Thank you all for your continued support and enthusiasm for this story. It means everything to me, and inspires me to make every chapter the best I possibly can.


And so 2018 began a new era for Rick and Kate, and they weren't the only ones dealing with changes.

The most significant changes for Rick and Kate were professional, as Kate learned the ropes on the City Council of New York City. Although they were no longer working together, Rick was still Kate's partner in the sense that he was her main sounding board, so Rick was soon as familiar with the inner workings of the City Council as he had been with the inner workings of the Homicide Division at the 12th Precinct. When Kate was tasked with writing a position paper at the end of March, a little over two months after she was sworn in, she spent two weeks working on it, and even with all of the good-natured ribbing she took from their family and friends about being married to a ringer who could knock the position paper out for her, everyone knew that Kate would be the one doing the research and the writing of the actual paper, which she was. Rick did read it before she presented it to the City Council, but other than a couple of commas—one misplaced, one missing—he didn't influence what Kate wrote in any way, or do any editing or rewriting for her beyond those two commas.

He was busy enough with his own work. This book was different than every other book he had ever written. His family remained his top priority, but he consciously worked on at least notes and outlines if not actual chapters during Lily's morning and afternoon naps, and if a particular scene grabbed hold of him and wouldn't let go until he had written it out, Martha and Jim, or sometimes even both of them, were only a phone call or text away and always happy and eager to spend time with and take care of Lily while Rick holed up in his office and wrote. Dinnertime was sacred, but once Lily was asleep for the night, Rick was usually able to work for two or three hours, unless he went on a tear. Kate came to check on him when he still hadn't come to bed at 1:30 in the morning one night in early April and found him asleep in his chair, his laptop balanced precariously on his thighs, his feet propped up on his desk. It took all of her willpower and then some not to read the words on the screen as she gently lifted the laptop off of Rick and set it on the desk. "Babe, come to bed," she said softly in his ear as she ran the fingers of one hand through his hair.

Rick sighed, then grunted, and his eyelids slowly opened. "I fell asleep," he said, his voice raspy from sleep.

"You did," Kate replied, her palm cupping the base of his skull.

Rick scrubbed at his face with both hands. "I finished the chapter and then started making notes for the next one, and when I hit a wall, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes trying to think where to go next, and I obviously fell asleep. What time is it?"

"A little after 1:30 in the morning," Kate replied. She held out her hand. "Come to bed. You can get back at it...well, later today."

Rick made sure he had saved and backed up his work before shutting down the laptop, taking Kate's hand, rising from his desk, and letting Kate lead him to bed. He kicked off his shoes, shucked off his socks and pants and left them on the floor, tossed his shirt on the floor with the rest of his clothes and fell into bed next to Kate wearing only his boxers. "I think it's going well," he mused sleepily.

"Me too," Kate replied, brushing a light kiss across his lips before resting her head in the crook of his neck. "Let's get some sleep, hm?"

"Yeah, sleep," Rick murmured, and then he actually was asleep.

Elsewhere in the Castle extended family orbit, Perlmutter was promoted to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which meant Lanie was promoted to Perlmutter's old position at the 12th, and a new young medical examiner came on board. Alan was so proud of Lanie, he took everyone out to dinner at Tavern on the Green to celebrate Lanie's promotion.

Jenny's father retired, and when one of Jenny's old co-workers, in the course of one of their regular keeping-in-touch conversations they'd been having since they had both been let go from their former positions, Lauren told Jenny that a part-time position had opened up at her new office that Jenny would be perfect for, if she was interested. Jenny was very interested, and after talking it over with Kevin, who was behind her all the way, she talked to her parents and explained the situation. Sarah Grace was in kindergarten all day until the middle of June, but Nick was still too young for preschool, and they were working on potty training. She barely got the words "There's a part-time job I'd really like to apply for" out of her mouth before her father and mother exchanged a look, realized where Jenny was going, and stopped her right there by proclaiming that they would be glad to watch Nick while Jenny was at work, and come summer, they would happily watch Sarah Grace as well when school was out. Jenny returned to work at the end of February, and while she loved her husband and children above all else, she enjoyed being around adults again, and working again, and the financial gain, while not as significant as a full-time job would have been, of course, was still a blessing, and allowed Jenny and Kevin to put aside more money in their savings account.

Mark finally introduced Madison to his mother and stepfather in March. Madison's crash course in football endeared her to The Coach, who said, "Where the hell have you been hiding this girl, Mark? She knows more about football than your mother does!"

