A/N: Alright, here is another story to help you pass the time during boring classes...i mean to read as a treat after studying hard for thirty minutes. I hope you guys like this one.
Disclaimer: They are not mine! I swear!
Enjoy!
When Kate Beckett got pregnant three years ago she never would have imagined she would be the mom to five, now, two year-olds. She never could have dreamed of the love she felt for those five bean shaped things growing inside her stomach or the tiny fingers and toes of her born to early quints as they lived in the NICU for the first two months of their lives. Or the love and excitement she felt for each of her kids at they stood on their two chubby, wobbly legs and took their first steps; even Finn who four months ago, just a week after her second birthday, with the help of a walker two sizes too big for her, took her first steps. Kate could almost cry at the memory of Finn walking; something the doctors had said she might never do.
Even now as she sits in the hard chair of her kids pediatrician's office, cuddling a sick and whiny Austin close to her body, she wouldn't trade it in for anything.
It's too quiet in the waiting room, the only sounds are the desk clerks typing away on their computers and the gurgling fish tank tucked into a far corner of the room. Usually when they come into the office, which isn't too often, knock on wood, the fishies are a big hit with her kids, but today, her youngest son is too sick to even notice their there.
Austin is in her lap, face mashed into her shoulder, turning this way and that, trying to find a comfortable spot on mom to fall asleep.
"Mommy I yucky," Austin whines again. It's been his mantra since she picked him up at daycare. The teacher had sent him home with what she called a 'low grade' fever and an ear ache, which because of the fever were grounds to be sent home from school until the sickness passes.
"I know you don't feel good, buddy, but the doctor is going to see you soon and help make you better," she says to him, running a hand down his back which actually calms him down and helps to relax the tense muscles in his back.
A minute later, a nurse come through the door and calls Austin's name to be taken back to a room.
Kate doesn't even bother setting him down and having him walk, she carries him back and follows the nurse to where she has to check Austin's vitals.
"Alright buddy, you need to get down for a minute," Kate says to her sickly son, loosening the arm that's around his back.
"No, mommy!" he whines, and clings tighter to her side.
"Real quick Austin, then you can go back to mommy," the nurse says, trying to coax him out of his mom's arms and onto the scale; she can do the tempo check with him when he's back with mommy.
"Come on," Kate slides him out of her arms, ignoring his protests and sets him on the scale, shoes and all.
Ten seconds later the scale beeps, it's over, and Kate scoops her son back up to which he burrows into her jacket.
The nurse marks the weight in Austin's chart; it's gone up since they saw him six months ago, and sets a new ear piece on the thermometer. She sticks it in his ear, which Austin doesn't like at all.
"101.2 no wonder you don't feel good buddy!" The nurse says to him, marking the reading in his chart and leading them back to their exam room. It's the room with all the dinosaurs on the walls, the Castle boy's favorite thing right now. But Austin is too sick to care much except to lift his head and flash a dimpled smile, the first Kate has seen out of him since she picked him up from school forty five minutes ago.
"Alright, let's see here," the nurse, Tara, says as she opens her computer, pulls up Austin's chart and starts to make notes. "When was the first time you noticed his ear hurting? Or, when did he tell you?"
"This morning he got up and told me his ear hurt him, but I didn't think anything of it. I told myself and his teacher at school to keep an eye on it and hope it wasn't anything bad," Kate says, a hand again rubbing Austin's back.
"Ok, have there been any other symptoms? Cough? Runny nose?"
"No, nothing before his ear"
"Has he been playing in water much this summer?"
"Mmhmm, every Tuesday and Thursday at his school this summer they had 'water play days' and we've been to the beach and the pool a lot this summer as a family. Their dad is trying to get them comfortable in the water for when they start swim classes soon."
"Ok, well I'm going to check his blood pressure real quick and the doctor will be in soon," Tara says closing her laptop. She crosses the room, and pulls down the blood pressure cuff. She has to use the smallest one available because Austin's arm is smaller than a normal two year olds. She does the test, and leaves the room, the door clicking shut behind her.
"Wanna play 'Wheel's on the Bus?" she asks Austin about his favorite game to play on her and Castle's phones.
