Contemplating
For once in a very long time; Beckett was sitting still. The kids were playing on the floor in front of her. Martha was home across the hall. Alexis and Jake were visiting Jake's family. And Castle was in his office unwrapping a package he had recently gotten in the mail.
In Castle's mind it was time for him to start a tradition. One that he had with Alexis when she was little.
"Dad! What are you doing?"
"You have 30 seconds to suit up."
"I…"
"A game is afoot."
"Dad…"
"Wait. Let me savor this. I haven't gotten the drop on you since you were 10. Oh, this feels like…victory."
"Dad, look I can't, okay? I have a big decision to make."
"Well, have you at least narrowed it down?
"I made a list of all the classes and extra circulars. And the best choices seem to be Oxford and Stanford."
"What about Columbia? NYU? Vassar?
"They're all too close. I'd come home all the time. I want to challenge myself. And I'd get sucked into things like this."
"But then who's gonna play with me?"
"I think it's time to holster the laser guns and be adults."
"Game over. Please proceed to exit."
"Oh darling. It's just a game."
"No, it's not. It's a time honored family tradition that we've been honoring since Alexis could wrap her little finger around a trigger. First one to a thousand points wins. And we were so close. We laser tagged our way through her preteen years and now, suddenly, she's too old to play."
"She's growing up."
"Well she doesn't have to. Look at me."
Castle came into the living room with four laser tag vests and guns. He had suited up in his office before he came out.
"Are the four you ready?"
"Yes!" the kids shouted in unison.
"Now I started this laser tag tradition with Alexis when she was a kid."
The kids nodded as the eagerly as they listened to their dad.
"First one to a thousand points wins." Castle said as he helped his sons and daughters suit up.
After Castle and the kids played laser tag for a while; they called it quits so that Castle could see what was going on with his wife.
"What's going on?"
"I was just thinking of what Doyle said all those years ago."
"Oh. The three kids? I think we went past that." Castle said as he looked to James Royce.
"I wasn't thinking of that. I was thinking of something else he had said."
"What?"
"You mean me writing serious literature and you being a senator?"
"Yeah."
"Well; what do you want? Do you want to keep being a homicide detective or do you want to be a senator. You'd definitely be a better senator than Bracken was."
"Thanks; but the thing is, I have no idea what I want to do."
It was then that both of them knew that there was a lot to think about.