Chapter 30

By the time she'd got to the precinct, Beckett's happiness had reasserted itself, and she went to her desk with a broadly beaming smile. The rest of the precinct regarded her with wariness tending to outright terror, except for Ryan, who deduced the true reason and wandered over to congratulate her.

"I guess the twins got their admission decisions?"

"Yep," Beckett bounced, more like Castle than her normal self. "Offers everywhere." She suddenly stopped. "I didn't ask about scholarships!"

"Time enough," said Ryan from the point of view of having a child already there. "You'll know by the end of the month."

"I guess," Beckett said. Not that it mattered, but it would be nice if their talents were recognised by someone other than their parents and the school's football coach. She turned to her work, and tried not to think about her children's success more than once every five minutes, until she could go home.

Shortly before shift end she received a message from Castle to meet the other three at Le Cirque for a celebratory dinner. She'd have preferred more notice so that she could go home and change, but she was perfectly chic, in an understated way.

Running repairs made, Beckett reached Le Cirque first, and was seated and provided with a soothing aperitif by an attentive waiter. The collective Castles showed up a few moments later, which, if the chatter hadn't alerted Beckett, the wave of sighs and appreciative glances would have done. Well, that was quite enough of that, she thought, stood up and greeted Castle with a distinctly possessive kiss, which resulted in distinctly disappointed noises.

"So," Beckett said, once they were all seated, supplied with menus and further aperitifs, "where do you each want to go?"

"Stanford," David said decisively, "though I wanna see who'll give me a football scholarship first."

"You don't have to take that into account," Castle said. "I want you to go where's best for you. You're both really lucky to be able to, just like Alexis could." Beckett saw the flash of pain through his eyes.

"No," David said with a charmingly naughty grin, "but I still wanna know."

"What about you?" Beckett asked Petra.

"Harvard, I think. Or Berkeley. Yale was a bit…"

"Close?"

"Preppy," Petra said quellingly. "I don't do preppy. And they helicoptered. I don't want to be helicopter-taught." She smiled suddenly. "But like David, I wanna see if they'll offer scholarships."

"We'll know that in a week or two," Beckett said. "This time, though, how about telling us as you find out, hm?" The twins wriggled and squirmed.

"Okay," they said, reluctantly, and then on receiving their parents' synchronised severity, "Okay."

Orders were given, wine for the adults and sodas for the twins arrived, but half way through their appetisers Beckett's phone cheeped. "Sorry," she said, and checked. She stared, and then passed her phone to Castle, who likewise stared.

"What is it?" David asked.

"Alexis says congratulations to both of you," Beckett summarised. That was the publicly mentionable piece. The other half would stay between her and Castle. Kate. Congratulations to David and Petra. I want to talk to you. Not Dad. Tomorrow when we've both finished work? Alexis. Castle blinked at her, terrified, hurting hope in his eyes. Beckett guessed he'd told Alexis, not expecting anything.

"Say thanks for us?" Petra requested.

"Sure." Beckett gave a brief affirmative answer and added the twins' thanks. "Did you tell Grandad and Gramma?"

"Yes. They were really pleased."

"Okay. That means I can tell the uncles and Lanie, though Uncle Ryan already guessed." She smiled. "Family gets to know first." Under the table, she slipped her hand on to Castle's knee, and then into his hand, stroking her thumb across it, feeling the tension in his fingers slowly loosen.

Late that evening, safely in their own bedroom without the excited noise of celebrating twins to distract them, they snuggled together, Beckett's head pillowed on Castle's broad chest and her arm over him. His arms locked loosely around her too, gently possessive.

"I'm really pleased they've both got what they wanted," Beckett said. "But…they'll be leaving. Three thousand miles away in California, for David. Petra – maybe that, maybe Boston. But they won't be here." She sniffed. "It's silly. I'll miss them," she snuffled.

Castle petted. "Me too. Even though I've done it before. It's not fun."

"I shouldn't be like this," she complained.

"Maybe it's your maternal instincts arriving," Castle teased. "Eighteen years later – ow! Don't punch me. It's not nice." His momentary humour dissipated. "What about Alexis?"

"I…don't know," Beckett said. "It's got to be good that she contacted me at all, but I wish she'd contacted you." Secretly, she thought that Alexis might want some emotional distance. Castle and his daughter were so close that they couldn't have an unemotional discussion, even now.

"Yeah. But it's better than nothing."

