Author's Note-For those that are interested, thumbs up :D Really, really up haha. Thanks for all the support and encouragement :D NYLF xx
Kate and Castle went their separate ways, once they had both agreed that Saturday morning was her deadline to get back to him, before he told Becca himself.
Kate sat in her car for a few minutes, wiping her face and taking deep breaths, before taking out her phone.
"Hi, Kate." Josh's tone was cool, but not unkind.
Kate couldn't blame him for being distant with her. "Hey, Josh." She murmured. "Listen, I was wrong earlier."
Josh sighed, running a hand through his hair as he shook his head. "Yeah, I think we both were."
"You wanna maybe come over? Have dinner, talk?" Kate offered, bravely.
"Sure. You want me to bring food with me?" Josh asked, quietly. "I'm not gonna be able to be with you until nine, nine thirty. I've got a best interest meeting at eight, and then I've gotta get down to you."
Kate sighed softly. "Give me a text when you leave the hospital, and I'll order it here. Saves you a trip."
Josh smiled. "Alright. I've got surgery in a couple of minutes, I've gotta get scrubbed in, but listen, I'm sorry about what I said earlier."
"I know." Kate smiled softly. "I'm sorry for my reaction. Go get scrubbed, text me when you're leaving, and I'll order food."
"I will. See you as soon as I can."
They both hung up the phone, Josh dropping his cell back into his bag and shoving it into his locker, while Kate slid her phone into her pocket and turned over the engine, making her way back through traffic to get home.
Kate ran a nervous hand through her hair in her bathroom mirror, making eye contact with herself in the glass, giving herself a mental pep-talk. She took a deep breath, startling half way through breathing out, when a knock at her door echoed through her apartment.
She shook herself out of it, making her way over to the door, stopping to grab her purse on the way through.
"Hey..." she opened the door, expecting the delivery boy, instead finding Josh, leaning against the door jam, the steaming bag of Chinese take out hanging from his fingers.
"Hey." He murmured, a sheepish smile on his face. "I met the delivery boy at the elevator, he recognised me."
Kate smiled softly. "I'll pay you for my half."
Josh shook his head. "Don't be silly." He gave her a smile, a shadow of the charming smirk he normally shot her, to make her knees weak, and stood up straight.
"Come on in." Kate smiled, holding the door open, closing it with a deep breath while Josh unpacked their dinner in her kitchen.
"So," Josh started, a little awkward, pausing Kate with her fork halfway to her mouth, "a kid, huh?"
Kate sighed deeply, setting her fork back in the carton before cradling it in her lap. "Yup." She murmured.
Josh nodded. "She's Castle's kid, too?"
Kate didn't look up from the noodles in her lap, before nodding the affirmative.
"How did that happen?" Josh asked, incredulous.
Kate scoffed. "And you call yourself a doctor..."
Josh huffed a laugh, shaking his head, nudging her pulled up knees with his foot. "I know how babies happen, Kate. I was wondering how you and Castle happened."
Kate shrugged, reaching over to put her carton next to his on the coffee table. "You really want the details?"
Josh hesitated. "I don't wanna know what happened past the bedroom door, but I guess, I would like to know how you got there."
Kate nodded slowly.
"My mom dying threw me through a loop, unsurprisingly," she started softly, only now realising that, four months into this, her boyfriend didn't even know how her mother died. "I got into a club and got very drunk. A guy asked me to dance and we danced. One thing led to another..."
"And he propositioned you." Josh finished.
Kate shook her head. "I propositioned him actually." She registered the surprise in the doctor's eyes with a tinge of annoyance. "We ended up back at the loft and nine months later, along came baby."
Josh paused, obviously taking that in. "How did you work out it was him?"
Kate smiled softly, sadness coating the curve.
This memory was bitter sweet.
"I knew his name was Rick, we had exchanged that much, and I've always had a good sense of direction. When I left pre-daylight, I figured out where I was. I just forgot it, put it out of my head, y'know? But then two months go by, and I haven't started, and I'm starting to feel queasy at the littlest of things, and I start to question."
