Thank you all for your continued enthusiasm and support for this story. This chapter is a bit light on Kate and Rick, but they'll be back to being prominently featured in the next chapter. Meanwhile, in this chapter, the identity of the mysterious man who's been casing the 12th Precinct will be revealed, as will a new fact about Lily.


When Kevin Ryan ran the license plate on the black Honda Accord that had been parked just down the street from the 12th Precinct for almost two weeks, learning that the car was a rental wasn't a surprise.

The surprise came when he tracked down to whom the car had been rented: 74-year-old Matias Agustin Esposito of Miami, Florida. When he got a look at Matias Esposito's driver's license picture, any hope Ryan had had that Matias Esposito was a long-lost uncle, or that the last name was just a coincidence, died a quick death; the resemblance between Javi and Matias was clear, even though the driver's license had been renewed five years ago (Florida state driver's licenses were good for eight years, unless you were 80 or older; then they were only good for six years and required the driver to pass a vision test).

Javi didn't talk about his dad much. All he had ever told Kevin about his old man was that he split after divorcing Javi's mother when Javi was five. He had moved to Florida and remarried, and all Javi got after that was a postcard and a phone call. One of each, for the rest of his life.

The old man was obviously coming around because he wanted something from Javi after all these years.

"Whatcha workin' on, bro?"

At the sound of Javi's question, Kevin quickly, nonchalantly minimized the window with Matias Esposito's driver license photo in it at his computer, then put on his best poker face. "Just catching up on some paperwork," he replied.

Javi sat down at his desk. "I kind of hope the murderers keep their vacation going for the next few days," he said. "If they do, I might be able to talk Captain Karpowski into giving me Monday off in addition to Tuesday so I can be with Alexis on the 4th. Too bad we can't all go up to Castle and Beckett's place in the Hamptons like last year, huh?"

"Yeah," Kevin agreed. "We'll just have to do it over Labor Day weekend instead. I already put in for the time off."

"Good thinkin'. I should do the same thing," Javi replied.

"So if you can get Monday off, are you going up for the whole weekend of the 4th?" Kevin asked as Javi retrieved a request for time off form to fill out for Labor Day weekend and began scribbling the necessary information on it.

"Well, Alexis is going up Friday morning with Castle and Beckett and Lily and Martha, and I think Beckett's dad is driving up either Friday night or Saturday morning. If I get Monday off, I'll be heading up straight from here Friday night, probably get there in time for a late dinner," Javi replied. "I want at least one moonlit walk on the beach with my girl." He looked up and flashed Kevin a grin before finishing his time off request form.

"You'll get it," Kevin told him. Thankfully, the workday was almost over by now, and Kevin rushed home to his family. Jenny could tell he was preoccupied as soon as he walked in the front door, but he managed to push it aside to engage with Sarah Grace and Nick through dinner, baths, and bedtime routines.

When the kids were asleep, Kevin threw himself down on the couch and leaned all the way back, his head tipped up to stare at the ceiling. Jenny grabbed a couple of bottles of beer from the fridge, opened them, and then sat down next to her husband, handing him one of the open bottles. He accepted it wordlessly as Jenny took a sip of her own beer, swallowed it, and said, "So, what's going on?"

Kevin sat up and picked at the label on his bottle of beer, his eyes downcast. "The past couple of weeks, there's been this black Honda Civic parked just down the street from the precinct almost every day. Same car, same old man sitting in it, or standing on the sidewalk next to it. I ran the plate today, and it's a rental car." He looked up to meet his wife's gaze now. "It's Javi's father."

Jenny's eyes widened in shock. "Oh, Kevin! Are you sure?"

"Yeah," he said with a nod. "The guy who rented the car is named Matias Esposito. He's 74 years old and lives in Miami. I saw his driver's license picture, and just by looking at it, I can tell he's Javi's father."

"What does he want with Javi after all these years?" Jenny asked.

