CH53

As they pulled up into the roundabout drive at the front door they could all hear Alexis's. "WOW!"

"You two really know how to choose a lovely home." Martha tells them.

Kate approaches the front door and pulls out the keys and unlocks the front door. "Let me turn off the alarm first sweetie then you can go exploring, OK?" Kate asks her.

Getting a nod Kate opens the door and enters the access code to turn it off. "Ok sweetie, have fun." Kate tells her. And Alexis is off and running.

"Here is your key Castle. Martha this one is yours. I'll give Alexis hers when I find her again." Kate tells them.

"That may be a while Kate." Rick tells her chuckling.

"Come on Martha let's show you around." Kate tells her.

They started downstairs first and went from side to side. Then upstairs on each side. Then finally outside. Since it was dark they couldn't see much of the 6 acres they were on. But it wasn't hard to see that it was heavily wooded.

They showed Martha what they thought might be her room. What they thought would be Alexis's room. The two spare bedrooms and of course the Master Bedroom. All of the rooms were very good sized.

There were a couple of rooms downstairs they were not yet sure what they were going to use them for. Hopefully the interior decorator that was going to be here tomorrow with a huge truck full of furniture had a plan for them.

They had talked with her and gone over what style they liked for each room. The truck was so big because not all of the pieces would be staying. Rick and Kate planned to go through each room after she had decorated them and then make changes.

Pieces would come and go from the truck as needed. She was supposed to have everything. Living room set, dining room set, bedroom sets, Rick's office, paintings and all the decorations that would add pop or visual interest.

Tomorrow was going to be another big day for the Castle's.

They finally found Alexis as she ran through the room they were in, getting a quick. "Hi mom, hi dad." Before she was gone again.

"I'll be right back." Rick tells them and leaves the room they are in.

He eventually comes back with 3 glasses and a bottle of champagne.

Billecart-Salmon Brut Rose Champagne ($80)

"I thought we just had to christen the new house with something." As Rick hands over the glasses and works on popping the cork. Then filling their glasses.

Raising his glass. "To our future, long life and happiness." Rick offers. Glasses clink and drink.

Rick went to the kitchen and put the bottle down while walking around with his glass sipping as he went.

They only stayed about an hour. Gathering up Alexis and out to the car, Kate activated the alarm and locked the front door. Making a mental note to have the code changed later.

Kate started playing with the memory core on the way home. "Castle?" Kate asked him sounding worried.

"Let's just wait until we get home Kate and talk then." Rick offers.

Kate nods but keeps the gem in her hand.

They stopped for Pizza on the way back to the apartment.

Martha got up to leave to let them discuss what to do next. "Stay Martha, please. You're a part of this family too." Kate tells her.

Martha looked to start to counter Kate but didn't and sat back down.

"Ok Castle what happens when we add this to Jill?" Kate asks fearing the answer.

"I'm not really sure in your case. I know you will be interviewed and it will probably not be here. There will be a lot of paperwork for you to read. And you will need to memorize a lot of it since you will never see it again." Rick offers.

"And what about us? I can't lose you, I can't. And I don't want to lose Jill either." Kate looks and sounds so sad.

"Honestly, I don't know. But you're a homicide detective, think of it as a case. Fight for the answer. In this case the answer you want." Rick offers.

"I'm a cop not a prosecutor or defense attorney." Kate counters.

"Katherine dear you're also a woman who loves. Defend your family. Jill is part of your family." Martha tells her.

"We love you mom, they will listen." Alexis tells her thinking it was so simple.

Kate thought about it and came to the conclusion that she was letting her emotions get the better of her. She was kick ass Beckett, well better make that kick ass Castle now and use some of that to get what she wants.

Kate pulls out the gem and holds it in her palm, then offers it to Castle. After he takes it Kate reaches down to take her boot off to expose Jill. Then takes Jill off and hands her over to Castle.

"This might take a few hours; you three might as well get comfortable." And Rick stands and goes into the Library/Office, which is also filled with boxes. He picks up a case and places it on the desk and opens it exposing the tools he will need.

It was two hours and Kate got up to check on him. Finding him still hunched over Jill with tools in his hands while Jack talked to him. So Kate left him to it and went back to the sofa and sat down.

