Hey everyone! Go ahead and call me a slacker, because I know I've definitely been one. I'm really very sorry, I keep telling myself I'm going to write and then I end up doing everything else but. Plus, I've been in school (yes, it's excuse after excuse) but now I'm finished for the semester and I'll be back to writing for the next few months! Anyways I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Chapter 13:

Kate walked into the morgue and saw her best friend looking over a dead body.

"Hey girl."

"Hey Lanie, what was the call about?"

"Can't I say hi to my best friend?"

"Yeah but that's what phones or texts are for."

"Alright Detective, I just wanted to have some girl talk. I'm almost done here; I figured we could go out for lunch since you're case free."

"Sounds good." Kate replied.

She waited as Lanie finished and then got ready before they both made their way to a small restaurant.

"So, are you going to tell me any details?"

"Details about what?"

"Girl, you are pregnant, with Richard Castles baby!" She exclaimed quietly.

"I think our unborn son is enough detail into what happened."

"Yes, but from what I remember from last night, you two have been dating three weeks and as far as I know you're 18 weeks along."

"And?"

"Well, I'm your best friend; I deserve to know what happened between all of that time."

"Fine, when I first decided that I was going to keep the baby Castle said that he wanted to be involved and I let him. Things kind of just grew from there, literally. Three weeks ago we went out on a date and now I'm slowly moving in."

"So any wedding bells in the near future?"

"If I plan on being pregnant when I walk down the aisle. No, Castle and I have not spoken about any of that stuff. I think the best we can do right now is to work this relationship out and care for our son together, then maybe after we can start thinking about that."

Lanie rolled her eyes. "Well if you two start thinking about it remember that I call Maid of Honor."

Kate smiled at her best friend and rolled her eyes. Marriage was at the back of her mind at the moment. The only things she could focus on were work and her son.

"Fine, no wedding talk, but now you're going to let me plan the baby shower."

"I'd love that Lanie."

"So have you and Castle thought up of any names?"

"Castle still wants to name him after an author. He suggested Geoffrey after Geoffrey Chaucer but all I could think of was Jeffrey Dahmer…"

"The perks of being a homicide detective…"

"Tell me about it. It's so hard trying to find a name that doesn't remind me of some wacko." She replied. "I really like the name Alexander, but I don't want his name to be so close to Alexis'."

"Speaking of little Castle, how is she taking the news?"

"She was one of the firsts to know so she's known for a while now. But, she's been great; she's helping out with the nursery, she's been buying things for the baby…she's going to be a great sister."

"And step-daughter…"

"Lanie."

"Sorry, marriage discussion over."

"Thanks. Marriage is the last thing on my mind. Besides, I don't want Castle to feel like he has to marry me just because I'm carrying his child."

"Please, the man loves you. He'd marry you if you weren't pregnant."

She rolled her eyes at her friend. "So how are you and Javi doing?"

"Nice subject change. We're doing great, he's really excited about being an uncle; he says he'll be the one to teach baby Castle how to play baseball, football and every other sport since Castle isn't athletically inclined."

She laughed. Of course Espo would say something like that. But, it made her happy to know that her son would be surrounded by good male role models.

"I still can't believe you're pregnant with Castle's baby…"

"Trust me, I know the feeling." She replied. "But Castle's a good father, even if he is like a 9 year old on a sugar rush."

"Let's hope this kid doesn't inherit that part of the genealogy."

"Too late. He kicks and rolls every second of the day. Hopefully he inherits some of Alexis' traits."

"Yeah, it makes me wonder how Alexis is so well behaved while her father is…"

"Not; I've been wondering about that since the day I met her."

Back at the precinct Castle waited in his usual spot with a cup of tea.

"That was a long lunch."

"Well you know Lanie…"

"So how did it go?" Rick asked her as she sat down.

"It went well; as usual there were many questions about us."

"Nice. Oh, and thanks for leaving me alone with thing 1 and thing 2…"

"What did they do?"

