AN: This again is posted on the assumption you have seen 6.05 "Time will tell." (and believe in time travel) :D
"You're trying to drive me crazy, aren't you?"
"Well apparently I already do, if we end up with three kids!"
Castle pauses in the doorway, leans against the frame and watches his wife run her fingers over the slight bump of her stomach. The pearly grey cotton of her sleep shirt pulls taut and see through in patches, worn with care and loving use and Kate thumbs the material, slopes over her navel and spreads her palms wide, before repeating the motion in the opposite direction.
She looks peaceful and serene and, though it's an horrendously annoying cliche, she does have a brighter shine to her skin - some might call it a glow, he won't, she has a tendency to get pinchy - and as she sits in the middle of the bed stroking over the barely there curve of their unborn child she looks to be the picture of motherly contentment.
Until she growls.
Deep lines appear on her forehead and the longer the sound rumbles through her chest the more the frown intensifies. Tilting his head in confusion Castle watches as Kate looks down and pokes at the slight bulge of her bump with the tip of one finger, muttering under her breath.
"Hey!" He makes himself known, striding into the room and letting his eyes flare in her direction when her head snaps up, "Quit being mean to my kid." He cocks his head and drops down next to her on the bed with a wry smile, his fingers lacing between hers over the growing bump of their baby.
Her fingers squeeze around his, even as she cuts her eyes at him evilly, "Sure, he's your kid now but at three in the morning when he's screaming for food, you'll be whimpering to me about boobs and my son-"
A tight clench of wonder darts through his chest, "Son?"
"Daughter. Whatever. Ugh!" Kate pulls her hand back from his and sits back against the headboard, drawing her knees up and distancing herself from the conversation and the man himself.
They've been married for about six months and, yes, doing this long enough by now for him to know that sometimes he has to let her retreat - as much as it goes against the grain to do so - but there are still those times, probably always will be, when he has to chase her.
Now is when he chases.
Lifting the pillow barricade she has created Castle worms himself back against the headboard with her, groans as his back protests and then groans again as he finds a comfortable position, slides down at her side, revels in the warmth that radiates from her.
Kate glances sideways at him and he smiles, lets the beat of silence linger a little longer than is truly necessary before he sighs and rolls towards her, his head on the pillow and his eyes blinking softly.
"Are you okay?" He asks quietly and she immediately opens her mouth, an angry blaze flaring through her pupils, but he interrupts before she can speak, lends the soothing tone of his voice to the fire simmering through her. "I don't mean both of you. I know you'd tell me." He eyes her stomach and feels something tight - and a little petrified -completely relax in his chest as her arms lift and cocoon around her bump protectively. Castle smiles at the gesture and repeats the question, his voice soft, "Are you okay?"
Her eyes lift, and she breathes out slowly, "I'm..." She chews her lip and Castle fights the urge to bridge the distance between them, to stroke his fingers out over the tortured flesh of her lower lip and pull her into his side.
Instead he waits.
"I'm scared." She admits, too quietly for his liking but loud enough for him to know she's ready to talk it through. Castle shifts on the bed and drags himself closer, and though he doesn't move her Kate ends up touching him anyway, her hand rising, tangling with his and dragging their joined palms down to rest on the bed between them.
"Of giving birth?" He asks when she turns towards him, the soft green and brown of her eyes suddenly huge and luminescent with worry but he waits her out. Because they haven't really talked that far ahead, they haven't spoken about delivery rooms and nurseries and baby monitors, in fact they're pretty much still in the yay baby, oh my god early stages of her pregnancy and so far they've only told four people.
It's new, it's early and -
"No." She sighs, squeezing his fingers again and drawing her knees up as she rolls onto her side to face him, "Of tomorrow."
"Of the ultrasound?" Castle tries not to sound confused, presses down his own anxious wave of worry, "Everything will be fine, Kate. I mean you feel good." His eyes open wide, "You do feel good right?" He panics, wonders if she's not told him something and the hand not cradled in hers curves out over the entire expanse of her baby bump, stroking protectively, his movements mimicking hers only moments before.
Kate smiles, a soft and unfurling thing that lights up her face and screw it she is glowing, vivid and suffused with colors that even he would struggle to describe. Her fingers sweep over his hand in the same way he had observed her caress their child, and she hums a quiet request for him to shush, "I feel great, Castle. But - it's the first time and -" she ducks her head, and her smile immediately changes, darts into something faintly seductive, a little teasing and her cheeks burn a vibrant shade of red, "-don't laugh."
"Scouts honor!" He replies, thoroughly intrigued and at a loss for words of his own, desperately seeking to hear the story behind hers.
Kate smirks, and whatever anxiety he was holding on to seems to evaporate in the sight of this woman, this one who grins and prods and blushes, who became his wife and the soon-to-be mother of their first child, "Yeah, that's still not fooling me, Castle."
"Alright I swear, on anything you want me to just, Beckett - " he meets her eyes again, blue and green and all the colors in between dancing in that one shared gaze, " - what is it? You're starting to scare me."
"Remember the guy, last year, the one that -" she mumbles through the rest of the sentence under her breath, a quick fire attack of words that, though he leans in, he misses completely.
