CH2 (23)

Kate was closing down her computer to get ready to go home. Ryan and Espo were already gone.

Lanie had gotten finger prints off their two vics but quickly found out they weren't in the system. Meaning they had never been arrested or gone through a security check or any number of other things.

Not really a great surprise since a lot of people in the city had probably never had their prints taken.

Kate also had her list of bars in the area. Kate thought she should be surprised at the number of bars even remotely close, but she wasn't. The list only got bigger as she expanded the search area based on did they walk there or drive there?

Did they live near there or did they go there for some reason. Lanie was still working on trying to get an image of the knife used.

Kate parked the charger in the garage. Kate had sold the Mercedes that Castle had left her. She had the precinct car and there was no way she was getting rid of the Ferrari. Kate was actually looking forward to one day driving out to the house in the Hamptons with her son and the top down for the 2 hour drive.

Martha had long ago given her a key and told her it was a much her home as Martha's.

They had finally rented the home in Bel-Air to a family who were warned about letting Meredith inside their home should she be foolish enough to show up.

It was rented and the money was going into Alexis's account since it was her house. Kate was presently in charge of it until Alexis reached the age of 21. Then its maintenance and upkeep would fall to her. Or she could just sell it.

Stanford was a 5 hour drive at best or a 1 hour flight from the house, should Alexis decide to use it for any reason should she decide to go to Stanford.

Having either Stanford or Oxford reject Alexis never occurred to either of them. She was way too smart to not be noticed by either of them.

Kate put her thumb on the plate at the door which unlocked it. After stepping inside and closing the door Kate pressed her finger on the security panel resetting it.

It may seem like an unnecessary precaution but Kate liked the idea of the thumb for the door and a fore finger for the security panel. As the time with Bracken had shown it was necessary. Plus just because Bracken was in prison didn't mean they were safe yet.

Bracken still had contacts and may decide to get even for destroying his plans on being President and end up spending the rest of his life in prison.

Kate pulled out her weapon and stored it in the single weapon gun locker at the front door that could only to opened again using her forefinger. There was also one in the kitchen, master bedroom, nursery and the exercise room down in the garage.

"Hi mom." Alexis calls from the living room.

"Hi pumpkin." Kate calls out and moves over to the sofa where Alexis had Alexander lying on the sofa, playing with him.

"And how is my handsome young man?" Kate coos at him while picking him up and nuzzling her nose to his. "And who is the handsome man of the house? … You are." Kate rubs her nose over his face and lets him try and reach for her hair while smiling at her.

"How's he been? I'm sorry I forgot to text or call." Kate suddenly felt bad about that.

"He's been perfect mom and I fed him about half an hour ago. He even almost took all of it this time." Alexis answers her question.

"And my handsome young man was hungry this time was he?" Kate coos while rubbing her nose over his again, trying to get a hold of her hair. Just can't quite close his hand tight enough to keep a hold of it.

"Katherine, you're home." Martha comes down the stairs and steps up to them both and runs her finger over Alexander's cheek. "He gets bigger and more handsome everyday Katherine."

"Yes he is, he'll be crawling and walking before I even know it." Kate moans. He was a baby and Kate wanted to him to stay that way for a little longer.

"Did you eat lunch mom?" Came the question Kate was dreading.

Kate remained silent. "MOM!?" Alexis moans at her.

"I'm sorry pumpkin but we caught a case. Two actually and it looks like they might be connected." Kate defends herself.

"Not an excuse mom. You know what this means." Alexis reminds her.

Kate rolls her head. "Yes pumpkin I know what it means." Kate moans. Kate could swear, Alexis was worse than Castle ever was.'

It meant there was going to be lunch delivered to her desk until she could prove to Alexis that she was eating lunch without having her buy it for her.

"So tell me about this case." Alexis was dying to hear all about it.

"Let me get washed up first and you can help me start dinner and we can talk." Kate hands over Alexander to Martha who was only too willing to take him and start cooing at him.

Kate started working on dinner using one of her mother's recipes while explaining the case to Alexis and Martha who was still holding Alexander.

"So was their blood red?" Alexis suddenly asks in the middle of Kate's explanation.

"Yes, of course." Kate was dying to hear why that was important.

"Darn, guess that leaves out Vulcan's or Klingon's." Alexis is bummed.

Kate couldn't help it. "Klingon's?"

"Yeah, Vulcan's have green blood and Klingon's have pink blood, which looks a lot like Pepto Bismol actually." Kate watches Alexis make a 'Yucky face.'

"Don't Klingon's have those ridges on their forehead." Kate points out a flaw in her thinking.

"Not in the original series." Alexis counters.

"Only because they didn't have the budget for it and they had red blood then, didn't they?" Kate counters Alexis's wild theory. If it really was one.

"Ok, good point." Alexis concedes defeat.

"Thank you, now as I was saying, before I was interrupted, …." Kate gets on with her briefing of the case.