Madison looked at Mark, panic-stricken, while Mark was surprised to have such enthusiastic approval from The Coach. Mark's mother couldn't completely hide her pain at her husband's assessment, but since her son was happier than he'd been since losing Kim, she let the remark go without addressing it.

"I haven't been hiding her anywhere, Coach. We've been dating for five months," Mark replied. "This is just the first opportunity I've had to bring her around, that's all."

"Well, she's welcome here anytime," The Coach said. "Do you follow college ball, Madison, or just the Giants? Or wait, is this a mixed relationship, and you're actually an Eagles fan?" He laughed at the thought.

"No, I root for the Giants," Madison replied.

"Since you're from New York, and they're Mark's favorite team too, you get a pass," The Coach said.

"Oh, that's right, you're a Cowboys fan," Madison recalled.

"America's Team," The Coach declared.

"Yes, well, before you launch into the story of Roger Staubach's MVP performance in Super Bowl Six, let's sit down to dinner," Mark's mother Pamela suggested.

"I feel like I should apologize to your mother," Madison whispered to Mark as they followed Pamela and The Coach into the dining room.

"I feel like I should apologize to my mother," Mark whispered back.

"Is there anything she's interested in that I can brush up on for the next time I see her? I only read about football and watched Friday Night Lights so that I could get some kind of basic idea about football, and you weren't exaggerating at all when you said The Coach lives and breathes it."

Mark went with the direct approach at dinner by flat out asking his mother, "So, Mom, what are you up to these days?"

"I've taken up bird watching," Pamela replied. "And I'm thinking about buying a new bicycle and going bike riding with Peggy." Peggy was a longtime neighbor and friend of his mother's.

"Now I know what to brush up on before we see them again," Madison said to Mark on their way to the airport for their flight back to New York City.

Madison's parents had retired to Arizona, but were planning to visit their daughter in Manhattan in August, when Arizona's dry heat was at its most hellish, so Mark had plenty of time to prepare himself for meeting her mom and dad.

Alexis continued with the challenges of her first year of law school. She knew she was in the right field, and that being a prosecutor was what she wanted to do, but it was a definite pressure cooker. Her support network of family and friends did the most to get her through the hardest times, and Javier was developing a sixth sense about her, knowing instinctively when she most needed a pep talk and when she just needed him to listen while she vented, or to just hold her on the couch while they watched a movie, and when to break out ice cream or wine.

Matias returned to Miami in April for a two-week visit with his friend Walter Albertson, and he surprised Javier by calling him from a new cell phone on his fourth day back in Miami. "I thought I should join the 21st century," Matias said. "Walter's great-granddaughter showed me how to use this thing. She's eight. Isn't that something?"

"Yeah, kids are real tech savvy these days, almost from the cradle," Javier replied. He was still wrestling with his feelings about his father. Matias wasn't being pushy, and he wasn't asking for more than Javier was prepared to give. Javier actually still wasn't sure exactly how much he was prepared to give. He couldn't bring himself to call Matias anything but 'Matias.' He wasn't sure if Matias ever would have sought him out if not for the COPD diagnosis, and he was still reconciling himself to that, wondering if it ultimately made any difference or not, because the fact was, Matias had sought him out, and was in his life. He wasn't sure what it would take, if anything, to get him to let Matias all the way in, if he was even capable of letting Matias all the way in, but he knew that he liked having Matias in his life, and for now, that was enough for him.


May 7 dawned bright and sunny, clear blue skies over Manhattan, the temperature forecast to be in the mid-70s, and the very happy and excited parents of the birthday girl were standing at her crib, watching her sleep in the early morning hours, their arms around each other's waists, Kate's cheek resting against Rick's shoulder.

They watched Lily sleeping, and as always, Kate felt a sense of peace deep inside that she had only ever felt watching Lily sleep.

The universe had definitely granted Rick his wish for a mini-Beckett. Lily's hair, eyes, and smile were miniature mirrors of Kate's. She was walking now, having taken her first shaky steps without holding on to the furniture or her parents' hands just last week, and several hours of video of Lily walking had already been taken by Rick, Kate, Alexis, Jim, and Martha, and enthusiastically shared with her whole extended family of aunts and uncles.

