Chapter 27

Petra regarded the orthopaedist balefully, mostly because she ached everywhere, which wasn't improving her disposition or temper.

"Okay, Petra Katherine Castle. Seventeen – almost eighteen. I'm Dr Debra Harrison. Dr Maine sent me the X-rays, so we don't need to do that again. We do need to do a history, allergies, etc. I'll be as quick as I can, and then we'll get on with the real business."

By the time Dr Harrison had whisked through a complete history, Petra had recognised that here was a doctor after her own heart. Brisk, direct, and no faux-horror or sympathy. "So, Dr Maine said you'd like to avoid a pin or plate if you can?"

"I don't want to set off metal detectors everywhere," Petra said. She'd thought up her excuses on the way. Explaining that she didn't know if it would change with her was unlikely to have a good outcome.

"A lot of people feel like that. Let's have a good look at this break." Dr Harrison pulled up the X-ray, and explained, without patronising her patient, all the details. Finally she smiled at Petra. "Okay. We can manipulate this back into proper alignment, but it'll be best if it's done while you're asleep. Have you eaten today?"

"No. I haven't had anything to drink or taken any painkillers either."

"Great. We could go ahead now, if you like?"

"Yes," Petra decided. "Uh – Dad's waiting outside. Do you need him to sign things, or do I just tell him that you're going to do this right now?"

"He needs to sign things," Dr Harrison said. "Let's get him in."

Castle was disinterred from his notebook to sign the necessary papers, after which Petra presented him with her purse and was swept off.

With nothing to do, Castle called Beckett to update her. She took the news well, though Castle was pretty pleased not to be one of her co-workers, since he knew that she would bury her maternal worry for her daughter in hard work…and ensuring that everyone around her also worked hard. Hard, in Beckett's book, meaning absolutely focused and no messing, breaks, chatter or slacking. Industrial quantities of triple strength caffeine, on the other hand…yep.

Castle wrote, and tried not to fret. Neither of the twins had been seriously hurt before now – David was fast enough on the gridiron that he was rarely tackled, let alone actually sacked or injured – and Castle liked his children being hurt even less than he liked Beckett being hurt. He'd suffered with Alexis every time she had so much as scraped a knee. As time trudged on, he fretted more and more; his imagination presenting all sorts of horrible thoughts, from bad reactions to the anaesthetic to an unscheduled, unwanted change on the operating table. Since he wasn't hearing screaming, the last was possibly a bit far-fetched.

Fortunately, before he started on really horrible thoughts such as emergency blood transfusions, Dr Harrison appeared.

"Petra's come through just fine," she said. "She'll need a little while to wake up properly, but you can go sit with her now until she's discharged." Castle dashed off, plonked himself next to still-out Petra, and took her hand. Counting her pulse rate, despite it being right there on the monitor, was more reassuring than it ever was when he'd done the same for Beckett, though that was because Beckett's hospital stays had invariably been occasioned by bad people doing bad things.

In deference to his daughter's likely reaction to having her hand held by her father at age almost eighteen, Castle let go as soon as Petra's eyes began to flicker.

"Urrgh," she said. An orderly appeared, looked at Petra, read off the machines, and waited. Her eyes opened fully.

"Miss Castle," the orderly said. Petra blinked, and then remembered that she was Miss Castle. "When you're ready, drink some water, and don't try to get out of the bed till you've been checked over."

Castle poured. Petra, amazingly, didn't argue, but gulped down the water, held the glass out for more, and then more again. When she'd finished that glassful, she stretched, carefully, with only one arm, examined her new cast, and made a face at it. "Ugh," she gloomed. "Can I get checked out now, so we can go? I'm really hungry."

Castle thought about the resilience of youth, unfavourably. Extra-long life notwithstanding, the last time Beckett had been put under general anaesthetic she'd only wanted to go home and sleep. Petra was rapidly becoming more awake. "Sure," he said. "Where do you want to go for lunch?"

"Remy's," Petra said happily. "I used to dream about Remy's burgers when I'd had a meal I didn't really like. I've missed them."

"Okay," Castle agreed. He loved Remy's burgers too. "Shall we call your mom and see if she wants one?"

