Finally Done!

Chapter 10: A Death in the Family

On a light blue couch, Tasha sits cross legged with a huge smile on her face. Lux sets down a huge box about eight feet in front of Tasha, so it makes a huge thud on the ground. Lux looks up at her with a sarcastic smile on her face, "Just for the record I am not your moving company?"

"Well you took a box, Kate took a box, Castle took a box, and Red took the box, then all that was left for me to bring up was my pillow and blanket," Tasha says cunningly.

"Her name's Alexis and you were the first person at the trunk," Lux says cocking her head to the side, knowing Tasha all too well.

"Well I see you've made yourself comfortable," Kate says as she and Castle come through the door. Castle seems to be slowly losing his grip on the box he is holding, probably from opening the door without putting it down.

"This couch is so comfortable," Tasha says, leaning her back further in to the couch and spreading her arms along the cushions.

Lux grabs a pillow with a union jack on it, and takes the pillow's place next to Tasha. "Oh my god, that is amazing. It's like sitting on a cloud," Lux says, "I'm jealous."

"Hey!" Castle says as he puts his box on top of Kate's on the counter.

Alexis sits down next to them, box and all, "Yeah, you know Dad I may have to move in here for a couple weeks."

"Over a couch?" Castle asks, skeptically.

"It's pretty nice couch," Lux says stroking the pillow in her arms.

"Hey don't try to persuade her. It's my couch now," Tasha scolds Lux, jokingly.

"No one is persuading anybody of anything," Kate says, now sitting on one of the two chairs across from the couch.

"Exactly," Castle adds.

Kate stops what she's doing, turns to Castle, and gives him a teasing smile, "Oh what's wrong Castle? You feeling a little outnumbered?"

"No," Castle says defensively, and then turns to look at the three girls sitting on the couch. All three of them have a know-it-all, accusatory, look on their face, "Okay, now, a little bit," Castle says turning back to Kate.

All four of them laugh and Kate stands up and taps her hand against Lux's feet which are propped up on the small coffee table, "Okay come on we've gotta go. It's getting late." But then she turns to Tasha, "Oh but Tasha do you want me to show you around a bit or you wanna just figure it out on your own?"

Tasha sits up straight again, "No, I'll figure it out and thank you so much for letting me stay here."

Kate feels so at home at the loft, but here there is something more; warmth of a place that was hers and only hers. Kate smiles, "You like it?"

Tasha coughs; the question catches her off guard for more than one reason, "Are you kidding me?"

"What Tasha meant to say was yes, of course, it is a whole apartment to herself," Lux says.

"What she said," Tasha confirms.

"Okay guys it's time to go. All three of you have school tomorrow."

"I technically don't start school until two and I would really like to enjoy this couch a little longer," Alexis says.

"Technically, you're twenty blocks from home and left your wallet on the kitchen counter," Castle informs her.

"Goodbye Natasha," Alexis says as her and Lux quickly get off the couch.

"Bye Tasha," Lux says.

"Bye guys," Tasha says as she is left to her very own place for the first time in her life.

Three Days Before the Wedding

With only two more Fridays left in the school year the week kind of dragged for Lux. Her grades along with difficult struggles through all of her classes have made her ultimately antsy for the summer. She is so relieved for the little break the weekend has just now started to provide. Granted, the wedding is this weekend so not the most relaxing break. Still it's a wedding so how bad can it be, okay she's never been to one before but she's never heard someone say, 'Gee, you know I can't, today, I had a really rough weekend I had to go to a wedding, so I'm just miserable.' Well at least that's what she thought until she opened the door to the loft and heard the name that she least expected, and honestly had damn near forgot.

"Rogan O'Leary? Well who is this Rogan O'Leary?" Martha asks.

Kate is sitting in a chair, in which Castle is sitting on the arm of, both facing Alexis and Martha. At the click of the door closing, Kate looks up to see Lux standing just a few feet inside the door.

"What about him?" Lux asks before Kate can answer the question. Kate slightly tilts her head to the side, questioning the defensive tone in Lux's voice.

"Wait how do you-" Alexis looks to Lux when she speaks and then turns back to Kate to hear her answer, but when Alexis turns back she makes the realization that everyone else made but only she verbalizes, "oh…"

"What about him?" Lux asks ignoring everyone, her eyes locked on Kate. She hasn't stopped looking at Kate since she walked in the door and the same goes for the other way around.

"I married him," Kate says, scrunching her face.

Lux who has been defensive since she walked in the door suddenly seems to relax. Her shoulders go slack with disbelief, then she is suddenly is hit with a charge of adrenaline. She quickly walks over to where everyone is sitting and almost runs into back of the couch, "You what?!"

"About seventeen years ago," Alexis adds to help catch her up to speed.

