed the crime scene and it was a creepy one, right up your alley," Ryan chimed in.
"Ooh, really, a creepy one? What was it like?"
"A dark alley by an abandoned warehouse and rats had gotten to the body before we got there, eaten the face right off," Espo answered.
Castle shuddered a little and made a face of mingled revulsion and fascination. (What, he couldn't help it. He was a mystery writer; he lived for morbid details like this sometimes.)
"And the cause of death looked like a laser gun; there were burn marks around the wound," Ryan chimed in.
"A laser gun! That is so—" Castle blurted out with enthusiasm before his brain caught up and he broke off, narrowing his eyes at the boys. "Okay, I get it, you're pulling my leg. Haha. Beckett, you're the grown-up. What was the cause of death?"
"Well, it looked like the victim had been severely whipped by a red hot scourge so my best guess is that he was electrocuted by a giant jellyfish," Beckett deadpanned.
The boys smirked and Castle laughed, even as he felt the little flutter of silly delight that always accompanied one of Beckett's demonstrations of wit and her literary fluency. "That's a theory worthy of me, Beckett, and a Sherlock Holmes reference, too! I approve."
Beckett rolled her eyes. "Oh no, what have I done now? He was killed by a single GSW to the chest, small caliber. We're still waiting to hear back from ballistics."
"Was his face really chewed off by rats?"
"No," Beckett stated flatly.
"Oh." Castle deflated a little. "A plain vanilla crime scene then?"
"A plain GSW not good enough for you, Castle?" Espo jibed.
Beckett cleared her throat. "If you guys are finished, we do have a murder to solve, remember?" She turned to Espo. "Espo, you were saying?"
"Yeah," Espo stepped forward. "Before Castle finally decided to show up, I was just going to say we've got a positive ID on our vic. Sloan Kellington, 47, insurance agent."
"Next of kin?"
"A brother," Ryan answered. "Or his ex-wife; they divorced about a year ago. No kids."
"We'll start with the brother," Beckett decided. "We got his address?"
"Yup." Espo handed over a slip of paper.
Beckett glanced at Castle. "Well, Castle, you coming?"
"Why, Detective, I thought you'd never ask," Castle answered, falling into step beside her.
Beckett rolled her eyes a little in trademark fashion but otherwise didn't respond, as was her way. She wasn't given to idle chatter at the best of times and when there was a case to work on, she tended to be all business. It was hot. (Was it weird that he found Beckett's focus and intensity to be so hot?)
He pulled out his phone as it buzzed in his pocket to see that Alexis had sent a text message.
"You know, Castle, if you've got somewhere else to be, you don't have to stick around. I'm sure we'll manage just fine without you," Beckett told him dryly.
"Don't be silly, Beckett. Of course I don't have somewhere else to be."
"Except earlier when we got called to the actual crime scene," she pointed out.
"Sorry about that. Alexis and I were out grocery shopping for Thanksgiving dinner but we got that taken care of so it's all good. She just sent me a text to let me know she picked up the last of the spices we needed to get. Say, Beckett, that reminds me, what are your plans for Thanksgiving? You don't have to work, do you?"
"No, I don't work on Thanksgiving."
"So what are your plans for the day off then? Do you and your dad have something special planned?"
There was a split second of a pause, in which he belatedly wondered how hard a holiday like Thanksgiving was for Beckett without her mom around but she still had her dad, he knew, and he could guess how much her dad meant to Beckett. She wore his watch every day after all. And then she answered, "My dad and I are going out for dinner."
He blinked and didn't need to feign his dismay. "Going out as in going to a restaurant? On Thanksgiving?"
"Yes, Castle, going out to a restaurant and you don't have to sound like that. My dad and I have been there before and it's a nice place," she answered coolly.
"That's not the point, Beckett. It's the very idea of going to a restaurant on Thanksgiving in the first place. It's so impersonal and it's just not right. You should just come to the loft and have Thanksgiving dinner with us," he blurted out impulsively. Unthinkingly. But then his brain caught up to his mouth and he realized abruptly that he really wanted Beckett to come over to the loft, wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner with Beckett.
