Toddler taming

The terrible twos are not called so for nothing, Beckett thinks as she considers tearing her hair out. It's Saturday, she's off duty – at least as far as being a cop is concerned – and she is chasing her appalling pair of terrorist two-year olds around the loft. Castle is resting. He's allowed. He was chasing the troublesome twosome around all morning.

Looking back on it, the baby stage was easy in comparison to toddlers. For a start, they couldn't move – as long as Beckett was in human form. Secondly, they couldn't talk. Especially, they couldn't argue. Or say no. They say no a lot. Beckett blames Castle. He's the one who talks all the time. Clearly the twins inherited his incessant verbosity.

Beckett does not approve of the twins arguing. She's in charge, and they should stop it. They learned disobedience to her commands from their father, too. Humph.

All that aside, however, she is chasing them round to catch them and tidy them up before her father appears. He's coming to visit – carefully pre-planned, as always with visits from anyone except the mountainous O'Leary, who (apart from their ob-gyn) is the only person who knows the truth – and Beckett is looking forward to seeing him. She's not looking forward to his smug look, nor the air of grandchildren are parents' revenge on their own children, nor the air of phew I get to go home when it's all too much (she gets to go to work), but of course he adores his only grandchildren and more importantly is happy to play with blocks and read stories for quite some time.

Beckett's tolerance for stories runs out at the third repetition. She has horrible memories of having to read The Gruffalo's Child ten times without a break on one particularly appalling subway journey. The alternative was stereo screaming, and shooting one's own children is not well regarded by the judiciary. She is sure that she recited it in her sleep that night, but Castle was wise enough not to mention it if she had.

Finally she gets her hands on one twin, and triumphantly carries him off upstairs to be cleaned up and put in a clean set of clothes. Petra follows, babbling mamamamamama as far as the stairs, and then produces an ear splitting scream of No as Beckett, unable to carry both wriggling toddlers at once, takes David upstairs first. Petra, Beckett has observed, is not fond of being placed second. She puts David in the cot to keep him out of mischief and returns for her naughty daughter. Of course, as soon as Petra gets what she wants, that being picked up, she stops screaming and acquires an adorably cute expression which cuts no ice whatsoever with Beckett.

"You are making a dreadful noise," Beckett says crossly. "Stop it. You take turns with your brother." Not that telling her off has any effect at all.

"No!" Petra says to that.

Petra is as impervious to being told off as… well, as Beckett had probably been at the same stage. So Beckett's father says, anyway. Beckett doesn't believe a word of it. She'd been a delightful child. Really.

Fortunately both children are swiftly washed and brushed into relative adorability. That is to say, people who didn't know them, or doting grandparents or brevet-aunts and uncles such as Lanie, Ryan and Espo, would think them adorable. Beckett is perfectly well aware that their adorable exteriors are merely a socially acceptable shell under which they are plotting mayhem, murder, and world domination.

Toddlers, she reflects, require tamed to become human. Well, in their case, mostly human. At least they're still all in sync. With a bit of luck, that'll last till puberty. She takes them back downstairs: Petra first this time, which alleviates the decibel level of complaint, sits down on one of the beanbags and watches them play happily with blocks, only needing to intervene every other minute or so to prevent one hitting the other and bruises, bumps and blood resulting. She'd separate them, but every time she or Castle has tried that the volume of the screaming has far exceeded the wails from the hitting. It doesn't matter which form they're in, either. All ways up, they fight. Petra wins, almost every time. Beckett reflects that Petra-panther or Petra-cat will get a very nasty shock when they're both bigger and David attains full weight and size. He's already looking very like he'll take after his father, and Castle in feline form is massive. About which Beckett, in any form, is not complaining one little bit. She loves his size, and the way in which he can surround her and make her feel safe and cosseted.

The twins are still playing happily (more or less) when Jim knocks on the door and Beckett, alert for any escapologist tendencies on the part of both twins (which in cat form are well-developed and intensely annoying, but which in toddler form are slower and thus preventable) lets him in.

"Hey, Dad," Beckett says happily, and hugs him.

"Good to see you, Bug," he says.

"Don't call me that, Dad," Beckett says exasperatedly. "I don't want the twins to pick it up."

"Ug," comes from below. David smiles toothily and bats his big blue eyes. He looks appallingly like his father, suddenly. Beckett hardens her heart.

"Mommy," she says to David, while directing a searing glare at her father. "Not Ug."

"Mama," David says obligingly. She'd swear he's smirking.

"Where's Rick?" Jim asks.

"Taking a break," Beckett replies. "He did duty this morning, and they were a bit rambunctious."

