Disclaimer: I'm asking Santa for the rights to Castle this Christmas. But until then…it's still a no!
Fertile Imagination
Chapter 1 – Planting a Seed
Castle's unbridled glee, when he shoots the Thorian Blaster and it burns a hole straight through the wall of the Nebula 9 ship, is priceless.
Kate watches the way her partner's face lights up in childish delight when he realizes that the weapon is actually a fully-functioning laser gun, and her heart skips a beat at how largely this man lives, how free he is with his emotions, and she knows, she knows that he is dragging her along with him now on his quest to live life to the fullest. And she loves it, loves him for carelessly, presumptuously, making her tag along for the ride for no other reason than he wants the very best out of life for her, just like he does for everyone that he loves.
When they visit 'Q', as Castle dubs him, at his secretive workshop lair with it's vaulted ceiling made of old brick arches, his joy and excitement over firing the live laser gun is crushed when Benjamin Donnelly, the mad professor, asks him if he was wearing 'proper protection' when firing the weapon. The old eccentric's face is a mask of wary concern as he observes Castle like a lab rat coming out the other end of a particularly dicey experiment, his eyes sliding south to look over the writer, before he haltingly turns away without expanding on the dangers or risks he has exposed himself to.
The question sends Rick into a tailspin of Castle-sized proportions. His immediate thought on hearing the words 'proper protection' jumps his brain to his nether regions, along with a defensive flutter of his hands towards his crotch and a horrified dropping of his eyes; as if he expects to look down and find his manhood somehow mutated or disappeared all together; dematerialized like Captain Kirk in his transporter beam.
Kate presses her lips together to suppress a smile and shakes her head as she still does a lot these days, though she finds it so much harder to hide the affection in the gesture, her reserves of snarkiness and impatience worn thin when she finally allowed the truth of her love for this man-child she's dating into her heart.
She changes the subject, knowing that he'll only fixate on the hidden meaning behind the mad professor's words if she lets him. But his face remains troubled all the way back to the Precinct. His hands lie in a protective tent across his lap, and she knows there is more to come on the subject. However, she lets it rest for now, lets it marinate until Castle is good and ready to blurt out whatever wacked out theory he finally comes up with. He's too quiet by half, and that's always a sign, she's learned, of fun times to come.
Back at the Twelfth, he sits in his chair, way quieter than normal, staring at his fingers while Kate chatters on about Creavers being the sworn enemy of the Nebula 9 crew; the costume a perfect disguise, allowing the killer to strike unseen. He doesn't even react when she gives him credit for this theory – so unlike him to miss out on a gloating opportunity.
He's touching his face gingerly when she calls him out on his silence.
"Castle?" she half-barks to get his attention.
"Do I look different to you?" he asks, frowning and clearly worried.
Kate is instantly on her guard. He's particular about his appearance – very particular. The small number of times they've made it out of either of their apartments for the evening since they've been dating, Castle is always the one who takes longer to get ready, even when Kate has to do her hair. So she's worried about what she'll have to deal with (slash lie about) when the next question comes out of his mouth.
"Just…I feel so tingly. Something's wrong. I'm beginning to mutate like The Hulk or The Thing…or worse, The Leader. What would happen to my hair?" he muses almost to himself, his frown deepening as his fingers tentatively reach for that thick, dark, thatch of hair that she so loves to run her fingers through.
When he tells her that he feels tingly, and that he thinks he's about to mutate, Kate quickly loses interest and starts fiddling with her phone. He's just over-reacting as usual, his Roger genes kicking in, drama set to high. At least it wasn't a real, 'does my bum look big in this, Kate?' type of question, and yes, she's had to answer those too.
She totally shocks him when she looks up from her screen tapping to say, "I prefer Dr. Manhattan."
He gives her a stunned look – surprised that she's indulging his hypochondria and that she's even listening to him ramble on, because he could have sworn that she wasn't. So when she adds an explanation, coupled with the most adorable smile, he's floored.
"The blue skin - it brings out your blue eyes," she twinkles at him with a girlish grin, before heading for the exit with her bag thrown over her shoulder.
He's…shit, she adores him! And that smile. And she's so goddam geek-informed it almost makes him hard right there in the gloom of the Precinct just thinking about it. And how could he not know this about her after more than four years working together? She's blowing his mind with this case and all the parts of her it's revealing…she's revealing to him. And god but he loves her, wants her right now and forever…
But when the next thought enters his crazy brain, the panic over Ben Donnely's 'proper protection' still swirling around up there, heightened now that he sees his future...something breezily dismissing his concerns and waltzing out the door like she doesn't have a care in the world, it just comes out, blurted, like he usually does with things of this magnitude where she's concerned.
"This isn't funny," he tells her, sounding something like frantic now. "What if firing that blaster made me infertile?"
And Kate is so not prepared for that!
She tries to stick with easy-breezy, jaunty steps forcing her forward with him by her side as she fights to cover up her surprise. Because they haven't talked about this stuff. They haven't talked about a lot of things actually, which is largely her fault she assumes, since if Castle has something on his mind he usually just throws it right out there on the table/floor/desk/bed for all to see, no matter how unprepared it might leave her.
"You want more kids?" she asks, and it almost comes out sounding like a criticism as she fights to hide her surprise.
"Well, I'd like the option."
And since that really only leaves the option of 'kids with Kate' hanging in the air, she does the only thing she can do, which is hop right over his declaration and keep on moving like it never happened.
"Well, I think you're going to be fine, Castle," she tells him lightly, forcing out a smile, keeping her eyes neutral as she heads inexorably towards the elevator, trying to outrun this issue before he starts trying to button down his 'options' against a specific timeframe in his fancy, tricked-out online schedule app like he usually does.
He mutters something about decontaminating and taking a separate shower as a precaution while they stand next to one another in the elevator, and Kate really has no reply to that. Her mind has whisked her off on a dry run of the discussion she now knows they need to have.
When they reach the sidewalk, she tells him that she's tired and since she has a ton of laundry to do, so she'll just head back to her place tonight, and see him at the Precinct in the morning in an attempt to stall the inevitable.
He's still obsessing over the potential for blaster aftereffects while planning an extensive Google search the minute he gets home, so he misses the troubled look in her eyes as they part with a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek around the corner from the Twelfth, neither of them lingering as the autumnal air chills their faces and bites at their fingertips.
Kate has her own schedule to check when she gets home, and that sudden realization is like a ticking time bomb as she descends into the depths of the subway, chanting the words 'proper protection' over and over to herself in time with each click of her heels on the concrete risers of the subway stairs.
A/N: I didn't like the way they handled this scene on the show. I mean it was fun, and they threw the topic right out there, but I thought that Kate might have given it more of a reaction, a facial expression, something. So, as usual, it bugged me until I started to write about it. Should be wrapped up in a chapter, two at most. But hey, it's me, so you never know! ;) Liv