Silent Night, Ferret Night: A short Castle WIP, Epilogue, Now complete.
Title: Silent Night, Ferret Night, Epilogue
Rating: T
WC: ~2200 Epilogue, ~23,700 total
Summary: "I'm sorry, Beckett." Ryan was sorry. Sorry dripped from every syllable. "I'm sorry. It's . . . ferret related."
Spoilers: Set at the very end of Secret Santa (5x09), so spoilers for that. This is set in the same universe as Muppet 47's brilliantly funny "Waiting Game." She is kindly loaning me the Furry Christmas Evil.
A/N: Schmoopy epilogue for Christmas. Thank you all a thousand times for them cameraderie and special thanks to Muppet47 letting me write in the spaces between her Waiting Game universe and show canon.
Kate didn't call shotgun on the way home. She just climbed into the backseat beside Castle and leaned against his shoulder. His mother limited herself to a saucy wink as she slipped into the passenger seat. Together with the fact that Alexis's driving called for about 60% less use of the Oh Shit-bar, possibly because the glögg was starting to release its hold on his cerebellum, Castle was ready to call it a Christmas Miracle.
They were all dead on their feet by the time they reached the loft. He figured there was no question of opening gifts until morning. He thought he'd been pretty successful in keeping his rueful glance at the brightly colored boxes piled under the tree on the down low.
Kate snagged his fingers as he went to switch off the lights on the tree. "How about one gift each?"
It was . . . well, not shy. Nothing about Kate Beckett could or should ever be described as shy. But it was barely loud enough to catch Martha and Alexis before they headed up the stairs.
Castle was overwhelmed by a wave of decidedly mushy feelings that she'd definitely jab him for showing in front of anyone else. He swallowed hard and when he thought it was safe, he smiled at the three of them. "A little old, a little new. I like it."
"For this, we need cocoa," Martha declared.
"Non-alcoholic, Mother, please."
Alexis promised to supervise while Castle excused himself to confer with Santa briefly. He emerged a minute or two later with a respectable stack to add to those already under the tree.
Martha disbursed cocoa from a tray and they all made a show of insisting he go first. Castle, in turn, made a (very brief) show of resisting before he eagerly tore into the present Alexis had handed him.
It was something-two somethings, a playbill and a pressed flower-in an oversized frame. He laid it across his knees and studied it before giving his mother a puzzled look.
"Give it a moment, Richard," she smiled and after a minute made an impatient noise. She shook out her hands and dramatically bowed her head for a moment. When she raised it again, she suddenly looked haggard and done with life. She drew in a breath. "You tell me. He tells me. Everybody tells me that a woman 'of my age' is long past being any good to any one. I guess it's so. I guess it's so."
"Oh! Oh!" Castle bent over the frame. "I came to see you in this!"
Martha-just like that, she was Martha again-turned to Kate eagerly. "He broke out of boarding school, twelve years old, and sweet-talked his way on to a train to New York. And he brought flowers to my dressing room door."
"Pretty sure I stole those from the sitting room on my way out of school." Castle's fingertips hovered over the flower. "That play was terrible."
"It was terrible, as you pointed out, ad nauseam, on the drive back to school. The structure, he said. The dialogue, he said. On and on!" She shared a smile with Kate and Alexis. "But he told me I was good. And he'd obviously been paying attention."
Castle set the frame aside and went to kiss his mother's cheek. "Thank you, mother. It's very thoughtful for a present that's all about you."
Martha laughed and swatted at him as he made his way to snag a box for Alexis from the pile he'd added under the tree. He squeezed back on to the couch between her and Kate.
"Dad!" Alexis held the present high and away from him as he lost patience with her careful paper-preserving unwrapping technique and threatened her with a lesson in proper procedure.
"They roar!" He said excitedly when she finally-finally-had worked the lid off the box and held up an oversized, furry monster claw. He added proudly. "Washing machine safe. Batteries included. But take the batteries out before you wash them."
"Dad, how many times have I told you-tonight alone-that I'm 19?" Alexis gave him a stony stare.
Castle's face fell. "But . . . they're monster slippers."
She kept it up long enough to make Kate wonder if she could actually arrest someone for being an ungrateful brat.
Just as Kate had decided she definitely could, Alexis launched herself at her father. "And they're awesome. I am going to be the queen of the dorm!"
