AUTHOR'S NOTE: And here we are at chapter fifty… Bittersweet…

CHAPTER 50: THE BEST IS YET TO COME

ONE YEAR LATER

(Kate's Point of View)

What a year it's been. So many of my dreams came true, and I didn't even think that some of them would ever see the light of day.

After living in the loft for a year with Castle and his family and adjusting to being Castle's girlfriend, a daughter to Martha, and a mom/older sister/best friend to Alexis, we discovered that Jameson was on the way. A year later, we've discovered that that little boy is quite a character. Not only is he the spitting image of his father, but he's also shown himself to be a double threat. Just like I thought during the first time Jordan held him, he is a total charmer. The part that makes him a double threat is that Jameson has inherited my stubbornness, too! (We're in trouble…) He is a very happy boy, and when Lily Joy hasn't recruited him and Tobias to pull little tricks and pranks, he loves having play dates with Lucy, Alyssa or Grace. (The little kids have already formed a family until like Alexis and Lily Joy have with their friends, and they all have their own personalities. Jameson treats Tobias like a brother, but Lucy is girlier than LJ, and a little laid back. Alyssa, however, is very girly and prissy. Both she and Lucy are usually hesitant about following the boys on an adventure, Grace is their opposite because she is a complete tomboy, and she never gives anything a second thought and follows Jameson around, no matter what he does. Jameson's name was Grace's first word) Emily says that since Jameson is at the stage where he repeats practically everything he hears, it's not going to be too long before she can start teaching him some of the basic concepts of the Afrikaans language. Oh, and since the little kids all celebrated their first birthday today, one of the presents that Castle and I bought for Jameson was a my-first-baseball set. Has he shown interest? Of course not. He spent over an hour with Tobias and Lily Joy looking at the new picture books he had received as gifts from my dad. I know it's only been a day, but still… if Jameson doesn't care about baseball, there's always the next baby to persuade… Right?

As for Alexis, she is doing very well. Motherhood suits her perfectly and she loves it. (She knows that becoming a mother at such a young age was less than ideal, but she also believes that everything happens for a reason) Of course, Alexis hasn't forgotten about her education because about a month after the babies were born, she became registered to take an online course instead of taking classes at one of the local colleges. Castle started to object to this idea when she first presented it to us, but Martha and I came to Alexis' rescue by explaining what she was trying to say: she felt that it was far more practical, and she wanted to spend as much time as possible with Tobias and not miss a single thing, even if that meant turning down the chances to attend any of the finest schools that New York City alone has to offer. Her education is important to her, but she says that Tobias will always be the number one priority in her life. (Since Alexis graduated at the top of her class in high school and always did well, anyway, all of the high marks carried over to when she was signing up for this course, and guess what? She's done now because she finished a few months early) Speaking of high priorities, Alexis' friends remain high on her list because each one of them say that all of the trials they through together during her pregnancy has made them stronger people, and they really have turned into their own little family. A year ago, it was just Alexis and Ashley, but they were quickly joined by Calvin and Melissa, and now they have Jessica Rose, too. She turned up when the babies were born, and for reasons that remain unknown to the rest of us, she and Alexis are very close, as if bound together by a secret. (Knowing all of the weird things that happen in my family—immediate and extended—mostly considering the circumstances of my mother's murder, that idea is very plausible) Alexis, Ashley, Calvin and Melissa accepted Jessica Rose into their family unit without hesitation, and not just because she and Gabriella were Alexis', Lily Joy's, and Tobias' saviors, or because they pitied Jessica for being blind. No, they did it because they see her as one of them.

(Ashley recently sat down with Castle and me to explain that he loves Alexis deeply and always has, and the stepping up to the plate during Alexis' pregnancy and the signing of Tobias' birth certificate was his way of proving himself to us and the rest of the world how much he wants to be the one who takes care of them. He went on to say that he and Alexis have seriously discussed the idea of getting married in the next few years quite a few times in the past few months. (She's all for it because she has always loved him, and both Ashley and Alexis have told us on separate occasions that when they're with the other person, all of the songs make sense) When Ashley sat down to talk to us, I knew that Ashley was getting at something really important, and Castle knew it, too, but poor Ashley was so nervous that Castle decided that he couldn't pass up the perfect opportunity to make the young man even more nervous by bombarding him with all kinds of questions and mentioning that I had a gun. When I demanded to know what my gun had to do with anything, Ashley recounted his first meeting Castle and how he had been waving around a gun that he 'borrowed' from the precinct to study for the case that we had been working on. I ended up tweaking Castle's ear to make him behave, and he became very dismayed when Ashley thought it was funny. After Ashley actually laughed at Castle's pain and my smug look, he eventually got the question out that he had come to ask: did he have our blessing to propose to Alexis? We gave him our blessing right away and he practically fainted in relief. The last time I checked, Ashley was hard at work on thinking of the perfect occasion on which to pop the question to his girlfriend)

