Chapter 31

Eight days later, Petra descended the stairs at light speed, chased by David, both screeching "Mom, Mom! Dad!" in disharmonious but delighted counterpoint.

"I got scholarships!" Petra yelled, more enthusiastic than in months, if not years.

"Me too!" David shouted over her. "More – and not just football!"

It was like watching the twins as toddlers scrambling for chocolate: a tumble of limbs with added hubbub, talking over each other in a frantic effort to tell their parents everything all at once.

Some focused interrogation later, the celebratory chaos had been reduced to celebratory order. The twins had done spectacularly well, academically and, in David's case, sportingly as well.

"So," Beckett asked, while Castle poured coffee. Champagne would come later. "Where do you each want to go?"

"Stanford," David said promptly.

"Harvard," Petra stated.

They looked at each other. "I'll still know how you are," Petra said.

"Me too."

Their parents said nothing. Their silent communication was another facet of their twins that shouldn't be exposed to the public view.

"Great news." Beckett reached out and found Castle's hand already searching for hers. She gripped it tightly. Of course it was wonderful. Of course it was. "When will you tell them? What do we need to sign?" she said. They're leaving, her mind wailed. They're going away and leaving us. She firmly told the wails to stop. It was wonderful that they'd done so well, and great that they were ready to be independent and go to college. (My babies! her mind wept. My babies aren't babies and won't need me. She told her mind to shut up and celebrate. Her mind had no business being unhappy with such great news.)

"Here's to the next stage," Castle said, and toasted them, followed by Beckett.

"I'm going to accept tonight," Petra said. "No point waiting."

"Me too," David bounced.

"Can we start thinking about everything we'll need?" Petra said. "Like, what sort of dorm room I can have and what I need in it and all that?"

Beckett blinked hard. "Sure we can, later. Now, let's just enjoy it. You've both done amazingly well." She sniffed.

"Mom, are you crying?" David asked.

"I'm happy," Beckett said. "I'm just so happy."

"Stop crying, then," Petra said with her usual tact and sympathy. "You shouldn't be crying if you're happy."

"Yes, she should," Castle said. "Everyone cries when they're happy. Like at weddings, or births." He stopped on an oof as Beckett elbowed him. She remembered his joyous tears when the twins were born: two tiny kittens, all closed eyes and fluff.

"Hm," Petra said cynically.

Beckett reckoned she'd work it out eventually. Surely somewhere in Petra's mental and emotional make up there must be some finer feelings?

Castle's fingers stroked over her hand, and she turned it up to clasp his. Both twins looked at their parents' linked hands. Petra opened her mouth, but, most unusually, David jabbed her in the ribs to shut her up.

"C'mon, sis," he said, demonstrating that he had all the tact that should have been shared between them. "Let's go plan!" He towed Petra off, she complaining all the way about bullying oversize younger brothers, all of which David ignored with precisely his father's aplomb.

Freed from pitying, slightly contemptuous glances, Beckett buried her face in Castle's broad shoulder and snuffled miserably.

"There, there, love," Castle soothed. "They'll be back for vacations."

"Maybe," Beckett sniffled into his shirt. "If we're unlucky," she added with soggy cynicism.

"You can't say that," Castle snickered. "Not out loud. Anyway, they've done great."

"Yes. But they're going away," Beckett wailed, quite without her common sense's permission or input. She shouldn't be wailing. She should be celebrating the second honeymoon that she and Castle could have. The floor cushions could be put to their original uses; the catnip tea could be enjoyed much more regularly…there would be no, absolutely no, interruptions.

"It's just shock and happiness," Castle murmured. Beckett looked up and found his eyes liquid too. "You'll be fine by tomorrow. Now, what shall we do?" He knew she was off shift.

Beckett smiled. "Let's go play tourist, anywhere that Petra isn't," she said. "David'll be off to school in a minute, and Petra can look after herself." She caught the glint in Castle's eye. "No writing about it," she ordered. "That's not your bag."

Castle pouted, adorably. Beckett did not adore it. She took his nose between two fingers, very gently, but with an intimation that pain might follow. "No travel writing, Castle," she commanded, and pinched a tiny bit.

"Okay."

"Promise – and show me your hands when you do."

Castle stretched his hands away from each other, and said sulkily, "Promise. You're no fun."

"Nope. But you love me anyway."

He smiled lazily. "Sure do."

