Thank you all for your continued support and enthusiasm for this story. Here is the next chapter.
Rick's first Father's Day with two daughters was fairly low-key, all things considered. Their extended family all had their own plans—Lanie and Alan were seeing both sets of parents, and updating them on how their wedding plans were coming along; the Ryans were going to both sets of grandparents plus Jenny had hinted around about a surprise for Kevin; Victoria and Gerald Gates were spending the day with her family, which would mean a lot of shop talk among all the current and former police officers in Victoria's family; and Javier was working, along with Detective Ann Hastings Whittaker, closing in on their latest homicide victim's killer—so it would just be Rick, Kate, Alexis, Lily, Jim, and Martha.
Kate's original idea to serve Rick breakfast in bed was ruined when he got up with Lily when she awoke for the day shortly before 5 AM. "It's Father's Day. You should have been able to sleep in today," Kate said when she woke up half an hour later and found Rick playing with Lily in the living room. "Alexis and I were going to make you breakfast in bed." Sunday brunch was canceled for the day, in favor of a picnic lunch in Central Park with Jim and Martha, capped off by a visit to the Central Park Zoo, which would be Lily's first, and the first time any of the others had been there in years.
"Father's Day is the official day you celebrate being a father," he replied. "I'm perfectly happy doing what I'm doing right now, and the only breakfast I would want in bed is..." He trailed off, covering Lily's ears with his hands as she sat in her carrier looking up at her, and then he loudly stage-whispered, "you." Clearing his throat, removing his hands from Lily's ears, and lifting her high into the air until she gurgled and screeched at him, he continued, "And since that wasn't an option this morning, I decided to let you sleep, and get a jump on celebrating Father's Day with Lily."
Rick and Lily both looked so happy that Kate couldn't argue with his logic. "Well, Happy Father's Day," Kate said. She was kissing Rick, Lily still held aloft above them, when Alexis made her way downstairs, and seeing them all on the couch, stopped short.
"Dad! We were gonna make you breakfast in bed," Alexis said, dismayed.
"Highly overrated," Rick said after he and Kate had stopped kissing. Alexis came over to the couch and sat down on Rick's other side, taking Lily from her father. Lily grabbed hold of Alexis's hair and gave a tug.
"Yikes!" Alexis exclaimed. "We might have a future softball player here. She's got one heck of a grip."
"Not the hair, Sweetpea," Rick said, gently prying Lily's fingers loose from Alexis's hair. "We talked about this, remember?"
Alexis smiled. "Happy Father's Day, Dad," she said, leaning over to carefully hug him with Lily braced between them.
"Thank you," Rick replied, looking from Alexis and Lily on his left to Kate on his right. "All of you. Now, where are my presents? You're not really gonna make me wait for those, are you?"
Kate looked at Alexis. "So he's like this not just on Christmas and his birthday, but Father's Day too," she said.
"Oh yeah," Alexis replied. "And it does kind of make sense to give them to him now, instead of dragging everything to the park and then back here later."
"That's a good point," Kate said. She reached out and took Lily from Alexis. "Okay, give us a few minutes to get Lily changed, and to get the presents, and we'll be right back."
"I'll start the coffee," Rick replied as his wife and daughters headed upstairs.
"I was going to ask if you would. Thanks, babe," Kate called from halfway up the stairs.
Rick busied himself in the kitchen, not only starting coffee but looking over their breakfast options, and in a few minutes, Kate, carrying Lily, and Alexis returned, all three of them dressed for the day. Although it was much more baggy now that she was no longer pregnant, Kate was wearing her "I'm a One-Writer Girl" t-shirt; Lily was in her "I'm a One-Writer Girl" onesie; and Alexis was wearing a white t-shirt that proclaimed in black and pink letters that matched the writing on Kate's and Lily's tops, "I'm the Big Sister." Kate carried Lily, while Alexis carried a stack of three wrapped packages.
