Saturday, December 7th


"Good morning, children." Castle says, his voice still rough and gravelly with sleep. On the couch, his kids are curled up with Snicket in between them, Bea's head pillowed against the dog's stomach. Neither his children nor his dog so much as offers him a glance.

They're totally transfixed by the morning cartoons, so he figures that Kate isn't making breakfast like he first assumed. No way she'd let them get so totally absorbed. Flicking his gaze to the screen, Rick lets himself get momentarily absorbed in the cartoon and then moves to stand in front of the screen.

"Where's Mommy?"

Jack is the first to break, his sister about to fall right onto the floor as she stretches to see around the bulk of her father's body. His son meets Castle's eyes, seems to realise that the faster his question is answered, the faster they can have their cartoons back.

"She went to run, I think. She had on the shoes." Jack's attention leaches slowly away from his father and then snaps back, like a rubber band stretched and suddenly let go. "Oh, Daddy! She said there are waffles keeping warm but we can't have any until you're awake."

Castle raises an eyebrow at his son and moves for the kitchen, Snicket dropping his long body to the floor and trailing Rick across the room at the prospect of food. "I'm awake. Who's hungry?"

"Me, me!" Bea shrieks, apparently tugged away from her cartoons in much the same way as the dog. Deciding not to dwell too heavily on that, Castle pulls the waffles out of the oven and plates them up, hands a portion to each of his kids.

His daughter clambers up onto the barstool and bats her eyes at him, her chin cradled in the cup of her hands. Her hair flops into her eyes and she huffs; Rick snags a barrette from the little bowl his wife keeps stocked on the counter and secures his daughter's bangs back from her face.

"Daddy, since it is the weekend. . .can we do calendars before breakfast?"

She looks so hopefully angelic that Castle almost doesn't have the heart to say no, but- "Let's wait for Mommy, hmm? Isn't everything more fun with Mommy here too?"

"Mm'kay." Bea shrugs, busies herself adding sugar and lemon to her waffles. Castle wrinkles his nose at her and grabs the chocolate syrup, adds a liberal amount to his son's plate before he fixes on his own. Lemon and sugar, pfft. Another thing that Bea has picked up from Kate, whether genetically or just in imitation.

As if conjured by his thoughts, the door swings open and his wife stands in the threshold. The enormous window at the end of the hallway splashes light down the corridor and Kate bathes in it, her skin slick with sweat and calling out to his mouth.

"You guys didn't wait for me?" She says, mock-affronted, and both kids hurry to go and console her. It still amazes him that she lets them touch even when she's sweaty and hot and a little wiped out from her run. She won't carry them, often can't even stomach a hug, but little hands smearing sugar or jelly or chocolate all over her as they hasten to welcome her home? Apparently not a problem.

Castle rounds the counter and strides over to his family, still bubbling up from the doorway. He tugs his wife further inside the loft, the kids orbiting her ankles, and then he can shut the door before the daft dog sees fit to escape or something equally inconvenient.

"Okay guys. Let Mommy go shower. Finish your breakfast. We have a lot to do today."

Kate meets his eyes, offers him an imperceptible nod as she peels their son away from her ankle and strides toward the bedroom. They talked it through last night, satiated and loose where they curled together in the sheets. What today looks like, the traditions they want to cement for their kids.

There are things he used to do with Alexis that he wants to carry on, things that Kate did with her own parents that she'd like to revisit. In the velvet darkness of their bedroom, she spun stories that painted in his mind the vivid pictures of his wife as a tiny wisp of a girl, adorable and fearless and so much like their own daughter.

Jim Beckett marvels over the similarity, comments on it whenever he spends any length of time with his granddaughter. And, thinking of Jim, Castle scribbles a reminder on the kitchen whiteboard. It would be good for the kids to see him, for Kate to see her father.

Call Papa, his note says, and Jack reads it back to him hesitantly, almost trembling with pride when he sees his father's nod of affirmation.

"Papa!" Jack splutters around a mouthful of his breakfast, looks around as if he expects his grandfather to materialise at the mention of his name. Well, it did work for his mother just now.

Castle waits for his son to finish his last mouthful before he takes the plate, stacks all three in the dishwasher. He shuts the thing with a hip and glances towards the bedroom, listens intently for the sound of the shower still running. "I'm going to call Papa and see if he wants to come to dinner tomorrow. But it's a surprise for Mommy, okay? Don't tell her."

He gets an earnest nod from both of the kids and scrubs the note off of the board, considers adding one to his phone before he thinks better of it. Not that his wife checks up on him or anything like that, but she knows his password and sometimes she'll use his instead if it's to hand.

Doesn't bother him. He has nothing to hide. Not from Kate. Except, yeah, this one thing. But it's a surprise, not really a secret.

