Unvanquished: Redux


Reese made happy noises and tightened her fists in Kate's hair; Castle tried to carefully, slowly untangle the girl's grip before it woke up his wife, but nope, nothing got by her.

She was awake.

Her eyes were dark with remnants of sleep and she blinked at him, staring, until awareness filtered in. Reese was lunging for her, wanting her, and Castle held her off.

"I'm exhausted," Kate muttered, and his heart dropped.

"Sorry," he whispered. "Go back to sleep. Reese is just - being a handful."

But Kate opened her eyes again and lifted her lips into a smile, reached for their daughter. He let the baby go, watched them both like a hawk-

"I was in the middle of the strangest dream," Kate laughed, her eyes on Reese as the baby rocked against her, as if trying to climb. "It wore me out. We had three more and-"

"Three more what?" he asked. The dream wore her out? Maybe she didn't literally mean she was exhausted then.

He caught the look Kate gave him, felt his insides flip.

"Babies. We had three more babies, Castle."

"Babies?" he said dumbly, glancing down at her body, the smooth and narrow hipbones-

"In my dream," she said, nudging his shoulder with hers. "But we were trying to herd them into - I don't know, a grocery store? Something. And they were all two and under. Reese was still a baby, so she had older siblings I guess-"

"Bizarre."

"I know. Right? I just - I can't remember their names, but I was yelling after one of them - boy or girl, I have no clue - and I thought I can't believe we did this."

"Yeah, I don't think it's such a great idea." He shook his head.

Kate stiffened next to him and pulled away a little, looking at his face. "I meant whatever it was we named the kid. Not - you don't want more kids?"

"Kate," he laughed, rubbed a hand down his face. "I don't think you can take it."

"I can take it," she growled at him, her hand coming around his bicep in a tight grip. "Not right this moment, but I'm - we can do this again. In a few years. We can."

He nodded, just to keep her from going on about it, just to keep from having that conversation (but no way in hell was he going to make her as weak and broken down as he had by getting her pregnant, by poisoning her and then knocking her up. Never again.)

She laid her head back against his arm, Reese kicking her feet and putting a fist in her mouth. He brushed his fingers through her hair, which he knew she hated, but Kate suddenly laughed. "Oh, I remember."

"What?"

"One of the babies' names. We called him - her? - Twix."

"Twix?" he huffed, a laugh escaping him. "Oh jeez. Reese and Twix. The other two were Hershey and Snickers, weren't they?"

"Probably," she chuckled. "I do love chocolate."

He laughed again and rubbed his hand up and down her arm, for some reason visions of four dark-eyed kids with clever smiles and entirely too much mischief were etched into his mind's eye. Made him uncomfortable.

"I hope Twix is a girl," he said.

She laughed. "Hershey could be a boy's name. But Snickers?"

"The dog."

Her laughter was so light, so breathy and joyful and delighted that he couldn't help himself. He kissed her, captured that amusement with his mouth, drank it all in even as Reese was sandwiched between them.

Her fingers came up between them, pushed him back. She was breathless, struggling for it - she really was tired then - but she was smiling. "I'm not letting you name our kid Twix. Just saying."

"Don't worry," he murmured back. I'll never let myself have the chance.


She had catalogued every inch of Reese when the baby was born, lying in the hospital bed in Sochi, propped up as best she could, her fingers traveling over her daughter's body. She counted toes first - for some reason, she had nightmares about webbed feet - and then she moved up to the crown of the girl's head.

Skinny legs, that's what she remembered now. Skinny legs when they should've had rolls of baby fat. But then Castle had said Alexis looked the same, that most newborns looked like little aliens, strange adults with their misshapen heads and tiny stick limbs. Kate hadn't been able to reconcile, at first, the greedily sucking thing in her arms with the image she'd built in her head when she'd talked to her belly for nine months.

Now she couldn't imagine a different baby, couldn't fathom not knowing the beautiful shape of her daughter.

She swiped her thumb along Reese's neck, the folds of her skin, made the girl squirm and open her mouth.

Kate's dream had been strange, and kind of wonderful, and overwhelming. Waking up had only made her grateful there was just the one, but still, a lingering sense of wistfulness held her.

Not Twix. But. She had assumed he wanted kids, had never expected to hear otherwise, and when she got stronger, maybe in a few years, she had thought they'd have another.

