Infinite "thank you"s to everyone reading, reviewing, and following. The holiday weekend continues in the Hamptons.


Saturday was the perfect pool and beach day, and that's how everyone spent the majority of the day. Everyone was out by the pool or on the beach except Kate and Rick, who were still in their bedroom.

Rick was sitting on the edge of the bed in his swim trunks and flip-flops, his head bowed as he looked down and brushed the tip of his index finger over his scars over and over again. He looked up when he heard Kate exit the bathroom, and his breath caught.

She stopped a few feet away from him and bit her bottom lip. "So?" she asked.

"Wow," Rick breathed. The navy blue nylon and spandex one-piece swimsuit hugged Kate's body in all the right places (and more importantly to her, covered all of her scars), the thick shoulder straps ensured the suit wouldn't slip (which Rick inwardly cursed for a second before remembering all their family and friends were there and they still wouldn't be cleared to launch Operation BBC for another two weeks), and she looked amazing.

Kate smiled, one of her sun-breaking-through-the-clouds smiles. "Thank you," she said.

"You'll be the hottest one out there," Rick said.

"You do know that group includes your daughter and your mother," she reminded him.

"They're not hot," Rick said. At Kate's amused look, he said, "You know what I mean."

"Yes, but sometimes you're so easy," she replied.

"In another two weeks, I'll show you just how easy I can be," he said.

"Maybe we can come back up here, just us, in another two weeks," Kate mused. "Only no dead body floating in the pool this time." She sat down next to him. "I still have that black thing I wore the first time we came up here."

Rick groaned low in his throat. "Two more weeks," he said.

"We'll get there," she said. She leaned closer to him. "We'll both have to be peeled off the ceiling after the first time..."

"Ooh! Can I buy us anti-gravity boots?" he asked eagerly.

"No," Kate said, resting her chin on his shoulder.

"But that would make it so much easier," he countered.

"It would make me feel like a bat," Kate replied. He was still absently fingering his scars. The sounds of everyone else down at the pool and on the beach filtered up to them.

"I'm kind of stalling," he confessed.

"I know," she said. His hand stilled on the scar on his pectoral muscle. Kate covered Rick's hand with hers, her chin still resting on his bare shoulder. "It's going to be okay," she whispered, her breath warm and softly tickling his cheek.

They sat there silently for a long moment, Rick's hand covering Kate's hand on his chest, her chin still resting lightly on his shoulder. "Come on. You don't want to keep your man crush Alan waiting."

"Bromance," Rick contradicted. "It's an entirely different thing."

Kate stood up, holding her hand out to Rick. "You can do this, babe. I'll be right beside you."

Rick slid his hand into Kate's and got to his feet. He smiled nervously, and she smiled back at him encouragingly. Then they went outside hand-in-hand.

Alexis was sitting poolside with Martha and Jim, and the three of them had charge of Nick. Ryan and Jenny were in the shallow end of the pool with Sarah Grace, who wore floaties with her little pink bathing suit. Esposito was in the deep end by himself, since Lanie and Alan were out on the beach. Everyone at the pool looked up when Kate and Rick approached. Four pairs of eyes (Ryan and Jenny were focused on Sarah Grace) flew to Kate and Rick, and those same four pairs of eyes got their first look at the scars on Rick's chest.

Alexis and Martha couldn't completely hide their reactions, and Rick hated himself for the flash of fear he saw in their eyes, knowing the memories it brought back for both of them, especially for Alexis, who had been among those who had found him and Kate wounded in the kitchen.

But then he saw something he wasn't expecting in the eyes of both his daughter and his mother: joy. Pure, unadulterated joy shone in Alexis's and Martha's eyes, and Rick realized that they were looking at his scars the same way Kate did, and the same way he did when he wasn't feeling self-conscious about them: that those scars were worth celebrating, because they were proof that he had survived what Caleb Brown had tried to do to him.

Jim was busy watching Kate, who only had eyes for Rick. She had started off tense, but when she realized no one was going to make any upset, or upsetting, comments about Rick's scars, the tension in the set of her shoulders eased considerably. Jim let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding when he saw that Kate had relaxed.

Esposito swam over to the side of the pool and hoisted himself out. On his way to the cooler parked nearby, filled with all manner of drinks both soft and hard, he passed by Castle and Beckett and said so only they could hear, "Cool scars, Castle. Proof that the bastards didn't win." He didn't even break stride as he said it, and Rick felt the knot in his stomach disappear.

Ryan looked up after making sure Jenny had a tight hold on Sarah Grace (Nick was in his infant carrier parked between Martha and Alexis in their chairs, a tiny Yankees cap perched on his head to shade his eyes from the sun), and when he noticed Beckett and Castle standing there he said, "All right! Beckett and Castle are here! It's volleyball time!"