Castle hugged her and grinned brightly as he clamored for his mother to take her turn.
Alexis dropped a giant, carefully wrapped box in her grandmother's lap. She found another box inside, just as carefully wrapped, and another and another. It went on until they were all weak with laughter. Martha finally pulled out an envelope containing a pair of subscriptions to an on-campus theater group's spring season.
"So we can spend time together, Gram! And if they're terrible, we can mock and deride together," Alexis said brightly. "You know, quality time!"
"I like quality time," Castle groused. "I like mocking and deriding!"
Alexis flopped back on to the couch next to him. "And when you master the art of not dropping by without calling first, then we might include you in quality time again."
Kate smiled quietly and sipped her cooling cocoa as they traded jibes. She nudged Castle with her knee and nodded to Alexis, whose eyelids were drooping. Castle nodded back and smoothed a palm over her calf.
He reached his other hand out to tug on a lock of his daughter's hair. "Tired, pumpkin?"
"Mmm." Alexis shifted to rest her head on his shoulder. "Yeah, but Kate has to . . . " Her mouth dropped open in an O and she blushed to the roots of her hair.
"Oh, I . . ." Kate stammered.
Castle wrapped an arm around each of them and squeezed. "Right. Kate definitely has to."
He pushed up from the couch and retrieved a plain white box, a little wider than his palm and several inches high, intricately wrapped with a silver ribbon.
Kate took the box and looked up at him with narrowed eyes. "What happened to 'I didn't get you anything'?"
Castle just shrugged and tapped the box.
She alternated between tugging at the knots and shooting him suspicious looks. She was annoyed. And pleased. He was pretty sure about that. And annoyed at being pleased. She was altogether delicious. Castle made quick revisions to Operation Snatch and Barricade. Most of her consonants were back and he had high hopes for a speedy tongue recovery.
The thought did away with the last of his patience. Castle grabbed the box from her and pulled hard enough to snap the ribbon. He dropped it back in her palm with an innocent look and accepted a well-deserved jab from her and a scandalized "Dad!" from Alexis.
Kate eased the lid off and peered inside. It was . . . hideous. A tiny vinyl horse with a shock of magenta hair. Its tail was streaks of the same color mixed with deep purple. The left half of he horse was also deep purple, peppered with threats in word balloons, lightning, and purple flames-a super villain. The right side was mostly neon green, the "costume" a simpler, cleaner design with a single comic book hero promise reading: "I'll save you!"
Kate's mouth opened and closed. "A . . . My Little Pony?"
"A collector's My Little Pony," Castle corrected. "I told you I was serious about the pony."
Alexis leaned in curiously. "I thought I was getting a pony," she pouted.
"Don't be greedy, Monster Feet." Castle kissed her cheek.
He turned back to Kate and blinked. Something about the way she was looking at him made his heart pound. He wasn't sure if it was in a good way or not.
"Kate?"
She made him wait. One beat, then two. He didn't know which way that was edging him.
"Thank you, Castle." She slid her fingers behind his neck and pressed her lips to his cheek. "Thank you."
"You're . . . welcome?" Castle's voice climbed without his permission.
Kate's smile took a decided turn for the satisfied.
"You didn't get me anything."
Castle jumped and whirled around. He hadn't heard the bathroom door open and he would have sworn she hadn't cast a reflection in the mirror.
"Kate! It might be a while before it's a good idea to sneak up on me. Still having ferret issues. And Esposito issues," he added, wincing at the dark streaks creeping into the bruise on her jaw.
"You didn't get me anything," she repeated.
"But I did," he said nervously. He gestured into the low light of the bedroom. "Pony!"
She eased herself up on to the counter, her long, bare legs dangling from under the hem of one of his t-shirts. She suddenly seemed to find the floor fascinating. "How long have you had it?"
He thought about playing dumb. He thought about hedging. But even without the glögg disadvantage, what would be the point? She'd break him. She'd always break him.
"Three-ish years?" It wasn't quite a smile, though it was trying to be. His heart was still pounding and the jury was still out on whether that was good or bad.
"And it . . ." She nodded her head like she'd just decided something. She had. She'd decided to fix him with the world's most piercing stare. "It was for me. You got it for me."
