Twelve

Sandwich – Check. Orange – Check. Water bottle – Check.

Castle was just about finished with his pre-dawn routine when he was interrupted by the soft padding of feet coming down the hall. He looked up to see his daughter, hair in complete disarray from a night of fitful sleeping, rubbing her eyes as she approached. "Sweetie," he began softly, "what are you doing up?"

Castle could probably count on one hand the times Alexis had gotten out of bed before her alarm on a school morning. The girl loved to sleep in; a trait she picked up from her father. Generally, Castle tried to be as quiet as he could in the early morning hours, though given the size of their apartment he knew he occasionally woke her, but typically she just rolled over and fell back to sleep.

"I forgot to tell you something," she informed him before yawning. "I need a costume for school."

Castle felt a few droplets of sweat form on his brow. Good god—a costume? "What for, honey?"

"Thanksgiving stuff. I have to be a pilgrim or an Indian."

"Okay," he said slowly. Off the top of his head he wasn't sure how to construct either of those costumes. "When do you need it by?"

"Tomorrow."

Fresh panic filled Castle. "Tomorrow like today as in you should have told me yesterday that you needed this for tomorrow?"

The sleepy girl blinked up at her father. "Huh?"

Castle took a deep breath. "What day do you need the costume for, sweetie?"

"Friday."

Good, good. That was actually the following day, so he had time. Not much time, but still time. Castle stepped forward and put his arm around the girl's shoulders, turning her and directing her back towards her bedroom. "Okay, sweetie; we'll work on it tonight when you get home from school. Now go back to bed until your alarm goes off."

She yawned. "Ok, Daddy."

When Castle arrived at the precinct that morning he was still preoccupied by thoughts of Alexis's costume. Pilgrim or Indian? Which would be easier, he wondered to himself. Typically, he would have turned to his mother for advice as she was much more versed in costumes and anything else that fell under the realm of stage acting. Unfortunately, she was out of town at an actor's retreat and thus unable to assist him. That was alright, he told himself; he would simply find some time that morning to search the internet for easy costume ideas and then pick up whatever supplies he needed on the way home.

He sat down to his desk, logged on to his computer, and began absentmindedly going through the mail that had been delivered to his desk the previous day after he left. Coming across an envelope labeled "Confidential" Castle immediately ripped it open thinking it was the financial information they had requested for their latest case. He dumped the contents on his desk and picked up the page on top. Immediately, his brow furrowed.

The information was indeed financial records and bank statements, but not for their victim. Instead, the information was for a man named Richard Coonan, aka Dick Coonan, the man who had murdered Beckett's mother over a decade earlier.

More confused than ever, Castle picked up the envelope once more and turned it over. There, he found it was actually addressed to Detective Kate Beckett and not to him; someone had put it on his desk by mistake. Normally, he would have been concerned for the rage he would face from his partner over him opening a package meant for her, but at that moment his concern was outweighed by his own anger.

What the hell was she doing?

Months earlier he had sat with her on the fire escape behind the precinct as she cried and begged him not to pursue her mother's murder case any further. By her own admission the case had nearly destroyed her and she wanted—no, needed—to put it behind her.

As an investigator, Castle did not agree easily to these terms. He wanted to dig deeper; find more answers, but as she had asked him to, he agreed and had not done one second of research into Dick Coonan, his associates, or any of his other murder cases. He would have been lying if he said he didn't think about the case from time to time. Mostly, it was when he saw a sad expression cross her face; it reminded him of the deep sadness she had in her past.

He couldn't even fathom the pain, frustration and anger behind not being able to determine the origins on the hit put out on her mother's life. Though they weren't the best of friends, Castle could not comprehend losing his mother in such a violent way and then just walking away from the crime. That took great strength in his mind, but it appeared Kate had folded under the pressure.

His brow more wrinkled than ever, Castle reviewed the financial documents in his hands. At first glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. There were no large deposits that would indicate payoffs for a hired murder. All the transactions seemed normal to him, but then again he wasn't as familiar with the case as Kate clearly was.

