"Huh?" Kate asks dumbly. "Seriously?"

The flat, humorless look on Alexis' face is the redhead's only reply.

"Right, sorry. Why would you joke about that?" Kate agrees, pinching the bridge of her nose. Too, too little sleep. What does she do now? Kate ruminates on it for a minute, wishing for all the world that she had a cup of coffee to help clear the fog. Finally, she holds out a hand. "Do you have your phone?"

"What? Why?" Alexis gropes around in the big pocket in the front of her pullover hoodie. Alexis holds out her I-Phone, but yanks it back just as Kate's fingers almost close around it. "You do realize that everyone in their right mind is asleep right now, right?"

Kate snags Alexis by the wrist and pads down the hallway, unlocking the phone as she goes. When they get to the intersection, Kate blindly aims the phone around the corner and snaps a photograph. Sure enough, when she pulls it back to look, there is Charlie, or the left half of him at least, necktie askew, parked on the floor under the nursery window. It's a long hallway, probably over a hundred feet to the nursery, but it's clearly Charles Trent. There's a little blanket-wrapped bundle resting on his lap – her bundle. Kate turns the screen toward Alexis.

"That is definitely your granddad," Kate confirms. She drags Alexis back toward her hospital room until they're safely out of earshot. Kate studies photo, chewing on her thumb nail. "How dumb did I look doing that Get Smart thing with your phone, anyway?"

"I'm still blaming your behavior on the drugs, so don't sweat it." Alexis smiles with her gentle jab.

Kate just shakes her head. "Maybe so. But now I can do this." Kate taps the picture, attaches it to a text message with a "911" and sends it to Martha's cell phone.

"I stand corrected," Alexis admits.

A sigh. "I so didn't follow that."

Alexis nods toward the phone. "Anyone in their right mind?"

"If she's crazy, it's only crazy like a fox," Kate mumbles under her breath.

"Oh no, rich people don't go crazy, they become eccentric."

"In that case," Kate laments, "by the time we sort out all of our family problems, I'm going to be very, very eccentric."

If it takes longer than sixty seconds for the phone to ring, it's not by much.

"Have I been drinking?" Martha asks sleepily, as soon as Kate answers on speaker. "I don't remember drinking. But then again, if I drank enough, I wouldn't exactly remember it, am I right?"

"You didn't answer with a show tune, so I'm gonna say no."

"Kate, dear girl! But I saw Alexis' number?"

"I'm here, Gram," Alexis assures her.

"Darlings! Either somebody spiked my chamomile tea, or Charlie is holding the baby. I used raw, local honey, and at the time felt very dietarily self-righteous about it. Can buttulism make you hallucinate?"

"Martha, you're not high, it's really him."

"Great Scott!" Martha exclaims.

"Exactly," Kate agrees. "What do I do, Martha? I feel like I have to do something here."

Over the line, they hear sheets rustle and the bedside lamp click. Martha exhales through her nose. "He's a good man, Kate. He's just out of practice being loved."

"I don't doubt it, but what do I do now?"

"With a little time, I'm certain we could devise something very clever...but that's out the window. Soooo...yes! How about this? A family dinner, this Saturday night. I'll take care of everything. You know your husband, Kate. If Richard looks at all hopeful, don't let this opportunity pass us by. Don't give Charlie the chance to second guess himself. I'll order in that duck a l'orange, you'll invite Jim. We'll stuff ourselves and pamper you and take turns holding Ethan. Charlie and Richard will hit it off, or they won't, but it won't be because we didn't take this chance. How about that?"

Kate casts a questioning look at Alexis, who is being really, really quiet.

Alexis looks down at Martha's likeness on the screen and back up to Kate. "I like duck a l'orange."

If Alexis, whose reasoning skills are more intact than her sleepy grandmother's or her exhausted step-mother's, can see the sense in this plan, Kate can roll with that.

"Thank you, Martha. I'll give it a go. Sorry I woke you, I just didn't know where to start."

"Poppycock. We made a muck of this forty five years ago and you're trying to help fix it. If this works, I shall throw a parade in your honor!" And then, in a more subdued tone, "I love you, kiddo. Thank you for taking such good care of my boy. And you, too, Alexis, my sweet girl."

Kate blinks at the phone laying in her palm, a beat passing before she remembers to reply. Martha has always been overwhelming; but after all these years, she still catches Kate absolutely flat-footed. "Love you, too."

A little hum and something sounding like an air kiss ends the call. Kate looks at the phone for a moment, and hands it back to Alexis. "So we invite him to dinner?"

"Yeah, I guess? Gram thinks it's the way to go. She knows them both, which nobody else here can claim."

"What about you? You'd tell me if you think this is a mistake, right?"

Alexis locks the screen and pockets her phone, stalling to get her thoughts in order. Finally she meets Kate's eyes. Resolve. That's what Kate sees burning there.

"My whole life, Dad has been this big, sweet, hopeful, optimistic bundle of enthusiasm. He's so curious about everything, like a little kid. Has to know the answer, solve the riddle. He was content imagining his father was an astronaut or inventor or something crazy. I didn't fully realize why. It's not because as a storyteller he likes the romantic ideal better; it's because he didn't expect any good to come from knowing. In the back of his mind, even though he never voiced it quite this starkly, he thought that he was better off without him. I know it's a product of Dad hurting more than he's ever let on, but that level of pessimism is so unlike him, that frankly, I reject it on his behalf."

Alexis, pretty wound up at this point, stops and takes a deep breath. When she begins again, it's in a softer tone, but just as full of conviction. "Dad doesn't want to want this, but he does; it's written all over him. I know how important it is to have a good father, because I have the best. Gram says Charles is a good man, and she'd never want to see Dad get hurt. If Charles is here and making the effort, I say we do everything in our power to make this a good story, and not a bad one."

Kate has said it to her husband before -this is a family made of half-orphaned children. She and Castle have spoken at length about it, how determined they are to break the cycle wrought over the years both by forces without and within, that has left most of their clan navigating the absence of a parent. They have made a covenant as a family that Ethan will reach adulthood with both parents present, whatever it takes. But what if Castle can do it now, too? And what if Kate fills in where Meredith never will, and Alexis lets her. And like moments ago, Kate gets to lean on Martha for a shot of wisdom when she's coming up dry?

It's too much to hope for; what staggers Kate is that it's happening.

"This is getting old," Kate quips, wiping her eyes for the third or fourth or twentieth time since the day began. "Am I really this hormonal mess?"

"Yes, but you love my Dad, and you just gave birth, so it's very true to character. Work it."

Kate snorts and makes one more pass over her face, runs a hand over her braid and straightens here robe. A tear track shines on Alexis cheek, and Kate rubs it away with her thumb. Taking Alexis' arm again, she squares them off, facing back the way they came.

"Is this the part where I gird my loins?" Alexis stage whispers.

"I certainly hope not," Kate says, laughing, on the edge of delirious. "But come what may, let's go make a dinner date."