A/N1: This Chapter is titled 'I Got Rhythm'
"I think we have to release a statement announcing we're having a baby," Kate said to Rick a couple of days later as she arrived home. "I've been followed by the same paparazzo all day. I saw him when I arrived at the precinct, again when I left to have lunch with Lanie and Jenny and again when I left to come home."
"Was he intrusive?" Rick asked in concern as he stirred a pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove.
"No, he had a long range lens;" Kate replied wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head between his shoulder blades. "ugh Bub's been kicking me all day."
Rick put the wooden spoon he was using on the bench and turned around placing his large hands on her belly. Immediately he felt his son or daughter move and his face lit up with joy. "That never gets old," he murmured rubbing large, soothing circles on her belly. "How was work?"
Kate rolled her eyes. "Beyond the definition of boring," she grumbled "I hate paperwork. I did a couple of interro's with Ann to teach her technique but for the most part it was pen pushing. And I have to do that for the rest of my pregnancy. It's the only thing that sucks about being pregnant. I can't go anywhere but the morgue but Ann and Ryan AND Espo have that covered. I never thought I'd get sick of being in the precinct all day but I'm starting to, I'm half tempted to go on maternity leave now and go to a community college and do some artsy fartsy inner self discovery course or something along those lines."
Rick threw his head back and roared with laughter. "An artsy fartsy inner self discovery course?" he chortled. "Ha ha!"
"Oh shut up," Kate grumbled, rolling her eyes as he husband continued to chuckle. "It was the first thing that came to mind."
"Would you really like to do an artsy fartsy inner self discovery course?" Rick enquired with a wry grin. "That's easy to set up you know."
"No I don't," Kate replied. "I just need something to break the monotony of paperwork. I'm nearing the backlog of what I need to get done then I will be bored. The evidence room is spick and span so nothing else there needs to be done."
"Well maybe once Gates sees you have nothing left to do she'll start letting you go home early," Rick suggested taking a stock pot over to the sink and filling it with hot water. "We're almost ready to move into the Queens house, we just need to shift a few more boxes and odds and ends and that's it. If you finish early for a couple of days you can shift the last few boxes."
"I'll ask her tomorrow if I can start doing that," Kate mused. "Well I'm going to have a shower and change; I'll leave you to your culinary exploits. D'you want me to bring out your laptop so you can write a statement while dinner is cooking?"
"Yup that'd be great."
Kate retreated to their bedroom and secured her service weapon before stripping off and heading to the shower. She spent several minutes under the steaming hot water, washing her hair and scrubbing away the day's sweat and grime. Waiting until her body was covered in a cloud of cherry scented body wash suds the female detective increased the heat of the water and stood under its stream til her skin was a bright hue of pink.
Feeling much more refreshed Kate stepped out of the shower and wrapped her favourite towel around her body. She towel dried her hair then went back into the bedroom and changed into her favourite pair of baggy pyjamas that were less fitting than they used to be used to her growing belly. She then tied her hair back in a messy bun before fetching Rick's laptop from his office and making her way back into the kitchen where he was busy making garlic bread.
"Hope you're hungry," he said cheerfully. "I've made a bit much."
"Starving," Kate replied placing his laptop on the dining table and opening it. "How did training go today?
"Good as can be expected," the Writer replied, screwing up his nose. "My arm is killing me; I don't think we're going to get a decent score this week."
"You really shouldn't be dancing, you know," Kate informed her husband in concern as she turned on his laptop. "You're supposed to be taking it easy."
"I'll be fine," Rick informed his wife as he stuck his fork into his bowl of pasta. "I'm following my medication directions and bandaging my arm carefully before each training session. If it gets too much I'll go and see my physician. The pills work really well. Anastasia reckons I concentrate more when I'm off my face. I've picked up the most complicated choreography this week. I'm a sponge, a total sponge."
"But you still think you won't get a good score?"
