December 25 - It's Christmastime

I might kiss you on the back of your neck
Because it's Christmastime

-Hey Guys! It's Christmastime!, Sufjan Stevens

Castle has been watching her sleep for as long as he could force himself to be good. But it's Christmas Day and Santa has arrived, and he can't help waking her. Plus she has to go into work, so it's not as bad as it sounds - she would be getting up soon anyway.

He tugs her ear.

Kate murmurs in her sleep and shrugs her shoulder to dislodge him, rolling over in bed. Castle crowds at her back and slides his arm around her waist, nudges his nose into her neck for a little shock and awe.

"Kate," he whispers. His throat is still scratchy from the cold he came down with on Monday, his chest a little achey, but he's not sick any longer. "Kate. Merry Christmas."

She mumbles something into her pillow, her skin so warm with sleep against his nose.

He takes a deep breath, tickling her. "You smell like sugar plums."

Kate grunts and twists in bed, one of her hands hitting his shoulder as she cracks open an eyelid and glares at him. "Sugar plums."

"Merry Christmas, Mrs Castle."

She huffs but goes on the attack, her body pressing to his and flopping him to his back while she slides over. Her mouth is rich and insistent and fierce - and then she's gone, out of bed, heading for the bathroom.

He lies there a moment, a little shock-and-awed himself, and then he gets out of bed and goes to the closet, unhides her gift from between the folded stacks of his sweaters. His heart is fluttering, like he's never given her a gift before.

Castle pushes the box into the pocket of his plaid pajama pants and backs out of the closet. He winds up running into her as she's coming out of the bathroom, one of her hands gripping his arm to keep them from stumbling.

"Castle," she says, a little breathless.

"Hey," he starts. "I have-"

"Here." She pushes an envelope into his hands and he stares down at it, the little jewelry box forgotten in his pocket.

"What's this?" he murmurs, turning it over. She's written Rick in that scrawl of hers. There is something about his name in her hand that he will always recognize, even if the letters themselves look nothing at all like they should.

"Um, you said Santa brings presents on Christmas Day, right? So open it." She disappears then, heading into the closet to pick out her wardrobe.

He eyes her a moment, but she's resolutely not looking back at him, so Castle gets a finger under the flap and tears through the envelope.

Strange. It looks like letters to Santa? One of the sheets of paper is written in a child's pencil, rounded letters - and a photograph that he tugs out first.

"Oh. Kate. Hey-" It's Robert and his boys from Hot Meals. "Kate, where'd you get this?"

Robert and his sons are in front of a white-light-blurred Christmas tree, wrapped gifts in the boys' hands and pulled against their chests like they can't possibly let go. Both boys have teeth-gapped smiles, eyes squeezed shut with joy, chins sticking out in cheese. Robert isn't smiling but he looks a lot more at ease than Castle saw him this weekend.

"I've been keeping up with Dan," Kate says quietly.

He glances up and she's all soft-sleep-warm, her hair mussed around her head, biting her bottom lip, a pair of jeans dangling from her fingers.

"Dan," he repeats. "Dan Jordan. What-"

"Just read the letters they wrote, Castle."

His chest is so tight, he's not sure he can. But he opens the child-written letter and sees it's from the older boy.

x

Dear Santa,

I have a tree and lights and presents and thank you. I have not been writing you letters so much but if maybe I am on the nicer list, I would like a room for me and Will and Dad and not a car. But Dad needs the car so I mean not to sleep in.

Your friend,

Shawn

x

"Kate," he says, brow furrowing.

She circles her fingers around his wrist and brings the letter down. "Wait," she says. "Keep reading."

He clears his throat and shuffles the pages until he gets to the next one. This is written on a plain white page, monogrammed, someone's stationary. A spidery cursive, like a grandmother.

x

Mr. Castle,

I feel I should share with you what happened to me on Monday morning; somehow I think you were responsible.

Well, to start, I forgot to get gas this weekend, so I had to fill up before work. When I pulled into the gas station, a man was pushing his beaten-up car to the pump beside mine. Two little boys were inside, the older one doing the steering.

I swiped my card at the man's pump before he could do anything. He stared at me and I told him it was Christmastime and he'd do me a favor if he just accepted it - my good deed for the day.

I went inside the gas station to get a 99cent coffee and came out with a fistful of gas cards, handed them over. He didn't want to take them, but we both knew he ought to. He looked at those gas cards and then he pulled a card out of his back pocket.

It was yours. He said he'd met you, that you were kind to him, and your promise in that card was all he had to repay me. That you might, at some future date, be able to help me as I had helped him.

I don't need much help, but I do attend a church where we give hot meals to the homeless, and it occurred to me he might have been there this weekend - and you as well. So I talked to Dan Jordan and he said I should write this letter; he was going to send it on.

You made a difference for Robert. He's at the church now with his two boys. It was the spark that started this whole chain of events. You should know.

Sincerely,

Margaret Rose Peterson

x

Castle shuffles back to the photograph, the somewhat wry look in Robert's eyes, like he can't believe he's there, and the two boys beaming like crazy.

His lungs are tight and it's not his chest cold. "The presents and the tree-?"

"Read the last letter, Rick."

He lets out a shaky breath because he's not sure how this is all going to end, but he has this idea that it's already gutting him out.

x

Rick,

Your wife is something else, that's for sure.

x

Castle lifts his head, waves the letter at her. "You read these?"

