An expansion of the More Than Together universe. You do not necessarily have to have read that fic in order for this to make sense, but I would suggest that you do in order to understand the backstory.
For Eli and Aisle. Having you two gone makes writing Kate's loneliness easier, but everything else harder.
In June when you moved to New York, I Skyped you
every day from my bed at the crack of dawn, bleary-eyed
and still waking up, just so I could catch you before
you went to sleep.
long-distance lover, writingsforwinter
still waking
"I want Daddy."
Kate presses her wrist to her forehead and turns away from her daughter, feels the violent arrhythmia of her pulse clatter against her skull. Finding solace in the refrigerator, Kate folds her arms at her chest to try and stop herself crawling right in.
She loves Bea, of course, would give every scrape of herself to keep her baby girl safe. But this morning her daughter is being, really, a brat.
Not in the adorable way, either. The way that she and Castle are endlessly amused by, how she gives her big brother ream after ream of imperative instruction. But that's when her husband's here to laugh with her, tease her.
He's adamant that their daughter is such an autocrat because of her mother, that it's all Kate's genes.
Right now, the girl's stubbornness is grating up at the very edges of Kate's limits, her patience already stretched into threads that she finds herself hand over hand clinging to. Day three of caring for both children full time, and she burns with the need to spar, run, hit the range.
Something to take the edge off, before she throttles one of them.
Beckett flexes her fingers around the carton of orange juice, has to force herself not to grasp it too hard. She fetches a glass from the cupboard, the pink plastic straw that goes around and around like a helter skelter, and sets the both at the counter in front of her daughter.
"I don't want orange juice, Mommy." Bea whines, right as Kate's about to pour.
She grits her teeth, sets the carton down and turns a gaze like steel on Beatrice. The girl pales as her mouth snaps closed, the next complaint dying on her tongue. Her bottom lip quivers, fat crocodile tears flooding right at the precipice of falling.
"What would you like to have, then?"
"Apple." Kate arches an eyebrow, her mouth stitched into a seam as she regards her daughter. She waits and then, a tiny voice. "Please, Momma."
"Good manners, baby girl."
Pouring the juice for Bea, Kate glances at the girl's plate and bites back a sigh. Still mostly full. Kate made eggs specially, forgoing cereal because she knows neither of the kids really likes it.
Damn it. She wants her children to have good memories of summer, of their mother looking after them. Not all the ways she went wrong.
"Something wrong with your eggs?" Kate cards a hand through the fall of Beanie's curls, smoothing her thumb under her baby's eye.
Bea turns a scowl up to her mother, little hands locking around Kate's wrist to tear her mother's hand away from her face. She folds her arms, looking every inch the impenetrable wall of bad-temperedness that Beckett has been wrangling since Castle left.
"Daddy makes yummy eggs. These ones are all squeaky."
Squeaky? Huh. That's new. "Yes, well, Daddy isn't here. So either you eat these eggs I made for you specially, or you won't get to eat anything until lunchtime. You choose."
"They're soooo gross Mommy." Bea whines, beating her heels against the frame of the bar stool. The pounding works its way inside of Kate's brain and festers, shards of irritation every time she so much as blinks.
"You choose, Bea. I'm going to go get dressed and when I come back I want to see that you ate some." Beckett takes the fork that lies prone on the counter top, divides the eggs into two unequal portions and turns the plate so the smaller portion is in front of her daughter.
She'll be lucky if Bea even deigns to eat that much, but it's worth a shot.
Kate rounds the counter and moves for the staircase, calling up to the first floor where hopefully, her son is dressed and ready. "Jack?"
Jackson emerges from his room and comes thundering down the stairs, coming around to wrap both arms around his mother. Since Castle left he's been clingy, seeking out affection from Kate a lot more frequently than she's come to expect from her seven year old.
"You good to go, buddy?"
"Uhuh." He grins up at her, chin pillowed at his mother's sternum. "I already brushed my teeth too."
Kate grins at him, pressing a kiss to his forehead and slowly peeling him away from her. She loves curling up with him, the soft comfort of his weight in her arms, but the constant physicality can sometimes be a little much.
"Good job. Could you sit with your sister please baby?" She cards her fingers through the spill of her son's curls and guides him over to the kitchen island, leaning in to press a kiss to Bea's cheek as well.
"I can look after the baby, Mom." Jack says, side-eyeing his sister as he fishes for a reaction from her. Which, of course, he gets.