"Yeah but that's me just being a pessimist," Rick replied. "Just by the fact I have a gunshot wound on my arm means I'm not moving as fluidly as I have before, the judges will notice that and mark us accordingly. Which sucks because I was hoping to have three perfect scores in a row."
"You don't know how you'll go til Monday night, wait and see," Kate suggested. "I can't wait to see the little package the producers put together to document your preparation, you're funny when you're off your face. How does Anastasia think you're going?"
"Actually she's surprised by how unencumbered I am," Rick replied shaving parmesan cheese onto their pasta. "But that's probably the drugs talking. When I take them I don't feel pain so I move like I did before I was shot. I've only been taking the pills for training sessions hence why I'm so sore now."
"Take a pill before you go to bed," Kate instructed in her best no nonsense voice. "You're fidgety when you're in pain. At the very least take some ibuprofen."
"I'll do that," Rick promised picking up their dinner and making his way over to the dining table. "Okay now I have to be creative."
"You doubt yourself?" Kate questioned in surprise.
"For announcing something like this yeah, I didn't have to announce when Alexis was on her way. I wasn't as well known back then," Rick replied as he twisted some pasta around his fork. He was suddenly hit with inspiration and showed the pasta into his mouth before laying his fork down and beginning to type
The Writer typed furiously for several minutes, making the odd grammatical and punctuation edit before saving the document and turning his laptop toward Kate.
"Read it and let me know what you think," he instructed her.
The female detective lay down her fork and began reading.
As all of you know back in May I married the beautiful Kate in the gorgeous surrounds of the East Hamptons and since then married life has proven to be more than I could ever have hoped for. I am finally truly happy and despite some physically gruelling times over the past year which involved many hours of physiotherapy and psychological treatment, I have come through the other side and become the best person I can be for me, my friends and my family.
As many of you may have noticed from the attention from various gossip media outlets (none of which I shall name) rumours have been circulating over the last few weeks that a sibling for Alexis may be on its way. As a force of habit I have refrained from feeding rumours in an effort to protect those close to me and it has been up til now I have kept quiet. But the rumour mill is becoming too loud and I feel now is the time to speak.
It is with the most joyous of hearts I CAN confirm my beautiful wife Kate is nineteen weeks pregnant and is due around the end of January. It goes without saying that we are enormously excited for the little one's arrival and the next step in our lives as a couple. Alexis is excited beyond words at the prospect of becoming a big sister and amongst our friends and family bets are already being taken on the sex, hair/eye colour and most importantly name.
As I'm sure you can understand this is an enormously exciting and private time for my family and I. I would ask you all to respect our privacy as we wait for the little one to make his or her appearance. I will let you all know when that joyous occasion happens-Richard Castle.
"I love it," Kate said a few moments later. "It's succinct yet not too stuffy. Your fans ought to eat it up. Are you going to email it to Paula and get her to release it?"
"Nope I'm going to upload it to my website," Rick replied. "There are too many characters for Twitter. This is something that is worth putting on my website. Paula normally manages my social media pages apart from Twitter and uploads the majority of what's on my website but I want to do this myself. I told her I would when the time comes."
And with that the Writer uploaded the statement onto his website with a satisfied smile.
"There," he said triumphantly, pushing his laptop away. "Hopefully I won't have to do anything like that til the baby's born. I'll leave things to Paula if anything else comes up."
Kate leaned across and pressed a tomato-y flavoured kiss to his lips. "I love you," she said wiping the smudge of spaghetti sauce from his lips with the pad of her thumb.
"Love you too honey."
Despite the late hour at which Rick uploaded the statement-word still spread that he and Kate were expecting a baby and it was well before their alarm sounded the following morning that the Writer's iPhone began buzzing with Twitter and email alerts.
"Rick you're not on call with the field office can you turn your phone off please?" Kate moaned. "Or at least put it on vibrate? I haven't been able to sleep for longer than half an hour all night. I have eight hours behind a desk ahead of me today and I'm exhausted!"
Rick turned over and immediately turned off his phone. "'m sorry," he whispered in her ear sleepily kissing the back of her neck and rubbing her naked swollen belly with his palm. "'ts probably people reading the statement."