"I got it for you. Comicon. You were still so . . . . you were mad at me. And I missed you. And I didn't know how to make . . ." He ground his teeth. "I didn't want to admit that it was my fault or do the work to make it right. Or accept that maybe I could never make it right. So . . . pony."
"But you never gave it to me."
"I never gave it to you," he repeated faintly. He reached out and hooked his pinky around hers. "Kate . . . I have . . . half a closet full of things I never gave you. A couple of drawers. I think maybe one of the storage lockers downstairs. Full of things I never gave you."
"Why?" She was not letting up on the piercing stare. The needle on the heart-pounding gauge swung wildly back and forth.
"I have more storage space than a metrosexual, a teenager, and an actress could possibly need?" He tried out a lopsided grin, half-bracing for a jab.
"Castle . . ." Her eyes dropped again and the needle lurched into "bad" territory.
"Kate, they're not . . . most of them are silly. And small things, mostly. Some are from when I hurt you. Or I wanted to help and I couldn't." He stepped closer and let go of her pinky to slide his hand up to her shoulder. "But most of them are just things I thought you'd like or things I wanted to know if you'd like. So I bought them, because I could, and because I like to. And because I hoped."
"Hoped?" She turned her head to kiss the heel of his hand.
"I hoped there'd be a right time to give them to you. And now there is." He leaned his forehead against hers.
"Now there is," she breathed and touched her lips to his. "But you still didn't get me anything for Christmas."
Castle froze.
Oh, nefarious, Beckett, he thought. Nefarious.
He laughed and tugged at her hands, pulling her down from the counter and backwards into the bedroom. She laughed, too, and came willingly. They stumbled together, a tangle of clumsy limbs and sloppy, careless kisses.
Castle's calves hit the edge of the bed and he let himself fall backwards, taking her with him. Kate yelped when he pushed at her shoulder and pulled at her waist and suddenly she was on her back and the kisses were a little less careless, a little less sloppy
"I still didn't get you anything for Christmas," Castle murmured against her ribs. He nipped at her skin, then pushed himself upright. He braced himself over her and gave her a wicked smile. "I didn't get you anything or Christmas, and you love me anyway."
Kate grinned. She wound her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. Another laughed filled his mouth, and then her words.
"I do, Castle. I do love you anyway."
Rating: T
WC: ~2200 Epilogue, ~23,700 total
Summary: "I'm sorry, Beckett." Ryan was sorry. Sorry dripped from every syllable. "I'm sorry. It's . . . ferret related."
Spoilers: Set at the very end of Secret Santa (5x09), so spoilers for that. This is set in the same universe as Muppet 47's brilliantly funny "Waiting Game." She is kindly loaning me the Furry Christmas Evil.
A/N: Schmoopy epilogue for Christmas. Thank you all a thousand times for them cameraderie and special thanks to Muppet47 letting me write in the spaces between her Waiting Game universe and show canon.
Kate didn't call shotgun on the way home. She just climbed into the backseat beside Castle and leaned against his shoulder. His mother limited herself to a saucy wink as she slipped into the passenger seat. Together with the fact that Alexis's driving called for about 60% less use of the Oh Shit-bar, possibly because the glögg was starting to release its hold on his cerebellum, Castle was ready to call it a Christmas Miracle.
They were all dead on their feet by the time they reached the loft. He figured there was no question of opening gifts until morning. He thought he'd been pretty successful in keeping his rueful glance at the brightly colored boxes piled under the tree on the down low.
Kate snagged his fingers as he went to switch off the lights on the tree. "How about one gift each?"
It was . . . well, not shy. Nothing about Kate Beckett could or should ever be described as shy. But it was barely loud enough to catch Martha and Alexis before they headed up the stairs.
Castle was overwhelmed by a wave of decidedly mushy feelings that she'd definitely jab him for showing in front of anyone else. He swallowed hard and when he thought it was safe, he smiled at the three of them. "A little old, a little new. I like it."
"For this, we need cocoa," Martha declared.
"Non-alcoholic, Mother, please."
Alexis promised to supervise while Castle excused himself to confer with Santa briefly. He emerged a minute or two later with a respectable stack to add to those already under the tree.
Martha disbursed cocoa from a tray and they all made a show of insisting he go first. Castle, in turn, made a (very brief) show of resisting before he eagerly tore into the present Alexis had handed him.
