A/N: Are you still happy? Do you like to speculate? You can do so by checking out my second active fiction, co-written with WriterLeigh. But if you're spoiler free for season 6, do not ;-) It's called 'Need to know' and if you guys checked it out, we'd be honored :))

Chapter 10 - ... get me outta here!

As she didn't make a move to get back into the shower, he peeked out of the shower like she did, his head hovering mere inches above hers, his eyes furrowed in concentration as to what she was looking at.

"Castle?" she turned around, shoved him back into the shower, closed the see-through door to the cabinet and glared at him.

"Yes?" he asked, pretending to be innocent.

"When I told you that I wanted to get rid of Boba Fatt because he was creepy ... I didn't mean that you were allowed to have Yoda instead!"

The argument about the necessity to have either a life-size Boba Fatt or a (just slightly) smaller Yoda in one's bathroom went on whilst they finished their shower, the banter slowly leaned more toward the sensual side as soon as Castle offered to use heavenly scented body lotion on her. He went ahead into the bedroom and his voice faded slowly with each step he made.

"..., and it has the best reviews to date when it comes to preventive effects. Already say goodbye to stretch marks you will never have and ..."

Kate smiled. It was very Castle-ish to go ahead and to a web search on stretch marks, maternity clothes or pregnancy vitamins. She wasn't too sure if she wanted a whole lot more of that and it dawned on her that as soon as Ryan and Castle would get together and ANYONE would touch any of those topics, they would escalate beyond anything that was bearable. Kate sighed and pondered upon a diplomatic way of intervening with this all too likely scenario.

"... and those baby genius toys look really promising as well ..."

"Uh huh," Kate hummed and walked into the bedroom, still only wearing a towel, her tanned, long legs accentuated by the white color of the fabric. When he turned around to face her, clearly still chatting about various possibilities of early childcare and education, his eyes where immediately drawn to the hem of the towel mid-thigh and he stopped in his tracks. His eyes scanned her whole figure and even if they had just showered together in total nakedness, he was once again taken by surprise how much he just loved to look at her. How she was the most beautiful woman in the world. For him. And now she was glowing with motherly pride, her stomach not flat and toned anymore but a little softer, mushy even. Her body was preparing to grow a person inside of it and Castle couldn't get enough of the softness and tenderness it added to the former too too edgy Katherine Beckett.

"Wow," he simply said, closed the distance between them and embraced her, resonating love, trust and passion off of him. Kate couldn't help but smile when she looked at him mere moments later.

"What's wrong?"

"You're ... you're sensational. And I cannot wait to see what an awesome human being we will produce."

"'Will' produce? May I remind you that the production has already taken place a few weeks ago? The next step is the ripening."

"Ripening. I like that word. Especially when it comes out of your mouth. Like 'salacious', I liked that one, too."

Just to tease him she stepped a few steps back to enlarge the distance between them and then she said seductively: "Salacious ripening!"

"Woman!" he growled before he threw her onto the bed. This was going to be a long, long night.

"I am sorry, Kev," Jenny said and shot her husband an apologetic look. He had just come back from an impromptu visit to Seven Eleven, carrying two large bags of comfort food. He threw the keys onto the small table near the entrance and sighed. Spring rolls were yesterday, Jenny had switched to all things chocolate recently.

"No need to apologize, Jen," he said as he took in the pleading and apologetic look she still wore on her face.

"I can't help it, it's really strong. I feel like I have to have it..."

"Stop apologizing, it doesn't bother me," Ryan said, placed the bags on the kitchen counter and watched as Jenny rummaged through the contents of the bags and retrieved a Mars bar, greedily ripped the packaging open and bit into the chocolaty goodness.

"Hmmmmm, that's really good."

"I'm glad," Ryan said and stored the ice cream into the freezer compartment of their spacey fridge.

"Did you bring the macadamia one?"

"Of course."

"And the dark chocolate one ..."

"... with the caramel at the core? Sure, Jenny, as you ordered."

"You make it sound so bossy," Jenny said and made a face which made her husband chuckle.

"You have every right to boss me around a little bit," he answered and softly kissed her forehead, "especially if you're doing all the work right now." He gestured towards her baby bump which had started to become more prominent in the recent weeks. Ryan could tell that his wife was still not satisfied with his answer, clearly contemplating apologizing again.

"Stop it right there, I am perfectly fine with getting you whatever you're craving. You're carrying another human around and if you have needs, I'll try my best to get you what you want. And now please stop apologizing and let me run you a nice warm bath?"

"Sounds wonderful," Jenny answered and Ryan went ahead to have the water running, "did you speak to Kate during the last few days?

"Huh?"

"I asked her if she wanted to do some baby clothes shopping a couple of days ago, did you hit a case again? She hasn't gotten back to be on that..." Jenny said and Ryan could tell that she worried she could have said or done something to offend the detective.

"About that,..."

"What have I done?" Jenny furrowed his brows in frustration and the corners of her mouth pointed south.

"You didn't do anything but I suspect Kate might have forgotten."

"Oh," Jenny sounded disappointed and Ryan wasn't sure whether to tell her about Kate's hunch but he decided to not keep anything from his wife.

"She's got a lot on her mind these days," Ryan said and Jenny, who assumed that he was addressing the recent developments in Kate's life including the appearance of their arc nemesis, nodded vigorously and sympathetically.

"I bet she has," she said and gently patted Ryan's arm.

"And on top of that she suspects to be pregnant."

"Kevin Ryan! What did you just say?"

Dark, sinister, dangerous. He waited in a dark corner that night, whispering quietly into his burner cell phone, reporting back to his employer. He didn't have any qualms killing people, especially not when he saw a reason for them to be dead. Whenever he had accepted a job, he made sure that they were just those ones that had a single target. He avoided at all cost to endanger innocent bystanders- which he considered a noble trait.

"Alright, will do," he said, his voice dark and determined.

He disconnected the call and tossed the burner phone after he had removed the sim card and had folded it in half. It was time to find out who this Gina Cowell was, that had called Sam Canston. He thought her name had rang a bell. He needed to make sure she didn't suspect anything or alerted the police too early when the photographer didn't call back in an acceptable time span.

He decided to look into the persona Gina Cowell and to be hot on her heels.

A/N: The next chapter will be up today as well, review if you have the time? We'll pick up speed when Sam Canston is found which will happen pretty soon :))