Disclaimer- I still don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does, and I don't want him to sue me for playing in his sandbox.
I left Natalie in the smaller breakroom with Castle's jacket over her as she took a nap and I got to work on Jerry's murder. Laney called me back and said that he had been identified from a school ID photo. I sent out uniforms to canvas for Gabriel Savage. Castle brought some turkey wraps from the deli for us to lunch, and one for Nat when she woke up.
I told him about the apartment where I was supposed to drop Nat off and what it looked like. "I think a few members of Savage's gang were waiting on her to be dropped off. They know we found her at the scene," I said. "And she told me her foster mother had met her once, and she never came back, she lives with a boyfriend up in the Bronx."
"You know what I think we should do? Take her home with us," he said.
"Are you crazy? We can't!"
"Why can't we?"
"She's probably got behavior problems and she needs help and- we're just not equipped!"
"Yeah, we are."
"She's probably got years of abuse under her belt," I said. "And, I don't want to give her the idea we'd adopt her."
"Beckett," he whispered. "We're struggling to have kids anyway. Why not take her home for a few days until we can get her in somewhere safe? We did it for Cosmo a few years back."
"What about if she starts stealing stuff? Or if she hits another kid at school? Or lighting fires? She's behind in school too, remember?"
"Wow, you're really expecting the worst out of her already. I didn't know you were so scared of foster kids."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Castle?" I snapped irritably. "Just because you had the most perfect kid ever born doesn't mean you're an expert parent! That child probably has a ton of psychological problems from being bounced around foster homes. I wouldn't be surprised if she's already been raped."
"Do you think it would easier to foster a baby or something?"
"Well... yes!"
"You've got a lot of preconceived notions about foster kids, Beckett."
I opened my mouth to shoot back, but stopped. He was right; I was judging Nat's situation unfairly. "What if she does have problems?" I muttered.
"We'll handle them. If she turns out to be violent and dangerous, which I don't think she is, we can always turn her over to the juvenile system for psychological care. But you're assuming things. We don't know her. And who says we can't get through this together? She needs a home, even if it's temporary."
I thought about it, shaking my head.
"It'll be good practice for us," he added in. "Until we can get a safer place for her to live."
I played with my cell phone for a moment and finally pulled up her social worker's number. "Alright, we can take her home. But just for a few nights."
Natalie woke up around one and greatfully accepted the turkey wrap, eating the whole thing. I got her some chips from the vending machine. "You definitely need some vegetables," I muttered.
"There's lettuce in this. And a tomato. And potatoes are vegetables too, right?"
"That's not enough. That's only like half a serving. And potato chips don't count."
"I don't like vegetables!" she spat out.
"Well, that's bad news, since you're going to be coming home with us."
She gasped. "I am? Where's your house? What's it like? How many rooms do you have?"
I rolled my eyes. Again, with the questions. "We've got three bedrooms, and we'll make dinner, too. With vegetables."
She groaned and flopped back onto the couch. I couldn't wait to get her in a bathtub and scrub some of those layers of grime off her. She'd smell better, too.
We decided that it was time to take a break for the night when the uniforms came up with nothing for Savage, and went home. "Alright, I expect you to be on your best behavior in my home," Castle told Nat. "That means no breaking things, no throwing things, no destroying things, and going to bed when we tell you to."
"Okay, fine," Natalie grumbled.
"We're going to wash your clothes and you're going to take a shower. Like, immediately," I said.
"Do I smell?" Natalie asked, surprised.
"Yes, a little bit."
"The water in that apartment was yellow," Natalie said.
"When was the last time you had a shower?"
She grimaced. "Last week. The shower didn't work, either."
"Doesn't somebody inspect those apartment buildings?" I muttered. Bureaucracy.
We took her into the lobby and said hello to the doorman.
"Wow. This is a really nice apartment," Natalie noted. "Does the doorman stand there all the time? Does he help you when you have stuff to take up?"
"Natalie! Always with the questions!" Castle joked, hitting the elevator button.
When we opened the door to our apartment, I heard her utter, "Woow!"
"Go upstairs, second bedroom to the left is going to be yours," Castle instructed. That was Martha's old room. "There's a bathroom up there, there should be towels out. Go and take a shower, we'll start the laundry."
"What'll I wear after that?" she asked fearfully.
"I'll bring some stuff up," I offered, thinking of my gym t-shirts she could wear.
She scampered up the stairs and I went to my room to get clothes for her. I could hear her in the bathroom, tinkering around with stuff. I knocked on the door. "Nat, can I come in?" I asked.
