I don't own Castle.
Title: What My Mother Never Told Me
Rating: T+
Description: Kate Beckett didn't want to be a mother. Her job was dangerous; the thought of leaving her child alone in the world was too much to bear. However, it might be a risk she is willing to take to see what brings such a smile to Rick Castle's face.
Chapter 3 – A Chill Goes Through Her Veins
Kate didn't wait for him to respond. She didn't wait for him to stop her. She just walked past him, out of the apartment, down two flights of stairs, and to the chilly October air. She took a deep breath and felt the air burn her throat.
She felt like throwing up.
She felt like crying.
She felt like punching a wall.
Instead, she started walking. She made it around the corner to a dingy alleyway and leaned back up against the brick wall. She raked her hands through her hair in frustration. Why had he come today? He said he had to work! There was no way he would be done on his manuscript already. It took him forever to write! And he had so much work he was going to do…
She felt the crunching of leaves as two heavy footsteps rounded the corner. She looked down at her shoes, the Bronx Women's Gillian boots Rick had got her for Christmas two years before, and then she looked up at him.
His face held a lot of confusion, surprise, a touch of sadness, and just a bit of fear. He approached her like she had some kind of contagious disease. "Kate," Rick said quietly, extending his hands to touch her shoulders. "Can we talk about this?"
She shook her head. "No," she clipped and stepped to swerve around him. He roughly pushed his hands on the brick wall beside her head. She backed up, feeling the cold of the prickly building seeping through her shirt. He gave her a look. One of those looks.
"Why aren't we going to talk about this, Kate?"
She grinded her teeth together. "Castle, we're working, why can't we discuss this later?" she asked him, trying to keep her composure. She wouldn't cry, though she felt the tears coming. He shook his head, his eyes locked onto her. He was serious.
"No, we need to talk about this now, Kate," he said quietly.
She put her hands to his chest and pushed him away, anger rising like bile in her throat. "Why aren't you at home, writing, Rick?" she asked him, angry. "You were supposed to be writing, not following! There is no way in hell that you are done with that manuscript already."
He scoffed, "Don't change the subject. When did you find out?"
As quickly as the anger came, it dissipated. She just wanted to hug him. She wanted to go home, lie in bed, and sleep with him wrapped around her.
"Yesterday," she replied, looking again at her boots.
He swallowed loudly, and then rested his hands on her arms. He rubbed them gently, up and down. "I thought you were on the pill?" He asked it like a question.
"I ran out just before your book party last month," she whispered her reply. He knew immediately the night she was talking about. He let go of her arms and moved to lean by her on the wall. He sighed heavily, running a hand over his face. She looked at him through the film her hair gave and he looked back down at her.
Then, he smirked. Just the smallest smile started to break out across his serious face. She felt her eyes water and she frowned, trying to blink away the tears. He took his hand into hers. He squeezed it tight, letting her know that she was still alive, she wasn't dreaming. She looked away.
Then, he said, "Kate, we're going to have a baby."
She nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Yep," she replied. "I mean, I only peed on a stick, I don't know if it's official … I just. I'm scared, Rick." She met his eyes again and they were caught in that staring match they always had with each other. When would they break away?
"I know you're scared," he replied. "But I told you once that little Castle was a pleasure and I'm sure that little Beckett would be just as wonderful. I'm ready to dive into this Kate." He paused, reached up and brushed one of the tears away. "Are you?"
They went to bed that night very early. After processing the charges, Beckett bided the guys – and Captain Gates – adieu and she and Castle took a taxi home. Alexis was out with some friends, probably returning late as she normally was, and, after a brief conversation with Martha, the two were in their room.
"Do you need anything, Kate?" Rick asked, pulling the top comforter down. She helped, throwing off random pillows onto the floor. Rick was the one who insisted on decorative pillows – Kate didn't see the appeal if she just had to throw them on the ground – but he had whined and she had been tired so she let him do whatever he wanted to the room. However, she was the one who had to constantly throw them off the bed and pick them up in the morning. He could be such a little boy sometimes.
She lay down as he went about getting ready for bed. He shed his clothes down to his underwear then pranced off to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He gave her a little smirk at the door and then shut it firmly behind him.
Minutes passed and she stared up at the ceiling, trying to keep her eyes open. It was hard because she felt so damn tired. She pulled up her tank top slightly to feel the smooth skin of her stomach underneath. There was nothing there – like she expected anything – but reassuring herself that there wasn't a massive growth there was somehow comforting.
