"Rick?" Castle was in the shower when he heard his wife calling him. "Babe, we have a problem."
He turned off the water and stuck his dripping-wet head out. "What's up?"
Kate handed him a towel. "Hannah's not feeling well. She's still in bed."
"She's not up yet? But we have to leave in," he seized her wrist to look at her watch, "oh crap."
"Yeah. I think she's sick." A frown creased Kate's forehead as he hastily dried himself off. "She says her head and tummy hurt, and her forehead feels warm but her hands are cold. I took her temperature and it was over a hundred."
"Well, that could be anything. It's probably just a cold." He paused to pull a comb through his hair. "But she can't go to school with a fever that high."
"This would have to happen on the one day you have to go to an editing meeting," Kate sighed. "I guess I'll have to stay home with her, huh? At least I can log in from my laptop and get some paperwork done."
"The New York state government can stagger along without you for one day," Castle reassured her. "Let me go and check in on her."
After quickly pulling on jeans and a t-shirt, he strode down the hall to their daughter's bedroom. Kate hung back in the doorway while he sidled over to the bed, moving quietly in case the girl was sleeping.
"Hi Daddy," came a drowsy voice from underneath the pile of blankets.
"Hey, baby. Mom said you're not feeling so great, huh?" He felt her forehead and looked at her bleary eyes. "I think you should skip school today."
She blinked slowly. "But I'll miss math. And I'm the line leader."
"Yeah, but you're sick, muffin. The rest of the fourth grade will have to find their own way to the lunchroom."
"'M not a muffin," Hannah objected, burrowing farther under the covers.
"Sure you are," Castle smiled, gently smoothing her hair back from what little he could see of her forehead. "You're my little lemon poppy-seed muffin."
His daughter's brunette head popped back into view. "I am not a sweet baked good," she said firmly, giving him a narrow-eyed glare that came directly from her mother's genes. Castle grinned and responded much as he would to the same from his wife: with humor.
"Well, you are very sweet, and you did come out of your mom's 'oven'," he teased lightly.
"It's called a vagina, Daddy."
He sputtered for a moment, then shot a glare behind him at his wife, who had doubled over in the doorway, shaking with silent laughter.
"Okay, fine, you're not a muffin, but you do need to rest up, okay?" he said after getting his voice back under control. "I have to get to a meeting, so mommy's going to stay home with you today."
"Okay," his daughter replied, smiling happily.
"But mommy has a lot of work, so you just stay in bed and rest up and get better, okay, and she'll be right in the other room."
"Oh." Hannah's face fell slightly. "Can't she work in here with me?"
Castle glanced at Kate again and decided to bail. "I'll leave that up to you and mommy to negotiate. I have to get to my meeting." He dropped a kiss onto Hannah's forehead. "Feel better, baby."
Out in the hallway, the parents conferred quietly. "I only need to show my face for the first couple hours of this meeting," Castle promised, "so I can be back by lunchtime."
"It's fine. She seems pretty zoned out, so hopefully it'll be quiet here."
"I'll call the school and let them know."
They shared a quick kiss and he departed in a rush.
Beckett sat down on the sofa with her cell phone and laptop. She opened up her email and dashed off a quick note to the staff at her office, letting them know that she would be working from home for the day.
Hope she feels better soon, Senator! came the almost immediate reply from her administrative assistant. I'm attaching a list of emails and phone calls you should try to return today.... Kate sighed and clicked through the list, triaging.
She had just gotten started writing the first email when a shuffling sound announced the appearance of Hannah, her dark hair tousled, her comforter wrapped around her. "Mommy?" she asked in a small voice. "Can we watch TV together?"
"You're supposed to be sleeping, sweetie," Kate said gently, but she held out her arm and let her daughter snuggle up next to her. "Don't you feel sleepy? Kids who are sick need their sleep."
"Not sleepy," the child denied, scowling. "Wanna watch TV with you, mommy."
"I could turn it on, and you can watch it here while I'm writing my emails," Kate decided, reaching for the remote. But Hannah pulled on her arm and gave her a beseeching look out of wide blue eyes.
"Don't you want to watch it with me? Daddy always watches movies with me after I finish my homework."
"Hannah," Kate sighed. "I would love to watch TV with you, but I have so much work, baby."
"You always have so much work," her daughter pouted, getting up. "I'll go back to bed."
Kate felt a sharp twist of guilt as she watched the little girl shuffle back down the hallway with her comforter trailing behind. "I'll come check on you in a minute, okay?" she called. Biting her lower lip, she told herself she would just finish a couple of emails.
