Unplanned Miracles Chapter 7

A/N: So I had a family reunion and then I realized that it was July and I had a ton of summer work so I had to start on it so that it would be done in time. So sorry but I have to put school before writing :( This will not jump straight to Castle and Beckett meeting or even her going to the academy (to become a cop). I think we need to establish Kate as a mother a little and give a little insight into how she handles school, work, and raising twins. I appreciate all of your support for this story! It makes me smile and inspires me to keep writing.


Books lay randomly across the kitchen table, several open and others with pages of notes stuck haphazardly between the thousands of pages of the textbooks. The apartment is in complete darkness save for the kitchen light, left on to allow for late night studying. Kate has her nose in one of the textbooks, literally, having fallen asleep about half an hour ago. It's completely quiet in the apartment, the twins are sleeping and now so is Kate. It's one of the rare moments when there's no noise save for the occasional horn honking and sirens from the streets.

Suddenly soft whimpers start in the nursery, quickly turning into wails. Kate stirs and automatically turns to look at the time displayed on the microwave: 2:07. "It's already 2 AM? I only went to sleep for five minutes," she thought as she rose and stretched. Her head had been aching incessantly for the past couple of days and tonight (this morning?) was no different. What with the twins lack of a sleep schedule and the amount of work she was getting from all of her classes she hadn't been sleeping much.

She listened for a moment and prayed a silent 'thank you' because she could only hear one of the twins crying. She went down the hall to the nursery and turned on the lamp, to allow her to see without disturbing the one that wasn't crying.

Jo Beckett lay in her crib squirming and calling out to her mother the only way she knew how. Kate had become familiar with the different cries Jo, and James, produced over these past 3 months and what they meant. At the moment Jo was emitting her hungry cry so Kate immediately turned on the formula heater she had set up on one of the flat surfaces in the nursery. After she turned it on she went and picked up her daughter.

Jo settles some when she's picked up by her mother. Kate rocks her some to get her to calm down while the formula heats up. Once the light turns red on the formula heater, signaling that the formula is ready to serve, Kate puts the child on the changing table to free her hands and goes to test the formula. The couple of drops placed on her wrist are warm but not hot, perfect. Kate takes the bottle and her daughter to the rocking chair to feed.

The girl eagerly sucks at the bottle, breathing through her nose to optimize the amount of formula she's drinking. Kate lays her head back against the back of the rocking chair and watches her daughter. As she eats Jo's eyes flutter closed and she looks positively serene. Kate wishes that she could have that, the ability to calm down and get a few moments where nothing could bother her. But she was constantly worried about finishing the reading and studying and writing she had to do for her classes, earning enough money to pay for groceries, and there was always her dad.

He had sobered up and stayed that way for the past three months, but there was always the possibility that he could relapse. He had been a great babysitter for the twins when Kate just had had enough and needed a break. With her pounding head and loads of work Kate thought that she might need to ask for his babysitting services this weekend so that she could get some rest and get her work done. She hated leaving them because they were so young but also because she just missed them. Despite the headaches and bags under her eyes that they gave her, nothing could ever take away from the joy the twins had given her.

Once Jo finishes Kate places her over her shoulder to prepare to burp her. Kate continues to rock the chair and rub the girl's back, knowing the soothing motions encourage the girl to burp. Jo starts to fuss again and Kate starts to pat her back in an attempt to educe a burp. When it finally comes Kate brings her to rest in her arms again and begins to rock the chair, now trying to get the baby to fall asleep.

Kate has learned that, along with rocking, rubbing both of her children's heads gets them to go to sleep quickly, so she rests one of her hands on the baby's head and gently runs her fingers across Jo's nearly bare scalp. Jo's eyes immediately begin to slip shut but she fights it, now wide awake and wanting to stay that way. Kate almost laughs at the child's futile attempts to brush her hand away. Soon Jo stops fighting sleep and relaxes. Once Kate is sure that she is fast asleep she stands up from the rocking chair and gently places Jo into the crib, trying her best not to disturb her. She smiles when the child doesn't stir and goes over to the lamp.

