Oh my goodness. :) I love you all…just thought you should know :D

…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…

Castle and Alexis got home at about 1:30 that day. They had been planning on being home around noon, but a small pizza joint on a side road that they saw while driving had been calling to them, so they had decided to stop for lunch. So far, it had been a very good day.

However, when they walked through the front door of the apartment, Castle felt his mood drop. The bags thrown messily in a pile could only mean one thing; Meredith was here already.

"Mom!" Alexis yelled out, then ran across the room to hug her mother who had just come down the stairs in a robe.

"Hello Alexis," She said happily, then looked up to Castle, "Rick,"

"Nice to see you again, Meredith." Castle said, "I see you spent the night?"

"Yes," Meredith said quietly, then looked at Castle with somewhat apologetic eyes, "Actually, about that…"

"Hey, Mer, where did you say those extra clothes were?" A deep voice came from the top of the stairs. A moment later, an unfamiliar man wearing only a pair of boxers walked down the stairs. He froze about halfway down, taking in the crowded room with wide and surprised eyes, "Uh…Meredith, who're they?"

"My ex, and his daughter." She said with a sigh, "They stay with me here every once and a while."

Castle shot her an unbelieving look, then sighed and said, "Right…Meredith, can I talk to you in to other room, please?"

Meredith gave the strange man an apologetic look, and when he receded back up the stairs, she followed Castle into his den with a worried look.

"Listen, before you yell…I just want to say, I only did it because I was trying to abide by your rules." Meredith explained to him quickly, "You told me that we couldn't do anything, so I figured I'd just get it all out of my system before you were even back."

"So you just thought it'd be better to bring a guy back to my place without me knowing, and tell him it was yours?" Castle asked her.

"Well, you certainly never prohibited it. And you should be happy I did it the way I did," Meredith told him, "You know me, Rick, it could have turned out a lot worse."

…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…

Beckett didn't want to allow herself to cry. Not until she got home, that is. She jumped into her car and sped off, not able to hold back the sudden release of tears. The shrill ringing of her phone made her groan; she really didn't want to talk to anybody right now.

"Beckett." She answered, doing her best to stabalize her voice.

"Hey, we've got a murder," Esposito's voice informed her, "946 Greene Ave."

"Be right there." Beckett said, hanging up before he had a chance to say anything else.

As she drove, she took deep breaths, trying to quickly compose herself before she got to the scene. She tried to convince herself that a murder would be good for her. It would give her a distraction from everything else.

"Where's the body?" She asked Ryan and Esposito when crossed under the yellow tape.

"Over there, Lanie's examening it now." Ryan told her.

"Where's your shadow?" Esposito asked with a smirk.

"He's busy." She stated blatently, walking away from the two before she saw the confused glances they shot at each other.

"What've we got, Lanie?" Beckett asked her friend, kneeling down beside her and the seemingly bloodless body.

She felt her friends eyes on her and after a moment of no response, looked up to see Lanie's wide and worried eyes staring at her.

"Whoa, girl, what's wrong with you?" Lanie asked her in a hushed voice.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't even start with me, girl. That voice, your face…your eyes are still puffy. What's up?"

"Nothing I can deal with right now." Beckett said dryly, then gestured down at the body.

Lanie sighed, "John Doe. Multiple stab wounds to the back, but whoever our murderer is moved the body and changed his shirt, so you wouldn't be able to tell anything was wrong."

"Alright, anything else?"

"Not right now…I'll have more for you when I get him back to the lab." Lanie said, then, as Beckett started to stand up, Lanie asked her quickly, "You look pretty messed up…you sure you're ok to do this case?"

"No, not really." Beckett said with a sigh, then walked away, leaving an extremely worried Lanie behind her.

…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…

Castle paced back and forth in the loft, muttering into the phone he was holding. A sudden groan elicited from him alerted Alexis, who was making her lunch on the other side of the room.

"Something wrong?" She asked him.

"Not really," Castle said with a half smile as he walked over by his daughter, "Beckett's just not answering her phone."

"Well, she's probably just busy. I wouldn't worry about it." Alexis said with a smile, then retreated up the stairs to her bedroom with the sandwich she had just made.