"I'm naked, no!" she shouted.
"Did you find the towels?"
"Yes."
"I've got some clothes for you," I said.
"Leave them outside the door."
"Can I get your clothes to put in the laundry?"
"No! I'm not opening the door!" she switched the lock. "You have to leave!"
"I'm not going to look, promise!"
She was silent. And I finally heard the door unlock, and she timidly opened it. She had the towel wrapped around herself. "I can't figure out the shower," she admitted.
I set the t-shirt and gym shorts down on the counter and turned the lever in the shower on in such a way that it was hot water. There was a fresh bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo left in the shower, that should do it. "This is how you adjust it," I said, showing her. "Pull it forward if you want it stronger, then to the left."
"Oh!" she cried. "I've never seen that before."
"Well, now you know. I'll take your clothes downstairs, okay? Change into these," I pointed to the clothes on the counter. I got out a fresh toothbrush in the package and a tube of toothpaste. "We'll start on dinner."
"Okay!" she said, tugging the towel tightly around herself.
I left the bathroom and went downstairs. Her distrust of me in her bathroom bothered me a lot. It screamed sexual abuse in my mind.
"I threatened her with vegetables," I reported to Castle, taking her dirty laundry to the laundry closet. "We have to see through our threat."
"I'm already on it. Stir-fry is on tonight's menu."
I started a small load in the machine and turned it to super-hot to try to get all the germs out of her clothes. They reeked. I put in a little extra Tide, too. She had been wearing a t-shirt, a flannel button-up and a hoodie over her stained jeans. Her underwear as so dirty, I almost chucked them in the garbage, but they were her only pair, as far as I knew. I doubted her clothes in that slum were any cleaner. It wouldn't be so bad to go to the drug store and buy her some more.
"I think I have a few of Alexis's old books in her room if we wanted to read to her tonight. We don't have any of Alexis's old clothes, though," he continued.
"I wish we did," I muttered. We were so unprepared for a ten-year-old little girl in our house. "I think we need to find a way to get her into a school. She said something about PS 22, but I don't think she's been, yet."
"We'll figure it out," he said.
"What are we going to do with her tomorrow?"
"Take her to the precinct?"
"With all those questions?"
"She's just precocious," Castle said. "If push comes to shove, I'll take her to the museum or something."
"She's not Alexis," I pointed out. Alexis had been the mature and responsible child, always taking care of herself. Castle told me that she did her own laundry as early as age eight and put herself to bed without him telling her to. Nat was a wild card, we didn't know what to expect.
"The point with kids is to have fun with them," he said, shaking soy sauce into the pan.
"Oh, I forgot, you're the number one dad in the world," I rolled my eyes.
"Alexis gave me a mug that says so, so it's true," he replied, grinning.
"You're hilarious," I said, pinching his butt. "If you weren't so cute, I wouldn't put up with your shit."
"I know I'm cute," he responded. I kissed him. And kissed him again. We made out for a few minutes until I heard the shower upstairs go off. "We've got to get dinner finished," he said.
"I'l set the table."
A few minutes later, Natalie came down the stairs, her wet hair dripping all over my NYPD t-shirt (that was a dress on her), not even combed out. To my surprise, she was much paler than I initially thought.
"Natalie, come here," I said, taking her hand. "We're going to comb out your hair, alright?"
"There wasn't a comb up there," she said.
"I didn't think of that." I took her to my bathroom and combed her hair out with a wide-toothed comb. Her hair was so damaged at the ends that it was difficult to get the comb through, and she shrieked a few times before I put a little detangler in her hair.
"That smells so good!" Natalie cried. "Mmmm!"
"I use this all the time," I said, getting out my hairdryer.
"Do I smell like you now?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "I wear perfume, too."
"Which one?" she asked, eyeing my cosmetics on the corner of the bathroom counter.
"This one," I said, picking up my Michael Korrs perfume. "It's tuberroses and cherries."
She took a sniff and then sprayed some on herself, wincing.
"Here, let me dry your hair," I said. She squeezed her eyes shut and I switched it on. To my surprise, as her hair dried, it was much lighter than the light brown she had come in with. She was a dark blonde with some reddish undertones now that her hair was clean. The blow dryer dried her hair into frizzy waves instead of the ringlets. "I didn't know you were blonde," I said, turning off the hairdryer.
"What? How did you miss that?" she asked. I noticed my running shorts had pooled around her ankles.