Little Tobias is an absolute delight, and he always makes everyone around him smile with his humorous antics. According to Castle, and from the baby pictures I've seen of Alexis, Tobias looks like his mother did when she was that age, except for the part about his hair. It was red when he was born, and since turned brown, and it's very curly. When Alexis questioned her son's curly locks, Martha explained that that particular gene is from her side of the family because her dad had had very curly hair. As far as we know, Tobias is the first person to be born on the Castle side that has hair like that. Tobias' hair isn't the only interesting quirk about his appearance. There's his eyes, too. A few hours after Tobias was born we saw an abnormality in his them. He isn't blind, thank God, but one of the hospital's eye surgeons diagnosed my grandson with partial heterchromia, meaning that his eyes are different colors. The left one is dark brown, almost black, but the right one is the trademark Castle blue with a splotch of hazel. (I have a feeling that since there is no previous history of partial heterchromia in the Rodgers or Castle families, this means that Tobias' father probably has it. After all this time, however, Alexis still hasn't told us who he is, but I wouldn't be surprised if Ashley, Calvin, Melissa and Jessica know who he is) Other than that, Tobias is a very normal and healthy one-year-old boy who knows that he is loved. Alexis and Ashley are both amused that my attempts to get their son interested in baseball have all failed, but they had the last laugh when Tobias turned down interest in Ashley's sport of choice, soccer. Alexis has plans on getting her son interested in fencing when he's older, but that might not work because he loves the sound of piano and violin music. When Tobias isn't snooping around with Lily Joy and Jameson—his aunt and uncle, technically—he and Alexis are with Ashley on a daily basis, unless their schedules become conflicted. (Like Jameson, he is very bright for a boy his age, and seems to be aware that his family life isn't exactly normal, but it's what he knows, so if he had his way, he wouldn't change a single thing) Tobias loves his parents dearly, but of the all of the biggest values that his parents have instilled on him thus far in his life, it's that friends are the family you choose. He's close with Lily Joy and Jameson because he sees them everyday, and he treats Lucy, Alyssa and Grace like sisters. He's close to the older kids, too, but out of all of them, he likes Gabriella best. One time, Gabriella explained—with a surprising amount of patience—that they both have issues with their eyes, and someway, somehow, Tobias made that connection. Gabriella may be four years older than him, but she's very patient and makes sure that nobody picks on him. Tobias and Gabriella are best friends now.

And of course, there's Lily Joy. She's come a long way from being the frightened little girl who hid under the piano and spent her first evening here cuddling with Alexis for comfort. There's no doubt in everyone's mind that even though we haven't seen or heard from Meredith in a year, my youngest daughter still remembers her life before she was adopted her because every so often, one of us will catch her looking out of one of the windows to the street below, with her stuffed animals under one arm and there will be a vacant expression on her face, as if she's remembering that time of her life. When we ask her what's wrong, Lily Joy will reassure us that she's fine and then promptly changes the subject or walks away. (She did reveal once that Meredith had hit her as a punishment for crying, so it makes us wonder exactly what kind of things she had gone through when she was living with her biological mother. I know Lily Joy remembers, but I also know that she will never, ever tell anyone about those experiences) When it comes to the matter of the abduction, she doesn't talk about it, leading us to think that she doesn't remember it…but everything is better that way. Lily Joy has also adapted the same stance on friendship that Tobias has because it's clear that she has a crush on Ezekiel, and that Gabriella is her sister-friend, like how Lanie is to me. And Moses? That poor little guy is always on the receiving end of Lily Joy's tricks and pranks. (Pranks taught to her by Melissa…) It's very clear that my youngest daughter still thinks that Alexis, Ashley, Melissa, Calvin, and now Jessica Rose are the coolest people in the whole world, and that she considers Ezekiel, Moses, and Gabriella as her best friends and equals, but she's also stayed true to her word when she said that she will love the little kids and look after them. Whenever all of the families get together for dinner or parties and whatnot, Jameson, Tobias, Lucy, Alyssa and Grace take to her like baby ducks walking in a row behind the mother duck. Lily Joy is aware that the little kids adore her just as much as she adores them, and the best part is that her heart is so overflowing with love for all five of them that she doesn't mind it when they follow her. (I won't deny that she learned how to love like that because I loved her first) A fascinating thing about who Lily Joy is as a person is that she has spent so much time around Spanish speakers that she actually speaks more Spanglish than she speaks English! I can understand her because I took Spanish around the same time I took French with Madison, and Alexis can keep up with her conversations because Melissa and Jessica also speak Spanglish regularly, but Martha and Castle are always lost. I love that Lily Joy is going to be able to grow up learning about different cultures firsthand, and one of the most obvious indicators that she's fully immersed in the Spanglish language is that while she refers to Martha as 'Gram' in English, and she automatically refers to Ophelia as her abuela, and she is able to keep up in conversations with Ezekiel, Moses and Gabriella who all speak Spanglish as their first language. It does my heart good to see how far Lily Joy has come since the day we met, and it does my heart even better to see that she is fully healed now.

