Chapter 28

When David caught up to Petra, he stayed a safe distance clear, merely following her on to the subway and to the nearest stop to Central Park, where, much to nobody's surprise, she exited.

"Sis!" David yelled. "Wait for me!"

Petra half-turned, flipped him the bird, and ran for the gates. Two yards before the entrance, where the whole family knew there were no cameras, she became a cat and slipped in. David did exactly the same, and then pounced on his sister's much smaller cat, pinning her in one place. She growled and clawed at him, but size and weight mattered. Eventually, sulking, she conceded. David changed back, and Petra – even more sulkily – followed.

"You okay?"

"Go away."

"Nope. Dad was dumb, but I'm not."

"Dad's an interfering meddling pain in the ass who should just butt the fuck out of my life!" Petra howled.

"Shhh! If Uncle O'Leary's out" –

"Waalll, an' what would Uncle O'Leary do?" said O'Leary from behind them.

"Go away and leave me alone," Petra said rudely, and turned into a panther. David grabbed her as she did.

"No, you don't." She growled fearsomely.

"Your mom does that," O'Leary said, "an' it don't work on me from her so it sure ain't goin' to work from you, baby butterfly."

Petra changed back. "Don't call me that! I'm me. I'm not just some mini-Mom! And I'm not going to be Dad either."

"Waal now. Seems to me like you've gotten your temper all tangled up. Wanna tell me all about it?"

"No."

"Aw, c'mon. That ain't no way to treat your fav'rite uncle." Petra turned back into a cat, and turned her offended feline back on O'Leary, who declined to collect and pet her, on the entirely self-preserving grounds that it was totally dumb to try to pet something that could turn into an angry panther and take out his jugular with one well-placed swipe. "Just like your mom." The mountain looked at David. "Wanna tell me? 'Cause I c'n call your mom, or I c'n take you both back to my precinct, or call – though I like livin' so it's a last resort – Chief Gates – or you c'n tell me why Petra's gotten a pain in her temper an' why the pair of you are out here alone when I know damn well your mom didn't say you could." He grinned. "She always tells me when you pair are out alone."

David looked from Petra's frozen anger to O'Leary's light, inquiring eyes. "I came after Petra," he admitted. "The two of us would be fine together, um, well, together-ish."

"Mm? That ain't the story. Why'd Petra come runnin' out all angry an' upset-like?"

Under O'Leary's questioning, the whole story was gradually extracted from David, during which time Petra, remaining feline, sulked industriously.

"Waaallllllllll," O'Leary drawled out. "Seems like you inherited your pa's soothing instincts. Shame they won't work on your li'l sis."

"She's the older one," David corrected, knowing that if he didn't he would be reminded to correct that error – by a scrape of claws.

"An' you're much bigger, cat or human. So right now she's your li'l sis. 'Sides, she's behavin' like she's three an' tantrummin' again, so…"

Unwillingly, David grinned. "Dad was dumb," he said. "And Petra's arm hurts."

"Yeah. I saw the cast. Wanna tell me 'bout that too?"

"No. But you're going to weasel" –

"I don't weasel," grinned O'Leary. "I just ask a few questions, is all. An' somehow everyone tells me the story."

"Weasel," emphasised David, sounding, for once, very like his mother, "it out of me anyway."

"Yep. So c'mon. I like stories, an' your mom an' dad don't do so much in that line any more."

"Good," David replied. He'd been scared out of his senses by the unvarnished truth that Chief Gates had provided around his parents' exploits. Impressed, too, but mostly utterly terrified. They'd…well, he couldn't decide if they were stupidly brave or totally suicidal. Or maybe both. Parents had no right to do anything like that. They should…leave it to other people.

"Mind," O'Leary added mischievously, "raisin' you pair of terrorisin' toddlers was enough of a challenge."

David growled.

"No growlin'. Long as you don't cheat by changin', I'm still bigger an' better at sparrin' than you – though both of you are pretty good now. An' I do hear that your shootin' skills are pretty good too." David goggled. "Rangemaster's a pal of mine."

"Everybody in the whole state of New York's a pal of yours," David pointed out, not favourably. "And everyone knows Mom and Dad. That's why we're both going to college somewhere else."

"Yep, an' I think that's a good idea."

"Glad someone does," David muttered. "Every time the post comes I can see Mom wincing. She went to the other side of the country, so why can't I?"