"What?"
She growls, rolls her eyes, "The guy from the future."
Castle nods, his grin coming slowly, almost tentatively to his face, as if fearful of her retribution, "Are you officially conceding his time travelling status, Kate? I'm shocked."
"As if."
"Then I'm at a loss here, Beckett."
He's almost convinced it's her last name that does it - the one she hangs onto for work now that they're married - the one that gives her just a little flare of memory, casting her back in time to when they first met, how they got started. Whatever it may be she starts to talk, fast.
"I'm not saying he was right." She points out, angling her head in a no-nonsense just so movement that he can see being used for groundings at a point not too far away. "Or that he was even from the future ." Castle snorts. "But." She waits, gets nothing but his wide-eyed stare, "Seriously it's not dawning on you at all?" Kate points down to the tiny bulge and glares like there is a neon sign pointing with her that he's just too blind - or stubborn - to read. "TRIPLETS!" She squeaks.
"Woah, what?" His jaw drops, but before he can say anything beyond that she's ranting.
"Three babies. He said we would have three, Castle. We are not getting any younger and he didn't say they would be all spread out. What if it's triplets?" Her eyes are probably the widest he's ever seen them and her grip on his hands - the sharp dig of her nails - is making him suddenly very fearful of the delivery room. "Threee babies! Does that even compute with you, Castle? Because I keep doing the math and no matter how I add it up that still leaves one baby without adult supervision." She heaves in a great, gulping breath, "Triplets, Castle! What if it's triplets?"
He bites his lip, his teeth hard into the soft skin because he will not laugh at his wife - his pregnant and still armed a lot of the time - wife. "Kate, honey, you -" He clears his throat, swallows the meepy squeak of a suppressed girlish giggle and tries again. "Do you have a history of triplets in your family?"
She's silent for a moment, then Kate drags a hand through her hair and answers like he's an idiot, "Nooo, of course not. I think I might have mentioned that by now."
He values his life and ignores her tone, smiling sweetly as he unhooks the talon grip she has on him, "Okay, neither do I. What about twins?"
Another slow breath, "No." She concedes quietly.
Castle smiles wider still, tugs her so she's looking at him again, "Good, then I gotta say, even for us, those are some astronomical odds we would have to beat."
"But-"
"I know." He silences her, the low hum of his voice reassuring and warm, "We're all about beating the odds, but Kate? I just think this time around we're gonna have a lot of sex and you're gonna have some babies."
"Three." She ponders, eyes dropping to the current and only one they have for the moment, nestled safely within her body.
"Maybe." He shrugs, "If you're willing to tell me you believe he was a real time traveler?"
"I never said that." She argues.
"We can have as many or as few kids as you want, Kate." Castle promises, reaching for her hand. "And who knows, he could have been counting Alexis as the first one."
Kate smiles softly, runs her hand over her bump almost in awe at this little family they have created, "Yeah?"
"Maybe my mother was number two? She doesn't seem to be going anywhere."
Kate grins, stays silent, tracing patterns in the pearly grey cotton.
"But then we would have to count the boys and that takes us up to four." He shakes his head.
"Castle, be serious for a second." She reaches for him, suddenly quiet. "Three babies is a lot. I mean one is insane I can't even think-"
"You're not?"
She flares vicious and strong and so very beautiful with the love that radiates out from her, "I don't regret nor would I reconsider any of this, but Castle, threeee babies?!"
"First one's always the practice one." He tilts his head, tries to not to grin but he's all sorts of in love with this crazy mama-to-be that she's turning into.
She scoffs, but he sees the tiniest crack in her resolve and goes at it with even more force.
"Second one, classic middle child." He whispers as though their future offspring can hear them, "They tend to end up a little screwy."
Kate arches an eyebrow, "So that one's taking after you?"
"Totally." He nods and she laughs, hating him even as she ducks her head to his shoulder, presses a kiss there through the thin material of his t-shirt.
She can't help herself when the question pours out of her, desperate for his vision of their future, no matter what it may hold, "And three?"
"Ah three." He sighs wistfully, running his hand over her stomach thinking of three before they even have one, and it hits him just how far they have come, together. " Ya know, I think we've got this." He smiles, loops an arm around her neck and draws her in close.
"You do?" She lifts her head, meets his eyes and needs the reassurance even as he can see she believes wholeheartedly.
"A wise woman - gorgeous I might add - once told me -" he leans in, almost nose to nose, places both hands on her stomach and whispers "- third time's the charm."
"You can't have favorites before they're even born." She mumbles against his lips, kissing him long and deep and a little rough with her annoyance at his perfect words. Then she grumbles when he takes it a step too far, gets excited and loud.
"Oh, and, with your future status as a Senator and my gargantuan bundles of cash to back them up, we've got a good chance of getting at least one of those babies in The White House."
He gets a look, but it's totally worth it, and though she glares hell fire and damnation in his general direction, he's pretty certain that they share the same thought. Whether President, world renowned Chef, Doctor, Lawyer or the best Barista in a little out of the way cafe, they are going to make some pretty awesome kids.
In fact - he strokes her bump and she giggles at the sensation that ripples over her skin - they already have.