"Jenny, this baby girl is still the sweetest thing I have ever seen." Lanie stated matter-of-factly while holding the cooing baby under its arms. Sarah Grace Ryan braced her tiny
legs against the older women holding her and pushed up to eye level so she could return her adoring gaze. "Yes you are. You are just, so, sweet." Lanie continued, turning back to direct her devotion to the little girl.
"Great, you want her tonight? Because I would love to sleep a whole night again," the blonde mother replied, closing her eyes in a slow blink to demonstrate her weariness.
"Oh girl, as much as I adore you and Kevin and this gorgeous, sweet, yummy baby," Lainie lavished a kiss into Sarah's neck before passing the baby back to her mom, "I adore my sleep more. Besides, I have a job that gets me up enough in the middle of the night, I'm not sure I could handle a baby too, in spite of how gorgeous she is. Plus it's not like I have any help… on the horizon… at all. At least you've got Kevin, right?"
"Oh yeah, he's amazing." Jenny jumped in to reply. "Sorry guys, I shouldn't be complaining at all. Kevin does so much with Sarah. I tell you what, single moms are amazing because I couldn't imagine doing this without Kev." There was a momentary pause in the conversation, each women knowing how close the young mom came to doing just that. Taking an energizing breath she turned to the other women sharing the couch. "Thank you so much for inviting me tonight Kate, and letting me bring Sarah. We haven't been out in ages."
"Oh, as if we wouldn't. Besides, Lanie organised this whole thing; wouldn't let me do a thing." Beckett waved a hand around her now quiet lounge room to where discarded plates and empty champagne flutes spotted the furniture.
"Please, who organizes their own Bridal shower, Kate Beckett? But," Lainie continued, "to be completely honest, Martha deserves at least half the credit. And you," she said, turning to Jenny, "should be thanking me for Sarah being here. Those pictures of her as an miniature toilet paper bride are going to be gold for embarrassing her in front of boyfriend."
Tired, scented laughter echoed through the loft.
"Urgh," Jenny sighed, "boyfriends. Kevin's already been speaking to Castle about ways of scaring them off."
"Oy, sorry," Beckett apologised, shaking her head. " Even now Alexis is living with Pi, he's still all edgy about her growing up. I think he and Ryan are feeding each other's weird Mighty-Warrior-Protective-Dad thing."
"Ha," Lainie puffed out a laugh. "The scary thing is that Javi's not even a dad and he's getting in on the protectiveness. Seriously, when Pi came to pick up Alexis from the morgue last week, Javi was picking up the files on the Baskin case. He… " She raised her hands and switched a wide-eyed gaze from one women to the other before she continued "… followed them out to their taxi."
The shared incredulity of the three women seemed to drain some of the tiredness out of their response. Beckett's head fell shaking and muffling laughter in to her hands, while Jenny spoke.
"What exactly was he trying to do? Stop them from having sex between the morgue and their car?"
"Shhh" Beckett interjected, a little too loud and with a big grin on her face. "I swear, Castle knows even if he's 20 miles away, when someone utters the possible existence of his daughter's sex life and then he's in a mood for the next three days."
"Seriously?" Jenny guffawed, then grimaced when she disturbed her dozing daughter. Lowering her voice she turned her head to Beckett in question. "Surely he can't think that they're living together and not having…" she looked over either shoulder suspiciously and then, keeping one arm safely tucked around her baby, cupped her other hand to the side of her mouth and spelt out, "S.E.X"
Both Lanie and Beckett threw their heads back simultaneously and giggled. Kate then raised her hands and looked to the roof, as if silently questioning a higher power before she spoke.
"I don't know what he's thinking."
"I'll say," echoed Lainie, "How a man can write spicy love scenes like he does and then completely shut down any thought of his daughter being a sexual women is completely hypocritical!"
"Oy, I guess it must be a dad slash older brother thing, then. I know how much my dad freaked out when my mom told him that I wasn't a virgin anymore. Even now when he sees me and Castle walk out of our room together he still averts his eyes." Beckett shook her head and smiled at both the men in her life.
"Speaking of you and Rick and spicy love scenes…" Jenny began, as she gently shifted her now soundly sleeping baby.
"Um, yeah?" Beckett narrowed her eyes and looked at Lanie, wondering what the ME had put Jenny up to. However before the dark-haired women could defend herself against her friends wordless accusation Jenny continued.
"Is that ever weird for you, having your fiancé write these amazingly steamy sex scenes about two characters which are inspired by him and you?"
