Jane Doe

"Hey there, hot stuff." Castle grins, his cell phone trapped between shoulder and ear as he juggles bread and cheese and a knife, performing some kind of contortionist act as he moves through the kitchen and making his son shriek with laughter in the high chair at the island.

Dropping everything down onto the counter – he makes sure the knife is well away from their adventurous boy – Rick gets a hand around his phone and straightens up, raking his fingers through his hair as his wife's tender amusement floods the line between them. "Hey. You okay?"

"Uhuh, just making lunch." Their son reaches out, almost throwing himself right out of the high seat until the safety belt catches him around the middle. Thrashing against the restraint, Marlow mewls pitifully and reaches his arms up for his father, garnering for sympathy. "No, Mal buddy. Just wait, let me talk to Mommy and then I'll make your sandwich, okay?"

"Mommy? Me talk to Mommy!" Marlow insists, sitting back in his seat and settling his little hands flat against the plastic table of his chair as if he's trying to look well behaved.

Chuckling to himself, Rick comes around the counter and leans in to press a sloppy kiss to their boy's cheek, Kate's breathing on the other end of the phone line assuring him that his wife is still there. "Hey Kate, I'm gonna put you on speakerphone. Someone wants to talk to you."

Switching his phone to speaker, Castle holds it close enough to their son that Mal will be able to hear his mother and she him, while still keeping it carefully out of their boy's reach. He's made that mistake before; iPhones don't work so well after your toddler has slobbered all over them. Marlow left tiny tooth marks in the buttery leather of the phone's case and Kate still finds it hilarious several months later, won't let him throw the ruined thing away.

"Mommy!" Mal shrieks, hands pressed against his cheeks in delight. Castle cards the fingers of his free hand through their son's hair, ruffling it to tease out the curls a little more. He's cherubic, the picture of innocence despite the fact that he can only sustain the angelic image when he's asleep.

The rest of the time, he's a whirlwind of activity, a cyclone that can only be diverted when the calming presence of his mother appears in his path. "Hey there, my sweet boy. Are you being good for Daddy?"

"I hungry, Mommy." Marlow wails, as if Castle hadn't given him a Tupperware pot of carrot and cucumber batons to chew on not twenty minutes ago.

Over the phone Kate laughs, bright and unashamed, and Castle wonders if she snuck off to the break room to make this call or whether she's chatting with their two year old in the middle of the precinct. "I'm sure Daddy's gonna feed you really soon, baby. But you have to sit quietly and let him make your sandwich, okay?"

"I be good, Mommy." Mal says, glancing up at Castle as if for approval. Offering his son his hand, upturned and fingers pressed together, Rick almost crows with delight when Marlow returns the action, feeding the birds with him.

Taking his phone off of speaker, Castle presses it to his ear again and takes a step away from their son, seeking a little bit of quiet to talk to his wife. Mal's singing now, banging a spoon against the counter in percussion to accompany his tune, and Kate must hear it over the phone because she's laughing again. Quieter this time, but in it he hears just how much she worships their little boy. "He sounds happy."

"He's a happy kid, love. Happier still when he gets to talk with you." Rick lets his tenderness flood into his voice, leaning against the refrigerator to watch their son play, so content in his own little world. "How's the case going?"

"Good, I think. We're just grabbing some lunch while we wait for an arrest warrant to come through. Hopefully we'll have it wrapped by tonight and I'll make it home in time for dinner."

"That sounds great." Castle murmurs just for her before he has to peel himself away from the refrigerator and head to entertain his child. Marlow is rapidly growing restless, but he seems to cool off a little when Castle carves him a couple slices from the block of cheese and offers them for Mal to snack on.

Before their son was born, it was so very different. He got to be at the precinct all the time, and on the rare occasion that he wasn't he would just wait up for his wife, get dinner with her whenever she eventually made it home.

Now, they have to stick to a schedule. Mal has dinner and his bath at the same time every day; keeping him on a strict timetable makes it easier to get him to go to sleep. It means that often Kate misses bath time and stories, sometimes has to creep quietly into Marlow's room at ten or eleven o'clock and brush a soft kiss to their son's forehead.

"I'm not making a promise here, babe. Just. . .wishful thinking." He can see her shrug so clearly in his mind's eye, the way her brow furrows and she chews on her lip.

Switching the phone back to speaker so he can free up his hands, Rick butters slices of bread for their sandwiches and cuts up some cheese, looking back towards his phone and calling out to his wife as he rummages in the refrigerator for salad.