Martha placed a hand on her. "It'll be fine dear. Just think about what you want to say to get them to see your point of view."

Kate simply smiles and places her other hand on Martha's.

"Ok Jack, run a scan for me." Rick asks after sitting up straight.

"Scanning, ….. Scan complete. The connections are within working tolerances." Jack tells him.

"Anything Jill?" Rick asks her.

"I have noticed there is a new access point. There is a lot of information stored in this one like the others. I will work at accessing all of it slowly." Jill tells him.

"So no sudden need to do something?" Rick asks.

"Except for the new access point I feel unchanged." Jill responds.

"Well let's get you back on Kate shall we." And Rick stands and walks for the living room.

Sitting next to Kate he hands her Jill. "Here you go." And Rick takes Alexis from Kate and holds her in his lap.

Kate bends over and re-attaches Jill at her ankle.

"Dialing operator." Jill speaks up.

"SHIT!" Kate calls out.

"No one talk!" Rick tells them.

"But , …" Alexis starts only to have Rick slap his hand over her mouth.

"Operator."

"Jill is on-line." Jill responds. Leaving Kate with her mouth hanging open.

"Wait one. ….. You and your owner are required to be at the site being downloaded in three days time. Failure to comply would be ,…. Unfortunate." And the call ends.

"JILL?" Kate questions her.

"I'm sorry Kate, I couldn't prevent it." Jill tells her.

"It must have been an activation program. Something built-in that forced her to do what she did." Rick reasons.

"What was the download?" Kate asks.

"There are round trip airline tickets, first class, from here to DC. It is an early morning flight in three days time. It indicates you will be met by a driver at the airport. You are to pick up your tickets at the counter under your name. You are instructed to pack for three days." Jill explains.

"My name? How do they know my name?" Kate asks.

"There was a download that I sent them." Jill responds. "I'm sorry Kate, I couldn't prevent it either."

"What did you send?" Kate asks.

"The basics it would appear. Name, addresses, here, home, new home, work, age, where you work, height and weight, job qualifications, accommodations, married, name of husband, his age, his height and weight, where he works, addresses, phone numbers, S.S. numbers." Jill tells her.

Rick takes his hand off Alexis's mouth. "And considering who he is, he'll know everything about all of us since the day we were born. And probably even before that." Rick comments.

Alexis looks up at her dad. "I'm sorry dad."

"It's alright pumpkin. I know it was strange for you, but if they had heard you, it could have been bad for Kate." Rick doesn't really know that but he's not taking any chances.

"Three days." Kate whispers out.

Martha gets up and sits next to Kate and takes her hand in hers. "Just fight for what you want dear, it's all you can do. … He is married and has a family after all."

Fight for Castle, Alexis and her life with them. She could do that.

"We should probably all get some sleep now. We have a big day tomorrow at the house. The interior decorator and her team with a large truck are going to show up and start placing furniture and other things.

If you can get off work early somehow Kate that would be good." Rick asks her.

"I'll see what I can do, but if we get a case, …." Kate trails off.

Kate got up in the morning and went down to Alexis's room and got her up and ready for school then went back to Castle's bedroom, she didn't think of it as hers, and showered and got dressed in the only clothes that were not packed.

Castle meets her at the door with another paper bag, but no coffee or breakfast. There wasn't anything in the apartment to eat anyway. Then wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. "I love you. Do what you can to show up." Rick tells her.

While still in each other's arms; "I love you too and I'll try." And Kate is down the hallway to the elevator for the last time.

Kauai Coffee 100% Hawaiian Toasty Banana Nut Cream - 10 oz

Kate caught a break and they didn't get a body drop by lunch so Kate left work and headed for the house.

Getting there she found a huge 18-wheel truck out in the main street while this little fork lift was taking something off the truck and started taking it to the house.

Kate had stopped to peek inside the trailer while still in her car and it was only about a quarter empty. "They must have only just got started?" Kate talks to herself.

Kate pulls up and parks next to their car in front of the garage and goes inside. Where Kate sees Rick and the decorator straight away.

"Kate!" As Rick spots her and gives her a quick kiss.

"Mrs. Castle glad you could join us. As I was just telling Mr. Castle these are for you." As she hands over some paper, marker and some tape.