Sure they'd been. Not to mention last night. Despite all evidence that if Beckett changes they wake up, as tested by O'Leary (with lots of complaining), Beckett had wanted to be Onyx, and Castle his massive panther. It had worked for a whole two minutes, after she'd shifted. At that point the twins had clattered into the stairgate and mewed loudly and pathetically until Castle had shifted back, Beckett-Onyx had padded up the stairs behind him, and he'd picked up the kittens, put them in the cot and she'd changed back to change them into babies again. Well, toddlers.

And then she'd had to stay human all the rest of the evening. Humph. She'd made Castle shift back, though. Then she'd played with his ears till his control snapped and he pinned her down and changed back, and they took advantage of the sleeping toddlers. As humans, the twins sleep quite nicely. But still, thank God for O'Leary, who (despite the – er – exigencies of his first babysitting experience) has done so several times since, and not complained too much about the nocturnal natures of panther cubs.

"I'd sympathise, but I'm too busy giving thanks it's not me any more," Jim says happily. Beckett scrunches her nose at him. "Anyway, what have they achieved this week that you haven't already described to me in infinite detail?"

That's not fair. She doesn't. Castle does. Usually with video proof. He's just as besotted as he had, no doubt, been with Alexis. Fortunately his besottedness does not prevent him acting as a proper parent. They share the discipline bit. Beckett has the glare (and the Glock, though it's bad form to use it on one's children) but Castle has the disappointed look down pat, and it works at least as well as the glare. And if the terrible twosome are being particularly dreadful (which is distressingly frequent) there is always the option to become panthers and growl, with a gentle swat.

"You'll see," Beckett says mischievously, and gets a nose scrunch identical in nature to her own. "Anyway, Dad, do you want a coffee?"

"Sure," Jim says, lowering himself to the floor and picking up some bright yellow blocks. Petra glares as he snitches one from under her nose; David babbles happily and grabs for it. So does Petra, but she's a lot more competitive about it.

"Just like your Mommy," Jim says to her. Petra doesn't look impressed. David looks quizzical. Both of them bounce over him, chasing after the blocks. Occasionally they bestow moist toddler kisses or enthusiastic hugs upon his somewhat cringing form.

Beckett messes around in the kitchen, safe in the knowledge that her father can cope with two hyper energetic twins (they definitely take after their father in that).

"What the hell?!" Jim screeches. Beckett flicks round in an instant.

"Don't use that language in front of the twins," she snaps as she arrives at speed – and then sums up the situation in one absolutely horrified glance. "Oh, shit!" The irony of her profanity entirely escapes her.

"Katie, what is going on?"

Beckett does not have a good answer to that at all. After a moment's silent mouth opening and closing, sheer embarrassment turns her into Onyx. This does not help Jim's situation one bit. He defaults to full paternal mode, just as he'd done every time she'd done something dreadful as a child.

"Katherine Houghton Beckett Castle," he emits, "you turn back to human right now and explain yourself."

She doesn't. Onyx washes a paw, instead.

The noise brings Castle out of their bedroom and his nap.

"Wha'?" he mumbles. "Whassup?"

Then he looks around. "Oh, shit," he says.

"What did you do to my daughter, Rick?"

"Me? Did to her? She did it to me!" he squawks indignantly. "Stop blaming me. She started it!"

Jim is not impressed. He stares at the two coal black panther cubs and one black Siamese cat on the floor, and then sits down very heavily.

"Even when I was drinking, I didn't have hallucinations like this," he says weakly. "I must be dreaming."

Castle's next words don't help anything, not that this is new. Castle's ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time remains unparalleled, and now is no exception. "You're not dreaming. Beckett's a shapeshifter. So'm I."

"So it was you!" Jim yells. "Corrupting my daughter with your werewolf ways." Lucid reasoning is not precisely part of Jim's thinking at this point. The cubs squeak, and try to hide behind a cushion. This is possibly to avoid their mother's furious flat eared glare. The cubs are not stupid.

"It was she who corrupted me," Castle insists. "And we're not werewolves. We're panthers. See?" And he shifts into his massive panther form. This improves matters even less. Jim screeches again, wordlessly. Castle shifts back.

"Make Katie shift back," Jim demands. "I want some explanations. Now!"

"Make her?" Castle asks with astonishment. "You do know your daughter, don't you? No-one makes her do anything." This statement does not improve matters either. Jim appears apoplectic.

The two black panther cubs are watching their grandfather with some bemusement. One of them pads over to him, pats his leg, and then jumps up on to his lap. From the blue eyes, it's David, always far more like his father than his mother. He looks adoringly at Jim, and does his best impression of cuteness. Petra remains on the floor, and then approaches her mother, who spots her coming and, in a perfect display of what not to do in this crisis, turns into a panther and glares fearsomely at her daughter, who meeps and dives for the non-haven of Jim's lap. He is not overly receptive to the two cubs, being far too busy trying to keep his eyes in their sockets and in preventing an incipient heart attack.

