Dinner, as was standard in a Castle family meal, was delicious and loud. The little lady of the loft insisted on sitting beside Lindsay so she could get as many details about the wedding and what Bermuda was like so she could inform Bib he had nothing to be afraid of. RJ, between bites of enchilada and rice, was debating the merits of video games with Adam and Beckett could only smile laughingly at her husband.

'Nice to see we've arranged such good play-dates for the children.'

'Since they're old enough, maybe we can go out for a drink.'

'No, no goin' 'way,' Jojo said, looking up from the last bites of her dinner. 'We haffin' an-shee-la-las!'

'I'm just teasing Daddy, Jojo,' Beckett reassured her little girl. 'We're all staying here for now.'

'Good.'

'Maybe after dinner, can we play a game all together?' RJ asked. He looked hopefully from his parents to their guests. 'I know you and Mumum have some work to do probably for the case but it would be nice to have a game together.'

'We can have a little game, but when it's time for dessert, it's time for the grownups to visit, okay?' Castle reminded his boy.

'Okay Daddy.'

'It time tidy up?' Jojo asked, and held out her plate for inspection. 'See? All done.'

'Very good Jojo, but you have to wait for the others.'

'Okay. Lissy, you ah-mos' done too?'

'Just about.' Lindsay felt her stomach churn the way it had been all week but she forced down another couple of bites - it just tasted so good, it would totally be worth it if she was throwing up later that night at home. 'What kind of game do you want to play.'

'Go Fish?'

'We can play Go Fish, I think.'

'Whee!'

'Mister Adam,' RJ asked, shoveling in the last of his veggies and rice, 'do they make card game video games?'

'Sure they do, for all ages and all kinds of card games,' Adam replied, reaching for another taco shell; he'd lost count how many this was after four. Unlike Lindsay who would barely eat two spoonfuls of anything when she was nervous, if he was stressed his appetite went through the roof.

'I think I'll have to get Jojo one for her birthday. Then I can show her how to play video games and we'll have lots of fun doing that together.'

'You like playing with your sister?'

RJ nodded. 'Oh yes. I have my friends at school, but Jojo is my tied-for-number-one girl and I like to find things we can do together. When she goes to my school in a year or two, she can see me at recess because I'll be big enough to be a kindergarten helper but right now, we have to play games together when I'm not at school.'

'I hep Ah-Shay wit' home-work,' Jojo said importantly and dabbed her lips with her napkin. 'He say I can col-ah 'tuff if I cay-fo.'

'And you're very good at it,' RJ told her; he reached across the table to feed the birds with her, then looked at his plate. 'Daddy I am finished too, thank you for helping me make dinner.'

'Anytime, big bro.'

'May I take anyone's plate away to the sink, so we don't have dirty dishes around?'

Beckett watched with pride as her little man helped to tidy up and Jojo insisted on helping him. This was exactly what she needed, she realized, ever since getting the call that there was a murder at a school. She hadn't realized how shaken she still was over the whole affair. She knew it had gotten to Adam too which was probably part of the reason he was stuffing himself like a Christmas goose - the guy ate like a garbage disposal when he was freaking out.

Having this night to tune it out and be with family, watching her children and her husband interact with their guests was just the right antidote to the horror she knew they would be dealing with in the morning when they had to keep looking into the students and staff of Calliope Thrace.

'Mumum?' RJ appeared at her elbow. 'Mumum, are you finished with your supper?'

'Oh, no, I'm still working on it, RJ,' she replied, realizing that her drifting meant she still had half her last enchilada on the plate.

'You need to eat your veggies up, you have to stay big and strong to catch the bad guys.'

'Bad guys no' gonna get 'way!' Jojo declared; she returned to her chair beside Lindsay. 'I finish helpin', I gotta 'tay outta way fo' big people now.'

'That's a good plan, Jojo,' Lindsay told her. 'Even when you want to help more, sometimes being little means you might get hurt.'

'Sacky, Lissy. Mumum, when we haffin' dizzer'?'

'Not for a little while, bumblebee.'

'Lissy, wanna come see Bib? Ah-Shay buh-ringin' Omeo on-a puh-lane, but Omeo, he been on puh-lane lossa.' Jojo looked to her mother. 'Mumum, we go, puh-lease?'

'Well-'

'It's okay, Kate.' Lindsay smiled at the little girl. 'I would love to come and see Bib. Who or what is a Bib?'

Lindsay rose and took Jojo with her upstairs and RJ followed them up, which gave Beckett and Adam a chance to discuss the case; though they both knew this was the time to be relaxing away from the job they wouldn't be completely settled until it was off their chests.

'The school re-opens Monday which means tomorrow we need to talk to the rest of the staff that immediately worked with Wayne Hill,' Beckett decided, 'and more, we need CSU to give us their answers on the coffee cup and its contents.'

'Is this case going cold?' Adam asked with a slight sinking in his gut.

'Not a fucking chance, not on my watch. Schools are supposed to be safe and when that is violated it is very hard to get back to normal. Look at Polytechnique in Montreal, Columbine, the Amish school-house killings. All of those hit so deep not just because they are children, but because school is supposed to be a place of togetherness and co-operation and constructive violence.'

'Constructive violence?' Castle repeated.

'Gym class and sports teams and learning to stand up for yourself against bullying and protecting those who can't stand up for themselves,' she explained, stabbing the last few bites of her dinner and chewing on them thoughtfully. 'All of those things are ways to deal with violence in a way that doesn't scar kids for life.'

'I dunno, I was pretty scared by being forced into modern dance and gymanstics in the seventh grade.'

'Castle-'

'I know what you mean, Kate,' he interrupted her, and rose to begin clearing the dishes so the cops could do their thing. 'And part of the many reasons I love you is watching that look in your eyes when you think I'm being a pill.'

'Funny man.'

'Yeah, I'm a box of monkeys.'

Adam listened to them bicker playfully and could only imagine what it would have been like to listen to them wedding plan. He'd heard the stories of how they'd kept their wedding a secret since they didn't want their day to eclipse the unexpected news of Lanie and Dave having their first baby. He thought of how he and Lindsay had their own thing of calling each other by food names as a term of endearment, and if they wanted to point out the other was being a right pain in the ass they'd pick a food they knew the ass-hat didn't like.

He wondered what they'd use on each other when they started a family and Lindsay's hormones were going bananas, no pun intended.

'Beckett,' he said as a thought occurred to him, 'women get pregnancy brain right?'

'Yeah,' she replied at length, 'but it's more common in the last trimester from what I've read.'

'Damn, I was thinking maybe Carolina did it without realizing what she'd done.'

'Doesn't quiet work that way,' Beckett laughed. 'But a good idea nonetheless. I still think you've got reason to be suspicious of Nicky Tee but sadly, we need more than a hunch, we need something hard to tie him to it.'

'Sarah's reaction wasn't enough?'

'It's a place to start, we need a lot more if we want to pin a cold-blooded murder on him.'