"So they are both killed the same way and both of them are well dressed, but only one of them was drinking. What was his alcohol level?" Alexis asks.

"Lanie had it at .28." Kate tells her.

"How is he even still conscious?" Alexis questions.

"What makes you think he was conscious when he was killed? And it smells like someone needs a new diaper." Kate suddenly makes a face.

"I can do it Katherine, you two keep working on your case of two dead people." Martha never did see the appeal that these two have or her son have/had for homicides.

"Thanks Martha." Kate watches her take her son upstairs to the nursery. "Conscious?" Kate offers picking up where they left off.

"He would have to be wouldn't he? How else is someone going to shove a blade up into the body bypassing the rib cage to put the blade into their hearts?" Alexis points out.

"Ok, so he is conscious when he is killed, but the other one had no alcohol in his system at all." Kate points out.

"Knife fight, kinda old school. Don't most people use guns now? … Ok, so they get in a fight and the sober one dies first for whatever reason. Then his drunk buddy comes to his defense." Alexis offers.

"OR,

the drunk one starts the fight because he's drunk and barely standing and his sober buddy tries to break up the fight or stop it from happening." Alexis stops Kate from offering her opinion on her first idea.

"Then he kills his drunk buddy since he is a witness even if he is drunk. That explains what happened, just not who my vic's are or where they were killed." Kate points out.

"No but I'm betting you or Lanie will figure out who, as for where. Anyone with that much alcohol in him and can still function enough to start a fight sounds like an alcoholic. Maybe he has a favorite place. Somewhere his rich friends or family wouldn't ever go to so he doesn't get recognized as being a drunk alcoholic." Alexis offers.

Kate was amazed, now she so wanted Alexis back in the precinct again. She sounded so much like Castle. It made her miss him more, but she was proud of Alexis and her theories made her feel better.

Kate steps over to Alexis stopping what Kate was doing for a moment to wrap her arms around her and kiss her head. "Thank you pumpkin, you're the best. I love you."

Alexis hugged her back and held her head against Kate's chest. "I love you too mom, I don't know what I would do without you." Losing her father had broken her heart, having Kate was the only way it was still in one piece.

"You and me both pumpkin. You and me both." The talk about a drunken guy did however bring up someone in Kate's mind.

Kate just didn't know what to do about it. What her father had said the last time they had talked had been extremely painful. Kate had gone through a lot with her father, but what he said that day was, … It was something she had never thought him capable of.

Just how much of being drunk for months on end and almost killing himself with alcohol poisoning done to his personality. Kate had lost her mother and then about a month later her father left her.

Nineteen year old Kate Beckett had been forced to grow up fast and fend for herself. Kate missed her mother and her father of old, just not her new father.

Kate shook her head to clear her thoughts of her father, both the sober one and the drunken one. And turned back to her cooking.

Martha eventually came back down with Alexander and placed him in his carrier while they all ate dinner at the table. Kate wasn't quite done eating when Alexander started putting up a fuss.

"He's probably hungry again, I'll go get a bottle." Alexis started to get up.

"That's ok pumpkin, I can do it. Besides my breasts are hurting since it has been a little while." The buildup of milk in her breasts was becoming painful. Kate either needed to nurse her son or pump. Possibly both.

Kate put him down after burping him and let him rest, then grabbed the pump so she could re-stock the refrigerator for tomorrow.

Going back downstairs Kate found Martha had retired for the evening. Kate knew she would be up early to go check on the construction of her studio and the apartment above it, or deconstruction might be more accurate.

"I put him to bed, though I'm thinking of getting him up before bed tonight. Hopefully at least one of us will get some sleep that way." Kate tells Alexis as she plops down on the sofa next to her.

A long day at work followed by staying up half the night because of her son was draining. How did single parents do it? Kate had Alexis AND Martha and it was still draining.

"Movie?" Alexis offers.

"Sure, I'll even let you choose this time." Too tired for rock, paper, and scissors.

Kate didn't know what Alexis had chosen until the movie started. "The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn? … Excellent choice!" Kate loved this movie, it was another classic.

"Who was the guy Robin befriended first?" Alexis suddenly asks before the film gets very far.

"OH, Uhmmm, uhmm, …. " Kate knew but it was on the tip of her tongue and wouldn't come out.

"Tick, tick, tick, tick, … " Alexis decides to have some fun with her mom.

Kate turns to look at Alexis with an evil glare. "There's a time limit now?"

Alexis just shrugs her shoulders. "Tick, tick, tick, …"

"MUCH!" Kate suddenly almost yells out finally finding it in her memory. Watching Alexis glare back at her for spoiling her fun.

"Who arrested him?" Kate counters.

"Easy. Guy of Gisbourne." Alexis answers.

"Eeeerr, wrong. .. SIR Guy of Gisbourne." Kate quickly counters. Then licks her finger and draws a one in the air.

Alexis folds her arms across her chest and huffs. "What was Little John's name?" Alexis counters.