"Change back," he says to Beckett.

Castle, belatedly recognising that Jim is on the point of complete collapse, removes both cubs from his lap and puts them in his own, on a separate chair.

Finally there is a soft sigh, and Beckett-panther returns to Beckett-human. "Um…" she says, "er… that wasn't quite the plan."

"Wasn't the plan?" Jim screeches. "What do you mean wasn't the plan? What the he" – Beckett fixes him with a deadly glare and gestures to the cubs – "heck is going on? When did this happen? Why haven't you fixed it?" His glare swings to Rick. "This is your fault."

"I told you, it was her," Castle says plaintively. Jim splutters, wordlessly.

"Um… we" –

"We?" Castle ejects. "You" –

"we thought that you'd never find out," Beckett says. "And if they'd just stayed synced to me like they were right up till now, you wouldn't have."

"They were born like this?! My grandchildren are cats?"

"Only sometimes," Castle says placatingly. It doesn't work.

"Is that supposed to improve matters? My daughter's a cat, you're a panther" –

"She can be a panther too," Castle points out, making the situation even worse –

"That is irrelevant," Jim yells. "My family doesn't change into cats."

"Mine does," Castle notes. Jim goes purple in the face.

"Dad, calm down," Beckett says. "This is why I didn't tell you. Or anyone."

"Except Rick," Jim says darkly.

"I was a cat long before I met Castle," Beckett says exasperatedly. "Stop blaming him. It had nothing to do with him."

"See?" Castle says, vindicated. "I told you." Unsurprisingly, this causes him to be the recipient of two Beckett family glares. Even Petra has a go at a glare, though at two and in panther form, she's not very good at it. David simply snuggles into his father and ignores everything. Castle, unimpressed by Petra's glare, taps her little black nose. "No glares," he says firmly. A further glare arrives, right on cue. Her nose is tapped again. "No." This chiding is followed by putting her down. She whines. "I said No. Stay there for a minute." Petra watches David getting to stay snuggled up and clearly doesn't like it, but (for once) does as she is told.

"How are you a cat?" Jim says plaintively. "My family didn't change into anything. Your mother certainly didn't. This is ridiculous. Shapeshifters don't exist."

"Dad, how can you say that? We're right here."

Jim looks as if he'd like to stick his fingers in his ears, close his eyes and sing lalalala till this whole dream goes away.

"They're still your grandchildren, and you're scaring them," Beckett says, with a remarkable absence of evidence for that statement. The twins don't look scared at all. David is snoozing (he does that quite a lot) and Petra is looking very irritably at her father, obviously thinking that time-out is over. Castle gives her another few seconds and then pets her head. This gesture indicates the end of time-out. Petra sneezes, looks briefly surprised and then turns into a toddler. David mews, then squeaks and looks thoroughly offended. It bears a remarkable, if babyish, resemblance to Castle on being told, for example, that he is not a cop. David attempts to sneeze, and fails.

Petra sneezes, and becomes a kitten. Liking that, she scampers over to Jim, clambers up his pants leg, and plops herself in his lap. Since she is astonishingly cute, Jim automatically strokes her, and she emits small purrs. She sneezes again, and is a panther cub, and then again, and becomes a toddler. She bestows a soggy kiss on Jim. Then she wriggles away, back on to the floor, and plays her wonderful new game under the utterly horrified eyes of her parents and grandfather.

A full three minutes later, Beckett recovers her voice. Castle is gibbering to himself, and David is miaowing with considerable overtones of complaint. Her father might as well have been petrified for all the use he is.

"Oh my God," Beckett says, several times over. "She's worked out how to shift without me. Oh my God. Now what are we going to do?"

David wails more loudly. Petra keeps changing herself. She is clearly both quite delighted and rather confused by the new ability. Beckett wonders why Petra couldn't have done something vaguely toddler normal, like nose-picking (ugh, but more socially acceptable than shape-shifting) rather than the one thing that will cause her parents more difficulty than anything else she could have done. More to the point, shortly David will work it out, and then all hell will break loose. Petra, while ultra-competitive and clearly (for now) the alpha of the pair, has a certain core of self-preservation. David, who is disturbingly like his father in personality but without the self-restraint, (Beckett just about prevents a disgusted pah at that: Castle only has self-restraint in limited circumstances) has none whatsoever, and might well be found in some life-threatening situation as a consequence of his experimental explorations.

She has a sudden horrible image of David stuck in a half-way form, and reminds herself firmly that there aren't half-forms. They'd have found out by now.

She looks around. Castle is mechanically petting David and staring at Petra as if she'd grown horns and a (nother) tail. Petra is still cycling through the three forms, though gradually she's been toddler for a bit longer as she realises that opposable thumbs are really quite useful for picking up blocks. Jim is still frozen.

