Sorry I haven't been keeping to my schedule, guys. I've been kind of busy. My birthday was on Tuesday and I pretty much planned around it in regards to my homework, and now I'm planning a birthday party that my friend is hosting tomorrow so I might not get a chance to write then, as well. I'll try my best to get back on schedule but I might get rid of the daily schedule and just go back to writing them in this order instead of on assigned days. This way I won't miss an update and I don't have to stress myself about missing deadlines (I have no idea what I'm going to do when I'm actually published and I have somebody like Gina breathing down my neck, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, eh?) Anyways, enjoy!

A New Home

The summer progressed, for the most part, without much fuss. The lady cop from the city showed up at the cabin to touch base with Martha and gather any other information she had in regards to Gustave, whom Jim had already served with papers, insistent that they press a civil suit in addition to the criminal charges the NYPD has set upon him.

"He's not going to get away with this," he promised Martha one night at dinner. "Not if Jo and I have anything to say about it." Johanna had nodded in agreement and the kids stayed silent, but Castle could feel his mother squeeze his leg and turned to smile comfortingly at her.

Officer Gates had only stayed for a few hours, but it had been long enough for Castle to realize that she didn't quite like teenagers—not that she was too much older herself. She must have only been in her mid-twenties, he thought, but she seemed far more relaxed when in the company of the adults and stiffened when any of the kids so much as looked at her sideways.

She barely bid them farewell before she was racing down the gravelly path in her cruiser. Not that Castle cared much; he was too busy helping his mother back to her room and fussing over her the way she used to fuss over him when he was sick or that time he sprained his ankle by falling off a curb (don't ask). She often had to shoo him away to get him to hang out with his friends and the Becketts had to assure him that they would take care of Martha while he was swimming or hiking or whatever.

Still, he liked helping out his mother; it made him feel useful. And he'd rarely spent that much time with his mother since before Gustave arrived in their life, before the full year that she was touring the country, without him. It was nice.

And it wasn't like he was neglecting his friends, either. He still spent mornings floating around in the lake with Kate dunking his head underwater—and he retaliated by tossing her into the deep end and laughing as she came back up spluttering with murder in her glare.

And Johanna or Jim continued to take them on hikes every few days, switching off "Martha duty" as Castle had dubbed it in favor of seeing the waterfall again. He and Kate were able to hold hands when Johanna was with them, but Jim pointedly slung his arm around Kate's shoulder, tugging her along and telling jokes that she laughed at while Castle walked behind them, arms crossed and a pout etched on his face.

He got over it soon enough when Kate was able to slip from her father's grasp and return to him. She laced their fingers and leaned into him as they watched the startlingly blue water cascade over the white rocks. Everything was perfect.

But, like all things, summer had to come to an end and while they had stayed at the cabin twice as long as the previous summer, they were due to return in order for Castle and Martha to start packing up their things and for all the teens to start getting ready for school.

As promised, Martha had enrolled Castle into the same public school that Kate, Lanie, and the boys attended (PS 47) and he would be starting his Sophomore Year in Honors English and Science ("nerd," Kate had coughed, even though she was in the same class as he). Castle was excited to finally return, especially since he would be—technically—living with his girlfriend.

Jim made certain that Castle knew Kate's room was off-limits after eight o'clock and before 6 AM by threatening the boy—right in front of Martha, no less—with castration and Kate with enrollment in a nunnery. Both teens knew that he wouldn't really stoop to either of those things, but they were reticent to test him, so the first week back at home, Castle practically sprinted out of her bedroom five seconds to eight and landed in his own, two doors down.

The Becketts had set up two full-sized beds in the room (one had been in storage from a long time ago and the other had already been there), arranged for maximum space to move. Each bed had drawers beneath it and there was a closet, which held most of Martha's expansive wardrobe, and the bathroom was right next door and had a private entrance from her side of the room.

Jim has also put up shelves for most of Castle's books and comics and figurines ("dolls," Kate teased once as she walked by while Castle set them up and he glared at her. "Action figures!" he'd bellowed after her, making her snicker) and got him a narrow bedside table and reading lamp, trying to make it feel as much like home for the boy as possible.

And it did. Castle didn't mind admitting that the Becketts' apartment felt more like home than any other apartment he and Martha had ever had (and there'd been quite a few in his earlier years). Jim and Johanna were like an aunt and uncle to him and Kate was still his very best friend, so it felt comfortable and safe and warm there, in their presence. Like they were the big family that he'd always wished for, despite Martha insisting that she didn't want to have any more children and the absence of Castle's father.

This was where he was meant to be, he thought one night as he lay in bed, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers Kate had given him to stick on the ceiling. This was him home, no matter where else he technically lived afterward. Home and family was with the Becketts.

Always.

REVIEWS please!