A/N: I'm not gonna lie, pure bitterness fueled this fic. The idea of a Castle without Beckett is a combination of absurd and heartbreaking, so I watched a bunch of scenes and fanvids on Youtube and ended up with Castle and Beckett adopting a murder victim's two kids. What can you do?

Anyway.

The title comes from the Ed Sheeran song "All of the Stars." Most of this fic will probably take place from Kate's POV, and there isn't a huge abundance of Castle in this chapter. There may be some more Castle/Beckett romance-y scenes in the future, potentially, but this is first and foremost a family fic. Semi-related to that, I didn't keep up with seasons 7 and 8, as dearly as I loved the shows' earlier seasons, so there's no LokSat and I probably won't reference Castle's disappearance. However, Castle and Beckett are married, are committed to each other, etc.

Also: later chapters of this fic will feature gay, bisexual, and transgender characters. While I strongly believe Beckett is bi, the LGBT+ characters in this fic will be the kids when they're older. This fic is gonna a time jump from chapter to chapter, exploring family life with the Castles. My point is, if you're homophobic, biphonic, and/or transphobic, this fic, or at least the later chapters, probably isn't for you. Sorry for my harshness, but it gets on my nerves when people critique characters' sexualities instead of the stories, in the fics I've written for Castle and in other fictional stories.

Anyway.

Onto the fic. Enjoy!

If you didn't know better, and were possibly slightly narrow-minded, you'd maybe think that Rick and Kate hadn't documented the beginning years of their son's life, and the beginning months of their daughter's. In coming years, the walls would be adorned with photographs that some would observe and maybe parts of the timeline of their family were missing. But the truth was that Jude didn't come into their lives until he was five, his sister Eleanor just a few weeks beyond newborn.

When Kate knelt down by Jude and said with sad sincerity, I know what it's like to lose your mom, both she and Rick knew immediately, instinctively, that they were done for. They were attached.

Both Jude and Eleanor, who was affectionately called Nora, had unknown listed as their father on their birth certificates. Their mother was twenty-seven-year-old Delilah Shay and she had been poisoned by her boyfriend, a thankfully nonviolent death, sparing Jude the bloody skewing of happy memories that Kate knew all too well. Jude, more than anything, was confused by Delilah's absence and its permanence.

Kate felt small fingers curl around her wrist; Jude's glasses made his eyes look bulbous, bug-like and sweet. "When is Momma coming back?" he asked in a hushed voice and glanced briefly at Nora, who was perched on Kate's hip, like this was a conversation she shouldn't hear. It was his second night at the loft and Kate was about to read him a bedtime story, at his request. He wore an old t-shirt of Rick's that slipped off his shoulder and cotton pants with spaceships rocketing across them, his brown hair hanging bath-damp around his earnest face.

"She's not. She can't, buddy, I'm sorry," Kate told him gently, not for the first time and not for the last, reaching out without thinking to lightly cup the back of his head in a reassuring gesture. Over the years, she'd met plenty of people who'd lost their mothers, children as well, but never had she seen the varied depths of her grief reflected so innocently back to her.

He nodded seriously, trying to process this mature and solemn concept, and she stroked his hair once, softly, not wanting to overwhelm him. She didn't want him to think she was trying to replace Delilah. Maybe one day he would view her as his mother, a slightly different kind of mother, a companion to Delilah rather than a substitute, but that was a distant, wishful concept. Social services had only tentatively released Jude and Nora into Rick and Kate's custody because there were no available blood relatives; though Rick had all the money in the world to raise two more children, between Kate's dangerous job and Rick's police record and public persona, adoption would be a fight.

But tonight was tonight. Jude was all skinny limbs and uncertainty and budding heartache, Nora sleepy and warm against her side. It was early summer, a cool breeze and vague city sounds drifting through the open windows. "C'mon, it's time for bed," she said, and Johanna's fading voice, saying those same words, echoed back to her. Jude stepped into his room, which was once Martha's, while Kate stood out in the hallway, momentarily stunned.

He sat down on his bed; Rick had insisted upon buying Jude and Nora all new stuff for no other reason than that was just something Richard Castle would do, and the room had become a snapshot of childhood in 2016. Jude stared out at Kate, tilted his head, a different kind of bewilderment overtaking his expression.

"I thought you said it's time for bed," he said, his brow furrowing adorably.

Kate's mind shifted back from Johanna to Jude. "Yeah. Yeah, go ahead and get under the covers."

As he did so, Kate settled Nora in the crib by Jude's bed. Alexis's old room would be Nora's eventually, if there was an eventually, but Kate and Rick had agreed it would be cruel to separate the siblings. Nora yawned, a sight so cute it'd melted stronger hearts than even the steely Kate Beckett's.

Kate couldn't resist a taken smile, both kids being as endearing as they were, before tucking Jude in. He looked safe, the blankets curled around him, and she stroked his hair again, again just the once. He said quietly, "Tell me what your mom's like? I tell you about mine after."

"It's late." She sat down on the floor, elbows leaning on the mattress so she could look Jude in the eye. She pushed back the sting of his accidental use of present tense. "How about I tell you about my mom tonight, and you can tell me about yours tomorrow?"

