A/N: Okay, so I wanted Ellie to already have a bond with Esposito, Ryan and Montgomery. It may be cheesy, but I really wanted to add another female for them to be adorably overprotective of. Ellie, unlike Beckett, will call them by their first names. This chapter will basically be Ellie's introduction to New York City, and will explain the sisterly bond between Beckett and Ellie. Enjoy!
The two detectives and Castle looked up in shock. Before them stood the woman Castle had spoken to in the lobby, grinning with her hands propped up on her hips. Ryan was the first to recover from surprise. He hopped up from his desk and walked towards her.
"Ellie!" Ryan exclaimed, as the young woman threw her arms around his shoulders. He hugged her back tightly.
"Hey, Kevin! How's Jenny doing?"
"Great! Crazy…wedding plans and all that…though I'm sure she'd drop it in an instant to hang out with you," he told her, grinning. Ellie cocked her head to the side and laughed.
"I'd love to see her," she told him. Then, she turned to Esposito, "what's up, Javi?"
The gruff detective chuckled, engulfing Ellie in a bear hug that lifted her off the ground. This made her laugh too.
"I take it you missed me…" she teased, "good. Cause I missed you guys, too."
Castle watched this interaction in amazement, and Ellie's eyes found him. Her grin got even wider.
"Oh my G—" Beckett exclaimed, finally emerging from the break room to find her cousin tangled up in the embrace of her friends. She laughed, looking in between her two colleagues and rolling her eyes, "Causing trouble already, I see…" she teased her.
"It's not my fault I'm so irresistible…" Ellie answered her. They stood across from one another, hands on their hips, grinning. Eventually, both of them collapsed in a fit of laughter, as they hugged one another.
"I thought you were coming tomorrow?" Beckett murmured, pulling back only slightly from her cousin. Ellie smiled.
"I thought it'd be way more fun to surprise you at work…" she answered, "get to see the real live Nikki Heat in action…"
"Shut up…" Beckett said, pushing her shoulder playfully.
"Yeah, right…" Ellie replied. They started laughing again.
He could see the resemblance now. Beckett was taller, thinner than her cousin, not that Eleanor was in any way overweight, just a little curvier. Ellie had darker skin and hair that was nearly black, with a wave Castle thought to be natural, and it came only to her shoulders. Compared to Beckett's ivory skin, Ellie's was a soft bronze. They had the same cheekbone structure, nose, and eye shape, though their eyes were different colors. Where Beckett's eyes were a deep green, Ellie's were more of an icy blue color. Beckett's jaw line was wider, whereas Ellie's was more rounded. When they smiled was when you could really see the resemblance; the same quirk of one corner of their mouth higher than the other, with a dimple on that side. Ellie, like Beckett, was not much of a girly-girl. She was wearing dark, form-fitting jeans and a white, V-neck t-shirt, along with a pair of black ballet flats.
As he was watching, Beckett seemed to recall his presence. She glanced over her shoulder at him, and then laid a hand on Ellie's arm, dragging her back towards her desk where he was still standing.
"Ellie, I'd like you to meet Richard Castle," she began, "Castle, this is my cousin Ellie."
"We met, actually," he told her. Ellie smirked, while her cousin looked confused, "You knew exactly who I was, didn't you?" The younger woman laughed.
"Hell yes," she answered, extending her hand out to him, "thought it'd be a bit fun..."
"Well, it's nice to officially meet you," he said, accepting her hand.
"Likewise," she replied, "I've heard a lot about you…I was actually quite surprised you didn't figure it out." Castle thought for a moment.
"Wait," he said, "I should have! You told me to say hi to my partner for you!"
"Minor slip-up with that word choice on my part," she answered.
At that moment, the Captain stepped out of his office, a file in his hand, and closed the door behind him. He turned around, still engrossed in whatever he was reading as he walked towards them. After a few moments, Esposito cleared his throat. Montgomery looked at him, raising an eyebrow, before turning his eyes to the rest of them. His eyes darted from face-to-face briefly. When he saw Ellie, a wide smile formed on his lips.
"Ellie!" he exclaimed. The younger woman grinned at him.
"Permission to hug, sir?" she asked, holding her arms up dramatically.
