Oh, my puggy family. How I have missed you.
"Cruella De Vil isn't real, is she?"
Mary looks up from her school books, finds Ben peering at her from the other side of the table. "Cruella? No, she's from a film."
"But she stole all those dogs!" he insists, kneeling up on the chair and pushing Mary's books away with his hands.
"In a film, Ben. She's not real." She sighs, pulling the books back towards her.
"I don't want anyone to steal Bendog. He's mine, no one else's."
"No one's going to steal Bendog. Or Mocha or Macchiato. And Cappuccino is perfectly safe with Alexis."
"But what if someone does! Just because you say Cruella isn't real, doesn't mean that there isn't somebody like her! Daddy says the characters in his books aren't real, yet Mommy chases bad guys all day. So bad people are real."
"But not Cruella. There's only four pugs, Ben. That's not nearly enough for a coat."
"What if she doesn't want to make a coat, though?" Ben whines. "A pair of gloves, or a hat. A pug would make a perfect glove or a hat."
"Ben, listen to me. Bendog is fine. He's safe. No one is going to steal him."
Kate comes home later to find Ben standing guard with a hockey stick. She tries to sneak past him but he blocks her way, the stick pressed against the top of her thighs. She could get past easily if she wanted to, but hey, if he wants to play. "You've got to prove you aren't going to steal Bendog."
"I'm not going to steal Bendog, Ben. I'm your mother. Mother's don't steal their son's dogs."
He narrows his eyes at her. "You might be Cruella in disguise."
"Cruella De Vil wanted Dalmatian puppies, Ben. Bendog is not a Dalmatian, and nor is he a puppy. And Cruella De Vil isn't even real. You don't need to stand guard at the door with a hockey stick." She ruffles his hair, and steps around the sports equipment with a smile. "Come on, let's go find your Daddy."
"I need to stand guard." He insists, swinging his hockey stick back towards the door. "No one's stealing my dog."
"I keep telling him no one's going to steal Bendog." Mary mutters, still sat at the table. "I think Dad's been letting him watch TV unsupervised again."
"And we do know how much Dad loves unsupervised TV. Where is Mr. Irresponsible, anyway?"
"Office. Pretending to write, but he switches the screen from the internet to a word document that hasn't changed in the past five hours every time I walk in." Mary chuckles, leaning back in her chair. "He thinks I don't notice, but I'm onto him."
"Do you expect anything else from your father?" Kate laughs, leaning over her daughters shoulders to look at her work. "You seem to have skipped out on the procrastination gene. I'm very happy."
"My teacher is too."
"Did you know," Kate asks as she winds her arms around Castle's neck, "that Ben is worried that Cruella De Vil is going to come and steal Bendog? Have you let him watch movies by himself again?"
"It's not like 101 Dalmatians is at all scary." He huffs, closing the laptop. "Did he meet you with the hockey stick?"
"He thinks I'm Cruella De Vil. Which is nice. Apparently I'm going to steal all our dogs and make them into gloves, or hats." She presses kisses against his forehead, her fingers slipping inside the fabric of his shirt. "You had a good day?"
"I have done absolutely no writing." He smiles with a happy smile, and Kate laughs. He's going to regret that in a few weeks when Gina is phoning the house every hour on the hour demanding why the next draft isn't on her desk yet.
"Yeah, I know. Mary thinks you think your fooling her. Which you are definitely not."
"I was never even attempting to. How was your day, anyway?"
"Ugh, boring. Nobody has killed someone else in two days. I am bored of doing paperwork, but, at least it gets me home on time for dinner. Speaking of which, I am starving. What is for dinner?"
"I am ordering pizza. I figured if you got home soon enough you'd want time for a shower, and I need a shower too. Mary's studying, Ben is too busy guarding the door, Jamie's out. Quick shower. Go, clothes off."
"Mmm. I like it when you're bossy."
"Mom, do you have people in the police who track down lost things?" Ben asks. He hasn't eaten any of his pizza, has been sat with his arms folded and staring at the door for the past five minutes regardless of how much poking and prodding and stern words he receives.
"There's Robbery. They track down things that people have stolen from others, but not really if someone has just lost something."
"But they would if someone stole something? Like if someone stole my dog. They'd track them down, right?"
"Ben, sweetheart. Listen to me; no one is going to steal Bendog. He's safe. The door is more or less constantly locked, he sleeps with you. We constantly have eyes on him when we go out. We look after all of the dogs. They are safe. No one is going to steal him."
"But if… if someone did…"
"If someone did take Bendog then we would do absolutely everywhere we could to get him back. If any of the pugs went missing we would do anything to get them back."
"And you'd get them back, right?"
"We would try our hardest, Ben. We'd do whatever we could."
"But not like stupid missing posters, right? You'd get the police and everybody would help. You'd do what you could, right?"
Kate pushes her plate away with a sigh, rubs a hand over her forehead. "Ben… we can't just send out the whole force to look for one dog."
