A/N: YAY finally. Got this idea today and wanted to use it. Not sure if I like how it turned out, but let me know what you think. This one isn't as much fluffy as angst-y, but I'm also a sucker for those. I really hope you enjoy it and I really appreciate every single review, they mean a lot!! BTW if anyone knows when the next new epi of Castle will be on, PLEASE message me... I will probably start going through withdrawals soon! I know it's not for at least two weeks :( Also spoilers for it would be appreciated if any have leaked. :) THANK YOU

Rathborne

Several months had come and gone since the day Kate had caught a break in her mother's case. Every day brought new unrelated murders, which by job description she was required to solve. But on her downtime she and Rick pondered leads and evidence about Johanna's case. The man who had hired the hit had found a new hit man. When said hit man, Greg Bourchetta, had been asked who he worked for it had taken hours of interrogation to get an answer. Finally, under the unrelenting stare of Detective Beckett, he cracked. Shakily he had muttered "Rathborne," and Beckett had felt her heart skip a beat or two.

The search for Rathborne had brought countless leads that only led to dead ends. Kate would have gone back to that place where she lost herself in the investigation, had it not been for Castle's support and her two children to return home to. And unexpectedly amid the chaos, the couple had learned of their third pregnancy. The surprise was a welcome joy that, like their first pregnancy was unplanned. Rick had joked that only one of his four children were intentional.

*****

Detective Beckett found herself pondering over her mother's case files, as well as related murders, into the early morning once again. Though already into her second trimester, morning sickness kept her awake into all hours of the night anyway. She couldn't remember the last time she had gotten a full night's sleep. Her third pregnancy was by far her hardest.

As she examined evidence photos for what seemed like the thousandth time, she heard the familiar shuffling of feet near the doorway. She looked up from her desk in Rick's office and saw him watching her. He too had heavy bags under his eyes. Every time she woke up and raced to the toilet, he was right behind her. Every cry from Lyra he insisted he tend to so Kate could rest. They were quite possibly the most sleep deprived parents in New York.

"Kate, you need to sleep," He told her softly with an understanding smile.

"Just a few more minutes," She sighed, hoping he wouldn't pry her away from the desk and carry her to bed himself. Again.

Rick strode over to her desk and sat in a chair beside her. He looked at the photos which she had returned her tired gaze to.

"Why can't this one be one of the easy ones?" She asked in a whisper without glancing up at him.

Before he could answer, the sound of her cell phone resonated in the room. "Beckett," She answered.

Kate's face turned into somewhat of a look of hope as she listened to Esposito. She wrinkled her forehead and arched her eyebrows in a characteristically puzzled look. She hung up the phone and turned to look at her husband, who had been straining to hear the conversation.

"They got Rathborne," She stated, in more of a surprised question than a fact.

*****

Moments later Castle and Beckett entered the observation room that looked into the room holding their perpetrator. Kate looked through the glass stone-faced, preparing herself for the interrogation. As she stared, Rick observed her. Her jaw and shoulders were tense. In her eyes he saw something he hadn't seen since the night she questioned Dick Coonan. With one hand she twirled her mother's ring, while the other rested on her slightly swollen stomach.

Suddenly she turned to look at him. She took a deep breath, "I'm ready."

Smiling at her, he squeezed her hand reassuringly. "I'll be right next to you."

*****

"Mr. Hawson, you've got quite the reputation," Beckett taunted as she and Rick entered the room. The dark-haired main scowled as the two took their seats across from him. Like Dick Coonan, he wasn't someone you would picture as a felon. He was professional looking with shaved dark hair and a pin-striped business suit. Ryan and Esposito had uncovered his alibi, Rathborne, which he used in his drug smuggling business. This business also required him to hire hits on innocent people who had unfortunately been in the wrong place at the wrong time and learned too much. Hawson rarely took risks when it came to confidentiality, only the one time he did it had been life impending for him.

Rick took control with the questioning. "Pretty smart hiring other men to do your dirty work, too bad you weren't the best at keeping your alibi under cover. Rathborne," He said boring into the man's dark grey eyes.

"I'm not Rathborne, I've never heard that name in my life," Hawson insisted, a frown playing on his features.

"Really? Well your little hit man told us otherwise. Hiring a hit on seven innocent people is just as much of a crime as doing it yourself. Not only are those people dead, but so is your guy Coonan," Castle said seriously.

"Yeah? I'm not the one who killed Coonan. Knocked-up detective over here his," The man said, turning his attention to Beckett.

She clenched her jaw and removed a stack of pictures from a folder she had on the table. "She did it to save my life, thank you," Castle told him, hoping to distract him.

Kate shot a glance over to Rick, warning him not to get too fired up. "Alright, Mr. Hawson, blame me all you want. But you can't deny evidence. You know what else you can't deny?" She slid a picture of Fred Nelson, Hawson's first hit, across the table. "You are the reason Mr. Nelson will never live to see his grandchildren."

Hawson scowled. "I don't know who that is," He said with a shrug.

"Right," Beckett slid another photo across to Hawson. "You are the reason Mrs. Ying's children will grow up without a mother."

This time, he said nothing. His eyes darted between the photos and the Detective in front of him. "You are the reason Mr. Denphy never got to marry his fiancée," She pushed another photo his way.

Hawson swallowed hard as she continued to show photos to him. Photos of people he had indirectly killed. He was starting to break, she could see it. People like him, who never wanted to physically kill their victims, grew exceptionally uncomfortable seeing, in pictures, the mutilated people whose deaths they had caused.

Beckett stared at the man who had hired a hit on her mother almost fifteen years ago. She could tell he was at his breaking point, caught in the headlights with nowhere to turn. Taking the last two pictures out of the file, she stood up and placed them in front of him. "And you, Mr. Hawson, are the reason my children will never meet their grandmother."

Rathborne stared down at a picture of Johanna Beckett, laying crumpled on the floor with more than thirty stab wounds scattered on her lifeless body. Then the other, a picture of two small children. Jayce and Lyra Castle. "I'm Rathborne," He finally admitted without looking up.