For Liam, who made me laugh until I cried, and would die of embarrassment (even at four years old) if he knew he inspired this.
His little body is contorted with rigid shoulders and tiny fists, chest heaving with the prolonged effort of crying. Their son has been at it for a solid hour, testing his boundaries with this new concept of a regular bedtime routine. For Nicholas, its a fairly new development in rebelling against sleep, something that Castle has assured Kate that Alexis went through at roughly the same age.
He's testing his limits, eager to avoid any sort of rule or barrier just for the sake of doing it. Bedtime meltdowns are one thing, but their precocious toddler now suddenly hates anything mommy picks for him, will only drink milk from a red cup, and steadfastly refuses to eat anything with a whiff of ketchup about it despite sharing a basket of fries slathered in the stuff two days before.
She loves her little boy. He's the moon and the stars in her world, the thing that makes her smile after a long day at the precinct. She loves him desperately, but as he enters a fresh wave of wails when Kate holds up his Batman pajamas, she feels her back teeth grind against the bottom row, and that muscle jerking in her jaw from the strain.
And Nicholas knows it, because he goes quiet at the look, wet eyes and runny nose giving a spectacular impression of a person with a head cold. His whole face is blotchy and red, shoulders wiggling up and down while those clear blue eyes study her with an intense stare that Kate knows he inherited from her.
It's the same look she often gives her kid when his emotions and preferences turn on a dime.
"Come on, baby," she coaxes, one tentative hand falling against a head of thick brown hair, "Let's clean your face off and we'll see if we can talk to daddy." She uses her best cheerful tone, the one that so often cajoles her slightly stubborn son out of bed, that convinces him to try things like carrots and broccoli.
The look he gives her is doubtful, but the tiny slap of Nicholas' feet moving over the hardwood floor of the loft follow Kate into the bathroom. He doesn't protest when she lifts him to sit on the edge of the counter, eyes drooping slightly when the warmth of the washcloth moves over his skin in tandem with her soft humming of his favorite lullaby.
For a couple of heartbeats she thinks she has him, his little body limp and warm in her arms when she lifts him onto her shoulder. His face is pressed into her neck, breathing even with the pattern of sleep that Kate lets herself smile, one hand wide at her son's bare back while she revels in the feel of just holding her rambunctious boy who so rarely wants to pause for affection from his mother because he's too busy living in the world.
She loves him, and she misses Castle, already calculating the time difference between Manhattan and Rome. Can she manage a call to him before he starts a day of publicity?
Kate decides she's going to try, eager to hear the soothing voice of her husband before she drops off to sleep. She manages to successfully lower Nicholas onto the king sized bed, has taken two steps away when her kid jerks himself upright and begins wailing with the realization that he's temporarily fallen asleep.
She feels how her shoulders slump, the sigh breaking on her lips as she turns to gather her toddler up, one lone kiss at the crown of his head while he stutters through another long bought of crying, "What's wrong, buddy?" she asks, fingers tracing circles between his shoulder blades.
"Sleepy," is the mumble from her toddler, stated so matter of fact around his tears that she has to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
"Well its bedtime, don't you want to go to sleep?" Kate keeps her voice soft, soothing, but she still jerks a little at the wail that's loud enough to make her ears ring . A new round of fresh, fat tears have already begun to leak from her son's eyes.
"NOOOOO, Mommy. NOOOO!"
"Aren't you sleepy?" she asks, at a loss for what exactly you do for a kid who knows he's tired and refuses to do the thing that will solve the problem of his crankiness. Her mother had spent Kate's teenage years telling her that one day she'd pay for all the hell she'd put her parents through and, at times like this, she's certain that her mother was right.
Nicholas Castle has a stubborn streak to put both hers and Rick's to shame.
Nicholas screws up his face at her second question, eyes flashing with suspicion as if his mother is trying to trick him and again she has to fight the urge to giggle, trapping the noise by pressing her lips together.
After a beat of weighted silence, her kid speaks, a long, dramatic "Yessssss!," that's accompanied by a flail of his arms and his head tilting towards the ceiling in an example of the overdramatic that would surely make his grandmother proud.
Given such a display, Kate does laugh, mouth opening to flash her son a smile even as she drops two kisses against his rosy cheeks and cradles him to her, "Oh my sweet boy, you are such a Castle," she chuckles, keeping a tight hold on her squirming child until she's settled against the headboard and row of pillows.
