October 2013
"You really don't want to know?"
"Did I say that?"
"You didn't exactly beg me to tell you."
Castle shrugged in an attempt to remain nonchalant, before giving up the act completely. "Of course I want to know!"
"And you want to know how many?"
"You already said three," he pointed out.
"Yeah, but aren't you curious? I mean, you already have one daughter."
"But she- she's not Beckett's."
Then again, the man had a point. Kate hadn't birthed Alexis, but his daughter had - these days - a cool respect for his fiancée, and perhaps in time they would be a closer family. So maybe their three children did consist of Alexis and only two others.
"No, she's not," Simon agreed. "Your three children with Kate are in addition to Alexis."
"So I have four kids?" Castle screwed up his face as the logistics bombarded him. A master bedroom downstairs, Alexis' room and Martha's upstairs, plus the smaller guest room that Alexis used as a study right now - did they even have room for that many children? They could move, of course, but he didn't think a house in the suburbs would be Beckett's style, and-
"Breathe," Simon instructed him.
"Breathe," he repeated. "Right. Breathe." After all, this was in the future, maybe the far distant future. At some point, surely, his mother would move out. Right? And Alexis? Well, with any luck she wouldn't be living with Pi much longer, but she was grown up, and he wouldn't need to keep her room in the hope she was going to come to her senses and get the hell out of that farce of a relationship with that man-child she was currently-
"Breathe," Simon said again, and Castle nodded, his certainty gone.
This was why Beckett had refused to listen to Simon. He was letting the time-traveler - no, the man who was most certainly just a regular man, possibly crazy, in fact, probably crazy - mess with his head. He should just call Beckett now, she could cuff the guy, no harm, no foul.
"Two boys and one girl," Simon said with a wink.
"What? No- I didn't say I wanted to know. I mean, okay, I did, but you can't just say stuff like that!" he protested.
Simon lifted a shoulder in an attempt at contrition.
"Look, man, you want to know their names or not?"
Castle blinked, nodded, unable to help himself, and Simon moved closer, his voice low as he whispered the names into Castle's ear.
May 2017
"Have you chosen a name?" the midwife asks during one of the lulls, the quiets that Castle has come to think of as spaces.
His wife nods. Leaning back against the bed her body is relaxed again - and he's been paying attention, in another minute or so she'll be breathing her way through a wrenching contraction, her swollen belly her focus - and she smiles.
"Johanna," she says, and Castle's heart swells at the pride in Kate's voice. "For my mother."
Their first child, and the labor has been long. Things are speeding up now, finally, but when he started to beg Kate to accept the epidural, she'd just looked at him, shaking her head. "I can do this," she'd told him before her face had contorted with the strain of another contraction.
And doing it she is. He can't help but compare this birth - Johanna's birth - with that of his oldest daughter; the two most magical days of his life. But Alexis' birth is bathed in the nostalgia of time, and he remembers only holding her after, remembers the six pounds nothing they'd handed him; he doesn't remember details like pain, agony, and sheer bravery.
Kate gasps into another contraction, vocal this time, and the clear, calm voice of their midwife chimes up again as she reminds Kate to breathe, talks her through the pain.
...
"She's perfect," he breathes, as he slips back into their room, hot tea in his hand, and he sets it down on the nightstand. Kate's hair is dark, long, a messy ponytail against the white pillows, and she's covered in blankets; she's cold, so cold, she'd said.
"She is," Kate agrees, without looking up; blissful, her eyes are on their tiny daughter, who is cradled against her chest, asleep.
His eyes fill with tears, unbidden; all the crazy things they've gone through to get here - and his head snaps up. Johanna snuffles softly, her eyelids fluttering, and he hears a voice in his memory.
"Given all the crazy stuff that goes on between you two..."
Beckett had been right.
Simon Doyle had just been crazy. Yes, Beckett had been approached about running for Senate, and yes, the topic came up from time to time. But the idea had been shelved for now, had been since they'd learned she was pregnant. Simon had told him their children's names. Until now, he'd mostly forgotten; maybe if he'd remembered, he'd have suggested the girl's name that Simon had whispered to him.
He shook his head, blinking as he focused again on the newborn in Kate's arms.
Who cared?
He didn't. He didn't need some promise of a future, not now when his present and his future were in front of him in the flesh. More than a mere promise, this was the truth of his life.
His heart.
Soon he would call his mother and Alexis, and soon he would call Jim, let them know that Johanna Beckett Castle was here, but for now he wanted to bask in this quiet moment.
"Castle?" Kate's voice is soft, awestruck.
"Mmmhmm?"
"I don't-" she sniffed, and he lifted his gaze from their baby to see tears filling Kate's eyes. "I know it's silly, but I just- I don't think her name is Johanna." She brushed a hand across her face, released a soft chuckle. "It's- we chose Johanna for her, but-"
Castle shook his head, his fingers tracing a gentle line along their daughter's cheek. "Not Johanna, then," he agreed.
"The name - I just thought of it. It's still for my mom, just not her name. It- it means truth."
Castle's heart pounded as Simon's voice echoed in his head, and he breathed out their daughter's name in unison with Kate.
"Verity."