Rick, still in his pajamas and robe, sitting back on the couch, looked up at them—three of the four women who were his life, and his heart, standing there, Kate and Alexis smiling at him, Lily happy in her mother's arms, waving her hands, which she had only recently become aware of, around as she gurgled and made her baby noises. What he had done to deserve this life, this family, he would never know, but he would be forever grateful.
Kate looked at Rick with concern when she saw that he looked like he was about to cry. "Babe, what's the matter?" she asked.
Rick sniffled. "Nothing," he replied. "Everything is absolutely perfect." He paused, then said, "Can I get a picture of the three of you looking just like that?"
Kate and Alexis exchanged a quick look, then Alexis said, "Sure."
"Just let me grab my phone. I won't be a minute," Rick said, hurrying to his and Kate's bedroom, where his phone was charging.
"Do you think there's such a thing as sympathetic post-partum hormones?" Kate asked Alexis while Rick was getting his phone. "Although he didn't really have sympathetic pregnancy symptoms..."
Alexis smiled as she set the stack of gifts on the coffee table. "You know Dad's a total emotional mushball, especially when it comes to us, Mom. I think this being his first Father's Day with Lily, and seeing all of us together like this hit him harder than he might have originally thought it would."
Alexis's explanation made sense to Kate, and indeed, when Rick returned with his phone, he was smiling now, but his eyes were suspiciously wet. He wiped at them and then said, "Okay, got it. Ready?"
Alexis wrapped an arm around Kate's shoulders and rested her cheek against Kate's. Kate made sure Lily was facing Rick. "Smile for Daddy, Lily," Kate said, her own smile so bright and beautiful as she looked from Lily to Rick that it took Rick's breath away.
Rick snapped the picture, and immediately set it as the lock screen for his phone. Then, slipping the phone into the pocket of his robe, he sat down on the couch again, and looked eagerly at the wrapped presents on the coffee table. "So, can I open my presents now?" he asked, forcing himself not to bounce on the couch.
"Yes," Kate said with a smile. "The one on top there is from Lily."
Rick grabbed the top gift off the stack and tore into it enthusiastically. He removed the lid from the box, tossing it aside, and folded back the tissue paper to reveal a framed and matted piece of canvas that contained Lily's handprints and footprints in pink paint. Above her handprints was her full name in block letters: LILY JOHANNA CASTLE. Below her footprints was her date of birth: MAY 7, 2017.
Rick looked from Lily's tiny handprints and footprints up at the baby, still ensconced in Kate's arms. "She was not a fan of that paint, but it only took us three tries to get complete prints without any drips, didn't it, Lily?" Kate asked the baby. Lily gurgled in reply. "I completely agree—Daddy's worth the trouble." She rubbed noses with Lily, then turned to look at Rick. "I was looking for Father's Day gift ideas from a new baby online, and that was the first thing that came up, so I ran with it," she said.
"I'm glad you did, because I love it," Rick said. Kate and Lily sat down next to him, and he leaned over and kissed Lily's cheek. "Thank you, Sweetpea," he said. "And thank you, Kate."
Alexis sat down on Rick's other side. "My gift is next," she said. Rick carefully set Lily's framed handprints and footprints, still in the box, on the other side of the remaining gifts, picked up Alexis's gift, and as he tore into it, Alexis said, "Mom helped me with the idea."
"Did you make your handprints and footprints for me too?" Rick asked.
"Not quite," Alexis replied.
Alexis's gift was a hinged triple dark walnut photo frame. In the first frame was a photograph of a much younger Rick holding Alexis in front of the Christmas tree when she was a little over two months old; the middle picture was of Rick and Kate with Alexis at her Columbia graduation earlier in the year, with Kate visibly pregnant in the picture; and in the final frame was the picture Javier had taken at the hospital the day Lily was born, of Rick holding Lily, Kate, in her hospital gown in her hospital bed, resting her chin on his shoulder, Alexis sitting on the edge of the bed next to Rick, and Martha and Jim standing on the other side of Kate's hospital bed and leaning in to be seen in the frame.
