"Remember this December, that love weighs more than gold."
- Josephine Daskam Bacon
More Than Gold
December 13 - Garland
Once upon a time, Castle had had the loft professionally decorated. Not completely, of course, but he had happily taken advantage of the fact that, well, he's rich and he could pay someone to do some of the more difficult tasks.
Now, though, he does things a little bit differently.
Oh, the loft is just as lavish, just as wildly, distractingly covered in decorations, but instead of paying others to string the lights around the room and hang wreaths high on the windows, he and Kate tackle all of it. Including hanging the garland he has shipped in from a lake on the Canadian border.
That is, when they can convince Lily not to wear it as a boa.
Rick Castle hides a laugh behind a cough, pressing his face into his shoulder.
"Hey, Sprout. What ah, whatcha doing with that?"
Lily twirls and stops. "Posing," she says, as if it's the most natural thing in the world for her to be trailing twenty-two feet of garland behind her with three or so feet of it wrapped around her neck and shoulders while her brothers toddle along behind her.
Beside him, Kate doesn't bother hiding her amusement. She just lowers the lights she's been untangling and laughs.
"I'm not sure Daddy's expensive garland is meant for you to wear, sweetheart."
Lily looks it over, shrugging after a moment or two of contemplation. "S'my shawl."
This time they both laugh, sharing a look that's part adoration, part 'she's your daughter,' before Kate steps up and pats Lily's head.
"Your shawl is beautiful, baby, but I think we can probably find an even nicer one in a closet somewhere. Don't you think, Daddy?" she asks, looking back at him.
Rick nods, putting his phone back in his pocket. It makes for a good picture, one that's absolutely going in Lily's senior yearbook. "Uh huh. Or we could call Gram tomorrow and see if she has something you can borrow; now that you're both stars, I'm sure she's happy to help a fellow actor out."
Beckett purses her lips to keep from snickering at his attempt at flattery, but he sees it and sends his wife a wink. She shakes her head, calling for Reece to take a nutcracker out of his mouth instead of touching his assertions. Lily's show is in a few days and she's not sure who's more excited, her daughter or her mother-in-law.
"Besides," Kate continues a moment later, helping unwrap the garland from around Lily's neck and putting it down on the couch, "isn't this itchy? Wouldn't you rather have a shawl or a scarf that doesn't make you itchy?"
Rick reaches over, moving it up and out of the way before Jake can take a detour from the Santa and Mrs. Claus pillows and decide he likes Lily's "toy," too. It'll be fine on the table by the window while they take care of the current chaos.
Lily sighs, nodding quickly. "S'a little itchy."
Kate nods, brushing stray needles from the girl's neck and shoulders. "I figured it would be. But it smells nice, doesn't it?"
Their daughter giggles, nodding again.
"Yeah, I think so, too. Now, let's see what we have in the closet for you to pose with tonight." Kate holds out her hand, wiggling her fingers to Lily. "We'll be back, Daddy. Keep an eye on PB and J for a few."
He grins, watching them make their way upstairs to the storage closet where he knows his mother has left some of her older things.
In the end, they have to wait until the kids are in bed to tackle anything that requires a ladder. It's probably for the best, given that Jake and Reece both tried to climb up to "help" on their first two or three attempts, but he kind of misses their chaos as he and Beckett work in quiet tandem.
Then again, there's nobody to interrupt when he strides to meet Kate as she comes down from hanging the last few feet of garland and slips his arms around her waist, drawing her into his body.
Beckett smiles easily, lacing her fingers at the base of his neck. "So, glad we didn't hire anyone this time around?" she asks, thumbing his hairline. He shivers at the touch, making her lips lift a little higher.
"Although it took far longer this way," he says, dipping his head to press his mouth to hers. "It was worth it to see Lily strutting around with the garland on her neck."
His wife laughs into his kiss, nodding. "God, I hope you took more than just that one picture. That was priceless."
"Oh, I did. Come on, this is me – of course I did."
She grins. "Good. Send them to me if you haven't already."
He dusts another kiss to her mouth. "Everything's in the shared folder on the cloud so you should have it. I made sure it got uploaded while you were getting mother's old costume out of storage for her."
Kate nods. "Okay, good."
He nods. "The other reason I'm glad we did it this way?" he says, swaying with her. "The amazing view I had while you were up there."
She snorts, pressing her face into his shirt, inhaling slowly. "You smell like the tree," she murmurs into the flannel. "And ditto, babe."
Rick grins into her hair, plucking a tiny sprig of garland from between the strands. There's likely more, but he doesn't feel inclined to start picking through her hair.
"Come on, let's clean up in here," he murmurs, brushing his lips over her forehead. "We can leave the ornaments and tree decorating until tomorrow when Alexis gets back from her trip. The empty boxes and the ladder can go back to the storage room."
Kate nods, squeezing the back of his neck. "Kay."
"And once we're done," he adds, sliding his thumbs across the small of her back, "I'll pour you a glass of your favorite wine and we can kill the lights and relax on the couch and admire our handiwork."
"That sounds amazing," she says, dusting a kiss to his mouth before slipping from his arms. "Better make the clean-up quick, Rick; I'm ready to see you in the Christmas lights, too."
Thanks for coming along with me on this little 12 days of Christmas-style journey! Chapters will be posted daily. I hope that it brings you all some peace and joy this season. Thank you to Skygirl55 for posing the challenge and for letting me use and tweak her awesome cover art!
Until next chapter.