First Christmas

**Author's note** this first chapter is set in the 'Agent Rodgers' universe, three years after the events of "Out of Exile." For those of you who are unfamiliar...Alexis died at age 8 propelling Rick into a career in the FBI as he could no longer bring himself to write. Kate was shot as in canon..but her injuries were severe enough that she could not pass the NYPD physical and was medically discharged. The Nikki Heat books were instead written by Katherine Beckett. Last but not least...Johanna Beckett is very much alive but living under the assumed name of Jessica Bennet. Montgomery is also alive...but the world believes him to be dead.

Thanksgiving Day, 2015

The Thanksgiving festivities were finally winding down. The last dishes were washed and dripping dry in the sink. Ryan and Esposito were on their way to "The Old Haunt" to watch the bowl games on the big screen on Kate's dime. Lanie and Jenny were on their way out to hit the pre Black Friday sales. (they had become fast friends since both had found themselves to be pregnant at around the same time and due dates within days of each other in the spring) Jim and Jessica had invited Webb and Martha up to the Beckett family cabin for the weekend so the four of them had left an hour ago. Kate was upstairs tucking the twins into bed telling them bedtime stories and singing them to sleep like she had done since they were born.

Suddenly alone in the now quiet and dimly lit loft, Richard Rodgers felt the first pangs of the near overwhelming dread that overcame him every year around this time since Alexis died in January of 2002.

Up until 2009 the entire week from Christmas eve through New Year's Day had been spent either unconscious, hungover or in a drunken stupor. Grieving the only way himself, Meredith and his mother could bear to handle. The pain had been too much to bear much had happened since the last time Christmas had been spent that way. Kate had come into his life and everything had changed, but down deep the old familiar pain remained.

Christmas had always been a big deal in the Castle household. After Alexis had been born, he had wanted to give her and Meredith so much that had been denied him as a child in a single parent household of limited means. Even after it was just himself and Alexis he had still wanted that. Every year he had added something new and different that he had found in his travels. Sparing no expense to make the season special for his little girl. This was especially the case after she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and began chemotherapy.

If he closed his eyes, he could picture every single detail (down to the placement of every last ornament on the tree) of how the loft had looked the Christmas of 2001 as if it was yesterday. It was one of many images he both cherished, but had also spent the better part of a decade trying to blot from his memory every Christmas since with copious amounts of alcohol.

Alexis had been so pale and wan when she had restarted chemo that last Chritmas, but the prognosis had been good and the oncologist had recommended a shorter run that time. To that end, he had outdone himself that year to cheer her up. Bought her a pretty dress and promised to take her to the book launch for the new Derek Storm novel.

Sixteen days later he had found her dead in her bed. Three days after her funeral he had packed every single decoration, down to the last pine needle and scrap of tinsel, painstakingly packing them all and placing the boxes in storage. He never wanted to look at them again. Never wanted to see the loft done up for the holidays when whole reason he cherished the holiday in the first place was lying buried in the frozen ground on the other side of Manhattan. That he had, a few years ago, learned that she had been poisoned did not make things any easier. The knowledge simply added a new layer of guilt to an already sullied holiday.

After Emily had been taken from them before she could be born, and everything that had followed after, emotions were simply too raw to even think about Christmas. Kate had had her own issues with the season stemming from her mother's "death" that robbed her of the joy of the holiday season. (issues that had not gone away with the discovery that she was, and had been, very much alive all along) He had remembered spending the Christmas Eve sitting at his desk across from hers doing paperwork the year he had started at the precinct. Both of them silently working and trying not to think about the season because of it.

After she learned she was pregnant with the twins they had been so thankful to be given another chance to be parents that Christmas had come and gone before they were fully aware. The greatest gifts they could have been given that year had been growing in her womb. Gifts they had to wait until May to unwrap.

The following Christmas season, they were so stressed out that neither of them even contemplated the notion of marking the holiday in any formal way. The twins were barely six months old and still were not sleeping through the night. Between their colic, the late night feedings and the child abduction case he was neck deep in, Kate had turtled up with the babies in the nursery with his Glock 30 in easy reach. Nothing had scared Rick more than when he came home after they had caught the kidnappers and rescued the children they had taken, to find a stressed out Kate in the kitchen preparing formula on the stove, the large caliber pistol in the back waistband of her jeans with the safety off.

Meredith had unexpectedly come to their rescue when she appeared at their door on December 23rd. She had taken one look at how close to the ragged edge the two of them were and simply took over. She ensconced herself in the upstairs guest room, absconded with the baby monitor and banished them to their bedroom after 9 PM for the rest of the week.