It was something-two somethings, a playbill and a pressed flower-in an oversized frame. He laid it across his knees and studied it before giving his mother a puzzled look.
"Give it a moment, Richard," she smiled and after a minute made an impatient noise. She shook out her hands and dramatically bowed her head for a moment. When she raised it again, she suddenly looked haggard and done with life. She drew in a breath. "You tell me. He tells me. Everybody tells me that a woman 'of my age' is long past being any good to any one. I guess it's so. I guess it's so."
"Oh! Oh!" Castle bent over the frame. "I came to see you in this!"
Martha-just like that, she was Martha again-turned to Kate eagerly. "He broke out of boarding school, twelve years old, and sweet-talked his way on to a train to New York. And he brought flowers to my dressing room door."
"Pretty sure I stole those from the sitting room on my way out of school." Castle's fingertips hovered over the flower. "That play was terrible."
"It was terrible, as you pointed out, ad nauseam, on the drive back to school. The structure, he said. The dialogue, he said. On and on!" She shared a smile with Kate and Alexis. "But he told me I was good. And he'd obviously been paying attention."
Castle set the frame aside and went to kiss his mother's cheek. "Thank you, mother. It's very thoughtful for a present that's all about you."
Martha laughed and swatted at him as he made his way to snag a box for Alexis from the pile he'd added under the tree. He squeezed back on to the couch between her and Kate.
"Dad!" Alexis held the present high and away from him as he lost patience with her careful paper-preserving unwrapping technique and threatened her with a lesson in proper procedure.
"They roar!" He said excitedly when she finally-finally-had worked the lid off the box and held up an oversized, furry monster claw. He added proudly. "Washing machine safe. Batteries included. But take the batteries out before you wash them."
"Dad, how many times have I told you-tonight alone-that I'm 19?" Alexis gave him a stony stare.
Castle's face fell. "But . . . they're monster slippers."
She kept it up long enough to make Kate wonder if she could actually arrest someone for being an ungrateful brat.
Just as Kate had decided she definitely could, Alexis launched herself at her father. "And they're awesome. I am going to be the queen of the dorm!"
Castle hugged her and grinned brightly as he clamored for his mother to take her turn.
Alexis dropped a giant, carefully wrapped box in her grandmother's lap. She found another box inside, just as carefully wrapped, and another and another. It went on until they were all weak with laughter. Martha finally pulled out an envelope containing a pair of subscriptions to an on-campus theater group's spring season.
"So we can spend time together, Gram! And if they're terrible, we can mock and deride together," Alexis said brightly. "You know, quality time!"
"I like quality time," Castle groused. "I like mocking and deriding!"
Alexis flopped back on to the couch next to him. "And when you master the art of not dropping by without calling first, then we might include you in quality time again."
Kate smiled quietly and sipped her cooling cocoa as they traded jibes. She nudged Castle with her knee and nodded to Alexis, whose eyelids were drooping. Castle nodded back and smoothed a palm over her calf.
He reached his other hand out to tug on a lock of his daughter's hair. "Tired, pumpkin?"
"Mmm." Alexis shifted to rest her head on his shoulder. "Yeah, but Kate has to . . . " Her mouth dropped open in an O and she blushed to the roots of her hair.
"Oh, I . . ." Kate stammered.
Castle wrapped an arm around each of them and squeezed. "Right. Kate definitely has to."
He pushed up from the couch and retrieved a plain white box, a little wider than his palm and several inches high, intricately wrapped with a silver ribbon.
Kate took the box and looked up at him with narrowed eyes. "What happened to 'I didn't get you anything'?"
Castle just shrugged and tapped the box.
She alternated between tugging at the knots and shooting him suspicious looks. She was annoyed. And pleased. He was pretty sure about that. And annoyed at being pleased. She was altogether delicious. Castle made quick revisions to Operation Snatch and Barricade. Most of her consonants were back and he had high hopes for a speedy tongue recovery.
The thought did away with the last of his patience. Castle grabbed the box from her and pulled hard enough to snap the ribbon. He dropped it back in her palm with an innocent look and accepted a well-deserved jab from her and a scandalized "Dad!" from Alexis.