Alan and Lanie came up then, wet from the ocean, where Alan had been attempting to teach Lanie to boogie board, unsuccessfully.

"What is it with you and volleyball, Ryan?" Beckett asked then. "You really want to play."

Ryan and Jenny shared a look then, which immediately made Beckett, Castle, and Esposito suspicious. "Something's up," Esposito said.

"I just like volleyball, that's all," Ryan said innocently. Too innocently for Beckett, Castle, and Esposito's liking. "Castle, do you have a net? If you don't, we brought one. Since it's so hot, I thought we could play in the pool. What does everybody say?"

"Yeah, we have one. It's in the garage," Castle replied.

"We'll go and get it," Beckett added.

"We'll choose up teams while you're gone," Ryan said eagerly.

In the garage, Kate said, "They're up to something. Or at least, Ryan is. I'm pretty sure Jenny's in on it, though."

"Definitely. Did you see that look they exchanged?" Rick asked.

"At least one of them must be one hell of a volleyball player," Kate said.

"Volleyball is traditionally a girls' sport," Rick said. He unearthed the volleyball net, and Kate helped him untangle it.

"That's why Ryan looked at Jenny," Kate said. "She must be some kind of volleyball shark."

"That has to be it!" Rick exclaimed.

After sunscreening up, Kate and Rick returned to the pool with the volleyball net to find that Jim and Martha had been drafted as referees/baby-sitters for Sarah Grace and Nick. That left Ryan and Jenny; Lanie and Alan; Esposito; Alexis; and Kate and Rick to play volleyball in the pool.

"So how are we doing this?" Lanie asked. "Couples, women against the men, what?"

"Couples!" Ryan exclaimed. "Definitely couples!"

Now it was Kate and Rick who exchanged a look. "Okay, Ryan. You and Jenny can be co-captains of one team, and Rick and I will be co-captains of the other team," Kate said.

"But we don't have an even number of couples," Rick said.

"Alexis and Javi will have to play on the same team to make it even, then," Kate said.

"We've got Javi and Alexis!" Ryan exclaimed.

"We wanted Alexis and Esposito!" Castle exclaimed.

"You can have them next game," Ryan retorted.

Alexis met Javier's gaze, since he was already looking at her. "Do we get a say here?" she asked him.

"Doesn't look like it," he replied.

Castle and Ryan were still bickering over which of them should get Alexis and Esposito on their team first.

"She's my daughter!" Castle exclaimed.

"He's my best friend!" Ryan retorted.

"What are we, chopped liver?" Lanie interjected then, gesturing between Alan and herself.

"Okay," Kate said in her best Detective Beckett voice, "here's what is going to happen. Rick, you and Alan are going to put up the volleyball net. Dad and Martha are going to referee and watch Sarah Grace and Nick. Ryan, since you called it first, you and Jenny get Alexis and Javi on your team for the first game. Lanie, Alan, you're with Rick and me. First team to ten points wins, then we'll play a second game, and for the second game, Alexis and Javi will play with Rick and me, and Lanie and Alan will play with Ryan and Jenny. Agreed?"

A chorus of affirmative answers followed Kate's orders.

"She's impressive, and a little bit scary," Alan said to Lanie before he went to help Rick put up the volleyball net.

"Honey, you don't know the half of it yet," Lanie told him.

Before another argument could break out over which side could go first, Jim Beckett, at just one look from his daughter, pulled a quarter out of the pocket of his khakis and said, "All right, Rick, call it in the air," and he flipped the coin.

"Heads!" Rick exclaimed.

Jim caught the quarter as it came down, slapped it on the back of his hand, then removed his other hand. "Heads it is," he said. "Team Beckett-Castle chooses whether to serve or receive."

Ryan was muttering "Receive, receive, come on, receive."

Alexis and Javier were behind Ryan and Jenny in the pool, and Alexis asked Javier, "He is seriously into this game, and it hasn't even started yet."

"He's not even this competitive at Halo," Javier mused.

Then he took a good look at Jenny, standing in the pool, unconsciously flexing and unflexing her fingers. "I think I know what's going on," he said to Alexis in an undertone, "and I think we're about to skunk your dad and Beckett and Lanie and Alan."

Sure enough, after Kate served the volleyball, Jenny went airborne and spiked it back across the net so hard and fast that it landed in the water before anyone could react, sending up a geyser of water that splashed the surprised Kate and Rick both in the face, and even managed to splatter Lanie's and Alan's chests. "YES!" Ryan exclaimed. "In your FACES! One-zip!"

"What was that?" Castle asked, wiping water from his eyes.