She presses her lips together, a little shrug. He laughs and goes back to the letter from Dan Jordan.

x

She's been on top of this, tracking down gifts for these kids and putting it all together. The money, of course, is amazing - such a boon for us at the church to know our operating budget for Hot Meals will be covered for a while. But the way you two have taken Robert into your thoughts and prayers and hearts and helped him - that's more.

Robert is at the church now, the two boys are enrolled in the preschool and kindergarten here. He's agreed to a job doing maintenance, and they'll be staying in our transition apartments until they've gotten on their feet. Christmas is going to be a big deal for them this year, and you've made it possible, you and Kate.

Thanks, Rick, for being a part of this.

Yours,

Dan

x

"Kate. You - did all this?"

"No, Castle," she laughs. "You did. Kind of the point."

He shuffles the pages back to the boy's letter to Santa. "Is there - some way we can get them a house, because-"

"I figured you might say that," she smiles. "I've been talking to Dan and as soon as Robert goes through their job skills training program, he'll let us know what their needs will be. In the meantime, Robert's Christmas gift from 'Santa' is a key."

Castle startles, staring at her, the gift box he wrapped for her suddenly burning in his pocket. "A key?" he squeaks.

"As a kind of promise, a goal to work towards. We'll partner with him in getting a house for those boys... is something wrong? You have a funny look on your face."

"I'm just... it's - I'm... I have something for you. One last gift," he gets out.

And then he tugs the wrapped box from his pocket and hands it to her.

Kate takes the gift from his hand, her fingers curling around the edges, her eyes not leaving his.

"Just open it," he rasps. "I'll explain."

"Is your cold-?"

He catches the hand she tries to raise to his forehead, and shakes his head, kisses her fingertips. "No. No, I'm not sick. Just a little stunned. Open it."

She looks back down at the box, jewelry, she thinks, and slowly peels open the tape. He's antsy, she can tell even without looking, but he can't rush her. The paper is busy - nutcrackers haphazard in pattern over a red background. She chuckles a little and he makes a noise like a groan.

"I know I said I'd wait for you all over again, but come on. Open it a little faster, Beckett."

She laughs, eyes lifting to his, and goes ahead and rips the paper, lifting the white lid of the box.

It's a key. Faintly brassy, worn teeth, and as she dips her hand inside to pick it up, she knows exactly what it is.

The safety deposit box in Montreal - this is the key that held his good-bye video. How he loves her, how he wishes he hadn't missed out on their life together.

"The key?" she croaks. No wonder he was looking at her like that, when she said Robert's Christmas gift is a key. This key is on a dainty gold chain, much like the necklace she wore her mother's ring on.

He takes it and flips it over in her fingers, the chain snaking across her wrist. "Read it," he says softly.

Her fingers clench around the key and she feels the teeth digging into her skin, every impression of the box number against her thumb. But when her fingers release, blanched, she stares down at the key in her palm and sees something entirely different.

It's not the box number staring up at her. A word has been inscribed, engraved, into the metal. One word.

Joy.

She takes a breath more broken than whole, reels back until her legs hit the mattress, drops down to the bed.

"I had it made."

He's standing before her in those low-slung pajama pants, drawstring untied and dangling, the muscles of his abs interrupted by the scar of a gunshot graze neither of them can explain. She lifts her eyes and sees the tiredness on his face, but unmistakably, joy as well.

"You had this made?"

"The key. It's a giving key. You engrave a word on it, wear it on a chain close to your heart until it - seeps inside you. Fills you. And then you take it off and pass it on to someone who needs it too. I've been wearing it - joy around my neck, over my heart, for the last month."

She stares at the key until it blurs. "You've given me joy," she whispers.

"Wasn't to make you cry," he says quietly, stepping close.

She reaches out with her free hand, yanks to pull him down with her.

When he sits, it's so carefully, and his fingers come around her wrist, stroking her skin lightly. "It's amazing to me how you can spread joy to other people, Kate, and never hold on to it for yourself. At this time of year. I wanted to somehow... every day, just a little, give it back to you."

She can barely speak, but she lays her head against his shoulder, gulping a breath.

"The holidays suck for me," she tries. She shakes her head and twirls the key in her fingers, one way, back again. "I just... everything leads up to Christmas for you but for me it's all heading towards death."

She meant to say her death. Her mother's death. But maybe just a general death is more accurate. Because it's not just her mother, it's him now too, and always might have been, the two of them wrapped together. It's morbid, isn't it? - to use Christmas as a vehicle for dwelling on how she almost lost him, how it was such a near thing, how he could still be taken from her if it all comes back on them - the things they don't know.

But being with Castle really has transformed things, and not just this year. "I haven't thought about my mother like that for awhile," she admits. "Not even yesterday. Just her life."

He sucks in a breath that still rattles in his chest. "I hope we've changed things, that every year it gets easier to carry, like a key around your neck rather than a weight."

She lifts her head and wraps her arms around him, pressing her cheek to his so he knows she's not crying. She's not. "You have. You've changed that, Rick. Every day this month - every single day - somehow you seduced me into it, all over again."

"Seduced you?" he laughs, kissing the corner of her eye. "I'll take it."

"Thank you for my Christmas," she murmurs.

"Thank you for making it Christmas," he says back. His mouth touches her cheek. "Not just for me. For all of us."

All the money in the world can't buy something as beautiful, as precious, as this brass key.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Blessed New Year!

May you find the joy of giving - and the joy of becoming more than you thought possible.

I hope this story has dwelled with you, living among you, reminding you that you are never alone.

-Laura