"You can," O'Leary said briskly. "She's not stoppin' either of you. She's just goin' to miss you. Prob'ly. Ain't she s'posed to?"

"I guess."

"Anyways, she's lookin' at the letters to see iffen you got any answers yet."

"I guess." David shrugged.

"An' now you c'n tell me the tale of Petra's arm," O'Leary suggested, "here or in some nice warm coffee shop."

David regarded Petra's offended posture, flat-eyed glare and laid-back ears. "Sis, it's cold. C'mon. Coffee and something to eat, rather than here."

Petra changed back, which didn't improve her attitude any. "Why'd you wanna know the story anyway?" she challenged. "You're not Mom."

"Naw. I'm much prettier."

Petra's lips twitched. Nobody would ever have called O'Leary handsome.

"Now come an' get coffee, 'cause otherwise I'm takin' you to the precinct an' callin' your mom to say I got you both."

"Don't" –

"Don't be saying you don't wanna. You don't got a choice here. You c'n come an' warm up an' tell me the tale, or you c'n be took."

Petra growled again, and flexed her fingers in an unpleasantly claw-like fashion. O'Leary waited. "Coffee, then," she sulked. "But you're being really unfair. You're not my parents. You don't have any right to tell me what to do, you're just bigger than me."

"Yep," O'Leary said cheerfully. "I am. An' I want the story, 'cause I know you c'n spar. So I don't know how come you got beat up an' broken. Though I do like how that cast changes with you. That's real neat." He reached down to her and pulled her up. "Let's go. I'm cold."

"Come on, sis. I'm cold too. Coffee would be good."

Surreptitiously, O'Leary texted Beckett a quick note to assure her that the twins were safe with him. He didn't get an answer, which didn't worry him.

Over coffee, O'Leary dragged the story out of Petra, in considerably more technical detail than her parents had received. That was probably a good thing. The technical detail left David cringing: cross-legged and appalled. His remonstrations over the details Petra had omitted went down about as well as presenting Beckett with a pet squirrel would have done.

"I get it," O'Leary said. "You were never goin' to win with a full scale fight rollin' right over you, an' you couldn't change till you were outta sight. Bad all around."

"Yeah."

"So what're you goin' to do about your dad?"

"Don't know. Mom isn't helping."

"Have you given her a chance?"

"Yes."

"Did you ask her whether she'd spoken to your dad about it before you stormed off yellin'?" Petra coloured up. "Naw, you didn't. You just got mad an' didn't find out the facts."

"If she'd talked to him he wouldn't have started on me."

O'Leary raised his eyebrows. "Ya think? 'Cause I think – an' I've known them a lot longer than you have – that once your dad's thinkin' about writin' – his or anyone else's – it'd take an earthquake to shift him. An' you're the only kid that's followin' in his tracks, so likely he's a bit enthusiastic. That ain't no crime."

"He needs to leave me alone to get on with it. I don't want him involved. I wanna do it myself, not because I'm Richard Castle's daughter. I've done just fine without that so far." She humphed, with a nasty tinge of acid anger. "I don't want to be someone else's daughter. I want to be me. Dad should get that – he changed his whole name! He didn't want to be Martha Rodgers' son, and I don't want to be Richard Castle's daughter!" Her voice had risen to a teenage screech.

"Shsh," David hissed. "You want a crowd?"

"No," Petra admitted, shamefaced. "But I want Dad to butt out."

"So you keep saying," David snipped. "You've said it about fifty times already. We know. Give it a rest, sis. I'm bored of you already."

"So" – she saw O'Leary's face and deleted the next two words before they emerged – "go home then. I'll be just fine without you."

"You can't wander around Manhattan on your own."

"I can so."

"Waal, you won't. I'm not wastin' my time takin' you home or followin' you around. You got a cast on an' you can't change on the subway to get out of trouble, so you two gotta stick together." Petra opened her mouth. "Naw. If you don't stick with David, you c'n come an' sample a cell." She shut up, but the look she flashed O'Leary should have frizzled him into cinders. He remained resolutely unmoved. If Petra's teeth and claws as a tantrumming toddler hadn't fazed him, her teen variety wouldn't either. He probably wouldn't suffer too much if she tried. Probably. Maybe. Possibly. He looked at his watch. "Time you went home. You c'n fix it with your mom an' dad in the morning."

"They can fix it with me," Petra said irritably. "I didn't start it, Dad did. He can fix it."