"Uh…hadn't we better find out when they'll let me out first?"

"We'll warn her, otherwise she'll go for lunch – probably," he added: worried Beckett, burying herself in work, might not remember to eat. "And she'll want to know it all went okay."

"Fine."

Castle had a brief conversation with Beckett, and then smiled. "All fixed," he said. "We'll call when we're there, and I'll order for her."

Petra surveyed the monitoring equipment and her bed, located a call button, and pressed it. Another orderly appeared. "Hi," Petra said. "I've drunk all my water, so please can someone check me over so I can go home now?"

Castle was utterly, but fortunately silently, amazed at Petra's polite tone. Six months' travelling had made a huge and welcome difference. Maybe she was growing out of teen attitude and tantrums? Or, more likely, she'd learned that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and, being totally aware of her own best interests, used it to the max. Cynically, despite his adoration of his children, Castle decided that it was the latter.

"I'll get someone for you," said the orderly, and disappeared. Not more than ten minutes of increasingly irritated finger-tapping later, a nurse arrived, read the monitors, checked Petra over, and departed. Before Petra could voice her annoyance, though Castle read it like a primer, Dr Harrison arrived.

"Okay," she said. "Everything checks out as stable, so you can go home. Drink plenty, no alcohol, eat if you want to. Keep the cast in a sling, and try not to knock it on anything. It'll be there for six weeks, and we'll have to X-ray before it comes off to make sure the bone has healed properly. We didn't have to pin it, but you were pretty lucky with that. It was close." She regarded Petra closely. "Try not to do it again. You're not going to come off best in bar fights."

"I was in the wrong place – and I wasn't fighting!" Petra snapped. "The fight rolled right over me and then I was trying to get away."

"Well, avoid doing it again," Dr Harrison grinned. "Choose better bars."

"She won't be in any bars in the US," Castle said firmly. "Not till you're twenty-one," he added to Petra, who very loudly didn't say do as I say not as I did, Dad? "I'll leave you to get dressed, and then we'll go."

He wandered out with Dr Harrison, and waited until Petra appeared, dressed, without having asked for help. Her jacket was slung over the cast. "Please can we get lunch now?" she asked.

"Sure."

Castle whistled down a cab, called Beckett on the way, and got to Remy's two steps ahead of Beckett, mainly because Petra couldn't quite stride out as fast as she usually would.

"All fixed?" Beckett asked briskly.

"Yeah."

"Good."

Castle blinked. Even for Beckett's brisk parenting style, that was…brisker. Then he looked at her hands, knotted together and white at the knuckles, and the slight crease at her brow, and understood. She wasn't saying more because she'd say too much. He guessed that the precinct had suffered that morning.

"Anaesthetic is weird," Petra remarked. "One second you're there and the next you're waking up in a recovery room. No dreams, nothing."

"Yeah. It's peculiar," Beckett agreed. "Does it hurt?"

"Not yet," Petra said with realistic cynicism. "But it will. I want to eat and then Dad can take me home before I have to take another painkiller and be wiped out till dinner time."

"Maybe you should try to avoid breaking anything more," Beckett mused.

"Like you?" Castle interjected, and received the full force of the Beckett glare.

"I do not break me," Beckett said awfully. "Other people break me. Then I shoot them."

"Not if you're broken. Then Espo shoots them for you," Castle pointed out. He reflected that probably that hadn't been a sensible thing to say when the glare returned and endeavoured to drill through his chest. Petra snickered. Fortunately the food arrived so that Castle had something to put in his mouth that wasn't his feet.

By the time Beckett had downed her coffee and hurried back to the precinct, Castle could see Petra beginning to ache. Something about the frown lines and the rather less happy tone of her voice told him that it was best to take her home, where there were painkillers and less chance of him inadvertently annoying her and a fight developing. Besides, at home she could, if she liked, be a cat.

Ten days later, Petra had stopped eating painkillers as if they were M&Ms, and had allowed David and her very few close friends to decorate the cast. Mostly, she ate and then slept in cat form, which she said was more comfortable for sleeping with a cast on. So far, she hadn't said much, if anything, about the second part of her travels, and the Paratraveller reports didn't deal with what Beckett, suspiciously, considered to be the interesting parts, being all the parts that Petra wasn't discussing.

