December 10 - 2025
The parents are all milling around in the reception area, waiting to be allowed to take their seats, when the twins' kindergarten teacher pokes her head around the door.
"Mr and Mrs Castle?"
Kate strides immediately towards her and Rick follows, tugged along in her wake by their clasped hands. Their teacher, Ms Caine, opens the door a little wider and brings them both through into the hallway. There's a lot of noise back here.
Almost all of the elementary students have some part to play, and they're crowded into the gym to wait for their turn on stage. The eighth graders are the main characters and the narrators, and then each of the lower grades has a dance or a musical number to perform. Lily is in third grade and her class are all dressed as snowflakes. She looks adorable in the costume his mother made for her. When she tried it on last night she couldn't stop grinning, goofy and gap-toothed.
The kindergarten class have a dance to demonstrate Christmas morning and they're all supposed to be dressed as parcels and gifts. Not their boys, though. The play's director wanted to have a kindergartener as Tiny Tim, but they were all struggling to remember all of their lines and cues for the whole thing. A stroke of genius, apparently, had prompted Mr Sanders to cast Jake and Reece both as Tiny Tim, one of them for each act.
"The boys aren't happy. The problem is, Jake is playing Tim in the first half. So in the second half, he gets to join the rest of the class as a Christmas gift. But Reece is playing Tim during that scene, so he doesn't get to do the dance."
Yeah. . .that's not good. Rick wrinkles his nose and looks to his wife. She's always been better at conflict resolution than him. It's part of being a captain, after all. She opens her mouth to speak but her phone starts ringing and she has to answer it.
"Can I go in and talk to them?" Rick asks.
Kate is walking off down the hallway, her hand over her other ear so she can hear the person on the phone better. She skipped out early today when she really shouldn't have done, but she insisted that she didn't want to miss opening night. Martha and Alexis are coming to watch tomorrow, and Rick did suggest she go with them instead, but she'd been resolute. Kind of scary, actually.
"I'll send them out."
Ms Caine reappears from the gym a minute later with the boys. When they see him they both open their mouths to start arguing. Rick sinks to a crouch to put himself at eye level with them and he hears them out, one at a time.
The unfairness of the situation has Reece pink-cheeked and on the precipice of tears. He stares at the ground, his arms folded over his chest. Jake is in the Tiny Tim costume ready for the show to begin, complete with little crutch. It's adorable, and pride wells in a great wave in Rick's chest.
"Where's Mommy?" Jake demands.
Rick turns over his shoulder, but Kate has disappeared. The call must have been urgent, then. "She had to take a phone call. She'll be in the audience, cheering just for you guys and Lily, I promise."
"Daddy it's not fair. Jake gets to do two things and I only get to do one thing."
"I know, peanut butter cup. But I have an idea. How about, tonight Jakey goes first and he gets to do the dance. And then tomorrow, you go first and you'll get to do the dance?"
Both of their faces light up. Jake rests his hands at Rick's cheeks and leans in close. "Daddy, you are so smart."
"I'm glad you think so, my man. Happy?" They both tell him they are and grin widely. "Okay. You better get back in the gym then. The show's starting soon."
"That was masterfully done, Mr Castle," the boys' teacher tells him. He gets to his feet, grunting through the stiffness in his knees, and gives her his most charming smile.
It doesn't work. The boys and Lily attend Marlowe Prep, the same school Alexis graduated fourteen years ago. It's a good school, great really. He had to talk Kate into it because she didn't want their kids to be private school snobs and look down on those less fortunate. It was Alexis actually who came to his rescue on that front. He's not sure exactly what his daughter told his wife, but when she got back from their lunch she admitted defeat. One of the best things about this school is that the staff are totally unflappable. The children of diplomats and royalty attend Marlowe Prep, so no one raises an eyebrow at a somewhat famous novelist.
With Kate, it's different. She's a cop, a captain, so the staff here make allowances for her that they wouldn't make for the other parents. She never does it on purpose, never flashes her badge, but they respect Rick's wife more than any movie star or politician.
"I've had quite a lot of practice as a mediator," he tells Ms Caine. If charming her isn't going to work, he figures honesty is his best bet.
"It shows. Please, take your seat. We can handle it from here, can't we boys?"
They follow their teacher back down the hallway, mute with respect for her. Out in the lobby Kate is waiting for him. She gives him that smile that lights up her whole face and some of the other parents turn to follow her line of sight. He has to force himself not to wiggle with silly pleasure at being the person she smiles like that for.
"All sorted?"
He slides his hand into hers and squeezes her fingers. "Sorted. Everything okay?"
"Yeah. Just bureaucracy. Dad's inside. Saved us seats."
Rick lets her lead him into the theatre. She came straight from the precinct and she's tall and striking in her slacks and heeled boots. He loves that she sometimes wears dresses or pencil skirts as captain, loves that being mostly off the streets has let her soften her wardrobe, but her outfit today is giving him flashbacks to being her partner. A chasm of nostalgia opens in his guts and she practically has to manhandle him into his seat.
"What's wrong with you?"