Kate shrugged.
"I took Maddie, who was just about to jet off for spring break, and got a pregnancy test, or three, and I realised that I was in fact, pregnant. Maddie knew, the moment I came out of the stall in tears. She took my hand and dragged me out of the drug store, citing that we needed Retail Therapy. We passed a book store window, and suddenly, there he was. Richard Castle, proud author of the Storm Series, there in the window display. Obviously it was a cardboard cut out, but I knew it was him."
Josh watched as she carefully smoothed her hand under her eye, checking it for black smudges before continuing.
"We got an early dinner, Maddie was leaving in the morning, and she gave me a number of a clinic a friend of hers had used. Told me to be safe and to call her once she was back."
"Why didn't you do it?" Josh asked softly, no malice or hurt intended, just curious as to what made a single, not-even-twenty-year-old keep her baby.
Kate smiled, her hand subconsciously landing on the base of her stomach, where she'd nurtured the girl for nine months. "I loved her. I was terrified, but I loved her. I threw the card away, went home to tell my dad, after calling and making an OB/GYN appointment, but he was already passed out, drunker than I'd seen him for a while. I wept that night. I could never bring a baby into that world and I couldn't just abandon my dad, knew I could never give her everything she needed on my own."
Kate shook her head, smoothing her hand through her hair.
"I joined Castle's fan sites, kept an eye on the press, made sure he still lived at the same address. I stopped going to visit my dad when I started to show, at four and a half months, had gotten myself a little place of my own by then. I went into labour in the middle of the street, outside my apartment, on the third of November, at eight thirty in the evening. My neighbour at the time, Mr Lennox found me, doubled over in pain, on his way in from work, offered to drive me to the hospital. She was born at nine fifty six the next morning."
Josh couldn't miss the joy and pride bloom on Kate's face.
"She was beautiful."
She looked up suddenly, before disappearing to her bedroom, coming back a moment later with a tiny box, holding it in her lap as she opened it.
Inside, Josh could see all the treasures Kate had kept, from her too short time as a mother. Their hospital bracelets, the baby's hand and foot prints, ultrasound pictures and a polariod picture that she handed to him with such incredible care.
A much younger, and exhausted- but undeniably beautiful- Kate Beckett was sat up in a hospital bed, cradling a tiny baby to her chest, the girl's face just visible above her swaddling. She, too, was incredibly gorgeous.
"I begged and pleaded with the nurse to let me go that same day, but she said it was against regulations, so I checked out AMA."
Josh looked up from the photo in horror. "Kate, do you have any idea the danger you put yourself in?"
"If I had stayed the night, I'd have bonded with her, Josh." Kate reasoned, gently tucking the photograph back in the box and closing the lid softly. "It was dark, middle of the night, by the time I got to his door." She shook her head. "I left her on his doorstep, waited until he had taken her inside, and left."
Kate sighed softly and Josh felt his heart ache for her.
"I kept an eye on all his fan sites, all the press about him, but there was never any mention of a child, let alone my baby girl, so I assumed that he had given her up, for her own safety and well-being, much like I had. I never for a moment actually let myself believe that he had kept her."
Josh sighed softly, taking her hand gently. "Her walking status..."
"Temporary." Kate nodded. " A burst fracture dislocation of her L1 and L2 vertebrae."
Josh winced.
"Yeah." Kate murmured softly. "She's in a lot of pain but she'll be okay. She's making massive progress. Can even walk with crutches for little distances now." Kate smiled.
"Does she know? That you're her mom?" Josh asked quietly, off her questioning look.
"No." She murmured. "Castle didn't even know, until he overheard me tell you. I asked for some time before we tell her, he's given me until Saturday morning."
Josh sighed softly. "You're a parent, Kate."
Kate set her memory box on the table and turned back to him, giving him her full attention. "I know."