O'Leary shrugged. "Up to you. I think you're wrong, but it's your problem. Now go home. Your mom'll be listenin' for you to get back in."

"Like you didn't text her when we were walking to the coffee shop," Petra said. "I saw you."

"Don't mean she's read it."

"Don't be dumb. Mom always checks her phone."

"Don't you be rude. I ain't your brother." O'Leary frowned. "Thought you'd done some growin' up."

"Sorry," Petra muttered.

"Now, here's the subway, so you get on home an' iffen you're still bad-tempered in the mornin', have an extra cup of coffee an' then go out for the day on your own." He gave them a tiny push. "Go on."

They went, though Petra didn't say a single word to David all the way home. This was not news. Petra could wield silent sulking with the same effect as a freshly-sharpened sword, and frequently did. David simply reviewed football plays, or thought about his homework, or whichever pretty girl was uppermost in his thoughts, and didn't worry about his sister's behaviour at all. That annoyed her even more, which he knew perfectly well. They slid in quietly, noted that the loft was dark, and slipped to their rooms without disturbing so much as a moth. There were, naturally, no mice, rats or other rodents within the loft – or indeed the block.

At breakfast, only David joined Beckett. Castle, having woken in the middle of the night fretting about his talk with Alexis, hadn't slept again till after four, and was therefore still asleep. Petra had taken a painkiller and was also still asleep, or pretending to be so that she didn't have to face her mother's ire. David, therefore, had no defences except those that he could himself deploy. Against Beckett, these were extremely flimsy. Beckett had absolutely no compunction about using all her skill as an interrogator and downright intimidator to steer her children (and indeed Castle) into the paths that she wished them to follow – that, this morning, being answering her questions.

Beckett fixed her cringing child with a full interrogation glare, which, sadly, didn't stop him packing down enough breakfast to feed a streak of starving tigers. "Would you like to suggest any reason why I shouldn't ground both of you for the next three weeks?" she opened.

"I went after Petra to make sure she was okay!" David countered. "You can't ground me for that. It wouldn't be fair. I did a good thing."

"I could have gone after Petra. I have a badge and a gun."

"You'd have had to find them first. I was quicker. And I'm much bigger than Petra, and you wouldn't shoot her anyway, so your gun would be useless. I made sure she was okay – well, not on her own. And then Uncle O'Leary turned up and he texted you so you knew we were fine." He gulped down another half-ton of cereal. "So you shouldn't ground me. And I'm almost eighteen" –

"Not for two months" –

"That's not long – so grounding's not appropriate when I'm almost an adult and you couldn't stop me anyway."

"True," Beckett mused, with a dangerous expression. "I'll just arrest you instead."

David choked on his cereal. "What?"

"If you're an adult, you can be arrested," Beckett said, and waited for David to work it out.

"You can't arrest me. I haven't committed a crime. Going out without your permission isn't a crime and we didn't go to any bars or clubs or anywhere except Central Park and if Uncle O'Leary didn't arrest us there you can't."

Beckett clapped slowly. "Indeed," she said. "But I can make your lives hell anyway." That was one of the points of being a parent: the ability to annoy your children.

"But you can't arrest me. Anyway, you can't make my life hell today, because I'm in school."

Beckett smiled at her son. "You did the right thing. No hell today."

He grinned back and stood up. "Time I went. See you at dinner."

"Oh, yes. Dinner. You and Petra are making it. Your dad's going to see Alexis and I'm on shift till six. Make us something nice, huh?"

"Uh…okay?" David disappeared. Beckett decided that she'd leave them an explicit note of their duty to provide an edible dinner. David might have absorbed the information, but she certainly wouldn't rely on it. That way lay starvation – or takeout, for her and Castle only. The twins would suffer the consequences of their forgetfulness. On balance, however, she'd leave them a note. Next time, she wouldn't. That seemed fair to her. No doubt the twins would complain, but that was their problem.

She tidied up quickly, wrote her note, whisked into her bedroom to plop a kiss on Castle's hair, being the only part of him available, left him a strictly private note with a frankly ridiculous number of x-s at the bottom, just to make him smile, and went to work.

Mid-morning, Castle woke up. He didn't like it: he was fuzzy-headed from his small-hours insomnia, still utterly miserable at the thought of the coming discussion with his oldest daughter, and also upset by Petra's attitude. He pulled the covers over his head and pouted into the pillow. Some moments later, biology prompted him to stumble out of bed, and then cool air woke him fully. He abluted, and then, while dressing, found Beckett's note, which did indeed make him smile, just as she'd intended. Unfortunately it didn't work for long. He had breakfast, and then went to write – or, most likely, procrastinate and fret.