Kate covered his hand with hers and pressed it into her belly. "S'okay," she replied with a sigh. "I knew this would happen, an' we're g'nna get more attention outside of work hours now that you've confirmed those rumors."
Rick rubbed wide circles on his wife's stomach and suckled upon her neck. "I'll try and protect you from it," he murmured. "I know you don't always like being in the public eye."
"Not always but I'm getting used to it," Kate replied sleepily. "Not a lot with the paparazzi bother me anymore, I only get pissed if they interfere with my job. And they've backed off in that regard for a while."
"Hmmmm, you're awesome you know that?" Rick murmured patting her belly as he felt their baby kick.
"Mmmm I am? Why?" Kate asked an amused lilt in her voice.
"I thought you wanted to sleep?" Rick said. "I'd keep you awake well past the alarm going off if I started listing the reasons now."
Kate couldn't help it and laughed out loud. "You're a goofball," she commented rolling over and tucking herself into his muscular bulk as much as her growing belly would allow. "Tell me one instead."
"You're having my baby," Rick murmured as he felt sleep tugging him back into unconsciousness again. "Tha's the b'st thing in th' w'rld."
Kate and Rick managed to get another couple of hours sleep in then rose to begin their day. Deciding early on to come to the precinct with his wife to alleviate her paperwork workload, the writer rose before her and headed to the kitchen to make a pot of decaf to start the day. He bustled around the kitchen making bananas and honey on toast before placing it on a tray and taking it back into the bedroom.
Kate woke up as he sat down on the bed and flashed him a sleepy smile. "Mmmm coffee," she mumbled stretching in such a way he instantly became aroused. "Morning Writer Monkey."
Rick chuckled and placed the tray on the bedside table before leaning down and capturing his wife's lips with his own. "Morning Mrs Castle," he murmured mid-kiss. "Sleep alright?"
Kate yawned and awkwardly sat up. "I did," she replied. "Still think I'm going to be beat by early afternoon though, and we still have all the boxes out in the living room to move to the new house."
"Ask Gates if you can take the afternoon off to move them," Rick suggested as she picked up her mug of decaf and blew on it. "And I'll come home as early as I can to move the rest. Once the boxes are done we only need to move the bed seeing as everything else is at the new house. And I can ring my contacts and get that done today if it would help; I mean we should've moved into the Queens house weeks ago."
"Well one thing led to another and we ended up being too busy to do anything but pack a few boxes a night," Kate mused. "Ugh moving house is a pain in the ass, we should've been in the house within a week of the renovations being completed."
Rick leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his wife's forehead. "Well we've had a lot on," he reasoned. "When we get to the precinct I'll ring my contacts and get a truck to come and pick up the rest of our stuff. Then I'll ring Anastasia and see if we can start our rehearsal earlier so I can finish earlier and help you pack up what's left, alright?"
Kate just smiled her heart swelling in affection for him.
The Castles arrived at the 12th a little over an hour and a half later, coffees in hand and entered the bullpen to find the break room full of flowers, helium balloons with 'CONGRATULATIONS!' plastered on them, and six individual gift baskets full of baby paraphernalia.
"We were planning on hosting a baby shower for you but with all this stuff we don't need to now," Jane Karpowski informed the pair as they gazed upon the mass of gifts. "No need for presents at all."
Ryan and Esposito laughed loudly.
"When did these get here?" Kate asked in awe watching Rick as he went over to the nearest gift basket.
"The first courier turned up at eight thirty," Karpowski replied. "There's more in Gates' office."
"How the hell are we going to get it all home?" Kate wondered in amazement. "The trunk of the Prancing Horse isn't this big."
"I'll call Paula and see if she can send Nick over," Rick replied. "I'll give him the keys to the Queens house and he can take it all there."
"Morning Sergeant, Mr Castle," Gates said from behind the pair as she entered the room and headed for the kettle on the sink.
"Morning Sir," the pair chorused.
