Magnet
"Mommy!" their son screams, and Castle jerks away from his wife, dropping his hand from the curve of her waist.
When she came home from work he had been rocking their daughter over by the window, holding the cold teething ring for her to gum at. Beatrice has been grizzly all day, thrashing in his arms, but the moment she caught sight of her mother she sagged against his chest and grinned wide at her.
He'd followed her into their bedroom, one arm under the baby's butt to keep her against him while the other looped around his wife's waist and drew her in for a kiss. Entirely forgetting that somebody needs to watch over their son.
At Jack's scream, Kate stumbles through towards Castle's office and goes to her knees next to their little boy, Rick right behind her with both arms tight around their daughter. Their son is surrounded by little metal balls and Kate grunts, has to brush some of them out from under her legs.
"Jackson. What happened?" Kate says softly, gathering their son up into her lap when he reaches for her.
Head resting heavy against his mother's shoulder, Jack makes a pitiful little noise and screws his eyes closed. "I wanted to play. They falled on me."
"You wanted to play with Daddy's magnets?" Kate asks, bouncing her knees underneath their boy in an effort to jostle him right out of his funk. "They were on a high shelf, buddy. How did you reach them?"
Jack peeks at his father from over Kate's shoulder and Rick smiles encouragingly at his son. "It's okay, my man. Just be honest with Mommy."
"I did climb the shelves," Jackson admits, burying his face in both hands and butting his head against Kate's chest, hard enough to make her huff a breath.
"You could have gotten really hurt, Jack," Kate says, easing their son away from her body so that she can look at his face.
In Castle's arms, his youngest daughter wails and scrunches her face up, rubbing at her ear, and he lifts her against his chest and bounces her gently, murmuring soothing words into her cheek. He should change the teething rings over, give Beatrice the colder one from the refrigerator, but he doesn't want to leave his wife alone in dealing with Jack.
"I sorry, Mama," their son whispers, bottom lip trembling, and he throws his arms around her neck, little legs circling her waist. "I not mean to make a mess."
"I know you didn't, my little adventurer," Kate murmurs against the crown of their son's head, sharing a glance with Rick and wrinkling her nose in sympathy with their grizzly baby girl. "But we talked about this before. It's okay if you want to do fun stuff like climbing, but you have to make sure that Mommy or Daddy is there to make sure you don't get hurt."
"You was busy," Jack says accusingly, kicking a socked foot in the general direction of his little sister and scowling when she laughs at him. "All day Daddy did not even play with me one time. Him was too busy with mine sister."
Castle winces at that and offers Beatrice to his wife, trading kids with her and wrapping his arms tight around their son, squeezing until he huffs a breath of laughter. "I know, my man. I haven't been a very good daddy to you today, have I? Beatrice isn't feeling so good, and she needs lots of cuddles, but that's not fair to you."
He's never had to do this before, was able to devote himself entirely to his eldest child as she grew up. Alexis never had to fight for his attention, never acted out because her feelings were hurt, and even with his partner beside him in this Rick is struggling to get the balance right. Make sure that both of his kids are safe and happy.
"I have an idea," Kate says, one hand cupping the back of the baby's skull as Bea scrubs her face against the material of her mother's shirt, her grumping starting to swell into real cries. "I'm gonna give Beatrice her bath and see if I can get her to go to sleep. You help Daddy rebuild his magnet toy, and when Little Bean goes to sleep Daddy and I will both be there for story time."
"Okay Mommy," Jack says, wriggling his way out of Castle's grip and toddling over to his mother, pressing a wet kiss to her cheek. There's a glistening patch when he pulls away, but Kate only smiles and kisses their son right back, on the tip of his nose to make him giggle.
Kate gets to her feet and pads out of the room, already murmuring that magical combination of nonsense words and soothing sounds that always seems to calm their baby girl, and Rick turns back to his son's expectant little face turned up towards his.
Glancing around at the mess on the floor he suppresses a groan, hooking an arm around his son's shoulders and reeling him in for a kiss to the temple, and then a thought chews away at his brain and his spine snaps straight, his face transforming with horror.
"Jackson, listen very carefully. It's really important that you tell Daddy the truth, okay?"
"Yes Daddy," Jack says, dropping heavily to sit on his butt and sticking his legs straight out in front of himself, scooping some of the magnetic balls in close.
Scraping a hand over his face, Rick shoots a quick prayer up to whoever might be listening before he shifts to his knees and finds his son's eyes. "Jack, buddy, did you eat any of these?"
"Eat them?" their son cackles, throwing his head back, and then he swats at Rick's chest the way he must have seen his mother do countless times. "Don't be silly, Daddy. Them are not food."
"Right," Castle sags back onto his heels. "Good boy."