How was she supposed to go to work in tomorrow with Castle right there, staring at her lovingly with that sick puppy expression? How was she supposed to get any work done with a damn baby causing everyone in her life to either turn into a puddle of goo (Castle, Lanie, the boys, Alexis, her father, Martha) or become so rigid they might turn into stone completely (Captain Gates)?
How would these next nine months shape up?
How was she supposed to catch bad guys when she had a protruding belly? The image of Maria Butler came back into her mind: the mess of her hair, the peeking skin of her stomach, the way her shirt stretched as she wagged the gun … one day, Kate would look similar to that.
"Everything will be fine," she heard a voice say up, a nose pressing up against her temple.
Kate's eyes snapped open – when had she closed them? – and she rolled over to see Rick smiling at her. "I didn't say anything," she said quietly.
He laughed, kissing her jawline. "Yeah," he replied between pecks. "You were not saying anything, very loudly. So loudly, in fact, I'm sure you've woken mother from her beauty sleep." Kate let out a snort and sat up to face him.
They sat face to face, their knees touching with their legs crossed. He rested his two strong hands on her shoulders. "Everything," he said quietly, catching her eyes. "Everything will be fine. I know that this isn't what you necessarily wanted, Kate, but it'll be wonderful. You will be a wonderful. You'll be a wonderful mother."
Before she had a chance to even protest, tears were filling up her eyes at his words. He had called her a mother. Mother. She had never thought the word would be applied to her – she was a cop, she was busy, she was hard physically and mentally. A mother was someone soft. Loving. Emotional.
A mother.
Katherine Beckett was going to be a mother.
Castle must have noticed the change in her demeanor because one moment he was staring at her with the sincerest expression and the next he looked terrified. "Kate," he said slowly. She felt her face flush, the back of her neck get hot, and she knew what was coming next.
She leaped off the bed – tumbling over Castle in the process – and ran to the bathroom. She barely made it to the toilet until the contents of her stomach left her in a violent manner. "Damn it!" her voice echoed off of the porcelain. "Damn it, damn it …" She felt the hot tears fall from her eyes, as she leaned back.
Castle was at her side just minutes later. He was holding his breath – he had an acute sense of smell after all – as he wrapped an arm around her. "I'm sorry, Kate," he whispered, as she cried into his t-shirt. She let the tears fall, tired of trying to hide her emotions.
As the nausea subsided, Castle picked her up and helped her walk back to the bed. He would have carried her bridal style but he knew if he even thought about it, she would have his head on a platter.
After the obstacle of the pillows on the floor, Kate was tucked into bed. She could hardly keep her eyes to thank him. She didn't even feel his arms slip around her before she was asleep.
Beckett was sitting at her desk the next morning, her chin resting in her right palm, staring at her computer screen. It had been a slow day today at the precinct. The boys had been crumbling paper into balls and throwing them into their trashcan for hours now. Castle was eating breakfast with Alexis at a local favorite. He wanted her to come too but Captain Gates had been leaning up against the doorframe of her office, staring at them with a cool expression and Beckett opted out. The last thing she needed was to be scolded by her superior.
She was yawning for the second time when a call came. The boys ears perked and they whirled around the face her when she picked up the phone. "Beckett," her voice was full of assertion. She nodded a few times then slammed the phone on the receiver.
"Let's go boys," she said, "Got a body on Broadway and a 110th street."
She grabbed her coat, cell phone, and keys before heading out of the Precinct, the boys hot on her heels. She shot a quick text to Rick, letting him know where they were and not to hurry, and they were off to see a man about a corpse.
Esposito nearly cheered at the scene.
The body was just a run-in-the-mill pop-and-drop. A young man around Alexis' age, maybe 21 at the latest, took a bullet to the chest. His wallet was missing and his body quickly stuffed in a trash can around an apartment complex.
Nothing freaky about this murder, Kate mused as she leaned over him. He was wearing a short sleeved shirt despite the briskness of the air and she could see injection lines in his arms. "Probably a drug deal gone wrong," she said out loud to the boys, "we should have this one wrapped up before lunch."
She looked up at Esposito. "Don't look so happy," she commented dryly. "A boy is still dead, Esposito." He lowered his eyes, the smirk still evident on his face. Ryan looked away and puffed out one of his cheeks as "Mom" got after his partner.