"Alan Hale Sr." Kate answers quickly.

"That's the actor's name, what was Little John's name?" Alexis counters.

Kate scrunches her face. "Little John, …. Little John, …." Kate tilts her head, thinking that might help dislodge the memory.

"Tick, tick, tick, …" Alexis was grinning when Kate turned to look at her with a death glare. Alexis was getting in her mom's head, and it was fun.

"Tick, tick, tick, …." Times up." Alexis announces.

"I don't know." Kate shrinks down into the sofa.

"John Little." Alexis tells her.

"OF COURSE!" Kate throws her hands up in the air. As soon as Alexis said it the memory broke free and Kate knew she was right.

Kate however was forced to watch Alexis lick her finger and draw a 1 in the air. Kate was giving Alexis a look of. "The games not over yet!"

"How much money did Gisbourne and the Sheriff lose to Robin and his merry men? Having to report this loss to Prince John?" Kate thought up what she hoped would be a tough one.

"50,000" Alexis answers quickly.

"50,000 what?" Kate counters.

It's not dollars, not in England. Pounds? Except that was more recent. It was after the Romans so it's not salt or Roman coins or wood markers.

Not franks, CRAP! Why am I thinking of hot dogs. GOD Alexis, THINK!

"Tick, tick, tick,…." Alexis glares at her mom. Kate just shrugs her shoulders.

Alexis leaps up off the sofa and goes into her dads study and grabs his old laptop, then returns to sit on the sofa and turn it on.

"HEY, that's cheating!" Kate points out.

"There's nothing in the rules that says I can't use the internet to find the answer. …. And it's not in the fine print either. … I looked." Alexis counters. Knowing full well that she is playing with fire.

"GOLDEN MARKS!? … Seriously! Whoever heard of Golden Marks!" Alexis turns the computer back off and lays it on the coffee table. Then sits back into the sofa and moans.

"I win! Best two out of three." Kate points out. "You know what that means?" Kate glares at her daughter.

"That I can't harass you for not eating lunch for a whole week." Alexis moans and tries to sink further into the sofa. She had lost! That was bad enough.

"It's ok pumpkin, I promise to try and remember to eat something." Kate wraps an arm around her and holds her close, then kisses the side of her head.

The rest of the movie was watched in silence; at least until the baby monitor told them Alexander was awake. "I'll go; you can clean up our mess, loser." Kate tells Alexis and walks up the stairs to the nursery grinning the entire way.

"There has to be a loophole in this deal somewhere." Alexis mumbles to herself while cleaning up their mess and adjusting the sofa cushions. Then an evil grin comes over her face as she thinks she has found one.

Kate blinks her eyes open. Why am I awake? Then Kate makes out the sound of her son putting up a fuss. He still doesn't cry and Kate can't remember ever hearing him cry.

Kate turns her head 3:17 am getting Kate to moan. Ok maybe she wants him to grow up just a little, enough that he sleeps the night through so she can also sleep the night through.

Kate rolls out of bed and shuffles her feet over to the stairs and looking like a zombie walking, goes up the stairs and into the nursery. Looking down into the crib she can see her son lying on his back still, wiggling all over. His hand flashing across the front of his face seems to be the most interesting thing he has ever seen.

"You think you're pretty cute don't you?" Kate coos at him, then leans down so her eyes are looking into his. Just for a moment Kate can see Rick's eyes staring back at her, allowing her to start to drown in them like she used to.

"So what has you awake my handsome young man?" Kate checks his diaper. "Nope you're clean. You hungry again? Well I think we can fix that, what do you think?" Kate lifts him up and sits in the rocker and slips her night shirt off to one side and guides her son to her nipple.

Alexander knew just what to do with it and was soon feeding. "No wonder you are growing up fast, just don't force me to put you on a diet young man."

Kate soon switches breasts and then holds him up to burp him. Leaving him there so she can hold him and nuzzle him while breathing in his smell. He may be a mini Castle but he didn't smell like Castle.

It was one of the things Kate missed. The loft looked like Castle since Kate hadn't done anything to change it, but the sheets, pillows and even his clothes that were still in the closet no longer smelled like him.

He really was gone and all she had left of him was what she could see and the baby she was holding.

Kate already knew that the pain of missing Castle would never go away, since she still missed her mother after all these years.

The more Kate thought about it she noticed that she hadn't heard Castle's voice since Alexander had been born. The last words from him had been about the elephants. Probably about the tape that was inside it. But how did he know it was hidden inside?

Had he met her mother on the other side? That was how he knew? Kate reminded herself to ask Alexis if she had heard him since that time. They had told each other what Castle had said when he said it, and since Alexis was silent about it, she must not be hearing him either.

"Please be safe Rick. Are you still waiting for me or have you moved on? Or do I even have anything to say in the matter?" Kate whispered out to herself.

Kate blinked back the tears while stroking Alexander and rubbing her nose over him.