Just wanted to say thanks to all who reviewed the last chapter, it makes my day. Standard disclaimers apply, don't own any of this.

Chapter 14

Martha went home to the apartment that Chet shared with her. She was still thunderstruck. In Richard's loft, she had summoned the skills accumulated during her lifetime to portray a woman who was not "freaked out" (as Alexis would say). All this time, believing that she shared a child with that cheating weasel of a professor. Now to find out he was actually Chet's.

She took a deep breath and let herself in. Chet was on the phone, with Assemblyman Keddy from the sound of things. He smiled at her fondly before speaking into the receiver. "Hey, Mel, listen, I have to run….Ah ha ha. Very funny. Not run for office, that's your thing. Yeah. We'll touch base during the week. Bye."

Chet turned to properly greet her. "Hiya, gorgeous. Have a good night?"

She hesitated before replying. "It was good….certainly interesting."

"Why's that?" he asked, heading to the wet bar to fix her a cocktail. She held up her hand.

"Nothing for me right now, though you should probably fix yourself a stiff one."

Chet turned to her in alarm. "No drink for you, but I should…. For heaven's sake, Martha, what is going on?"

"Sit down, love."

He folded his arms resolutely. "Whatever it is, I can take it. What's happened? Someone sick?"

"No, not at all," she reassured him. Lord, this was more difficult than she thought. "Chet, dear, do you remember when you came home after the accident? That one night when you were so distraught?"

Chet smiled fondly. "Yes, that night was quite memorable."

Martha continued. "Well it seems you had nothing to be distraught about. Your fertility was not as damaged as you thought…" she let the sentence dangle, hoping he would start to comprehend what she was saying.

"My fertility? For God's sake, Martha. Do stop beating around the bush."

"Oh Chet. Richard…is your son."

"My…my what?"

"Your son, dear. Kate saw your old pictures and thought she saw a resemblance. She ordered a DNA test, which confirmed it. Which means you are suddenly both a father, and a grandfather."

With that, Chet sat. Heavily.

Kate stood in their bedroom, inspecting her reflection. She slipped the chain with her mother's ring over her neck, then fixed the collar of her blouse and fluffed her hair. Behind her, a cloud of steam materialized as the bathroom door opened. Kate paused, fingers still in her locks, as she watched him emerge. Rick had his head bent, toweling himself off. He looked up and met her gaze in the glass. His face immediately broke into a grin.

"What's the matter, babe. Hoping to catch me naked?" His eyebrows waggled.

She rolled her eyes, even as she was caught up in his infectious smile. "You spend too much time naked. I was hoping to catch you clothed and ready to go." She turned and leaned her hip against the bureau.

He faked a pout. "Tell me you don't have fun when I'm naked. And you're naked. And we're…." he cringed as she wound up to chuck her comb at him.

"Get. Dressed. We have a meeting with the wedding planner before I have to go to work."

"I still don't see why we need a wedding planner. I can handle all the details."

She pointed at him. "That. Right there. You handling things. THAT's why we need a wedding planner. I don't want our theme to be anything that might have been featured at a comic book convention or in a horror movie."

Castle opened his mouth to push the envelope a bit further, but the self preservation part of his brain pointed out the "I Mean Business" look she was giving him. He hurried into his closet to dress.

When he emerged the room was empty. He found her downstairs stirring vanilla syrup into her coffee. He reached around her for a travel mug, shamelessly groping her ass in the process. She looked over her shoulder at him.

"Sneaky, very sneaky, but it's not going to work."

"What?" he asked innocently.

"You know what. That's my favorite shirt on you. You know it never lasts."

"I call this my lucky shirt. 'Cause I always seem to get lucky when I wear it." He paused to give her a wicked grin. "Since we have an appointment and then work, I guess you can consider it an incentive to hurry home tonight. Maybe you can teach me some more Russian. Let's see, what were last night's? 'lyoobov' : love. Very important. And then there was 'gromko' : loud. Which you certainly were."

Kate sat at her desk, Rick in "his" chair beside it. The meeting with the wedding planner had gone well but she was starting to regret her suggestion that he accompany her into work. He was excitedly talking about some of the suggestions the planner had made about the music and the food. When his jiggling chair started to tap against her desk, she shot a glare in his direction. Oblivious, he continued.

In the sweetest voice she could muster, she said "Sit still or go home, durak"

"What'd he do to piss you off this time?" a husky female voice inquired from behind Kate.

Castle looked up to greet Karpowski. "What makes you think I did anything?" he asked, giving her his best cocky grin.

She stared at him, but he simply looked cluelessly back at her. She opened her mouth, closed it, cocked her head to the side.

He smiled, mentally processing her name. Slavic origins. "Ok you caught us. Kate's been teaching me a handful of Russian words so that we can have more…private conversations…in a not-so-private place. Like that little term of endearment you heard just now."

She chuckled a little, then shook her head. "If 'fool' is a term of endearment, you guys have a weirder relationship than I thought" she said as she retreated.