"What are you going to do now?" Beckett asked her daughter over dinner.

Petra wriggled. "Uh…well…not call Matilda King," she said.

"Probably not a good plan when you're still bruised and your arm's in plaster," Beckett said dryly. "She'd leave you feeling even worse."

"I don't think so," Petra said, with a flash of teeth and a curve of her fingers that recalled her other form.

"Don't spoil my chances of a college fund of my own, sis!" David complained.

"Don't squabble," Castle said quickly. "Petra won't be talking to Matilda. Rafe and a specialist lawyer are talking to Matilda." He smirked. "She's not enjoying it much."

"That's a sacrifice we're all willing to make," Beckett said aridly. "Anyway, when you've finished trying to avoid the question, what are you going to do now that you'll still have a cast for four weeks or so?"

Petra coloured, and cast a baleful glance at her mother, who remained unmoved. The deadly left eyebrow rose.

"It was something you said," Petra grudgingly admitted.

"Me?" Beckett squeaked.

"Yeah." It was, if it were possible, even more begrudged than the first admission. Petra still didn't like admitting that her parents had good points.

"When you came to Russia, you said that we never look at what's around us, only when we're somewhere else."

Beckett vaguely remembered. Petra had been talking about London and Vienna and all the history that the locals never looked at. "Mm?"

"So I'm going to keep being Paratraveller and do it on New York. They want me to keep writing."

"That's great," Castle bounced. "Really good. We can be tourists!"

"I can be a tourist," Petra said. "You're not coming with me."

"But" –

"No." It fell on to the dinner table with the weight of doom. Possibly Castle's doom, because he just kept talking.

"But I want to come with you."

"No, Dad. I don't want you there." If she'd stopped there, it would have been okay. Maybe. "You'll get in the way and interfere and try to write it your way and just meddle. I'm doing just fine on my own and I don't want you messing it up. Butt out!"

"Don't speak to your dad like that," Beckett snapped. "Even if your arm hurts there's no reason to be rude. Apologise!"

David looked from parents to Petra, muttered, "May I be excused?" and precipitately left to turn into a cat and hide behind the couch.

"You said you'd talk to him about not interfering and you obviously haven't!" Petra snapped straight back. "I wanna do this on my own, not because of Dad's name. I wish you'd never worked it out or I'd straight up lied about it. I set it up under a pseudonym so no-one would know and now Dad's doing just what he always does and getting in the way. He should leave the investigating to your cases!" She slammed up from the table, grabbed her coat, and slammed out of the loft.

"You're grounded!" Castle yelled at the door, rather too late for it to have any effect. David, more usefully though possibly suicidally, whipped back to human, grabbed his jacket, and ran after Petra. The door slammed again, this time merely because David was in a hurry, rather than Petra's severe teen temper tantrum.

"I only wanted to go with her," Castle wailed, and produced a doleful pout that tweaked all of Beckett's limited supply of sympathetic neurons. She ignored the tweaking.

"Babe, could you really resist the temptation to, um, edit?"

"Yes!"

Beckett regarded him with the same cool, disbelieving look that she used on witnesses of dubious veracity, and waited.

"I could," Castle insisted. Beckett waited some more. "Probably." More waiting. "Okay. Yeah. I would."

"Yes. You so would, because you just couldn't help yourself. You do words, and I've watched you edit the newspapers when you're reading them on a Sunday morning. You'd never be able to resist doing it to Petra, and then she'd kill you. Not metaphorically." She smiled. "I like you alive. Usually."

"Beckett!" Castle whined.

"You don't like anyone editing you," Beckett said exasperatedly. "Why on earth do you think that Petra would? Especially when it's one of us."

"That's not the point. I could really help her."

"She doesn't want you to help her." Beckett regarded him with a hard stare. "Do you remember how much you didn't like it when I turned the tables on you and criticised your writing because you were criticising my investigating? Or how much you complain every single time Gina e-mails you with the edits? And I told you she didn't want you to get involved."

"You're supposed to be on my side."

"I am. Which is why I'll make Petra apologise when she comes back, and you do whatever you feel appropriate to punish her. But."