Beckett and Lainie shared a brief, knowing smile, before Beckett dipped her head slightly and tucked her hair behind an ear, using the well worn action to buy some time and attempt to stave off the reddish tinge of shyness creeping up her neck.
"I don't mean to be too personal or anything, I was just wondering, but if…"
"No, it's fine, "Beckett interjected, her own slight embarrassment quickly evaporating as she jumped to reassure Jenny.
"Yeah, please Girl," Lainie chimed in, "I'm always asking her personal detail. It's what friends like us are here for."
Jenny laughed softly then looked to Kate and smiled, gently encouraging her without a word to answer the question. On the other end of the couch Beckett inhaled a deep breath and pursed her lips thoughtfully before continuing.
"Well, I guess yes and no would be the answer." She looked between each women and upon receiving their obviously unsatisfied looks (the ME's coming with an extra serve of an 'as if you're getting off with an explanation that short' attitude) she continued.
"Oy," Beckett said, not quite under her breath. "Well as much as it serves Castle's ego for me to say, I've been reading his books for as long as he's been writing them. There's always been sex scenes and obviously the ones in the Storm series never bothered me, but when I first found out about Nikki and Rook it was pretty weird. I mean, given his writing history, and Castle being Castle, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I still pretty much hated him back then, so…"
"Please," Lainie interrupted, "as if you ever hated him."
"Do you want me to go on or what?" Beckett bit back with far too much mirth found in her eyes for Lanie to be bothered by her tone.
"No, please, go on." Lainie responded, just as snippily, as Jenny fondly watched the two friends engage in their age old bantering.
"Anyway, the first Nikki Heat sex scene I found out about from a CIA informant slash contact of Castle's and at that point I wasn't sure whether I was more pissed about the sex scene or the fact that some strange little man, who was the least likely CIA agent you've ever seen, knew about it before me. So as soon as I got a copy of the book I snuck into the precinct bathroom to find out exactly how bad it was. Only before I could even get to it, Castle comes into the women's bathroom, stands on the toilet and looks over the stall wall where he catches me searching the pages of his book, looking for a sex scene he wrote about the two of us."
Across the room Jenny held her hand firmly over her mouth as she attempted not to wake her daughter with muffled cries of laughter, which in turn only caused her to bodily shake instead.
"You never told me this part!" Lanie whinged, mid guffaw.
"Yeah, well, maybe you don't always know as much as you think you know, Lainie." Beckett replied beaming, but waved her hand in a shushing action, attempting to quieten Lainie for Sarah's sake.
"What did he say when he caught you?" Jenny asked when she had composed herself enough to speak.
"He told me it was on page 105 and that it was," Beckett raised her fingers to air quote, "'steamy'. I was mortified, but please don't tell him I said that. As much time has past and as much as I love him, his ego would explode his head with that tid bit of information."
Beckett sighed as the women once again needed to settle their laughter.
"Anyway, after that," she continued, "I kinda expected the sex scenes so it wasn't so bad, plus I was way more annoyed about everyone assuming we were a couple, than what was actually on the page. Now that we are together, he's still writing sex scenes, but I figure that even if he does write anything about…" she paused to steel herself with a breath, "…us, no one's gonna know what's fact and what's fiction unless I tell them. And," Beckett turned to squint at Lanie, "as much as some people dig for details, I don't have to tell."
"Oh please," Lanie gasped, throwing a hand to her heart in mock offence, "I haven't asked you that many personal questions."
"Seriously, that's the story you're running with? You asked me billions of questions when we got together, not to mention how you interrogated me before we even started dating."
"Speaking of which," Lainie shook her finger in the air like a physicist pondering the theory of relativity, but before she could go on Jenny interrupted.
"Oh man I gotta put this kid down before I laugh so much I drop her," she half whispered as she stood to go place Sarah in the car capsule she had put in Castle's office during the shower. After settling the baby she returned to the seat still grinning from ear to ear. "Sorry, Lainie, go on."
"Jenny!" Beckett whined, "don't help her!"
"Sorry, Kate, but this is too much fun now, so I wanna know what she wants to know."
"Oh no, now there's two of you?" Beckett fake sobbed, burying her head in a couch pillow.
"Girl, you're just lucky we waited until Martha and Alexis left. I've gone easy on you this evening. Wait until your bachelorette party."
"I think I just decided to elope." Beckett's voice muffled out from hiding place.
"Na ah, your too late for that now….As I was saying, what I want to know is, when?"
"When what?"
"Don't you what me about when. I wanna know exactly when?