Beckett smiled sensually back at her husband. "You can prove it, later," she husked.

"Oh, I will. No possibility of reasonable doubt." His eyes were navy, his mouth quirked.

She was just about to kiss those inviting lips, when David thundered down the stairs, yelled, "Bye!" and slammed out of the door at near light speed.

"Well, that killed the mood," she said crossly.

"Yeah. Rethinking your sniffles yet?"

"Oh, yes." She stood. "Let's go." She collected her coat, and called up the stairs to Petra. "We're going out for the day. See you at dinner time."

"'Kay," floated back. Evidently Petra couldn't care less if they were in or out.

"Where shall we go?" Beckett asked. She didn't need to ask. Castle was bouncing on his toes, unsuppressed enthusiasm sparking from his face.

"Let's get the ferry round the Statue of Liberty and then Ellis Island," he said happily, "and go look at all the history in the museum. Then we'll go get a really good lunch, and then you choose."

"There's a photography exhibition in the Frick. New York's Ugly Underbelly. It was first shown in 2015 or so, but I never had time to go then."

"Nor me. I think we were probably doing something death-defying or saving New York or…"

"Yeah. Something. Anyway, it looks interesting. Never heard of the photographer, though. Coval, Darval, something like that."

"Doesn't matter what he's called. Okay," Castle agreed, "let's do that. After lunch. Where d'you wanna go, and I'll make the reservation now."

Beckett thought. "Not Remy's."

"No!" Castle expostulated. "I wanna take you somewhere really good. Le Cirque, or Balthazar – somewhere like that. We'll have a lovely long lunch, with wine, and then drift around the exhibition, and then home."

"Sounds good," Beckett murmured. "Let's go to Jean-Georges, then, and we can look at Central Park."

"Okay."

Shortly, they sat together on the ferry, blissfully unaccompanied by any family whatsoever. Castle snugged an arm around Beckett; she laid her head on his shoulder, and they both watched the water go by in perfect peace and harmony.

The day passed, and Beckett and Castle drifted through it in contented happiness. Lunch was delicious, the exhibition astonishingly impressive even close to twenty years later, and eventually they sauntered home in charity with all the world.

Charity lasted about ten seconds after they arrived home to find a free fight over – what? Who would make dinner? Amazingly, it was an argument to make dinner. Petra was winning the volume war, though David was taking the practical (and sneaky) step of putting out the ingredients and dishes.

"Shush!" Beckett yelled.

David dropped the pan he had been taking out of a cupboard, which added to Petra's full-volume arguing and certainly didn't qualify as shushing.

"Shut up!" both parents yelled.

"Mom!" David said.

"Dad!" Petra said.

"Shush!" both parents said again. The twins shushed. "Now," Castle went on, "what's the problem?" Beckett could have told him that was the wrong tactic – he should have addressed one twin by name. By not doing so, he got both twins talking – which swiftly became yelling – together. From the expression on Castle's face, he'd realised his error. "David, you explain. Petra, quiet!"

Catching her mother's full-force glare, Petra closed her mouth mid-shriek.

"We" –

"I!" Petra argued.

"Shush!"

"We," David said, to Petra's fury, "were going to make dinner for everyone."

"So why the argument?"

"It was my idea and I had a plan and then David started interfering and changing it and getting in the way" –

"Just 'cause you wouldn't let me help so you got all the credit" –

"It was my idea and you just wanted to pretend you'd helped so you got the kudos" –

"Quiet!" Beckett ordered. They were. She'd thought that Petra had grown up on her travels. Right now, both kids were back to toddler tantrums and it's-not-fair-Mom! No, it wasn't fair – on Beckett and Castle. The twins could suck it up.

"Either," Castle said direfully, "you can co-operate – and since it was Petra's idea you do what she thought of" – David pouted. Beckett glared, and the pout ran for cover – "or you both go upstairs and we make dinner. Since we've had a good lunch, it'll be sandwiches or grilled cheese."

"We'll do it," Petra dictated. David scowled, but nodded.

"Okay. We'll go sit down and not interfere – unless you start fighting again." Castle looked about him. "Ah." He took possession of a bottle of wine and corkscrew, Beckett snitched two glasses from under the twins' noses, and the adults repaired to the couch to enjoy their wine and the unusual experience of being cooked for.

The twins confined their arguing to a volume that enabled their parents to ignore them as they sipped their wine and carefully didn't suggest that the children should have any. Good wine needn't be wasted on palate-less teens, they agreed. If there was any wine left when dinner was ready, then it might be shared.

