168. Chapter 168

Chapter 168

Beckett was trying to get back into the routine of being at work every day, but she missed her family. She was making the rounds of the different units, visiting one, or maybe two if time allowed, and had a good idea of what was going on. As she walked into the Robbery bullpen again, one of the veterans of the twelfth was saying that she was doing a good job, but Carlisle snorted and said he was talking to an older guy at a bar the day before and heard about what she did to get that interim position at the fifty-first. She walked to his desk where his back was turned to her and asked, "And what did he tell you?"

"Just that…" When he turned and saw who asked, the young man blanched, didn't have a way out, and looked down at his desk as if it might be the source of some revelation that could get him out of the mess he was in.

"Look, Carlisle, You're new here and don't know me. People are going to talk about other people. It's human nature, and I expect it. But as long as you're here, if you're going to spread rumors to make somebody look that bad, no matter who it is, at least take the time to talk to people who actually know what happened before you start the gossip. When erroneous rumors start flying, it erodes trust and eventually affects morale. If you're at all interested in the truth, Ryan and Sully in homicide can tell you exactly what went on at the fifty-first because they were there. You can ask them anything you want and it won't bother me. Did this guy mention that the FBI and Deputy Chief Alvarez were also involved?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then maybe you'll want to look into it. Now, tell me how your case is going."

Carlisle stumbled nervously through his report, and then Beckett handed Bolton a typed page of information.

"I mentioned the case to Castle, and you know how he is. He knows fifty ways to research just about anything. This caught his fancy, and he found reports of similar thefts in Providence, Montpelier, and in Greenwich, Connecticut. Might be worth checking."

"He shoulda been a cop," Bolton muttered as he skimmed the page. "Tell him thanks for me."

"I will," she answered as she left.

"Who's Castle?" Carlisle asked, looking relieved at her departure.

"Richard Castle, the captain's husband. He's a writer…mystery novels…used to be a civilian consultant with her homicide team. That team had some of the highest homicide stats in the city."

"I didn't know the department hired civilian consultants."

"They don't very often. He started out following Beckett around for research for his books, but it turned out he was a big help…ended up sticking around as a volunteer. He's a big time author. He can afford to work without being paid."

"So she married him for his money, huh?"

"See? You're doing it again. What's wrong with you? Did you take an instant dislike to the captain or something?" Bolton asked.

"I don't dislike the captain," he answered, looking offended.

"Well, it's hard to tell from here. That's the second derogatory remark about her that's spilled out of your mouth in the last ten minutes. Who are you planning to insult next? Do we all need to watch our backs?"

"I didn't mean…"

"Well, if you don't mean it, maybe you should keep your mouth shut the next time." Bolton was usually pretty laid back, and didn't respond that way often; and Carlisle appeared to be paying attention. The older detective sat down and took a calming breath. "Look, I'm telling you this for your own good, Kid. If you scout around far enough, you'll find a few people who are jealous and would be happy if somebody could dig up some dirt on Beckett; but they're few and far between. The majority of the people here know she deserves their respect, and you're damned lucky she's your captain. A lot of captains would have wiped the floor with you when they caught you making that comment about them, whether it was true or not; but instead, she chose to tell you why she didn't want you doing that to anybody else, either. And she was right. There's always two sides to things, and a lot of times people spreading gossip just have an axe to grind for some reason. Talk to Ryan and Sully. You'll probably learn a lot of stuff you can tell that old guy next time you meet him at the bar. You keep badmouthing the captain for no good reason, and you're not going to have many friends here."

"Okay. I got it. I got it." Carlisle paused for a long moment and then asked, "So this Castle guy?"

"He would have been a good detective. He met Beckett when he was starting a new book series, Nikki Heat. Beckett isn't really like Nikki Heat, but some of her qualities were the inspiration for the character. The man writes a good story."

"Maybe I'll read one to see."

