A/N: Thank you so much for the lovely response this story received. Sorry it took me such a long time to finish it.
Soft strokes and the gentle quiver of his hand over her stomach made her skin flutter and Kate watched him for a reaction.
"Are you pregnant?" He hushed out, eyes glued to her skin in the lamp light of their bedroom, as if he could see through and confirm it for himself. His fingers roamed over the back of her hands, lifted her shirt and traced a light path around her belly button. He watched her grip tighten as they sat there, palms curled protectively over a possibility.
"I - yeah?" Kate caught his hands and held them still, four hands and the world captured between them. Her voice quaked with sudden intense longing. "I think so."
"Not Alexis?" He squeaked back, still terrified by that prospect, adoring and yearning for this new one presented to him.
"No." Kate hummed, lifting a hand to push the hair back from his forehead. She tilted her head, thumbed the lines at the edges of his eyes and watched the reality sink in.
"Oh, thank god." He buried his face in her lap, let out a loud HA! of relief. He kissed her exposed skin, hot breath licking out and making her laugh at his exuberance, and then he sat bolt upright, "Wait wait." Castle squeaked, dropping hard onto his backside on the floor and reaching for the test they had tossed aside, "This was upstairs. Why didn't you take it down here?"
Kate drew her lip into her mouth and bit down hard, wrinkling her nose as she tried to find the right words. She extended a hand to Castle as he pulled himself up to her side, and looked into his eyes.
There was no accusation in his words or expression, just curiosity and a healthy dose of excitement that he was trying - and failing - to hold in.
It sent sparks of something warm and lovely shooting through her whole body. She could be ...
"You were in the shower when I came home and I -" Kate murmured, casting a sideways glance at him, a soft smile under the fall of her eyelashes that made him ache. Castle pressed into her side, as close as he could get and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"You didn't want to wait?" He asked, eager eyes alight with it all.
"I didn't want to pee in front of you." She laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck and burrowing her hot flushing cheeks into his skin.
"If you're pregnant you're gonna be doing a whole lot more than peeing in front of me." He beamed, rubbing her back and holding in another laugh when she smacked him hard on the leg.
"Gross."
"True."
"Yeah." She hummed, and she felt him wrap his arms around her. Warm and not quite giddy but getting there, Kate let herself sink into him.
She smiled and held on tight for a few seconds before finally pulling back to find his eyes. She knew her own were still shining but there was a flicker of doubt in them that he watched, his fingers sweeping over her skin all the while.
It made him wonder, it made him ask.
"It was negative wasn't it." He spoke quietly, eyes still trained on her face. "When you took it, it came up negative, because when I said Alexis was pregnant and showed you the test, you were shocked."
Kate nodded slowly and sighed, "I was going to tell you." She promised, but Castle shook his head, showed her with just a loving, tender glance that it wasn't about that, he wasn't worried she was shutting him out. Just curious. As usual.
Kate took a deep breath and said "I've just been tired."
She started slowly, found the words came easier than expected when she was staring up in the warmth "And late. Not a lot, but enough to wonder, and I took the test and waited but it came up negative, so I tossed it." Her fingers closed around the hand still holding the thin white stick and she turned it over, staring down at his palm. "I thought I'd process it a bit and tell you tonight, take another one in the morning just to be sure."
Castle nodded, waited, let her tell him the story at her own pace. And he found himself becoming absorbed in her tone, her wonder, and the quiet, calm reverence etched in every word.
"You were out of the shower when I came down and I wanted a bath and few minutes to myself, just to figure out how to tell you without getting your - my - hopes up." She turned her face up to him in wonder, "It's really positive?"
"Yeah." He held the stick out to her again, watched her trace the device with quivering fingers for a few seconds as they sat in silence. "Do you think -?"
"I don't know." She shrugged her shoulders and let her body fall into his, drawing warmth and support from the closeness, from the way he wrapped her up and pulled her nearer, his chin resting on the top of her head.
They became a partnership of near silent sighs, soothing caresses and one joint gaze that meandered between loving eyes and the device that dangled a little piece of their future out before them like a carrot
"Take it now." Castle said, pushing her back from him, his face determined but his voice low and almost pleading.
"What?" A small part of her wasn't sure she wanted to know and Kate breathed the word slowly, watching him all the while. A yes was a yes, but a no was - oh god - she'd already faced that prospect once today. But this time she had Castle.
This time, and the next time and however many times there after. She had Castle.
"The test you were going to take in the morning to be sure, take it now." He sat back clasped her hands in his and tipped his head closer, found her in the swirling depth of emotion that held her trapped in her own head and he squeezed her hands, waited, held on and drew her out slowly.
"I guess I - yes of course." Kate shook her head, let a flare of need rise within her and lift her up. She smiled as she caught a little of his excitement, "I can do that." Her eyes narrowed, "I'm still not peeing in front of you so you'll have to wait out here."
"You have a spare right?" He asked, ignoring her comment, reaching to pull her from the bed only to turn and find she was already on her feet rummaging through her night-stand.
"Yes." She tossed two boxes at him and laughed as he added up the tests.
"You came prepared." He nodded, impressed, opening the pregnancy tests and holding the white sticks out to her.
"Apparently there was a night you didn't." Kate teased.
"Come prepared or just c-"
Her hand groped for his shirt and Kate's smile fell away. "What if it's -?"
"I'm good either way." Castle promised, stepping back to her, smoothing over her face with the back of his hand, "I like our story, Kate, and if this is the next chapter then so be it. But if it's not and we've just jumped ahead a few pages I'm good to -"
"Keep reading?" She finished for him, her fingers dipping into his and emerging holding the tests tight in her hand.
"Exactly." He agreed with a firm shake of his head, stepping in closer, "What about you? Are you-? I mean you seemed happy before when -"
"It's sooner than I would have thought but - I - Yeah ... what you said?" She laughed, moaned and dropped her head to his chest.
"So eloquent."
"Shut up." Her words came out muffled in his shirt and unable to resist the quiet call of her body, Castle wrapped her up tight in his arms again.
"Don't worry, babe," Castle soothed, grinning into her hair when she growled, "if you are pregnant, we can always put it down to baby-brain."
She peed with his ear pressed to the bathroom door and her eyes rolling continuously as he spoke to her the entire time. With reassuring commentary he told her over and over again that she could do it. She could. She could pee all day if she had too.
When she emerged from the bathroom with four tests in her hands Kate levelled him with a look and uttered one single, solitary sentence.
"When I give birth I'm duct taping your mouth - mmmfff."
The rest was lost in a collision of limbs and his sweet, frantic kiss.