Hello!
Here's something I just couldn't get out of my head. Based on speculation for the early part of Season 8. Spoilers for all aired episodes so far.
Disclaimer: Yeah. I own nothing Castle related expect the DVDs.
She sighed as she checked the time for the fourth time in five minutes. He was late, and she was impatient. A notification from her burner phone shook her our of her thoughts, and she checked the text.
Almost there.
She needed him to be here now, before she changed her mind. Again. Kate had gone back and forth on her decision in the last day more times than she could count. She knew she was doing the right thing now. Although she had been convinced of that all along, telling herself that over and over again at night when she couldn't sleep. What she had learnt this morning had shaken her to her very core, and she couldn't pretend anymore.
She couldn't pretend that she was better off without her husband, and that he was better off without her.
Kate sighed again as she absentmindedly twisted her wedding ring on her finger. A small smile flew across her lips as she thought of how Castle always made fun of her for the habit. He said it was her tell, that it showed she was nervous.
Nervous didn't even cover it for how she currently felt.
The door to the car opened, and she turned to see Vikram letting himself into the car. It was how they tended to meet if either of them had any information, in her car down an alley or a backroad somewhere no one would see them.
"What's going on? Did you find something?" He questioned, clearly confused about the unscheduled meeting that she had text him about only an hour before hand.
"No, not exactly." She turned to him, "Did you bring the tablet?" She hoped he didn't notice the quiver in her voice.
"Yeah, just like you asked." He pulled it out of his pocket to hand to her. She wasn't giving a lot away, she knew that, but she needed to do this before she could talk herself out of it.
"Thanks," she grabbed the tablet out of his hand and quickly turned it on. Her senses were instantly assaulted by the information on the screen, everything they knew about the case so far, and the small out of intel they had discovered since he had first called her. She looked at it all, desperately trying to ignore the tears in her eyes. This case had almost cost her the lives of everyone she loved. It had almost cost her her own life. Now she had something she couldn't lose to it, something she couldn't walk out on.
It had broken her heart to leave her husband like she had, and she had spent the last two months trying to convince herself to not go back. She had to keep him out of danger, and she hadn't cared about her own safety, hadn't considered what throwing herself into the firing line again meant for her family.
That is, she hadn't considered that until this morning.
She ran a hand over her mouth quickly, as if trying to scrub away an explanation to the man sat next to her.
"I'm sorry, Vikram. I can't do this anymore." She whispered, and without thinking about it any further she deleted the information. Deleted everything they worked for. Everything she had left the love of her life for.
She thought she'd have felt relief, like the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders. But she didn't. She felt nothing.
"Beckett, I don't understand." He was calm, as he always had been with her. He was a reasonable man, a stranger until this had all started. He had given her many outs over the last two months, apparently able to read the constant conflict she felt.
"I need to go home." Her voice was flat, not matching the tears rolling down her cheeks. The tablet now lay in her lap.
"What's changed?"
"I'm pregnant."
He didn't ask anymore questions. After a short conversation he left the car, and she wondered if she would see him again. Even if she wasn't looking into this it wasn't over. Bracken had been killed in a high security prison. Powerful people were still after her, but she couldn't antagonise them anymore. She couldn't try to draw them out of wherever they were. She was having a baby, Castle's baby. She already had the overwhelming urge to protect her child, and she had only known of it's existence for 12 hours.
It occurred to her later, when she was on the way to the Loft, that her husband should have been the first person to find out, not her partner in her vigilante justice. She'd always dreamed when they did conceive Castle would be on the other side of their bathroom door as she peed on the stick, after she would have insisted she wasn't going to pee with him in the room. Then she'd let him in and they would wait out the longest minutes of their collective lives together.
That's not what happened though. She had found out herself in a motel bathroom, and her tears had not been those of happiness.
Castle had made her believe in dreams again, made her believe that she was more than her mothers case. That she could be a wife, a step-mother, a daughter-in-law, a mother and a fantastic cop all rolled into one. She had believed him.
She didn't believe him anymore.
I know it's short, I'm thinking this will be a two or three shot. Next part will be Kate arriving at the Loft.
Is it just me or is everyone getting a little tired of the Kate hate out there at the moment? Now believe me, I usually defend Castle to the hills. Everyone walks all over him at times (and yes, I include all the lovely women in his life) and he lets it happen. But Kate loves him, and in her head she's doing this for the right reasons. He'll take her back, they wouldn't write it for them to break up permanently, but it will be difficult I'm sure. It will take him a while to trust her again.
I kind of hope they do write the pregnancy thing into it, because I think it would be interesting to watch them grow back together again whilst planning for a baby.
Anyway, that's kind of beside the point.
Please review, and let me know if you want to read more :)