"Well, that's nice," Lux says cocking her head to the side. When she sees that no one else seems to feel the same way she does she mumbles, "Well for me at least."

"Yeah but the bad news is she's still married to him," Castle adds.

"Oh…" Lux sighs.

"And you guys are getting married in three days," Alexis says somewhere between a question and a statement.

"Yeah," Kate says with a glass half empty type of tone.

Now that everyone is caught up, Martha asks, "So, what're you going to do?"

"Well we talked to my lawyer, Henry, and he said he can fast track a dissolution of marriage contract…when it's signed by Beckett," he says putting his hand on her shoulder, not for comfort but instead still playing it up, "and Mr. O'Leary."

Lux sits down next to Alexis on the couch and lets out a bit of a laugh, "Have fun with that." They all look at Lux in a somewhat scolding manner. "I've tried," She says defending herself and reminding them that four months earlier she was in the same spot, but when they only relax a bit she gets the idea that that wasn't why they looked at her so confused.

Kate looks up at Castle, "Can you guys give me and Lux a minute?"

"Sure," Castle says and everyone but Kate and Lux leave the living room. Martha goes upstairs and Alexis and Castle both walk over to the kitchen.

Lux seems a bit confused about what it was that she said was wrong. Kate walks over just a couple of feet, to stand in front of Lux. She crouches down so she can look up into her face. "Lux, I was kind of thinking that maybe… you would want to go with."

"Not really," Lux says in a very snarky tone.

Kate squints unsure of what to make of Lux at the moment. Normally she can look at her face or hear the tone in her voice and think of what make her own face look like that or her own voice sound like that and decipher what she is feeling, but for some reason in this moment she can't figure it out. "Are you sure?"

"Positive," she says more confident this time. She looks Kate straight in the eyes and for a split second thinks about jumping off the side of the couch and going straight from the couch to the stairs, but she can see Kate is trying to consider her feelings. "Thanks, but I'm good here, plus I don't know if I can handle another Castle."

"He's nothing like Castle," Kate says, almost under her breath.

Lux forces a crooked smile, "That's too bad. Now I really don't want to go."

Kate smiles in return, even though she can tell Lux is almost forcing herself to make nice, especially when she realizes that what Lux just said was a compliment to Castle. "Okay, as long as you're sure."

"I am… but thanks for checking," She slides off the side of the couch and walks across the room to the stairs.

Two Days Before the Wedding

Castle slowly closes the door to Alexis' room. He had just finished telling her that he's going to leave to help Beckett track down Rogan and half jokingly and half truthfully telling her that she's in charge.

When he goes to walk down the stairs he finds Lux sitting on them, texting Tasha. Castle lightly taps her shoulder as he steps down the first step. She startles quite violently, pressing her body against the railings. She looks up at him her eyes wide; in a way that makes him think he scared the living daylights out of her. "Oh, I didn't mean to scare you," he apologizes.

She scoffs and forces herself to relax, "No, I'm fine." It is not a rare occurrence for her to remind him of Beckett, but her defensive attitude to showing her vulnerable side is something he never gets used to. It is possibly because of he has been burned by that very trait before. Lux asks, "Did you need something?"

"Just checking on you, making sure everything's okay."

"Yeah, no, I'm fine," Lux says, still trying to shake off some of her nerves.

Castle scrunches his eyebrows, "Yeah, no you're fine?"

"Figure of speech," she reassures him.

"Okay," he says not really convinced, but he can see he may have hit a nerve. "I just was coming to tell you that…I'm going to go help Beckett with- you know."

"Rogan?"

"Yes."

"His name isn't going to kill me."

"Well- Beckett told me you didn't seem so excited, when she asked you if you wanted to go with her."

"I didn't- I don't, but it's okay to say his name," she says in a condescending tone.

He gives her a second to settle, hoping that everything that comes out of her mouth will stop coming out with a bite. He really doesn't know how he always seems to be irritating her. "Lux, are we okay?"

She looks at him as if he just made a joke, "Excuse me?"

"You don't," he rolls his eyes when he says the next part, "hate me?"

Lux smiles for a second before realizing he really believes that, "No. No… I mean the changing school thing kinda sucked, but no, I don't hate you."

"I wanted to make sure that you were okay with me adopting you with Kate."

"You what?!" Castle frowns unsure of what she's responding to and he can't really tell if she's angry or not. Lux laughs in a way that comes out as more of a scoff.

Castle starts back peddling, "So you're not okay with that, because that's okay."

"No, I," she lets out another huff, "I didn't know Kate was going to adopt me."