Suspiciously shortly after he had closed his office door, sounds of coffee and breakfast-making could be heard. He concluded that Petra had deliberately waited until he was out of the way, and fretted more. He knew he ought to both apologise and receive an apology…but he really could not face the scene on not enough sleep and while facing a different, and more necessary, difficult conversation. He left Petra to her coffee and tried, fruitlessly, to write. Through his gloom, he heard the front door open and then shut, and assumed, with some relief, that Petra had left to start her New York tourism.

Alone in the loft, Castle tried to think of a way to open discussions with Alexis, but after failing every time, resorted to shooting evil aliens, matching jewels (or not, mostly), and playing word games, which was more successful but didn't occupy the whole of his swirling mind. The day passed, uncomfortably, until it was time to go and meet Alexis.

They'd agreed to meet in a coffee bar near to Alexis's work, at five, though Castle's intention was to get coffee to go and then find a large, empty space where the discussion couldn't be overheard. Fortunately, the weather co-operated. It was almost warm.

"So, Dad, what's the problem?" Alexis asked, once installed on a bench in a quiet part of Central Park.

"You know we went off to Russia in a hurry?"

"Yeah. You never did really tell me why."

"No." He swallowed. "Petra got mistaken for Beckett."

"In Russia? She met someone who knew Kate in Russia? Small world doesn't cover it."

"Yeah. Well. Um. It was the guy who changed Beckett."

Alexis choked as her coffee went down the wrong way. "What?"

"Petra – you know Petra looks exactly like Beckett did at seventeen – well, she got accosted by this guy, and…well, Beckett had been wanting to have a discussion with him for some time – like about thirty four years" –

"With or without bullets?" Alexis asked cynically.

"The way she reacted when David told her, bullets sounded like the kindest option," Castle said. "Anyway. We found him." He leaned elbows on his knees, staring at the paved path in front of them, not looking at Alexis. "Pumpkin…" He stopped. "Hadn't you noticed that Beckett and I don't look any older?"

Alexis stared at him, and then really looked. "Uh…"

"The guy who changed Beckett still looked twenty," Castle forced out. "Thirty four years later." His eldest daughter's colour began to drain. "I still look forty, at sixty-four. But Beckett doesn't look any different from the day I met her, either."

Alexis was so pale that her skin was almost transparent. "Dad…?" She hitched. "Dad, are you…"

"He didn't know how old he was," Castle said. "We…pushed him. He thought he was…we thought he was…"

"What?" Alexis said sharply. "Dad…just tell me."

"He was at least a hundred and fifty." Castle swallowed back misery. "Pumpkin…"

"You're" – Alexis's voice fractured. "You're going to live much longer than me." Tears puddled in her eyes. "Dad…" she said again, and buried her face in his coat.

He hugged her close, weeping himself. "I can't…if I could change it, if I could find a way to change you…I'd do it in a heartbeat, but I can't. There's no way."

"But Kate changed you. So there is a way."

Castle lifted his eyes to meet hers. "The only way is to be with a shapeshifter."

Alexis turned green, and suddenly spun away from him. Several sharp, shallow breaths later, she turned back. "I would never be unfaithful to my husband. Never."

"I know. Beckett knows. And as far as we know – because that asshole who changed Beckett is still running and wanted to die out anyway – there are no others anywhere except me and David."

Alexis retched into the trash can. "Why are you telling me this?" she sobbed. "Why couldn't you just let me not know?"

"I couldn't lie to you. I couldn't let you think I'd died when I hadn't."

"That would have been normal. Normal grief. Now… and how do I explain this to my family?"

"You don't. You can't. They don't know about the shifting and they can't know about this." Castle blew his nose. This was far, far worse than he'd ever anticipated.

"You shouldn't have told me!" Alexis cried. "I wish you'd never told me any of it." She rose. "I'm going home." She gulped back more tears. "I can't deal with this. I won't tell…but I can't cope. Don't call me. I'll call you when I'm ready." She almost ran from him.

Castle stayed slumped on the bench as the evening drew in, the air cooling fast, not trying to stop the overflow of his emotions. Finally, he pulled out his phone.

"Beckett?" he snuffled, "Beckett, I need you. Please?"

"On my way, love."

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.