Dash of Summer


Kate skims her fingers along the banister and steps off the bottom stair, dropping her boots on the floor of the entry next to her bag. It's quiet down here and she leans over to pull off her socks as well, let her bare feet wriggle on the wood floor.

She spots Ellery playing with her Barbies in front of the living room window. Her daughter has constructed an elaborate doll house comprised of pillows, the edge of her lovey blanket, her red school folder, Dashiell's Reading binder, and bottles of lotion, soap, shampoo that she must have pilfered from the linen closet. Ella has furnitured her makeshift rooms with a collection of things as well - a spool of thread, the white stand that comes in delivery pizzas to keep the box from crushing, a cardboard tube, a few of the climbing contraptions that they bought for Linc but never put in his terrarium.

It's impressive, actually, the whole creation. "Ella, your house looks beautiful. Did you tell Daddy I was home?"

"Yup," she grins, scooting down to be at eye-level with her Barbies. She's using her Noah's ark as a Barbie yacht and cruising her dolls around. "Daddy is writing."

"Oh, good," Kate says, eyeing the construct before her. She refused to let Castle buy Ellery the Barbie Dream House on sheer principle alone. Kate hadn't gotten her Barbie house until she was eight years old, no way was her just three year old going to get one so soon.

Now she's glad she stuck it out through Castle's month-long whining siege. Ella is having to be inventive, use her problem solving skills, and it's pretty cool what her daughter can create.

Of course, at that moment, the red folder knocks over as Ellery rearranges her tableau, and she growls at it under her breath.

Okay, so there's a good reason for getting her a Dream House. Maybe this year for Christmas. Or birthday, same thing.

Kate leaves her daughter to her play and walks quietly into the study. Castle is sprawled out on the black leather couch, his neck against the arm rest and his knees raised to prop up the laptop. His fingers are flying, almost no hesitation, and she knows by the fact that he's on his back on the couch that he's been writing for a long time.

One of her favorite scenes. Usually, she loves it so much because he's out of her hair and not messing with her - writer's block has been shattered and he's no longer moody and irritable or too goofy and ridiculous. When he gets in the zone, everyone in their family is happy to have him there.

Kate leans against the side of the door frame and watches him a moment, the shift of his fingers so fast along the keys as if his hands are separate entities, the fixed gaze of his critical attention, the furious concentration on his face.

His fingers falter and stop. He hits the backspace key a few times and then hovers over the keyboard, thinking, before racing forward once more. When he writes like this - so fast that he jumps ahead of himself - he looks like he's delivering bad news.

Even during the good parts.

Kate comes inside the room when he pauses again, the train of his thought apparently having deserted him at the station.

He sighs and lifts a hand to rub it over his chin, startles when he sees her there. "When'd you get home?"

"Few minutes ago," she smiles, stepping over to him and running her fingers through his hair. He's gazing abstractedly at the laptop screen. "I went upstairs to talk to Dash. Told Ella to tell you I was home."

"Oh, she might have," he murmurs.

She combs his bangs over his forehead and then runs them the opposite direction, giving her the space to lean down and kiss his furrowed brow. "You writing Felix?"

"Huh?" he blurts out, darting a guilty glance to her before sitting up. Trying to get with it. "No, not Felix. Uh, actually, Nikki."

"Oh? I thought you were giving her a sabbatical?"

"I thought so too," he grins, shrugging at her. "Got an idea."

"For a murder?"

"Ah, for her mother's case," he admits, wincing.

She sinks down on the couch beside him. "That's good though, right?"

"Yeah, of course, definitely. Whatever the muse brings, you gotta take." He winces again and gives her a quick look, as if he's said something he shouldn't.

She doesn't understand it so she smiles at him instead, leans back against the leather. Castle closes the lid on the laptop even though it looks like it physically hurts him, and he turns to face her, arranges his features into carefully attentive.

"No, Rick. Keep writing," she assures him. "You don't need to worry about me." She waves him off and closes her eyes. "I'm just tired. Feels good to be home. Write so I can hear the keys."

"You hate that," he murmurs. She feels his fingers tracing her jaw and then up along her cheekbone and it makes her go still.

"I don't hate it," she whispers.

"You do," he says. And he's mostly right. She just doesn't hate it right this second.