"Mom, Dad, dinner's ready!" David bounced. Nobody appeared to be dead or permanently maimed, which reduced the awful possibilities of exactly what meat the meal might be.

"What is it?" they asked.

"Chicken pasta bake," David said.

"With a salad," Petra added, putting a bowl on the table.

The adults brought their wine, which caused Petra to set two extra glasses on the table with a challenging look at the bottle.

"Yes, you may. Half a glass each – yes," Beckett said to Petra's displeased face, "I know you had alcohol while travelling, though I don't want to ask about fake ID. You won't get away with that at school, though. They're good at spotting it."

Both twins gave her bland faces. Beckett shrugged. Castle shrugged too. "Your funeral," she said. "Fines will come out of your allowances." She smiled. "Now, how about this dinner?"

Dinner, astonishingly, was very good. The twins were congratulated, not without a certain undercurrent of what do they want? Their parents weren't cynical – they merely had extensive experience of their children's behaviour and manipulative ways, all of which, Beckett insisted, they had learned from their father. Castle retorted that the, um, forceful personalities were her contribution. At that point, they'd stopped trying to attribute their twins' less wonderful traits, since they could have carried on all year. Deeply detrimental to marital harmony, that would have been. Parental harmony had been in short supply since the twins had arrived – that is, parent-to-child harmony. Parent-to-parent harmony was just fine, thank you, and always had been.

"Mom…" Petra began. Beckett raised an eyebrow. "When you've got your coffee," Petra amended, recognising immovable reality, "could we go talk about dorms?"

Castle looked at David. "Same, Davy-boy?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Let's go look."

The women went upstairs, the men to Castle's study.

"So, dorms," Beckett said.

"When we talked before, we talked about single rooms so I could be a cat if I needed to be…" Petra said tentatively. "Uh, I spoke to Matilda King now my arm's out of the sling and she wants me and David to start doing shoots next week, and we agreed if you're okay with that and she made us an offer and we sent it off to Rafe to negotiate and um…er…ur…"

"Petra."

"Well, um, he made it better, and, um… Matilda wasn't very happy but she signed and, um" –

"Petra! Spit it out."

"It's a lot."

"How much?"

Petra named a figure. Beckett almost fainted. "How much?" she squeaked. Petra repeated it. Beckett squawked, squeaked, and squawked again. Eventually she recovered her composure, which allowed her to hear the baritone squawking downstairs.

"Why are you asking me if you can have a single room? You've got more than enough to have one!"

More than enough was a considerable understatement. Petra could pay full fees, rent a single apartment, and still have plenty left over.

"She really, really wanted the two of us. So we made her pay for it."

Beckett applauded, rather weakly. "So why are you asking?"

"Uh…well, you knew things about travelling and you might have suggestions but I think I really do want space to be a cat if I need to be and I can't do that in a dorm but…" Petra ran out of breath.

"I was in a dorm," Beckett said, "and there's no privacy unless you, um, signal that you're, um… busy."

"Having sex, you mean," Petra said bluntly. Beckett choked. "Anyway."

Yes, anyway. Anything else. Beckett was not having that discussion.

"So I should get a single room?"

"Yes," Beckett said, and fled, claiming an urgent need for a few moments.

"So like I said, Dad, I think I should get a single room so that I can be a cat if I want to 'cause I really don't want to talk about why I've got a scratching post in the corner."

"Disguise it as a piece of wooden artwork, so the scratches are part of the artistic effect," Castle suggested.

"I'll have to do that anyway. Um… so you think I should get a single room too?"

"If you want. How much will it be? You've plenty saved from those modelling gigs."

"Uh, yeah. Um… about that…" David blushed a beautiful and room-heating scarlet.

"Yeah?"

"Uh, Matilda offered me and Petra" –

"Petra and me," Castle corrected exasperatedly –

"Whatever – a series of shoots and we sent the offer to Rafe and, well, um, she wasn't exactly happy but we got what we wanted and, um, it's pretty good."

"How much?"

David told him. Castle almost fainted. "How much?" David repeated the number. "Wow. You can have a single room if you like, then."

"Yeah."

David acquired a thoughtfully predatory expression into which his father, recognising it from his own late-teens, certainly did not enquire.

"Just make sure you take precautions," Castle said firmly.