"I know, Beckett. Don't worry about it. You just do your job, put the bad guys away, and you're home when you're home."

Rick lays out slices of tomato on top of the cheese in their sandwiches and presses the other piece of bread over the top, cutting the sandwich into quarters before he passes it over to their son. Taking a bite of his own food, Castle brings the phone to his ear again and rounds the island, settling in next to his little boy.

"I have to go. I'll text you when I leave the precinct." That makes him smile, his grin earning him a quizzical look from their son. She tells him this same thing every day, that she'll text when she leaves. "I love you both, bye."

"Bye, Kate. Love you, too." He says and then the line goes dead and he slips his phone back into his pocket, swivelling around on his stool to face Marlow. "How's your sandwich, my man?"

Mal giggles, taking an enormous bite of his lunch and chewing with his mouth open, displaying the red and yellow mush for the world to see. "Yummy, Daddy!"

"Hey buddy, that's gross. Close your mouth when you chew, please." He says. Mal watches him for a moment, defiant with his mouth still open, and Rick touches two fingers to the underneath of his son's chin to nudge him in the right direction.

Mal complies, at least, and Rick is inordinately grateful that it hasn't turned into a battle of epic proportions. Today, for now, seems like a good day.

In the bathtub, Mal rolls over onto his back and grins wickedly, catching his father's eye before his hips arc up out of the water. "Daddy, watch me."

"No." Castle says sharply, hooking both hands under the boy's arms and dragging him upright. "You do not pee in the bath. If you want to go to the bathroom, you get out."

Marlow shrivels a little under his father's scolding, but he doesn't seem too deterred from his fun. Instead, he gathers his countless bath toys against his round little belly and starts trying to pile the rubber ducks on top of the tug boat, drops of water from the ends of his hair falling down into his eyes.

Sitting back on his calves, Castle wipes his hands off on his son's towel and reaches for his phone where it buzzes against the counter with the arrival of a new message.

On my way home. Can't wait to see my two favourite men. The text from his wife reads and he smiles, sets his phone back on the counter top, well away from the splash zone. "Mommy's on her way home, buddy. She can read your story tonight."

"Mommy read me?" Mal grins, scooping up some of the bubbles that foam on the surface of the water and scrubbing them into his hair.

Castle shrugs and lets his son bathe himself, deciding that for tonight the bubbles will do the job of shampoo well enough. When Marlow is done lathering his hair into peeks and giggling wildly, Rick snags the plastic cup from the side of the bathtub and fills it with water, starts rinsing off his son. "That's right. Mommy will read to you."

Once Mal is clean he stands up in the water and lifts his hands up for Rick, clamouring to be picked up. He's big enough now to get out of the bathtub himself; in fact, a couple weeks back he went clambering out and streaked a trail of water through the whole upstairs hallway before Kate managed to catch up to him and corral him with a towel.

Regardless of his escape artistry, Marlow sometimes just wants the warm comfort of his father's embrace. Castle wraps his son in a towel and draws the squirmy, wet little body close against his own. Covering his son's head with the towel a moment, he scrubs through Mal's hair and they share a laugh when the boy's head pops up again, his hair standing on end. "All dry?"

"All dry, Daddy." Mal grins, escaping from his father's grip and charging full pelt out of the hall and towards his bedroom. Clean pajamas are laid out on the bed and Castle catches up to his son, helps the boy struggle his way into them.

When Mal's face pops through the neck hole of his pajama shirt Rick pulls a grotesque face that makes their son dissolve into laughter and flop back onto his sheets. It's the 'big boy' bed he got for his second birthday, his most prized possession, and his chest still puffs with pride every time he climbs in.

"Okay my man, come on. Gotta brush teeth quick, before Mommy gets home. She doesn't want smelly breath kisses." He teases his son, tickling up Marlow's sides to get the boy moving. Instead of letting him charge back to the bathroom, Castle scoops him up and drapes him over his shoulder, heading for the bathroom with Mal wriggling against his back.

It's a delicate balance; just enough play like this will tire their son out and make him sleep easier, too much and he'll be wired for hours. In the bathroom, Rick sets his son down on the tile and offers his hand to help Marlow up onto the stepping stool, handing over his son's toothbrush and turning on the faucet to let him run it under the stream of water.