Still annoyed, he set the pages aside and waited for her to arrive. When she did, they were going to have a discussion about the information and he imagined that discussion would not be a pleasant one.

Kate Beckett arrived at work, coffee cup in hand, annoyance written all over her face. She was late thanks to a fifteen minute shutdown of the subway car she rode in; she hated being late.

She mumbled a hello to her partner before sitting down at her desk and quickly tapping in her computer password. She scanned through her emails and found the financial information for their victim she'd been waiting for; perfect. Maybe this day wouldn't be so bad after all.

"Hey Castle, I"- Kate cut off her speech when she glanced across the desk to find her partner wasn't there. He'd been sitting there thirty seconds earlier. Where had he gone?

Sensing movement to her left, she turned her head and jumped when she realized he stood directly beside her, his six-foot-one frame towering over her seated figure. He looked annoyed. More than annoyed, actually. His expression definitely bordered on anger. "Jesus Castle, what are you doing?"

He slammed a stack of papers down on her desk and sat down hard in her guest chair. "I thought you weren't going to investigate," he said simply.

Confused, Kate turned her eyes down to see what he'd given her. The moment she saw the name at the top of the financial statements, she felt her whole body flush with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. "You opened my mail!?" she demanded of him.

He brushed off her accusation. "It was put on my desk by mistake; I thought it was for our case. What the hell, Kate?"

"This," she began, scooping up the stack and shoving it into her top desk drawer, "is none of your concern."

"The hell it isn't," he spat back at her. "I'm your partner."

"And this is my mother's case, which means it's off limits to you."

Her eyes narrowed at him and her expression turned dangerous. Normally, this would cause him to back off, but not that morning; not when he was already angry with her. "You said you weren't going to investigate."

Her nostrils flared as she took a deep breath. She held his gaze for another moment before turning back to her computer screen. "The case is none of your concern, Castle; end of story."

Castle did not move back to his seat, but Kate had no problem ignoring him. Her mother's case wasn't any of his concern; it was hers and hers alone. So she was looking into Coonan's financials—so what? Maybe there would be a really obvious connection to whomever hired him to kill her mother or any of the others whose lives he stole. What was the harm in looking for that?

For the next several hours the atmosphere between Castle and Beckett was icy at best. She reviewed their victim's financials and updated their murder board while he sulked at his computer. It was mid-morning by the time they spoke again. She informed him that she was going to go out and interview the victim's boss and landlord and he could tag along if he wanted to.

Castle stood from his desk, snagged the keys from hers before she could protest, and led the way to the elevator. Silent as ever, he climbed into the driver's seat and maneuvered the vehicle out into city traffic. They were about a block away from the precinct before he spoke. "About Coonan's financials."

She growled at him. "Castle-"

"No, listen," he interrupted, refusing to let her shut him down—not this time. "I'm not going to investigate; I won't help you, not unless you ask, but there's something I want to say and I want you to hear it." He paused and waited for a rebuttal from her. When none came, he continued.

"Every day—every single day we sit side by side, we share this car. You have my back and I have yours, which means I care about you. This isn't…this isn't about what we do outside of work. This is about you and me—partners on the job. I want your head in the game, Kate. You're the one who told me that your mother's case nearly destroyed you and that's why you had to stop investigating. What's changed now?"

For the remainder of their drive, Kate was silent. Though she loathed admitting it, her partner had a valid point. In addition to affecting her own life, her investigation could very well interfere with his as well.

During her first round of investigations into her mother's case she had done so exclusively on her own. She'd begun when she was still a beat cop. She would show up, put in her time, and the second she was off the clock turn her attention to her mother's murder. She didn't have anyone to answer to then other than her own conscious.

As time went on and she was upgraded to a detective, her investigation continued. At that point, she was partnered with Mike Royce, the man who taught her everything she needed to know about being a cop. Though he never confirmed it, she figured Royce knew about her investigations, but he never said anything. If he ever caught her doing something, he just ignored it, knowing how much she needed it. Royce was gone before things spiraled too out of control for her and she forced herself to stop.

