a.n. The beginning of this chapter bugs me. Anyone who has done their research or has read a Robin Cook novel knows that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City is not a one or two man operation, as it is portrayed in canon. Nor is the layout of its offices anywhere close to what is shown in the show (i.e. with the ME's desk in the operating theater). However, I've stuck with canon, despite knowing it's wrong.
Again, thanks to Her Pegship for doing a phenomenal job of beta-ing this story.
Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, and I've run out of pithy, humorous and sarcastic comments to make about why I don't own it.
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December 10, 2009
Lanie Parish shrieked when she found Kate Beckett sitting on one of the autopsy tables at 6:30 in the morning.
"Girl, you scare the bejeebus out of me. What are you doing here this early in the morning?"
"Good morning to you too, Lanie. I wondered if we could talk."
Lanie looked at her best friend shrewdly. "Are you finally going to tell me what has been going on with you these last few weeks? You've taken more days off in the last month or so than you have in the last ten years. So what's going on?"
"Well," Kate said, sighing. "I guess I should start with saying that Will and I broke up."
"Oh, honey, did he take that job in Boston?"
"I don't know if he's going to do that or not. It wasn't why we broke up, though."
"Well...why did you break up?"
Kate was silent for several moments. The silence coming from her best friend was driving Lanie mad. She'd never been a patient woman, and what patience she did have was quickly running out.
"Well?"
"It turns out," Kate said, slowly, "that he didn't like the idea of me having contact with my son."
Lanie looked at Kate like she had grown a second head. Son? Kate didn't have a son. Lanie was pretty sure that she'd have known if Kate Beckett had had a child. "Kate, honey, are you okay? You don't have a son."
Kate laughed, sadly. "That's what I pretended for a decade, too. But I do. You see, when I was nineteen, before my mom died, I was engaged to be married. Soon after that I found out I was pregnant. When my mom died, I didn't think that I could be both a cop and a mom, so I let my son's father raise him. I hadn't seen him since I gave birth to him over ten years ago. I saw him Halloween night, and then I arranged to meet him for real yesterday."
Lanie sat down in her office chair in shock. "You...you had a kid? B...but...but. I don't even know what to say."
"Yeah, well, Will said plenty."
"How did he take it when he found out?"
"When we first talked about it after Halloween? Not well, but he didn't freak out. He wondered at my motivations for wanting to be a part of Alex's life, but other than that he didn't say much."
"A-and what happened that made you break up?" Lanie asked. She was still in shock, but maybe if Kate kept talking it would sink in that her best friend was a mom, but had somehow abandoned her child for ten years.
"Well..."
-Flashback-
She made her way into the dark apartment after sliding off her heels. She knew Will was likely in bed as he would also have to be at work quite early the next morning. That was why she was surprised to find him sitting on their couch, drinking a beer.
"Will?"
He was quiet for a moment before he asked,"So...did you and the brat have a good time?"
"Excuse me?"
"I asked you if you and your brat had a good time."
Kate scowled. "Why are you being like this? Alex isn't a brat. He's a great kid."
"Oh, sure. If he's so great, he didn't really need you in his life then, did he?" Will asked snidely.
Well, that just hurt. She and Will had had many arguments during their time together, but they'd never been deliberately hurtful to one another. And she would have never suspected that Will would have been hurtful about this of all things. He knew how much guilt she felt over not being there for her child. They'd talked about it. And while he hadn't been able to understand her choices, he seemed to at least support her decision to make amends.
Apparently, she'd been wrong.
"What's your problem, Will?"
"My problem is that you're off spending time with another man's child. You've spend more time thinking about this than you've spent with me in the last few weeks."
"So what, you're jealous? And, I'll remind you, Alex is my child too. I may not have been there for him before, but I will be from now on."
"So that's it then? You're just going to throw away the life you and I have together?"
"No! Of course not. I can have both."
Will scoffed. "You've already made your decision. And it didn't include me."
"What, you mean like your job in Boston? Yes, I know you've made the decision. I heard you on the phone yesterday."
-End Flashback-
"It escalated from there until I told him to just pack his bags and leave."
Lanie was silent for several moments before she huffed. "Girl, you're just full of drama. Why didn't you ever tell me you had a kid?"
