A knock at the door stirs Kate from her doze; it's a small knock, hesitant and gentle, and it could only have been made by one tiny, perfect little person.
Her hand comes up to her face, shielding her eyes from the winter sunlight streaming through the crack in the bedroom curtains. Her voice is low; slow, and creaky. Forced. "Honey, I'm trying to sleep."
The door opens a little and a small, inquisitive face peers through the small space she's created, whispering; searching. "Mama?"
She shifts herself up in the bed slightly, bunching Castle's pillows back behind her to create a prop and settling against them. Her gaze searching across the still darkened room, she meets her daughter's eyes and her eyebrow raises. "I said I was trying to sleep."
The fear of reprisal flashes across Amelie's face, settling around her irises as her mouth forms various shapes, searching for the words to justify the intrusion until Kate forces her features into a smile and stretches her arms out, beckoning her daughter over to the bed. "Come here, monkey."
A smile breaks out on the little girl's face, the hesitance in her eyes replaced with the bright, shining affection reserved just for the people she loves. A child's affection is a privileged and precious thing. She attempts to clamber up, held back by the slipping of her green school socks on the smooth bed sheets until Kate uses what remains of her energy to lean forward and sweep her up into her arms with a groan. "Gosh, Amelie Martha, you're getting big..."
She blinks. "Nuh-uh."
"Uh-huh." She whispers in the affirmative, pressing her face down to tap her nose against Amelie's small button one until she dissolves into giggles.
"Eskimo kisses tickle, Mama!"
She continues. "That's the point, little monkey... I have to torture you sometimes, now Daddy isn't here to be the bad guy..." Her little body wriggles against her as her fingertips join in the assault, until she's begging for her mother to stop. She gives in and lets her daughter wriggle against her in a different way until her body settles, her head resting against her chest, her small body over her torso and her short limbs filling the gap where the duvet has settled between Kate's legs.
As she strokes Amelie's hair she hears her daughter sigh; a soft, hiccupping noise, far too weary and grown up to come from such a bright little girl who should have no cares in the world other than where her next cuddle or packet of sweets would be coming from. It was more reminiscent of Castle than her; a fact that scared her sometimes. It made him so present, so much so that it sometimes made her forget that he wasn't here anymore, that he was as far away as he ever could be. Their perfect daughter shared his and Alexis's piercing blue eyes, instead of inheriting her hazel and green heterochromic ones, and the intensity that lay behind them matched that of her elder sister and father too. The way she stared at things, the depth and strength of her concentration shook her to the core when she was perceptive enough to catch it. But she hadn't been perceptive at all, of late. It was just too hard.
She prods her daughter gently. "What's up baby?"
She hears her sigh again, followed by more silence, so she probes further. "Mellie, it's your first day back at school. You shouldn't be sighing; you should be excited... Now what's up?"
Amelie's face crinkles in disapproval. "Alexis wouldn't let me have coco-pops for breakfast."
"Quite right too. Coco-pops is a summertime breakfast; for school you need something better, something healthier. Something that will keep you going until lunch."
Her lower lip juts out in protest, just like her sister's. "Yeah, but after she'd made me porridge with berries in, she had chocolate on toast!"
Kate's head tilts. "Chocolate on toast? Are you sure?"
"Yes; squishy chocolate!" Kate thinks hard, trying to decode what Amelie means, and then smiles as she realises.
"Do you mean chocolate spread, monkey?" She nods emphatically. "Well, that is a bit naughty, but I think Alexis is old enough to decide her own breakfast. Just because she has it, it doesn't mean you can too. Especially not when you've got to be in school all day."
The little girl's face reforms into a frown. "Daddy would let me have coco-pops."
Kate chews at her lip, an physical response to the kick in the gut that's become second nature to her now, when anyone mentions Castle. She'd hoped it would have faded at least a little by now, or at least the emotional response would be duller. They had lost him a year ago to the day, when the cab he was travelling in was sideswiped by an articulated lorry. It was just an unfortunate accident; the lorry driver had had a heart attack at the wheel, and although Kate had been incredibly angry at the unjustness of it all at the start, when they'd attended the inquest and she'd seen the same pain and heartbreak reflected in his widow's face as she saw in her own through the mirror, she'd begun to make peace with it. The reality that she was facing the same feelings of loss and unfairness as her somehow made it more tolerable; it made her feel as if she wasn't quite so alone in dealing with such a catastrophic event. They were at the end of their 'year of firsts', and she'd hoped it would be getting somewhat easier to deal with by now, but with every passing day she was realising that it would probably never get any easier. There was a void in everything she did; a space beside her, that couldn't even be adequately filled by her children. There would always be something missing.
She's brought back from her thoughts by the feeling of something pulling at her clothing, and looks down to see Amelie's fingers curled around the lapel of her dressing gown, tugging insistently.
Her voice is firmer than she intends it to be, an extension of the troubling thoughts in her head. "Amelie, that's rude. Don't pull." She instantly regrets the harshness of her tone.
She blinks up at her mother, her voice small as she responds. She hates being told off, just like her Daddy. She hates being wrong, or in bad favour. "But I want to ask you a question."
"Ok, well ask then; don't pull at people's clothing. Call their name, and wait for them to answer you."
She huffs a little, beginning again. "Mama, can I ask you a question please?"
Her head tilts, her eyes warm now. "Of course monkey. What?"