They'd picked Reese because it was her mother's maiden name; Johanna was too awkward and burdened for a baby, but keeping a family name seemed important. Especially now that Kate was so. . .cut off.

It had been Castle's idea.

Actually, they'd argued over names for nine months, never settling on anything that sounded right or felt like it belonged to them. They kept the gender a surprise, so there'd been twice the amount of fights.

But she couldn't take him seriously with suggestions like Han Solo and he whined that the normal names were too boring. Reese had come like magic - both the name and the girl - and it had fit the moment Castle breathed it out in mystery over their daughter.

Reese Rodgers. It fit. She wished, sometimes, for Reese Castle. . .

But apparently her dream self was a-okay with Twix, which was really just so not cool at all.

They'd passed through Minsk about an hour ago, no stops, and she wondered if their next kid should have a geographical name, a reflection of all the places she and Castle had made their home.

Minsk would never work. Moscow seemed. . .too much. Sochi? It was cute. Could be. For a girl, maybe. She could actually see that, and wow, Castle had so rubbed off on her if she was entertaining the idea of Sochi.

"What about place names?" she said suddenly, turning her head to look at him. He was crammed up against the window, his mind somewhere else as he stared out at the landscape. She jiggled Reese in her arms to keep the girl from eating her mother's hair, and nudged Castle's knee.

"What?" he said, bewildered eyes coming to meet hers. "Place what?"

"What about cities? It could be a way of honoring where we've come from. Maybe not Manhattan, but Bronx is kind of cool. And it's not like anyone in Versailles would know."

He gave her a long, slow blink and then his eyes fell to Reese. "What are you talking about? Bronx?"

"Baby names," she grinned.

His face blanched; her heart constricted.

"You're not pregnant, are you?" he blurted out.

Well, fuck, Castle.

She closed her eyes and curled her arms around Reese, breathed through it.

"Okay, sorry, I know. Stupid question. I panicked." She felt his hand at her knee, soothing, but she was pissed. It wasn't a stupid question - it was the tone, damn it. Like that was the last thing he wanted, and she was furious.

She opened her eyes and he lifted his hand off her, surrender in his movements.

"I'm sorry. I just - I was thinking about what you said and then you came out with that and Kate, I don't want to do that you again."

Do that to her again? "Why don't you shut up? Digging a deeper hole."

He nodded, dropped his hands in his lap, and she gave him a long look, the burn of shame in her chest fueling her anger. Shame. And she hated him in that moment, for making her feel like this. Like he always did. Like he owed her something, like she owed him, like the whole thing was a terribly botched job and if he'd never saved her life, they wouldn't be here now.

Of course they would. They'd have been here. That's why she married him in the first place - because he had promised her that he'd already had the ring, he'd already wanted it.

They had talked about kids, before she'd been arrested. They'd talked about how beautiful it would be, their family. And now he'd changed his mind because of her?

"What happened to in sickness and in health?" she muttered, swiping her hand over her eyes to dispel the vision of his horror.

"What. . .what do you mean?" His voice was quiet, and she knew she'd hurt him just now. Good. He should be. "Kate. I'm not - I'd never quit on you. I'm not looking to split up. What do you mean by that?"

Reese was smiling up at her, so happy, so unaware of her parents. Kate grit her teeth and turned her head back to him, watched the gut-wrenching sorrow flashing across his face. She'd seen too much of that; she was so tired of it.

"I mean. I get sick and suddenly everything is abandoned? We had a plan, Castle."

His jaw dropped. But now that it was out there, she couldn't stop.

"We were going to have a family. We were together on that. I know you wanted kids - you told me - we dreamed about it, you looked so-" She broke off before her grief could choke her, closed her eyes to get it under control. No more of that. No more. It was done. "And now that's. . .you act like it's impossible. Like we can't have that. But we can. I want to - why don't you want to?"

She sounded pathetic, damn it. She didn't open her eyes, couldn't. Not with it all right there, ready to spill out of her like tears. If she cried, Castle would never believe she was strong enough.

His hand came around her forearm, traced down to her wrist, as close as he could get to holding her hand without dislodging her from Reese.

"Kate." His voice cracked and he cleared his throat to try again. "You didn't get sick. I killed you. These are just - the consequences."