Kate is in between him and her father and Jim peers around his daughter to scrutinise Rick as well. He arranges his face into a smile, feeling awkward and too big for his skin with them both looking at him like that.
"Nothing. I'm fine. Hi, Jim."
"Hello son."
"Babe," Kate prods. She's taken his hand into her lap and she fiddles with it, stroking the lengths of his fingers and working her knuckle into the meat of his palm. Her peculiar affections have him thrown completely off kilter tonight. "You look spaced out."
He sighs and rests back against his seat. "It's just seeing the way everyone carves a path for you. How awed they are by you. Makes me miss being your partner."
"What are you talking about?" His eyes lift to her face and find hers narrowed. "You're still my partner. Married you, didn't I?"
"I. . .yes?"
"Rick," she says. It's softer than he was expecting, as if she feels like she has to mother him. "Do you know how proud I am to walk hand in hand with you? How proud to have you as my husband? People might be awed by my badge and my pantsuit, but I'm awed by you. Your heart."
It chokes him. For a moment all he can do is clutch at her hand and breathe slowly through the shock of it. She's watching him, has always been watching him. When she's sure he's not about to start blubbering she curls her fingers at his ear and brings him in for a kiss. He didn't mean to be so dramatic about it, but something about the holidays and seeing their children perform is getting to him.
Jim has been studying the programme and very carefully ignoring them. When Kate breaks apart from Rick she twists back around in her chair and laughs, pats her father's knee.
"Sorry, Dad. We're done."
"Right," he gruffs. For a minute he can't meet either of their eyes. "Boys are credited."
"They are?" Rick reaches underneath himself for his own programme. It's crumpled, because he sat on it like a hulking buffoon, but he can still see his sons at the bottom of the cast list. "Oh, Mother's going to gloat. Five years old and they're the stars of the show."
Kate starts to respond, but the lights go down and the curtains come up and she snaps her mouth shut. She lets him hold her hand the whole time. When the eighth grader playing Bob Cratchit enters the stage with Jake sitting high on his shoulders there's a chorus of awws from the audience and a scattering of applause. Kate does that sharp police whistle and the people all around them turn to look at her. She doesn't seem at all bothered, grinning and flushed with pride as she is.
Jake doesn't have many lines, but the few he does have are delivered with confidence and mischief. The audience are on his side immediately and Rick beams. When it's time for Lily's class to perform their snowflake dance, Kate watches with two fingers against the arc of her smile. Joy forms creases at the corners of her eyes and he could swear he sees moisture there too.
During the interval several people around them compliment Jake's performance. Rick does most of the talking, more used to this sort of thing than Kate is, but she stays right beside him while her father goes to collect refreshments.
The show starts up again and it's Reece's turn to play Tiny Tim. He's just as good as Jake, maybe even a little better. He's always been the more outgoing of the two, and his cheeky grin during his scenes has the audience chuckling. When he utters Tiny Tim's famous line, "God bless us, every one!" he gets a cheer from the audience and he soaks up the applause, buoyant with it.
During the bows at the end of the show the boys get a standing ovation when they take a bow together. They're the youngest of the cast by eight years, but they held their own. Rick claps as loud as he can, his wife whistling beside him. He didn't mean for them to be those parents, but he's so proud of his children tonight.
The kindergarteners have to wait in the gym to be collected and Kate and Rick both go, leaving Jim to wait for Lily to appear.
"Mama, Daddy!' Jake shouts when he sees them and the boys charge. Kate catches them both in a hug, smothering them with kisses and telling them how proud she is.
When she lets them go it's his turn. Rick scoops them both up and holds them tight. "I'm so proud of you, boys. You were fantastic. Did you enjoy it?"
"It was really fun, Daddy," Reece says right in his ear. He has to put them down because his shoulders are protesting but they don't stray far. Various other parents keep coming up to congratulate them on their performance.
Jake is bashful now that he's off the stage, half hiding behind Kate's legs, but Reece basks in the praise. They'll have to watch that it doesn't go to his head, but there's no harm in letting him enjoy it for tonight. Lily and Jim come to find them and Kate hugs their daughter tight.
"Your dancing was so beautiful, my sweet girl. Well done."
"Thanks Mom." Lily is a head taller than most of the other kids in her grade, even the boys. She can be shy about it, about her gangly limbs and her missing teeth, but on stage tonight she blossomed. "It was so so fun. And Mr Row let me watch the boys from the wings. That's the side of the stage."
Kate hooks her arm through Lily's and the two of them lead the way, Lily's face turned up towards her mother as she tells her all about her experience backstage. Rick corrals Jake and Jim takes Reece, and the six of them manage to make it out of the school gates.
The car service is taking them all home except Jim, so he says his goodbyes. He shakes Rick's hand, the kids hopping around his feet like sparrows. He lifts an eyebrow, so like his daughter, and glances down at them.
"You think they're lively now, wait until Martha sees the show. Bet you a dollar she cries all the way through."
"No bet," Rick laughs. He can picture so clearly his mother's face when she sees the kids perform, how effusive she'll be with her praise afterwards. "Goodnight, Jim."
They see him into a cab and Kate corrals the troops. "Alright, starlets. Let's go home."