Which should have been more surprising than it was because he'd never invited a girlfriend over for Thanksgiving, of the few girlfriends he'd had that he'd allowed to meet Alexis in the first place. Gina's first Thanksgiving at the loft had happened when they were already engaged. Besides that, he'd wanted to avoid raising any expectations in his girlfriends that an invitation to Thanksgiving might imply.
Not that Beckett was his girlfriend. But still. He generally liked to reserve Thanksgiving—and Christmas—for family. Growing up, they had been one of the only times which his mother had always made a point of spending entirely with him, no one else. And so with Alexis, he tried to preserve that, with a few exceptions. Alexis's close friend, Paige, and her family had been invited one year when Paige's mom had broken a leg just a few weeks before, making it all but impossible for Paige's family to have a real Thanksgiving otherwise. And he'd acquiesced to his mother's cajoling a couple times and invited those of her cast members who didn't have any family in the area to come over. After all, it wasn't as if he disliked inviting people over, far from it. But the major holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas, he generally preferred to spend with family.
But Beckett was… different.
And he did want her to come over for Thanksgiving.
He always wanted to spend more time with Beckett outside of work. He'd given up on trying to tell himself it was just as friends. He and Beckett were friends—at least, he thought so, hoped so—but he couldn't kid himself that what he felt for Beckett was limited to friendship. Or simple lust either (although admittedly there was a lot of lust mingled in because she was so incredibly hot.) What he wanted from her besides friendship wasn't entirely clear to him yet but it was something.
It was her turn to gape at him for a moment before returning her attention to the road. "You're inviting me to Thanksgiving dinner with your family?"
"Your dad's welcome to come too. It'd be fun," he added cajolingly.
"Ye—no—Castle, I can't join you for Thanksgiving!" Beckett sounded as close to flustered as he'd ever heard the usually unflappable Detective Beckett sound. "Thank you but I really couldn't. Thanksgiving dinner is for family."
"Family and friends," he corrected. "Come on, Beckett, you're not going to hurt my feelings and say we're not friends, are you?" he joked, putting on his best wounded puppy expression.
She didn't respond to that leading question. Predictably. (Well, it was worth a try.) "Anyway, Castle, you and Alexis already went out to do your shopping. My dad and I can't possibly barge in now and expect you to feed two extra mouths on such short notice."
He waved that off. "Oh, we always make enough food to feed a small army so don't even worry about that and this year, it's just going to be me, Alexis, and Mother to eat it all otherwise."
"Thank you, Castle, but I really couldn't," she repeated, still not sounding entirely like herself, before adding more briskly, "We're at the brother's place now, Castle. Focus."
He subsided as Beckett pulled over to park. He could wait and ask Beckett again later. After all, he hadn't really expected her to agree immediately, had he? She wouldn't be Kate Beckett if she acquiesced to an admittedly spur-of-the-moment invitation to something like Thanksgiving dinner at once. Beckett wasn't even inclined to come over to the loft for dinner on any regular day. (He knew; he'd asked, most recently after they'd gone to the concert by Skye Blue.) And a holiday dinner, a holiday dinner where he would get to meet her dad for the first time, had other connotations to it.
Holidays, Thanksgiving especially, were usually for families.
And he and Beckett weren't family. At least not yet.
Wait. What?
Castle abruptly slammed the brakes on his thoughts. Nope, not going there. Not going anywhere near there. He didn't—they weren't—Beckett wasn't—that wasn't what his invitation had been about. Really. It was simply a gesture of friendship since he'd meant it when he said that the idea of eating at a restaurant on Thanksgiving seemed depressing and Beckett of all people deserved more than that (she deserved everything—he ignored that little voice in his mind. It might be true but it wasn't up to him.)
But he did want Beckett to come to Thanksgiving dinner. He wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner with Beckett and her dad. Wanted to look across the table and see Beckett smiling at Alexis and his mother over turkey and mashed potatoes and stuffing, wanted to surreptitiously watch her as she tried his special stuffing, wanted to have her humor and her calm composure offsetting his mother's melodrama since his mother tended to view holidays as an excuse to dial her usual exuberance and flair up to 14, on a 10 point scale.
