somewhere to go
Thank you all for supporting this small little fic of mine. I didn't expect it to attract so much attention. I love you all. Happy one year Caskett anniversary.
Ten months later.
It's like learning how to walk.
Something that she knows should be easy. Walking is all about instinct. Young children do it.
But after being swept off of her feet by a gust of pain, it's hard to find her bearings again. Her hands can scrabble at the earth as madly as she wants. She can be as willing as she possibly can be to pull herself back up again. But it takes time.
One foot in front of the other. Don't run before you can walk.
The metaphor is a little extended, she thinks. But that's how the pain slowly and frustratingly ebbs away. Until one day she can open her eyes and anticipate the future rather than be swallowed whole by the past.
So that's why, when she lies beneath Castle one night, wrapped up in him, them, and he reaches for the drawer, she puts a hand on his wrist and stops him.
"I stopped taking my pill a week ago." She whispers, brushing her mouth against his cheekbone, foot rubbing up his calf.
He braces himself on his forearms above her, studying the flecks of fire in her eyes.
"Kate…"
"I love you." She whispers, hands reverently tracing his skin. "I love you, Castle."
He buries his face into her neck, tongue darting out to taste the skin there. "Didn't even give me a chance to give you a ring."
Kate chuckles, a retort dying on her tongue as he swallows her contagious laughter with his lips.
In this moment she thinks that he tastes like the heart he traces into her coffee each morning.
In this moment she thinks that he tastes like forever and always and
Everything.
Right here in her arms.
If he were to rate how much he hates Gina on a scale of one to ten, he'd rate it as fourty-seven.
He's hurrying through the streets of New York because today is the day. Today is the day that Kate is going to pull down three boxes they'd hidden in the back of the wardrobe and see what happens. Two weeks late. She is two weeks late and she's told him not to get his hopes up but how can he not? Everything about this is so exciting. Makes his leg jiggle as he sits through the mundane meeting about the price of the next four book Nikki Heat deal that, in that moment, he doesn't really care about.
Finally, he bursts into the loft, finding her not waiting for him on the couch like she said she would. And he grins, frustrated and awed, because he knows. As much as she told him not to get his hopes up, he knows that she couldn't wait either.
He nervously approaches their bedroom, and that's where he finds her.
Kate sits in the middle of the bed, surrounded by three pregnancy tests. All positive.
Her eyes lift to his shyly, and he can't tell what she's thinking, because his writer's mind is already in overdrive.
Her hair is stunning in the orange sun of the winter afternoon, painting her in the warmth of the summer. She glows, practically oozes this warmth from every soft line, curve, swell of her. She looks ethereal. As though there are no endings to her nerves and she is a constant cycle of renewed vitality, immeasurable in her beauty. She looks as though she has swallowed the sun and it is smiling upon her with an incomprehensible level of awe- sheer awe at how one woman could hold so much life, so much hope, after so little to hold on to.
"Kate."
The edges of her lips soften, lines between her eyebrows lessening.
"Oh, Kate."
He sits on the edge of the bed, unmoving, watching her.
Kate's eyes fill with tears and she looks away, rubbing at the tears embarrassedly.
"I- I'm sorry." She murmurs when he studies her strangely. "I'm sorry. I should be happy. I am. I think."
The wings around his heart flutter hastily, knocking against his ribs. He wonders if she can hear.
"It's okay. It's okay to be confused." He tells her, sliding closer to her carefully. If he pushes too much she'll pull away. "Take your time to accept it."
Kate's eyes flutter as she fights against the tears, breathing in and out harshly. One of her hands seeks his and he holds on with all his might because he doesn't quite know what else to do.
Even her hand is so fragile.
He swipes a thumb across her wrist. He can see the veins, prominent. Currents of life.
They are alive.
He holds her so preciously when she doesn't deserve to be held that way. She doesn't deserve to be comforted.
Kate slides her hands from his and slips from the bed, huffing. Paces, hands on her hips, frowning.
"I wanted this. I do- I… I do want this." She thinks aloud, pulling her lip between her teeth.
"But you're scared."
Kate hesitates, glancing over at him. He's watching her so patiently and understandingly that he makes it impossible for her to be annoyed at him for reading her mind. It's like she has no independency. No solitude.
But it makes it easy.
"God, yes." It all comes out in a rush then, spilling out of her like ink. "I mean, aren't you? Last time, we had no idea that this was happening. No idea until it was taken away from us for no reason whatsoever. And now we do know and we've planned this and God Castle I am terrified. What happens if things go wrong again? I can't handle that, Castle. I can't. I'm already- I'm terrified but I'm already so attached. I love our little person so much already and I can't go through with this completely and utterly terrified of something so stupid as eating something that could make things go wrong!"
She stands, chest heaving, eyes wide and cheeks wet. Alone. Watching him watching her.
But her heart feels freer than it did one minute ago.
Slowly, Castle rises, making no move to be closer to her. Outstretches one hand.
Swallowing, she steps forward, slipping her palm into his. No hesitation.
He squeezes her hand and smiles, tilting his head to the side. "You are remarkable. And extraordinary. And perhaps I've said the words so many times that they have lost your meaning, but you are."
Her lashes are wet as they flutter. She wets her lips, tasting salty tears on her tongue. "Castle." She's not sure if it's a plead or a request.
Castle tugs her closer, continuing his ramblings. "I wish you could see what I see."
He turns her so that they are facing the full-length mirror, and all she can see is the tear tracks on her cheeks, the terror in her eyes.
"Tell me what you see." She whispers.
He smiles into her neck, his hands wrapping around and settling on her stomach. Oh.
"I see an endless possibility. I am terrified, Kate. Every day, when you're at work, I'm terrified you're not going to come back home to me. But you're happy and you're doing what you love, and you know what? I wouldn't ever stop you. Your determination, your passion, it makes me love you more."
"Like you could stop me." She remarks dryly, staring at the reflection of his hands on her stomach.
"Kate, it's okay to be terrified. But do not let that stop you from enjoying the moment. Here is our possibility. Our little one is going to be the most loved, spoilt, protective kid there has ever been. You are going to love our kid so much it'll hurt me. Our little one will want to be just like you when they grow up. We are all going to be so happy together. And you are going to be the best Mom there has ever been."
She stares at him in a choked silence, awed. How is she ever supposed to amount to his words?
"That's what I see, Kate… That's what I see." He whispers, pressing a delicate kiss to the underside of her jaw.
The warmth starts where his hands are.
It floods through her bloodstream, seeping throughout her until she just feels so… So…
Full.
She is full.
And she can see it. Them. This.
Blue eyes and a cheeky grin just like him.
Stubborn just like her.
Her hands place themselves over Castle's and she looks up at their reflection, meeting his eyes with tears glittering in her own. Words flowing from her mouth and sounding foreign to her tongue but she is so, so happy she thinks that her heart has grown wings.
"Castle."
He leans closer to her, almost on his toes as his body presses against hers from behind, his cheek brushing hers. Leaning forwards with anticipation, listening to the hushed, excited tones of her voice.
Her smile stretches, wide, beyond anything his mind is ever capable of registering. He watches as stars are born, creation thrives and the universe bows to that smile, her reverent words somehow accommodating the shape. Her happiness.
She whispers it between heartbeats.
"We're gonna have a baby."
Everything ceases to exist but this. Them. Her.
A fragile new life beneath their twined hands.
Endless possibilities. Even on the worst days.
Laughter. Sticky fingers. Crinkles around her eyes when she smiles.
He is never letting go.
The End.