Hello all once again, hope you don't feel like I've screwed you out a little here, I WILL get to the other two stories mentioned in this opening chapter, I promise but I have the unshakeable need to tell this story first, and overlap the other ones with it. Hope you enjoy it!

'Mere, are you sure you're up for this?'

Meredeth's hand paused with her lipstick wand in hand, looked in the mirror at her husband. 'Why wouldn't I be?'

'Well-'

'Just because we've been trying for so damn long to have another baby, and we have to go to Carey's birthday party where we'll see Lanie's new little dumpling of pooping joy?'

'That,' Esposito finished lamely as he slicked on Speed Stick, scratched the top of his head as he tried to make sense of his wife's battered ego.

It was not a fun time right now in their household, not with Meredeth being so cranky about the lack of reproduction happening. Or rather, the lack of reproduction happening to her. There was little he could do to help the fact that no matter how many times they did it, no matter how many ovulation sticks or home pregnancy tests his sweet bride peed on, they were still striking out on a fourth baby. Though Esposito himself was frustrated, but he knew whatever he was feeling was a fraction of whatever was going on with Meredeth. It was her body, after all, and he knew despite the fact they already had three gorgeous babies, the fact they were trying once more and they weren't successful made her feel like an utter failure as a woman.

Looking at his hands, Esposito studied the band with its inscription - For You I Will; it had been their wedding song and it had been the words they'd decided to engrave, to remind each other of that promise day in and day out. Though Esposito and Meredeth knew it would take a lot more for them to be facing serious marriage problems, both knew this was one of those 'through good and bad' times they'd promised to have each others' backs in their marriage vows.

'Javi?'

'Sorry, what?'

'Can you make sure the kids are ready to go?'

'Yeah, you got it.'

He went into Tessi's room and wasn't surprised to find her ready to go - she was sitting on the end of her bed looking at one of her picture books with her beloved stuffed turtle Crush; on the floor beside her shoes was her back-pack ready to go with her. 'Hey princess, what are you reading?'

'We are readin' When The Sun Goes Down, Daddy,' she replied, blue eyes merry. 'C-Crush isn't c-coming today, he has a c-cold.'

'Wow, listen to you big girl with those hard c's. How many is that in a sentence?'

'Thuh-ree, Daddy. My best is five in one whole sentence.'

'That's an impressive record. Crush,' Esposito said, knowing his duty as a father and addressing his daughter's toy, 'you stay in bed and have lots of hot tea and chicken soup.'

'He likes little noodles in his soup, like me Daddy,' Tessi informed her father.

'Then he's got good taste. Let's go check on that brother and sister of yours.'

As Esposito anticipated, when he reached the twins' room, it looked like a bomb had gone off which meant only one thing - Trini had tried to dress herself and her brother. She stood in the middle of the room with the clothes tumbling willy-nilly, naked but for her diaper and standing beside her brother who was dressed the same.

'Daddy! We findin' c'othes!'

'I see that,' he replied with a dry laugh. 'Were you looking for something in particular, Katrina, or did a hurricane blow through?'

'Huh-kin Tee-nee comin', Daddy!' Leo giggle, twisting side-to-side. 'Wash out! Gonna getcha!'

'I think she's already arrived.'

Esposito knelt to scoop up the worst of the damage, sorted through to find clean clothes for them both and was satisfied when he not only managed to find them in a relatively short time but the twins also kind of matched - Trini was in a cute little sundress of Hawaiian flowers while Leo was in a pair of denim shorts and his beloved 'Nalu' shirt, a birthday gift from Andrea and Daniel when they'd gone to Hawaii for their eight-month wedding anniversary. When he was sure they would meet with their mami's approval, he fastened on shoes and held out his hands.

'Take me to your leader,' he told them in the nasal alien voice that always made them go squirrelly with laughter.

'O-kay, Daddy! We gon' rock-it!' Trini declared, slapping her tiny palm against her father's.

'Rock, rock, rock,' Leo added. 'See 'Sa?'

'Yes, I'm sure Nessa will be there, Romeo.' Esposito shook his head. Every last one of his children was in a love triangle of some kind or another, it seemed, and briefly he wondered if Castle had every thought of doing a book about all their kids and the Skull-and-Bones nature of their secret society.

Leaving the twins' room, they found Tessi and Meredeth at the bottom of the stairs, where Tessi was Velcro-ing the straps of her big-girl shoes down; her trust back-pack was slung over her left shoulder.

'Your girls are ready to go, Daddy!' she said proudly, and while Esposito's smile was warm and genuine for his oldest daughter, there was a worried light in his eyes as he saw the effort it took for Meredeth to smile back at him. He wanted to fix this for her, so badly, and yet there wasn't a damn thing he could do. They'd had the tests before and they'd all come back clean - there was no reason that their egg and sperm shouldn't have been whisked together by now, at least no medical reason that had come back on the tests. Both were still healthy and fertile so it was just a matter of good timing.

'Hey,' he said, giving Meredeth a kiss. 'I love you.'

'I love you too, Javi.'