He glanced at her to see that she was mentally steeling herself to talk to the victim's brother. She had the expression he'd come to recognize of her both finding her innate compassion and empathy for family victims while also strictly walling off her own emotions. He didn't know how she did it, break this worst of news to family members every day. He remembered what Captain Montgomery had said about Beckett's ability to reach out to grieving family members during the bike messenger case. Better than anyone I know. Castle didn't doubt it. She was amazing. Extraordinary.
He wasn't giving up on persuading Beckett to agree to come over for Thanksgiving now.
(He would never give up on Beckett, a tiny voice in his mind whispered.) But then the door of the brother's apartment opened and he forgot the thought, pulled into the moment, the drama of the story in the case, as always.
Later that evening, Kate found herself unable to concentrate on the TV, her thoughts returning again and again to Castle's invitation to Thanksgiving dinner, which he'd repeated when they were back at the precinct waiting for the boys so they could brief them about what they'd learned about the victim from his brother, and then again just before he left the precinct for the evening.
She'd ignored the repeated invitations both times—they'd been at work in the middle of a case, after all—but now she found the invitation returning to her mind.
It didn't take much imagination to picture what Thanksgiving dinner at the Castle loft would be like. Castle loved holidays, loved making a big deal out of things, and she did know from the breakfast she'd had at the loft the morning after the MADT fundraiser back in the spring that he was a good enough cook that she had no doubt he'd be making a full traditional Thanksgiving dinner, in typical over-the-top Castle fashion. She knew what it'd be like, the noise and warmth and vitality of Castle, Martha, and Alexis, all gathered together and in a celebratory mood.
It hadn't taken more than her few visits to the loft for her to know that the loft was, in spite of its size and undeniable luxury, a home, with all that entailed, warm and inviting and full of that indefinable atmosphere that a loving family imparted to a space to turn it into a real home.
Yes, she knew what Thanksgiving with the Castles would be like—loud and messy in the best of ways, the quintessential Thanksgiving feast with all the warmth and holiday cheer and, yes, love that was the ideal Thanksgiving dinner, the sort of thing one saw in the movies, as a family sat down around a table groaning with food.
The sort of Thanksgiving she hadn't had in ten years.
What was the damn man about? She couldn't figure him out, couldn't work out what he wanted from her.
And she didn't like it, didn't like feeling so confused and off-balance when it came to him.
It had been easy enough at first to dismiss him as a playboy out to get into her pants—he hadn't made a secret of that. You have gorgeous eyes. I'd be happy to let you spank me. Ever drop your top, a little cops gone wild?
A silly, irritating playboy, at that. She was used to thinking of him as the 12-year-old he so often acted like.
She'd gotten used to ignoring his veiled and not-so-veiled come-ons as just more evidence that he wanted a fling with her. (Which wasn't going to happen. She'd had one-night stands in the past, been there, done that, as the phrase went, and they were never really satisfactory and she wasn't about to become another notch on Castle's bedpost. No matter how hot he was. Not that she noticed. Much.)
And as of only months ago, she'd still been furious with him for looking into her mom's case behind her back, prying into the most private, personal part of her life for his own insatiable curiosity without a thought for her or how it might affect her.
But then he'd apologized—sincerely—and for once showed every indication of being willing to accept her decree that she didn't want him around anymore—if we're not going to see each other again, he'd said—and she'd forgiven him.
Since then, they had become actual friends, as he'd said. And when she'd heard about his offer for James Bond—the realization that he would stop following her around, that she could once again go about her work without some annoying writer tagging along—her first thought had been not happiness or relief (which, up until then, she would have sworn it would be, that she was counting down the days until he was done doing research) but dismay, the stark realization that after all, she didn't want him to go. They were friends but more than that was the image of going back to working only with the boys, no Castle around, and she'd thought it would be… boring.
Damn the man anyway, for insinuating his way into her work and her life, and for confusing her like this, the mixed signals he was sending out. She didn't know what he wanted from her. A fling? A friendship? A work partnership?