Ryan couldn't stop smirking. Jenny looked half triumphant and half apologetic. "Kevin never told you guys that I went to college on a volleyball scholarship?"

Everyone else in the pool exchanged looks. "No, he didn't," Javier said.

"You have a ringer! That's totally not fair!" Castle yelped.

"Oh, come on, Castle, it's a nice, friendly game of volleyball," Ryan said.

"That you're gonna win because your wife is the NCAA champion from...from..."

"SUNY New Paltz," Jenny supplied. "And the team never actually won any titles while I was there."

"What about you?" Castle asked.

"I was an All-American all four years, and All-Regional three years," Jenny admitted.

"So you'll win the next game, Castle," Ryan said.

"Oh, it is on," Castle said. "We'll win this one or go down spiking!"

What followed was a no-holds-barred volleyball battle royale. Castle and Ryan went for the ball at the same time when it landed directly on top of the net, each man trying to push it onto the other's side (which Jenny would later inform them was a joust). Jenny, Alexis, and Esposito were cheering Ryan on, while Kate, Lanie, and Alan were cheering Castle on.

Finally Ryan shoved at the ball hard enough to send it spiraling over the net.

To no one's surprise, Team Ryan/Esposito/Alexis got to ten points first, winning the game.

Everyone dragged themselves out of the pool to get drinks, touch up sunscreen, and take a short break so Ryan and Jenny could tend to their kids, since Nick needed a diaper change and it was Sarah Grace's naptime, before playing the second game.

Esposito, Alexis, Lanie, and Alan fought gamely against Team Ryan/Beckett/Castle, but led by Jenny and Ryan, who was no slouch as a volleyball player himself, although the game was hotly contested, and Jim and Martha were pressed into service as referees on a couple of close calls, even though neither of them knew very much about volleyball, the final score of the second game was 10-8, with Ryan, Jenny, Beckett and Castle the winners.

After the second game, it was late afternoon, and everyone decided to call it a day in terms of the pool and the beach.

"How would you all like to go out to dinner?" Castle asked. "Seriously, there's a great restaurant here I'd like to take you all to."

"The Lobster Roll?" Alexis asked eagerly.

"Yes," Rick replied.

"That sounds great to me," Kate said. "Really, guys, the lobster rolls and the clam chowder...You won't have any better anywhere in the world."

"The kids," Jenny said uncertainly.

Alexis smiled at her. "It's a very kid-friendly place. Dad's been taking me there since I needed a booster seat," she assured Jenny.

"I could go for some good seafood," Lanie said.

"Are you sure you'll be able to get a reservation on such short notice?" Alan asked.

"Not a problem," Rick assured him.

"Can I go through you to get my Comic-Con tickets from now on?" Alan asked, and he wasn't joking.

Rick slung an arm around Alan's shoulders. "Alan, we're going to Comic-Con together," he said. Then he looked at Kate and Lanie, who were watching them with amusement. "Accompanied by my lovely wife and your lovely girlfriend, of course."

"I'm not dressing up!" Lanie said. She looked at Kate. "Back me up here, Kate."

"Hey, you started all this," Kate said.

Lanie looked at Alan then. "I mean it, Alan. I am not dressing up like some space cowgirl or alien or Princess Leia. You do what you want."

Alan's eyes lit up. "Really?" he said eagerly.

Kate burst out laughing. "Now you've done it, Lanie," she said through her laughter.

"I'm gonna get dragged through Comic-Con by my boyfriend the three-headed alien, aren't I?" she asked Kate.

"I don't know Alan's tastes in sci-fi, I just know Rick's," Kate said. "I don't know of any three-headed aliens, but Alan obviously has something in mind."

"Do they have wine at Comic-Con?" Lanie asked.

"You love the guy," Kate said.

Lanie looked at Alan, in an animated conversation with Castle about Comic-Con. "Yeah, I do," she said with a soft smile on her face.

Castle broke away from his conversation with Alan to talk to Ryan and Jenny. "Okay, I'm guessing we want an early reservation because of the kids, right?" he said.

"That would be best, yes," Jenny said.

"6:30 okay if they have something?" he asked.

"That'll work," Ryan said. He paused, then said, "You're not really mad about the volleyball thing, are you, Castle?"

"No," Castle assured him. "But don't expect any mercy the next time we play Halo."

"When do you and Javi ever show me mercy when we play Halo?" Ryan asked rhetorically.

"That's true," Esposito piped up.

Everyone headed inside talking and laughing among themselves to get ready for dinner then.


The Lobster Roll is a real restaurant in the Hamptons. No, I have never been there, but it's got a great menu and is very kid-friendly, according to Foursquare.