I still can't believe that there was a time in my life when I didn't even want kids because now… Now I can't imagine my life without mine.

One of the most exciting things about this year is that I was reunited with all three of the Queller sisters, as well as Jordan Shaw. Madison and I have rekindled our friendship, and we've become even closer now than we were back in high school. I've gotten the chance to know Emily well, seeing as she was only twelve or so before Madison and I lost track of each other. Melissa has improved in leaps and bounds like Lily Joy has, and her sisters tell me that if not for the love that Melissa was shown by Alexis and her posse, as well as myself, she wouldn't be the person that she is now. All three of the Queller sisters will always remember Melissa's attack and the murders of their parents because it's impossible to forget such horrible events like that, but as siblings, they're on the road to healing, too. I've welcomed Jordan Shaw and her family into our family, and they eagerly accepted and after all this time, all five of them have found their own roles to play. (Rafferty's photography business is kept busy because Castle and Madison call on his services when they have publicity events, and the rest of us call on his services when we want family portraits done) Since Jordan has about ten years or more up on my friends and me, she respects the fact that I am the mother hen, but she has assumed the role of the older sister whole looks after her younger siblings. She is very open when it comes to talking about her life, but if anyone questions her about her past, we will be stonewalled until the subject is dropped.

Jessica Rose and Gabriella are doing well, too. Both of them have been accepted into the families that my daughters have built with their friends. (It's interesting to note that that Jessica has struck up a friendship with Martha, like how Melissa struck one up with me. Those two make an odd pair of friends to regular passerby, but they make perfect sense to the rest of us because they have something in common: they both became single mothers in less than desirable circumstances, and they were both drifters during their pregnancies, with no real place to lay their heads at night) Lanie and Esposito have observed that despite the difficult lives the girls had together before finding their way home, they both settled into family life well, even though Jessica it took a little longer, and I have the distinct impression that that's because she's sitting on a lot of secrets like I know Alexis is…

Shortly after Jessica and Gabriella arrived and were settled in with Esposito, Lanie and baby Grace, Castle and I hosted a 'welcome home/welcome-to-the-family' party for them, in the spirit of the adoption party we'd had for Lily Joy. Both of the girls were spoiled rotten with rotten with presents, but everyone could tell that Jessica was ecstatic with one of the gifts from Castle and me: full sets of the Derek Storm and Nikki Heat books in Braille. It wasn't until later that Jessica had time to pull us aside and explain at length that she spent most of her life reading Castle's books, starting with the Derek Storm books when she was growing up in the group home, and then all of the Nikki Heat books to date when she and Gabriella were living in the area that they eventually escaped from. In short, Castle's books have the same affect on Jessica that they have on me: the books had saved her life and kept her from going into the rabbit hole and hiding there when her life got tough. Castle and I were deeply touched by her words, and I was in tears because it was the first time that I'd been able to hear from a fan about just how much the books had meant to them, and truth be told: I felt very humbled, and not just because Jessica Rose is the daughter of two of my best friends, but also because I was part of the experience this time, too.

There's the matter of the weddings, too. I can't forget to talk about those.

A couple of weeks after Jessica's and Gabriella's party, they took a vacation with their family and when they came back, it turned out that Lanie and Esposito had gotten married in secret, and had Jessica, Gabriella, and little Grace as their only witnesses. We didn't give them any grief for not telling us because after everything that Lanie and Esposito have gone through in their lives over the years, a secret wedding with just the minister and the girls in attendance was just perfect for them. I did wonder for awhile why Lanie and Esposito skipped the engagement period, but Lanie seemed to be reading my mind about it because she told me that after three-and-a-half decades of friendship, they didn't find it necessary. I can respect that.

The surprise wedding was at the end of September, when Grace was three weeks old, and the wedding bug hit Castle and me, as well because we had a very long conversation one night about stetting the date for our own wedding because we didn't want to wait too long. We eventually settled on New Year's Eve Day. The ceremony and reception were both very nice, and nothing too over-the-top because Castle had already gone that route at his first two weddings, and I wouldn't have liked all the pomp and circumstance anyway, because low key has always been my style. As a surprise to our guests during the ceremony, the minister announced that I was going to adopt Alexis as my daughter, like how I adopted Lily Joy, and the adoption process was actually going to be part of the marriage ceremony. When the adoption was complete, Alexis quickly went back to her spot at the altar with her fellow bridesmaids—Lanie, Madison, Emily and Melissa. After Castle and I exchanged our vows and were pronounced husband and wife, the roar of cheers and thunderous applause in the sanctuary were almost deafening.