A small plaque on the bottom of the middle picture was engraved:
THE CASTLE FAMILY
ESTABLISHED 1993
Rick looked from the pictures up at Alexis, who was looking at him a bit nervously. "I know we don't usually get this sentimental on Father's Day," she said, "but this year, it seemed to call for it."
"Yes, it did," Rick agreed. "I love this, Alexis. Thank you so much. It's going right on my desk, before we leave for the park." He hugged Alexis, and she hugged him back.
Kate's gift, the largest and heaviest of the three, was last. "I wonder what this could be?" Rick pondered, honestly having no clue what it was.
When he opened the gift, he was shocked.
Kate had gotten him another remote-controlled tank with a camera in it. He looked from the box to his wife, his eyes wide. "It was my fault you smashed the original into pieces," Kate said, "although I did think it was funny at the time. I figured it was about time I replaced it. However," she went on quickly when Rick opened his mouth to say something, "under no circumstances are you to use that thing to spy on me getting dressed again, Field Marshal, understood?"
They both missed Alexis comically cringing at their exchange as Rick nodded and said, "Understood."
Lily, facing Daddy and Alexis, looked at them, wondering at the funny look on Alexis's face. Alexis stood up, took a couple of steps, reached over, and took her sister from their mother. "They're usually pretty good about the PDA," Alexis said softly to the baby as Kate and Rick embraced and then kissed, "but once in a while, there's that." She nodded at the kissing couple on the couch. "But that's a good thing. Now, if we ever have a little brother, I bet he'll think it's yucky, but we'll outnumber him and be able to say it's sweet...although the disconcerting part was the Field Marshal spying part. I don't want to know any more about that, and you won't either."
"What are you whispering about over there?" Rick asked. Alexis jerked her attention from the baby to her father. Kate, her arms wrapped around Rick's shoulder and her clasped hands resting atop his left shoulder, was also looking at the girls interestedly.
"Just sister stuff," Alexis replied with a smile.
After a breakfast of fresh fruit, toast, coffee, waffles and bacon for the adults, it was time for Lily to eat again and get her morning nap. Rick quickly showered and dressed while Kate and Alexis cleaned up the breakfast dishes. Martha arrived during Lily's nap, lugging a gigantic, and very heavy, package wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. After Rick took it from her, she greeted everyone with hugs and kisses, peeking in on her sleeping granddaughter, and then returned to the living room, motioning to the package with a theatrical flourish of both her arms as she proclaimed, "Happy Father's Day, Richard!"
"Thank you, Mother," Rick said, accepting another hug and kiss from his mother, and returning them. "What in the world is this?"
Martha looked at him, her eyes dancing. "Why don't you open it and find out?" she challenged.
Not needing to be told twice, Rick tore into the package and was stunned at the contents: a framed movie poster of the first Star Wars movie from 1977...and upon closer inspection, he discovered that the poster had actually been autographed by the five principle actors (Mark Hamill, the late Carrie Fisher, the late Sir Alec Guinness, Harrison Ford, and James Earl Jones) and the director, George Lucas.
"Mother," Rick said, awed. "How did you...where did you..."
"There was an auction at Sotheby's in February," Martha replied. "I went with a couple of friends, and I was the only one who knew what most of the memorabilia meant because it dovetailed with many of your interests, Richard. As soon as this went on the auction block, though, I knew you'd want it. The poster itself would have been enough to thrill you, but when the auctioneer pointed out that it was actually autographed by the director and the five principle actors, I understood why there were so many young men there, but they all went home disappointed, because I decided as soon as I saw that poster that it would be yours. I just had to decide when to give it to you, and that day is today."
Rick leaned the poster up against the wall by the front door and really looked at his mother. "Mother, you never cease to amaze me," he said.