The moment she turns it off James stirs and starts to whimper, like Jo his whimpers turn into wails quickly. Kate's shoulders drop and she sighs, running her hand through her hair. She turns the lamp on again and goes to James' crib. He's hungry as well. Fabulous.


"Hey Dad," Kate answers when he calls the next morning.

"Hey Katie, I know you have a class this morning I just wanted to call and see how you're doing," he said.

He always did this; he would call on Friday morning to see if she needed him to babysit that weekend. She smiles, "Actually I'm pretty tired, I've had a headache for a couple of days and I have a lot of work to do this weekend. Would you mind taking them this weekend? Just tonight and tomorrow so that I can get some sleep and get the work done."

She knew he'd say yes. The only time he couldn't take them was when he went on fishing and business trips, and he always warned her at least two weeks ahead of time if he was going to be out of town.

"Sure Katie, the usual time?" The usual time is about 6:30, when Jim got off of work.

"Yeah, thanks Dad. How are you?" she asks.

"Oh I'm pretty good. Got some tough cases to prepare for but nothing I can't handle. I'm staying pretty busy," Jim says.

"That's good," she says. She made it a point to ask every time she talked to him, to look for signs of relapse. When he wasn't busy enough he would get time to think, then he would think about missing his wife (which he was entitled to do but was still dangerous), when he got to thinking about missing his wife he would get depressed, which would lead him to self-medicate. (AKA drink alcohol to numb the pain)

The past month had been hard. It was the first anniversary of her mother's stabbing. She had called Detective Raglan, hoping he had had some breakthrough and had forgotten to call, but no such luck. He said nothing had come up.

That day had not been very productive. She had tried to sleep in (the twins ruined it), didn't eat much of anything, she took care of the twins until about noon but then called Lanie to take care of them. When Lanie got there she asked what was wrong. Kate was silent for a while, trying to decide whether to tell her or not, Lanie knew that her mom had been stabbed but she didn't know exactly when. After a while she said 'it's the anniversary of my mom's stabbing,' and attempted to hold in the tears.

Lanie had immediately wrapped her in a hug and told her to go do what she needed to do, but to be careful. Kate nodded and left. She went to her mother's grave and sat down in front of it. She didn't talk or do much of anything. She just sat there and cried silent tears for her mother. Her mother would never see her two grandkids grow up, never see Kate graduate college, never get to grow old with Jim. There were so many things that she was robbed of.

Kate silently vowed that if her mom was robbed of her life, she would rob her killer of his/her life. She would one day get justice for her mother; she would solve the case and put the killer behind bars. She was going to be a cop and somehow she would join homicide and work on the case.

After a few hours Kate wiped her eyes and stood up. She turned around to go and saw her dad walking toward her. Without hesitation she wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her head in his chest. He rubbed her back but didn't attempt to soothe her with promises that it would all be alright. He knew that the case was more or less cold and their beloved Johanna would probably never get justice so there was no use in trying to comfort her with the promise that everything would be alright because it wouldn't be until Johanna got justice.

She stayed in his arms for several minutes. Eventually pulling away reluctantly and once again wiping her eyes. Jim kissed the top of her head and tried to give a smile.

"I've got to get back to the apartment. I left Lanie with the twins. Dad, if you need anything, don't hesitate to call," Kate said. He nodded and she left.

Back in present day Kate was busy. It was seven o'clock and she had two hours to get the twins fed, dressed, get herself fed, drop them off at daycare, and get to class. She lifted Jo out of her crib, ladies first, and moved her to the changing table saying "Morning sweetheart." She changed and dressed her, putting on an extra thick hat and a thick fleece onesie, it was February so it was still pretty brisk out. She put Jo into her carrier and went to change James.

