This went in a completely different direction than I expected it to, and I never expected for it to be quite so long. I promised Ris baby fluff, so here you go. Lots of baby fluff. It's more family fluff. But there are babies.
Kate comes home expecting dinner time, and a kitchen covered in baby food. She doesn't understand how Maximilian manages to eat anything during any meal, especially when he seems to get most of the food everywhere except his mouth. Except the kitchen is surprisingly clean. She thinks, at first, that dinnertime has been and gone and Castle has cleaned up already, but then she spots Castle's socked feet peeking over the edge of the sofa. Kate drops her bag and keys on the hall table, slips her shoes off and lays them by the door. Her toes curl against the hard wood of the floor as she makes her way over to the back of the sofa, and she's going to have to turn the heating on or something. It's starting to get cold. Not that Castle and Max have seemed to notice. No, the two of them are completely asleep. Max is sprawled across Castle's chest, his tiny mouth open against the dark blue material. Castle has his arm wrapped across his back, keeping the six month old against his chest. His own mouth is open too, like father, like son. He seems completely out of it, but even as she watches Max is opening his eyes, mouth opening and closing as he drags himself out of sleep. He mewls as he finds himself trapped, his legs kicking against Castle's stomach. She soothes him, a light hand on the back of his head. Castle's arm is not a vice like grip, and she easily lifts it off him and lays it at his side. It's easy to pick Max up then, he's pushing himself up from Castle's chest with his hands and it's a simple matter of hooking her hands under his arms and lifting him up.
"Ohh, you're getting heavy." She whispers, hugging Max to her chest as she turns and heads towards the kitchen.
Max hits his fists against her collarbone in answer, angsty and fidgety for food, and she's surprised that he hadn't woken up beforehand. He's tired, she can see that. What exactly has Castle done with him today? It's easier to give him a bottle than fight him into the chair and spend half an hour trying to get him to actually eat his food and she pulls a bottle and the formula out of the cupboard. There's the sound of shuffling behind her, and then there's an arm around her back and a kiss pressed to the side of her head. "I'll do that," Castle murmurs, nudging her out of the way with his hip, "go sit."
Kate steps aside, but she doesn't go and sit, stays by Castle's side as he sorts out the bottle of milk. "What did you two do today? He's exhausted."
"We went to the park." Castle yawns, shaking the bottle. "He really does love the swings. And they've got a baby roundabout. He shrieked every time I tried to take him out of it."
Kate laughed, jigged Max up and down as he started to complain about the lack of food again. "Well, if it wears you both out then it can't be all bad. He didn't throw up, or anything, did he?"
Castle shook his head, stuck the bottle in the microwave and closed the door. "Nope, he was fine. We got home, and we put a film on. And then I think we fell asleep."
He grins at her, puts his hands on the counter either side of Kate and leans in to kiss her. She tilts her head up to meet him, smiles against his mouth as her free hand wraps around his waist. And it's nice and it's quiet, and just the thing she needed after work. Except Max is not appreciative of it, and his open palm lands against Castle's cheek with a surprising amount of force for a kid his size. Castle rubs the spot ruefully as he goes for the microwave. "We've got a little boxer."
"He's not being a boxer." Kate disagrees. "He's just hungry."
Castle tests the temperature of the milk with his forearm, and then screws the teat on before handing it to Kate. Max is reaching for it before Kate even has a proper grip on it, but she moves towards the sofa so she can move him into a more suitable position. "You want to order take-out?" Castle asks her as she moves, but he's already reaching for the phone. Either, she's far too predictable or he really wants take-out. "I'll get Chinese."
She nods in agreement as she sits on the sofa, knees up in an inverted V. Max lies on her thighs, his feet against her stomach and she lifts the bottle to his mouth. His hands rise to hold the bottle themselves, but she holds it steady as he sucks greedily, he's not really strong enough to be able to hold the bottle on his own. Not yet. He's tired, he's so tired. His eyes keep slipping closed for a longer amount of time before snapping open, tugging at the teat eagerly. Castle is finished on the phone, sits next to her and Kate lifts her feet up so she can drape her own legs across Castle's thighs. He makes small circles on the skin above her socks, as he checks something on his phone. Nothing but the sound of Max feeding and the soft hiss of the fire behind them filling the loft. Peaceful.