Kate eased the lid off and peered inside. It was . . . hideous. A tiny vinyl horse with a shock of magenta hair. Its tail was streaks of the same color mixed with deep purple. The left half of he horse was also deep purple, peppered with threats in word balloons, lightning, and purple flames-a super villain. The right side was mostly neon green, the "costume" a simpler, cleaner design with a single comic book hero promise reading: "I'll save you!"
Kate's mouth opened and closed. "A . . . My Little Pony?"
"A collector's My Little Pony," Castle corrected. "I told you I was serious about the pony."
Alexis leaned in curiously. "I thought I was getting a pony," she pouted.
"Don't be greedy, Monster Feet." Castle kissed her cheek.
He turned back to Kate and blinked. Something about the way she was looking at him made his heart pound. He wasn't sure if it was in a good way or not.
"Kate?"
She made him wait. One beat, then two. He didn't know which way that was edging him.
"Thank you, Castle." She slid her fingers behind his neck and pressed her lips to his cheek. "Thank you."
"You're . . . welcome?" Castle's voice climbed without his permission.
Kate's smile took a decided turn for the satisfied.
"You didn't get me anything."
Castle jumped and whirled around. He hadn't heard the bathroom door open and he would have sworn she hadn't cast a reflection in the mirror.
"Kate! It might be a while before it's a good idea to sneak up on me. Still having ferret issues. And Esposito issues," he added, wincing at the dark streaks creeping into the bruise on her jaw.
"You didn't get me anything," she repeated.
"But I did," he said nervously. He gestured into the low light of the bedroom. "Pony!"
She eased herself up on to the counter, her long, bare legs dangling from under the hem of one of his t-shirts. She suddenly seemed to find the floor fascinating. "How long have you had it?"
He thought about playing dumb. He thought about hedging. But even without the glögg disadvantage, what would be the point? She'd break him. She'd always break him.
"Three-ish years?" It wasn't quite a smile, though it was trying to be. His heart was still pounding and the jury was still out on whether that was good or bad.
"And it . . ." She nodded her head like she'd just decided something. She had. She'd decided to fix him with the world's most piercing stare. "It was for me. You got it for me."
"I got it for you. Comicon. You were still so . . . . you were mad at me. And I missed you. And I didn't know how to make . . ." He ground his teeth. "I didn't want to admit that it was my fault or do the work to make it right. Or accept that maybe I could never make it right. So . . . pony."
"But you never gave it to me."
"I never gave it to you," he repeated faintly. He reached out and hooked his pinky around hers. "Kate . . . I have . . . half a closet full of things I never gave you. A couple of drawers. I think maybe one of the storage lockers downstairs. Full of things I never gave you."
"Why?" She was not letting up on the piercing stare. The needle on the heart-pounding gauge swung wildly back and forth.
"I have more storage space than a metrosexual, a teenager, and an actress could possibly need?" He tried out a lopsided grin, half-bracing for a jab.
"Castle . . ." Her eyes dropped again and the needle lurched into "bad" territory.
"Kate, they're not . . . most of them are silly. And small things, mostly. Some are from when I hurt you. Or I wanted to help and I couldn't." He stepped closer and let go of her pinky to slide his hand up to her shoulder. "But most of them are just things I thought you'd like or things I wanted to know if you'd like. So I bought them, because I could, and because I like to. And because I hoped."
"Hoped?" She turned her head to kiss the heel of his hand.
"I hoped there'd be a right time to give them to you. And now there is." He leaned his forehead against hers.
"Now there is," she breathed and touched her lips to his. "But you still didn't get me anything for Christmas."
Castle froze.
Oh, nefarious, Beckett, he thought. Nefarious.
He laughed and tugged at her hands, pulling her down from the counter and backwards into the bedroom. She laughed, too, and came willingly. They stumbled together, a tangle of clumsy limbs and sloppy, careless kisses.
Castle's calves hit the edge of the bed and he let himself fall backwards, taking her with him. Kate yelped when he pushed at her shoulder and pulled at her waist and suddenly she was on her back and the kisses were a little less careless, a little less sloppy
"I still didn't get you anything for Christmas," Castle murmured against her ribs. He nipped at her skin, then pushed himself upright. He braced himself over her and gave her a wicked smile. "I didn't get you anything or Christmas, and you love me anyway."
Kate grinned. She wound her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. Another laughed filled his mouth, and then her words.
"I do, Castle. I do love you anyway."