"Write," she insists, despite how good it feels to have his fingers trailing over her forehead. "Write Nikki, since she's come back. What will you do about Felix?"

"Keep writing him too," he answers. His voice is a low rumble in her ear. "Maybe Felix comes out every other year and I'll alternate with Nikki Heat."

"Mm, sounds good," she says, but she's not really hearing it.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

Her eyes startle open and she stares at him. "What for?"

"Cannibalizing your mom's case for this."

"You're not," she says, sitting up to grab his hand. "You don't do that, Castle. You're fine. What's going on?"

"Nothing, I just - it's always something like this that jumpstarts me, you know? It's starting to feel morbid."

She laughs and raises an eyebrow at him. "You're only now seeing that? Castle, you've been using bits and pieces of my life - of our life - for years. It's just now getting to you?"

"Kelly called me and asked about the case," he says. "If she should know anything more that maybe Jim would be keeping from her."

"What would my dad be keeping from her?"

Castle shrugs. "I think that was the point. She just wanted him to know she could handle anything, that she had her eyes open when she married him. That's all."

"Oh, whew. Good. That's - I don't want her trust in him to be shaken because of this."

"Not like that. She thought - well, I got the impression she was afraid that something else had happened."

"You didn't tell her about the guy at Allie's wedding, did you?"

Castle grimaces. "No. I mean she thought the original crime might have been... compounded."

"Compounded? I don't even know what-" Kate chokes on the last of it, coming to a complete, horrifying stop. "Oh, no. No. Oh, God."

"Yeah, I told her it wasn't anything like that. Not at all. And then she asked if Jim had ever been questioned - if he was sensitive about that... and I realized I don't even know."

Kate shakes her head, runs her hand through her hair, swallowing hard. She slumps back against the couch and closes her eyes. "You know, Castle. You know what a murder investigation looks like."

"But your dad had a solid alibi. They'd have quickly figured that out and moved on."

"They did. They went forward with it, but move on might not be the exact term for it."

"He had an alibi," Castle grumbles, affronted for her father after all this time.

Kate sits up and puts her elbows on her knees so she can rub her eyes. "Dad - he - the drinking, I think, was partly because of the way some of them looked at him, even after he was cleared. He used to go up to the precinct once a month and ask about leads, did they have any leads, and some of them thought he was putting on act. It gets to be - after a year or so, it was just too much."

"What?" Castle rasps. "You never told me this."

"It's not mine to tell," she says hollowly. "It was his grief, his story. Raglan went back to my dad twice more during the open investigation, but there was literally nothing. That's all there was - the rest was my dad trying to figure out how to grieve for her in the midst of having no closure at all and... some people just didn't believe him."

"And what - the alibi was faked? His grief was faked?"

"He could have hired a man," she says, feels the sharp twist of her guts when she realizes it's partly true. "And there was a hired man - Coonan. So of course, in the end, knowing what he knows, Raglan pushes for it to be ruled a mugging and never opened again. But it didn't look right - nothing was stolen, it wasn't gang territory, she wasn't..."

"I know," he murmurs.

She nods and still can't erase the autopsy photos from her memory. Burned forever from those days when she didn't have anything at all to keep her from being consumed by it.

"Was Kelly okay?" she asks finally. She hears how small her voice sounds and clears her throat, sits up straight again. Not this, not today.

"Kelly was fine," he assures her. "Are you okay?"

"Just - pushed a little too far on this. The guy at the park has me on edge."

"Me too," he sighs. The laptop gets put on the floor and he stands, holding his hand out to her. "Let's-"

"No," she says, shaking her head. She won't do this to him. "You write. I'll have a glass of wine, play Barbies with my daughter, come get you when dinner is ready."

"Kate, you don't have to-"

"Just let it be normal," she says. "Normal night at home. And Nikki. You'll let me read it?"

"Yeah," he smiles slowly. "But you hate that too."

"I feel like reading it. Been a while since I've heard from her."

"All right. I'll leave it up for you and you can read it in bed." He leans in and kisses her softly on the lips, a sighing breath. "Come get me if you need me."

"No one else," she murmurs, smiling back at him.

She just wants normal time with her family - no case, no old wounds, no haunting questions. Just them.