Once he's finished, Rick squeezes out a blob of toothpaste onto the brush and hands it over to Marlow, letting the boy give his teeth a few mostly futile sweeps of the brush before he settles a hand at his son's shoulder. "Let Daddy check, okay. If we don't keep your teeth clean they'll all fall out, and then how are you going to chew your food?"

It's melodramatic, but it works; Mal's mouth pops open and he lets his father give his teeth a second, more thorough cleaning. "All done, my man. Good job. Mommy will be here any minute, so go pick out a book for her to read to you, okay?"

"Okay Daddy." Mal grins, reaching up for his father. Rick stoops down enough that Marlow can reach him and the boy presses a smacking, slobbery kiss to his cheek, looking so delighted with himself that Castle doesn't have the heart to wipe the slime away until his son disappears to his bedroom.

Heading downstairs, Castle makes sure he's got a hair tie in his pocket to hand to his wife when she comes through the door. Almost the moment she crosses the threshold she wants to tie her hair back, every day without fail, so Castle's taken to carrying ponytail holders around with him for her.

Ensconcing himself on the couch, Rick grabs his phone and loads up the new app Alexis downloaded for him. His daughter challenged him at it, but between caring for Marlow and trying to hide it from Kate (she will definitely beat him) he hasn't had much opportunity to hone his skills.

Time unspools away from him as he gets sucked into the game, so when he exits out of it and sees the time display on his phone the shock of those missing minutes hits him like a fist in the gut. Almost forty have passed since he sat down.

His son is very quiet upstairs, suspiciously quiet, but it's not that that has the first tendrils of adrenaline unfurling low down in his stomach. His wife should have been home over a half hour ago. Finding her number in his contacts, he dials and grunts in frustration when it goes straight to voicemail.

Sucking in a breath through his teeth, Rick lets his eyes slam closed and scrubs a hand down his face, standing up from the couch. It's possible that she was called back to the precinct, but surely she would have sent him a text if that was true?

Maybe she's stuck in traffic? Yeah, could be it. He ignores the niggling little seed of doubt in his brain that's yelling at him, saying there couldn't possibly be enough traffic to make her this late. Taking the stairs two at a time, he rushes to check on his son.

Marlow is asleep on top of the covers, the book he chose for his mother to read to him clutched tight against his chest. Peeling it gently out of his son's grip, Rick draws the sheets up over his baby boy and tucks them in close around him, gets to his knees next to the bed and leans in to rest his forehead next to Mal's.

The sleepy, familiar warmth of their boy is a balm to him, but then his phone rings and he jerks, scrambling to his feet and hurrying out of the room before the noise can wake his son. Swiping to answer the call, he brings the phone to his ear and heads for the stairs. "Hello?"

"Hello, is this Richard Castle?" An unfamiliar voice says. There are discordant noises in the background on the other end of the line, voices and sirens and the rush of traffic, and his guts sink right down into his toes.

"Speaking."

"I'm very sorry to tell you, Mr Castle, but there's been an accident involving your wife. Is it possible for you to meet us at New York Presbyterian?" The voice says, something gentle and soothing about it, but he's hearing as if through glass.

As if a bell jar has descended over his head and the oxygen is slowly being sucked out of his world. His blood sings Kate Kate Kate and he clenches his fist to stop the trembling, stumbles his way down the staircase and collapses into a barstool. "Yes. Of course. Yes. I have to get someone to take care of our son, but I'll be there. I'll bring him if I have to."

"Alright. Just give her name at reception and someone will be able to direct you to her." The woman on the phone says and then she hangs up. A tear slides down the slope of his nose and drops off, hitting the screen of his phone and making the colours splinter apart, sharp hints of pink and green in the little bubble of wetness.

And then he's on autopilot, hurrying to move through the motions of his emergency procedures. He needs to get to her, right now.

Crashing through the doors of the hospital with Jim hot on his heels, Castle goes careening to the reception desk and slams his palms down on the counter, sucking in the deep breath his lungs are crying out for before he speaks. "I'm looking for my wife. Katherine Castle. She's thirty eight years old; they said there was an accident."

"Of course, Mr Castle." The receptionist says. She gives him directions to the trauma unit and he feels himself nodding ridiculously but he can't seem to stop, has totally lost control of his body. He's not even listening to everything the young woman is saying; it takes Jim shoving on his shoulder to get him moving in the right direction.