Max soon pushes the bottle away with a milky hiccup, and it seems like routine for Castle to take the bottle from her and place it on the table as Kate picks Max up again. "We'll do bath time tomorrow, yeah?"
"He'll fall asleep in the bath otherwise." Castle replies. "Bath time tomorrow. We'll do it in the morning, and then we'll go out for the day."
Kate nods, runs a finger down Max's tiny button nose as his eyes blink sleepily. "Sounds lovely. You gonna come for bedtime?"
"He's fine, Kate." Castle says, propping his chin on her shoulder. "He's asleep, and the baby monitor is on."
"I know… I just… missed him. You get him all day while I'm at work, and I get home and he's already half asleep." She huffs, her hands twitching against the wood of the crib as she fights with that natural motherly instinct to keep her son close to her. She doesn't even think he'd wake up if she did pick him up.
"You work three days a week." He laughs. "It's not like you're never around."
"Yeah, but I want him every day. I had him every day for nine months, he was with me where ever I went, and I know it's been six months but it just takes getting used to."
"Understandable. You know what you could do, though?"
"What?"
"Quit. It's not like we need the money, which is not me undermining your right to add to the family income, just a statement of fact. We can live without your job. And it means you get Max every day, for a fair few years yet. And it means I don't have to worry about you going off to work some days and not coming back."
"You want me to quit my job?"
"No, no, no of course not. It's your job, and you love your job, and you are amazing at your job. But there's so much we could do. We could travel! We could go absolutely anywhere. Asia, Australia, Europe. South America, Canada. Alaska. We could go to Alaska and then just hop over on a ferry to Russia. I can write on the road, and Max can grow up on the road. Can you imagine the stories he could tell? Come home for the holidays, the important things."
"You've thought about this, huh."
"It's always been an idea. I've had it since Alexis, but it could never work with just one parent. We could do this together, Kate. We could so do this, you, me and Max. And when it's time for Max to go to school we'll come back. Find a nice house."
"You'd… sell the loft?"
"I want us to have a house. I want a nice kitchen, and a room we can properly turn into a nursery. And a play room. And a big family kitchen, a big dining room. A garden. I want our kids to have a garden."
"Kids? Plural?"
"Twins. A boy and a girl. Then I can tell Alexis she's my favourite eldest daughter, Max is my favourite eldest son, and the twins can be my youngest favourites. It works perfectly."
Kate turns around and fixes him with a look. "You do know you might not even get twins, right?"
"No, I know that. But there is a chance."
"You really want more kids?"
He shrugs, wraps his hand around hers and pulls her, slightly reluctantly, away from the crib. "I don't need more kids. I didn't need Max, he was just a very happy accident. I've got everything I ever needed. But… if you, by another happy accident, find yourself expecting again, then I am not going to complain. But if you don't, if you're happy with Max then that's fine."
"I never said I didn't want to. But you've wanted to do this for years, and we could do it. So let's do it."
He turns to her, mouth open in surprise and the glee and the happiness flooding his face. "Are you… seriously? You want to?"
"Yeah, Castle. This is important to you. And if it's important to you, then it's important to me. And Max will love it. And the house, we'll have a house with a garden and a nursery, and a playroom, and a proper dining room."
"Oh god, this is… we should… Bora Bora. We're doing Bora Bora. Definitely."
"Are you sure? Bora Bora is curse for us."
"It was only a broken kneecap. It wouldn't have stopped me from actually getting on the plane."
"Yeah, and then we went there on our honeymoon and guess who spent most of that honeymoon throwing up in the mornings?"
"Yeah, but Max was worth it. Right?"