"Several threats of bodily harm if I ever hurt you and a few pats on the back."

"I always knew I could count on them." She smiled slyly.

"Hey, that's not very nice. I even brought you a nice cup of tea and you thank me by insulting me!"

"Well what did you expect, our son likes to play kickball with my bladder and he enjoys kicking and punching his mommy a little too much."

Rick smiled. He loved hearing her say 'our son'; it made him happy to see how far they had come from when they first found out about the pregnancy and it made him hopeful for their future.

After 20 minutes of working on paperwork Kate noticed Rick looking at her.

"Yes Castle?"

"Is it just me or is everyone staring at us?"

"Everyone is staring at us. What do you expect; we did just tell them we're having a child together and that we're in a relationship."

"Yeah, but they seemed alright with it."

"Yes, and now they want to see how we interact with each other now that we're in a relationship."

"So what do we do now?"

"Just go about as we usually do when we're at work."

"Oh, alright then." He pulled out his phone and eagerly played Angry Birds.

"Man, would you look at them…" Esposito started at Beckett and Castle.

"What's the matter?" Ryan asked.

"It's so weird. I mean I always knew that Castle had a thing for Beckett and vice versa but I never thought they'd actually act upon it."

"Yeah, but at least now we can stop placing bets on them." He replied.

"I was really hoping that I was going to win that one. Hey, we can always bet on when he'll propose…"

"I like the way you think!"

That night Kate arrived at the Castle loft after needing to go home to grab some clothes.

"I made dinner."

"You always do, and I'm not hungry."

"You need to eat."

"I know, but everything's unappetizing to me." She replied.

"Even homemade Pizza with mushrooms, peppers, and olives?"

"See, that sounds really good, but I know once I eat it…"

"You'll feel sick, I know. You need to eat though."

"Alright, I'll make myself some toast."

"You can't keep eating toast for the rest of your pregnancy. Have you told the doctor about this?"

"Yeah, he says it's 'perfectly normal'." She replied clearly annoyed. "I swear every symptom I tell him about is 'perfectly normal'. Next time I'll tell him I've been bleeding from my eyeballs and see what he says about that."

Rick smiled at her rant. Seeing her get worked up over a little issue was funny and adorable, her brow would furrow and her nose would scrunch up a little. He jus wanted to pull her into a kiss.

"What's so funny?"

"You, you're adorable."

"How am I adorable?"

"You're always adorable. Our boy is going to be a heart breaker."

"I wouldn't be surprised." She laughed. "Speaking of our boy, we need to start picking out names…"

"How about Charles?"

"Manson." She replied.

"Kate, we can't nix every name because it belonged to a murderer."

"Yeah, well I can't help it."

"Fine, fine, you win."

"Good. I was looking through names online and I found a couple of really nice names."

"Please do share."

"I really like the name Blake or Blakely. Also Brody, Caden, Caleb, Carson, Cohen, Easton, and Liam."

"Wow, you've been researching a lot."

"What do you think? which one do you like?"

"I like the name Liam and Caden."

"Yeah, we can call him Caden Alexander or Liam Alexander…"

"Alexander?"

"Yeah, I want him to have a bit of his daddy in his name."

"Well, he'll have my last name…I prefer Liam Nicholas or Caden Ryan."

"I like that too."

"Don't sound so surprised!" He smiled. "So are we settled on those two names?"

"I don't know, I still want to keep looking, but those names are pretty high up on the list."

"Plus when he's born he may not look like a Caden or Liam. Did you know that we originally planned on name Alexis Hannah?"

"You did?"

"Yeah, but when she was born she looked nothing like a Hannah."

"That's interesting. I guess that means we may be thinking of names for a couple months longer."

"That's okay with me."

Sorry for the short chapter and abrupt ending. Hope you enjoyed and I'm definitely back in the game now that school's over. I want to finish 3 of my stories that are up and start on sequels and such. Hope you're having a wonderful day!