"I'm not a baby! I am five." Beatrice wails, hand splayed to show the number before she shoves her palm at her brother's face, trying to hook her fingers into his eye sockets.
"Guys." Kate cuts in, the cop voice that has both of them immediately falling silent. "Be nice. Jack, your sister isn't a baby, even if she is acting like one this morning. Just sit here, don't fight, I'll be back in a minute."
Beckett turns her back on the pair of them and moves to her bedroom, settling cross-legged on top of the sheets and gathering her phone from the nightstand. She catches her curls in a ponytail, smoothing her palms over the flyaways, and tugs off her yoga pants.
She wants to curl her husband. It aches, how fiercely she misses him. He always seems to know exactly what to do, how to make it right. Castle is a wonderful father, and he draws out all the best parts of her.
Without him, she just keeps getting it wrong.
Kate forces herself to get up; her sleep shirt and underwear pooling at her feet as she strips them all off. Showering fast, Kate hurries through the rest of her routine. A slick of eyeliner, lip balm, and she tugs a sundress over her head.
It makes her feel not at all like Detective Beckett, not even really Kate. This woman in the mirror, all soft edges and creased skin, is Mrs Castle. A person called Mom who Kate still doesn't feel like she really knows all that well. Carding her fingers through her hair, Kate sighs into the emptiness of their bathroom. Time to get the kids ready.
She promised she'd take them to the park today. All three of them missing Castle with a fierce sort of desperation that doesn't ever seem to dissipate, but at least there are ways she can distract them.
If only she could also find a way to distract herself.
"Mommy!"
Kate glances up, sees her daughter hanging upside down at the climbing frame, her little cheeks pink as gravity draws all her blood down towards her face. Panic lurches in her stomach, her throat tight with it, but she forces a smile for her baby.
Her son charges towards her, throwing himself down onto the bench at her side and gasping for air, his chest heaving. He beams at her, his still-baby teeth pearly and perfect. "Momma, I met a doggy. He had curly hair and little ears and not like Snicket."
"You did? But did he have a waggy tail like Snicks?"
"Yeah, and a licky licky tongue."
Leaning in to dust a kiss to her little boy's forehead, Kate gives herself a moment to breathe him in. Summer, crisp and fresh, rolls off of him in waves. She just wants to bask in it, the warmth of her son and her little girl's delighted laughter spilling out across the grass.
In her pocket, Beckett's phone vibrates and she wrangles a moment trying to fish it out. She raises an eyebrow at the caller ID, leaning in to tug lightly at Jack's earlobe. "Hey buddy, go play with Beanie. Mommy has to speak to Tìo."
"I speak please to Tìo, Momma?"
"Not right now baby. Maybe later, okay?"
Jack seems to accept this, scurrying off in search of his little sister. Kate watches him go as she raises the phone to her ear, the little hop in his walk as if he can't quite push back the excitement. "Espo, I told you. I need four days, no work."
"I'm not calling about a case, Kate."
Shit. Her first name?
"Javi, what is it, what's wrong?" Beckett lets her eyes shutter closed, drawing in a deep breath to temper the paralytic panic, heavy and too sweet in her stomach.
"Have you seen the news today?"
"No, why?"
There's a pause where Kate imagines Esposito scrubbing his hand down his face, trying to find the courage to tell her. This isn't usually his part; usually Beckett is the one who has to break the bad news.
"There's been a plane crash. Flight from Ohio to Connecticut. The death toll is. . .high."
Oh, God, please.
Kate lifts a trembling hand to her mouth to cage in the keening that wants to break loose, everything in her body unspooling so her bones feel like liquid, the spaces in between them suddenly cavernous.
"That's his flight, right?" Esposito is saying, sounding miles and forever and a lifetime away from her.
Beckett tightens her grip on the phone, draws in a breath through her teeth that tastes bitter, chokes her. "Espo, I'll call you back."
Every morning, Castle has sent her his itinerary for the day, so that she would know when she could call him, where he'd be, what he's doing. More for his own piece of mind than hers, she imagines, but that one small contact has been a comfort.
This morning, he called her. They talked briefly of his dinner the evening before, how he couldn't sleep because the spring in the hotel mattress was trying to wrap itself around his spine. He told her he loved her and she had to hang up to separate her warring children before she could say it back.
He also told her that he is flying out today from Ohio.
To Connecticut.