If she had been deep in an all-consuming investigation while Royce was around she knew he would have stopped her or at least tried to step in. Castle, she believed, would do the same. He would probably catch on even quicker given the intimate level of their relationship.

She didn't want to hide her investigation from him completely. Doing so made her feel like an addict. Squirreling away files in hidden drawers and in the back of closets. Looking for one more fix to get her through the day. She didn't want to be that person. More so, it wasn't fair to Castle if she became that person.

He was right. They were partners and she needed to have her head in the game. If she was in the middle of investigating something about her mother's case or about Coonan, she knew she would find it difficult to put that aside and focus on the active case she was working with Castle. In that instance, she became a danger to both of them and she didn't want to be that person.

When they conducted their interview with their latest victim's boss, Castle and Kate caught a break in their case that took up the rest of their day. As it turned out, their murdered stock broker had a prescription drug problem; he was murdered by his dealer when he tried to short pay him for some goods.

With the rest of their afternoon consumed by paperwork, Kate was unable to find the right time to apologize to her partner. This she didn't mind too much—she was still working up the nerve to do so. She hoped to get the opportunity to do so later in the day, but Castle ducked out as soon as his paperwork was in without even saying goodbye. She thought about texting him, but then decided against it; this apology needed to be done in person.

Kate ordered herself takeout for dinner, but found she had little appetite. After putting what was left of her food in her fridge she tidied up her apartment to keep herself busy until eight o'clock when she left for Castle's. As she had done so several times before, she knew leaving at that time would enable her to arrive at her partner's apartment just as his daughter was getting in to bed. That way, she could apologize without an audience.

Nerves churning in her gut, Kate knocked on Castle's apartment door and waited, tapping her boot-covered toe against the ground. A minute later he pulled open the door. Though she intended on apologizing immediately, the bizarre sight in front of her derailed her thoughts.

Castle stood before her with a large white sheet draped around his shoulders like a vastly oversized scarf. On his head, sat a black top had that appeared to be made of plastic or vinyl and clutched in his hand was a pin cushion shaped like a tomato.

"I, um, I wanted to…what…what's going on?" she stammered out.

"Oh," he said, looking down at himself. "I'm making Alexis into a pilgrim."

"You're…what?!" she asked with confusion.

"She needs a costume for school." Castle stood back, opened the door a bit further, and nodded over his shoulder. There, standing on a stool in the middle of an entry way was his daughter, swathed in black from head-to-toe. She waved at their guest.

"Hi Kate."

"Hi," Kate replied dumbly. Then, she turned back to Castle and lowered her voice. "I, ah, wanted to talk to you but I thought Alexis would be in bed by now."

Castle cringed. "Sorry, we got kind of a late start on the costume thing….You don't want to help, do you? I could use another set of hands," he confessed.

"Ah, oh-okay," she stammered, not sure what else to say. Castle beamed and led her into the apartment. Once inside, Kate shrugged off her jacket and hung it on the clothes tree by the door. She set her purse down against the wall and walked over to the red-headed girl. "So, um, what are we doing?"

"Alexis needs a pilgrim costume for school tomorrow. Well, pilgrim or Indian, but I thought pilgrim would be easier…though I'm not sure why, because I don't think it is. Show her what we found, Alexis," Castle requested of his daughter. The young girl beamed and held up the tablet computer she grasped. On the screen displayed instructions on how to create a perfect, oh-so-easy child's pilgrim costume. Castle, it appeared, was deviating significantly from the written instructions.

"So, I found this black robe thing at a thrift shop on my way home. I think it was someone's graduation gown from high school or something, but it works. Got the top hat for a dollar and now I'm cutting apart the sheet to give her those white bib things. So, do you want to hold or cut?" Castle asked her as he pulled the sheet from around his neck.

"Hold, I guess," Kate said.

Castle positioned the sheet atop Alexis's right shoulder in the way he wanted and Kate held it in position as he cut it down to size. He pinned the white strip into place before they repeated the process on the other side. With Alexis's modeling part done, she hopped off the stool, pulled the robe over her head and scurried off to get ready for bed. Castle scooped up the robe and carried it to the couch, where a sewing station was already set up.