"For sure." Beckett felt that some distraction was in order, and deposited a peck-kiss on the nearest available piece of Castle. Handily, that was his pectoral, containing a flat brown nipple. Castle drew in a breath, so she did it again, with rather more attention to detail and duration. Half a second later she was flat on her back with an entirely predatory Castle looming over her. Half a second after that her pretty piece of silk and lace nightwear, which hadn't raised enough of a flicker on Castle's face half an hour ago, received a great deal of attention for a remarkably short space of time, and then spread prettily over the floor. Beckett, by contrast, spread sexily across the bed.

Some things would never grow old.

"Hey, Alexis," Beckett said, and then took cognisance of her step-daughter's demeanour. "Are you okay?" Her skin had passed through pale to pallid, and the bags under her eyes would have needed checked on any airplane.

"Fine."

Beckett let that pass. She'd said the same, often enough. "Want a coffee?"

"Please."

Beckett procured two max-sized coffees, and sat down. "You wanted to talk?" she asked softly. "I guess it's about what Castle told you."

"Yes," Alexis said miserably. "How could he?"

Beckett didn't answer that. Instead, she looked a few months back in time to a birch wood by Lake Baikal. "His first thought was of your reaction," she said. It was close enough to true. "He would find a way for you too, if only he could."

"Why did he tell me, if he can't do anything about it?"

"Because he couldn't live with lying to you for the rest of your life," Beckett said. "Telling you wasn't an impulsive thing. Not telling you has been eating at him for almost six months."

"Did you know?" Alexis challenged.

"No. I didn't work out that we weren't really ageing till less than a year ago, and then I didn't know why. For all I knew it might just have been looks, and we'd die at a normal age. It wasn't till we had to go rescue Petra" – Alexis squeaked – "oh, yeah. Petra fell over the bastard sonofabitch that changed me, didn't your dad say?"

"Yeah, but…it wasn't top of my priorities then."

"Okay. Anyway, that yellow-bellied rat thought Petra was me and I had unfinished business with him." Beckett flexed her fingers threateningly. "So we went to talk to him. I wanted to kill him," she added casually, "but…he wasn't worth killing. We took the opportunity to force some information out of him, and that was top of the list. That piece of scum had polluted the world for at least a hundred and fifty years, and he still looked twenty."

"Kate?"

"Uh?"

"Could you manage not to change here?"

"What?"

"Well, you're looking like you want to tear things apart."

"Oh. Uh, sorry. He just made me really mad. So anyway. It…I don't know. It wasn't what I'd have chosen, but I didn't get a choice."

Alexis squeaked again, and gulped down at least half of her coffee. "You never told me you didn't choose it!" she said. "I thought – but Dad – so I guessed – but you didn't?"

"No. That sonofabitch Sasha just went right ahead and then skipped out on me. I found out a couple of years later, by total accident."

"I…" Alexis's assumptions were clearly being rearranged at light speed. "I knew Dad chose it. So…but you didn't?" she repeated.

"No. I thought Sasha was a perfectly normal guy. Till he ripped my throat out one Halloween in Palo Alto. I'd really liked him up till that point," she added dryly. "And for two years or so I thought it was just a bad dream from too much vodka. And then I found it wasn't."

The faint resentment and hostility that had been emanating from Alexis dissipated. "Wow," she said, for a moment looking like the naïve fifteen-year old Beckett had first met. "So you didn't know anything either."

"No."

"But you changed Dad." Hostility returned.

"Yes." Beckett bit the bullet. "By tearing out his throat when I was a panther, on Halloween night with a full moon, after spectacularly good sex."

Alexis went green. After a moment, she stuttered, "Uh…Dad wasn't that explicit."

"He's your dad. I'm not your mom, and you're an adult with kids of your own. You deserve the truth. But that's why we can't – not won't – actually physically can't change you. Sasha was bent on suicide, and the only other two shapeshifters we know about are your Dad and David. And you're devoted to your husband. I don't see you having sex with your relatives."

Alexis ran for the restroom. Beckett sighed, wished she hadn't had to say any of that, and drank her coffee. Several minutes later, Alexis returned, still a delicate pale green, tight-lipped, and red-eyed.

"So I have to watch you four stay exactly the same, while I get old and frail and die?" Beckett didn't say anything. There really wasn't anything to say. "My brother and sister get to live forever and I don't? How is that fair?"