"What am I, a Navy Lieutenant? Get over here, crazy girl!" Montgomery bellowed, much to Castle's amusement. He enveloped the younger woman in a bear hug, "It's good to see you."
Castle heard a tiny gasp escape his partner's mouth.
"Shut the front door!" Beckett suddenly exclaimed, jumping forward and latching onto her cousin's left hand. Both the Captain and Ellie looked a little shocked, "What is this?"
They all looked down at Ellie's hand to find the source of her shock. One the ring finger of her left hand was a shiny engagement ring.
"A roller skate?" Ellie answered, looking up from her hand sheepishly to meet her older cousin's eyes. Castle wondered how she managed to keep a straight face while saying that. Beckett rolled her eyes at her cousin, messing with the silver band with a diamond on the ring finger of the hand she'd snatched.
"Why on Earth did I not know about this?" Beckett asked. Ellie chuckled.
"Ease up, Katie," she said reassuringly, "it just happened. Why do you think I came here early?"
Beckett raised an eyebrow and regarded her cousin with much suspicion, to which she responded with a sly smile.
Ellie spent the next hour catching up with the team, sitting in between Beckett and Esposito in the break room with Ryan across from her and Castle watching the entire exchange from the counter. Lanie eventually came up to join them, and the Captain left the refuge of his office to hear the younger woman talk.
The dynamics between the young girl and the team were clear, and somewhat similar to the dynamics between the team and Beckett herself. Except that Ellie held no authority over any of them, and they all seemed to view her as the one in need of protection. But Ellie, it seemed, could handle herself just fine. She laughed at the antics of the two male detectives, who half-interrogated her about her future husband, whom they had apparently never met. She teased the boys, chatted with Lanie and asked the Captain about the welfare of his family.
Eventually the gang had to get back to their paperwork and dispersed to their different stations, agreeing to meet at the Old Haunt for drink the next night after Ellie had had a chance to settle in. Besides, Beckett had declared that night Family Night, all the while giving her younger cousin significant looks indicating that she had some explaining to do. Ellie seemed quite amused by this.
When the boys and the Captain returned to their work, Ellie, Castle and Beckett stayed in the break room with the food Castle had brought long ago. Luckily, he had bought a little extra today, so Ellie ate her cousin's fried rice and stole some of the egg rolls.
The manner with which she consumed the food confirmed a suspicion he'd had upon first seeing her. He only wondered at what Beckett's reaction would be to this news. Ellie was, after all, only twenty-four. She was at the start of her career.
A career that, with much amusement, he realized that Ellie was also, in a way, Beckett's boss, since she was the new assistant district attorney of New York City.
There were some fun similarities in mannerisms between the cousins, Castle realized as he watched them together. When they didn't quite understand something, their brow's crinkled on one side in the exact same fashion. Ellie talked with her hands much more, spoke with much more pronounced English and enunciated her words, probably a product of her law school education. It was clear that Ellie took great joy in laughter, and managed to make Beckett laugh nearly as much as she did.
It was amazing, to see this little part of Kate Beckett that she usually hid. A softer, more carefree side. To see someone who could dish it out as well as she herself could. Both Ellie and Beckett tried to include him in the conversation and Beckett seemed pleased at how he and Ellie got along.
Ellie dismissed herself in order to go settle in, Beckett handing her an extra key to her apartment. She promised to be back in a couple of hours, as it was already a little after six.
Two hours and fifteen minutes later, paperwork mostly finished, Beckett bid her coworkers and partner goodnight and departed. When she got home, she found Ellie stretched out on her couch, eyes closed, Heat Wave perched just below her neck. Her right arm was flung up over her head, and her left folded neatly over her stomach. Beckett chuckled.
She remembered when Ellie was little, how she used to follow her around the house, go with her to hang out with her friends, and try to impress them. Maybe that's why she didn't fight having Castle follow her around as much as she could have, because she was used to having a shadow. Ellie, though, was closer to a Mini-me. She'd imitated both her good and bad habits, the latter was something Beckett now regretted. Yet, in the end, Ellie turned out far better than herself.
Ellie's father, Uncle David, was her mother's younger brother. He'd died in a car crash when Ellie was only a baby, leaving her at the mercy of Aunt Lily, her flighty mother, and Melinda, her neurotic grandmother.
