Hi there, long time no see! This is the first one-shot of a many that I've written and saved over the past three years or so (but I constantly chickened out when I wanted to publish them). But I found an amazing beta: Rebecca, and she even added some things to the fics that I adore. Thanks Rebecca! They're all family/baby fics and they're not in order. This is the first one. I am planning on uploading one a week. I hope you enjoy reading!

"You know," Kate said letting out a deep breath while playing with the edges of the grainy picture clutched in her hand "I always imagined us having a boy."

Castle moved behind her, touching her hips and moving his arms so that his hands rested on the swell of his wife's belly. He kissed her jaw and gently rested his chin on her shoulder. "You always imagined, huh?" He answered her with a grin.

Kate chuckled, "Shut up" she said, and focused her attention back to the sonogram picture they'd received earlier that morning at their OBGYN appointment. After a moment of silence Kate felt the scrape of her husband's stubble against her jaw, and the loving caress of his fingers against her belly.

"You're not disappointed, are you?" he almost whispered.

Kate frowned "Disappointed?"

Castle nodded. "Yeah, because we're having a baby girl?"

She felt her heart sink and backed away from him so she could turn around and look him in the eye. "Did I come across as disappointed?" She asked worried "Because I'm not. I am so happy with this baby, Castle," she said as she stepped closer. Grabbing his hands, she placed them back onto her belly. "We're becoming a family. A thing I'd never dreamt of hoping for, you know, after my mom died... I just didn't think it was in the cards for me. Especially with the whole LokSat thing. I really thought I had screwed things up. That my decision to pursue that put an end to the chance of us starting a family..." Kate smiled "But I guess she," all four of their hands now softly stacked over he bump, "had other plans."

Castle smiled too "Yeah, baby girl, your timing could've been better, but we love you."

Kate's heart swelled whenever he would talk to their baby. He did it for the first time when they had found out about her, just after they had both gotten shot and were in the hospital. The severity of her condition: being recently shot while also being pregnant with the additional uncertainty of if their baby would even survive… it drove her mad with guilt. Her injuries, pregnancy hormones, and all her internalized guilt were a bad combination with the prescribed pain medication. Castle, who had never doubted her, never believed she would pursue something as dangerous as Loksat while knowing she was pregnant, and did everything to cheer her up. The bullet wounds in his shoulder weren't as severe as his wife's and he focused on nursing her (and with that; his unborn baby) back to health. The hovering drove her a little bit crazy and Castle quickly realized that hovering was not the way to go.

The only thing he found that really helped calm her down and cheer her up was talking to her then still flat stomach. He would describe what their future would look like. How'd they decorate the nursery, how they would hold her for the first time in the old rocking chair his mother would buy, how amazing of a family the baby was going to be born in to. And as doctors monitored them closely, especially Kate, the stories he told grew more sure and saw themselves farther into the future. As he spoke of first Christmas excitement and then kindergarden graduation, they passed the first trimester, and then with soft spoken imaginings of all of them curled in with old movies or an intense first game of laser tag, they moved into the second one with no more major health concerns. His words and sure-felt stories gave Kate more hope than often the doctor's themselves. So, even though in his stories Kate had imagined a blue nursery with a little boys crib, a small scrappy tuft of boy's hair under a little kindergarden graduation cap, and a tiny mini-Castle racing across the kitchen floor with his laser-tag vest, she knew the best thing about Castle's stories. They were forever changing her expectations. And she knew, as they sat looking at a four-by-four grainy photo of their daughter, that with this little girl, one story would never change: she was definitely being born into an amazing family.

'Till next Sunday!