"Oh aren't those gorgeous?" Gates suddenly exclaimed putting down her mug and striding over to Rick who was holding the tiniest pair of knitted babies booties. "Oh my."
Kate's eyebrows rose in surprise as she watched her boss take the booties from her husband and run her fingers over the tiny pair of shoes. She caught Rick's eyes and saw he looked equally as surprised.
"These look exactly like the ones my youngest wore when she was in the hospital," Gates went on, a wistful tone in her voice. "Oh those were the days."
"Getting a bit broody are we, Sir?" Kate teased. "Want another one?"
"Oh no, six is enough, and I'm far too old for a seventh," Gates replied. "I have my hands full running around after all of them still at home as it is."
"How old are yours?" Rick asked in interest.
"Elisha-my eldest is sixteen, the next one down is Zachary he's thirteen, then there's Christopher he's eleven. Lucas is ten, next comes Danielle-she's eight, then there's and Charlotte. She's the youngest at six. Charlotte was a total surprise, thought I was well past having babies by the time she came along."
"Do any of them want to be a cop?" Kate asked.
"Not yet," Gates replied. "But it's years before any of them need to decide what they want to do with a living, Elisha changes her mind every week, currently she wants to be an Palaeontologist-last week she wanted to be a Real Estate developer. I can't keep track."
Rick laughed. "Alexis wanted to be an Palaeontologist when she was ten," he supplied. "She decided that after a field trip to the American Museum of Natural History, she came home and announced it very loudly. And she changed her mind every week right up til she graduated high school. You've got ages before Elisha settles on any one decision."
"Well I might get started on the mountain of paperwork," Kate announced several minutes later as she placed her empty mug in the sink.
"I'll ring Paula and see if she can send Nick over," Rick informed his wife. "I'll be with you in a few okay?"
"Gotcha."
The flow of gifts for The Castles didn't let up for the rest of the week. The pair arrived at the precinct every morning to find the break room and Gate's office filled to the brim with hampers, boxes and post it packs full of bunny rugs, booties, onesies and hand knitted caps. Nick-Paula's personal assistant would come to the precinct every day and take the gifts back to Rick and Kate's new house in Queens. The room they had picked out for the nursery was packed full of the gifts from the pair's well wishers. Then Sunday dawned and they travelled to Los Angeles with Anastasia for the third episode of the fourteenth season of Dancing with the Stars.
"So how many pairs of booties haff you got now?" Anastasia asked as they walked through the arrivals lounge of LAX.
"We've lost count," Kate replied dryly. "Far more than we'll need. But Lanie and Martha have promised to sort it all out while we're gone so when we get back to New York Tuesday morning we can shift into the Queens house and not stress out too much. We've had so much help over the past few days it's been a load off our minds"
"Vell ze disruption to your routine hasn't affected Vichard at all!" Anastasia declared. "He has concentrated very vell during practice zis week. Even vith the pain from being shot."
"That's the Oxycodone pills I've been popping before every session," Rick commented as they arrived in the luggage collection area. "It's easy to forget the pain when you're high as a kite."
"Are you going to take a pill before going on air tomorrow night?" Kate asked.
"I'll wait and see what my pain levels are like," Rick replied as the carousel assigned to their flight whirred into action. "You never know, I might be able to go all day without a pill."
As it turned out that wasn't the case.
During the final rehearsal Rick's legs got caught in Anastasia's skirt and he hit the floor landing on his right elbow and rolling onto his shoulder. Due to Kate's careful and expert bandaging he hadn't burst his stitches but he was forced to cut his rehearsal short when the pain became too much.
"You really ought to pull out Rick," Kate informed her husband once they had returned to the Beverly Hilton from the ABC studios. "You had a twenty two bullet rip through your arm not five days ago..."
"I'm not pulling out," Rick repeated for the umpteenth time. "I'm having way too much fun, a couple of hours rest and a couple of the pills the doctor gave me and I'll be fine."
"If you take two pills you'll be too off your face to dance." Kate pointed out.