Beckett sat up and grimaced at her friend. "Did I drink a lot of champagne tonight, because I literally have not idea what 'when' you are talking about."
"You didn't drink that much, Kate,"
"Apparently not as much as you by the sounds of it." Beckett replied.
"Well speaking as the only person at the whole shower that didn't get to drink anything," Jenny interjected nodding her head in the direction of the sleeping baby in explanation, "as much fun as it is to watch you two alliterate your way through all the 'W' words in the world, I have no idea what 'when' you mean either, Lanie."
"Oh, maybe I did drink a bit," Lainie said eying her empty champagne glass resting on the marble surface behind the couch. Then apparently deciding she didn't cared shrugged and went on to clarify he question. " I wanna know exactly when, how, why and against what wall you and Writer-Boy finally did the deed?"
"Did, the deed?" Beckett echoed, imitating her friend in tone and posture, moving to the edge of the couch and rising her torso to full height. "What are you 12?…And, it wasn't a wall, it was a door." She slumped back against the couch and watched her friends for reaction.
Jenny was the first to let go and puffed out one loud yelp before slipping off the couch and plopping onto the rug in a fit of giggling, while Lainie simply held Beckett's gaze and said "You're such a smart ass! Which door?" she stated, not remotely backing down from Beckett's challenge.
"Aw gosh" Becket replied choosing to drop her attitude and reverting to the gentler term she often used when embarrassment nipped at her confidence. "I thought you knew all this anyway, Lainie?"
Sensing Beckett's shyness the ME sank into the couch and dipped her head in a knowing sisterly gesture to her friend. "I know basically when you two started up but, Kate, what you gotta understand is that Javi and Kevin and for the most part Jenny and I all watched you and Castle dance along that dam wall for years. We just want to know, when did the flood gates open? What made your take that final step? Who took that last step?"
"And against what door?" Jenny softly interjected from the floor, a distinct twinkle in her eye.
Beckett smiled down at the blonde and narrowed her eyes in a mock glare. "You really are one of them aren't you. Or one of us, I should say," she finished, correcting herself.
Playing with the piping on the couch cushions, Kate thought for a moment, trying to find the best words to explain what had finally broken down that dam wall, her wall. And there she found the beginnings of an answer in Lanie's analogy.
"It's funny," she began, "You asked what opened the flood gates. I, um, I went to the park and I sat on the swings in the rain and as cheesy as it sounds, I couldn't see 5 feet in front of me, but everything else finally became clear. So..'when'? It was the day Javi and I were suspended. The night before, Castle and I had fought over…so many things, but mostly secrets we had kept. He told me he was done, with us."
"Secrets?" Lainie questioned.
"Without picking at well healed wounds…We'd both hidden some pretty big things from each other. Castle had been digging into my moms case and keeping information from me. He did it for all the right reasons, but I was pissed, to say the least."
"And you?" Jenny spoke up quietly from the floor, where she was now turned on her side in a child-like pose, resting her head against the cushions.
"I, um, lied."
Beckett felt her fingers tremble before a set of warm dark skinned ones encircled her own. She looked up to the matching set of warm dark eyes that encouraged her to go on.
"When I was shot, Castle, tried to save me, you guys already know that, but after, when I was lying on the ground, he begged me not to leave…and then he told me he loved me."
"Oh wow!" Jenny puffed out softly, moisture glistening in her eyes. "You see that kind of thing in a movie and you think how romantic, but that must have been intense."
"Ha, yeah, intense is a good word for it," Beckett replied.
"I knew you guys were crazy for each other, but I didn't know one of you had said it," Lainie spoke up, squeezing and releasing Beckett's hand.
"Yeah, he was the brave one. As annoying as he is, i don't think there's a person alive who can question his courage."
"Agreed" said Lainie.
"But what did you lie about and how did you end up in the rain?" questioned Jenny.
"I told him I didn't remember anything about the shooting, which of course included him telling me he loved me."
"Oh Kate," Lainie muffled slightly as she held her hand to her lips.
"I can't justify it," Beckett continued, "I was scared, and stupid and I nearly lost him because of it. So we fought and he left and then I chased a killer on to a roof and got thrown off it, until Ryan came and saved me." She directed the last part to Jenny.
"Okay so I didn't know about the lie. I did know about the dangling from a roof thing, which I still have nightmares about by the way." Lanie said.
"Sorry."
"But I'm still not getting the sitting in the rain part and how that connects to my 'when' question."
"Well, after Gates suspended Javi and I, I told her I quit and then I went…"
"Hold up, you quit?" exclaimed Lanie.