"Just remember, it isn't Beckett. It's fiction. She's always been big on making that distinction. She and Castle weren't even seeing each other when the first couple of books were being written." He stopped briefly and added, "And in answer to your second jumped conclusion…no, she didn't marry him for his money. It took him almost two years to get her undivided attention. They're married because they both want to be married."

Within days of starting her new job, New York City was experiencing a major snow storm. With the accompanying traffic jams and accidents, as well as angry encounters involving assaults, trying to get the homeless to shelters, and other general disruptions, the precinct stayed busy.

Castle called mid-afternoon to check in. "Hey, gorgeous. How are things going over there?"

"Busy, but we're working things out. I'll get home as soon as I can, but the streets won't be cleared until the snow lets up enough for the snow plows to be out. How are you doing cooped up with the munchkins?"

"We're fine. Don't worry about us. Just be sure it's safe when you head home. Call if it's going to be really late so I can stop worrying about you."

"I will. I love you."

"Love you, too. Bye."

She finally got home after the children were asleep, and had a nice, hot bath with Castle before bed. Finally feeling warm, they went to bed and she took full advantage of his body heat.

Kate lingered at home the next morning long enough to talk to Jamie and commune with her daughter as she fed her before leaving for work. Getting to work the next morning was much slower than usual anyway, so the extra little bit of time she managed to spend wasn't particularly noticed. Once she was there, things began falling into place. The officers who were there were on their beats and staying busy…and cold. The rest of the precinct was running, but not exactly routinely. Through most of the morning, they were down members of a lot of teams, those who lived in other boroughs having to get out of their residential areas and then make it through the slow moving traffic to get into Manhattan. The next few days gradually warmed to temperatures above freezing and life returned to normal.

Carlisle did take time to talk to Ryan and Sully and when he told Bolton what had actually happened, he did seem to feel some remorse about having nearly starting such an offensive and faulty rumor about his captain.

Beckett continued the same routine she had established in the other two precincts, and before too long, most of the detective teams were ready with the information she was looking for when she visited, and the process ran more efficiently. In addition, she used the time to build rapport with the newer members of her precinct. She also made periodic trips to the morning briefings for the patrol officers, talking and sometimes joking with the sergeant, and letting her uniformed officers know in various subtle ways that they were an important part of the precinct. She would join in appropriately when the sergeant gave someone credit for a job done well and take the time to speak to some of them individually each time she was there.

Bolton's Robbery team contacted the detectives in the other three cities in Castle's report, who were all glad to have the information. All four teams compared notes and stayed in contact with one another. The detectives in Providence eventually had a breakthrough. A store across the street from the gallery put in a new security system, including a newly placed camera that caught a good shot of someone leaving the gallery at two-forty in the morning. Facial recognition didn't turn up anything, but they sent the picture to the three other cities' detectives anyway. They could at least see who they were looking for. In comparing the incidents, a pattern emerged, odd though it was; and it gave them all an idea of when to set up surveillance. Bolton's team finally caught the man in the picture as he was loading a two foot tall sculpture into the back of a Chrysler PT Cruiser. He had paid an assistant who handled the security cameras in each of the four galleries to cover his tracks as he made the thefts. He had law enforcement in four states to deal with, but New York City had the first crack at him.

xxxxx

Jamie started his first day of pre-school at the end of January; and as she had promised, Kate took the day off to walk to school with her family and just be Mom for the day. They took pictures when they had Jamie dressed for school, when he proudly announced to Eduardo that he was going to school that day, when he held Kate's hand as they walked to school, then when he held Castle's hand as they walked, stood in front of the school, walked in the door with his mother, met his teacher… On the way to the school, they asked him questions, told him again what to expect, and let him talk to them excitedly and ask his own questions.

"Castle, I think it might be time to put away the camera." Kate said quietly.

"Really?" he sounded disappointed.

"Really," she answered. "He needs to get into the classroom now."

"He's going to be fine, Mr. Castle," his teacher, Mrs. Roberts assured him. "But I need to settle the class down and get our day started now."

"We're just…"

"I understand."