"I just..." the doctor shook his head, running his hand frustratedly through his hair. He'd graduated in the top two percent in his class, but he couldn't talk, to the woman he was falling for, about her kid?
"It's weird for you." Kate nodded.
"He cares about you." Josh murmured, watching Kate's spine stiffen. This wasn't the first time she'd defended the platonic nature of her relationship with the writer.
"Josh..."
"Kate, he does. And knowing that you had his kid, is only going to enhance that."
Kate sighed gently. "What are you saying?"
Josh shook his head. "I'm falling for you. I am. I won't deny that. But that means I don't want to make this difficult for you. And I think, co-parenting is hard enough, without trying to juggle us too."
Kate hung her head, tears gathering in her eyes. She didn't want to hurt him, didn't want to string him along.
"And," Josh hesitated, stroking his thumb across the back of her hand softly, "I think, watching you fall for him will be too hard."
Kate looked up at him, tears beading on her lashes. "If we're together, I would never..."
"I know." He assured her softly, carefully cupping her cheek, swiping his thumb under her eye. "I know you wouldn't Kate, but you're amazing. You're beautiful, and brilliant, and any man would be so lucky to have you."
Kate blushed, lowering her eyes.
"I want you to be happy, Kate. That's my only priority. And if that means that you fall in love with him, I'll graciously step aside."
"I didn't mean to make this so hard." She pushed out, her voice breaking around the tears.
"I know." Josh pulled her closer, kissing her crown softly.
Kate buried her face in his neck, wrapping her arms around him.
"But our schedules are hectic enough, without trying to add in you spending enough time with Becca. And Doctors Without Borders isn't really conducive to a stable situation for a kid."
Kate nodded against him.
"I'm not gonna make this harder for you, by trying to keep you." Josh murmured against her ear, holding her tightly despite his words.
"You're kinda great, you know that?" She asked him softly, wetly.
Josh chuckled, smoothing his hand up and down her back. "Feeling's mutual."
Kate shook her head, smiling as she pulled back, even as she swiped the tears from her face. "I want you to be happy, Josh. And I don't think that can be with me right now."
The surgeon sighed, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Do I agree? Yeah." He shook his head with a sad smile. "Am I happy about it? Definitely not."
Kate smiled at him softly. "I really like you, Josh."
"I really like you too, Kate." He murmured. Ever so slowly, he moved in and captured her lips in a sweet kiss, them both tasting the goodbye it signified.
Once he had pulled back, Josh pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead, and stood to retrieve his jacket, Kate standing slowly to join him.
"Keep in touch, okay?" She asked quietly. "Let me know that you get home safe every time?"
He nodded as he slipped his jacket on. "You know I will."
Kate smiled softly, nodding as she followed him to the door.
"You take care, okay?" He murmured softly.
Kate nodded, opening her mouth to say the same back, when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She shot Josh an apologetic look and drew it out, her mouth twisting in confusion when she saw Castle's face.
"Get it. It might be important." Josh told her, kissing her cheek before opening the door.
"Hello? Castle?"
Josh got all of two steps out of the door when he heard Kate gasp, turning back to see her as all the colour drained out of her face.
"Yeah, I'll, I'll be right there." She murmured frantically, hanging up the phone and staring at Josh, stricken and frightened.
"Hey, what's happened?" He asked softly.
"It's Becca. She's being rushed to hospital. She, she fell and..." She shook her head. "I need to get to the hospital."
Josh stilled her shaking hand, before she could try and grab her keys from the hook inside her door.
"No way." He shook his head, holding tighter when she tried to pull away.
"I can't not go..." She started angrily, but Josh shook his head again.
"Not my objection. You're in no fit state to be behind the wheel. I'll drive you. "
Kate hesitated.
"Kate, I'm not gonna make a scene, and I'll go as soon as you want me to, but I cannot, in good conscience, let you drive right now."
Kate nodded, practically slamming the door shut behind her and locking the door with Josh's key- them both realising he'd have to give it back soon enough, so it might as well be now-before letting the doctor lead her out to his car.