She could handle all that but now, with his invitation to Thanksgiving dinner with her dad, no less, and his family, she didn't know anymore. Wanting to be introduced to her dad on Thanksgiving, of all holidays—marginally better than the connotations of being invited for Christmas but still. The only boyfriend she'd ever introduced to her dad like that (she didn't count her dad's interrogations of her high school boyfriends) had been Will and even with Will, even though at the time she'd started to think that maybe he could be the one, she'd been careful that their first meeting together had been on some normal day, a neutral day and location, not giving rise to any expectations.
Not that Castle was her boyfriend. But still.
Thanksgiving was for families.
And whatever else, she and Castle were definitely not family. Would never be family.
Meeting her dad for the first time for Thanksgiving dinner in his home with his entire family—that was fraught with so many connotations the mind positively boggled.
He was a writer and whatever else he was, he wasn't stupid; there was no way he didn't know that. Even if the invitation had been thoughtless, on impulse (as she strongly suspected), his repeated invitations could not be written off like that.
So what was he thinking?
Not about having a fling, that was for sure. Inviting her dad to come too, to have a holiday dinner with him and his daughter and his mother—no, that wasn't something a person did for someone they viewed as a potential fling.
Friends then? But even for friends, an invitation for Thanksgiving to her and her dad seemed rather more fraught with significance. Didn't it?
Damn the man anyway.
Her phone rang and she answered automatically. "Beckett."
"Hi, Detective Beckett."
Speaking of the devil… Kate straightened up in her chair as she recognized the girl's voice. "Alexis, hi. What's up? Do you have more questions about studying abroad?" It was her best guess as to why Alexis, of all people, would call her.
"Oh, no, thanks, Detective. I'm not bothering you, am I?"
"No, of course not. I'm happy to talk. What's up?" Kate answered sincerely. She liked Alexis. The girl was surprisingly mature, well-mannered, smart, and really very sweet. Not for the first time, she marveled that Castle had raised a daughter like that.
"Well, my dad told me that he invited you over for Thanksgiving."
"Oh." He'd told Alexis?
"And I just wanted you to know that you really would be welcome to come for Thanksgiving. It's not just one of those things Dad says without thinking it through or anything, Detective. I mean, I know Dad can be silly but he really does want you to come over. And we always make enough food to feed at least a dozen people and it's not unusual for us have people over for Thanksgiving anyway. We've had my friend Paige and her family over for Thanksgiving and one year, we invited all the cast members in Grams's play who didn't have family in the area to come over so it's not like it'd be weird or anything," Alexis said in a rush. Kate blinked. She'd never heard Alexis talk so fast or sound quite so unsure of herself. She sounded unlike the girl Kate had gotten to know. Sounded, well, more like a child of Castle's would be expected to sound, knowing Castle's tendency to prattle and open his mouth to insert his foot.
"Does your dad know you're calling me?" She didn't really think Castle would use Alexis as a go-between of sorts to get her to agree to his invitation but she had to ask.
"No, he just told me about his invitation to you to make sure I'd be okay with you and your dad joining us for Thanksgiving. I hope you do come, Detective Beckett, it'd be fun. And my dad said your dad's a lawyer so I'd like to ask him questions about what that's like, if he doesn't mind."
"I'm sure he won't mind," Kate answered automatically and then realized that she'd made it sound like she was accepting the invitation.
"So will you come over for Thanksgiving then, Detective?"
Alexis sounded so hopeful and Kate couldn't deny the appeal of the idea of Thanksgiving. Dangerous as it was to her own peace of mind, to get sucked into the atmosphere of home and family that the Castle family exuded and be reminded of all she'd lost, all she didn't have and might never have again. "I'll think about it and check with my dad and let you know, Alexis," she promised.
"All right," Alexis agreed. "I really hope you decide to come, Detective Beckett."
"Thanks for inviting me."
"I have ulterior motives of wanting to talk to you more about the precinct," Alexis said lightly and Kate laughed. How very Castle-like of Alexis to deflect with humor like that.
"You can always just call if you want to talk, Alexis."
"Thanks, I might just do that. Have a good night, Detective."
"Good night, Alexis."