"Thanks/Thank you" came from the adult Castles as they stooped to remind him to follow his teacher's instructions, each of them kissing his head before letting go of his hands. They said goodbye, and Castle snapped one more picture as Jamie turned and went into the classroom, smiling and looking confident.

"I think he's in better shape than I am," Castle said.

"Yeah, that was harder than I thought it would be," Kate agreed. "Shall we stop for coffee on the way home?"

"Let's make coffee at home," Castle suggested. "I'll make the coffee when we get there, you can feed Jo; and while she takes her morning nap, we can take ours…distract each other from the fact that our little boy is growing up too fast."

"I like your plan," she answered, and he put his arm around her waist as she pushed the stroller.

"Looks like it's just you and Mommy and Daddy for a little while, Baby Girl," she said to Jo; and Jo babbled back and smiled, waving her fuzzy covered little hands and feet and looking excited at the attention.

"She's gonna have hazel eyes like yours…and be just as beautiful. We have our Beckett clone."

"We could eventually have so much trouble," Kate answered. "My mother warned me I'd get my payback sooner or later. Wherever she is, I'm sure she's laughing and just waiting to somehow send me an 'I told you so' sign when it all plays out."

"We'll work it out together."

"I should probably apologize now for whatever she does as a teenager, while she's little and innocent and lovable and can't get into too much trouble yet."

Castle laughed. "One day at a time, Sweetheart. One day at a time."

Once Jo was fed, it wasn't long before she drifted off to sleep and her parents had their own version of a morning nap.

"Mmmmm…" Kate mumbled sleepily as she curled against her husband's side. "This sure beats spending the morning at the precinct."

He pulled the covers around them and said, "Sleep while you can. I set the alarm to give us plenty of time to shower and be back to pick Jamie up." He wrapped his arm around her back and kissed her forehead before closing his eyes, too.

When they met him after school, Jamie was a veritable fountain of enthusiasm, starting with, "I like school. I have my own desk, and there's a tree that Mrs. Roberts made on the wall with leaves on it, and one leaf has my name. If I'm good it stays on the tree; but if I'm bad, it falls on the ground under the tree until I earn it back up, and I have a new friend, and…"

"Wow! It sounds like you had a good day. Want to stop for celebration pizza for lunch because it's your first day at school?" Kate asked. "We can get into the nice warm restaurant at the next corner, and you can tell us everything you did today."

"Pizza, pizza, pizza!" he answered excitedly as he jumped up and down, still moving himself forward as he held Castle's hand.

Castle laughed and looked at Kate. "I think that was a yes. Maybe I should apologize now before he gets to be a teenager acting like an almost four year old on an enthusiasm rush."

"Hey, I still love you. I think I can handle it." She answered as they reached the restaurant.

He discreetly as possible swatted her bottom as he held the door for her to push the stroller into the pizza restaurant. They ordered and sat listening as their little boy told them all about his first day at school. One question from them brought on another story; and before they left, Kate grinned at Castle and said, "He's definitely yours. The stories just keep coming."

"A source of pride. I love it," he responded.

When the pizza was gone, Jamie asked, "Can we get ice cream for my first day at school, too? Please?"

"Yeah. I'm apologizing now," his father told Kate. "One day at school and here we are being manipulated by my three year old clone."

"We were going to take him for ice cream for dessert anyway. Let's go," she answered, laughing at her two men.

"Yaaaay!" they heard from their son and started getting their children ready to face the cold weather again. Kate zipped Jo's cold weather gear back up, situated the hood back on her head, and pulled the fold over mittens back on her hands. Castle got Jamie into his coat, hat, and mittens and asked him, "Are you sure you want ice cream, even in this cold weather?"

"Yeah," his son answered with his inherited Castle grin.

"Then ice cream it is, but we're taking it home. I doubt it's going to melt in this weather, and I don't want to keep getting you two in and out of coats and hats and mittens. We'll take it home and eat it where it's warm," his father told him.