When he doesn't reply, Kate looks down at her boy. He looks absolutely miserable: his eyes have glassed over, he's tanging his fingers in the hairs at the nape of her neck; it's like he's in a far off, fever induced dream world.
"Well if you're not going to play, I'll just listen to music, ok?"
Again silence, but she doesn't mind, she knows the reason behind this silence, it's a different kind of silence from the one where they are all at home and the kids are in a different room than her, alone, generally in that situation, silence means they have gotten into some kind of trouble.
She turns on her iPod and shuffles through her music trying to find something not too loud that will hurt Austin's head. She finally settles on the soundtrack from the first Harry Potter movie, it's music that everyone can agree on: it's nerdy for Castle, it's different for her and the kids like listening to it, even though they don't know the story behind the songs, yet. Castle is planning to teach them all about Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and all kinds of nerdy things as they get older.
A knock comes at the door, and is opened by the kind, smiling Dr. Mathew Davis. He's one of the four doctors in the practice and out of all of them, Kate thinks her kids like him best.
"Hello Kate," he says, smiling curtly at her. "Hi Austin; I heard you weren't feeling too well today, huh?" he asks the toddler, as he runs a hand through his hair.
Austin nods against her shoulder and whimpers for dramatic effect; yup, he is definitely his father's son.
The good doctor talks with Kate for a while, asking basically the same questions the nurse did, before getting up off his stool and getting his light set up with a new cap. He looks in Austin's mouth, nose and finally his ears, which Austin doesn't like one bit and squirms the entire time. After a minute of studying her son's ears Dr. Davis gives Kate his diagnosis.
"Looks like a full blown double ear infection," he says, cleaning up the exam table.
"You're kidding!" Kate isn't surprised, she guessed Austin might have an ear infection after he kept pulling on his ears and pointing to a different one each time Kate asked him to point to what hurt.
"Nope, it's bright red and inflamed in there. I'll write you a prescription for some anti-biodics, he should be feeling better in a few days." He types something into his computer and like that the prescription is sent to the pharmacy to be filled. "You can probably pick it up on your way home, and give him some Tylenol for his fever. Make sure he's drinking plenty of fluids and watch him. If he doesn't get better by Monday, come back and we'll see what's going on, alright?"
"Alright, Thank you again, for seeing us on short notice," Kate says, standing with Austin in her arms, and the check out forms in her only free hand.
"Don't worry about it, things like this happen sometimes," Dr. Davis jokes as he walks them out of the exam room and down the hall to check out.
Kate laughs, "Thanks again," she says then watches the doctor walk away to his office or to another patient, she guesses.
They sign out with the nice lady at the desk, who gives Austin a Jake the Pirate sticker, which he takes and holds it against his chest so not to lose it.
After a trip down the elevator and a walk through the parking lot, Kate finally gets Austin clipped into his car seat and herself into the car and they head off towards the store to pick up Austin's prescription and some 'sick' foods before heading home for the night.
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Rick Castle hates days like this. He dropped the kids off at school and then had been in meetings all day; very long, very boring meetings, and was just getting around to writing. His publisher had sent him home with six pages of notes on edits for the newest Nikki Heat book, and they were taking longer than he thought they would.
His rhythm is broken when he hears the garage door open and a few minutes later he can hear Kate's shoes clicking on the tile floor of the mud room. He save his document and leaves his office, his computer open on his desk, and meets Kate and Austin in the kitchen where she drops off two plastic shopping bags and sets Austin on the counter.
"Hey," she says, kissing him over her son's shoulder.
"Hey, how did it go?" he asks and starts to unpack the groceries.
"The wait was long and it took forever to see the doctor, but it was good," she says, pulling her hair back, off her neck and out of her face.
He pulls out bottle after bottle of apple juice and Gatorade, leaving some out on the counter and putting others in the fridge to get cold for later.
"Well that sucks, I'm sorry." She smiles.
She got some more of those frozen chicken nuggets the kids like so much; good, good.
"Oh and the doctor said he has a full blown double ear infection. We have some medicine to give him and he said to make sure he's drinking and to keep an eye on him," she tells Castle, opening the bag from the pharmacy with Austin's prescription in it and setting the medicine on the counter, out of reach of little fingers.
