She is not "my girl."

She belongs to herself. And I am blessed, for with all her freedom, she still comes back to me, moment-to-moment, day-by-day, and night-by-night.

How much more blessed can I be?

Avraham Chaim, Thoughts after The Alchemist

With All Her Freedom

"We never got to finish our conversation."

Rick jerks upwards out of the wanderings of his mind, loses his footing in the mire of memory but his eyes come open and his wife is still pillowed against him, two fingers just resting at his chin. Her eyes are bright, even in the hesitant light of the single lamp he left on, and Rick blinks a couple times. "Mm?"

"Sorry to wake you." She murmurs, carding her fingers through his hair. It must be slick with grease by now but Kate hums on a smile, tucks herself back in close against his side. "One of us should get some sleep."

"I, uh- I wasn't. Asleep."

How can he, when even with the weight of her body half on top of him he hears her screaming for him. Even though it was spliced together, born through a computer just to mess with him, he doesn't know how he's ever going to swallow back the guilt and the grief. How close he came; how much he could have lost today. Well- he glances to the side, sees the numbers have rolled on into tomorrow.

A nod that makes the crown of her head bump into his jaw, and Kate's fingers seek his bare skin underneath the well-loved cotton of his shirt. "I just wanted to come home to you."

Her voice cracks, and he struggles to sit up and brings her with him, collects her tears at the pads of his thumbs as fast as they spill down her cheeks. "Hey, shh. You did, see. You're home. It's over, sweetheart."

"But I-" Castle arranges himself against the headboard and waits on her, an arm around her once she settles next to him. His palm splays at her stomach and it's not- it isn't. . .anything. But not nothing either.

After the shards of a future they traded back and forth two days ago, he hasn't been able to get it out of his mind. And the entire time Kate was gone, he grieved not just the loss of his wife, but of everything that he lost along with her.

"Kate. What is it? Why are you crying?"

He knows her, the Detective Beckett of her, and she doesn't do this. His shirt clings to his skin, salt-slick, and Kate takes a heaving breath and lifts her head. "Castle. Rick. I just wanted to come home to you, and tell you that I want our future. All of it."

"I know, I know you do. Me too." He soothes, clumsy fingers carding through her hair, tender at her scalp and down to arrange the ends over her shoulders. Her body still jerks every now and then, her brow furrowing each time, but it's just the shock and he can soothe away that lightning vein at her forehead with his mouth, his fingertips.

"They almost took that from us. Our chance."

She's not making sense, not really, but at least she's talking. When they found her standing sentinel over Nieman's body and her wrist in tatters, her eyes glassy and not seeing him, he thought for a desperate moment that he had lost her anyway, even having found her. But she's talking, knees drawn up to her chest now, and when she looks at him he sees only the softness of her heart, only relief and gratitude.

"What do you mean?"

"I'd been doing more than thinking." She offers, tucking her toes underneath his thigh and tugging his arm out from behind her so she can wrap both of hers around it instead, cradling his bicep to her chest. "Castle, I want it. I want our family; I want to leave you something in case I-"

"No." He grunts, surging upward to claim her mouth. She's responsive, as always, her body quicksilver underneath the hand he can't help but run over her. "Kate. Kate."

"Okay, I'm sorry." Her palm cups his cheek, the gauze at her wrist scratching, but her eyes are hollowed out again and he doesn't even know what it is that she's sorry for.

"Don't let that be the reason. Not that, Kate. Because you know-" he draws her hand away from his face and dusts a kiss to her palm, curls her fingers closed over it and captures her fist to his chest. "You know that it wouldn't make it easier."

And now he's the one trembling, choking on visions of a future where he has to tell their little ones that Mommy isn't coming home, watch them tumble right down the rabbit hole in chase of their mother's legacy. He won't let her do that to him.

"We can have as many as you want. Whatever you want. But you keep coming home to us. You don't leave me anything; I don't need it, I've got you."

She nods, buries her face against the side of his neck, and Rick fists a hand in the material of her sleep-shirt and grits his teeth, forces himself to stop thinking about it. Instead, he brings his free hand up and dusts his knuckles over her belly, imagines the flutter and pulse of life beneath his touch.

Castle slides down in the bed and draws her with him, hooks his toes in the comforter to tug it up over their bodies. They don't sleep like this, not tangled up in a messy knot of limbs. Usually Kate curls on her side, her legs drawn up beneath her and a pillow held tight to her chest. And he likes to sprawl out, likes to take up as much room as he's got to work with.

Doesn't matter. He doubts anyone will be sleeping tonight.

A shuddering breath as Kate comes down from her crying jag, and then her fingers curl around his hand at her stomach, thumb stroking over his pulse. It's narcotic, arresting, and suddenly he wants her so badly he could weep with it.

Not a good idea, Rick. Not tonight. He takes a breath, another; it passes without incident.

"As many as I want?"

"Of course. Of course."

"Not three." She huffs a laugh, her nose wrinkling at the thought of it and he grins down at her, torques his neck at a ridiculous angle just so he can brush his lips to those creases. He says nothing to that, doesn't dare. He will not jinx this with her, won't talk anything into being until he has a concrete reason to trust it won't be snatched away.

Kate stills, her body unravelling into liquid next to him, and for a long time he hopes that she's sleeping. And then her voice again, so familiar to him, and he hates himself that he was fooled for even a second by a recording, by a videotape. He should have always known that it wasn't her.

"I can't do three. I don't think there's time." Rick palms the back of her head, closes his eyes against the rush of sand through their hourglass. "But. . .two? I always wanted a sibling."

"Yes. Two. If that's what you want. I'm just-" he chokes on his own silly heart. "I'm so glad you're here to have this conversation. I'm so glad you're safe."

"We really are. No Tyson, no Nieman; no Bracken." She nods, chewing on her bottom lip, and he brushes his thumb over it and gets a kiss for his efforts. "We're safe. This is the kind of world I want to bring our children into."

Maybe she's wrong. Maybe the horrors of the world are too much, are not safe at all. But Rick has to believe that they can work together, she and him, to make sure that their own little portion of the universe is safe and whole and good. They can work to keep their babies sheltered from the shadows.

He knows they can; there was never any doubt. They're already doing it for each other.

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