"He could be dying and he wants to make peace with Javi before he goes," Kevin mused.

"What if he needs a transplant of some kind? Like a kidney, or bone marrow, and he's coming to Javi because Javi's a good possibility for a match since they're father and son?" Jenny asked.

Kevin's face twisted in anger. "If that's the case, that's the lowest of the low," he said angrily. "He doesn't bother to see his own son for 30 years, and then he shows up because he wants a transplant of some kind?"

"Javi doesn't know yet, does he? About his father being in town," Jenny realized.

Now Kevin looked uncomfortable. "He's trying to get next Monday off so he can go up to the Hamptons and be with Alexis for a long 4th of July weekend," he said. "He was in such a good mood today, I couldn't bring myself to drop this bomb on him." He took a long pull from his bottle of beer before setting the bottle on the coffee table and resting his head on Jenny's shoulder. "I don't have any idea if I did the right thing by not telling him, Jenny, but he's my best friend. I couldn't blow up his life by telling him, 'Oh, hey, your father's been staking out the precinct for the past couple of weeks, he's the old guy in the rented black Honda Civic down the block.'" He sighed.

"This isn't going to be good," Jenny said. "Whatever the reason Javi's father showed up now, it's not a good thing, and he's not going to take it well at all."

"No, he isn't," Kevin agreed.

"We'll be there for him, though," Jenny said, wrapping her arms around Kevin.

"Of course we will," Kevin agreed. What he didn't say, though, was that he hoped Javi would let Alexis be there for him. Kevin hadn't forgotten that Javi didn't want Alexis informed several months ago when that suspect had stabbed him. Kevin, knowing how Jenny would feel if the situation were reversed, had called Alexis to come down to the hospital to meet them, and Javi and Alexis had ended up having an argument because Javi hadn't wanted Alexis to know, and Kevin had gone and told her anyway.

Kevin understood the protective instinct, but he had also seen how long it had taken Beckett and Castle to get together, and one of the reasons was Beckett's sometimes misguided attempts at protecting Castle by shutting him out. He didn't want to see Javi and Alexis go through something similar, but he couldn't shake the feeling that that was exactly what was going to happen, that Javi wouldn't want his father anywhere near Alexis, no matter what the man's reason was for coming back into Javi's life after all these years. And Alexis, like her father had with Beckett, wouldn't take being shut out of Javi's life, even in the name of him trying to protect her, well at all either.

Kevin sensed a storm brewing, but he had no way of knowing when or how it would strike. All he could do was be there for his friends and help them through it...while simultaneously keeping Beckett and Castle from kicking Javi's ass for hurting Alexis by shutting her out if, as he believed, that was what was coming down the pike.


Because of all of Lily's baby paraphernalia taking up space in the car, Alexis and Martha took the same train to the Hamptons that Alexis and Javier had taken the year before. Javier had gotten Monday off, and had assured Alexis that he was going to leave straight from the precinct on Friday afternoon. Rick, Kate, and Lily had driven up Thursday afternoon and were all waiting at the station when Alexis and Martha arrived Friday morning.

Jim arrived Friday night, leaving straight from the office, and it was a good thing so many adults were on hand, because Lily was fussier in the Hamptons than she had ever been in her entire life so far.

No matter what her parents, grandparents, and big sister did or said, Lily could not and would not settle down. She didn't sleep for more than an hour at a time, and her unhappy wails upon waking tore at especially Kate's and Rick's hearts.

This went on all of Thursday night, and at first, the adults all thought it was just the fact that this was the first time Lily had ever been away from home, and that she was unsettled by the change in her surroundings but that she would get used to it after the first night.