"It's not," Beckett said bluntly. "It's not fair and it's not what your dad wants. But it's all that we have."

"Is that supposed to make anything better?" Alexis snapped.

"Nothing can make this better!" Beckett snapped right back. "So you can live with it – us – or live without us. I get where you're coming from. I get that you're angry. Hell, I would be furious too – but none of us can change it. Unless you think your dad should commit suicide age, say – well, you tell me what age would be okay, huh? Would that make this better?" She drew an infuriated breath. "Is that what you want? He gets to seventy – that's less than six years from now? Or maybe eighty? Or you could really be generous and make it ninety, and then give him a gun to eat. Is that what you want?" Her hiss cracked across the table, and Alexis recoiled.

"No! No. I don't want Dad dead."

"Then all you can do is live with the truth," Beckett said heavily. "One way, or another. With us, or without us. It's up to you. Let me know when you've worked it out, so we don't stay wondering for ever." She began to rise.

"Don't" –

"What?" Beckett wasn't going to soften, no matter how miserable Alexis looked. Tough love was the only way she could think of to fix this. Alexis, though, seemed to have run out of words.

"I…uh…I just need time!"

"I thought that, once," Beckett pointed out. "It didn't do me any favours." She thought for an instant. "And it really hurt your dad." She decided on another dose of nastiness. "Unless that's what you want. Hurt him like he's – accidentally – hurt you? Only you'll do it deliberately. Okay."

"No! That's not – that's not what I want." Alexis looked up through sodden blue eyes. "Kate…"

Beckett sat down again. "Yes?"

"I…I don't know," she wept.

Beckett patted her hand. "Neither do we," she pointed out. "None of us know what we're doing here. There's going to be a lot of adjusting, and, well, we'd like to have you as a part of it." She stopped there. Alexis had buried her face in a handful of napkins, which were rapidly dissolving. Beckett slithered around the booth and gave her a hug. Unfortunately, all that happened was that Alexis cried harder, in a manner more suited to the soft-hearted teen she had been than the adult mother of two that she was. Beckett, used to David's occasional sulks and Petra's aggressively confrontational attitude to anything upsetting her, was not used to floods of tears. She patted uncertainly, and waited, tempted though she was to snap pull yourself together.

Fortunately, Alexis did pull herself together, marginally before Beckett's strictly limited patience expired. In the space of time that had taken, Beckett had given profusely profane thanks that neither of her children had gone in for prolonged, emotional tears (merely tantrums, which could be appropriately discouraged).

"I…" Alexis blushed uncomfortably. "Tell Dad I'll call him later," she blurted out, snatched her coat, and fled. Beckett shrugged on her own stylish jacket, and departed in much better order.

At home, Beckett slipped into Castle's office, shut the door, and tapped him firmly on the shoulder. He looked up, eyes dull.

"Alexis will call you later," she said bluntly.

Castle's head jerked up, only just missing Beckett's jaw. "She will? She said so? When?" He scrabbled for his phone. "I gotta make sure it's charged."

"It's on the charger," she pointed out.

"Oh. Well, I need to check if it's working."

"It's working. See the little lightning flash?"

"But" –

"Babe. Alexis said she would call. If your cell phone isn't working, she'll call the loft, and if that's not working she'll call me."

"But" –

Beckett became the panther, and growled. Castle shut his mouth, and she became Onyx, and sprawled across his lap, nuzzling into his shoulder and demanding petting. It was a touch unfair, she knew. He'd never, ever, right from the very beginning when he met Onyx – that was, she'd met him, by her design – been able to resist stroking and petting her beautiful, elegant, pure black Siamese cat.

He didn't now.

Just as she'd planned, as he stroked and fussed over her, he relaxed, his eyes lightened, his shoulders eased, and his clever fingers petted up and down her spine, sneaking closer and closer to her ears. She purred contentedly, and lay, a pool of darkness, across him, noticing, smugly, that his body was indicating a return to happiness and normality. She wiggled over the evidence, and became Beckett again, in which form she could, would, and did own his mouth. The rest of him would wait until later, when they could both be satisfactorily possessive. She rather thought it would be her turn to do the owning. Not that it wasn't fun when Castle did, but…turn about was fair play. She changed back, his hands played with her ears, and she dissolved in a cloud of orgasmic sensuality.

Which, naturally, was destroyed by Castle's cell phone chiming with Alexis's ringtone. Onyx slid away, becoming Beckett to open the door and depart; closing it behind her for Castle's privacy.

