Dash of Summer


Kate brings her focus to the phone vibrating angrily in her pocket; it takes her a moment to really understand what it is her brain doesn't seem to want to process.

Her phone. Castle.

She lifts a finger to Jordan who is giving a presentation to the others seated around the table with them, and then she slides out of the conference room and escapes into the hallway. She left her phone on 'do not disturb' and - as always - the settings allow only Castle's cell phone to ring through.

She answers, knowing already that something isn't right. "Rick?"

"Hey, can you - it's me-"

"I know it's you," she murmurs, inane and stupid, but she can't help it. Like she's delaying the inevitable. He has bad news and she doesn't want to hear it. "What's going on, Castle?"

"Dash found the guy."

"Found-"

"The guy who talked to him on the playground. He's in the wedding photos, Kate."

Oh, God.

Kate sinks down against the wall, leans forward with a hand on her knee to breathe.

"Kate?"

"I'm - here," she croaks.

"Don't panic, babe."

He makes her laugh - oh, thank you, thank you - he makes her laugh and she's straightening up, taking a deeper breath, that constriction easing in her chest.

"Are you having a panic attack?" he mumbles.

"No. The photo. Send it to me? I'll get Jordan to look at it, see if it's someone we should be worried about. Since he was at the wedding, someone there knew him."

"Why would he be at the wedding and then not tell you, not come talk to you or introduce himself?"

"I don't know."

"He might have crashed the wedding."

"How could we have not known-" She stops, eyebrows knitting as thinks back to this weekend. It's entirely possible someone could have crashed the wedding. "But he would've had to know - everything - the details. And we were careful about that, Rick. For Allie's sake, we kept it low-key and no press."

"I know," he says tightly. "But word gets around."

Kate rubs her forehead and feels her phone buzz to alert her there's a message. "You sent the photo?"

"Yeah, you should've gotten it by now."

"I just did. Let me look." Kate switches to her message app and loads the picture, zooms in to get a look at the man's face, to be sure. And now that she sees him, she realizes. "That's why he was so familiar. Rick, this is the guy we thought was Rafe's grandfather."

"Yeah, but-"

"He could be. Remember what Rafe said? He's getting old and he forgets things and - I don't know - what if he's just Grandpa and we're making too much of it?"

"Kate," he sighs.

She holds her breath and leans her head back against the wall.

"It's Nonno, not Grandpa."

She laughs again, something weak and a little desperate in the sound, but at least it's there. "Yeah, my mistake. It's Nonno."

"Hey, how about this? I'll send this photo to Alexis and Rafe and ask them to identify the people in it for their wedding album. It's pretty innocuous a request, and if it comes from me then they'll think I'm just being curious about the honeymoon."

"You are nosy about the honeymoon."

"I said curious."

"I said nosy."

He makes a noise on the other end and she's smiling now too, a smile that won't stay long but makes her feel better. This is what he does for her.

"Okay, Rick. Send them the photo. I'll ask Jordan if it's related to this. Otherwise..."

"Yeah, otherwise. You know, the problem is that there are all kinds of people out there who might hold a grudge."

"Because I'm a cop," she says quietly.

"Or because I'm a famous author. Come on, Kate. Don't get all egotistical on me."

She snorts and it's back, her resilience has struggled to the surface, helped along by his snark and his sarcasm and his goofiness. "You're right. Wouldn't want to upset the balance of power in our relationship."

"Exactly. Keep that in mind, would you?"

She's smiling now. "I love you."

"I know you do. I'm just that good."

"You wrote me poems this weekend," she murmurs.

"I did. They were good too."

"You have any more?"

"I'll show you one when you get home tonight."

She turns her face away from the conference room and closes her eyes. "It's a date."

"A date... Well, Dash had trouble at lunch and had a melt down, and now he's pining away for you. So it's a date with both of us," he warns.

"I can double," she says. "Oh, triple, actually, because I'm still courting my little girl."

"She's sweet today," Castle sighs. "Aren't you, cricket? I see you, Ellery. You're spying on my conversation with Mommy. Come here."

Kate knows she should be going back into that presentation - it's important stuff, it's vital to the prosecutor's case - but she stands in the hallway and listens to Castle cajole their daughter out from her hiding place.

"Mommy?" comes the voice on the phone.

"Hey, there, sweetheart. I hear you," she says, grinning now. "Were you listening to Daddy and me?"

"Dash didn't talk to a stranger," Ellery admits. "Dash say, so there."

"Well. No. You were right, Ellery. Just because he was at our party doesn't mean it's okay to talk to him without Mommy or Daddy there. You did good."

"I did good," Ella repeats, and maybe she's saying it to Castle, or maybe she's telling Dashiell. But Kate hears the phone getting jostled and then Rick asking her where she's going, and then that small, firm voice comes back. "Bye, Mommy. Love you all my ways."

Kate grins, finds herself up on her tiptoes as if reaching for something. "Love you too, Ella."

"Kate, you there?" Castle says then.

"I'm here."

"Show the photo."

"I will. Of course. Yes. I don't want to be paranoid - but I think we should keep the kids with us. Just - no more opportunities for stranger danger."