Amelie pauses; hesitant, unsure if she should ask, but curiosity gets the better of her. "Why do you call Daddy 'Castle'?"
The expression bleeds from Kate's face, until it's pooling somewhere near her toes. It's replaced immediately with one of pain; grief. She hates talking about him lately, even to her daughter. It makes it all the more apparent that he's not there.
She sighs heavily, forcing herself to speak as she looks straight ahead, almost afraid to meet Amelie's eyes. She's too perceptive, even at six years old, and she'd notice the pain and reluctance immediately.
"Because that's his surname, Mellie. You know that. That's why it's the same as yours and mine, and your sister's."
"But when Uncle Kev and Uncle Javi call you, you answer the phone saying 'Beckett'. Why is that?"
Her brow crinkles. "That was my name before I married your Daddy; it's called a maiden name. You know Grandpa's name, right?"
Amelie smiles at the thought of him. "Yeah, it's Grandpa!" She laughs, knowing that it isn't the answer her mother is asking for, but cheekily giving it just the same.
She blinks up at Kate, seeing the trademark eye roll emerging. "Clever clogs." She pokes her daughter lightly in the ribs. That was another salubrious trait she'd inherited from Castle; being overtly literal, at the most inopportune moments. "You know that's not what I meant, you monkey. What's Grandpa's last name?"
"Grandpa Jim Beckett."
"Exactly. Grandpa's last name is the same as mine was, because he's my Daddy. So I shared his name, until I met your Daddy. And then I took his, because that's what grownups do once they're married."
Amelie's brow furrows, and Kate can almost see the cogs turning as her childlike mind tries to process the logistics of everything her mother is telling her. "But... that doesn't tell me why Uncle Javi and Uncle Kev still call you Beckett."
"Well, my full name is actually Katherine Houghton Beckett-Castle... big mouthful, huh?" Amelie nods enthusiastically, her eyes widening. "But people in work are so used to calling me Beckett that it never really changed, even though my name did. Just because I became a Castle when Daddy and I got married, it doesn't mean that people will automatically call me that. It's more for important things like passports and stuff... It's also means something in here." She patted her chest, just over her heart. "Just like my old last name ties me to my dad, having Daddy's last name ties me not only to him, but to you, Alexis and Grams too."
"So they call you Beckett because they're used to that being your last name?"
Kate nods, then smiles lightly. "And I kinda like it. Plus, people used call Daddy by his last name at the precinct too, so it'd be too confusing to have two people called Castle milling around the place." She pauses for a moment, studying her daughter's face intently. "Now, is that all that's bothering you? Because these little freckles…" She pokes lightly, drawing a pattern through the light brown dots that are scattered across her daughter's nose. "…say there's something else on that little mind of yours."
Amelie blinks, her little eyes becoming serious all of a sudden. "Mama, freckles can't tell you that." Again with the literal nature, Kate thinks. She pauses, breathing lightly as her brow furrows again, then drops her head and whispers quietly into her mother's chest. "I wish Daddy were here to take me to school."
Rubbing small circles on her daughter's back, Kate drops a kiss to the top of her head as she swallows hard, trying to remain composed. "I know, monkey. But you understand he can't be, right?"
She feels her nod against her chest, and she swallows again. "It's hard, isn't it pumpkin... I wish he was here too." She rocks her daughter against her for a moment as she blinks back the tears that have formed, then shakes her head. "But Alexis is part of Daddy, because she's his daughter, so in a way he's still taking you. And she can drive you, instead of taking a cab… that'll be fun, won't it?"
Amelie's words are muffled, her face still buried in Kate's chest as she clings on to her mother. "It's not the same."
They stay there for a few minutes, until Alexis interrupts them with a much heavier knock on the door before poking her head through the gap. "Mells? Time to go…" She smiles at Kate and raises her eyebrows a little, sharing a glance with her stepmother that says nothing, yet everything all at once. 'Today sucks. I miss him too.'
Kate lightly digs her fingers into her daughter's ribs, tickling until she jumps up and squeals, almost slipping off the bed. "Come on, you. Enough cuddles; go and get your shoes on."
Amelie wriggles upwards and drops her nose to her mother's once more for a final 'eskimo kiss' before sliding off the bed and landing with a heavy thump on the floor, making Kate raise her eyes. "And no stomping, flatfoot, or you'll wake Grams. See you later, ok?"
She nods as she scampers off, squeezing by Alexis and smiling up as she feels her sister drop a protective hand to her head as she passes. Kate flops back against the pillows, closing her eyes and exhaling heavily.
"You ok?" Alexis's voice is shaky, almost heavy with grief and the weight of the day already.
Kate opens her eyes and catches her stepdaughter's gaze once again. "Nope."
She sighs. "Me either." She stares at her feet, fiddling with the tassels on her scarf. "I'll be straight back after I've dropped her off, ok?" Kate nods in response, her eyes closing as the lure of sleep draws her back in again. The door shuts quietly, and she hears Alexis's voice instantly become more animated, a false happiness overtaking her to protect her little sister as she hurries Amelie up.
Turning over and reaching for Castle's pillow, she pulls it towards her and wraps her arms around it in a hugging gesture as she hears the loft door slam shut loudly as her daughters leave.
She'll get up soon. She will, she promises herself. She sees Castle's face as she drifts back to sleep, and for the first time in a year, she's a little more content.
She'll get up soon.