"It's just a nice change from man-eaten and twisted limb vics," he shot back sarcastically, squatting down beside her. They looked over the body idly before Lanie approached – gloves on, clipboard in hand, ready to take notes.
Ryan and Esposito scurried off to interview the woman who found him – an elderly woman with graying hair, floral-patterned clothes, and a crazy gleam in her eye, and Kate watched Lanie as she started her examination.
"So," her friend started idly, "I heard that you spilled the beans yesterday about being prego." Kate pressed her lips together and glared at her friend. Lanie gave her an innocent expression after jotting something down on her paper.
"Lanie," she growled. "Now is not the time or place. Only Castle, Esposito and Ryan know about it … no one else heard and I'd like to keep it that way. If Captain Gates found out that Castle and I are having a baby …"
Lanie looked up at her, smiling. "Maybe her cold heart will soften a bit?"
Kate rolled her eyes. "Please," she snorted. "She'd probably kick Castle out – scratch that, she would kick Castle out – and she'd put me on desk duty for the next five years. I'm going to keep this a secret for as long as possible."
Her friend nodded, turning the face of their victim over, checking for any bruises on the back of the neck. "Are you going to talk to Ryan and Esposito?" she asked, not looking up from her work. Kate sighed and pressed her hands into her knees.
She stood up, Lanie following suit.
"I need to," she replied, sparing a glance at the boys. They were wrapping up their interview. They both looked happy with the results, despite their protest about interviewing the "Crazy Granny." She looked back to her friend. "I'm thinking maybe we can all go out to Remy's on Friday? I'll tell the boys officially then."
Lanie nodded. Then, after a long exhale of breath, she glanced down at the victim and back up at her friend. "I'd say TOD is around five this morning. He was shot with a .22 three times in the chest. He suffered some before he died. Not too much though" – she grunted, leaning down to peel back one of his eyes – "I'm not positive until I get back to the lab, but I'd say he was high as hell when it happened. He probably didn't feel much of anything."
Kate nodded just in time for the boys to approach.
"Beckett," Ryan said, pulling out his small pad of paper he wrote interview notes on. "Mrs. Jenkins told us that yesterday she came home from the store, she heard our boy, Todd Wilson, here" – he nodded to the dead kid – "and a man screaming in his apartment across the hall. Just as she was unlocking the door, his door slammed open and a man she didn't recognize walked out."
"And…? Did she get a good look?"
"Yep," Esposito put in. "We're going to take her to the Precinct to have someone do a sketch."
Kate nodded her thanks to the guys and they walked off, giving her a second glance. They tried to hide it, but she caught the looks they had been giving her. They weren't sure whether to pity her or be excited for her so they settled somewhere in between – they gave this puppy-with-constipation look every time they thought she looked away.
She sighed and looked at Lanie. Her friend smiled, her teeth a radiant white against the darkness of her skin. "I bet they'll be excited for Friday," she said smugly and squatted back down to finish her examination.
Kate stared at their suspect, Mike Barnett.
He was the definition of dirt bag. His face was smudged with dirt, his hair greasy, and his clothes smelled like someone takes a shower as often as the Nets win a basketball game. He was tugging at his black jacket, scratching at what was probably an injection mark.
When she sat down across from him, he grinned, showing yellow teeth.
"I didn't think cops came in suck hot packages," he said, staring at her breasts. She had zipped up her jacket to the top but that didn't help. She had woken up this morning, her breasts sore and uncomfortable. She went through three outfits, trying to find something that didn't hurt and something that didn't show off her new … assets. Nothing helped so she settled for the most inconspicuous looking jacked she had. It didn't work.
Scratch that, she thought, he was the definition of douche bag.
Staring at the man, she threw a file in his line of vision. She stood up, leaning over so he was uncomfortable and she opened it up, revealing pictures of their victim, Todd Wilson, a student at NYU and a part-time drug dealer for an area near one of the colleges.
"Have you seen this man before?" she asked.
He briefly met her yes before staring back down at the picture. She could see a bead of sweat roll down his face. He swallowed and tried being a smartass again. "No, but I'd really like to see you before the day is over." She smiled at him with a sickly-sweet expression.
