And There Was Morning
Castle's eyes open slowly to the darkness, the slanting gray of city lights blinking into focus across the sheets beside him. Rumpled sheets that not long ago held a sated, dozing Kate. His hand reaches out to the empty space - cool. But the air still carries her scent, so he knows she has not been absent for long.
The panic that had trickled in when he faced this same scenario just a few short mornings before tries its best to take hold, but as he scans the rest of his surroundings, optimism prevails. Untangling himself from the covers, he slips on boxers, pulls a t-shirt over his head, and follows the slash of yellow light bleeding out beneath the bathroom door.
The quiet rap of his knuckle against the frame draws no response, and though he is certain Kate is fine, he cannot help his need to see it for himself.
He finds her sitting on the edge of the bathtub wearing his bathrobe, her elbows resting heavily on her knees as she stares at her hands, which are clasped around something he cannot make out. She makes no move to acknowledge his presence, despite the gentle swing of the door disturbing the air.
Stepping on to the chilly tile, he closes the few feet of distance between them silently and takes in the furrow of her brow, the set of her jaw that become apparent as he nears.
"Hey," he says on a carefully controlled breath.
Her silence persists, but her ribs expand as she takes a deep breath.
Taking a seat beside her, he looks at her hands, notes the rhythmic stroking of her thumb over the object she holds.
"You okay?" he asks, tilting his head to attempt to catch her eye.
He fails, but it gets her talking.
"I got up to use the bathroom," she starts, her voice gravel and an octave lower than usual. "Decided to take off my make-up."
Something must have stopped her, because remnants of her mascara have settled into the hollows beneath her eyes, and liner and shadow have muddled together into the creases of her lids. Hours earlier, after their trip home and dinner tucked into the loft with Martha, Alexis, and Jim, her priority had been removal of clothes over removal of make up. He might have had something to do with that.
"These were in my drawer," she continues.
Kate's fingers open to reveal a rectangular blister pack, plastic over foil, with two rows empty. The third contains seven white tablets, followed by a fourth row of green.
The pad of her thumb is worrying three intact plastic chambers, circling over and over.
"The past few days I didn't… get to these."
Castle can't quite place the waver in her voice: hesitant, maybe.
"With everything that's been going on, I don't think anyone would expect you to remember…"
Oh, but then tonight… The bottom drops out of his stomach as his eyes again try to find hers and are again denied.
There had been gentle hands and quiet voices as they fell into bed, soft, lingering kisses and the warm press of limbs as they made love and slid into sleep in each others arms. Then his nightmare had woken them both and sent them into a frenzy of scraping nails and white knuckles gripping the headboard, voices going hoarse as they cried out their release and tumbled to the mattress exhausted and spent.
Two rounds and not one condom.
He has obviously been spoiled by his fiancé's infallible sense of responsibility.
He wants kids. With her. As many and as soon as she wants.
Ever since their time-traveling interloper had predicted their future success in fertility, he has spent an inordinate amount of time thinking of sets of three matching baby names, just in case it happens to be triplets.
He has kept them all to himself. Other than her comments about some nebulous future child during their time with Benny, she has never indicated to him any sort of timeline.
The hunch of her shoulders pushes her collarbones into sharp relief between the lapels of his robe, the press of her lips highlighting the pallor around her mouth.
She is silent again, so he fills the void.
"So you forgot, and we weren't exactly careful. That doesn't necessarily mean that you - women don't get - just from missing one pill..."
"Three."
Huh. Her tone is flat, eyes still downcast and a little glassy, like she has forgotten to blink. His stomach knots up in response to her body language, rebelling, too, against the next words out of his mouth.
"Well, I guess there are things you can do if you don't want to just wait and see."
Her hair slips forward over her shoulders with the shake of her head.
"That's not what I'm getting at. I wouldn't..." her words sort of fall off at the end, and she is gripping the packet of pills so hard that the edges must be leaving marks on her skin.
Enough.
He slides from the edge of the tub down to the floor, putting himself directly in her line of sight against the protest of his still-stiff knee. Taking the pack of pills from her hands and setting it aside, he laces his fingers with hers.
"What are you getting at, then?"
The green of her irises flashing up to meet his eyes sends a spark of electricity through his system.
"I should toss those out, start a new pack tonight."
Her voice is deadly serious, but why is she telling him this?
"Okay?"
Her fingers squeeze down over his.
"I don't think I want to."
Squinting up at her matter-of-fact tone, he tries to reason through it.
"Well, you can just keep going with those, and we'll be more careful until next month."
Her eyes narrow as her head tilts right, a sure sign of frustration when an obvious connection is eluding him. She takes in a metered breath and tries again, slowly enunciating her words.
"No, babe, I don't want to."
And then it clicks.
Goosebumps erupt down the back of his neck.
"You don't - you mean you want -"
Kate meets his incoherence with smooth, steady resolve.
"I don't want to be careful anymore."
A smile blooms across her face, and he realizes it is in answer to the one that has his cheeks starting to tingle.
Warmth spreads outward from his chest, ends in a flush that he feels to his fingertips. Then she is sinking to the floor, climbing into what there is of his lap, but knocking him off balance so that he tips back, lets out a shout of surprised laughter and drags her along, until she lands sprawled over his chest, giggling on their bathroom floor.
When he has enough air back in his lungs, he cannot help but ask.
"You want to start trying?"
The lightness leaks into his voice, and he cannot find the energy to care that he sounds a little goofy, a lot thrilled. After so much darkness in the past few days, this is exactly what they need. A new start.
"I do if you do. And by that ridiculous grin I'm guessing you don't have any objections."
Her snark is back, and the sound of it is a balm to his worried heart. He banters back, tongue firmly in his cheek.
"Well, at this point at least you'll still fit in your dress… and all that lingerie I bought you for the honeymoon."
He gets a thump to the biceps for his trouble, but her other hand is stroking through the hair at his temple, and her eyes have gone soft. Kate is serious when she speaks again.
"If she were here, I'm pretty sure my mom would start in on us about grandchildren at the reception." The right corner of her mouth curves up, and she blinks once, long and slow, brings herself back from wherever she has been slipping off to off and on since they heard Bracken speak her mother's name on that tape.
Clearing her throat, she meets his eyes and continues.
"It might take a while. I mean, neither of us is so young anymore."
"Speak for yourself. I am a perpetual teenager."
He pushes up on his hands to sit, and then pulls her up as he unfolds his own long limbs and stands. The series of pops and cracks echoing off the marble surfaces as he does so do not escape Kate's notice, and she tries and fails to hide her chuckle with the back of her hand.
"Laugh all you want, Beckett."
Rounding on her, he hoists her up over his shoulder and ignores her screeching laughter, taking off through the door.
"I'm young where it counts - heart... mind..." he flops her gracelessly on the mattress and climbs up her body until he has her pinned, then finishes, "...and bedroom."
Kate sinks her teeth into the pout of her lower lip, drops her eyes to his mouth, and gives his butt a squeeze.
"Well in that case, let's get started."
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Genesis 1:5b: "And there was evening and there was morning, the first day."
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A/N: My contribution to the plethora of post-eps for "Veritas." This one is in honor of Mother's Day, too. Thanks to THE ORIGINAL beta, Joy ( intl08), for the quick read and yet another inspired title.
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