Rick thought that Lily's determination to walk without assistance and keep herself balanced and upright at the same time was a trait inherited from Kate, but while Kate didn't doubt that her DNA was responsible for a good part of Lily's stubbornness and determination, she was struck by the look in her daughter's eyes as she kept getting up and taking yet another stumbling step until she finally stopped stumbling and was walking on her own, because she had seen that look in Rick's eyes on numerous occasions in the past: when he vowed to find Alexis when she was missing in Paris...when he had promised Kate she wasn't alone this time in the search for her mother's killer...when he had asked her, "Will you marry me right now?" after that crazy dream he had about magic artifacts and alternate universes, and after reaching the conclusion that the way for them to get past the lost two months when Rick was missing and the pain that had caused Kate by actively choosing to get past it and going forward together from that moment on as husband and wife. The joy and wonder and excitement that had suffused her entire being in that moment Rick proposed an immediate wedding was, Kate had thought at the time, a once-in-a-lifetime feeling.

At least, she had thought that it was a once-in-a-lifetime feeling...until Lily.

From the moment the sticks turned pink, through that first sonogram and the ones that followed, feeling Lily move and kick and respond to her and Rick, when Lily had emerged into the world one year ago today, when Kate watched Rick and Lily together, when Lily looked up at Kate with such love and such trust, and when she watched this baby she and Rick had made together growing and changing, hitting her milestones and conquering new challenges and becoming her own little person more and more every day, Kate felt that joy and wonder and excitement, along with a good dose of motherly pride, again and again, and she knew that Rick felt it too.

In addition to walking, Lily was also learning to talk. After mastering 'Mama' and 'Dada,' her ever-expanding vocabulary now included 'yes,' 'no,' 'up,' 'down,' 'eat,' 'baf' (bath), and 'book.'

Lily also had her own names for everyone in her family, both immediate and extended. 'Yex,' her name for Alexis, was co-opted from Javi after repeatedly hearing him call Alexis 'Lex'.

She referred to Martha as 'Gam,' to which Martha had replied, "I've always felt my legs are one of my best features, so until your 'R's come in, kiddo, 'Gam' it is."

Hearing Lily call him 'Gampaw' never failed to reduce Jim Beckett to a grinning puddle of mush.

Playdates with Kevin and Jenny's kids were becoming a regular event, and Sarah Grace applied all of her big sister skills and patience learned from her relationship with Nick to her burgeoning friendship with Lily, who referred to Sarah Grace as 'Seh Gace,' and, to Kate's chagrin and Rick's amusement, referred to Nick as 'Ick.' 'Kevin and Jenny took it in stride, knowing it wasn't an insult to their son. "She just hasn't learned to pronounce her 'n's yet," Jenny said. "It'll come."

As for her aunts and uncles/godparents, Lily referred to Javier as "Hobby," Kevin was "Kebbin," and Jenny was "Jen."

She said 'Yay' for Lanie, which amused Alan to no end, although he didn't find as much humor in Lily calling him 'Ow' (Rick referred to bumps and bruises Lily incurred as 'boo-boos,' and everyone else followed his lead, so 'Ow' was Lily's closest approximation of 'Al' for 'Alan' at this point).

Madison and Mark were 'Mad' and 'Mock.' Mark surprised everyone but Maddie when he joked about being referred to as 'Mock.'

And Victoria and Gerald were 'Vee' and 'Jeh.'

As for referring to herself, Lily could say, "Me," "I," and "Yiyee,' for 'Lily.'

Rick was lost in his own thoughts about Lily. She reminded him so much of Kate, but he also saw some of himself in her, in the way her eyes lit up when she got excited about something, which, here lately, was accompanied by excited babbling that occasionally featured real syllables of actual words, and her ready laugh whenever something struck her as funny. He also saw traces of Alexis as a baby in Lily. Lily was most definitely a Beckett-Castle hybrid, showing characteristics and personality traits that she had inherited from either him or Kate—he both looked forward to and dreaded the day Lily gave him her first Beckett eye roll, because he had no doubt at all that that day would come—but she was also becoming her own little person more and more every day, and it was a wonder and a joy to behold.

Lily was fully mobile now, and Rick fully expected her to start running around the loft any day now. Baby gates had been purchased and put up to keep Lily from trying to climb the stairs, and out of the master bathroom, and even occasionally out of Rick and Kate's bedroom and Rick's office. Her vocabulary was growing in leaps and bounds, and he had secretly recorded Lily and Alexis for a few minutes on his phone the night before, when Alexis brightened up what would have been an otherwise dull review session for her Torts class by saying various terms and having Lily parrot them back to her.

Rick had long dreamed of having a child with Kate, but the real Lily, like his hopes and dreams of a real relationship, of marriage, to Kate, was a reality that far surpassed every dream he had ever had.

"I can't believe it's been a year already," Rick said softly.

"I know," Kate said. "A year ago at this time, I was in labor. She wasn't here yet. I mean, she was here, but she was still in here." She rested a hand on her flat abdomen.

