A/N: I'd like to apologize for not posting more chapters lately. I've been a little blocked, but this just came to me so I hope you enjoy.
I watched as Lanie and Alexis hung up purple streamers.
Martha came in with a glass of wine in one hand and pointed at the decorations. "Those letters are crooked."
Alexis got down from the chair she'd been standing on to take a look. "You're right." She turned to me. "You said they were okay."
I smiled, "I lied, I just wanted to speed this whole part up. I want to get to dinner."
Alexis dragged the chair over to the letters to fix them.
"Much better!" Martha declared and finished her glass. She headed over to the kitchen to top off her glass again. "But, I still think it should say 'It's a Girl!'. It's the baby shower."
Alexis and I both sighed.
"Martha…"
"Mom." She corrected.
I was still not used to that. "We don't know what the baby will be."
"Aw, well, I still think it will be a girl." Martha grinned knowingly.
I sighed and gave up. I couldn't fight her on this one. A part of me knew she could be right, but for some reason I didn't think so. It might have just been that I kept imagining a cute mini version of castle when I thought of the baby. Whenever I mentioned it to Rick he always said there was no way to truly know unless we asked the doctor.
I would just smile, there was no way I'd go back on my decision. I wanted it to be a surprise.
When I woke up the next morning I could hear Alexis, Martha, and Lanie downstairs and I could smell the sweet smell of cupcakes and coffee.
Rick came in eating a purple cupcake and smiled.
"Why didn't you wake me?"
"You looked so peaceful." He came over and kissed me.
"Well, I don't like sleeping in too late."
"I know. I've got to go. No boys allowed, remember?" He took another bite of the cupcake. "These are really good. If Alexis wasn't going to be a lawyer I would say she had an amazing future as a baker."
I had the urge to take the last of the cupcake from him, but I was trying to eat a little bit healthier lately.
"You should see what they did down there. It's amazing."
I sighed, "There's more isn't there?"
He smiled and kissed me again to distract me. "It'll be fun. I'm actually jealous that I can't stay.
I looked around the room nervous about what awaited me downstairs. I got dressed, did my hair, and wished I could go to work.
Puzzles, books, Scrabble, and the long list of Rick's TV shows couldn't make up for not being able to solve cases.
As I walked downstairs I was surprised by how picturesque everything was. Last night I had seen just the touches of color that had been added to the room. Today I saw all that the girls had kept from me.
On the coffee table there was lemonade in mason jars with purple caps. There was a tower of cookies and cupcakes all in purple and silver. I walked over to the table and saw that there were little silver crowns on each and every treat.
At the dining table there was a station set up to paint onsies. A few had already been done as examples. 'Baby Castle' was written on one in typewriter font and I knew Castle had done it. Another was dark blue and had white-stenciled writing that read 'JR POLICE'. It looked like a little vest.
I couldn't believe how cute this was. I imagined how perfect it would be on our baby. I held it up against my stomach without thinking and Martha walked in.
"Well, what do you know?"
I set it down. "Oh, hi." I said awkwardly.
"Sweetheart, you know that it's okay to be emotional once in a while, right?"
I nodded.
She turned and headed back towards the living room. I followed her out and noticed the cake for the first time. It was a black cake with purple swirls, a ribbon of silver emphasizing each tier, and the top was ornamented with a little silver crown.
Alexis came out and noticed what I was looking at. "Do you like it?"
I just nodded. "It's perfect."
"We didn't want to use a crazy theme, but we thought that if we played on the name Castle we could make it classy and Gram always says…"
"That Kate is a classy kind of gal." Martha said holding her mimosa between two fingers.
I blinked and tears escaped.
Lanie came out of the office with tons of necklaces. "Girl, are you okay?"
I took a deep breath and wiped away the tears. "I'm perfect."
I noticed she had little necklaces all attached to a jewelry tree.
"What is that?"
"This is for one of the games. Everyone gets a necklace and if someone catches you using the word baby then they get to steal one of the little charms."
I took a closer look. "What are on the necklaces?"
Alexis grinned proudly. "This one is one of Dad's fancy ink pens, and this is a little police badge for you, and the last one is a pacifier for the baby. At the end the person with the most charms wins the prize."
"I love you guys."
They smiled. "Now, don't go making us cry. We still have the whole afternoon ahead of us for that." Lanie went and set the jewelry tree by the door just as the first guest knocked.
Lanie opened the door. "Is this the royal baby shower?"
She laughed. "Yeah, hey Maddie come on in."
As everyone started to arrive presents and kids books started to fill the room and I became the focus of the party.
There was a never-ending stream of questions. The most popular were why I didn't want to know what the baby would be and how I had been coping with not being able to work.
I loved the games and ended up losing my charms pretty early in the shower. Despite my desire to escape all the attention I couldn't help but be drawn in by all the excitement. When I finally decided that I'd escape for a few minutes Maddie called for everyone to gather round while I opened the gifts.