The bedroom door opens and his wife steps through, clad in jeans and the damp ends of her hair soaking through the rich berry colour of her sweater to leave dark patches at her collar bones. She grins at the three of them and comes to stand with Rick in the kitchen, looping her arms low around his waist and stretching up to meet his mouth.

"Okay, Mommy's dressed. You guys run and get dressed too, okay?" He says to the kids, nods towards the stairs.

Jack shoots him a sly look on his way upstairs, a smirk just flirting at the corners of his mouth. "You should get dressed too, Daddy."

Uhuh, he will. Just as soon as he's done saying good morning to his wife.


It's late, by the time they get all of the boxes away. The kids have already travelled the whole spectrum from deliriously excited to irritable and now they're both flagging.

In the kitchen, Castle's preparing hot chocolate for everyone, so Kate takes the opportunity to take her kids' hands and tug them over to the living room with her. "This is what I used to do when I was a little girl."

"When you was me?" Bea murmurs, eyelids dragging so her lashes sweep her cheeks like shadows. She stretches her arms up for Kate to carry her, but instead Beckett sinks down to the floor and gathers them both against her chest. Lying right back, she slides along the floor a little way until her head almost touches the trunk of the tree.

Both kids snuggle a little closer against her and Kate smiles, presses a kiss to each little forehead and curls an arm around each narrow waist. "Open your eyes."

"Oh, Mommy, wow." Jack says right against her ear, his voice soft and pliant with amazement. Above their heads, the tree's green fingers branch out and the lights Castle wound around it adorn the gnarled fingers like rings, brilliant gems of warm light.

Bea touches Kate's skin, her cheek and then her nose, travelling up to her forehead. The lights must be smoothing over the planes of her face then, splashes of colour that her baby girl dips her fingertips into. "Don't you think it's pretty?"

"You are pretty, Momma." Bea says, so much conviction to it that Kate's cheeks flame and she buries her face in the warmth of her daughter's neck.

The girl's been a little strange today, her excitement peaking so high and for so long that for most of the afternoon Kate has been dreading the inevitable crash. Bea had run from the low table with the train set to the gingerbread house to the tinsel that winds around the railing on the stairs, never quite able to tether herself to one spot.

Every so often, she'd open her mouth as if to say something and then wither under a hard look from her father. Kate can't help but wonder what that's all about, but never mind. She'll find out eventually, either from her baby girl or from her husband.

Castle loves secrets, prides himself on his ability to surprise her, but- heh, yeah. . .she's pretty good at surprising him too.

Heavy footfalls move steadily towards them and Kate grins, closes her eyes and waits for the inevitable warmth of the man she loves at her side. Castle clambers half underneath the tree and gathers Jack against his chest so he can lie flush with Kate's side, his mouth coming hot against her temple.

"Hi, gorgeous. This a tradition?"

Kate turns a little, lifts her daughter to let Bea pillow her little body on her mother's chest. "First night with the tree, yeah. It was always my favourite."

"You're my favourite." Castle grins, pleased with himself for taking that opening. And she can't even roll her eyes or call him a sap, none of it.

The loft spreads its glow over their little patch of the city and Kate thinks of the people in the street below, glancing up at their windows and seeing the spill of light and thinking about the happy family within. When she was younger and still had to hold her daddy's hand in the street, she would always tug him to a stop so she could stare longer at the windows, the glance into other people's lives that they offered.

Now, her life is like the pictures she drew in her mind. Especially at this moment with her kids sleepy and vulnerable and looking to their parents for warmth and safety. Her husband by her side for all of it, filling them all up with so much love that it spills over as if from a too-small cup, offered up like a gift to everyone they care for.

"Castle? I'm really glad we waited."

Sometimes she can't help but think about what could have happened if she'd caved in and kissed him that first case. No matter what he told her, she has no doubt that she would have been another notch in his bedpost back then. It took years of him proving himself over and over, showing her time and time again that he cared, before she could even imagine a life with him.

Of course she regrets the hurt they caused each other, but a part of her is grateful for it. It got them here, and here is such a beautifully perfect place that she wouldn't change a moment of the pathway that led them to it.

She's being maudlin, she knows. And apparently so does Castle, because he's coming in to press his mouth to hers, his tongue just touching at the seam of her lips. Kate casts her eyes down and sees the dramatic lift and fall of both kids' chests. Satisfied that they're asleep, she opens up for her husband and lets him take anything he wants.

He gave her all of it. It's his to take back. Castle's mouth breaks away from hers and he gathers both kids into his arms, moves slowly to his feet. "You stay right here. I want to see the reflection of the lights in your eyes while we make love."