Once the phone is in her hand, he stops fighting, slumping against her chest in some contorted position that Kate can't imagine is comfortable. She doesn't move him, preferring the silence as FaceTime works to connect for an international video conference.
Her husband answers on the fourth ring, face split wide with a smile that earns him a tired one from her. Even Nicholas perks up a bit, shouting 'Daddy!' at the screen with a wave that his excited voice doesn't quite match.
"How are you doing?" Rick asks, screen shaking slightly as he adjusts to a better angle for holding. In the background, Kate can see the tasteful furniture of his hotel suite, the flash of black hair that tells her Paula's already arrived and will ensure their conversation is short in order to keep to a schedule.
"We're fighting bedtime," Kate answers, grinning a little as her son nods in agreement, "Sleepy but not willing to sleep, if you can believe it."
"Hey, my man, why won't you sleep for mommy?" Castle's nothing but concern, worry sliding onto his face with a swiftness that makes her regret being honest. The last thing she wants is for him to spend the rest of his tour worried about things at home, especially since its a phase that even his being in the loft wouldn't correct.
"No sleep," Nicholas answers, fingers smudging across the glass to bat at Castle's nose, "No sleep, no story."
The surprise at that careful sentence makes her mouth fall open, eyebrows shooting up towards her hairline before Kate reigns herself in. The silence that falls is weighted, broken only by her husband clearing his throat and giving a careful sniff as she presses another kiss into their son's hair. He won't sleep because Castle's gone, their bedtime routine of a story lost in the haze of international time zones and job demands.
"Rick….." she breathes out his first name, apology etched into every letter, "I had no idea…."
"It's okay, Beckett," he answers her quickly, smile a bit weighted, "Tell you what, buddy, let mommy put your pajamas on and I'll tell you both a story. Every night till I'm back we'll do a story on the phone, okay?"
"About dragons?" Nicholas asks, perking up ever so slightly from his resting place against her side, smile twisting at his lips when Castle agrees.
"Whatever you want it to be, my man," he replies swiftly, cringing as Paula's heels approach over the tile floor of the suite, calling for him to wrap it up.
While her husband deals with his agent, Kate wrestles Nicholas into his pajamas, piling several pillows on Castle's side of the bed in preparation for the wild, wiggly ways of a three-year old and his dreams. By the time he's back in front of the screen, they're both tucked into bed, lights shut off with her son intently staring at a blank screen.
He jerks with a gasp of joy when Rick reappears, giggling out "Hi Daddy" with such sincerity that Kate thinks her heart might burst. Instead, she stays silent, cheek resting on top of her son's head as Castle begins a story about dragons and the brave warrior Nicholas who is tasked with rescuing the village by the King and Queen.
He's barely gotten to Nicholas's journey into the dark forest when their son's body goes heavy with sleep, mouth open in a silent snore. Kate can't help but grin at the sight, easing his head onto a pillow and quickly extracting herself from under the blankets, out into the office.
"Thanks, babe," she murmurs once there's no risk of waking Nicholas, eyes suddenly wet with tears as that well of emotion rises up, "I know you have a million things to do today but I just….."
"Family always come first, Kate. If you need me, call me. If Paula and the others can't understand that I have other priorities then maybe our working relationship needs to be reevaluated," Castle replies, "Some kid though," comes as an afterthought that makes her grin.
"Mmmm, reminds me of his dad. All that stubbornness and that enormous imagination," Kate teases, the tip of her tongue poking between her teeth.
"I don't think he got the stubbornness from me," he volleys back at her with his own matching grin, eyes somewhere far away in an idea or memory, "But, you know, maybe we should try it again sometime. See if we can make one a little more cooperative."
She feels her heart skip a beat and then burst back to life, biting down on her bottom lip to temporarily trap the smile that blossoms outward anyway. It's not a new discussion, not by far, but this is the first time Castle's been the one to bring up another child. Raising Nicholas in his 40s hadn't been a cake walk, and even though she'd been willing to try for another since they'd managed to potty train their son, her husband had been more reluctant.
"I think we could manage that," Kate answers finally, voice tight with emotion as Paula's jersey accent shatters the long look they share between two phone screens. According to his agent, they have to leave now or risk missing an interview with the largest newspaper in the city altogether.
"Yeah, okay," Castle's reply comes with a shift in expression, clear reluctance at letting her go, "I love you, Kate. I'll be home soon. Sleep well."
"Love you, too," she says, "Have a good day, Castle."
"Goodnight, Beckett."