"2:03 PM," Rick replied.

"One of the best moments of my life," Kate said, lifting her head to meet Rick's gaze.

"Mine too," Rick said.

Their kiss was interrupted by the birthday girl waking up, seeing Mommy and Daddy with their mouths smushed together, pulling herself to her feet using her crib railing, and exclaiming, "Mama! Dada!"

"There's our birthday girl!" Rick exclaimed, plucking Lily out of her crib and hoisting her high into the air, flying her over to the changing table and making her squeal with delight.

As Rick unzipped Lily's sleeper, Kate leaned down to kiss Lily soundly on the cheek. "Happy first birthday, Lily," she said. "You're one year old today!"

"I one!" Lily exclaimed.

"Perfect grammar, and she's still hours away from turning one," Rick bragged as he got Lily into a clean diaper.

Rick and Kate were both taking the day off from work since it was Lily's first birthday. Since it was a Monday, everyone else had work and class, respectively, but they would all be arriving at the loft for dinner and a birthday party for Lily at six PM.

After breakfast and getting Lily dressed in a white t-shirt that proclaimed "BIRTHDAY GIRL!" in alternating pink and purple letters over a light blue cupcake covered with pink frosting and sparkly blue and purple sprinkles and tiny jeans, and after Kate and Rick were dressed for the day, they headed into the living room with Lily. Kate went over to the stereo and punched up Sirius, looking for...well, Rick wasn't sure what, exactly.

But when she landed on a station playing some obviously '90s uptempo pop, her face lit up and she exclaimed, "No way! I haven't heard this song since I was fifteen!" She hurried across the living room, picked Lily up, and began dancing her around the room.

"Who is this?" Rick shouted over the music.

"Let Loose!" Kate called back. "'Crazy for You,' 1993!"

Rick had never heard of the group, but watching Kate sing to Lily and dance her around made his heart swell with love for both of them. "Is this a mother-daughter thing, or can Daddy join in?" he asked.

Kate rolled her eyes, but affectionately. "Get over here already!" she exclaimed. Then she laughed as Rick made a big show of dancing his way over to them.

Some one-hit-wonder boy sang, "I'm crazy, crazy for you

And there's nothin' that I won't do

I'm caught by the look in your eyes

And it's all for the love of you"

"Down!" Lily exclaimed then. "Down, Mama!"

"You want to dance yourself?" Kate asked.

"Yes!" Lily exclaimed.

"Okay, Lily, show us your dance moves," Rick said.

Lily began bouncing up and down to the music, and then shifting her weight from side to side. "Lily, you're dancing!" Kate exulted.

"She's a woman of many talents, just like her mother," Rick said.

"Dance!" Lily exclaimed as she bounced and swayed.

Rick pulled Kate into his arms, then spun her out from him. She spun back and he dipped her, then pulled her upright, and they looked to Lily, bouncing and shifting her weight and squealing.

"I'm crazy, crazy for you

And there's nothin' that I won't do

I'm caught by the look in your eyes

And it's all for the love of you"

Then Lily stepped between Rick and Kate, and then all three of them were dancing.

"I feel that you know

You've got me just where you want me

I feel that you know

You've got me just

Just where you want me

"I'm crazy, crazy for you

And there's nothin' that I won't do

I'm caught by the look in your eyes

And it's all for the love of you

"Crazy, I'm crazy for you

And there's nothin' that I won't do

I'm caught by the look in your eyes

All for the love of, all for the love of,

All for the love of you

All for the love of, all for the love of,

All for the love of you"

As the song faded out, Lily collapsed to the rug in a giggling heap.

Rick and Kate looked at their laughing baby girl, not such a baby anymore, and then looked at each other. They didn't have to say it, because each of them knew exactly what the other was thinking, as they reached for each other's hands and gazed upon their Sweetpea, happily shrieking with laughter, as Rick squeezed Kate's hand, and Kate squeezed his in reply, and the unspoken thought passed between them, from mind to mind and heart to heart.

This is why we lived.


All of Lily's favorite people in the world were at her house, and everyone was making a big fuss over her. At least, that was what Gram called it: "A big fuss." Gram also said that Lily deserved this big fuss, because it was her birthday.

From what Lily saw, her birthday was a lot like Christmas. There was no pretty tree and colorful lights and decorations everywhere, but there were decorations—things that Mommy and Daddy called streamers and balloons, and these didn't light up but they were as colorful as the lights on the pretty tree had been, and a big banner on the wall in the living room that Alexis told her read, "Happy 1st Birthday, Lily!"