Kate stared at her phone unseeingly after she ended the call, struck by the realization that she wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner at the loft with Castle and his family. It might be awkward and a little weird and a little confusing (to her) but she wanted it.
She knew what Thanksgiving would be like with her dad, the subdued dinner in a restaurant they both liked, the attempts to keep up a cheerful conversation that fooled neither of them. Holidays were always hard, Thanksgiving almost as hard as Christmas, and always reminded both her and her dad just how much they'd lost, how much they missed her mom. Her mom had been the life of Thanksgiving in their house, had enjoyed being able to take the time and go all out in cooking as her busy work schedule didn't allow very often, had loved the holiday and what it signified.
Kate had tried to make a smaller version of Thanksgiving dinner the second year after her mom's death but it had been a miserable failure. She'd broken down and cried as she cooked and her dad had started drinking before the food had been ready and kept up with it until he'd passed out in the middle of his attempt at eating.
They'd never tried to have a real Thanksgiving dinner again. Not even since her dad had been sober. Instead, they had only developed a habit of going out to eat dinner. Going out was easier, reminded them less painfully of when her mom had been alive, and they could pretend that it was just another dinner, not Thanksgiving at all.
Now, she thought about having a real Thanksgiving again—and oh, she wanted it. She'd missed it. And now, even though it might be awkward and confusing, she wanted it.
She was a grown-up. Surely she and her dad could have dinner at the loft with Castle's family without it changing anything about her relationship with Castle and without any additional implications worming in.
And she and Castle were friends. Alexis had said herself that Castle had invited friends over for Thanksgiving before.
Had she been a little silly for reacting the way she had, her thoughts leaping to the other connotations? As if anything at all were happening or going to happen between her and Castle. Which it wasn't. She wasn't about to have a fling with him. Not ever and certainly not while he was still following her for research purposes. They worked together, had become friends. And that was all.
Kate picked up her phone again to call her dad, who answered almost immediately. "Hi, Katie."
"Hi, Dad."
"This is a nice surprise. I was just thinking about you."
"I wanted to ask you something, Dad, about Thanksgiving."
"Oh, Katie, don't tell me you need to work after all," he said, his tone changing.
"No, Dad," she hurriedly answered, "that's not it at all. I'm still free on Thursday. I actually wanted to check with you because, well, Castle invited us to have Thanksgiving dinner with his family at his place," she finished in something of a rush.
There was a brief pause and then her dad repeated, "Castle, as in Richard Castle, has invited us for Thanksgiving dinner? Me too?"
"Yes, Dad, he specifically said that you're invited too and anyway, Dad, I wouldn't go without you."
"Well, that's very kind of him."
Kate made a noncommittal sound. Kind. Odd but it wasn't a word she'd ever really associated with Castle before—annoying, definitely, talkative, yes, funny, yes that too, and she couldn't deny his charm either—but kind? And yet, it really was. Inviting her and her dad, who was, after all, a total stranger to Castle, into his home so they could have a home-cooked feast with his family—yes, that was kind.
"What do you think, Katie, do you want to go? After all, you always complain about how irritating he is at work. I don't want you to have to suffer the company of someone you find insufferable," her dad said blandly.
Kate narrowed her eyes even though her dad wasn't there to see it. She knew her dad's tone. He might mean the literal sentiment but that wasn't his intention. "I don't mind the idea, Dad," she answered composedly. "I've gotten used to Castle, as annoying as he can be, and his daughter is actually really sweet. You'd like her."
"Well, if you don't mind, I'd rather like to go. It would give me a chance to finally meet this Castle of yours."
Kate choked on air. "He's not my Castle, Dad! We work together, at least temporarily, and I suppose we've gotten to be friends but that's it."
"I only meant that he's your friend, not mine, Katie," her dad answered innocently.
Kate let out an irritated, skeptical huff. She knew her dad too well to believe that. But she also knew better than to get into this with her dad. "Then I'll tell Castle tomorrow that we'll join him for dinner on Thursday."
"Sounds good to me. Tell him thank you from me and I look forward to meeting him."
"I'll tell him. And I'll let you know his address and what time dinner will be. Good night, Dad."
"Good night, Katie-bug."