When Castle was making a list about who knew Beckett would want to adopt Lux somehow he had missed what Lux probably thought and he felt a bit of guilt for it. He gets stuck for a second thinking about how Lux must have been feeling like the last four months, but then another thought comes to mind, "Oh god," he puts his face in his hand, "She's going to kill me."

Lux laughs with the most joyful smirk on her face, "Yeah she is."

The Day Before the Wedding

Martha had gone to the Hampton house to help set up, so Lanie has come over to the loft to check-up on the girls, upon Beckett's request, also to make sure Alexis wasn't drowning in all the wedding stuff.

Alexis had made them pasta for dinner. She ate standing up at the kitchen counter and across from her Lanie and Lux sat on the bar stools. When they are done eating Alexis takes their plates and puts them in the sink.

"Thank you for dinner, Alexis," Lanie says.

"No problem. We had to eat something," Alexis smiles at Lux who holds back a laugh because just five hours ago they were debating on eating another frozen pizza or left over Chinese food… again.

Someone knocks on the door and Alexis ask Lux, "Did you invite Tasha?"

Lanie answers before Lux can say no, "Oh, I hope you don't mind but I invited Beckett's dad over to drop off the dress."

"Of course not," Alexis says.

"Shouldn't someone let him in," Lux says pointing at the door.

Alexis walks over and opens the door to welcome Jim, who has the dress in a garment bag draped over one of his arms. "I heard you guys needed a dress."

"Yes, we do," Lanie says, getting up to take it from him and put it on the back of the couch.

"I made pasta, if you want any," Alexis offers.

"No, I already ate, thank you."

Lux, who has obviously been just watching the scene play out, inserts, "Is that Kate's mom's?"

"Johanna. Yes," Jim says. Lux makes a mental note of her name and she doesn't see much pain in Jim's face but something makes her feel bad for asking.

"I can't wait to see Beckett in it," Alexis says.

The Day of the Wedding

Now, the world is frozen…

About seventy minutes after the wedding was supposed to start, Lux still hadn't put on her heels. Alexis had picked them out and she hadn't particularly liked them, so she wasn't going to put them on until the very last minute. She was in one of the Hampton house's bedrooms, leaning against a loveseat and rubbing her socks against the hardwood floors. She was a room over from the room that had been deemed the dressing room, one room over from where Lanie, Martha, Alexis, and Kate were. She knew Alexis would find her when they needed her to have her shoes on and to be ready to go. She heard someone rush down the hall, but she looked up to late to see who it was. She wrinkled her face in confusion, and then went back to drawing eights with the tip of her toes. It didn't worry her too much because people had been running, skipping, walking, and pacing down the hall all day. She heard some more footsteps walk past the door at a hurried pace but didn't look up, until she heard Alexis, "Wait where's Lux?"

So she stood up and walked over to poke her head outside of the door. She was surprised when she realized that Alexis and Martha were on the other side of the door then she expected. "Here," she said, limply raising her hand as she leaned against the doorframe.

"Come on, we have to go," Alexis said her breath running out after every other word. Lux had seen a lot of anxiety driven emotions on Alexis' face, especially in the last week, but that face was a new level of panic. She straightened and went to ask 'what's wrong?' but Alexis snapped, "Come on!" She quickly turned around, ran into the room, grabbed her gray Converse off the floor and ran out the door…

Now, twenty-seven minutes later, Lux watches the water leaking from the hose and trickling in a little river towards her feet. She can feel the water slowly creeping into her socks. She can't stop thinking about how when she walks her shoes are going to make the most awful squeaking noise and how the fabric will rub painfully against her heels. She hasn't moved in at least ten minutes, so it shouldn't really be that high on her list of priorities, still she can't stop thinking about it. When they got there she stopped about seven feet slightly downhill from where Alexis and Martha are now standing, next to Lanie, Ryan, and Espo. She had stopped to take in the scene and just didn't pick up again, because she hasn't really figured out what's going on, but Alexis did ask in the car if Beckett had said how bad the accident was. She starts spinning around, suddenly hearing all the noises surrounding her, all the voices, all the sirens. She spins adjusting to the magnitude of the scene and looking for Kate.

She feels a slight tug on her shoulder stopping her from spinning; she turns around to face Lanie. Lanie puts her hands on both of her shoulders. When Lanie gets a better look at her face she lowers her head a bit. "Lux, you okay?"

Lux points over Lanie's arm and Lanie looks to see what she is pointing at, keeping her hands gently on Lux's shoulders, but there is nothing of significance for her to be looking at. She turns back to her, but Lux doesn't do the same thing. Lux starts, "Yeah! Oh…" She puts her hand on her head. "Maybe, um… no, uh… where's Kate?"

That's when she hears Kate say something, from somewhere, she's not sure what or where from, but she hears her and in a sickening matter the world starts spinning again.