They sell the loft a month later, stay for a couple of days in a hotel before jetting off to Australia. After two months of Sydney and Perth and Melbourne, Adelaide, Darwin and Brisbane, including almost three weeks of traversing the outback, they skip over to New Zealand where they spend a couple of weeks before making a slow and steady journey through Indonesia, and Malaysia and the Philippines. Castle falls completely in love with Vietnam, and they spend a good month going from North to South. Thailand is hot, and makes Max grumpy so they don't stay for long, whereas Russia is cold and snowy and Max, now nearing the age of one, falls in love with the place. And Russia is huge, and Kate loses count of how many weeks and months they spend in that country alone. They're on the border of Mongolia and Russia when they discover she's expecting again. Castle is overjoyed, and once Kate gets past the sickness and the horrible mornings she can't help but join in. They fly, briefly, back to the US and it's there that to Castle's even greater delight that they find out that it is actually twins. A boy and a girl. Castle's nigh on unbearable, and for the rest of their journey through Russia it's baby clothes and shoes and names until Kate wants to gag him.
Turkey passes by in a haze of two babies kicking, Max having the terrible two's a year early, and Castle having food poisoning for almost a week. The twins are born in Italy. Daniela Katherine Castle and Nico Alexander Castle. They stay in Italy for another eight months, giving Kate time to get her energy back up and giving the twins time to grow. And when Max is almost three, they pack up and move to Africa. It takes them almost six months to make their way around the giant continent. Daniela's first word is elephant, Nico's first two words being big bird. Max decides he wants a rhino as a pet, and has to make do with the promise they'd adopt one on his behalf.
West Europe is halted for a bit as they make their way back to the US for a month. Castle has meetings that he should probably attend in person, and they really do miss everyone back home, no matter how many Skype calls they partake in. And not to mention the fact that Alexis is getting married. Max gets to be the ring man, something that he takes great pride in, and he holds onto the box of rings as if his life depends on it. Daniela gets to be the flower girl, and James, who doesn't want Nico to be left out gives him the honour of a secondary best-man.
After that, it's western Europe and Germany and Luxembourg, skiing in Switzerland and Austria, Spain is hot and France is only briefly visited. Max asks why, but Castle doesn't tell him. Kate doesn't blame him. England is rainy for the most part, except for one day when they wake up to brilliant sunshine, and they decide to road trip instead of taking the public transport. And taking the smaller roads, with the car windows down is so much better than going faster on the motorways. Up through Wales along the coast up through the mountains of the North of England and through the amazing scenery of Scotland. Years later, Max would say it's his favourite country they visited. From there, it's a ferry ride over to Ireland, Dublin and Belfast, the Giants Causeway.
Another plane up to Iceland, and Greenland, then over to Canada. From there they drive back down to New York for Thanksgiving and Christmas and then it's down into South America. Kate loves it down here. The culture and the people, and if it wasn't for the fact she was a mother, and they had a family back in New York, she'd suggest they move down here permanently.
Almost four years later, they find themselves back in New York. Castle had flown back to New York intermittently during their time in South America to sort out the house for when they eventually arrive back in the city. And it's all ready for them when they step off the plane. And the house is gorgeous. Dark oak double doors, leading onto a wide and spacious hallway. A huge kitchen, perfect for a large family. Conservatory, leading onto almost an acre of ground. It's beautiful. All the rooms have been decorated accordingly, a new bathroom suite put in downstairs.
It takes some getting used to for them all. Kate wakes up on numerous occasions thinking that she's gonna look outside her bedroom window and see a Russian blizzard, or an Elephant with its nose in a tree. Except it's just a New York street, with cars and houses and people. She misses it, she does, and now she understands why Castle wanted to do it. And she's so glad that they had the opportunity, and they could actually take their kids on a very long world tour. Daniela and Nico are asking when they get to go to Australia, and Asia and Russia and all the places that they missed. Castle raises his eyes at Kate, asking if they could possibly do that part of the world all over again. They have time. Max doesn't need to be in school for another year, and if they just get through it quicker… Except Kate draws a line. Not when they've just settled back down, gotten used to not living on the road any more.
She does promise that they can do one place every summer though.