"No I won't, trust me I'll be fine," Rick replied flashing his worried spouse one of his dazzling smiles. "I've just got to think of you and all my pain will fly away."
Kate rolled her eyes dramatically
She was married to the biggest kiss ass in the country.
"Alright, I better go take my leave," Kate informed her husband later that night as he and Anastasia prepared to go on air and perform their Quickstep. "I have confidence in you."
She dropped a lingering kiss on his lips. Rick returned the kiss and rubbed her belly seemingly for good luck. "I'll do my best," he promised her. "Love you"
"Come Vichard ze stage manager needs us ready to go!" Anastasia announced.
"I better go slomat' nogu!" (break a leg!)" Kate called. "Bye!"
Kate left the backstage area and hurriedly made her way into the studio flopping down in her seat as the stage manager called out a minute to air. She checked her makeup in a compact mirror, touched up her lipstick then blotted it on a tissue before shoving her handbag under her seat. She then jiggled her legs impatiently til the studio lit up and the show went back on air.
"Welcome back to Dancing with the Stars!" Tom announced. "This past week has been most dramatic for our next contestant, mystery writer Richard Castle, after he and Anastasia claimed top spot on the leader board he returned to New York and...well watch this package."
The show cut to the video package put together by the producers and Kate's eyes travelled over to the side of the stage where her husband and Anastasia would emerge onto the floor. Around her the audience oohed and ahhed at the package and when it ended they burst into applause.
"Now to dance the Quickstep, please welcome Richard Castle and his partner Anastasia Smirnoff to the floor!"
Kate trained her eyes on her husband and held her breath as he and Anastasia made their way to the centre of the floor and took up their opening pose.
"I got rhythm. I got music.
I got my gal.
Who could ask for anything more?
I got daisies in green pastures,
I got my gal.
Who could ask for anything more?"
As each week went on Rick became a more and more accomplished dancer refining his 'art' with long and like this week physically gruelling training sessions. Despite being in a world of pain the Writer pushed that all behind him and threw himself into his performance.
"Ol'Man Trouble, I don't mind him.
You won't find him 'round my door.
I got rhythm. I got music.
I got my gal.
Who could ask for anything more?
Who could ask for anything more?
J'ai du rythme, J'ai du la musique,
J'ai du ma cherrie.
Who could ask for anything more?
J'ai the daisies. Dans green pastures,
J'ai ma cherrie.
Who could ask for anything more?"
Kate held her breath as Rick and Anastasia approached the spot in the routine where the Writer had fallen during rehearsals. She then gritted her teeth and let out a rush of relieved breath as the pair swept by mistake free and smooth as silk.
I don't mind him. You won't find him.
'Round my door.
I got Rhythm, I got Music,
I got my gal.
Who could ask for anything more?
Who could ask for anything more?
Who could ask for anything more?
Who could ask for anything more?
The minute the music finished Rick pumped his fist then immediately winced in pain, Anastasia went to him and words were exchanged before Tom strode over and gave them both a microphone.
"Richard Castle and Anastasia Smirnoff ladies and gentlemen!" he announced as the audience whooped and cheered.
"Rick, how are you doing?" Tom asked the Writer once the audience quietened. "Can you explain what happened to you during the week?"
"Well I c-can't g-go into too m-much de-tail, it's cl-lassified," Rick replied his muscular chest heaving as he slowly regained his breath. 'But in the long and short of it, I w-was on a j-ob and g-got on t-the wr-ong s-side of a twenty two b-bullet. It entered h-here and exited h-here.' He added indicating to the thick bandage on his upper right arm.
The audience 'ooohed' and 'aaahed' as Rick pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and revealed the thick bandage Kate and put there.
"My god does it hurt?" Carrie Ann asked in amazement.
"Like you wouldn't believe," Rick replied with a grin. "B-but I got through it."
The camera just then focused in on Kate; hand over her swollen belly rolling her eyes in amusement.
"You've been shot and as a result have worked to an extremely tight schedule but you've also got some good news, haven't you?" Tom said to Rick.