"Let's pull your shorts back on," I said, thinking of the draw string. Once she had them up, I pulled the drawstring tight, and tied it off. I walked her into the dining room where Castle had set the table for us to eat.
"Where did this blonde child come from?" he joked. "I thought we brought home Natalie."
"We did, this is just Nat's natural hair color when it's clean," I joked. "Alright Nat, let's sit down to eat."
"This looks like Chinese!" she said happily. "I'll eat this!"
"Score," Castle muttered to himself as Natalie dug in with her fork.
"I like sweet and sour lo mein," Nat told us with a full mouth. I wanted to remind her to chew with her mouth closed, never speak with her mouthful, but I knew that she'd never live that down. "But this'll be okay."
"I'm so glad I could accomodate you, Nat," Castle joked.
"It probably taste differently because it's not soaked in MSG," I noted.
"What's MSG?"
"It's a really bad salt," Castle explained. "It's addictive, but a lot of cheap foods have some form of it in them to make it stay mold-free longer. It's not good for you."
Before we knew it, she had eaten her entire plate and was asking for seconds. A part of me wondered if she had been left to fend for herself in her foster homes. I had been to a few at work that were actually great places for their kids, but it didn't seem she had been in one. At least in her last foster home.
"Save room for dessert!" Castle warned her.
"We're having dessert?" she asked.
"Yes, we are. Ice cream. And then it's bedtime."
She groaned again like we were torturing her.
"We'll read you a book," he offered. "What ever one you want."
"And we've got a lot of books," I said.
After dinner, I took Natalie and I went through the bookshelf that held Alexis's old books.
"What do you like to read?" I asked.
"I don't know," Natalie said, not looking me in the eye. "You pick something."
I scanned the bookshelf and saw an old copy of Bunnicula with a cracked spine. "I like this one a lot when I was your age," I said.
"That's a big book," she noted.
"We'll read it together," I said, taking her hand. I lead her upstairs to Martha's old room and Castle was just finishing with making up the bed. We got her in and pulled the sheets up over her legs and I sat down beside her. I opened the book, and Alexis's name was written in faded pencil in a childish scrawl on the opening page. Castle sat down on the end of the bed, too. "Do you want me to start?"
"Okay."
"Bunnicula: A Rabbit Tale of Mystery by James and Deborah Howe," I started. "Chapter One: I shall never forget the first time I laid these now tired eyes on our visitor. I had been left home by the family with the admonition to take care of the house until they returnedā¦"
I read to Natalie while Castle listened on until my voice was hoarse. Nat never once asked to take over reading herself and was dead quiet. Her eyes started to droop and that was when I put the bookmark in and we tucked her into bed to sleep and turned out the lights.
"I don't think she can read," Castle whispered to me as we went to the living room.
I frowned. "What makes you think that?" I asked.
"She looked confused when trying to follow along with you," he said.
"She can't not be able to read," I began, distressed at the thought. A child her age? Unable to read? But she had said to me that it was a big book. It was a children's chapter book, but it wasn't that long. We had gotten through four chapters before turning out the lights. "She said she's in the third grade!"
"Bush made sure age didn't mean anything and kids had to be promoted through school when he passed the No Child Left Behind law," Castle said. "They can be functionally illiterate and still get through school. I almost became a teacher, you knew that?"
He had told me he had almost gone into education before becoming a writer. I had to trust him on this. "I remember," I said.
"She's probably never had a parent really take her aside and work with her. Or talked to her teacher about what needs to be done. I'm sure she's failed a few grades by now."
"You really think�"
"I do."
I felt even more terrible for Natalie than before. She had almost every disadvantage a child could have. Her life was on a terrible downslide already and nobody was looking out for her. She'd never get adopted by a suitable parents.
"I have the feeling she's dyslexic, too," Castle continued. She hadn't known how to turn on the shower properly, either.
"She might be," I muttered. It always astounded me that so many people didn't like to read, but here was Natalie, and she probably couldn't even read. "We're going to make sure she's enrolled in school tomorrow and talk to her teacher about this."
"Wait a second," he said, getting some red wine glasses out of the cabinet. "We don't know that she can't read." He pulled the cork out of the last of the bottle of Cabernet we had started last night. "We need proof."
"I doubt she'll let us know about it," I said sadly, taking a sip.
"She's smart, but the system's failed her," Castle said. "She notices things. She has a lot of questions. She's curious and I think she wants to learn, but there's never been anybody to teach her or be involved in her education."
"If this is true, I have no hope left for humankind," I muttered.