Kate followed him, not bothering to hide her surprise. "You can sew?"

"Uh…not really," he told her with a laugh. "I can sew on buttons and, though I'm not proud to admit this, I was occasionally forced to help my mother fix up some of her stage costumes, so I know the basics. This is probably going to be the worst pilgrim costume at school tomorrow, but at least she won't go without one."

"Oh, I don't think it'll be the worst," Kate assured him. Castle looked up at her with a significant amount of disbelief; she laughed. "Can I do anything?"

"Uh, yeah, actually. Can you glue that gold buckle over there on this hat?"

As his hands were busy, Kate plucked the hat from his head and carried it to the other end of the couch, Holding it in her hands she realized it was constructed of some felt covered vinyl and not very sturdy at all, but for a child's costume it would be good enough. She found the "gold buckle" (aka a rectangle cut out of yellow construction paper) sitting on the coffee table beside a glue stick and smiled to herself; she doubted she'd used a glue stick in over fifteen years.

She hung the hat over one of her knees and reached for the items on the table. She applied a healthy amount of glue to the back of the rectangle and did her best to center it on the hat before sticking it down. She held it firm with her fingers for a few moments and then picked the hat up off her knee. The buckle immediately fluttered to the ground.

Confused, she picked it up again and attempted to stick it back on, but it wouldn't comply. "Uh, Castle…it's not sticking," she said, turning to him with buckle and hat in hand.

"What? Why?"

"I dunno…maybe it's the texture of the hat; the glue won't adhere to it," she rationalized.

"Ah, damn…okay, well I don't have any other type of glue. Can you staple it on?" he asked. She gave him a skeptical look. "What?"

"That'll look terrible."

He scoffed at her. "Okay, well do you have a better idea?"

She stared at him blankly. "Arts and crafts aren't really my thing."

He laughed. "Join the club."

Kate stared down at the hat and faux buckle in her hands for several moments before an idea came to her. The construction paper might not stick to the hat by way of the glue stick, but she could probably stick two pieces of construction paper together with it.

She retrieved the stapler from Castle's nearby desk and stapled the construction paper buckle to the hat. Then, she cut out a second buckle and glued it over top of the first thereby hiding the staples. When she was done she held the hat up to examine her work. It looked decent…or, as decent as a yellow piece of construction paper affixed to a vinyl top hat could look. Turning the hat, she displayed it to Castle. "Ta da."

He turned his head and smiled when he saw her work. "Great job! Thanks!"

She smiled and sat the hat down on the coffee table. She sat sideways on the couch so she could look over at her partner more easily. His brow wrinkled as he sewed the sheet pieces onto the black fabric. At least once a minute he would stab himself with the needle and curse under his breath; it made her smile.

"Castle, listen the reason I came over here tonight was to apologize to you."

Castle stopped sewing, let his hands drop to his lap, and looked over at her.

She leaned in, resting her forearms against her thighs. "You were right. It's not fair to you if my head isn't in the game, but you don't have to worry—that won't be a problem anymore."

Castle considered her words for a moment. He wasn't sure if what she said meant she would stop investigating Coonan or she'd just be more careful about it, but he decided not to press the issue. Instead, he thanked her.

She nodded. "Can I help you with anything else?"

"Oh no—you've already done more than your fair share." He promised.

"You sure?"

Castle nodded. "Absolutely."

When he turned back to his sewing, Kate leaned over and kissed his cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow," she said. "And don't worry; I'm sure Alexis's costume will look great."

A/N: At some point I'm not sure why I bother defending myself, because it generally falls on deaf ears, but here we go: I'm sorry if you do not like the way Kate is written in this story. I stand by my writing and I do not believe her actions are out of character. This being said, if you don't like it, you don't have to keep reading it and you especially don't have to leave unpleasant anonymous comments.

...and yet, I'm sure I'll still get some.

To everyone else: thank you for reading; I appreciate your feedback.