Rick immediately blushed a magnificent shade of scarlet. Kate caught his eye and flashed him a wink before he spoke.
"Yeah, um...we're having a baby," the Writer revealed with a huge grin. "due around the end of January."
The audience burst into enthusiastic whoops and cheers, Kate went bright red and covered her face with her hands and playfully stuck her tongue out at her husband.
"Alright over to the judges...Carrie Ann?"
"Boy are you getting better at this dancing thing or what?" the blonde said addressing Rick directly. "That quickstep was textbook, bright, upbeat and you exuded charisma. You were Gene Kelly and that was straight off the set of an American in Paris. Anastasia I know Quickstep is a dance you're not awfully familiar with but honey both you and Rick rocked it tonight. Your posture was perfect; you were light on your feet and you weren't too exuberant well done."
"Okay over to Len."
"I'm going to be the realist here," the grumpy Englishman began as he leaned forward to address the pair before him. "You have both got a long way to go in this competition and while you're improving you still exhibit undesirable traits in your routines..."
The audience immediately voiced their opposition to Len's assessment and booed loudly.
"Rick you were too stiff in your lower back and that affected your torso and neck," Len continued. "With the Quickstep you must be fluid in your movement and if you stiffen your back it's going to affect your whole posture. I liked your arm position though, you had that right on and your step sequence perfectly mirrored Anastasia's. Anastasia, I know ballroom is not your area of speciality but you did well in spite of it. It's entirely possible you'll have to perform it again if you and Rick get to the finals so I'd like you to work with him on his general posture and fluidity. You nail that you nail the whole competition."
"You are so grumpy!" Bruno exclaimed to his colleague before Tom had the chance to introduce the Italian judge. "That was a brilliant. The definition of the Quickstep!"
The audience roared with laughter as Bruno addressed his fellow judge.
"Rick, you are a little stiff in your lower back and neck but I think that's due to the pain from your arm injury," Bruno went on in his thick Italian accent. "I expect once you heal your whole body will relax and your fluidity will return. Your posture was great and your cadence and footwork were beautiful. It was a lovely interpretation of the music. I can't wait to see what you bring next week!"
"Happy with that assessment?" Tom asked Rick and Anastasia.
"Very," The Writer replied. "We know we have a lot of improvement to make. But it's only week three there's a long way to go yet."
"Now for the judges scores...Carrie Ann Inaba!"
"TEN!"
"Len Goodman!"
"NINE!"
"And Bruno Tonioli!"
The exuberant Italian slammed down his number paddle on the desk and shrilled.
"TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!"
Rick and Anastasia shared an enthusiastic high five then embraced.
"Alright that's Rick and Anastasia, we'll be back after the break with the elimination!"
"Safe for another week, huh?" Kate commented two hours later as the engine of the jet carrying them back to New York taxied out onto the tarmac.
"Yeah I'm still in a state of disbelief if truth be told," Rick replied pulling his wife close and laying a hand upon her swollen belly. "I'm really getting into this dancing thing; I might even continue it once the competition is over. Its a million types of fun. We could do it together."
Kate smiled and snuggled into Rick's comforting bulk. "Let's add that to the 'after the baby's born' list," she suggested with a contented sigh. "I'm too big to do what you and Anastasia did tonight, I might be able to manage a sleepy Viennese Waltz but nothing more vigorous than that."
Rick placed a wide, lingering kiss on Kate's neck and rubbed wide soothing circles on her belly. "There are other 'activities' we can do together in the meantime," he murmured in her ear. "Maybe we can explore that line of entertainment when we get home?"
Kate squirmed and let out a little giggle as the Writer bit her neck. "If you keep your hands to yourself now maybe I'll consider your suggestion when we get back to New York," she replied. "Can you keep your hands to yourself?"
Rick made a face. "I suppose I'll have to," he said with a sigh. "I suppose I'll have to."
A/N2: Reviews feed the beast! BTW hands up if you think these little punk ass mini hiatuses suck ass!