Kate ended the call and then made a face at her phone, in lieu of being able to make a face at her dad. She knew her dad approved of Castle being her partner—where her dad had gotten such a positive impression of Castle from Kate's complaints about him, Kate didn't know but somehow he had. Her dad meant it when he said he was looking forward to meeting Castle.
And now she needed to tell Castle that she'd changed her mind and would go to the loft for Thanksgiving after all.
Kate grimaced. That was going to be awkward too.
On the other hand, if she knew Castle at all, he would ask again. He was persistent, she had to give him that. He would ask again and then she could make a show of giving in and things would be… easier… that way. More in line with their usual interactions where he pestered and she eventually relented. That way was safer, more normal. And she wouldn't need to admit that she might actually want to go to the loft for Thanksgiving. Wouldn't need to admit that the idea of spending time with Castle—and his family—outside of work wasn't, um, entirely terrible.
A little voice inside her head whispered that she was being a coward but she ignored it. It wasn't cowardly, just a little… indirect.
Castle knew—or was getting to know—Beckett too well to think that asking her repeatedly if she would come over for Thanksgiving would do anything to persuade her. He also knew that asking when she was preoccupied with the case wouldn't do him any favors either.
So instead he waited for the short interludes of down-time, when they were waiting for the warrants on the vic's phone records and financials to return, to tell Beckett stories about past Thanksgivings. He told her about how Alexis used to wrinkle up her nose in the most adorable manner as she concentrated on mashing the potatoes and the way Alexis used to beg him to let her be the one to pull the meat thermometer out of the turkey. He told her about the year he and Alexis and his mother had dressed up in costume as if to re-enact the first Thanksgiving, how he had been Squanto and Alexis had been the cutest Pilgrim in the history of the world.
"Your family dressed up in costume for Thanksgiving?" Beckett repeated.
He put on an expression of mock surprise. "Doesn't everybody?"
Beckett snorted. "No, I'm pretty sure that's just you," she said dryly. "But if you expect either me or my dad to dress up like pilgrims, you've got another thing coming."
Wait, but… "Beckett!" he exclaimed delightedly. "Does that mean you'll come over for Thanksgiving after all? I promise we won't be wearing costumes this year."
Beckett opened her mouth, closed it, looking a little flustered and he noticed with some fascination the faint tinge of red appearing in her cheeks. Beckett rarely blushed but she was now. She hadn't really meant to blurt out what she had. How very interesting… "I'm thinking about it," she finally said. "My dad's willing, I checked, but only if you're absolutely sure—and I'm serious, Castle, no jokes this time—that it won't be an imposition and you won't need to get any more food than you've already prepared to make."
Castle composed his expression into preternatural solemnity. "I promise that we've already bought plenty of food and you won't be an imposition at all. Ask Alexis if you don't believe me."
She studied him for a fleeting second, a look he couldn't read in her eyes. "In that case, Castle, you've got two additional guests for Thanksgiving."
He didn't need to feign his delight. "That's great! This is going to be such fun, Beckett, I promise you."
"My dad says thanks for the invite, by the way."
Castle waved a hand. "No thanks necessary. Really, Beckett, you know I like having people over and anyway, we always make way too much food because that way, we can take the leftovers to a local soup kitchen."
There was a brief pause as Beckett looked at him, surprise and other emotions he couldn't quite read crossing her expression. "You take the leftovers to a soup kitchen?" she repeated.
Castle shifted in his seat. He hadn't meant to admit that. He never talked about his various charitable endeavors and the Thanksgiving one he'd never mentioned to anyone. He'd forgotten, or something, in his eagerness to reassure Beckett that having two more people come over wouldn't require any additional food preparation. The habit of years had him opening his lips to make a joke out of it, say that it was a great place to meet women or that he did it because telling people about it always made him really popular—but somehow, he met her eyes and the words faded. No, he couldn't say that. They would be flat-out lies, which he generally tried not to do, but more than that, this was Beckett and she had a way of looking at him that practically seemed to compel honesty. It was like a superpower. "Yeah. We started years ago. I…" he glanced around to make sure no one else was in earshot but lowered his voice anyway, "I wanted to make sure that Alexis learned to appreciate how lucky we are, didn't want her growing up to be one of those spoiled rich kids, the ones who look down on anyone less fortunate and wouldn't lift a finger to help anyone else." He might have vowed years ago that he never, ever wanted Alexis to grow up worrying about money but he had also been to school with plenty of spoiled, entitled rich kids like that and he hadn't wanted Alexis to grow up like that either. It was one of the things he struggled with, of how to give Alexis everything she could ever want (which was his instinct) but not have her turn out to be some sort of spoiled monster.