"We are almost done with the ground floor. Then we will start with the bedrooms upstairs and then go out to the patio, pool deck and gazebo. I want you two to walk around, if you see something you don't like tag it with the paper and if you can, write something about why you don't like it. That way when I replace it with something else it will more closely match what you want.

Then we'll have you do the upstairs the same way while we work outside."

"You're almost done with the ground floor?" Kate is shocked. "But the truck out front is still practically full. And it's huge." Kate heard big truck, just didn't think that meant giant trailer.

"There is almost 2 full houses of furniture for a house this size out there. It's been packed for just the way I had planned to decorate your home. As soon the upstairs is done it will expose the spare downstairs furniture to hopefully replace what you don't like, and so on."

Kate stands there with her mouth hanging open. Kate was sure they were going to have to go back to the store and re-choose what she didn't like. This lady was amazing.

"Let's get started then." As Kate grabs Ricks arm and heads off.

"Oh and if you see an empty space and want something there, tag that too."

Kate liked all of the furniture so far. She tagged for more pictures along the staircase wall. And the area along the staircase next to the fireplace looked empty, so she tagged that too.

Kate tagged a place at the front door for a hidden safe to store her weapon in when she got home, along with something to drop her keys into also.

She tagged the two end chairs at the dining room table. She didn't want them to match the others. The china hutch had to go and not be replaced. Then tagged the wall for some art, but not more pictures.

She tagged all the stools in the kitchen. She wanted ones with a back to them. Not tall backs but something.

Rick mostly tagged his office area. One wall was windows and he liked that. His previous office was a dark cave compared to this. But he wanted dark wood. Presently everything was white. Then he tagged for a giant gun safe to be put in one corner.

Since Alexis and Martha were here later in the day they let them tag their own rooms.

The walls of the master bedroom were a little too white for Rick's taste so they compromised on a light darker color and tagged the comforter and sheets to be lighter. And those tacky lights on the wall above the bed had to go.

Kate tagged for a closet organizer. Some place for a lot of her shoes and coats.

Kate tagged the patio furniture to be woodsier looking. To better blend with the heavily wooded area around the house. While the gazebo area looked perfect.

Rick tagged for the second dining room table to be removed and have a pool table, foosball table and maybe an air hockey table placed in that room instead.

The interior decorator went around and viewed the tags. She managed to replace or add items at Kate's approval. She had to tell them they would have to come back for four of the things.

First, for Rick to get dark wood in his office what was there would need to be ripped out and replaced. That would take a few days of work. And she didn't have any safes on the truck. It was not something she had anticipated needing. And she didn't have any of the gaming tables on the truck either. She had actually mentally kicked herself over that. Rick was a guy; of course he wouldn't want a second dining room table.

"Do you want digital safes, dial safes? And would you like a corn bag toss or ring toss for outside? Maybe one of those portable basketball hoops off to the side of the garage area?"

"A card with a digital code for the one in my office would be nice. And all the other games you mentioned sounds nice" Rick tells her.

"A thumb reader for the one at the front door would be nice. And a basketball hoop Castle? Really" Kate tells her.

"If we expand our family it may be a boy and he may be tall with legs like yours and be the next NBA superstar." Rick defends himself.

"Sexist." Kate teases him.

"I'll see what I can do. And the workers will be done repairing the wall in your bedroom where you removed the wall lights in about an hour. And then the place will be all yours.

It's been a pleasure working with you two. I've enjoyed the challenge. If there is something you don't like after you have lived with it for a while let me know and I'll work at fixing it for you."

Kate leans into Castle. "We have a home Castle." While her eyes roam a little.

"Not quite yet." Rick tells her.

Kate leans back to look at him 'What are you talking about?' look on her face.

"We still have to un-box everything that we did box." Rick is forced to tell her.

Kate goes back to leaning against Castle. Lord, give me strength!

"You and mother can start in the kitchen while I take Alexis and go grocery shopping." Rick tells her.

Now Kate brightens up. "Our first cooked dinner in our new home." As Kate kisses him and goes in search of Martha. Starting with her bedroom.

"Pumpkin! Let's go shopping. Unless you want to starve." Rick yells out.