'Come on, come on, my little prince, up up up and...yea!'

Beckett sat in the middle of her bed as she watched RJ stretch his little head up off of the sheets and hold it there for five seconds. She clapped her hands and cheered for him in a way only a mother could. 'Look at you go! Who's my big boy? You are, yes you are.'

'He's getting so big already,' Castle sighed. 'Pretty soon we'll be locking up the liquor cabinet and giving him hell over his texting bill.'

'Aw, don't say that, my boy's going to be a gentleman.'

'I hate to break it to you, Katie-Lou, but you've got a son with Richard Castle DNA in him. You'll be lucky to survive his adolesence at all.'

Beckett laughed, stretched out her legs which had begun to cramp from being folded up. 'You've got that look on your face that says you have to tell me something I might not like.'

'Alexis emailed me about her flight, she's getting in on the Memorial Day weekend on Saturday night, so it looks like she's going to miss the big fun weekend.'

'She can't come any sooner?'

'She's on a bump-list for the red-eye on the Friday, but at this point, she isn't going to make it up to the Hamptons.'

'That sucks, we've got the games for the kids and the baby shower we're planning for Meredeth and Javi, but if she can't get a flight, she can't get a flight.' Beckett frowned, mulling it over. 'Who's going to meet her? Wait, why am I even asking?'

'My girl is growing up,' Castle sighed, sitting down on the bed beside his wife. 'And it's invading my home.'

'Would you object to Shane staying over here?'

'No, of course not, that'd be a little ridiculous of me. It's...I don't know, it's degrees of separation, if that makes any sense.'

'Sure it does. You know she's being intimate with him, but there's a difference between knowing that and seeing it.'

Castle clenched his eyes shut. 'Kate, that's just wrong!'

'I mean,' Beckett clarified, trying not to laugh at her husband's freak-out, 'what if we're here, and they go up to her room before we go to bed, or it's the next morning after he's stayed over, and it's quite obvious what they've done the night before when he comes downstairs to have breakfast with us all. It's a lot different than the...insulation, I guess you'd say, of Alexis saying she's staying over at his place. You can pretend you don't know that they'll bunk down with a drink and maybe a racy movie for the night to get them in the mood.'

He stared at his wife blankly. 'You mind if I borrow your handcuffs to chain her to the radiator when she gets home?'

'The only time my handcuffs are being used for anything other than arrest criminals is if I want you...' she trailed off, kissed him seductively, 'to stay put.'

'Kate!' Castle pretended to be scandalized. 'Not in front of RJ!'

He wrapped his arms around her body and watched as RJ stretched on his tummy again, flapping his little arms and bracing his hands in the soft sheets. Then, without warning, he suddenly rolled to his back and both the parents were gasping. RJ could sense he'd done something cool because he looked at them and began to laugh hysterically. He had his daddy's laugh, no question, and he was grabbing onto his knees and batting his hands against them.

'RJ, can you go the other way back to your tummy? Come on, try it for Mommy and Daddy,' Beckett encouraged him and grinned when he tried his best but was stuck like a little turtle flipped on its shell. 'Okay, okay my little prince. Here we are.'

She put him on his tummy once again where he didn't try to roll over until after he'd done a few more tummy up-and-down stretches. He made it to his side, then flopped back to his tummy with an 'I give up' sigh, and batted his dark eyes at his mother, making her insides go all soft and melty. She picked him up and kissed his cheek, making him gurgle happily as he wiggled around in her arms.

'Come on, there, chicken-butt, let's go get a drink and then it's bedtime.'

The next morning was one of total bliss. They were both awake early before RJ was cooing through his monitor for a snack and they made love in the light of the morning sun, then showered together. Beckett had just finished dressing when she heard RJ, and rather than keeping him in the nursery, she took him downstairs to the living room with her nursing pillow so as to be with her husband while he made them his infamous scrambled pancakes.

'Were those the result of a drunk night in college?' she asked as she fed RJ while Castle pulled ingredients fro

m the cupboard.

'Nope, this was me trying to make a dessert pizza for Alexis for her birthday when she was about eight and I wasn't the master breakfast chef I am now. Thankfully, she learned the error of my ways and actually made the dessert pizza.'

'Dessert pizza?'

'Yep, there was pancake for dough, strawberry sundae topping for tomato sauce and fresh mint for green peppers, pineapple is still pineapple and then topped with shredded coconut to looking like mozzarella.'

'Clever.' Beckett looked down at RJ so she wouldn't be tempted to tease her husband and ask if Alexis inherited his pancake making skills for make breakfast for Shane. Javier Esposito really was on the nose with that theory. 'Is that bacon I smell too?'

'It depends. What are you willing to do for it?'

'Sex act of your choice in the Jacuzzi.'

'You want the applewood or maple-cure?'

Beckett just chuckled, then burped her son who'd had his fill before they moved to the floor to play; she knew this one of Castle's favourite things - him in the kitchen taking care of them while she played with the baby so that he could watch them both. Her dad and her mother had both done the same thing, and she'd even seen Martha do it once or twice as well.

She leaned over to grab one of the pillows and when she turned back, she let out a little gasp. 'RJ Look at you, big boy! Rick, come in here!'

'What?' Castle rushed in, spatula in hand, were he saw his wife's face lit up in delight: their little boy was sitting up all on his own. He was leaned forward and balancing himself on his hands, but there he was, sitting up on his own with no help from his mother or some pillows. 'Hey, look at you, little dude! Look at you go!'

He went into the office, grabbed the laptop to call Alexis on Skype and was greeted with a very bleary-eyed twenty-something who was clearly trying to regain her bearings after a late-night on the town. Her voice was thick and dull, and she let out a little irritated groan.

'Dad, it's way too early. I was out with the girls until almost four-thirty last night.'

'That's a conversation for a different time. I thought you might like to see this.' Castle turned the laptop around so Alexis could see RJ sitting up all on his own.

'Yea, RJ, look at you go, sweetie! Aw, poor little guy's confused, here put me down,' she requested when she could see RJ tracking her voice and getting confused as to why he couldn't pin it down.

Castle set the laptop on the table and he watched with pride as his first baby cooed at the newest one, then went back to making breakfast for his family.

R&R&Enjoy