They hurry together, corridors stretching out for miles and standing between the woman they both love most in the world. Jim has been nearly silent since he picked Rick up from the loft, the two men retreating further and further inside their own panic the longer they're without her.

He called his daughter, and shame cuts him through. Alexis is a young woman now, a college graduate with her own life, but his mother is out of town with a touring production and Jim needs to be here at the hospital and he just didn't know what else to do.

Alexis is at home with Mal. At least his children are safe. At least he has them if-

No. Not happening. He's not losing her now. Not like this. Rick and Jim crash through the doors of the trauma unit and intercept the nearest nurse, begging her to take them to Kate. She's sweet, but unflappable, and her steadfast calm seems to leak into both of them.

For the first time since the phone call, Rick can think straight. Somehow, he manages not to run as they follow the nurse to where Kate is. Outside the curtain she stops them, a hand on Rick's chest to keep him from barging right past.

"When Mrs Castle came in, she had lost consciousness due to a head injury sustained during the crash. She's awake now, concussed but no serious damage. We haven't run all the tests that we'd like to yet; we're waiting on the on-call doctor. At first sight she's scraped up, bruised, but it could be a lot worse. She should consider herself very lucky. We're monitoring her right now, and her vital signs look good."

"Okay. I get it. Just please let us see her." He begs the nurse, and then she peels back the curtain and he falls inside the bay, staggering towards his wife in the hospital bed.

His hands come to either side of her face and he pushes his lips to hers in gratitude, breathes her name against the split-open seam of her mouth. "I'm so glad you're alright. You scared me."

"You're Richard Castle." She frowns at him, that vein in her forehead that's always so prominent when she's stressed. She's stiff in the bed, staring at him with a sheen of nonrecognition making her face like a stranger's to him, and then she turns to her father. "Hey, Dad. You're here."

"Of course I'm here. You're my daughter." Jim huffs, moving to stand at Kate's side and draw her in against his chest. He presses a kiss to the crown of her head, smoothes a hand over her hair and his eyes drift closed for a moment. "Oh, Katie."

When Kate's father lets her out of his embrace he sinks gratefully into a chair at her bedside and Rick sits on the bed at her feet, wrapping a hand around her ankle through the sheets. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm sorry. . .what are you doing here?" She frowns, drawing her knees up higher in the bed so he loses his grip on her. Instead, he folds his hands carefully in his lap and tries not to look as much of a wreck as he feels.

"Why wouldn't I be here?" He frowns at her, trying desperately to understand.

"We don't know each other."

"Katie." Jim says sharply at her side, pinning her with his stare. "This isn't funny. Don't mess with us, sweetheart. We were so scared."

And then the panic leaches slowly onto her face and she goes deathly pale, her eyes wide and deep enough to drown in where they swim in the pale moon of her face. "I'm not joking, Dad. I don't understand. What's Richard Castle doing in my hospital room? And where's my phone, I need to call Montgomery and tell him I can't make it to that departmental meeting tomorrow morning."

Montgomery? Oh God. Oh, no. "Kate. . .what are you talking about?"

"Why are you here?" She growls, the same grit of frustration that he's heard in her voice hundreds of times. When they've been lost in the twisting confusion of a case, when their wedding was falling apart at the seams around them, every time she feels inadequate as a mother.

Sharing a look with Jim, Rick sees the older man floundering too and swallows hard, his throat filled up with grit as he looks at the woman he loves and she looks back as if they've never seen each other before. "Why wouldn't I be here? You're my wife."

"No. No!" She almost yells, shaking her head and seeming to withdraw further inside the shell of herself even as they watch. "I don't know you."

"Kate." Jim says sharply, grabbing for his daughter's hand and lifting it for her to see. The wedding band that circles her ring finger is unavoidable, and Kate's eyes flood with tears at the sight of it. She's trembling, he sees when Jim lets go of her hand.

Closing his eyes, Castle takes a second to prepare himself, and then he speaks, soft and unassuming even when all he wants to do is haul her against his chest and beg her to please just stop messing with him, that it isn't funny anymore. That it never was.

"Kate. . .what year is it?"

She stares at him, and then her eyes flick to her father and Rick's follow to see Jim, head buried in his hands. The hunch of his shoulders and his weather-spotted hands make him look older than Castle's ever seen him and his heart lurches in his chest.

There's a tiny noise from Kate, something that he might call a whimper if it came from anyone else, and then she lifts her chin, ever defiant, and meets his eyes. "It's 2008."

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