With everyone so tired, they all stayed home on Friday. Lily wouldn't go down for much of a nap either in the morning or the afternoon, only about half an hour in the morning, and 45 minutes in the afternoon, but Jim's energy level picked up considerably the moment he arrived at the house to find Katie and Rick almost running on autopilot, and, to a lesser extent, Martha and Alexis also flagging, because while Lily hadn't napped much during the day, Kate and Rick had certainly tried to make up some of their sleep deficit from the night before, since, now that she was almost two months old, and had been a fairly easy baby from birth, getting up with Lily fifteen times a night was not something her parents were in the habit of doing, because they simply had never had to be in the habit of doing it. Lily only awoke two, maybe three times a night, for feedings and diaper changes. This waking every hour, sometimes sooner, was not something with which Kate and Rick had ever had to deal before.

When Friday night turned out to be a repeat of Thursday night, Kate fretted that Lily might be getting sick. Lily didn't feel feverish, or have any other common symptoms of illness, like a stuffy or runny nose, sneezing, coughing, or throwing up, but Kate still berated herself out loud for not bringing the baby thermometer along.

"It's the 4th of July weekend, and we didn't think we'd need it," Rick said as he paced the master suite, gently swaying Lily in his arms.

Kate was near tears herself. "Well, I'm beginning to think we did need it," she said. "And this is the Hamptons, not Manhattan. There's not a 24-hour pharmacy here where we could send Alexis or my dad to go and pick up a thermometer."

Just then, bright, multicolored flashes lit up the sky above the beach, and the thundering boom of fireworks set off by early revelers filled the air. Kate, remembering Rick's reaction to the 4th of July fireworks last year, looked at him anxiously, praying that the explosions outside wouldn't trigger a panic attack in him.

Rick did stop pacing, but he had no other outward reaction of any kind to the early fireworks.

The window-shaking booms had an interesting effect on Lily, however: she stopped crying.

Kate figured it out immediately. "The noise!" she exclaimed over the din of the fireworks as Lily rested her cheek on her daddy's shoulder and popped her thumb in her mouth. Her sleeping schedule had been completely messed up for the past two days, and the exploding fireworks were actually calming her down. "It's been too quiet out here for Lily!"

Sure enough, Lily had drifted off to sleep, her thumb falling out of her mouth, her cheek resting against Rick's shoulder. "We definitely have a city girl on our hands," Rick whispered. "The city noises are like white noise to her. They help her sleep."

Kate cautiously, quietly approached them, Rick standing stock still, holding the sleeping Lily up on his shoulder. A soft knock came at the closed door to the master suite. Kate reversed course and opened the door to find her father, Martha, Alexis, and Javier all crowded into the doorway. "Is Lily all right?" Martha asked quietly, anxiously.

"She stopped crying so suddenly," Jim added worriedly. "It was like flipping a switch. That's not like her."

"Is she okay?" Alexis asked, distressed as the rest of the family that Lily was so upset.

"She's sleeping," Kate said in a stage whisper. "Those early fireworks outside-"

"I went down to the beach and ran those punks off," Javier said. "They were a couple of young teenagers, and I could smell weed on 'em too. They probably weren't more than 14 years old." He shook his head disgustedly.

"Thanks, Javi," Kate said, "but it turns out, those fireworks are what put Lily to sleep."

Alexis put it together first as the others exchanged puzzled glances. "The noise," she said. "Lily's so used to the noise of the city that being out here is what unsettled her because it's too quiet."

"Exactly," Kate said. She looked over at Rick, who was still holding Lily. "We just figured it out when she stopped crying at the fireworks."

"Well, how do you like that?" Martha said. "Every other child is afraid of fireworks. Our Lily is soothed to sleep by them."

"You can all go back to what you were doing, which was probably sleeping," Kate said. "That's certainly what we're going to try to do."

"Well, if anyone else sets off fireworks early, I won't run them off," Javier said.

"I think we're going to try putting her down," Kate told the others as Rick slowly, softly walked toward the portable crib that was set up next to Kate's side of the bed. He gently settled Lily, gingerly removing his hands but standing over the crib and watching to make sure she stayed asleep while Kate shooed the rest of their family on their way.