The little boy smiled and cooed at her when she picked him up, ever the louder of the twins, she smiled and laughed, dropping a kiss on his head and saying "Morning Bud." She changed him and dressed him in the same warm fashion, placing him in his carrier as well. They had both eaten only a few hours ago and so she filled their bottles up with water. They got midmorning snacks at daycare anyway so it wasn't like they'd starve.

When they had had their fill of water she took their carriers to the kitchen and set them on the table, on top of a couple of textbooks. Kate went to the cupboard and grabbed her traditional breakfast: Raisin Bran. She poured it into a bowl and added a splash of milk. When she had her breakfast she sat down and entertained the twins.

She played with the fixtures on their carriers and tickled them underneath their chins, their innocent laughter made her smile. She ate the last of her cereal and disposed of the dirty bowl and spoon in the dishwasher. Kate then went into one of the cupboards and pulled out a bottle of Ibuprofen, she took a capsule and prayed that it would let her go through the day with minimal pain.

She reached in the fridge and grabbed a Tupperware of leftovers; it was some chicken that she had made the night before last. She put the Tupperware in her book bag so that she would have lunch and started to put textbooks in it as well.

As she was gathering up her books for class there was a knock at the door. Kate knew exactly who it was and unlocked and opened the door without so much as a look through the peephole. Unlike Kate, Lanie was not a morning person. She had a cup of tea in one hand and a bear claw in the other and looked about half asleep.

"Morning Lanie, come on in. Can you watch the twins while I freshen up a bit? It will only take a minute," Kate said cheerfully.

"Why do you have to be such a morning person? Why can't you be like the rest of society and sign the petition for all jobs and school to start after 10 A.M.?" she said grumpily, dragging her feet and shuffling over to the table where the twins sat.

"There's a petition for that?" Kate asked skeptically.

"No but there should be," Lanie said putting her head in her hand and closing her eyes as if she was falling asleep again.

Kate laughed and went into the bathroom to freshen up. She brushed her hair and her teeth and brushed a little bit of makeup on her face. Mostly because she would look like death warmed over if she didn't. When she came out of the bathroom Lanie sat there, with her head still in her hand, dangling her keys in front of their carriers. The twins laughed and cooed at her.

"Looks like Aunt Lanie can still entertain them with her car keys," Kate said.

"Yeah, hey I have a question for you. Do you have to take economic theory for your major?" Lanie asked holding up Kate's economic theory textbook.

"No I just find it interesting, why?"

"Why add the extra work and stress?"

"It's not that bad plus it's only one semester. No big deal."

"If you say so, are you ready to go?" Lanie asked getting up and grabbing one of the carriers and her tea cup.

"Yeah just let me grab my coat," Kate said already tugging it off of the back of her couch. She quickly shoved her arms into the sleeves and came to the table to grab the other carrier. They left her dorm/ apartment and went down to where Lanie's car was parked.

The daycare center was several miles away, too far to walk, and Lanie lived fairly close by so they always carpooled to the daycare center and then to class. They drove to the daycare center. It took up a floor in one of the main office buildings. It had a nursery solely for sleeping, a play room, a cafeteria for the two and three year olds, and several classroom type rooms with tables, these were for the two and three year olds as well and served as the craft rooms. Kate and Lanie brought the carriers into the play room, where everyone gathered in the morning.

"Hey Kate, Lanie," Laurie, one of the daycare center's workers, greeted.

"Hi Laurie," Kate said putting the carrier on a table in the corner of the room. Lanie did the same. They took the children out of their seats and placed them on a blanket with some of the other young babies.

Kate picked up each of them in turn and gave them a kiss saying "bye" and then turned to Laurie. "So I'll pick them up at about 5:30, after I get off of work," she said.

"Okay great," Laurie said waving as Kate and Lanie turned to leave.

