December 19 - Fireplace
Lily sighs.
Castle tilts his head, watching his youngest daughter's shoulders dip. "What's wrong, Sprout?"
She looks up, eyeing him and then the stockings they're in the process of hanging while the twins nap. Five for them, plus one for Alexis, one for Gram, one for Grandpa, and one for the puppy Lily has not-so-subtly been petitioning for (the stocking being the newest stage of her campaign).
She shakes her head in refusal, looking down at the stocking and back up at the gas fireplace.
"Daddy. Dere's no chimney here. S'just a firepwace! How's Santa gonna come in?"
"Ah," he hedges, wishing Kate were home to field this one instead of out doing her Christmas shopping for him and the kids. After all, she had been the one to tell him that her own realizations about Santa had come from the Beckett home's lack of a chimney. If anyone would know the best way to spin it to counter all the potential arguments, she would.
He wracks his brain trying to remember if this question had ever come up with Alexis. She'd been content for a long while to accept the possibility that jolly old Saint Nick was just magic, able to work miracles for all the children, regardless of the layout of their homes, and then he knows she had humored him for a while longer after that, not wanting to ruin the spirit of it by telling him she knew.
"Well," he tries again, "remember that Santa is magic. He can make a way into a house even if it doesn't have a chimney."
Castle winces; that sounds positively terrifying. Surely there's a better way to maintain the joy of Christmas for his daughter than to imply that Santa's great at magically breaking and entering.
Lily considers his words with a skepticism that would make Kate proud, tilting her head. "Dere's a chimney at my other house?"
He blinks. "At your other house? In the Hamptons?"
She nods, dropping the stocking on top of the pile and spinning to face him. "Daddy, we gotta do dere! An' Santa can find us, wight?"
Rick reaches out, cupping her cheek. "Santa can find us anywhere, baby. He can find us at our house in the Hamptons, but he'll find us here just as easily."
Lily takes a deep breath, looking at him with a seriousness she rarely displays. "But dere's no chimney! We needta haf a chimney an' a firepwace!"
Holding up his hands, he tries for a truce instead of continuing the back and forth with her. She is her mother's daughter, after all; she could argue with him for hours without losing steam if he lets her. Jim says that Kate had been the same way at Lily's age, and he and Johanna had been beside themselves trying to convince her otherwise; karmic turnabout is obviously fair play.
"You know Mommy and I happen to have a special line to Santa, right?" he asks, watching her eyes widen. He nods in confirmation. "Why don't you let me make a call or two and ask the big guy himself what he thinks? After all, who knows better than Santa himself, right?"
She stares him down, trying to gauge his seriousness, his honesty.
"S'twue," she says slowly, dragging the single word out.
Rick nods in encouragement, glad to be getting somewhere.
"You ca' talk to him?"
He nods again, kneeling in front of her. "It's an 'in case of emergencies' number, but I think making sure you know he'll make it to us is a pretty big deal. Don't you think?"
Lily bites her lip, looking around the room, studying the fireplace where they're hanging – or trying to hang – their brood's stockings, studying the stockings themselves, and finally studying his face to assess his commitment to her cause.
"Ya."
"Yeah," he agrees, slipping his hands under her armpits and
getting to his feet (and he'll just pretend his knees didn't crack like that). "Okay, that's what I'll do."
Lily flings her arms around his neck, squeezing to the point where he's sure his eyes are bulging out of his head a little bit. "Fank you, Daddy. M'so rewieved."
Rick rubs her back, returning the hug (albeit with far less choking). The pressure soothes her even more. "I'm glad, baby. I'm glad. Now, I think we need to finish hanging our stocking so we can get you ready for your show tonight."
"Okay, what's going on?" Kate asks later that night, after surviving Lily's early evening show and getting the kids to sleep (though that had taken about ten stories, three attempts at tucking them in, and another hour longer than normal), and once they've availed themselves of a glass of eggnog or two. She shifts onto her side, reaching out to rub his arm. "Lily stared at the fireplace most of the night after we got home and kept talking about the Hamptons house and chimneys."
Rick tilts his head, curling his fingers over Beckett's. "Oh, I didn't get to tell you. Our little chip off the old block realized this year that we don't have a chimney, just a plain old fireplace in the wall…" he says, making sure he has Kate's eyes as he trails off.
"Oh. Oh no."
"Oh yes," he says. His lips lift. "Now, she isn't nearly as much of a skeptic as her mother, because instead of jumping to the Beckett!Conclusion, as I'm going to call it, she convinced herself that we needed to go to the Hamptons house because there is a chimney at that house, and the big guy will have no problem finding us there."
Kate laughs, pushing at his shoulder. "The Beckett!Conclusion?"
He squirms a little in self-satisfaction, pulling her closer. "It's a good name for it. Anyway, I think I managed to convince her that we didn't need to go out to the house-"
"Which is good because the house isn't set up for Christmas, and I have no desire to haul three kids, presents, the food we've already started buying for Christmas dinner, and decorations to the Hamptons house and do everything we've done here over almost a month in just a few days."
Rick concedes that point. He'd only harbored the idea briefly, without any actual intention of suggesting it to Kate.
"Me either. If we want to talk about spending Christmas at the beach, we can talk about it for next year, but not this one."
Her lips lift, brushing his in agreement. "Deal. So how did you manage to sort of convince my protégé that it would all be fine?"
His fingers slip over Kate's knuckles. "I told her we have a direct line to Santa–"
"Oooh, making us sound so important."
He grins. "I know, right? I told her we could only use it in emergencies but making sure he knows how to find us even if we don't have a chimney felt like a big enough reason to use it."
"Good call," she praises, resting her cheek on his shoulder.
"Yeah, I thought so. I did have another thought, if you're game."
Kate lifts her head, lifting a brow in curiosity. It's invitation enough for him to continue,
"Remember our case with the Santa school? What would you say about hiring one of them for an afternoon – maybe having them meet us in the park – for Lily and the boys, and any other kids who might be around to ask some of their burning questions?"
His wife considers him, her eyes growing soft. "I think that's a really great thing to do," she says, touching her mouth to his. "You're a good man, Rick Castle, and an even better dad."
I hope you're all having a safe, warm, happy weekend so far. Thank you for reading!