Chapter Two

Disclaimer: Well, I'd love to have been on set for the 5x01 filming today, but I can't say I was.

He awakes to the sound of retching from the bathroom, same as the last few mornings. Rolling over, Castle realizes the other side of the bed is cool—she's been gone for awhile.

He returns to his back, running a hand over his face as he checks the time. 4:03. It's early. The sounds of his wife in the bathroom remind him again of why he's woken up, and he flips the covers back, heads toward the bathroom.

He finds her at the sink, splashing cool water on her face in a pair of gym shorts and one of his tshirts, her hair coming out of a hastily done bun. He approaches her, taking the towel to pat her face dry himself.

"How many times?" he asks, reaching out for her.

"Lost count," she sighs, visibly weakened.

"Sweetheart…" he lets out, kissing the top of her head as she steps into his embrace. She asks if they can sit, and he agrees. They stay there for a moment, his arm around her as they settle down.

Later, after another round, she leans back, rests her head in his lap as she lets the fatigue overtake her body. He sits with her, as always, stroking his hand over her forehead and her hair.

"Still the chicken?" he asks, the first words they've spoken in awhile.

She grunts, the task of responding rendered almost too difficult.


"Rick?" she calls, a short while later. When it looked like she'd run out of stomach contents, he had—against her admittedly feeble protests—gone to call her in sick from the precinct and to start the coffee.

What Castle didn't know was that while he was in the kitchen, she had summoned the energy to sneak over to the cabinet—quietly, so he wouldn't hear her and return—to get the bag from the pharmacy she'd stored in there the day before, when she'd felt well enough to go out for a few hours.

Kate wasn't normally an instructions girl, preferred to figure it out for herself. But this time struck her as different. So she carefully read the directions on each test, then completed each one. Three times. Then a fourth, after those developed.

She paced the room with her arms crossed, trying to determine exactly what she was feeling. Finding herself at the edge of the tub, where she'd placed the developed tests and the pharmacy bag, she looked back down into the plastic. The fifth, sixth, and seventh tests lay in their boxes, the stark white of the bag contrasting the bright colors of their packaging. Biting her lip, she made her decision.

"Hey Castle?" she tried again, assuming he'd gotten caught up in something and had been too distracted to hear her the first time.

He padded toward their room and the adjoining bathroom, hoping she was okay. He didn't like to leave the coffee pot unwatched—something about pouring the second it finished made it that much better—but he'd put Kate and her needs over coffee any day.

He expected to find her lying on the floor as he'd left her, or perhaps sitting against the wall by now. He didn't expect her to be so alert, to meet him at the door in a completely different shirt, to then grab him and twist him around before he even got a glimpse of the bathroom.

She drags him out, pulls him over to the linen chest at the foot of their bed. "Can— um. Can you sit?" she asks, already pushing him down.

He agrees, still confused. She lets go of him, backs up, crosses her arms as she paces back and forth in front of his knees. He waits, hands clasped together, completely alert as he searches her face for a clue, a hint, anything. When she doesn't continue, he asks.

"Kate," he tries. "What's up?"

"I—just, hold on Rick, I…"

"Kate." He grabs her hands, untangling her arms from their positions. "You know you can tell me anything, right? If something's…wrong?"

Oh. He thinks something's wrong. He thinks she's hiding something, that she's mad at him, that it's his fault. She's seen this look too many times (mostly when those thoughts were true), knows what he's going through, has to give it to him now.

"Oh Cas…it's not you. It's not like that, nothing like that. It's just—you know how we thought that—that I was sick because of that chicken? But, uh, you had some of mine, and were fine?"

He nods, still holding her hands between his, searching her face for more information.

"Well…remember Kevin and Jenny's? Two, three weeks ago?"

"Three," he specifies. And while typically she'd be annoyed, she knows he's a writer, he wants accuracy and the whole story and all the facts, and so it comes naturally to him, he can't stop it if he tries. He has, before. It didn't turn out so well.

"And do—do you remember that…that night?"

"Of course, sweetie," he responds, standing as he reaches to brush a stray piece of hair behind her ear. Now he thinks he gets it, has an inkling of what she's about to tell him, and while he thinks he'll be ecstatic in a few moments when she confirms it, he forces himself to wait. He can do that. For her.

"What's up, did…" he pauses, not wanting to give away too much and ruin her moment. "Did something...happen?"

She bites her lip again. "Well, remember the conversation we—we had that night?"

He nods, one hand now partway between her ear and shoulder and the other midway down her arm.

"And remember how Lanie was so sick a couple months ago? We all thought she had food poisoning, or the flu, or,"

"Kate." He cuts her off, and she can see in his eyes that he knows where she's going, that she just needs to help him the rest of the way there. Which means spitting it out, and not continuing to trip over her words.

She shakes her head, returning to the present. "Well. Yesterday, while you were looking at the magazines to see how accurate their spoilers were for the book? I took the stuff, and checked out, but first I got a couple other things…"

She clears her throat. "Tests. Pregnancy…pregnancy tests."

He takes a breath in, and she can tell he's waiting for her to finish to react.

She goes faster at the end of the story, doesn't know how else she'll manage to get it out. "And I just—I just took them and they came out with two lines and not one and one means you're not pregnant and so I, uh, I guess I'm, um…."

"Pregnant?" she whispers, meeting his eyes for the first time since she mentioned the pharmacy.

He gasps, elated, and grabs her into a fierce hug, one hand on the back her head and the other further down her back, reaching around toward her ribs.

"Katie, oh, Kate!" he exclaims, if it's possible to exclaim in the hushed tone he was maintaining. He draws back, and she can see the beginnings of tears resting in his eyes. "I, we're, going to be, parents?"

She bites her lip a final time, meets his eyes again as she nods. She's about to speak, verbally answer, but he grabs her again, and this time her mouth is…busy. Very busy.

"And...what do you think?" he whispers, returning to reality.

She's biting her lip again, but this time she's fighting a smile. Suddenly her head is filled with visions of a baby in their lives—a baby who drifts off to sleep in Castle's arms, a baby who rests its head on her shoulder, a baby whose smell and toys take over the loft. And…it's exhilarating, intoxicating almost.

"I think I'm scared. But—but happy too? And, excited? And…I want to have a baby with you, Richard Castle." She whispers the last part; only inches away from his face as their hands find each others' and he leans down to kiss her again.

He picks her up, turns and carries her to the bed, leans on top of her to finish the kiss. She laughs at his excitement, but continues to explore his mouth.

"Have I mentioned that I'm in love with you yet today?" he asks, the final words before they're both rendered completely incapable of speech.


Thoughts?
Also, are there any opinions about the category? I originally made it 'Family' and 'Angst', but I've been leaning more toward replacing one with 'Hurt/Comfort' or 'Romance'...