Twenty minutes later, she emerged from a morass of zoning disputes and crime statistics and realized that she hadn't heard a peep from Hannah in a while. She hoped the little girl had fallen back asleep. But when Kate tiptoed down the hall and peeked carefully into her daughter's room, she found Hannah sitting up at her play table, engaged in a game with her Star Wars action figures.
"Sorry, Princess Leia," Padme Amidala was saying, "mommy can't help you fight the Empire today. Mommy has too much work to do. Here, you can play with C3PO."
"Oh my dear goodness," C3PO replied, "fighting the Empire sounds dangerous. That's work for girls and their mommies, not poor old droids like me."
"Oh no, a stormtrooper!" shouted Leia, leaping to the top of the dresser with her blaster in hand. "Pew, pew!"
"Hannah," Kate interrupted, trying not to laugh, "you're supposed to be resting, honey."
Her daughter jumped guiltily. "Mommy! Um, I was resting but then I got up."
"I can see that." Kate walked over to the bed. "Here, let me tuck you back in."
Reluctantly, Hannah put her toys down and came over. A few steps from the bed, she suddenly leaned over and grabbed her belly. "Ow!"
"Tummyache?" Kate asked sympathetically, going to rub Hannah's back. The girl straightened up again and grabbed Kate's arm, and she startled at how cold and clammy her daughter's hands were.
"It's better now," Hannah said, but her lower lip was sneaking forward in a small sad pout.
"Baby, you really need to rest," Kate coaxed. "Come on and lie down."
"Okay," Hannah said unhappily, and climbed into bed. "Lie down with me?" she asked hopefully. Kate sighed.
"Just for a minute."
She lay down and let Hannah cuddle up to her. The kid was almost as much of a snuggler as her dad. But after less than thirty seconds of lying together in peaceful comfort, Hannah started wiggling and squirming, muttering under her breath, telling herself a story. Her head rolled around on the pillow in her excitement, almost slamming into Kate's chin. She threw a leg out from under the blankets and flailed an arm behind her, accidentally elbowing her mother in the ribs.
"Ow!" Beckett exclaimed, rolling her eyes. It was the same thing that happened every time she tried to have a quiet cuddle with this lively child.
"Sorry, mommy."
"Hannah, how are you so full of energy when you're sick?"
"I don't know." Hannah turned big blue puppy-dog eyes - another inheritance from her father - onto Kate. "Maybe it's because you didn't want to watch TV with me."
"That doesn't even make any sense," Kate groaned, but she heaved herself up out of the bed and said, "You might as well play quietly with your toys, and after I finish my emails, we'll watch some TV. Okay?"
"Okay!" Hannah bounded out of bed with a big smile.
Frowning, Kate returned to the living room and her place on the couch. She was beginning to suspect that her daughter was up to something.
Barely a few words into the next email she had to write, she heard a rhythmic thumping noise coming from the bedroom. She paused, her hands poised above the keyboard, and listened for a moment to confirm her suspicion. It sounded exactly like the noise Hannah always made when, despite being told a thousand times not to, she jumped on her bed.
Kate picked up her cell phone and hit the speed dial with her husband's picture next to it.
"Hey, everything okay with Hannah?" he answered.
"Well, she's not worse," Kate replied sardonically.
"Um ... good?"
"Listen, babe, this may sound odd, but ... have you watched Ferris Bueller with Hannah recently?"
"Yeah..." he said slowly, and she could almost hear him frowning in confusion. "Why?"
"And E.T.?"
"Oh, Beckett," he exclaimed, getting it all of a sudden. "Are you saying she faked being sick to get to stay home?"
"The clammy hands," Kate nodded, "the thermometer held up to the lightbulb trick."
She heard the soft slapping sound of Castle smacking himself on the forehead. "I even commented that you have to be careful with the thermometer thing because if you let it get too hot your parents will haul you off to the hospital."
"Well, she took it to heart." Kate shook her head. "She's your daughter, all right."
"Do you want me to talk to her? I can step out of this meeting for a minute."
"No, no." She sighed again. "Just get home as soon as you can. I do need to get at least a little work done."
After they hung up, Kate finished a couple more emails, steadfastly ignoring the noises from her daughter's room. Finally she gave up, closed her laptop, and went back to Hannah's room again.
Not surprisingly, the room was a mess by now: action figures and Lego pieces all over the floor, the bed covers in a tangled mass hanging half off the bed, dresser drawers partly open with stuffed animals poking out. Hannah was lying on the floor next to her desk, drawing an elaborate picture of a turtle in the ocean.
Kate leaned in the doorway, arms folded over her chest, wearing the expression she used to use on suspects back in her homicide-detective days. She waited for her daughter to look up and notice her, which only took a few moments.
Then the girl jumped up guiltily, again. "Mommy! Um."
