After that horrible, dark day of the funeral and wake, thing only got busier. There were more and more meetings with Child Services, and paperwork, and solicitors meetings and a thousand other things that Kate remembered from those black days after her mother died; taking copies of the death certificate to the bank, the insurance companies, the gas company, ending the lease on Maggie's apartment.
Castle helped the boys pack their things into boxes. He was surprisingly good at it; checking the clothes still fit before packing them, sorting the favourite toys from the ones they'd outgrown.
One terrible, awful day, Jim and Kate packed Maggie's room. Jim's eyes were red rimmed when he loaded the boxes into Castle's car to be taken to donate at the thrift store. Kate was dried eyed and stoic, but that night she burrowed into Castle's arms on the foldout sofa, under sheets that smelled just like Maggie's dresses, shaking with rage at the unfairness of it all.
Eventually, the apartment was packed, and Child Services was allowing them to take the boys back to the city. They had passed the criminal history check, the psych evaluation, the interview and the 'economic assessment', in which Child Services had assessed their income from the last financial year, to see if they had the financial capacity to take care of the boys. Kate wondered how far their eyes had bulged when they saw Castle's net worth. Now all that was left was a home check to make sure the loft was suitable, and they would be granted a temporary placement for the boys.
The night before they were due to drive back to the city, as they lay side by side on the fold out sofa, staring into the darkness, Kate pointed out the obvious.
"The loft has four bedrooms," she told Castle.
"I am aware of that," Castle replied.
Kate rolled her eyes, even though he wouldn't be able to see in the darkness.
"What are we going to do when we take the boys home?" It was strange how right it felt to call the loft ' home', Kate thought.
"I was thinking bunk beds," Castle informed her. "The spare room isn't huge, but with a bunk bed there would still be a bit of space. And we can convert part of the downstairs into a sort of space for them to play. I know there's no yard, but there are parks around."
"Wait. Spare room? Don't you mean my room?" Kate asked. "Where am I going to sleep?"
"I don't suppose we could keep doing this?" Castle asked, indicating the way they lay together on the fold out.
"Your sofa doesn't fold out," Kate informed him dryly.
Castle let out a rumbling laugh. "My room has a nice, big bed. Plenty of room for two."
"Castle," she growled in warning.
He held up a hand in surrender. "Okay, okay! You can have Mother's room. She doesn't need it now she lives at Chet's apartment. Although the poor man may have to let a neighbouring apartment, just to have enough floor space for the contents of her closet."
Kate frowned. "I don't want to kick your mom out. What if things don't work out with Chet? She should have somewhere to go."
"It might be good for Mother. She's always lived her relationships with one foot out the door. If she knows Chet could hold her shoes hostage, it might force her to go all in for once."
Kate looked out into the darkness in silence. She hated feeling like she was a burden on Castle, or pushing Martha out of his life. But what else could she do? Where else could she and the boys go?
"I don't want us to move in and take over your life, Castle."
"You're not taking over my life, Kate," Castle murmured quietly. "You are my life."
Kate's breath caught at the sincerity in his tone.
Castle continued, "Alexis, Eli, Zeke, you. You are my life. Mother knows that I'd share a bunk with the boys before I'd let her go homeless. She'll always have a place with us." He paused. "So I think we should paint the spare room blue, and put in a bunk for the boys. And you can move into Mother's room, and all of our family will be under one roof."
Our family, Kate thought. Mine and Castle's.
Perhaps it was time she started thinking of him as Rick.
"Thank you," she told him, meaning it more than she could say.
"Thank you," he replied, pulling her closer against his side. She snuggled in automatically. "Although if you really want to thank me, you could reconsider that whole sharing a room thing. We could get a bunk bed too." His voice became low and husky. "I'd even let you be on top."
The next day they drove back to the city - Castle driving his car and Kate following in the U-haul van they had hired – with six suitcases of clothes, five boxes of toys and books, one large wooden toy chest, two bikes and two more sons than when they left.
The moment Castle had parked the car, the boys were out, running up and down the sidewalk.
"Did you see up waving at you, Aunty Kate?" asked Zeke.
"I sure did," she assured them.
"Is this our new house? It's huge!"
"Do you own the whole building?"
"Are there slides inside?"
"Sorry to disappoint, but I don't own the whole thing," Castle laughed. He pointed at the corner. "That's our apartment up there."
"Cool," said Eli.
"It's really high up! Can you see the statue of liberty from there?" Zeke was shouting, but the two boys were already running ahead into the lobby without waiting for a reply.
Kate loaded up with two suitcases, and took off after them.
"Wait, boys!" she called.
The doorman had stopped them just inside the lobby.
"Mike, sorry about that," Kate apologised. "I can explain-"
"No need, Ms Beckett," said Mike with a smile. "Miss Castle already told me we had two new residents coming today. I thought it might be best if they waited for you though," he laughed.
"Thanks," said Kate dryly. "And how many times do I have to tell you to call me Kate?"
"At least one more, Ms Beckett," answered Mike with a smile.