"I don't like this but," Castle said plaintively.

"But now you have to promise me – and her – that you won't interfere."

"Promise."

"Hands on the table where I can see them – and crossing your toes, legs, feet, or eyes in any way doesn't count."

Castle made a very childish face, and muttered, but he put his hands on the table and promised, reluctantly and with many hesitations as he tried to find wiggle room in the face of Beckett's rigid delineations.

"Stop it," she said firmly. "You know exactly what you have to do, so do it. Stop wriggling. If you won't play nice, Petra certainly won't. You're the adult here."

"I don't like being adult," Castle whined. "Why can't I be the nine-year old and Petra the adult?"

"Do you really want Petra running your life? I mean, you'd be organised, productive, managed… hey, maybe there isn't a downside."

"Terrorised, bullied, and stressed," Castle pointed out, cringing dreadfully. "Nope. But I don't wanna adult. I wanna go be a tourist."

"Nope. No touring with Petra. You can tour with me instead. Without the twins. Much nicer."

"How about in Hawaii, if Petra's exercising her dictatorial tendencies?" Castle became distracted. "She might want to go into politics."

"I might want to emigrate," Beckett said sardonically. "Do you really want Petra running the country?"

Castle considered, very briefly. "No. At least, not the country I'm in." He looked around. "Just the thought has me reaching for the Scotch."

"Let's have coffee," Beckett said, "and then snuggle up as cats until the terrible twins come home."

Castle blinked. "Do you think Petra's killed David?"

"If he's dumb enough to get that close to Petra in full rage mode, he'll deserve whatever he gets," Beckett said. "But no, she won't." She smirked. "You, on the other hand…if I were you, I'd leave her alone for a day or two."

He scowled at her. "That's not nice."

"But safer. Toddler tantrums left you with bites and scratches. Now she's full size, she can do a lot more damage before you could change." Beckett wandered off to fill the kettle, checking her phone and a new text on the way. Castle ambled after her. "But while we're thinking about daughters…when are you going to talk to Alexis?"

The emotional barometer plummeted to Storms ahead. Castle's face fell into furrowed unhappiness. "I know I have to, but I just don't know how to tell her," he said miserably. "Every time I think about it, I go through the options, but there's just no good way at all. She's going to be absolutely devastated – and worse, she's going to know that her two younger siblings will have something she never will. How do I tell her that?"

He took his coffee and slumped on the couch, utterly unhappy. "There's just no good way," he repeated.

"I know, babe," Beckett consoled. She hugged him. "But the longer you leave it, the worse it'll be, the worse you'll feel, and the worse the discussion with her will get. You're totally right: there's no good way to tell her, but it's just going to get more horrible if you leave it much longer. You've had six months, almost. You have to do it soon."

"I know. I just…" he looked up, eyes damp, miserable. "I hate when she's hurt. This is going to really hurt. And I can't make it better for her. There's no way to make this one better. I could always help, and now I can't."

Beckett hugged him harder. Miserable Castle was dreadful, like constant heavy rain which dripped down the back of your neck and down your spine. She couldn't fix it for him, and that griped her gut too. She absolutely couldn't interfere. She and Alexis were good friends, but Alexis wasn't her daughter and they'd never had – thank heavens, neither Alexis nor Castle had ever suggested it – a mother-daughter relationship. It would have been ridiculous. Alexis had already been an adult when they got married.

"I'll call her now, and go see her tomorrow, when she's done at work. Do you mind making dinner?"

"Of course not, or we'll order in – or the twins can do it!"

Castle stared at her. "What?"

"They might as well get used to cooking. Anyway, Petra managed it at the cabin, so…they probably won't kill each other."

"I wish it wasn't necessary," Castle moped. "I guess I'd better go call Alexis."

Shortly, he returned. "Done," he said. "Come here, love. I need you." When she went to him, he pulled her close and buried his face in her hair. She wrapped her arms around him and let him lean on her for as long as he needed to, and then steered him to their bedroom, where she held him until he finally fell asleep.

Beckett herself couldn't quite rest until she heard the front door open and close, but once it did close her insomniac-inducing maternal instincts switched off and allowed her, finally, to sleep, wrapped around her Castle to keep him comforted.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.