Martha merely smiled. "Back atcha, kiddo," she replied. They were hugging again as Rick profusely thanked her when they heard Lily squealing. Martha broke the hug and said, "And speaking of amazing, I hear Lily is awake. I'm going to get some time with her now. Since it is Father's Day, I'm sure Jim will want plenty of time with her, and I'm certainly not going to deny him today." Then she rushed off, following Kate, who had already gone to tend to Lily.
Kate called her dad while Martha talked to and played with Lily after she'd been changed, and Jim assured Kate he would meet the rest of them at Central Park in the pre-arranged spot. They got ready to leave then, making sure to pack plenty of supplies for Lily, including the adorable, tiny, floppy purple sunhat Martha had bought for Lily, and sunscreen for everyone. They stopped off at their favorite deli to pick up the majority of the items for their picnic lunch, and Alexis finished assembling the picnic basket as they drove to Central Park. Martha held Lily while Rick got her stroller opened up; Alexis carried the picnic basket, the paper cups, and the beverage dispenser full of lemonade, and Kate carried the gifts from her and Lily for her father. Rick pushed the stroller with Lily in trooped to the meeting place to find that Jim already had the picnic blanket spread out and was waiting for them with a big smile on his face.
"Katie! Everyone! Over here!" Jim exclaimed, waving at them.
A flurry of hugs and kisses followed, and then Jim zeroed in on Lily in her stroller, awake and babbling. "There's my Lily Jo!" he said happily as he unbuckled her and lifted her out of the stroller, high into the air, which made her squeal, and made Jim himself laugh before he brought her down for a snuggle and a kiss on the forehead.
Kate smiled as she watched her father and Lily together. "Happy Father's Day, Dad," she said, hugging him.
He carefully hugged her back with one arm, keeping a tight hold on Lily cuddled against his chest with the other. "Thank you, Katie."
Rick, Alexis, and Martha were setting up the picnic lunch. "Do you want your presents now, or after lunch?" Kate asked Jim.
Jim looked surprised. "I thought Lily was my present," he said.
"The best one," Kate agreed, "but you do have a couple of packages to open."
Jim considered. "I guess I'll open them now, before we eat," he decided. "Let's sit down." They went over to the picnic blanket and sat down. Rick had parked the stroller at the blanket's edge, and Jim reluctantly put Lily back in her stroller so he could open the packages that Kate held out to him.
"The one on the bottom is from Lily," Kate said.
Jim opened it eagerly; it was a soft gray t-shirt that proclaimed "Only the Best Dads Get Promoted to Grandpa." He grinned as he held the shirt up to his chest to display it.
"I'll wear this proudly," he said. He regarded Lily in her stroller. "Thank you, Lily Jo."
Kate rubbed her suddenly sweaty palms on the thighs of her jeans. "And the other one is from me."
Jim opened Kate's gift to him, and his eyes filled with tears as he looked down at the gift in its box in his lap.
Kate's gift was a hinged triple dark walnut picture frame, identical to the one Alexis had given Rick earlier in the day. But the pictures in Kate's frame, from left to right, were one of the last pictures taken of Johanna Beckett; a picture of Kate that Alexis had taken last week; and a picture of Lily from a few days ago, wearing a purple onesie that said in white and pink letters "Grandpa's Favorite Girl," with the "o" in "Favorite" being a tiny red heart.
Beneath Kate's picture was the small plaque, engraved simply THE BECKETT WOMEN.
Jim swallowed hard, and when that failed to dislodge the lump in his throat, he cleared his throat several times before swiping at his eyes. "This is..." He couldn't find the words.
Kate couldn't find words either, so she just got up on her knees, and hugged her father. He hugged her back fiercely. In the darkest times of his life, he had never thought he would get to this place, not only with Katie, but now he was Lily's grandpa too. Sure, it would never not hurt that he was doing this without Johanna, but he knew how lucky he was, and he wouldn't take it for granted for a moment. He knew that Johanna would expect him to be there for Katie and Lily, and to enjoy being a grandfather as much as he had always said he would enjoy it, even without her there to share in that joy as Katie's mother and Lily's grandmother.