Beckett gave him another look he couldn't quite read except that it was oddly appraising, as if she were seeing him for the first time. "You're… a nice man, Castle."
"You don't have to sound so shocked about it," he made himself joke to cover the way his silly heart was swooning inside his chest. Kate Beckett had just given him a spontaneous compliment! She thought he was a nice man! Nice might be a word he generally despised; as a writer, it was such a boring, bland word, but from Beckett… He felt like he'd just won a Pulitzer.
"Well, it is a shock," she retorted dryly and then her tone softened slightly. "You're not just the annoying 12-year-old you act like most of the time, are you?"
"Don't tell anyone. I have a reputation to uphold," he quipped.
She rolled her eyes a little. "Your secret's safe with me." But then she gave him one of her real, bright smiles, the one that lit up her eyes with dancing sparks of green like emeralds on a forest floor. Get a grip, Rick. That's just sickening.
"So any other traditions I should know about so I can warn my dad?"
"No, nothing really," he answered and then corrected himself, "Except, no, there's one thing. Before we start eating, we go around the table and each of us tells three things we're thankful for, big, medium, and small. So the big one is one of those necessities, like, oh, being thankful for good health. The medium one is something not quite as necessary. One year, I said I was thankful for the existence of comic books."
She huffed a laugh. "You're thankful for comic books, Castle?"
"What? They gave me hours of enjoyment and inspiration and the creative universes of the different super-heroes are some of the most enduring pillars of popular culture," he finished didactically.
She only rolled her eyes and he went on. "The small thing is something minor, like being thankful for a sunny day. You get the idea, Beckett, it's not complicated."
"Yeah, I get the idea, Castle. I'll tell my dad. What time should we come over?"
"Well, we usually eat Thanksgiving dinner really early, well before 5 p.m., so we have plenty of time to take the leftovers to the soup kitchen afterwards, so you and your dad can show up any time after 3:30 or so. That should give me and Alexis enough time to get everything ready."
"Can my dad and I bring anything? Dessert? A side dish?"
"No need, Beckett. We already got everything we need so just the pleasure of your company will be enough," he declared in his most grandiloquent manner just to see her give him one of her trademark eye-rolls. Which she did. And he felt a silly little flutter of delight inside him at the sight. Always keeping him on his toes and puncturing his moments of melodrama—that was Beckett, all right. And he liked it, liked her.
"Prepare to be dazzled by my culinary magnificence."
She snorted. "Culinary magnificence, really, Castle? If your ego gets any bigger, it would block out the sun."
He put a hand to his chest. "You wound me, Beckett, but that's only because you haven't tried my special stuffing yet. I'm expecting shock and awe, Detective."
"Not gonna happen, Castle. I'm not that easily awed," she told him dryly.
"Just wait, Beckett. Even Alexis admits I make the best stuffing."
"She's biased," she retorted quickly. But for once the words were rather belied by the real smile she flashed him, another of her real smiles, without the usual tinge (or more than a tinge) of sarcasm or sardonic wit or even reluctance, the tiny smiles that occasionally escaped her when he could see she didn't really want to smile. Not that he didn't like all her smiles, the snarky ones, the shy ones, the sexy ones and everything in between, but these real, bright smiles—oh, these were the ones he really loved.
Two real smiles in the space of as many minutes! He could really get addicted to the sight of Kate Beckett smiling at him.
Yeah, he was so doomed, falling for her so hard and so fast it was dizzying.
But she had agreed to come over for Thanksgiving. And maybe, just maybe, this would be his chance.
~To be continued…~
A/N 2: Thank you, everyone, reading and reviewing.