"And Mommy will stay, too?"

"Mommy's here for the whole day," Kate assured him. "I took the whole day off so I could go with Daddy to take you for your first day at school and hear you tell us all about it when we picked you up. I'm so glad you like your school."

He threw his now well insulated little arms around her middle where she sat beside Jo's stroller, and hugged her before letting them know it was time to get ice cream. They enjoyed their ice cream at home, and tucked two well fed and sleepy children in for an afternoon nap.

The rest of the week was the beginning of a new routine at home. During the day, Kate worked and Castle walked Jamie to school. For their first encounter with rain, he decided to take the easy way out and call the car service, requesting a baby seat for Jo. While Jo slept after taking Jamie to school, Castle would try to make himself work, sometimes more successfully than others. He would often get a little more done while both children took afternoon naps after Jamie was home from school. Kate was generally home for dinner, and the division of cooking responsibilities usually balanced out in general. When both adult Castles were exhausted, they chose from a wealth of takeout options, including several very healthy ones that all of them actually enjoyed.

The second week Jamie was in school, the city was hit with a blizzard. The temperatures had been in the low to mid-sixties, for a couple of days, even the morning of the day it struck. Then the temperature dropped to below freezing, and a heavy snowfall left nine inches of snow by the next afternoon. There was some warning beforehand, so Beckett had the lieutenants and sergeants from each division come in for a reminder briefing on what to expect and who to expect it from, which they would relay to their respective charges. The snow started during the night, and by morning, traffic was all but nonexistent. When the family looked out the windows of the loft, they saw very little besides snow. Beckett called the precinct and spoke to the lieutenant who had been on duty for the night shift.

"Hey. Eccles. How's it going?"

"So far we still have power, so the heat's still working. It's a little chilly. The wind is whistling around the building, and it's a lot colder than usual, but just about everybody came prepared. We grabbed a few emergency blankets for the few idiots who didn't. There weren't too many calls last night; and so far, all of them can be put off until the streets are in better shape. No bodies yet."

"If you need me, the subway station is only a block from here. The news says it's still running. I can probably get there."

"No. Don't come out in this. We all know we're here until the snow stops long enough to clear the streets, and we're fine. Thank Castle for the sandwich delivery last night and the snacks for today. It did a lot for morale when we realized how long we could be here."

"I will. He didn't tell me he'd done that."

"I figured it had to be him. It's the kind of thing he'd do. Just stay home where it's warm, Beckett. We're good."

"Okay. I'll check in now and then. Call me if you need anything."

"Will do."

"Eccles said to thank you for the sandwiches and snacks," Kate reported to her husband after she ended the call.

"I figured they'd be stuck there once the snow started, and not too many places would be open once it was really coming down."

"Well, thank you from me, too. Eccles said they're fine and told me to stay here where it's warm. I'll check in now and then to make sure, though."

"Meanwhile, we'll enjoy having you at home," he answered, dropping a kiss to her temple as he passed by.

"Go ahead and get some work done if you need to, she told him. I'm here for the kids."

"You think I can work with this snowstorm going on out there? It's amazing. I keep finding myself drawn to the windows. Even Jamie can't stay away. I don't think we've had this much snow since we've had him."

"He'd probably be more comfortable in the window seat in the study," Kate thought out loud.

"That's where Alexis used to sit and watch. She'd wrap up in a warm blanket and curl up next to the window. Maybe I'll suggest it next time he drifts over to watch. The ones in here are a little tall for him."