…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…

"Please, Beckett, you're killing us." Esposito said as he and Ryan walked over to the aggravated detective sitting at her desk, "Who are you so set on avoiding that you still haven't answered after, what has it been now…"

"I think that last one was the eleventh call," Ryan told his partner, then they both looked at Beckett expectantly.

"None of your business," Beckett stated, standing up and walking past them and into the break room with her coffee cup.

"20 Bucks says it's a Castle problem," Esposito said as soon as she was out of earshot.

"Nahh, no way man, Castle's the only one desperate enough to call her that many times. Something's definitely up with him." Ryan told him back.

…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…

"Lanie, what are you doing here?" Beckett asked her friend when she appeared at the end of her desk at around dinner time.

"I'm picking you up." Lanie told her simply, "Don't worry; I've already cleared it with Montgomery. He thinks that it's about time you took a night off. So, you and I are going on a much needed girls night out."

"Lanie, I'm in the middle of a case, I can't just-"

"No, you're going out tonight, you're going to have fun, and you're going to tell me about whatever is going on with writer boy." Lanie interrupted her, "No buts."

Beckett groaned, "Where are we going?"

"Remy's." Lanie stated, "We are going to go pig out on burgers and shakes, then go back to my place with a gallon of ice cream and a bottle or two of wine."

…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…

Knock Knock Knock

Castle stood outside the door of Beckett's apartment, tapping his foot impatiently, hoping with all his might that she would answer the door.

He just couldn't figure it out. Why was she avoiding him? The last time they had talked she had been too busy for him to tell her anything about Meredith, but she hadn't seemed angry.

And now she wasn't answering her door.

He ran down the stairs two at a time, hopping into his car and going to check the precinct.

He felt his stomach drop when he walked through the elevator doors into the homicide department. A fully assembled murder board had been created, just recently, by the looks of it. He knew that he must have done something pretty bad for her not to call him in for a new murder. He just couldn't figure what he had done!

"Hey, Castle," Espostio called out. Castle spun around and saw the partners walking out of the break room, coffees in hand.

"Hey, do you guys know where Beckett is?" Castle asked them, internally cringing at how desperate he sounded.

"Yep," Ryan told him.

"She and Lanie went out for a girls night out." Esposito explained, "But listen, I would give her some space, man."

"Yah," Ryan budded in, "I don't know what you did, but she was one majorly agitated detective today. I didn't even like dealing with her, and I'm not the one who did anything."

"But I didn't do anything!" Castle said, exasperated. Ryan and Esposito shrugged, then both turned and made their ways back to their desks.

…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…

"You're pregnant?" Lanie repeated with huge eyes, filled with shock. Beckett just nodded miserably in reply, popping another spoonful of chocolate ice cream in her mouth. "Ok…and, Castle was mad about it?" She continued, trying to guess why her friend was so annoyed with the writer.

"No, he doesn't even know yet…" Beckett told her.

"Why haven't you told him?" Lanie questioned, "And why are you avoiding him?"

"Because," She sighed, "I tried to tell him. I went to his place, and the door was cracked open, so I just went in. Then, nobody was around, and I heard footsteps from his bedroom, so I went up there and…"

"And…" Lanie prodded..

"He had just gotten into the shower…and Meredith was in his bed."

"Meredith the ex wife Meredith?" Lanie asked with wide eyes. Beckett nodded, and Lanie crawled over to her and wrapped her up in a hug, "Oh honey, I'm sure it was just a misunderstanding. He would never do that to you."

"How would that be a misunderstanding? It was in his bedroom, Lanie." Beckett said, blinking back the few tears that threatened to spill over, "And he hasn't kept the fact that the two of them have…relations a secret."

Lanie didn't know what to say at this point, she just pulled her friend in for another hug.

"What am I going to do?" Beckett asked, subconsciously placing her hand on her stomach.

"Well, first things first…he is going to have to find out eventually." Lanie told her, sending a knowing look, "Unless…you are planning on keeping it, right?"

Kate sighed, "How can I not, Lanie?"

…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…

Castle went back to his loft, miserably trying to come up with reasons that Kate would be so mad. He was starting to think that he wouldn't be able to figure it out on his own, when he walked through his front door and saw a small white item laying on the floor just under the couch closest to the doorway.

A pregnancy test. Positive.

…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…

Weellllll…ok then. What a screwy day.

Anywayy…I have to leave…and want to post this before I go, sooo not really a good message thingy today!

Review review review!