"I love you, Dad, and so does Lily," Kate said, her own voice husky with emotion.
"I love you both too," Jim said softly.
After Kate and Jim had recovered themselves, everyone feasted on a picnic lunch of sandwiches, potato salad, cole slaw, potato chips, and lemonade.
After lunch, Kate went back to the car to feed and change Lily, and then the family headed to the Central Park Zoo. "I checked online, and they don't have any tigers here," Rick said after they had purchased their tickets and were inside the zoo.
"I know," Kate replied. She couldn't help chuckling as she said, "I checked that out online too."
"I didn't mind waking up handcuffed to you at all," Rick said in an undertone so only Kate could hear him, "but I could have done without the hungry tiger."
"We both could. And the tranq darts," Kate added.
The family meandered leisurely through the zoo, Alexis walking and talking with Martha, while Jim insisted on pushing Lily in her stroller, and Kate and Rick walked beside them, Kate next to her dad, and Rick next to Kate.
They saw the sea lions, then went to the Tropic Zone, which included several different species of birds, from an African Pygmy Goose to a Kookaburra to several varieties of starlings. "Poison Dart Frog," Rick read when they stopped in front of a blue frog with black spots all over that looked more like they belonged on a leopard than a frog.
"You're getting an idea, aren't you?" Kate asked.
"I think so," Rick said, nodding. He pulled out his phone and quickly tapped out a few rudimentary notes. "I'll follow up later. Need to do more research. Do you think anyone's ever been killed by one of those?"
"Not in our jurisdiction, obviously," Kate said.
They followed the path to the Temperate Territory, and it was while they were all standing in front of the Red Panda that Alexis excused herself from her grandmother and approached Jim Beckett, who was reminiscing about how much Kate had loved the red panda when she was a little girl. Rick had put the sunshade up on Lily's stroller, and she clearly wasn't as interested in the red panda as her mother had once been, since she now sleeping.
As they walked from the red panda's cage over to the snow monkeys, Alexis fell into step beside Jim. "Happy Father's Day, Jim," she said.
He smiled at her. "Thank you, Alexis," he replied.
"I know we're not technically related," Alexis said, "but you've become a very important part of my life, Jim. You've been really great with all of your advice and information on law school, and your encouragement. And I know you're friends with Mr. Kubow."
"I had nothing to do with you getting that internship, Alexis," Jim replied quickly.
"Oh, I know, he told me," Alexis assured Jim. "But he did say that when he mentioned having hired a promising young intern and you asked this intern's name, when he said, 'Alexis Castle,' you told him I'm your stepgranddaughter and that he made an excellent choice."
"I was just stating the facts as I see them," Jim said.
Alexis reached into her messenger bag then and pulled out a wrapped box. "You're the only grandfather I'm ever going to have, and I admire and respect you a lot, Jim. So it just seemed right to get you a gift for Father's Day. I hope you like it." She held the box out to him.
"Alexis, you didn't have to do this," Jim said.
"I know I didn't have to; I wanted to," Alexis said. "Go ahead and open it."
Jim did so. Alexis's gift was a khaki fisherman's hat, the kind you can attach fishing lures to. "Mom said fishing is your favorite hobby," Alexis said. "I'm sure you probably have some battered old hat that brings you luck, but the only idea I came up with on my own was a pen, and that's just so cliched for a lawyer and law professor."
Jim put the hat on his head. "Perfect fit," he said. "Thank you, Alexis. I actually needed a new hat, because you're right: my old one is so battered, it's about to fall apart. I've been hesitating on getting one because I'm pretty attached to the old one, but now that I have this one, I'll think of you whenever I wear it."
Alexis smiled, relieved. "I'm glad," she said. "Happy Father's Day, Jim."
"Thank you," he said. Then they hugged, as Rick, Kate, and Martha looked on with smiles.