Kate fed Jo and then found two soft, warm, fleecy blankets. She wrapped Jamie in one, pulled the other around herself and Jo, and cuddled with her children in the window seat, talking to them quietly and watching the snow. Castle watched with them for a while before moving to his desk where he contentedly watched his family and eventually began writing.

xxxxx

Two weeks after the blizzard, it was Jamie's birthday. They decided to have the big party two days early when everybody was off for the weekend. Plan A was the zoo if the weather cooperated, with pizza and games at Chuck E. Cheese afterward. Castle said the giant rat was always a hit at Jamie's age. Plan B was to spend the afternoon at the giant rat's establishment and then go back to the loft for games and Disney movies. Alexis and JD invited themselves before anyone else had a chance. The parents invited Javi's family, Ryan's family, Billy, and a couple of Jamie's new friends from pre-school, Amos and Julie. Ryan and Esposito accurately guessed that their help in riding herd on five young children and a ten year old would be appreciated, especially if the zoo turned out to be an option that day.

Party day, as forecasted, was dry, sunny, and a little warmer than normal for February. The parents of the children from Jamie's pre-school had already asked if they could tag along, stating their intent to pay their own way. Not knowing the other parents, Rick and Kate would have preferred to take just the adult members of their extended family but felt it would be rude to say no. As it turned out, Jamie's pre-school friends were as much fun as Billy; and their parents were pleasant and easy-going concerned parents who simply wanted to know who their children were spending time with. That came out in conversations at Chuck E. Cheese after the zoo trip. The Castles admitted to being glad they came along with them for exactly the same reason, and they all laughed about it. Jamie had birthday cake and opened gifts after the pizza, and they dropped Billy off with his mom on their way back to the loft.

By the time they were back at home, all of them were exhausted…happy but exhausted. Jamie had a bath to wash off any zoo and/or pizza residue, and was tucked in with Bear.

"Was it a good birthday trip, Munchkin?" Kate asked.

"Yeah. I had fun," he answered with a yawn.

Kate kissed his cheek and moved aside for Castle. He bent to kiss his son's head and said, "I'm glad you had fun. Sweet dreams. Love you."

"Love you, too," Jamie answered sleepily.

"This was a good day," Kate said. "I was a little doubtful about spending an entire day with other adults who were strangers to us, but they were great. Looks like the circle of play dates might be expanding."

"Yeah. It's great that they were checking us out to be sure we passed muster. I can appreciate that in a parent," As they reached the bottom of the stairs, he asked, "Want a glass of wine before bed? I think we have the rest of the bottle of that red we've both become fond of." He wiggled his eyebrows, and she grinned and nodded.

Accepting the glass of wine, she said, "I missed Dad and Meagan today…and Martha and John."

"Yeah. Your dad said he and Meagan will take him to the zoo in the spring when it's warm."

"Your mother said the same thing. Cowards…all of them!" she answered mischievously. "Worried about a little cold weather and a few pre-schoolers. You, know, we've actually done this February birthday at the zoo twice in four years, haven't we? What's wrong with us?"

Castle grinned back. "Our son loves it, and it was his first choice of a place to go this year. At least the weather cooperated…and I think everybody had fun."

"I didn't think we'd ever get out of the gift shop when you told them they could each pick one of the small stuffed animals to take home. The decision process was almost painful."

"But we left with a bunch of happy children."

"Yeah. Totally worth it." After a long moment, Kate said, "Javi and Maria are excited about the baby. And Gabe seemed excited about having a sister. She's due not long after your birthday."

"I'm glad we didn't lose touch with the rest of the team after we all went to new places...and it's nice that our kids will grow up knowing each other."

"Yeah, it is." She planted a big kiss on his lips, and he returned it as he slipped his arms around her.

xxxxx

On Jamie's actual birthday during the week, the family, cowards and everybody, were at the loft for dinner and ice cream and cake. Jo and Jamie both delighted in the extra attention, and the family took turns helping Jamie play with his presents.

After the last guest was out the door and both overly excited children were finally settled for the night, the parents were preparing for bed.

"We have a four year old son," Kate said with a tone of astonishment.

"And a five month old daughter," he answered, getting in the bed and holding the covers up for Kate to join him. "And a six year marriage. Once we finally worked out what we wanted, we got this right. We're still good, aren't we, Kate?"

"Better than good, Stud." She snuggled close against his side.

"I told you my dreams come true."

"And apparently mine do, too," she answered contentedly.