Castle appeared then, loaded up with boxes. "Hi, Mike," he said, nodding at the doorman. The boys began fighting over who got to push the elevator button. Castle smoothly intervened, and Eli got to push the 'up' button, and Zeke got to push the level for their floor once they were on board.
Kate felt exhausted.
The boys' reaction to the apartment made her smile though. They ran in circles through the lounge, then Eli discovered Castle's bedroom coming out of the side of the office. "Cool!" Eli shouted, his voice echoing, "Can this be our room?"
"Your room is upstairs," Kate replied, putting the two suitcases down. "But my stuff is in there, so I have to move that first."
"Where are you going to put your stuff?" asked Zeke.
"Are you going to stay in this room?" Eli shouted from Castle's bedroom. "Not fair! Hey look, there's a bathroom in this bedroom! How weird."
"That's Castle's room," Kate replied.
"Are you going to stay there too?" asked Zeke. "Are you going to make lovey faces at each other like you did on the couch at our place?"
Kate heard laughter from across the room and looked up to see Alexis descending the stairs. She felt her face heat.
"It's not like- we were not making lovey faces!" she stuttered out.
"They totally were," Zeke whispered loudly to Alexis.
Kate pretended she didn't hear that.
It took several trips back to the van to bring everything up to the loft, and Kate felt every one of the long days they had had the past weeks, but she needed to get started moving her things from the spare room to Martha's.
Martha had already removed the rest of her belongings from her room, although Kate found the upstairs hall closet was still filled to overflowing with more neon shoes and tasselled clutches than it should be legal for one woman to own.
Surprisingly, moving her things to her new room didn't take all that long, and Kate was again reminded of everything she had lost when her apartment blew up 6 months ago.
Of course, she didn't have to look around her room to see all the things she had gained since then. There were four of them, and they were waiting for her downstairs.
Castle looked up as she made her way down the stairs. He was in the kitchen, preparing sandwiches for everyone. Kate felt her stomach rumble. "I was just about to come and get you," he told her, smiling.
As they sat down to eat, Castle handed her a piece of paper.
She looked up at him in confusion.
"It was on the fridge when we got home," Castle told her. "Read it."
'It Takes A Village' was written across the top of the page. Curious, Kate read on. First was a note saying, 'Martha and Chet' followed by Martha's cell number, then Chet's cell, and the phone number for their apartment. Under that was written 'I didn't do a horrible job with Richard!'.
Kate's brows furrowed in confusion.
The next paragraph was headed 'Alexis', again followed by her cell. 'Can bring them home from school and watch in the evenings, except Thursdays when I tutor for AP maths. Weekends no problem.'
It suddenly struck her what this paper was. Each paragraph was another friend or family member volunteering to sit for the boys. Each had listed their contact details and a brief summary of when they could help out. She looked down the page to see notes from her father, Martha, Chet, Alexis, Phoebe (a friend of Alexis with her own babysitting business), Ryan, Jennie (who mentioned she got lonely in the evenings if the team was working late, so she could happily take the boys for a few hours), Lanie, Espo, Maddie and Demming. Even the Montgomerys had a note, saying that they could have the boys around anytime.
The kindness of their friends blew her away.
"Castle," she whispered, looking up at him in awe.
A smile spread across the writer's face as he looked at her. "I know," he said. "It's great, isn't it?"
She shook her head in amazement. "What did we do to deserve such good friends?" she asked.
"You're you," he replied, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
She looked back down at the page, the words blurring as her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away quickly, smiling to herself. Maybe they really could do this, after all.
That afternoon Montgomery called her, and begged her to stay on at the 12th. He promised more flexible work hours and an extra administrative assistant to share between the two homicide teams to help out with paperwork. Kate told him she had to think about it, but made a time to go and see him to talk about it.
She had a long conversation with Castle about what they would do. It was finally begin to hit her that every decision she made from now on would involve others. Everything she did affected the boys, or Castle or Alexis, or all of them.
She worried about the danger and long hours, but Castle assured her they would work things out. Honestly, she really couldn't imagine her life without her job, so she went to the meeting with Montgomery and agreed to start back three days later. She was running out of paid leave anyway, and as much as Castle offered to pay for things, she didn't want to take advantage of him. And she was just beginning to realise how expensive kids were. Castle's multimillion dollar fortune might not be enough on its own.
So the boys slept with her in Martha's king size bed for two days, while they ordered bunk beds and painted the spare room blue. They installed bookshelves along one wall of the boys' room, and Alexis filled them with some of her hand-me-down books, as well as the ones the boys brought with them.
At night Kate tried not to miss the feel of Castle's body beside her, wondering how she slept better squashed up against him in a broken-down, saggy fold out than on Martha's pillow top mattress in a cherry wood four poster bed.
Eli still broke out with anger for no reason sometimes, and Zeke sobbed when they couldn't find his blanket before he went to bed the first night in the city. Kate still questioned her every decision, and feared that one wrong choice could land the boys in therapy for the rest of their life. But Alexis helped her unpack all six suitcases until they found Zeke's blanket, and Castle was a rock, guiding her through the days when life seemed impossible.
Slowly, gradually, hope returned to their lives.