His smile faded. He tried to look at Kate, but she was suddenly very interested in the contents of her file drawer. "Beckett?" She ignored him.

"Kat-ya…." he called in a sing-song voice. She sat up and reluctantly turned to him.

"Wha-at?" she returned in the same tone.

He smiled, amused. "If you're hoping to play irritated with me so I'll forget I should be irritated at you, you should probably wait until you've stopped blushing."

She went back to staring at her computer screen, employing the "if I ignore him maybe he'll go away" strategy. Lord only knew why she was bothering, if it had never worked in all the time before they were together, why the heck would it work now?

He toyed with the idea of continuing to sit there, knowing she would squirm. She'd be waiting for his next move. Ha, there, a furtive, apprehensive glance in his direction. He was careful to keep a benign smile on his face while he thought.

Kate was acutely aware of him, sitting quietly beside her. Then he was on the move. She looked up, surprised.

"You're taking your jacket to the break room?"

"No, I'm going home. You said sit still or go, so... I'll see you back at the loft."

She studied his expression, looking for sulking, but he had his poker face on. Damnit. She knew that over time couples learned to read one another's moods better. She prided herself on reading people already, but he was a challenge this time.

Kate got home and put the pastry box on the counter in the kitchen. She retrieved two plates from the cabinet and placed a cream puff on each of them. Pouring two glasses of milk, she set one on each plate and carried the whole assemblage to the door of Rick's office. An idea had her scurrying back to the kitchen She put the plates down and unbuttoned her blouse, then returned to his door. Suddenly she realized she had a problem. She'd left herself without a hand to knock or turn the doorknob. She had to settle for kicking it lightly.

The door flew open and she had to suppress a laugh at the alarmed look on Rick's face. She settled for a smile before pressing one of the plates into his chest.

"Sorry I missed dinner. I got stuck in an interrogation. Want some dessert?" This last part was delivered in her best suggestive tone.

His smile was one of delighted disbelief but something else was underlying.….discomfort?

"Uhh, that's…wow…nice idea, but not great timing." Rather than let her in, he stepped forward and closed the door behind him.

"Not great timing, why not?"

"I'm in the middle of something at the moment."

"So, go save your document, and then…."

"Actually I have company."

"Company? Whatever! I came home to try to fix things with you, but if you're going to shut me out..."

Rather than looking guilty or defensive, he merely smiled at her. "Here, give me the other plate" he said gently. He took it and set it aside, then buttoned up her blouse for her.

So stunned that for once he was dressing, rather than undressing her, she let him. He opened the door so that she could see Paula sitting on the other side of his desk, surrounded by what appear to be schedules.

For the second time that day, she was mortified. Naturally he'd blocked the way so Paula hadn't seen anything. She had to have heard everything though. He quietly closed the door again.

"Why didn't you say that at the beginning?"

"I was trying not to ruin the surprise. Paula and I are figuring out how to juggle my appearance schedule so that we can be gone on the honeymoon as long as possible."

Kate tried to formulate an answer to that, but a pitiful "Oh" was the best her brain had to offer.

"Go put all this in the refrigerator, then go take a bath. I will bring it up as soon as I can get rid of Paula, ok?"

She nodded numbly and did as he suggested.

He found her curled up in her comfy chair in a pearl grey satin robe, reading. "You really do retreat into books when you're upset, huh?"

She looked up and smiled. "You have no idea."

He sat down on the love seat and handed her one of the plates he'd retrieved from the refrigerator. "Come sit beside me?" he asked. He took a swipe of cream from her cream puff and applied it to the tip of her nose. She went cross-eyed looking at the blob of cream, and he fell against the arm of the love seat with laughter.

She took a similar dollop of cream from his pastry, but offered it to him on her finger. He sucked it off, then moved in to kiss her.

They finished their desserts and set the plates aside, and she moved off the couch to kneel before him. His eyebrows shot up with surprise and a grin of lustful anticipation took hold of his face, until she shook her head. "Not what you're thinking. Not yet anyway." She took a breath and continued.

"Time for another Russian lesson. 'Prostitye mnye' Forgive me."

Rick grinned and pulled her up into his lap. "I left the station so I could think a little. It took me a very short walk to figure out a few things. First, other than Karpowski, no one knows what you were calling me, so it's certainly not any great public humiliation. Second, if I didn't have it coming this time, then I can consider it a payback for any number of the times in the past when I have driven you crazy."

"And?" Kate prompted.

"And what?"

"You said a few. That was two, and you are never inaccurate in your choice of words."

He was impressed that she'd caught that, but then being a sharp listener was one of the many things that made his Kate extraordinary.

"Third, I don't have to actually take revenge on you. Watching you stress out trying to figure out what I might do is plenty of fun for me."

He cried out in mock pain when she slugged his shoulder, then turned her so that she was sitting facing him. They kissed and embraced and connected and loved, then slept.

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