Ellie bore it well, of course. Stubborn and strong, passionate and confident, Ellie never once strayed. It was one of the things Beckett admired most about her: She knew exactly who she was, and no matter how people tried, they could not convince her otherwise.
Beckett's mother, whom Ellie affectionately referred to as, 'Aunt Jo,' played a key role in Ellie's life as well. While she never really got along with her brother's widow, she loved Ellie second only to Kate herself. It was Johanna that helped her learn how to tie her shoe, how to read, and gave Ellie her first Jane Austen book on her twelfth birthday, the last birthday she had before Johanna died. She's also given her a small heart-shaped pendant made of amethyst on a silver chain, which she could still be caught wearing sometimes.
"I'm so glad to be here, Katie," Ellie said, breaking Beckett from her train of thought. She sat up, setting Heat Wave on the coffee table and rubbing sleep from her eyes.
"I'm glad you're here, too," she said, and then grinned, "The boys really missed you."
"Just the boys, huh?" Ellie laughed. She stretched, and then pulled her knees up to her chest, grinning all the while, "Well, I'm glad I finally got to meet the Richard Castle, at last."
Here we go. It was to only be expected. Lanie talked to Ellie nearly as often as she did. Beckett stared at her cousin, opening and closing her mouth as she contemplated how to respond. Finally, she settled on:
"Shut up."
Ellie rolled her eyes.
"What? Katie, it's no secret we were fans of his books long before you met the real thing…" she paused, chewing on her top lip as she mused, "at the precinct today, the fan girl in me was doing cartwheels when I started talking to him…"
"What did you say to him earlier anyway?"
"Just confused him is all. You're right, he's quite fun to tease. Except my teasing didn't involve images of me straddling things in tight black leather."
"I really need to stop telling you about these things…"
"Yet, you won't. You know I'd never use it against you in public…well, at least not in English, anyway." Ellie, like her, was multi-lingual. She spoke four languages other than English: Russian, Greek, Chinese and Spanish. Linguistics had been a hobby of her father's, the knack for which she'd inherited, so her father had taught her when she was very small.
"That's comforting, it really is."
Ellie smiled as she leaned back on the couch pillows.
"So, what are we doing tonight?" she asked.
"I was thinking…" Beckett said, turning around and walking towards her kitchen table. She picked up a rented DVD she had picked up two days ago in case Ellie decided to pull something like this, "…a Temptation Lane Marathon…" She held out the DVD to Ellie for emphasis, and then walked towards her refrigerator, "along with some rocky road ice cream…"
Ellie's entire face lit up.
"Have I told you you're my favorite person, ever?"
Beckett grinned.
"Not lately, no."
"Well, you are."
Beckett rolled her eyes. She grabbed the ice cream from the freezer and then turned, opening up the drawer across from the refrigerator to get spoons.
"Jared will be very disappointed to hear it…"
Jared Hart was Ellie's childhood best friend. He lived a few doors down from Beckett and her parents when she was younger. And since Ellie spent lots of time there, she got to know all the neighborhood kids. But Jared stuck by her almost exclusively throughout most of their lives. Still, Ellie took far longer to understand how she felt about him. It wasn't until two years ago, when Jared was offered a job in L.A. that Ellie truly realized what he meant to her.
Beckett chuckled to herself, remembering Ellie's not so conventional confession in the airport right before he left. They were never particularly good for timing. Something she and Ellie had in common, her young cousin had mused during her visit the summer before.
Ellie propped her head up on the back of the couch, watching her cousin.
"There's one more thing I haven't told you though…" she said quietly.
"About Jared?" Beckett asked, somewhat distracted, by thoughts of the lonely summer the year before, "Yeah, when did he propose?"
"Three days ago…" Ellie admitted, hesitation clear on her face, but Beckett wasn't looking at her. She took a breath before she continued, "…about the same time I found out I'm pregnant…"
Beckett paused where she was, holding two spoons in her hand, and turned to face Ellie.
"You're—what?"
Ellie bit her lip and shook her head.
"It was a lot sooner than we'd intended…accident, rather," she admitted, "… But a happy one…you're not upset you're going to be an aunt so soon, are you?"
