AN: We've reached the area of "paranoid tweaking" I mentioned in the original author's note, so updates are going to slow down a little while I get the later chapters in better shape. Thanks for your patience and continued support.
Later, Martha kills her bottle of Petrus Permorol, and excuses herself and turns in for the night. Which means exiting by the front door and tuning left, and walking about fifty feet and inserting her key into to the front door of the studio apartment next door, the only other unit on their side of the building on this floor. The day after Kate said yes, Richard had contacted the listing agent and offered fifty thousand over asking price, in cash. Martha has lived next door ever since; close enough to drop by for dinner several nights a week, but separated enough to give Martha her privacy and Richard and Kate theirs.
Castle has finished up in the bathroom and is taking off his watch and clothes when Kate lays her book aside to focus on him. Even in the faint glow of the bedside lamp, there's a liberal sprinkling of silver visible in his hair, particularly his sideburns, that wasn't there when they first met. The low light favors him, tracing a loving hand over his brow, the square jaw, the crows feet at the corner of his eyes. He carries a few more pounds than when they met, but he wears it so well on his broad, brawny frame. Castle wads up his shirt and pitches it into the hamper, and Kate smiles to herself, watching the light play over the muscles of his back. Her husband may be getting older, but she likes it on him.
Kate is still sitting propped up on pillows when Castle lifts the covers and slides down into the bed. He cozies up to his wife's side, laying an arm loosely across her legs, and says nothing. Which is so fantastically out of character for him, that after about five minutes of yawning silence, Kate can't it take anymore.
"Castle, you know it doesn't change anything, right?"
"What?"he asks, with a little shake of his head.
He sounds sleepy. It hadn't occurred to her that he was nodding off. But he's pushing back to get a better look at her, so she leans closer threading her fingers through his hair and tries to explain.
"Knowing. Who he is, it doesn't change anything. Maybe you fill in the blanks in your story, but whether he ends up in our life or not, you'll still be the same good, loving man tomorrow that you were before he handed me that envelope. You'll still be a fantastic father, a doting son, a devoted husband. Who Charles is has no effect on that. You're the mirror image of him for sure, but your creativity and passion are your own. Your kindness and your humor are your own. Your gift with words, you cultivated that. You didn't need his help to become who you are."
"I...thanks. But I actually, I'm not so much thinking about him, at least not in that context".
The hand she's been carding through his hair stills at the back of his neck. "What then?"
"I have to tell Alexis."
Kate is perplexed. "She'll be fine. I'm less worried about Alexis than anyone else in the mix, including your father."
She can't quite identify the odd look he's giving her.
"Seriously, Rick, I know this is fantastically weird, but I've met him. He may be an even better actor than Martha after all these years of espionage, but before he revealed who he was, I really believed he was just a guy hurting over the absence of his family. I could be completely wrong, of course. But I'm just saying, I've sat across the table from hundreds, maybe thousands of liars. And I believe that he misses his family. As long as we can all keep from setting our expectations too high..."
He looks thoughtful, the slightest indication of a smile working at the corners of his mouth.
"Alexis asked me once, about my father, if I missed him. I told her no, that it was kind of intriguing to imagine that my father could be anything, like an astronaut, or the inventor of canned whipped cream." Kate smirks at that, but doesn't want to interrupt. "I know it's silly, "Castle elaborates, "but in a way, I was right. I mean, what made missing out on him kind of tolerable was that I could make up these crazy, romantic stories about who my father might be. That's what I told Alexis. And now, I'm not bragging because it's so utterly ridiculous, but I was basically right. Or accurate, maybe. In the way that someone who makes a blind free-throw at halftime is accurate, you know? It's...I..." Castle runs out of words, grimaces, disappointed he can't quite wrap words around what he's thinking.
"Castle, I may need to revise my earlier statement."
"How so?"
"If you can credit Charles Trent with anything, I think you're the product of the imagination it takes to live your whole life at the center of your own mystery."
By the way Rick is smiling as she talks, Kate thinks she's nailed it. "And like any other mystery you've ever dreamed up or been confronted with in real life, you want to find out what he's really like, ask a million questions. Above any hurt you naturally feel, your curiosity always wins out, Castle. It's who you are."
"Isn't that a little pathetic?"
Beckett is half way to a laugh before she realizes her husband's expression is now completely serious.
"You're kidding, right? Castle, how did I handle my mother's case? Even when I tried to walk away, it's not a move I was ever content with. I just did what I had to, to keep my sanity. We're both wired that way – with that burning need to know. Your father has made an overture. If I was in your shoes, I'd want to know everything."
Castle blows out a breath he hadn't realized he's been holding, and falls back into his pillow. It's easily one of the best things about being with Kate. It took them a while to get to this point, but she knows him so well, and knows exactly what to say. He's so, ridiculously grateful.
Kate drops her book onto the bedside table and turns out the lamp, plunging the room into semi-darkness. She wiggles back into him in a mirror image of the night before, a deep, happy sigh escaping her as her husband molds his solid, warm frame to her back.
"Hey, Beckett?"
"Yeah?"
"Grinch pajamas?"
Kate's laughter tells him all he needs to know.