Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

A/N A two-part story in which Eliot finds a way to use his mental agility in his favorite sport.

Oh, boy, I am in big, big trouble. Gigantic, humongous trouble. Trouble with a capital T, which is what Gram says. I am writing this in my head while I am waiting for Mom to get home.

Mom is always telling me not to play ball inside, but I like to bounce one against the wall in my room. I do it different ways and try to figure out exactly which way it will go. In physics class I learned about the angle of incidence equaling the angle of reflection, so I should always be able to catch the ball, but I'm not always fast enough to be in the right spot. It drives me crazy. My mind knows where the ball will go but the rest of me doesn't catch up. Mom and Dad say I shouldn't be upset because I am still only six years old and my body doesn't work as fast as my mind yet.

This is why I'm in trouble. After school today I was throwing the ball while our baby sitter Sarah was doing something downstairs with the hellions. The twins turned five last month, but they're still hellions. I'm not kidding. They need to be supervised A LOT. Anyway, while Sarah was downstairs with Otis and Abby, I did something really dopey, which was to throw the ball as hard and fast as I could at the corner of the wall and I didn't hit the right spot. You know what? After it hit the opposite wall, it ricocheted off the bookcase and it came towards me about a million miles an hour. That's an exaggeration. I like to exaggerate sometimes. Gram says "it's good for dramatic effect, kiddo." So it wasn't really a million miles an hour, but it felt like it when the ball hit me in the face.

The first thing that happened was that Scrapple ran after the ball. The second thing was that I screamed bloody murder. That's not really exaggerating because even though there wasn't a murder there was blood all over the place. There was blood coming out of my nose and blood coming out of my mouth. It was running on to my shirt and I was trying to get it to stop, so I grabbed the first thing I saw, which was my comforter, and held it on my face. Mom will kill me for getting blood all over it because it was her mother's when she was a little girl, so it is "very old and very precious, and you must promise to take extra-special care of it, Eliot." That's what she told me. She won't really kill me but she will be disappointed in me, which is a lot worse, I have to tell you.

I could hear Sarah running up the stairs and calling my name. She ran into my room and held me tight while she got her phone out of her pocket and called Dad. I couldn't hear what he said, but Sarah told me he was only a couple of blocks away and was coming right home. She picked me up and carried me downstairs and when Abby saw me she started yelling.

"Eliot's bleeding! Eliot's bleeding!"

Otis was excited, "Ooh, look at the blood! Is he going to die?" And that made Abby cry.

So now two of us were crying and Scrapple was trying to jump up and lick me.

"Are you all right, Eliot? Do you have to go to the hospital?"

"I don't know, Scrapple, but it really hurts. I want Dad."

Sarah grabbed ice cubes from the freezer with one hand and put a dishtowel around them and told the twins to stay where they were and be good while she took me to Mom and Dad's bathroom.

"I'm going to try to wash your face, sweetheart, and put ice on it. Don't try to talk, just nod or shake you head when I ask you this. I think you must have been playing ball and it hit you, am I right?"

I nodded yes.

When she took the comforter off my face she looked like she was going to faint on the floor where Scrapple was standing. "Oh, my God, Eliot," she said. "You knocked out your front teeth."

"Don't worry, Eliot. You'll get new ones, like those two you got on the bottom. And the tooth fairy will bring you money."

Just then I heard the front door open and the twins telling Dad where Sarah and I were and he ran in there so fast that he skidded on the floor. He hugged me and then looked at me while Sarah told him what happened. He asked her to stay with the twins and he picked me up to take me to the emergency room at the hospital. Eduardo our doorman got us a taxi and while we were riding in it Dad was holding me on his lap and calling Mom at the same time but she wasn't answering. I could tell that he was really upset because he was swearing which he never does in front of us kids.

"Beckett. Call me back right away. It's urgent. Please."

When we got to the hospital Dad ran the whole way to a booth where a lady asked him what was wrong. Because of all the blood we got to see the doctors right away. I couldn't feel my face very much because of the ice plus later they gave me medicine so that I wouldn't have too much pain there. Dad held me while they looked at me. They had to X-ray me to make sure that my nose wasn't broken or that I hadn't hurt anything too much in my mouth. I also had to have some stitches in my lip and Dad held on to me while they did that, too. Doctor Lowe told me I would have two black eyes from the ball hitting me on the nose.