Ellie looked so worried, that Beckett felt horrible for what she was sure was a discouraging expression on her face. She set the spoons down and walked over to the couch, gripping Ellie's hand in hers.
"Of course not," she reassured her, "just a little shocked." She chuckled, "I mean, the fact that you're engaged before me is weird enough…" Ellie released the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She flashed her cousin a bright, tearful smile.
"Ready to be a maid of honor?" she asked. Beckett's eyebrows nearly met her hairline as she heard that. She asked:
"Really?"
"Who else would I choose, Katie, honestly?" berated Ellie. Beckett thought for a moment, lining up at least three other possible options, two of which were Ellie's future sisters-in-law. But Ellie looked completely certain, as if it would be absurd to choose anyone else.
"I'd be happy to."
Ellie looked down at the DVD box in her lap. Curiosity soon became surprise. She looked back up to her cousin.
"Temptation Lane season 6?" she asked, "…wow, that's a really long time ago…and random…what made you choose this one?"
Beckett grinned.
"Prepare to meet Martha Rogers…" said she. Ellie's eyes widened.
"Castle's mom!" she exclaimed, "She was in this?"
"Only this season."
"Ooh, let's put it in…"
Three hours later, the two of them had collapsed on Beckett's couch in a fit of laughter, finished the carton of rocky road, and were watching Castle's drama queen mother run across the screen time and time again from a bear.
"I can definitely see where Castle gets his melodramatic tendencies…" Beckett mused. Ellie wiped the tears of laughter away from her eyes.
"But that was so awesome!" she exclaimed, and then buried her face in a couch pillow as she burst out laughing again. Beckett shook her head and chuckled at this display, reaching for the remote as the episode ended.
"I know, right?"
"How did we never see these? These are even more fun to watch than the other ones," Ellie said, shaking her head. She leaned back and laid her head on the pillow in her cousin's lap.
"I'm going to have such a hard time getting that image out of my head the next time I actually talk to Martha. Wonder if they've ever watched these episodes…" Beckett mused. Ellie looked up at her, mischief in her eyes. She sat up, tipping her head to one side and grinning.
"You really do know his family well, don't you?" she asked. Beckett glared at her.
"You know, you've only been here a few hours and have already nagged me about Castle twice…" she mumbled grumpily, "you're worse than Lanie, you know that?"
"Shut the front door!" Ellie did her best Beckett impression, earning a smile from her cousin, "I have not yet begun to nag, my dear cousin!"
"You're ridiculous!"
"Ha!" Ellie chortled, "You're the one with a stripper name who somehow manages to end up naked on the cover of his books every time!"
"Demon child, shut up!" Beckett answered, following her statement of annoyance with a pillow thump on her cousin's head, "You know that's not actually me!"
"Yeah…because that would really give Writer-Boy a heart attack…"
"Ellie!"
"Verbal masturbation!" she said in a sing-song voice. Beckett hit her with the pillow again, "Oh, come on, Natalie Rhodes is a woman who earns a living faking it, and she saw right through you! It's hilarious!"
Beckett's expression turned sour.
"You know, better than anyone, what happens when I give in to my feelings for Castle…"
Ellie rolled her eyes.
"Umm…you stick your tongue down his throat and then kick a guard in the head?"
Beckett nudged her.
"Shush!"
"Amazing!" Ellie mocked playfully.
"I am seriously going to shoot you…" Beckett muttered, "Or myself, it's a toss-up…"
Ellie laughed lightly, but grabbed her cousin's arm with a serious expression.
"Katie, all I know is that I've never seen any man give you that look in your eyes."
"What look is that exactly?" Beckett asked, exasperated. Ellie tilted her head to the side, obviously trying to figure out how to word her answer.
"Implicit trust," she said after a moment, "Fire…and I quote: 'You want to have little Castle babies…'"
"That's what my look says?" Beckett said, trying not to laugh as she remembered her old friend Maddie's words in the interrogation room she'd dragged her into in the middle of hers and Castle's date. How she'd accused her of breaking up the date because she herself wanted Castle.
"Well, it also says, 'You talk too much,'" Ellie added.
Beckett burst out laughing.
"You, little one, are insufferable…" she said, ruffling Ellie's curly brown locks. Ellie grinned and slapped her hand away.
"Yet, you love me anyway…" she informed her. Beckett laughed.