With Lily asleep, Kate and Rick quietly collapsed into their own bed. "Do you think that Lily being soothed to sleep by fireworks is an early indication of eccentric tendencies possibly inherited from my mother?" Rick asked when they were in bed. "Some things skip a generation, you know."

Kate opened her eyes and turned her head to look at her husband. "Can we have this conversation when we're both at least a little more awake?" Kate asked. "And Martha's not eccentric, she's flamboyant."

"She certainly is that," Rick agreed. But Kate was already asleep, and Rick dropped off to sleep himself almost immediately after that.


After going out for dinner on Saturday night, when Javier and Alexis got back to the house, Javier suggested a walk on the beach. Alexis beamed at him and said, "I thought you'd never ask."

They left their shoes on the back porch and cut through the back yard before heading to the beach to walk on the sand underneath the moon. The ocean waves were the perfect background noise as they strolled hand in hand, Alexis's fingers threaded through Javier's. "This is perfect," Alexis said.

"You think so, huh?" Javier asked, looking at her with a big smile. The ocean breeze played through her hair, and the sand beneath their feet was cool and damp as the tide lapped at their toes like a kitten lapping up milk from a saucer.

"Don't you?" Alexis countered.

"One of the most perfect moments of my life, without a doubt," Javier replied. "It's not a coincidence that those perfect moments always happen when I'm with you. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, Lex."

Alexis stopped walking and moved to stand in front of Javier, wrapping her arms around his neck. His arms wrapped around her waist of their own accord. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, too, Javier," she replied.

Javier looked at Alexis then, brushing her hair behind her ears. "I adore you," he said simply.

She smiled at him. "That's good to know, because I'm crazy about you," she replied before kissing him.

When they stopped kissing, Javier said, "I sure hope you're gonna be crazy about me for the rest of your life, because I'm going to adore you for the rest of mine."

"I take it as fact that we're together for the rest of our lives," Alexis replied earnestly. "I want us to have the kind of relationship my dad and Kate have."

"I thought you were calling her 'Mom' now?" Javier said.

"I am," Alexis replied. "I just wanted to be sure you knew I meant her, and not the woman who gave birth to me. Because in the grand scheme of things, that's all she did."

"I know what it's like to have a parent that doesn't give a damn about you," Javier said. "She's out of your life, though."

"And your father is out of your life," Alexis replied.

"I don't think he was really in my life enough to be considered out of it now," Javier reflected. "He walked out and didn't bother looking back, beyond a postcard and one phone call. But I turned out all right."

"You turned out much more than 'all right,' I'd say," Alexis replied.

"Yeah, but you're biased 'cause you're my girlfriend," Javier said. They started walking again, ambling down the beach and back towards the house.

"Even so, it's still a true statement," Alexis said. "And I don't need Meredith to be my mother. I have Kate, and she's not a mother, she's a mom. There's a difference." Alexis paused, then said, "Do you ever think about your father?"

"I have no reason to," Javier replied. "He doesn't even know I'm alive."

"You never wanted to track him down?" Alexis asked.

"I didn't see the point," Javier replied. "And I've never been in the habit of being where I'm not wanted. He made his decision 30 years ago, and obviously it's not a decision he ever wanted to take back. It is what it is."

"That sounds a lot like Meredith," Alexis agreed. They had reached the house. "If my parents, my baby sister, my grandmother, and the only grandfather I'll ever really have weren't all in there, we could make some fireworks of our own."

"That's one of the great things about being together for the rest of our lives," Javier reflected. "We've got forever, so we can anticipate the fireworks the next time we do get to be alone together."

"I do like the anticipation," Alexis agreed.

Everything was quiet in the house. Having finally fallen asleep, Lily must have been tired enough to stay asleep, and Kate and Rick were obviously exhausted from having been up with her for over 24 hours, while Martha and Jim were obviously exhausted from having been up with Lily for almost 24 hours.

Javier walked Alexis to her room. "It's no coincidence that your dad put me in another wing," Javier said.