"But it's my dog." Ben insists. "It's Bendog."
"Ben, do you know how many dogs go missing every year? If we were able to get the police out to look for every single one of them, we'd never have anybody to solve murders, or robberies, or get all the bad guys off the street. The best we'd be able to do is put up posters, tell the police to keep any out, but that's all we would be able to do."
"The police helped get the Dalmatians back!" Ben argues, glaring at his mother.
"That's because the Dalmatians were stolen, Ben." James sighs, already fed up with the conversation. "They only care if the dogs are stolen. If the dogs just run off they don't give a –"
"Don't you dare finish that sentence, Jamie."
The twelve year old scowls at Castle, stabs at an olive with a fork. "I'm just saying."
"Yeah, you say a lot of things. Watch your mouth."
"I can't watch my mouth," Jamie replies, "it's impossible."
"And no back-chat."
"I was just-"
"Jamie, stop talking. Eat your pizza. I don't want another word from you until your plate is clean."
It's late. It's very late. Ben can't quite remember when he has ever been awake this late, when he's been awake this long. He thinks that even Mom and Dad have gone to bed because he can't hear anything. Normally there's chatter, the sound of washing up, the TV. Something. But there's nothing. It's just him and Bendog, their only defence against dognappers being a hockey stick. He can't sleep. There is no way that he can possibly sleep. He's their sole defence. Their defence against women wearing nothing black and white, and two idiots in a van. Mary and James can make fun of him all they want, they're okay. Neither Mocha nor Macchiato are black, and they aren't white either. Somewhere in the middle, and Cruella DeVille doesn't want in the middle. They can say nobody wants a three legged dog all they want, but Bendog is the one they're going to take. And he doesn't think they're going to come tonight, he's too alert. He's too… alert. He's too… no, not going to yawn. He can't yawn. He's not…
His eyes jerk open when he hears a crash, followed by a long stream of swear words that he's pretty sure he shouldn't be listening to. Bendog is leaping up and barking and Ben fumbles for the hockey stick that he must have dropped when he stupidly fell asleep. And then the room is filled with light, and it makes them all wince.
"What the hell?" It's only Mary, looking far too much like their mother than either of her brothers are entirely comfortable will. Mocha is a sentinel at her ankles. "Jamie, what are you doing?"
"He was going to steal Bendog!" Ben shouts, waving the now recovered hockey stick through the air and only narrowly missing knocking everything off a nearby shelf.
"It was just a bit of fun." Jamie grumbles, rubbing his shin where he'd walked into a chest full of toys.
"You've probably woken mom up. And dad. And now you're all going to be in trouble."
"You're not mom." James defends, glaring at her under a lowered brow.
"No, she's not." Kate says from the doorway, looking into the room with a look that makes all three of them freeze. "Mary, what's going on?"
"I think Jamie was trying to take Bendog, just to mess with Ben. And he walked into a chest of drawers. Hence the noise. And Ben is waving the hockey stick around like it's going to do a world of good, even though he doesn't have to anymore. And I need sleep, so I am going back to bed." She glares at Jamie one last time for good measure before turning on her heel and disappearing into her room, the door closing with a quiet click.
Kate turns to her eldest son with a sigh. "Jamie… I don't know what to do with you anymore."
"You could let me get away with it." He says, as if he almost believes that she's even going to contemplate that. "It'd be a lot easier."
"Seriously, Jamie. You can't keep acting like this. But, if you are going to swear and back chat and be downright rude and bully your brother then you're grounded until further notice. No Xbox until I say so, and no asking your father. No basketball after school for at least two weeks. Straight home, where you will do your homework without complaint. You'll help with the dishes every night, and you're on garbage duty for two weeks."
"But-"
"I can think of more." Jamie looks like he's all for arguing back, but he knows well enough to not get in a battle of wits with his mother. "Say sorry to your brother, and go back to bed."
"I'm sorry, Ben."
"Thank you. Now shoo. I don't want to hear or see any of you until tomorrow." Jamie turns and follows in his sisters footsteps. Kate listens to the sound of his door closing before reaching for the light switch.
"Mommy?"
"Go to sleep, Ben."
"Are you sure nothing will happen to Bendog?"
Kate's shoulders sag and she crosses the room to sit on the edge of his bed, one hand on his shoulders to push him down onto the bed, the other scratching Bendogs ear. "I can't promise that he's going to be safe all of the time, Ben. You live in a city full of cars. But, as long as you look after him, make sure he's safe when he's outside then he is going to be fine."
"And if someone steals him?"
"Then I will do anything in my power to get him back. Bendog is a member of our family, and we do anything for family. You know that."
Ben looks from her to Bendog, the happiest dog that Kate has ever laid eyes on, who doesn't seem to have a care in the world even though he was almost half dead when they'd found him. He certainly hasn't let the three legs hold him back, and even know he's happily nuzzling Kate's thigh, trying to get her to continue fussing him. "We do anything for family."
"Yeah, Ben. Yeah we do."