Lanie drove to the center of campus, where her parking spot and most of the academic buildings were. The two girls said good bye and went their separate ways. Kate's headache subsided and she was able to make it through her two classes without pain.

At 3 o' clock Kate went to her job at the university office. She worked as a sort of records keeper. She did a lot of filing and organizing. She showed up every day and worked and worked for a couple of hours and got paid more than at her previous job as a cashier at a small boutique.

At 5:30 she swung by the daycare center and picked up the twins. Lanie had a meeting about med school that she had to attend and so she couldn't lend her car services. That meant that Kate had to walk the two miles home, a carrier in each hand. Needless to say by the time she got home her arms felt like they were going to fall off.

She got into the apartment and put the carriers on the couch, gasping in pain as she shook her arms out and tried to stop the aching. Once her arms had had enough time to recover she took the carriers back to the twins' room. Her dad was due in an hour and she had to get the twins fed and changed into their pajamas.

They were both pretty squirmy, having sat in their carriers for a while, and so she took them out of the carriers and put them on a blanket on the floor of their room. They moved their arms and legs and smiled up at their mother. Kate let them play for a little bit and then fed and changed them. She changed Jo into a green onesie with flowers on it and she changed James into a blue onesie with airplanes on it. When they were fed and changed she put them onto the blanket again so that she could pack an overnight bag for them.

Once her twins were taken care of she put them in their carriers and put the carriers on the kitchen table so that she could take care of herself. She rooted around in the cupboard for a while and finally found some mac and cheese that she could make. She set water on to boil and came over to entertain the twins. She played with the fixtures on their carriers and tickled them, trying to get them to laugh. When they did she smiled and laughed a little herself. When the water boiled she had to go back to the stove and put the pasta in. After that she couldn't spend much time away from the stove until the meal was ready.

Mac and cheese was a go to for Kate, it was quick, easy and still filled her up. She divided her time between eating and playing with the twins. When they laughed, she would laugh, or at least smile. This was the kind of joy that the twins would give her; they could always make her smile just by smiling and laughing. She finished her mac and cheese and cleaned up. When she came back in front of the carriers on the table she noticed James squirming.

James was definitely the louder and the more fidgety of the twins. He liked to move and the carrier didn't really allow him to do that. Kate took him out of his carrier and put him on her hip; she bounced him up and down some and walked in circles, trying to calm his need to move.

Kate heard a knock at the door and looked at the clock: 6:32. She walked over and opened the door.

"Hey Dad, right on time," she said continuing to bounce James on her hip.

"Hey Katie, you are the picture of motherhood," He said walking in and kissing both Kate and his grandson on their heads. Kate closed the door behind him and followed him over to the kitchen. He took Jo out of her carrier and lifted her high above his head, making her giggle. He brought her to his own hip and kissed her head as well.

"So I've got all that you need in the bag as usual," Kate said patting the bag that was sitting in one of the kitchen chairs.

"I guess we'll see you tomorrow evening?" Jim asked.

"Yeah," Kate said and then kissed James' head. She gave him a hug and then put him back in his carrier. Jim gave her Jo and Kate did the same to her. She buckled them in and turned to her dad. "Be careful and have fun."

"Don't worry, I'll bring them home safe and sound, you just get your work done," Jim said giving her a tight hug.

"Alright, thanks again Dad," Kate said.

"No problem," and with that he grabbed the bag and the carriers and left.

Kate knew that he would come back with the twins safe and sound but of course she would worry about them and miss them.


A/N: Thanks for reading. I tried to make this interesting but it seems boring to me. Remember that semester of Economic Theory at NYU (3x09 Close Encounters of the Murderous Kind)? Well here is when she took it. I hope you enjoyed it. The next chapter will jump to her graduation from college, so the twins will be about two. I don't know how long it will take me but I'll try to get it up soon. I have a lot of summer work and I have a month until school starts. Review with suggestions, questions, and criticisms and I'll try and get back to you.