"I don't really know, Castle. What do you think?"
"What do I think? I don't think you've ever asked me that before."
"Yeah, well, that's because you usually just tell me. Unsolicited."
"But now you're soliciting?"
"Seriously? You can't just answer the question?"
"I mean, I could. But where's the fun in that?"
She smacks him on the chest then, probably harder than she intended to, but she's not sorry. Two can play this game.
"Fine. Don't tell me. I'll just figure it out myself." She walks away, swaying her hips, knows that should get a rise out of him.
"You really know all the right moves, huh? Know all the buttons?" He says, taking long strides to catch up to her. "I feel as though this doesn't bode well. Poor kid doesn't stand a chance."
She turns to him then, a bright smile stretching across her face. "Against who? We're gonna team up. You're the one who doesn't stand a chance." She's walking away again, down the aisle, and he stops, needs a moment to take it all in. The aisle is lined with onesies of all colors, shapes, and sizes. Everything from stupid expressions that are surely meant for teenage parents to the standard my so-and-so loves me to the more outlandish tutu versions. And Kate is gliding through it all, smiling, joking with him, stopping every few feet to reach out and inspect one, thinking it all over carefully.
His Kate, soon to be the mother of his child, mulling over what types of outfit their child should have, an extension of the question, what type of child should he be. He, he reminds himself, smiling. That's what they found out today. They're having a baby boy. She's carrying their son.
He feels like he may burst at the seams, he's so overwhelmed and overcome by it all. He almost feels like crying, but he knows Kate would kill him for that. She'd probably elbow him, tease man up, then laugh and walk away.
In that moment, he realizes that he doesn't hate watching her walk away anymore. For a long time after she showed up, he couldn't stand the sight of her back as she receded into the distance, couldn't stop the rush of the desperate she's leaving for good or the more morbid they're out there and they're going to kill her this time from flooding his brain. He didn't want to push or seem too clingy, but, god, did he hate watching her walk away.
But now? Now he savors the easy sway of her hips, delights in the fact that she seems so much lighter, so much freer. He finds that, at this very moment, he doesn't hate it at all.
In fact, he thinks he loves it, because he knows that any minute she's going to turn around, try to hide the smirk from stretching across her face, and say, "You comin', Castle?"