"Yes, please."

She smiled, tinged with a sadness so subtle Jude didn't pick up on it. "My mom . . . her name was Johanna. I don't have any siblings, so it was just me and my mom and my dad, Jim, he's still alive."

"You didn't have a Nora?"

"No, I didn't."

"Didn't that make you sad?" Oh, the concern in his eyes. He was such a kind, lovable little guy.

"I don't really think about, to tell you the truth. I had my parents, and we had a couple dogs, too. I always had somebody to play with. And my mom, she loved sidewalk chalk. We spent hours drawing and my hands would turn all sorts of colors."

She held out her hand, both now imaging the skin stained with vibrant purples and blues and greens from an afternoon of art. He reached out and cautiously laid his fingers on the edge of her palm like the gesture would transfer the happier memories from her brain to his. "The rain would wash it away after a couple days," she continued. "But then we would make all new pictures."

He yawned, and she pulled her hand back, smiled gently. "Sweet dreams, Jude."

"G'night."

She checked on Nora, who was sleeping peacefully with her tiny fist inches from her mouth, and turned off the light on her way out. The nightlight within seconds flicked on, illuminating the room dimly but soothingly. She didn't expect Jude to feel comfortable yet coming to her or Rick with his nightmares or fears, but hoped that the miniature Spongebob Squarepants nightlight, a souvenir-like item from his old home, would remind him of his mother's love and calm him.

As she descended the staircase, she was thinking of Louis Bradford. He'd been dating Delilah since last year and had poisoned her because, according to Delilah's friend Sheri, he'd been certain she'd cheated on him multiple times. Regardless of motive, Esposito had confirmed he'd purchased the poison used to kill Delilah with his credit card. Not a smart move, but they'd all agreed earlier that evening to arrest him the next morning. And she thought of her own vindication when she'd finally put the cuffs on Bracken, that sense of justice running through her that should've been her mother's in 1999, but had been passed onto her like a morbid, if virtuous, family heirloom. She recalled Delilah's face, not slack and sightless in death, but in life, the picture underneath her name on the murder board, smiling and weightless if only in the second it took to snap the photograph.

She knew she would feel a familiar inkling of that vindication and justice tomorrow, for Jude. It was relieving, whenever she caught her murderer, but the idea that Jude would know who killed his mom - it was something else altogether. Jude would never curl into himself like a snake eating its own tail until it disappeared, and maybe he never would've, being so young whereas she'd been nineteen, but still. Jude and Nora would already grow up with Delilah's death haunting them; they deserved the closure of her murderer being in jail. Not to mention Delilah herself, a young but dedicated mother, deserved so too.

The loft wasn't Jude and Nora's home yet, not technically, legally. But something was taking root, forming slowly, a hand reaching out cautiously into the darkness. There was no guarantee of their desired outcome, but, nevertheless, there was hope.

The next day, she arrived home as Rick was making dinner. Jude was watching TV, and it was Nora's naptime. Kate sat beside Jude on the couch, and he turned away from the screen to look at her. "Jude," she started, tried to suppress the tremors in her voice. "A very bad man hurt your mom, and today me and my friends Kevin and Javier caught him. He's going to jail for a long time, until you're even older than me and Rick."

She could see the wheels turning. He blinked slowly, and tears formed as the truth burrowed in, became very real. When those tears fell and he let out a gasping sort of whimper, she pulled him into her arms. They had never embraced before, and when he grasped at her, she knew he was searching for Delilah and she couldn't be Delilah but she was Kate, someone who understood him, someone who would protect him. Someone who would care for him.

He cried into her shoulder, the sounds of sorrow muffled by her shirt, and eventually pulled back, sniffling and pink-cheeked. In a movie, he would say something precocious or something heart-warming, but he just stared at her brokenly. He blinked that slow blink a second time and then looked back at the TV, faking interest in the loud, colorful world onscreen. She understood. She didn't press him.

Dinner was a quiet affair; even Rick was uncharacteristically quiet. He, thankfully, knew nothing about losing a mother, but knew that talking wasn't what Jude needed at the moment. Even Nora wasn't babbling or cooing, distracted by the bottle Rick was feeding her.

After their meal was Jude's bathtime; he took them while wearing a pair of swimming trunks, understandably uncomfortable at the prospect of being naked in front of semi-strangers, and was pretty independent when it came to washing his body but had trouble with his hair. Already Kate and Rick had decided on a routine of switching roles: one took bathtime, the other bedtime. Yesterday, Rick had taken the former and Kate the latter, so tonight Kate helped Jude with his bath and Rick tucked him in.

Alone in the semi-darkness of her bedroom, Kate let a few tears escape, but didn't stop for them. She undressed and put on her pajamas and didn't let this small crack in her defenses hinder her. It was the breaks she had to watch for, the breaks that rendered her a mess, the kind of mess she only allowed herself to be on rare occasions. But as much as a good cry would probably feel good after this case, she kept her composure. Jude and Nora were right upstairs, and though they wouldn't see her or hear her, she could feel them counting on her.

So she resolutely wiped those pesky tears away, pressed her feelings down, and thought of Jude and Nora.