Kate had protested weakly at first, insisting that she could take care of her own children without the help of his ex-wife. Protests that died shortly after they crawled into bed where she was out before she hit the pillow. Every night that week, Rick would try to talk her out of it and Meredith would insist that they weren't doing their babies any good if they couldn't get a decent night's sleep.

On New Year's eve, Meredith had gotten them reservations at Le Cirque for a romantic night out to ring in the new year, her treat, and not taken no for an answer. After New Year's Day, she made them both promise that they would call her if they got overwhelmed again.

Rick hadn't known at the time where this "new and improved mama bear" Meredith had come from, but he had been in no position to complain, neither had Kate. They had needed the help desperately. When he later pressed his ex-wife on the subject, she got a sad, withdrawn look on her face, couldn't look him in the eye and in a barely audible whisper stated, "It's my penance."

Jim Beckett later explained to them, that part of her 12 Step program for Alcoholics Anonymous was to identify the people she had wronged and try to make amends. She clearly attributed her drinking to her guilt over walking out of their daughter's life, and was taking care of her half siblings to make amends both to Alexis and to Rick for her past behavior. She wanted to change...to be better, not just for them, but for herself. Rick couldn't help but be proud of her, even now. From that day on, "Auntie Meredith" was always welcome in their home and Kate would not permit a disparaging word to be spoken of his ex-wife in her presence.

Rick and Kate had come to a consensus after that winter that if they had to make themselves mark the Christmas season, that they would wait to do all of the traditional trappings at least until the twins were old enough to actually take part and enjoy them. The hope was that their enthusiasm would become contagious, and make things easier for them, too.

The following year, when the twins were nearing two, they dodged a bullet when his parents had invited them to Washington DC. Richard Webb had wanted an opportunity to bridge the chasm between them that his near forty five year absence from their lives had created. Or perhaps he had merely wanted to dote on his grandchildren and spoil them rotten. Rick hadn't been certain at the time, but his father had thrown him a lifeline to get out of the loft and its many memories and he jumped at it.

Rick, Kate and the kids had not been in Falls Church, Virginia for more than a day when an invitation to a Christmas party being thrown at the Greenbriar Resort and Hotel by the Director of the FBI. His father and Martha urged them to go, in spite of the fact that the invitation had been purely political. The current director had only received her appointment because he had turned it down and was likely putting on airs. But Martha had insisted that a night out away from the kids who had at a festive holiday party was still a night out. His mother might have changed her tune had she known who else was on the guest list.

When Will Sorenson, Director of the Boston field office had arrived at the party with his wife on his arm, Kate had bristled and any potential good cheer had been leached from the proceedings. Rick had spent the better part of the evening keeping a firm grip on Kate's arm to keep her from bolting or making a scene. The two of them had come to a professional understanding after their disastrous first meeting all those years ago. They would never be friends, but at least they could stand to be in the same room together when needed. (a few rounds in the sparring circle had certainly helped)

Kate was under no such obligation to play nice with him or be more than coldly polite, however. She had not forgotten the incident in the precinct six years before, when her former boyfriend had tried to interfere in her life like he had had the right. She had also not forgotten the cruel things he had said to Rick about Alexis, nor was she ever likely to forgive him. To this day she wanted nothing to do with the man. She kept her composure, but that didn't stop her from looking daggers at the man every time his mingling brought the man close to them when she thought Rick wasn't looking.

They excused themselves and departed as soon as they could politely do so.

But now Johanna and David were three years old and had spent enough time at the Federal Building's daycare center while Kate was writing to know that Christmas was supposed to be a happy, festive occasion. It was not supposed to be the dark, melancholy affair that he had allowed it to become. He wanted them to have the joy that had been taken from him. Kate agreed with him that the joy of the season was not something they could deny their children. Sacrifices would have to be made, if necessary.

Rick knew that this first Christmas was going to be the most difficult for him to handle. As much as he wanted to banish it for his little ones, the melancholy dread of the season was still there, still threatening to overwhelm him if he let it. It was in that spirit that he found himself here in Forest Hills Cemetery standing in the little knoll with it's two small headstones that had come to define his existence for over a decade. He had to find a way to let go. To say goodbye and leave his past in the past so he could give their two children the life they deserve.

"Merry Christmas, girls."

**additional note** The next chapter will be better I promise. But I had to deal with Agent Rodger's melancholy with the season first before making things better for him. Figured I'd get the most angsty of my AU Ricks out of the way first. The stories get lighter from here.