Rick had a meeting with his publisher that afternoon, and when her shift ended at the precinct he texted her saying "I'll be later than I expected, can you do dinner?" Shit. Now she was going to have to stop and pick up dinner.
On the way down the elevator she texted Alexis. "Picking up dinner. What do you want?" Kate hoped it would be Chinese, she had wanted lomein noodles all day.
By the time she got to her car Alexis had replied "what ever you want!" Thank god, Kate thought, planning the fastest route to the Chineasey Dinner place.
Kate walked in the door with a bag of food, her purse, phone, and keys and practically threw everything on the island. "Alexis, food is here." She called. Kate didn't even bother to put anything where it belonged, she was starving, and she pulled all of the food out of the bag and sat at the island, too hungry to wait for Alexis.
She looked over at the stairs and saw her stepdaughter coming down. Kate had been watching her like a hawk ever since she had learned of the pregnancy. This week she had noticed that Alexis had been sleeping a lot; she was always asleep when Kate got home from work, and was asleep when she left in the mornings. "Hey," she looked over at her "how are you feeling?" Kate was curious, almost all of her friends were single, or had older kids, so she never got to do any of this before.
"Like I got thrown down the stairs" Alexis groggily reached for the chicken balls. "Look at my boobs." She turned to Kate, who was visually surprised, and tried not to be awkward.
"Wow." She barely glanced at them, but didn't want Alexis to sense how awkward she felt.
"I'm starving!" she said, as she noticed Kate had already eaten about half of the chicken; Alexis reached for the noodle stir fry. Kate looked over at her and noticed her face had filled out a little bit in the last few weeks. Since they found out about Alexis, Kate and Rick talked a lot about babies. He had practically forced her to watch Disney movies. It was weird, because Kate hadn't seen any of them in decades, and she had to admit that she had liked the nostalgia.
Alexis was slowing down on the food, and looked over at Kate. Uh ho, Alexis was about to ask a question. Kate looked down at all the boxes of food they had consumed "We certainly didn't waste our money." She joked to cut the tension, and began to clear away the boxes.
Alexis followed her with her eyes, trying to word the question she had without being rude. "Kate..." She asked delicately. "Why did you never have any kids?" She realized that sounded a little invasive so she added "like... Did you just not get the chance, or do you not like kids..?" the question lingered heavily in the air.
Kate didn't look at Alexis, she continued to clear away the garbage and finally, after thinking for a while she stopped and turned to her step daughter "well Alexis, it's sort of complicated."
She put the garbage she was holding in the trash and looked over at Alexis, and she knew from her face that the answer was not satisfying. "Alexis, before I met Castle I didn't want to settle down. I didn't want to ever get married, or do the kids thing." She leaned on the counter making eye contact with Alexis, and knowing this answer was going to lead to a million more questions.
"But now that you are married and settled down, does that mean you'll want kids?" Alexis leaned foreword as if closing the gap between the two of them.
Kate had no idea how to answer this. She wondered if it would be appropriate to tell Alexis the truth. She smiled and shook her head "I'm going to be honest with you Alexis. I never really thought about kids until you told me the news the other day." She nodded at Alexis, who smiled.
There was a long silence before Alexis got really pale. Kate noticed and her back straightened, she knew that look anywhere. "I'm going to be sick." Alexis said as she ran to the washroom.
Kate didn't know what to do, should she follow her or should she wait in the kitchen. She began to walk over to the washroom, and saw that the door was open. Should I knock? She wondered. Instead she just followed her instincts and went straight in and put her hand on Alexis's back as she sat on the edge of the bathtub. Alexis only puked once, but she sort of collapsed into Kate after. She sat on the floor and leaned into Kate's legs. Kate, who didn't get grossed out easily, reached to Alexis and pulled her up next to her on the edge of the tub. Alexis leaned her head on Kate and Kate wrapped her arms around Alexis. Neither of them said anything, and Kate just starred straight foreword, wondering if she was the right person to be comforting Alexis.
She dug in the back of her mind trying to find something comforting to say to Alexis, but nothing came to her. "Alexis," she hesitated. "I hope you know that this is just the beginning." Kate ran her fingers through Alexis' hair and felt bad because she knew that Alexis was a little girl inside, and she was stuck with a problem that was way over her head. Kate looked foreword, and tried to imagine who would be comforting her if she had been pregnant and not Alexis. Immediately she scolded herself. She had been imagining herself in Alexis's shoes too often, and it needed to stop. This was her time to focus herself on Alexis, not be jealous of her.
After Kate took Alexis up to her room, she laid next to her spooning for more than an hour. Kate was the big spoon, and for once she enjoyed it. She felt like she was bigger than Alexis, as if she could protect her. She listened to Alexis's breathing and ran her fingers through her hair. Kate stayed laying with her even though she knew Alexis had fallen asleep. She thought about all of the things Alexis was going to be able to teach her child. Alexis's breathing began to sound like a metronome, keeping a beat. Kate started at the beginning, and found herself in tears counting all the things that she had to offer a kid, all of the things she could teach. Within minutes she was crying. She made it only a few minutes before her eyes watered, and once she felt the tears streaming, Kate decided it was time to get up from Alexis's bed, and call her husband, she had a lot to talk to him about.