"Yeah, yeah…" she muttered.
Two more hours of Temptation Lane and Ellie was sound asleep on Beckett's couch. Tugging a blanket over her, Beckett left her cousin in her living room.
"Night, crazy person..."
Ellie had been there a total of nine days now. She'd stopped in at the precinct nearly every lunch time since she'd arrived, even after her final arrangements had been made at her new job and she stopped in to meet her boss in person. On the first day after she'd arrived, she'd gotten food for everyone, only to discover that Castle himself already had everything covered, including her own meal. She learned after that, calling her cousin before she arrived, just to make sure.
Castle was usually gone when she first arrived, sometimes with Katie, but most of the time getting them food. Evidently, he'd asked her cousin what sort of food she liked, because her favorites were always placed in front of her, regardless of whether or not she'd been there when he'd taken everyone's orders.
That day, Castle brought them all deli sandwiches, including Ellie's favorite pesto sandwich. Normally, they'd all just drink what they had in the break room, but the fancy espresso maker had broken down earlier in the day, so Castle had made a caffeine run, too.
He came back to the precinct, handing over coffee to both the boys, and then one to Beckett. He turned to Ellie, who was happily munching on her sandwich.
"And I have one for you as well…"
Beckett laid a hand on his arm to stop him from handing Ellie her cup.
"Actually," she said, grinning at Ellie, "she'll be laying off the caffeine for a while…"
It was a simple enough statement, but everyone in the room instantly understood.
He didn't know whose face was more priceless: Esposito, usually entirely calm in the face of all sorts of surprises, who choked on his coffee, and coughed and sputtered for a good minute, or Ryan, whose eyes looked as if they were about to bulge out of his head and jaw dropped open. And then there was Ellie's near double-take as she already reached out towards Castle for whatever he had gotten for her.
"Katie!" Ellie exclaimed in exasperation once she recovered. Esposito's eyes were watery from his coughing fit, and he and Ryan came to stand near her. Castle merely grinned.
"Oh, I know," he said smugly, "Don't worry. Hers is actually hot chocolate."
Beckett looked at her cousin in mild annoyance.
"You told him that first?" she whined. But Ellie was looking at Castle in confusion.
"I didn't tell him at all…" she said. He merely grinned, "How did you…?"
"I am a father, Ellie," he said, grinning as if that explained everything, "I do know the glow of a woman with child…"
A crease formed between Ellie's eyebrows and she looked down at her torso. She touched her stomach lightly and frowned.
"Are you sure it's not my hips…" she mumbled, "The awful things are already getting wider…"
Castle dipped his head and held out her hot chocolate.
"Your hips are perfectly lovely, Eleanor," he said in his most charming fashion. She tried to glare at him, but instead found herself laughing.
"Normally, I wouldn't let you get away with using my full name…" Ellie told him, "but you used it with a compliment and brought me hot chocolate, so I think I can let it slide."
Beckett watched the two interact approvingly.
"So I guess we should say congratulations, Ells," Ryan said. She grinned at him, stepping closer so he could hug her. Esposito followed soon after, cupping her face in his hand affectionately.
"You want us to talk to your boy?"
"Don't worry, he'll make an honest woman of me, Javi. But thank you for playing overprotective big brother, you old softie."
Esposito couldn't seem to decide whether or not to talk Ellie's words as sarcasm or a genuine compliment. But she smiled at him, nudging his side with her elbow as he kept an arm around her shoulders. Castle snickered. The homicide detective fixed a stone-cold glare at him.
"Shut up."
A/N: Okay, so who was not crying a lot during that season finale? I mean, I knew someone was going to die, and I figured it'd be him, but I guess I never figured he'd be dying to save Beckett. I mean, come on! So many tears. Also, did anyone notice? Beckett could have taken down Castle in an instant as he was carrying her out of that hangar, but she didn't. Which is what Montgomery was counting on, obviously. Still really depressing…anyway, another author's note is that I've decided to change my original ending thought to this story and incorporate it with the season finale and the last two episodes. And this will include the other ending…where Beckett gets shot and Castle tells her that he loves her. Anyway, before that, there will be more blunt, meddlesome cousin and Ellie getting Beckett to relax and have fun a little.