"I'm seeing Dr Maine next week. Male implant," David said casually.

Castle choked, squawked, and then fled.

Castle and Beckett found each other, sporting identical blushes, in Castle's study, where the door could be firmly shut upon the world, also known as their children.

"David said he was getting the implant!" Castle wailed.

"I don't wanna talk about it!" Beckett wailed back. "It was bad enough when it was Petra!"

"What?"

Beckett's wailings dissolved in irritation. "I told you at the time." Castle gawped. "There was no way I was letting her go around the world on her own unprotected!"

"Lalalalalalala," Castle sang loudly, sticking his fingers ostentatiously into his ears.

Beckett pulled them out. "Stop that," she said firmly. "They're both being sensible."

"They're children!"

"What were you doing at the drive-in movies age seventeen?" Beckett asked.

Castle coloured up, and squirmed.

"I see," she said.

"That's not the point," Castle grumped.

"No?"

"What were you doing in the back seat age seventeen?" Castle asked with gentle malice.

"Enjoying myself," Beckett flipped back, and then smiled enticingly. "Wanna see how?"

Castle's eyes darkened, he exuded a sudden aura of male sexuality, and in rather less than an instant Beckett found herself swept up in his arms, deposited on their bed and kissed hard. "Yes," he grated. "I do wanna see how."

"I'll even let you join in," she husked. Desire blazed between them, and she pulled him down to her avid mouth and naughty touch.

They stayed very happily in their bedroom. The twins might have gone out. They might not. As long as they didn't interrupt their parents, their parents didn't care.

"Happy Birthday," Beckett murmured into Castle's sleepy ear, and kissed him in a deeply predatory fashion. He came awake immediately. "I've got a present for you," she added, and kissed him again, "before the terrors wake up."

"You do?" he muzzed, and then, as his fingers caught her and detected chiffon, "You do." he growled, and held her a little away from him to examine the deep green covering. He could have described it as scanty, but he preferred erotic, or seductive, or gorgeous, or indeed all of them at once. He could have. If, that was, he had been able to speak coherently. Beckett on a mission to seduce was also Beckett on a mission to deprive Castle of words, breath, and thought, leaving only instinct and action. Happily, instinct and action were all he needed.

"You do the best birthday presents," he said happily, snuggled into her afterwards, petting gently at her hip – or thereabouts. Beckett wriggled under the assured touch, and then did some assured touching of her own. Birthdays meant that neither of them needed to leave their bed early. They could have called it a lie-in, but there wasn't much snoozing involved.

Much later, they had breakfast. Beckett made it. It was a beautifully peaceful meal – right up till David bounded down the stairs, saw the waffles and bacon, and plonked himself down between his parents with a distinct lack of the previous day's tact.

"Happy Birthday, Dad!" he said cheerfully, loading his plate, only after which did he pass over a card and parcel.

Shortly thereafter there were no waffles, no bacon, and no orange juice. Shortly after that, the eating machine left to meet up with his friends for Saturday football practice.

Just as Castle and Beckett thought that they were safe to go back into the breakfast-now-tending-to-brunch food heaven, Petra stalked down the stairs, jacket on.

"Happy Birthday, Dad," she said, handed over a card and a wrapped parcel, and looked around. "Where's David?" she asked, irritably.

"Ate, went to football practice."

"He's supposed to be at Modern Fashion at four," Petra snapped.

"Football practice finishes at two-thirty," Beckett said aridly. "And David is just as keen as you to fund college fees, so I don't think he'll be late."

Petra tutted audibly.

"Are you nervous?" Castle asked, which was not helpful.

"No!" she snapped.

"Don't speak to your father like that," Beckett snapped back.

"It's okay to be nervous," Castle said amiably.

"I. Am. Not. Nervous!" Petra yelled.

Beckett stood on Castle's foot.

"Ow! Beckett, what did you do that for?"

"Remember when you were nervous about your first Heat novel," Beckett said ominously, "and you came to the precinct…?"

Castle pouted. "And you weren't nice to me, either. You – oh."

"Yes, oh."

Petra looked from parent to parent.

"No, you don't get the story."

She scowled. "I'm going out, then."

"Okay." Their parents massively preferred the twins' absence to their presence, today.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.

Those of you who have read my original novels will recognise the exhibition, unlike Caskett. If you haven't read my original novels, please do! (SR Garrae, on Amazon)

The final chapter of this story will be posted on Tuesday.