Again, I don't own anything, but I wish I did :)
Sunday was an uneventful day, nobody had any plans and nobody felt the need to do anything.
Alexis and Martha spent the day looking through magazines and picking out dresses, trying but not succeeding to involve both Anastasia and Kate in their conversation. Rick had been holed up in his study writing, but after a lack of inspiration decided to join the rest of them in the lounge. With Martha and Alexis taking over the couch, Richard sitting in the comfy chair and Kate resting on his lap, Anastasia chose to sit on the floor in between them. Of course, Martha and Alexis offered her space on the couch, but she declined, reasoning that the floor was comfortable.
Monday, however, was as far from uneventful as any day in her life had been.
The family were woken at 6 in the morning by the loudest knocking on the door they had ever heard, which Rick and Kate both rushes to in their t shirts and shorts, to reveal several young men standing there.
In the middle of him questioning who they were, Rick's sentence was interrupted by a shriek and a 15 year old brunette launching herself at one of the men standing at the door. Kate raised an eyebrow from her place behind her boyfriend, feeling rather self-conscious wearing only a baggy t shirt and some extremely short pajama shorts.
The teenager continued to hug the men, who were clearly a lot older than her, most of them looked old enough to be at college, and looked far too friendly with the young girl for Richard Castle's liking. Especially when that young girl was only clothed in a tank top and a pair of hello kitty shorts, and currently being piggybacked into the living room by one of the men. Anastasia looked at Kate and smiled shyly,
"Um, these are my friends; they're here with the rest of my stuff."
After changing into suitable clothes for moving furniture, jeans a t shirt for Rick, sweats and a t shirt for Kate, a too-big Harvard t shirt and some denim shorts for Anastasia, and bare chested with jeans for the group of men Rick had yet to learn the names of. Martha and Alexis, watching from the kitchen, had not learnt their names either, and were simply appreciating the gorgeously defined muscles of the shirtless men that were now on display, and it looked like every single one of them spent a decent amount of time at the gym.
Gradually, Kate learnt that the oldest of the men, at 22, was Adrian, a tall, well-built blonde that looked like he had just been picked up from an Bondi beach and dropped into New York, but that tan was the result of his 5 week holiday in Spain, cut short be the death of Anastasia's father, because he came back to help her handle it.
The next man the detective and writer were introduced to was 21 year old Erik, a tall, dark and handsome young man with a variation of tattoo's down one arm, and extremely intimidating, even to Kate, who had faced down the most terrifying criminals in New York.
He faced down Rick the moment that Kate and Anastasia left, explaining to him, not so nicely, that if he ever did anything to hurt the 15 year old, they would hurt him in ways he couldn't dream up to put in his books.
"Have you got all her papers?"
"Yes, Kate has them."
"What about her medical record?"
"I'm not sure... Why?"
"You think you've dealt with monsters? Wait until you see that file."
Their conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Anastasia, her brunette hair bouncing in waves as she ran over to them, grabbing Erik's hand and pulling him up the stairs.
"...you HAVE to see the view from my window. Oh, and have you talked to Bailey this week? Her and Sam..."
In the process of moving everything into the teenager's room, Rick, Kate, Anastasia, and two of the other men, Marcus and Liam, were arranging the furniture in her room.
Marcus, a 19 year old Brit that had known Anastasia through their parents, who vacationed together most Christmas and summer holidays and Liam, a 17 year old that had been to school with Anastasia most of his life, was happy that his summer vacation wouldn't all be spent doing nothing, had both been happy to come down to New York to see her.
"Who is in this photo?" Anastasia looked up at the framed photo strip from summer last year that Kate was holding, of her with her arms wrapped around a boy, then kissing his cheek, then laughing with him, then him kissing her cheek. She took one look at the photos and saw the others did too, noticing that her two friends immediately tensed up, and dreaded the answer she had to give.
"That's Ryan... we were friends back in Seattle."
If the detective saw the two young men roll their eyes and grit their teeth at the teenager's statement, she didn't say anything, and turned back to taking pictures out of the boxes. Thankfully, the next two hours were free from awkward mishaps and questions, and just filled with nice conversations about the music the 5 of them listened to, while they moved her clothes and books into the room.
Opening another cardboard box, Marcus's fists clenched and he stepped back, as if something was physically causing him pain. This time the detective definitely noticed, and so did Rick. Quickly fleeing the room, the 19 year old dashed down the stairs and the remaining 4 heard a shout of "Adrian! Go help them with the boxes?"
"Why? What's wrong?"
"It's the box of all the stuff from last summer… I just can't do that."
"Ok."
With that, Adrian walked into the room, a happy smile plastered onto his face, and dropped a kiss to Anastasia's cheek before tipping the contents of the box onto the bed.
Anastasia looked up at him with worried eyes, and her lip wobbled as she looked between her friend and the door. Thomas and Kyle stood in the doorway, and once Adrian nodded at them, the two 20 year old's followed Marcus.
"He's fine, sweetie. He just... you know."
That night, with Alexis and Martha out shopping, and Anastasia and her friends in her room, the two adults were standing in the kitchen with a glass of champagne each.
"You know, her friends are a lot older than her…"
Kate smiled, well accustomed to this side of her boyfriend, before setting down her glass and wrapping her arms loosely around his waist.
"She's 15, Rick. She will be perfectly fine."
"And they are all older boys! I know exactly what boys their age want from a younger girl."
Rolling her eyes, she held back the smile on her lips. Seeing him this overprotective over the 15 year old was rather cute, not that she would ever tell him that.
Resting her head against his chest, she smiled as he wrapped his arms around her. These moments, where he just held her were possibly her favourite, of course she loved their other… activities but when he held her like this, she felt safe and happy. Actually, just being with Rick made her happy, most of the time anyway. Of course, they had more than their fair share of fights, because he got too protective of her and tried too hard to push her sometimes, and because she was too stubborn to accept any help when something was wrong, and she would always put the safety of others before her own.
She had almost lost him too many times already, to lose him to a mad gunman or a bomb going off because of his stupidity and his need to impress her, and there was no way he was going to lose her because she tried to save someone else and got herself killed in the process. They weren't going to lose each other; they weren't going to let each other go.
"Anyway, I wouldn't let you get away from me that easily."
"Ah, Detective, how would you get rid of me then? Shoot me? No, too ordinary. Stab me? No, leaves too much evidence."
"I think I'll keep all the ways I could kill you to myself. I might need them if you go all protective again." He chuckled, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before grinning at her.
"I'll hold you to that."
Please review! :)
We're only a few weeks into hiatus and I'm already dying...
TIME TO REWATCH ALL THE CASTLE EPISODES!