"What about preschool?"

"It's a secure campus, so it's fine. And Ellery has karate tomorrow, but I'll go with her and be there, so that's fine too. Nothing without us."

"Good idea."

"I'll see you around seven?" she says, turning her head back to the conference room.

"Can you make it six?"

She winces and checks the time. "Yes. I will."

"If you can't-"

"I will."

She will. She'll make it happen.


Rick stands in the living room and watches the sunlight turn the buildings red. A brassy color, but softer than metal could ever be on its own. The sun is low in the sky with late afternoon, and the kids are upstairs playing video games - so far, quietly - and he's waiting on Alexis to text him back about the photo.

He feels safe; he feels like they're on top of this, figuring things out. It's just a man at a wedding who showed up at their playground in Central Park. Big place, small world, right?

Yeah, he doesn't believe it either.

The urge to never let his kids out of the loft is hard to crush, and even worse, knowing Alexis and Rafe are in Italy, so far away from him, where he can't do a thing. He tell himself what Kate has repeatedly told him - this is a New York thing. Why should it follow his oldest across the sea?

That doesn't really help either.

And yet, he still feels like they can handle this. They can handle this.

"Daddy."

He turns around and finds Ellery standing at the foot of the stairs with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Did Dash kill you off?"

"He kill me all the times," she pouts.

"Come here, cricket." He holds his hand out to her and she jumps off the stairs, comes running for him. Castle scoops her up at the last moment, cuddles her against his chest. She wraps her arms around him and wriggles in close, laying her cheek to his neck.

"I hate that game," she mutters.

"You'll get better at it. If you want to get better at it, that is."

"I be better."

"Not be better, Ella. Get better with practice. Those are two different things."

She lifts from his chest and gives him a funny look.

Right. He forgot for a moment that this is the kid that doesn't care about semantics. Being better is the same as getting better, of course it is; there's no lack of self-confidence in Ellery. She truly believes she's inherently enough to tackle anything.

"Never mind, cricket. Ignore your old dad."

"You so old," she sighs, wrapping her arms around his neck and bouncing a little. "You know lots of things."

He chuckles at that and cups the back of her head, kisses her temple. "Thank you. I think. What're you going to do now? If not video games."

"I do what you do."

"What am I doing?" he laughs.

She shrugs and seems content to let him decide, so he carries her into the study and drops her onto the black leather couch. She bounces and giggles, gets up to kneewalk towards the arm, crawling on top of it and standing.

"Hang on there."

"I'm good," she says, supremely confident. And no babytalk either.

"You are pretty good," he comments. She's walked to the back of the couch now, balanced on the fine ledge backing the leather. It can't be much wider than an inch, yet Ellery walks across it without even looking.

She spins around up on her toes, bends her knees and jumps.

"Shi-whoa," he grunts, barely catching her. "You gotta warn me. Old Dad is a slow dad."

"You not slow, Daddy. You catched me."

"I caught you."

"Of course." She wriggles to get down, half-falling out of his arms, and goes back to the couch. "I can do it again."

"How about you do the balancing and you let me write. That's what I need to do."

"You write about me?" she says prettily, tilting her head at him in the same way Kate does. Learned or inherited, he has no idea, but it's pretty cute.

"I'm writing Felix and Chandler, yup, that's right."

"I'm Chandler."

"Well, more like Chandler is a lot like you. You, cricket, are your own girl."

"I'm my own girl. Like a cricket and a kind heart and a dragon-princess-"

Castle rolls his eyes at the list Ellery is running through even as she hops along the couch cushions. He finds his own chair, drags his laptop towards him, opens the lid as he settles it over his thighs. He does have some Felix to write, but he's been thinking more about the poems.

"-and a monkey, and Mommy say svraka which is how I have all the things, and sometimes, Daddy, I do like being the baby."

His head snaps up and he stares over at his monkey-magpie climbing the back of the couch. "You do?"

"Hmm." Ellery climbs to the window sill and curls down into the crack between the back of the couch and the glass, practically hiding.

"You like being the baby?"

"I don't know," she says, her voice muffled by the strange position she's in, head down behind the couch and her butt sticking up in the air.

"I heard it," he says, opening a blank document. "You can't take it back now. My baby girl for life. I'm gonna remind you of this some day far in the future."

Ellery makes another comment but she's disappeared behind the couch, right down the back of the wall, so Castle turns to his computer once more. Kate asked him for more poetry, and he wants to capture that feeling he had in front of the living room windows. For her. Because she needs to know that he's confident in them, in this season of their life as a family.

They can do this; it will be intense and it will take some sacrifice and things seem ominous at times, but the light is golden in their home.

Stupid, that's a stupid line, he thinks. He's not putting that in.

"Daddy!"

Ellery's squawk from behind the couch has him looking up. She's disappeared. "Where'd you go?"

"I'm stuck!"

Castle laughs and puts the laptop on the chair beside him, gets up to help her out. He'll write in a moment; first, he's going to shift the couch away from the wall and unbury his baby.

The moment is still there, in his head; he can recapture it when the timing is better. He won't have to wait for long.

"Daddy, help!"

"I got you."