"Well, you'd have wanted to meet him. And I did my absolute best to bury the memories from that time. It hurt too much, and I felt guilty. I still feel guilty, but I'm trying. I spent the entire afternoon and evening with Alex yesterday and I get to do it again next week. I'm hoping I can see him for a little while near Christmas."
"What's he like? Do you have a picture?"
"Yeah. I took one after we got out of the movie theater last night." Kate took her iPhone out of her back pocket and swiped until she brought up one of the photos she'd been able to take the night before. She passed her phone to Lanie.
"Aww. He's so cute. Has your eyes. His dad must have been a hottie," she said slyly.
"Nice way of asking about his dad there, Lanie."
"Well, can you blame me? Apparently, Will wasn't your first serious relationship like I had been led to believe. So dish, girl. Who was he?"
"Rick and I met when were were very young. We started dating when I turned 14, and we planned on going to Stanford together. And yes, he was and is a hottie."
"Is? How much have you seen of him recently?"
"Lanie," Kate warned.
"No. Come on. Is he single? You're newly single. And you already have a child together."
"Lanie! I just got out of a relationship. I don't need to jump into bed with someone else. Besides, Rick is in my past. Even if I still had feelings for him, which I don't, he would never trust me again after I abandoned him and our child."
Lanie nodded sadly. "Ah well, you can't blame a girl for trying. So when do I get to meet your little boy?"
"I don't know. Right now I'm just going to try to be a part of his life. When I will get to introducing him to my friends will have to be decided after my relationship with him is on firmer ground. I do want to introduce him to my dad, though. I think Alex should know that he has another grandparent around."
"That makes sense. Are you going to tell your team about your son?"
"What! No, of course not. At least, not any time soon. Can you imagine Esposito's reaction? His mother did the same thing to him that I did to Alex, and Espo never forgave her despite her attempts to make amends later in his life. He didn't even go to her funeral. I don't need him judging me about my mistakes. I know how bad it was, what I did. All I can do is take this chance to get to know Alex and try to be the mom I should have been."
The two women talked for a few more minutes, before Kate departed for her own work. She was happy to have talked with Lanie. She felt better. She had known that the breakup with Will was likely on the horizon, what with the Job Offer of Doom hanging over their heads, but she hadn't expected it to be so nasty. She wasn't kidding when she said she wasn't going to be jumping back into the dating scene any time soon. She wanted to focus all of her efforts now on being a part of Alex's life. Maybe she'd find someone who she could be with someday, but she knew that day was far off into the future.
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December 11 2009
Rick Rodgers groaned as he leaned back in his chair. His next novel was not going well. Derrick was not cooperating, and Rick didn't know what to do about it. His publisher, Gina, was hounding him about meeting his next deadline, but he just could not get the story to go in the right direction.
On top of that Alex was busy with school and end of semester class projects, which meant that Rick was spending a lot of time helping his son do his school work, which in turn meant less time with his writing. Not that he would ever deny his son help. He was so proud of Alex for doing so well in school. If that meant some time away from his writing (which was frustrating him anyways), then so be it.
Rick stood from his chair and walked into the kitchen. Alex was sitting at the island with his art pad out, working on his drawing for his art project.
"How's it going, bud?"
"Fine," Alex said absentmindedly.
"Okay. So did you decide what you're going to sketch?"
"Yeah," Alex said, looking up. "I'm going to do do a sketch of mom."
"Your mom," Rick asked, somewhat dumbly.
"Yeah. Do you think it'd make a good Christmas present?"
Rick laughed. "I'm sure she would love it. She's not going to have to pose for it?"
"No. We're supposed to do it from memory. I was going to do a family portrait of you, me and Gram, but I don't feel comfortable doing a self-portrait. I look funny."
Rick laughed again. "No you don't. You're just starting to grow into your teenage bones. All boys get gangly as they get taller. You're not going to be a little boy for much longer."
"Does that mean I finally get to drive the Ferrari?"
"Not any time soon, it doesn't," Rick said.
"Bummer."
-:::-
a.n.2. A little shorter than normal, but that felt like the best place to end it. Next chapter we see more Kate/Alex, some Kate and Rick in the same place once again, and we get a little closer to Christmas and New Year.
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