"Dad?" Beckett says, finally. "Dad, you need to talk to me."

Jim wurbles. This is unhelpful.

"Dad!" Beckett snaps. Both children and Castle wince. "Dad, are you going to tell anyone about this?" Despite the fact that she is speaking to the father she deeply loves, her voice carries a promise of finality.

"Who'd believe it? I don't want to be committed, or sent to rehab," Jim says bleakly.

"You don't have to visit us again," Beckett says coldly, and silently prays that this tactic will actually work. "If you can't cope, then don't come. The twins will forget you soon enough. We don't need people who can't accept us in our lives."

Jim jerks to bolt upright. "What? You'd stop me seeing my grandchildren?"

"If you can't deal with them as they are…" Beckett trails off.

"Of course I love them." Jim stops as Beckett raises an eyebrow. "Don't look like that. I do."

"And me?" she says, constrictedly. "You just said my family doesn't change into cats. Am I not your family?"

"Of course you are," Jim answers without a hesitation or hitch. He pauses. "But Katie, you have to admit that this is a big pill to swallow. You never, ever mentioned it, and you never mentioned that the twins might be" – he grimaces – "cats, and Rick's PR sure didn't" –

"I wasn't, till after I met Beckett," Castle says, which doesn't really help. Jim looks from one to the other in near-despair.

"I a cat, Mama!" Petra says loudly.

"Yes, sweetheart," Beckett says without thinking. "Shh. Mommy and Grandad are talking." She turns back to Jim. "Dad, you can either get your head round this or not visit. That's it."

"Want Granda'."

"Shush!" Beckett says firmly. Petra clearly thinks about saying no, but under Beckett's minatory eye thinks better of it.

Jim looks at Petra, who toddles over to him, not noticeably chastised. David jumps down from Castle's lap, unwilling to be deprived of his Grandad either, and the pair of them climb up, squabbling about who gets to sit where in a mixture of miaow and toddler-burble. Jim watches the mess in his lap and intervenes just as David is about to scratch at Petra, hoisting him out of the way.

"Ta-ta," Petra says.

"Thank you," Castle says. "Not ta-ta." Petra glares. "And no glaring."

"I never expected this," Jim says, glancing from one twin to the other. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Both Beckett and Castle regard him as if he's insane.

"Okay," he says. "Er… I might not have reacted well. But… um… Katie… um… show me again?"

Beckett quirks an eyebrow. "Me, or both of us?" Jim simply shrugs. She converts herself to Onyx. David scrambles off Jim's lap and scampers over to his mother. As a panther cub, he's almost bigger than she is. It doesn't save him from the swat to his bottom when he crashes into her. He whimpers, and looks cute.

"Well, you're certainly elegant," Jim emits feebly. "Does he" – he gestures at Castle – "do it too?"

Castle promptly turns into the much larger pure black cat form, and flicks his tail as if to say of course I do. Then he turns into his enormous panther form, taps Onyx, who does the same, and both of them stare at Jim. Commendably, he doesn't wilt. David pats at his father, who gently pats him back. Petra slithers off Jim's knee with only a minor wobble and wanders over to her mother, grabbing for her ears and whiskers. Beckett-panther growls warningly. Petra pulls her fingers back very quickly, appears to realise that she's the only one who isn't a panther, and turns herself into a cub, sneaking peeks at everyone to see if they've noticed how clever she is.

"Okay," Jim says again, rather feebly. "Um… change back, please? This is all too much for my old bones."

Castle and Beckett change back. Petra and David do not. They indulge in some more squabbling, until Castle takes Petra and Beckett takes David and they are firmly separated. They wail.

"Nope," their parents say together. "No fighting. Time out."

Petra changes back; specifically, Beckett thinks, in order to say "No!"

"Yes," Castle says calmly, which is not received well.

"Nonononono!"

Castle takes her upstairs, and very carefully closes the door behind him as he returns. It doesn't entirely block the noise.

Jim stares. "Time out," Castle explains. "Two minutes or so. We don't want a spoilt brat, and you might have noticed that she's a bit strong-willed. I don't think she can open the door, and with it shut it won't matter if she changes."

"Just like" – Jim starts, and stops at Beckett's annoyed look and flickered gesture at David-cub – "lots of kids," he finishes.

"So what are you going to do?" Beckett asks pointedly, as Castle returns with Petra after her time-out. David sneezes, and abruptly becomes a toddler again. He smiles happily.

"Keep quiet," Jim says. "Keep coming round." He pauses, and suddenly smiles very mischievously.

"And put It's Cool for Cats on my iPod."

Fin.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.

Next up, and currently the final story in this series until inspiration descends: a prequel to Felis Felix, in two parts.