"Poor Austin," Castle says running his hand through Austin's long, dirty blonde hair and down his temple and cheek. He still feels really hot.
"Listen, I'm going to get me and him changed, there are a few more bags in the car, can you get them?" Kate asks lifting Austin from his temporary perch on the counter and back into her arms. Castle nods and turns for the garage.
Soon all of the groceries are put away, and Castle is pouring some Gatorade into a sippy cup for Austin to drink when he hears Kate come back down stairs. He follows the sound on her slippered feet on the hardwood floors into the living room. She's changed out of her work clothes and into mesh shorts and a tank top; the straps on her bra peeking out under the razor-back tank.
She makes a nest out of blankets and pillows for her and Austin, who is back in the Jake the Pirate pajamas he wore last night, and curls up on the couch, one leg under the other, covering the both of them with a blanket even though it is near eighty degrees outside. The TV is on an episode of Jake the Pirate that his kids have probably seen a hundred times.
"Here buddy, drink some of this, it will make you fell lots better," Castle says handing his son the cup of juice. Austin takes it, and sips a little, but with his fever still up; he doesn't feel like doing much of anything.
"Hey, can you go grab the children's Tylenol? I forgot to grab it before I sat down," Kate asks, wincing as her son's elbow jabs into her solar plexus as he tries to get comfortable.
"Yea, I'll be right back," he turns back for the kitchen and the medicine in the corner cabinet. He has to reach way in the back to the red dyed liquid as they haven't used it since winter when they had colds going around the family. Everyone had gotten it and the worst part was when they were all sick as dogs and in bed. No one was well enough to do much besides sleep and whine at how sick they were.
He comes back and Austin is asleep on Kate's lap. He sighs loudly and Kate stifles a laugh with the back of her hand.
"Sorry," she whispers, trying her hardest not to wake up Austin, who needs sleep the most right now, at least until his fever breaks. "Just leave it there; I'll give him some when he wakes up."
He nods and sits down in the empty spot Kate left. He takes her hand, lacing their fingers together.
"So Esposito was texting me all day. Said something about Ryan being paranoid and I should be glad I'm not there," Castle says, watching as the animated pirates on the screen count all the gold coins they collected on their adventure and add them to their treasure chest.
Kate laughs again, and continues to run her hand through Austin's hair. Its gotten long; they are all due for a haircut soon.
"He was being paranoid! He kept checking his phone and mentioned calling to check on Jenny all day. Finally I just gave in and told him to take a break and call her. She was fine. I don't get what he was all riled up about; she's pregnant; not going to explode at the slightest touch."
He chuckles and Kate turns to look at him, pinching his shoulder.
"Ow! Don't hurt me! You know for a fact he was the exact same way when Grace was born and I was like that when you were pregnant. It's a father thing; we have to take care of our wives and young."
She shakes her head. She knows that. Castle was in her face every second while she was pregnant, especially when she was put on bed rest. Eventually she had had enough and practically yelled at him to back off before she hurt him. Ryan is the exact same way, only Kate thinks it's worse now that Jenny is pregnant with their second child. She doesn't know how to describe it, but Ryan was definitely not this bad before Grace was born.
Castle watches as the end credits on the show start to roll and he checks the clock on his phone. He gasps and sits up, letting go of Kate's hand.
"I have to go pick up the kids," he stands and moves back into his office and comes back a minute later with his shoes on and is shoving his wallet into his pocket.
"Ok, go. They'll be happy you're picking them up today," Kate says. It's usually her picking up the kids who have transitioned from the school day schedule into the after school and night care program by the time she usually gets there.
"Alright, I'll be back soon. You sure you're going to be alright?"
"We'll be fine. This one will probably be asleep for a while and I'm more than happy to be watching," she hits info on the TV remote, "Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue," she looks at him and they both laugh, knowing deep down inside Kate loves all those Disney movies their kids favorite channel shows around this time of the day, especially when it's a Tinker Bell movie; it's Kate's favorite character.
"Alright, I'll be back," he walks out of the room and Kate hears the garage door open then close behind her husband. She settles back into the couch and shifts Austin on her lap to not have his bony elbow poking into her spleen.