Meredeth tried to get herself into a party mood and for awhile, it was easy enough to forget the fact her uterus was playing keep-away with her husband's sperm on her poor little I-just-want-to-be-a-mama-one-more-time eggs. Lanie and Dave had been in Anaheim for the Stanley Cup playoffs to watch Oscar's boys battle for a berth to the finals against the ever-gnarly Vancouver Canucks, so Carey's birthday party in New York had been delayed until now.

When they arrived at the Parrish-Robbins apartment, she felt a sick punch to the gut as Lanie opened the door with three-month old Finn on her hip, blinking dark brown eyes that matched his mother's while sucking heroically on his pacifier, and Esposito thought of the story behind the little Italian-Canadian-Domincan-American's very Irish name: Finn was named after the hockey player Tel Finneran who had been in town in March with Lanie's father and his hockey team; he'd been keeping Lanie and the kids company while Dave was at work, and she'd begun having painful contractions. Tel had leaped into action right away, and stayed with the children while Lanie had been tended to in the hospital ER and keeping Dave calm when he was told upon his arrival that Lanie was having an emergency C-section in order to safely deliver their baby. Dave had sworn him a promise that if Lanie and the baby made it through safely with no complications that they'd name the baby after him and sure enough they did - the bouncing baby boy had been christened Zachariah Finneran, with Carey and Violet calling him Finn for short.

Now, at just a few days past three months, both mother and baby seemed to be flourishing,

'Hey guys, come on in!' Lanie greeted them warmly. 'Mister Finn here just woke up from his nap and I know there's a couple others his size excited to see you guys, Tessi and Trini and Leo.'

'We buh-rought a puh-resent,' Tessi said politely. 'Well, it's really three little things, one from each of us.'

'I pick it!' Trini said, stroking the shiny blue and green bag. 'Me an' Leo 'gedder.'

'You did? Did you hear that, Finn?' Lanie looked at her new baby boy, puckering at his cheek to make him giggle. 'They picked it out together.'

'Where can a grown-up find a drink around here?' Esposito asked, as Meredeth ushered their little herd into the living room.

'In the kitchen, but...' Lanie lowered her voice, studied Meredeth with concern. 'How's she doing?'

'Not good,' he replied honestly. 'It's really taking a toll on her.'

'Oh man.' Lanie gnawed her lip, wondering how the hell she could help her friend. 'Is there anything I can do?'

'Nope. Not a damn thing. I'm starting to run out of ideas with her too.'

Meredeth watched her husband with Lanie and wanted to snarl; she could understand much better Andrea's frustration now at Lanie being pissy over her body. The woman had disgusting metabolism - she was already shrinking back to her pre-baby weight

'Meredeth!' The birthday boy himself came on over and gave her a huge hug. 'You came! I have to ask you a question. A comic-book question.'

'Okay,' she laughed.

'Why does Hulk tear his shirt and not his pants when he gets angry?'

'If you can answer that question, my birthday man, you will make millions of Hulk comic readers very very happy people.'

'Maybe I can do that after I help people fix their eyes,' Carey pondered aloud with a serious face, then gave Meredeth one more hug. 'Come on, twins, time to go have fun without the grown-ups!'

Meredeth could only laugh as the twins toddled off with their buddy, and she went into the kitchen to find a drink. It was so warm out and she was constantly thirsty lately, and peeing it out like a racehorse all the goddamn time, too. As she poured herself four glasses of punch in a row she made polite conversation with Lili and Honey-Milk; she knew both of them were trying to find anything to discuss but the baby situation, and for the first time in their relationship it honestly felt like work. Meredeth was just starting to wonder if it would be too embarrassing to ask Lanie or Dave for a two-litre bottle of club soda just for herself, she saw Beckett wander into the kitchen, the sounds of her husband and son out in the living room with the other kids. One look at the woman's face and Meredeth was ready to burst into tears - she knew that look at a thousand paces, there was nothing like it on earth.

'Hey guys,' Beckett greeted them with a grin, the cat plucking feathers from her teeth with canary bones. 'How's it going?'

'Not as well, as you from the look of that grin,' Honey-Milk said; she too recognized the grin. 'I take it you're day is going well so far?'

'Our day is just dandy.' Beckett patted her flat stomach. 'Not a drop of morning sickness yet. Four in a row, in fact.'

'Eeeee!' Lili's squeal of delight could have shattered concrete. 'Oh yea Katie! Yea for babies! When?'

'Next January, around the twentieth.'

'Oh, congratulations girl,' Meredeth said in a light voice; it was something she'd trained herself to do for years when first on the road with book tours so that when she called Constance, the woman wouldn't be able to hear it if she'd had a night terror. No one would be able to guess from that tone that she felt like she'd been kicked in the face with her mouth open. 'You are going to be a great mom again.'

'Hey, how did you tell RJ?' Honey-Milk asked eagerly. 'I bet he's just thrilled.'

'Oh, can we hold onto that story?' Meredeth feigned a squirm, though not by much. 'I just guzzled down a huge thing of punch and need the bathroom something fierce.'

'Go in Lanie and Dave's bedroom,' Beckett suggested, 'they've been saving the main one for all the kids.'

'Got it.'

Meredeth slipped away from the crush of people, into the master bedroom's ensuite and shutting the door, she sat down on the edge of the tub, turned on the sink's faucet and began to sob.