"You're not sick at all, are you, Hannah?"
The child's shoulders slumped and she looked down, her face sad. "Sorry, Mommy."
"Honey, I just want to understand." Kate sat on the edge of the bed and drew her daughter over next to her, putting an arm around the girl's slim shoulders. "Is school all that terrible?"
"No!" Hannah looked up in surprise. "I love school. Except for music class because the teacher is so mean."
"Then why did you pretend to be sick?"
"I just wanted you to stay home," Hannah mumbled, looking down again. "You never stay home."
Kate's chest tightened with guilt and sorrow. "Oh, honey." She wrapped both arms around her daughter. "Have you been missing me that much? You never said anything."
"Cause your job is important," Hannah said, muffled against Kate's chest.
"You're important too, baby. You know that, right?" Kate pulled back to look at Hannah's face, and found it wet with tears. "You're the most important thing in my life, you and your dad."
"Really?" Hannah asked in a tiny voice. Kate sighed and brushed her daughter's tears away.
"Really. And I'm sorry I haven't been very good at showing you that lately." She took a deep breath and gave Hannah another squeeze. "Now, what do you say we go see what's on TV?"
A couple of hours later, Castle entered the loft somewhat cautiously, raising his eyebrows as he sniffed the air. "Is that the smell of slightly burnt grilled cheese sandwiches?" he boomed into the open space of the living room. "My favorite!"
"Mommy burned hers," Hannah yelled from the kitchen. "Mine was perfect, Daddy!"
"I'm sure it was," he said, oofing slightly as his daughter ran over and barreled into him. "So, you're feeling pretty sick and terrible, huh, my little blueberry scone?"
"Daddy."
But even as he smiled at the little girl, Castle was noticing his wife's expression, and his forehead creased with concern. "Hannah," he said slowly, "why did you pretend to be sick?"
"I just wanted mommy to stay home," she confessed, looking down at the floor. Castle pursed his lips as her meaning - and the meaning of the guilt and sadness in her mother's eyes - became clear.
"Oh. I see." He gave Hannah a serious, considering look as he led her back to the kitchen.
"I was just telling Hannah," Beckett said, setting out a sandwich for him, "that a person should never lie to get what she wants."
"That's true," Castle agreed, nodding.
"Like you and Daddy lied about being in love with each other for four years?" Hannah asked innocently, batting her eyes at her mother. Beckett glared at her husband.
"Time for some new bedtime stories, don't you think, Daddy?"
"Um, but anyway," Castle said hastily, "I think what Mommy is trying to say is that if you wanted her to stay home, you could have just said so."
"Yes," Beckett said. "And because I don't want to reward this lie, I'm going back to the office now that Daddy is home." Hannah's face fell. "But," her mother continued, "I'm going to talk to my staff and figure out a way that I can take off early one day a week, so I can pick you up when school ends and spend the afternoon with you. Okay, honey?"
Hannah's whole face lit up with an expression of joy so like her father's that it made Beckett blink, even as she couldn't help breaking into an answering smile. "Oh, thank you mommy! That's so awesome! Can we go to the museum and the park and the zoo? Please? And get ice cream and doughnuts and lattes?"
"Daddy gets you lattes?!" Kate exclaimed, turning her glare back onto Castle. He grimaced around a mouthful of grilled cheese.
"That was one time, Hannah, and it was an accident."
"Mommy's giving you her we'll talk about this later look, Daddy."
"Yes, I noticed that, thank you." He smiled cheekily and took another bite of his sandwich.
Beckett held her glare on the two of them for a beat, then relaxed and turned it into an eye-roll combined with a resigned shake of her head.
"You two are incorrigible," she said, picking up her laptop from the kitchen counter. "I'm going to work now." She gave each of them a quick hug and kiss, slid the laptop into her shoulder bag, and headed for the door. "Don't forget to wash the lunch dishes and clean Hannah's room."
"Okay, Mommy," Castle replied obediently. Giggling, Hannah echoed him.
"Oh, and maybe call Gram and tell her that Hannah has clearly inherited her acting skills. She'll be so proud."
"I think I'll do that," he laughed. But Hannah jumped up and ran across the living room to stop her mother at the door.
"Wait, Mommy!" She threw her arms around Kate's waist and hugged her tightly. "You need one more hug before you go."
"You're so right," Beckett smiled, hugging her back. "Thanks for getting me back on track, honey."
"You're welcome. Thanks for staying home with me, Mommy. I love you."
"I love you too." And with one last squeeze and a kiss on the cheek, Senator Beckett was off to work.
Hannah turned back to her father with a gleam in her eye. "Okay, Daddy. What inappropriate movie should we watch today?"