"Definitely not," Alexis agreed.

After several lingering good night kisses, and whispered "I love you"s, Javier, carrying his shoes, padded down the hall towards the wing of the house where he was sleeping. Alexis stood in front of her bedroom door and watched him go until he was out of her sight, and then she went into her bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her.


Lily slept through the fireworks on the 4th of July. Much to everyone's relief, especially Kate and Rick's, Rick did not have a panic attack during the fireworks like he had last year. Of course, the noise was somewhat muffled inside the house, and he and Kate watched the fireworks light up the sky from the master suite, pulling a chair up by the windows, and with Kate sitting in Rick's lap the entire time. Wrapping his arms around his wife kept Rick grounded in the present moment.

Everyone returned to the city on Wednesday morning, and Javier headed straight into work. He was able to get away with coming in late only because they didn't have an active case, but he had been at work all of ten minutes when they got a call about a body drop, and he, Ryan, and Hastings headed out to the crime scene to meet Perlmutter and the uniforms.

They were immersed in the case immediately—the murder weapon was a fireworks mortar tube covered with fingerprints that were not the victim's, plus neighbors had heard a loud argument between the victim and a yet-to-be-identified man—and so he and Ryan weren't able to compare notes on how their holiday weekends had gone. Ryan wanted to tell Javi about his father being in town, but he couldn't find an opening, or the right time, or the right words.

When Javier left the 12th Precinct shortly after 8 PM, with Ryan and Hastings having already gone home, he was headed down the sidewalk when out of the corner of his eye he saw an old man, shabbily dressed, crossing the street and heading towards him. He sped up, not wanting to deal with some random panhandler, but the man followed him for three blocks, lagging behind him, before Javier finally turned around, showed the man his badge, and said, "I don't know who you are, I don't know what you want, but I'm NYPD. Unless you're in some kind of trouble-"

The old man laughed mirthlessly. "You could say that," he said. "You're Javier Esposito, correct?"

Javier's eyes narrowed and he unconsciously moved into a fighting stance, ready to defend himself if need be. "How do you know my name?" Javier demanded. "What do you want from me?"

"Javier...I'm your father," the old man replied.

The entire world came to a screeching halt for Javier with those four words. He just stood there staring at this old man in his shabby clothes, with his stooped shoulders, and laboring for a full breath of air. "No," Javier said firmly. "My old man walked out on me and my mom 30 years ago. I got one postcard and one phone call from him, and that was the end of it."

The old man held up his hands and then slowly reached into his left hip pocket, extracting a battered brown wallet. He opened it and removed two small pieces of paper, then held those pieces of paper out to Javier.

His heart pounding in his throat, Javier took the proffered pieces of paper.

One was a Florida state driver's license in the name of Matias Esposito, with the old man's picture on it.

The other, much more damning piece of paper, was a worn photograph of a much-younger Matias Esposito kneeling in the dirt next to a 3-year-old boy wearing a too-big New York Yankees baseball cap, holding a Wiffle bat, and smiling.

Javier knew the 3-year-old wannabe baseball player, because he was the 3-year-old wannabe baseball player once upon a time.

He felt the blood drain out of his head as he looked up from the photograph at the old man...the man who had abandoned him after divorcing his mother.

"I am your father, Javier," the man repeated, having the audacity to look hopefully at him, "and you are my son."

And that was the instant that the world started spinning for Javier again...only to promptly fall off its axis.

After 30 years of radio silence, the man who had fathered him was standing before him.

"Emotional overload" didn't even begin to describe the countless variety of emotions, every single one of them negative, tripping over one another as they rioted for position of prominence in Javier's brain.

He just stood there staring at the man...and Matias Esposito stared back until finally, the laser-sharp focus of Javier's gaze became too much for him to take, and he had to avert his eyes to the sidewalk because the intensity of his son's gaze made him too uncomfortable to look Javier in the eye.