Then she shoved the table back so it hit him in the gut. As he groaned, she walked around and slammed her hands down on the table. He leaned over, clutching his abdomen. "Look here," she said, "I have a witness that places you in a screaming match at his house yesterday and this morning he shows up dead. I'm thinking you're the one that killed him."
He held up his hands. "Whoa, whoa, whoa …"
She glared at him. "What happened, Mike?" she interjected. "Did he owe you money? I see the way you're picking at your sleeves" – she nodded to his jacket – "and I'm thinking you supplied his drugs. When he couldn't pay you, you warned him. When he still didn't pay you, you killed him and stuffed his body in a trashcan for the garage man. Didn't you, Mike?"
"Nice work, Beckett," Esposito commented as she left the interrogation room.
She nodded her thanks and the clicking of her shoes echoed in the Precinct as she walked to her desk. The familiar brown head, hand twirling a pencil in the chair by hers made her smile slightly. It had been a bad day. She had puked four times today. She was exhausted, her boobs hurt, and all she wanted to do was go home.
Seeing the mountain of paperwork that sat idly on her desk, she knew that wasn't going to happen. However, having home come to her – especially when she wasn't expecting it – seemed like the next best thing.
"Castle," she greeted, nodding to him. He looked up from his trivial activity to smile at her. She sat down in her chair with a 'plush' and looked at the stack waiting in front of her.
"Long day?" he questioned, taking in the look of her less-than-put-together appearance. She nodded, not feeling the need to respond, and picked up the first clean sheet of paper to start filling out the reports of the day.
Mike Barnett had quickly confessed after Beckett's stunt with the table. He was now in booking, waiting to be processed, and sent away for a long, long time.
After twenty minutes of silence and a sixth of the papers set aside in the 'completed' pile, Castle whispered, "Kate, are you okay?" He glanced around making sure no one could hear them. "What happened today? You look like you're going to cry. Or punch someone. Do you feel sick?"
I've felt that way a lot, she responded silently.
She shook her head. "I'm going to go to the break room," she responded. "You can follow me in a few minutes. I'll wait for you." At that, she stood up and briskly walked away. Castle was left in her wake, staring at her desk.
When she reached the break room, Beckett sighed in relief to find that she was alone. She kicked the vending machine and a bottle of water fell out. After taking a long swig, she sat alone at the table until a few minutes later, when Castle came in, closing the door quietly behind him after looking both ways, making sure no one noticed
"You are the picture of discreet," she commented sarcastically.
He turned around and glared at her. "And you are the picture of 'I-had-a-bad-day,'" he retorted, coming to sit down beside her. "What happened?"
She sighed, capping her bottle of water. "It's just … this day has been horrible from the get-go. First I wake up at four in the morning to throw up bodily fluids I didn't even know I had. Second, I come to work and throw up three more times before we finally get a body. Then the body is just a pop-and-drop. The suspect was a wise ass, son of a bitch who kept staring at my boobs. And they've been sore all day." She rubbed her forearm over her breasts absent-mindedly.
Castle listened quietly, nodding at the appropriate times. When she finished ranting a few minutes later, he smirked, "Your boobs are sore?"
She gave him dead-panned expression, "Really? That's all you got from that?" She rolled her eyes and he shrugged. She grabbed her bottle of water and stood up, her chair raking loudly on the ground. Castle quickly stood up after her and grabbed her arm.
"Hey," he said, meeting her eye. "I'm sorry. I'm just trying to lighten the mood. I'm sorry you had a bad day today. But it'll be over in a few hours and then you can come home, have a wonderful home cooked meal Alexis has been preparing all day, and then go to bed before ten."
She pouted.
He pulled her into a hug, kissing the top of her head. They stood there for a few minutes, her arms wrapped around his back as if she was trying to take his happiness, his carefreeness that she so rarely had.
"Besides," he whispered in her ear. "Even though they're sore, your boobs look fantastic, Kate." She looked up at him and grabbed his nose. He screeched, letting go of her at once.
In the Precinct, everyone looked up from their respective desks to the sound of laughter and their live-in writer screaming, "Apples! Apples!"
A.N.
I know I usually update sooner than this but I took a break this weekend from school and now I am paying for it! I have so much homework it's not even funny! Luckily, this is more fun to write instead of my World Religions notes.
I want to thank you guys for your amazing reviews! They are SO sweet and I am loving that you guys are enjoying the story.
Until next Wednesday,
Lizzy