Everyone wore hats. Lily wasn't sure what the hats were for, but everybody had one, including her. Grandpa was glad the hats didn't have rubber bands, and Daddy said he and Mommy weren't going to have the rubber band hats because they fell apart too easily, and a person could get hurt with those snapping rubber bands. She wasn't sure why Gram had said, "Could? You mean did, Richard, on several birthdays," and Mommy, Alexis, and Aunt Victoria all thought that was funny.

A big stack of wrapped presents covered the coffee table and surrounded the floor around it. Lily was surprised when Mommy said, "All of these presents are for you, sweet girl!" Then she had looked around at everybody with what Daddy called "the Detective Beckett stare," and said, "Even though we told you not to go overboard."

"I'm a grandfather. Going overboard on birthdays and Christmas is in my job description," Grandpa said.

"Mine too, as Lily's grandmother," Gram added.

"C'mon, Beckett, she's our goddaughter and our niece. How could we not get her birthday presents?" Javi said.

"I just hope we didn't mess up," Madison said, gesturing between herself and Mark. "Lily's the only kid we know."

"I'll help Lily open some of her presents," Sarah Grace offered.

"I help too!" Nick said, grabbing a gift off the stack on top of the coffee table.

"Nicholas Javier Ryan, you put that present back right now," Jenny said firmly. "That is Lily's birthday present, not yours."

Nick put the present back on top of the stack, then walked to his mother, who was sitting on the couch, rested his palms on her knees, said, "I sorry, Mommy," and gave her his most charming grin.

Jenny laughed and shook her head. "I am in so much trouble when you're a teenager, Nick," she said, scooping him up and kissing his neck until he shrieked.

"Are we going to do the cake first?" Alexis asked. "That's the messy part. Well, the Lily gets messy part."

Rick and Kate exchanged a look. "We could," Rick said.

"What do you think, Lily?" Kate asked. "Cake or presents first?"

Lily tilted her head and looked at her mommy. She looked from Mommy to the tower of presents and back to Mommy.

"Did you get her a smash cake?" Kevin asked.

"We did," Rick replied.

"We also have a regular sheet cake that everyone can have a piece of if you'd like," Kate added.

Rick scooped Lily up from the floor and deposited her in her highchair. Everyone gathered around her as Alexis and Kate retrieved the smash cake and the sheet cake. Kate perched a candle shaped like the number one in the middle of the sheet cake, which was white with buttercream frosting and read 'Happy 1st Birthday, Lily!' in cursive purple frosting. The smash cake was a small, round cake covered in vanilla frosting.

Alexis hovered nearby with a candle lighter, and half the adults had their phones out to take pictures or video, as Rick and Kate flanked Lily's highchair, one on each side of her, both leaning down. "Okay, Lily," Rick said, "are you ready?" He and Kate looked up, and led everyone in singing "Happy Birthday" to Lily.

At the conclusion of the song, Alexis stepped forward and lit the candle, then dropped back next to Javier and Gram. "Time to blow out the candle, Lily," Kate said. She and Rick leaned down again and blew the candle out together.

Then Kate moved the sheet cake out of the way as Rick moved the smash cake right in front of Lily. "This is the fun one," he said.

Lily looked at the cake, then back up at her daddy. She wondered what she was supposed to do.

"You can tear this cake up, Sweetpea," Rick said.

Lily stuck a finger in the frosting, brought it to her mouth, and licked it off. "Mmmm!" she exclaimed. She loved the frosting; the cake, not so much.

Martha and Victoria helped with the cutting and distribution of the sheet cake. Lily ate most of the frosting off the smash cake, and after Mommy and Daddy cleaned her up, she was allowed to dive into the mountain of presents in the living room. In a matter of minutes, shredded wrapping paper covered the rug as Lily opened gift after gift: toys, books, clothes.

At evening's end, after Rick and Kate had thanked everyone for coming to celebrate Lily's first birthday, and their guests had gone home, after Lily had had her bath and was in a new sleeper that had been a gift from Lanie and Alan, a soft pastel green sleeper covered in owls, and she was asleep in her crib, Rick and Kate stood in the dimly lit nursery, illuminated only by Lily's night light, and watched their now-officially-one-year-old daughter sleeping.

Kate broke the silence. "Rick?"

"Hmm?" he asked, looking from the sleeping Lily to Kate beside him.

"Thank you for today."

"Thank you for today," he replied.

Kate smiled at him. "Always," she said.

"Always," he echoed, smiling back at her, before they kissed, this time without an interruption from Lily, who was exhausted from her birthday celebration and dreaming happy one-year-old dreams.