Beckett heard the muffled sound of conversation stop, and expected Castle to come out of the study. He didn't. Instead, she heard his footsteps going towards their bedroom. She waited only a moment, and then followed, locking the study door behind her: firstly, so that Castle couldn't evade her; but more importantly so that the twins couldn't interrupt. They were extraordinarily good at interrupting important discussions, which was extremely unhelpful.

She found Castle sitting on the edge of the bed, in the throes of strong emotion. Which strong emotion was rather unclear, since tears were rolling down his cheeks but he had a grin as wide as the Atlantic. She plopped down beside him, and hugged.

"It's okay," he snuffled into her hair. "She's okay…we're okay." Beckett hugged some more. Tough love wins again, she thought, and definitely didn't say. She didn't need to shock Castle by telling him the details of the discussion – and she really hoped he wouldn't ask. He probably wouldn't object…well, he never disapproved of anything she did – he wouldn't dare – but it probably wouldn't make him deeply happy. Castle still tried to pretend Alexis wasn't all grown up at times, and Beckett's bluntness would severely dent that belief. Still more hugging was provided, until Castle's snuffles stopped, he wiped his eyes and blew his nose (Beckett rapidly decided to wash her hair in the next half hour), and straightened up.

"She's come around?"

"Yep. It's fixed." He smiled, broad and beautiful, completely and unashamedly happy, no reservations, and then kissed her. "You did it." He kissed her again, harder. "I love you."

"Love you too," Beckett murmured, "but how about we get dinner? I'm starving." High emotion – other people's, that was: Beckett's own high emotions tended to suppress her appetite – made her hungry, and it was some way past dinner time.

"There's pasta bake," Castle said, "and we always have ice cream."

"Great." Beckett headed for the main room en route to the kitchen and food. "Are you coming?" she asked, with a sultry swing of her hips.

"Now, or later?"

"How about both?" she flirted, and didn't need to look to know that Castle's eyes were hot and riveted to her rear.

"Coming to eat now," Castle said, his voice full of promise. Beckett smiled to herself. Back to their thoroughly satisfying normal. She thought that the twins could usefully prowl Central Park this evening. Castle-panther could prowl the loft, with her hands frequently prowling his fur and his ears. And then they would prowl the bedsheets. Her smile grew sensual with anticipation.

He caught up to her, pulled her back against him, and nibbled delicately at her neck. "Hungry?" he asked, but it wasn't at all clear that he meant for food.

"Yep," she teased. "Where's my dinner?"

"Probably in David," Castle grinned. "Let's see what the ravenous horde has left us."

Astonishingly, there was dinner left over. Maybe David's insatiable appetite was finally diminishing? Not before time. Castle split it in half, poured yet more wine (their consumption levels had been rather too high lately), and they sat at the table to eat it. As the last mouthful disappeared, David lolloped downstairs.

"You ate it," he said disappointedly.

"It was our dinner," Beckett pointed out tartly. "Have a sandwich instead."

"Ice cream?" David wheedled.

"Sure," Castle said happily. "There's lots." David coloured. "There was lots," Castle corrected. "We get first dibs. If there's any left, then you can have some."

The remaining ice cream was insufficient for David to have any more, and indeed his parents had rather less than they would have liked.

"Next time, fill up on something that isn't dessert," Beckett said crossly. "The rest of us want to eat too."

"Uh, that wasn't really why I came downstairs," David said.

"Oh?"

"Look!" He showed them an e-mail on his phone.

"Wow!" both parents cried. "That's amazing."

"What's happening?" Petra asked from the top of the stairs.

"Stanford are offering me a football scholarship," David said, "and it's big."

"Congratulations," Petra said. The word was calm, but from David's delighted expression something major was passing between them. "I wish I'd hear."

"Next few days," David said.

Looking at Petra, Beckett thought that the institutions had better hurry up. "Do you want to go out on the prowl?" she asked the twins. Squirrel-killing would definitely soothe Petra's stress-levels. "If you do, I'll call Uncle O'Leary and warn him."

"Please," Petra said. "C'mon, David. Let's go chase lowlifes."

The twins disappeared. Beckett scraped up the last of her ice cream, and smiled. "You coming, Castle?" she asked, and her panther strutted to the bedroom.

"You first," he replied, and the huge male panther followed her.

Some time later, they curled up together, exhausted for the best reasons.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.