"Dad, Alexis, over here!" Kate called. They broke the hug and turned to look at Kate, and when they saw her holding up her phone, Jim and Alexis put their arms around each other's shoulders and smiled as Kate took their picture, with Jim wearing his new fishing hat.
Since Lily was asleep, they didn't linger at the zoo for much longer, only taking in the penguin exhibit before leaving. Jim's car was parked near Rick's, and everyone said their goodbyes. Kate wished her dad a Happy Father's Day again, and he said simply, "It is, for all of us."
Then everyone went home, with Martha getting dropped off at her apartment before Rick, Kate, Alexis, and the now-awake Lily returned to their home, where they spent the rest of the evening together, ordered in Chinese, and then went to bed early.
Rick stood watching Lily sleep, and Kate exited the bathroom in her pajamas and stole up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her cheek against his, looking down at Lily with him. "Good Father's Day?" she asked in a whisper.
"No. Best Father's Day yet," Rick replied. He turned into Kate's waiting embrace and kissed her before heading into the bathroom himself for his own bedtime ablutions. When he emerged a few minutes later, in his t-shirt and boxers, Kate was already asleep. Rick got into bed and spooned Kate, and was asleep within a few minutes himself.
Upstairs in her own bedroom, Alexis stayed awake reading until she got a text from Javier, and then she texted with him for a few minutes, telling him about her day, and reading about the case he and Detective Hastings Whittaker had caught and how they kept Ryan out of it since he had family plans that day, but that Ryan would get involved the next day. Javier then called Alexis, explaining that he was outside the precinct and heading home because he was wiped out from his day. They exchanged "good night"s and "I love you"s and promised to meet for lunch the next day.
Unbeknownst to Javier, however, someone was watching him from a parked car just down the block from the 12th Precinct. The man, in his early 70s, wore a black Miami Marlins baseball cap, a white v-necked t-shirt, scuffed and faded black Doc Marten boots that he'd owned for 25 years, and brown slacks that had seen much better days. He watched Javier exit the precinct, stop on the sidewalk, and pull out his phone. He was close enough that, while he couldn't see Javier's face close up, the set of his shoulders and his body language related that while he was tired, as he stood there tapping away at his phone, he was happy. The man caught the flash of a brilliant smile when Javier put the phone up to his ear and, though he could neither hear what Javier was saying nor read his lips, Javier was obviously talking to someone who made him happy, someone he loved very much. A wife, maybe a girlfriend?
The man was pulled from his intense scrutiny of Javier by a coughing fit. Inwardly cursing, and knowing he should have brought his supplemental oxygen with him but he didn't want to deal with the hassle of the tank and the cannula so he had said screw it and left it at the hotel, he fumbled in his slacks pocket for his inhaler. He coughed violently, doubling over in the cramped driver's seat of his rental car, and cursing himself again for being so stupid as to rent a compact car. His forehead was maybe one inch from the steering wheel of the ancient (by car-rental standards) Honda. Why hadn't he taken something with some actual space, like a Chevrolet or a Ford? Because you're a cheap bastard, and you know it. You're an all-around bastard, and you know that too, his brain told him as he hacked like he was going to cough up a lung.
By the time his coughing had subsided enough for him to use his inhaler, as he used the inhaler, he looked at the sidewalk where Javier had been standing, only to find it deserted. He inwardly cursed again. Well, it wasn't like he was going to approach Javier tonight, he reminded himself. He had seen him, knew where he worked, and had a scrap of paper with his home address on it back at his hotel. That was a start.
When the medication in the inhaler kicked in and began working, the man drove back to his hotel, a dive in the Bronx, but the price was right. He went straight for his supplemental oxygen when he was in his room and had kicked off his boots. Propped up in bed, he pulled the spiral-bound notebook and ballpoint pen from his suitcase and began writing as he took the oxygen, continuing for three hours before he was drowsy enough, and breathing well enough, to get some sleep.
