#fembot77

When it comes to making lists of baby names, Kate’s has more fictional character namesakes than Castle.

Among these are Daenerys, Brienne, and Tyrion. 

(I just woke up and it’s 9:07am)

Dear Stana

It was three weeks before Christmas when Castle and Beckett finally had the time to sit down and peel open their kids’ letter to Santa. It had been laying in Kate’s desk drawer at the precinct since November, when she promised to drop it in the mailbox on her way to work.

Usually, they wouldn’t even have to go to those lengths, since they were the ones that wrote down their kids’ wishes to Santa, but this year was different. Their eldest, RJ, had recently started to read and write on his own and was adamant about being the one to write the letter this year, which meant that his parents had absolutely no idea what any of them wanted...especially since he had sealed the envelope before they could even get a peek at it.

They’d meant to open it way earlier than they had, but being Captain of your own precinct and a stay-at-home dad/bestselling author hadn’t allowed them a lot of time for much of anything. (Even their tenth anniversary the previous month had been interrupted by a body drop and a couple of crying toddlers). Life was hard and hectic, but they’d finally made time.

Kate was curled up in Castle’s lap on the arm chair in their room, a blanket wrapped around their bodies and her head pillowed on his shoulder, as they ripped open the envelope. They were both yawning and barely awake, but it was now or never.

“’Dear Santa,’” Castle read, “’My name is RJ Castle and I’ve been a very good boy this year. So have my baby sisters, Joey and Marti (except they’re girls), so I’m sure we’re all on the nice list, cuz that’s what Daddy says. Mommy sometimes says that we’re on the naughty list, though, because we help Daddy pull pranks on her. In my defense, they’re really funny.’” Castle snorts and Kate pinches his side. “Ouch!”

“Serves you right.”

He glares at her, then continues readings. “’Anyway, for Christmas I would like all the new Marvel action figures. Especially Black Widow. I know she’s hard to find because they don’t have her at a lot of stores, but she reminds me of Mommy so I hafta have her.’ Aww, that’s sweet. Somebody has to tell this kid that hafta is not a word, though.”

“I thought spelling and grammar was your job, Mr. Writer Dad,” Kate teased.

“It is, but I swear talking to these kids sometimes is like talking to a brick wall; they don’t want to listen!”

“Gee, I wonder where they get that from...”

“Oh hush you. Where was I?” Kate pointed to the spot on the page. “Thanks.” Castle cleared his throat and continued. “’I also need a new pair of boots because I’m growing so much. Mommy says that because she and Daddy are tall, I’m gonna be too. I can’t wait for that. Being short is so lame. I can’t reach the cookies.’ I feel your pain, buddy.” Kate snorts. “’And it would be nice to have more legos, but Mommy says I have to keep them away from Joey or she’ll stick them up her nose. I don’t know why she would do that, but Daddy found it funny. 

“’Speaking of Jo, she wants a new baby doll and the color orange. I don’t know what that means and she gets mad when I ask, but she’s little so it makes more sense to her than it does to me, I guess. You could maybe buy her a lot of things that are orange and she’ll probably like them all. Make sure you give her the baby doll, too. That’s important. Marti, my other sister, wants a new play kitchen because she likes to cook. She also wants a lot of animals (but I would get her a bunch of stuffed animals; no real ones).”

“Good boy,” Kate said with a smile. 

“’Finally, for all three of us, we just want one more thing. A’ - oh no - ‘puppy. We’ve been asking Mommy and Daddy for years but they keep saying no so we were hoping that if you just brought us one, they’d have to say yes. Please, Sant’ - wait, no. That doesn’t say Santa. That says...Stana. Who’s Stana?”

“It’s pronounced Stah-nah, babe. It’s Serbian, I think. There’s an actress by that name.”

“Oh, you mean the one with the...er, teeth.”

“Teeth?”

“I meant smile. Hey, these all say Stana!” He scanned the letter and then the envelope. “What an odd typo.”

“Maybe that makes the puppy request invalid,” Kate said, hopefully.

“Then it makes everything invalid,” Castle reminded her, then sighed. “I don’t know, Kate; maybe it’s time.”

“They’re not ready to take care of an actual dog yet, Castle. We’ll be the ones training it and feeding it, and making sure it doesn’t break shit.”

“Well, maybe we should get them a buffer animal, then. Something to train them, like a fish.”

“I swear to god if you bring back a dog named fish...”

“....darn.” Kate pinched him again and he swatted her hand away. “Stop that.” He sighed. “Fine. No dog. Yet. But think about it for the future, okay? RJ is seven now and he’s already very responsible for his age.”

“The other day he threw a tantrum because I wouldn’t let him have whipped cream and sprinkles for dinner.”

“But he apologized for that.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “I’ll think about it,” she told him. “And maybe we’ll revisit this conversation when he’s, like, twelve, and can actually spell Santa.”