"Yeah, but then I went and took it back a couple of days later. Anyway I went to the park and I sat on the swings and I thought about everything. Hanging from the ledge of that building, I knew I was so close to dying, just like when I was lying on the ground when I was shot. The difference being that instead of Castle being there, begging me to stay, telling me he loved me, I was alone, but all I could think about was him. Not Maddox, not my mom, just Castle. Just him telling me to hold on. I could literally hear his voice, telling me he was coming and to hang on. And thank God, Ryan arrived when he did."
"You scared the hell out of him that day." Jenny spoke but her gaze was set firmly on an invisible stain in the floor rug.
Beckett looked to Lanie eyes wide.
"Oh Jenny, I'm so sorry, so selfish, it never occurred to me what you must have been through with Ryan then. I mean I apologised to him over and over until he snapped at me, but you, I should have though about you." Beckett slid across the couch and then slid to the floor beside her friend. "I am truly sorry."
"You don't need to worry about it now, Kate. I was mad then, furious actually, at all of you. Kevin hurt so bad. Javi wasn't talking to him, you nearly died, and I'm not sure why I was mad at you Lanie but I was."
"I'm sorry, Honey. I should have been in more contact then. It was all just so…"
"Messy." Jenny provided. "But I forgave you. I do forgive you, so you have nothing to apologise for now, Kate.
"What helped you forgive us?" Beckett inquired.
"Oh that was easy. I was ranting at Kevin at some point about why he wasn't angrier with you all and that you weren't acting like friends. He said, 'Baby, they're not my friends, they're my family' and that's all it took."
"Huh?" Lainie mumbled while Beckett nodded and smiled.
"They're Irish" the detective stated by way of explanation.
"So?"
"We're Irish," Jenny shrugged, "we always fight with our family, half the time that's how we show we love each other. Short of running out of Guinness on St Paddy's day there's pretty much nothing that we won't forgive our family for."
"Ahh," nodded Lanie, finally grasping the concept. "Anyway, we're still not at the 'when' yet," she continued. "I think we covered the 'why' with the whole hanging off a building and only hanging on for him, thing, but I want my 'when'."
"I'm suddenly getting an image of what kind of child you were, Lainie." Beckett said thoughtfully, tipping her head to the side.
"Oh shut-up, you were an only child, you have no idea how tenacious I had to be to get some attention back from my perfect little brothers."
"Aww, come down here and sit with us, Lainie. Tell us, how much did your mom love your little brothers more than you again?" Beckett patted the floor beside her and cast a patronising look her friend."
"Smart ass, don't think I don't know you're trying to change the subject. WHEN?" ordered Lainie, while grabbing a lock of Beckett's hair and tugging playfully.
"Okay, Okay!" yelped the detective, pulling her hair out of her friendly attacker's grip. "So I went to the park and then I remembered that he was here alone. Martha had gone to The Hamptons, Alexis was doing her all-nighter, so I came here. I called from the lobby and he hung up on me."
"Bastard," Jenny whispered, but then quickly covered her mouth when she realised the word had actually come out. Beckett and Lainie both faked shock incredulity at the blonde's outburst.
"Such language, Jenny Ryan," Lainie mocked.
"Oh shut-up, did you miss the part where I'm Irish?" she said, reaching across to gently smack the ME's knee, before turning to Beckett. "So what did you do?"
"I knocked on the door and when he opened it he said, 'Beckett, what do you want' and I said 'you' and I grabbed his face in my hands and I kissed him."
"Ahhh," screamed Laine and slapped her leg in joy. "Now that is movies worthy."
"Ha," replied Beckett, "you're such a sap."
"Meh, so then you did it against the door, right?"
"OH LANIE!" Kate yelped, before dropping her head back to her hands for the umpteenth time in the night. "No, he pushed me back and he asked me what happened and I told him over and over I was sorry and that I nearly died and all I wanted was him."
"And then?" begged Jenny.
"And then the floodgates opened," Beckett beamed, as she shrugged and softly bit into her lower lip.
"Ok, well, leaving aside the intimately personal questions you will be asked and answer at your Bachelorette party in two weeks I have one more question for you tonight Kate Beckett."
"Yes, Lanie Parish," Beckett said, shuffling away from the couch so she could turn to face both women. "Question away."
"Sex with Castle, scale of one to ten?"
Beckett looked from Jenny to Lanie, held both their gazes for a moment each and then leaning slightly forward and confidently replied, "Eleventy - Seven."