I have to say that my wedding day was one of the most memorable days of my life for obvious reasons and even though I missed my mom more than ever that day, there was one incident that made the day particularly memorable…

Apparently, Juliana's only son, Raja, had developed a major little boy crush on Alexis by the end of their first meeting. Raja was so taken with Alexis that he actually stole a bouquet of flowers from a vase on a dining table at the reception and presented them to her, asking if her if she would be his girlfriend, because in his opinion, she was the prettiest lady he ever saw in all of his six years of life. Everybody watching the scene was amused by his declaration of love, particularly Alexis. With Ashley, Calvin, Melissa and Jessica watching, Alexis turned Raja down gently, explaining that she already had Ashley, and that Ashley is Tobias' dad. Raja almost started crying at the rejection, but he managed to perk up when Alexis quickly consoled him with the promises that they could always be friends, and when she married Ashley, the little boy could be the one to carry the rings down the aisle. Alexis' words obviously sat well with Raja because he accepted them and moved onto the next person: Lily Joy. Raja asked her the same question he asked Alexis, but didn't get an answer because the now four-year-old Ezekiel heard the six-year-old's proposition and got angry. Ezekiel all but beat Raja back with a stick, squawking at him to find someone his own age because he had loved Lily Joy first, and that he was no good for her because he didn't even have any dinosaur toys. Before Juliana, Madison or I could intervene to keep Ezekiel from killing Raja in the name of defending Lily Joy's honor, one of Jordan's twin daughters—Jubilation—happened to wander by at that particular moment. Raja immediately got distracted by the other six-year-old and dashed after Jubilation, calling after her to wait up.

(The rest, as they say, is history)

This whole past year has been filled with lots of triumphs and tragedies, along with lots of new experiences and reunions, some of which were unexpected (but not unwelcome). But in the end, I wouldn't trade any of it for anything because I wouldn't be who I am now if none of it had ever happened, and I don't ever want to be that person again.

(The best is yet to come, I think…)

It's been a year since we met Lily Joy, and one year since I discovered what it's like to be able to come home to a loving family every night.

And now, here I am, dressed in my pajamas and waiting for Castle to come to bed with me so I can finally share a particular piece of information with him without any interruptions from Alexis, Lily Joy, Jameson and/or Tobias.

See, Castle and I found out a few weeks ago that after a few rounds of trying, that we're going to be parents again! We're delirious joy about it, but we're keeping it to ourselves for now.

What I found out today—the day before Lily Joy's fifth birthday—is that we have even more reason to celebrate than we already did. I've wanted to tell Castle all day, but didn't have a chance to because we were occupied with hosting a combined birthday party for Jameson, Tobias, Lucy, Alyssa and Grace. Bedtime has been the first time all day that we've had a proper chance to be alone.

It all just begs a question.

How do I tell my husband that we're having twins?

Done

FINAL AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, that's the end of this story, and I can't begin to explain just how much fun it was to write this :) I have one last thing to say, but hang out with me because I believe that acknowledgements and the last gold star distribution are in order. Special shout out to castlelover100 for having the 310th review! 310 gold stars to you! Special thanks to Celeste and Ellkat for staying up late with me one night to develop the character of Lily Joy, who would eventually turn out to be my favorite character that I've ever written, and after having written stories for nearly eight years, that's really saying something! More thanks to Baby Bird, Pixie, Double A, The Foreigner, Einav and Krista for always cheering me on and giving me lots of ideas. (By the way, Baby Bird: I love writing Jessica Rose and Gabriella as much as I love writing Lily Joy) For Bella Paige, phnxgrl, zats, madd09, tillersaurous, Ninangel567 and cookme25: all of your reviews always cheered me up, and some of them even gave me ideas ;) To Schatze8210, katherine temperance, Dramaqueen54, and kazorel: welcome to the family, because that's what all of you reviewers are, and according to ConstanceContraire-CASTLE, I am now 'Mama Alex.' I like the sound of that… Hmm… ;) Last, but certainly not least: lots and lots of love, gold stars, sparkles and fairy dust to Writer200 for asking at the end of the very first chapter what was going to happen next. I wouldn't have written 49 more chapters if you hadn't asked me ;) And to all of my readers: if you're reading these words, then I am quite pleased to announce that that there is a sequel in the works, and the title is This Crazy Thing Called Family. (See, Pixie? It's not the end of the world after all) I promise that the first chapter will be up soon ;)