"You know that when the ball hit you, it knocked out your two top front teeth, Eliot."

"My maxillary central incisors?"

The doctor looked surprised when I asked that and Dad said, "Eliot reads a lot. A great deal, actually."

"Oh. Well, yes, the ball knocked out your maxillary central incisors, but there was no long-term damage and what we call your permanent or adult teeth will come in soon."

"I already lost my mandibular central incisors, but they pretty much came out all by themselves. I wiggled them a lot before. When the second one came out we were on vacation in a hotel but the tooth fairy knew where I was and put money under my pillow. I tried to stay awake to see her and say I but I couldn't. The two new ones are already coming in. You probably saw that when you looked in the bottom of my mouth."

"Yes, I did. They look very healthy and I'm glad they didn't get hurt."

"They didn't sustain an injury, right? I like that expression. It's in a book I have."

"Right." Doctor Lowe smiled and looked at Dad. "That's quite the reader you have there, Mister Castle."

"You have no idea," Dad said, which is something he and Mom say a lot to each other. For their wedding anniversary this summer I am going to get them matching tee shirts that say YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I'm saving up my allowance and my tooth fairy money.

We got to go home after that. Dad had talked to Sarah before so she knew what was going on. He had to turn off his phone for a while in the hospital so he asked Sarah to talk to Mom and she did. We were just getting into a cab when Mom called and said she was on the way back from Albany and would be there in two hours.

Even though I am going on seven I sat in his lap for the ride home, and he gave me a squeeze. "Mom and I are so relieved that you're going to be okay, Eliot. But she's pretty mad, too, because she's told you so many times not to play ball in the house, hasn't she?"

"Yeah."

"You could have been really badly injured, you know."

"Yeah."

"Well, tell you what. I'll let Mom talk to you, and you work this out between you."

"You mean I'm going to be punished?"

"I think you pretty much got your punishment by having those stitches and by being hurt and scared, but Mom wants to have a talk with you because she's warned you a lot about playing ball in the house."

"She's gonna talk about percussion."

"Percussion?"

"Things that you do, especially ones you're not supposed to do, can have a percussion, and that's not good. Sometimes they are serious."

"Oh, repercussions. Right. Yes, I'm pretty sure there will be some repercussions."

"You're the good cop, Dad."

"What?"

"Today you're the good cop and Mom is the bad cop."

"Where did you hear about good cops and bad cops? And by the way, buddy, as far as you're concerned, Mom is never, ever a bad cop."

"Uncle Javi explained it to me."

"Well, Uncle Javi doesn't know absolutely everything about it." Dad looked out the window. "We're almost home. You feeling okay?"

"Yeah, Dad."

When we got inside Otis wanted to see my stitches and said they were gross and Abby kept telling my nose looked big. "So would yours if I threw a ball at it," Otis said.

Dad and I took a shower together downstairs because he got a lot of my blood on him. Then he got dressed and took me upstairs and told me to put on my pj's since it was late and Sarah had already made supper for the twins and was putting them to bed. I couldn't eat very much because my mouth was so swollen but Dad said that he and Mom and I would have soup as soon as she got home from Albany.

I sat on a stool while Dad made the soup. "Did Sarah find my teeth?"

"I didn't ask her, Eliot. I think she had a lot more on her mind. She might have when she was cleaning up your bedroom floor."

"Can I go look for them?"

He held up the big spoon he was using on the soup. "Why?"

"Because I want to leave them for the tooth fairy."

Then he put the spoon down and put his hands on the counter and looked very serious. "I'm not sure that the tooth fairy will come for these teeth."

"How come? I lost them."

"You lost them because you were doing something you know you're not supposed to do, and Mom has told you not to do."

"So if the tooth fairy doesn't come that would be a repercussion because of what I did."

"Mmhmm."

"You mean the tooth fairy is like Santa? And she knows if I've been bad?"

"Yes, she does."

"So she might not bring me any money tonight?"

"She might not."

And then two things happened at the exact same time. I started to cry and Mom opened the door.

TBC