In Space…
For the first morning in what seems like forever, the loft isn't teeming with life when she steps out of her bedroom. There's no Martha keeping up an endless stream of chatter as she pours her coffee, no Alexis pacing and doing last-minute cramming for an exam, there's just Rick, standing at the stove with a spatula in one hand and his phone in the other.
"Googling for more completely ridiculous ingredients to add to the s'morelette?" she asks, lips quirking upward when he jumps and puts his phone aside. "Didn't mean to scare you, sorry."
Her husband recovers, throwing an easy smile over his shoulder as she rounds the counter to join him. "You're fine. And that is a wonderful idea, but no." He leans back to offer his mouth for a kiss. She hums, pressing her lips to his, savoring the sweetness of his coffee on his tongue. They don't often get mornings like this, where they can be wrapped in one another without interruptions or distractions.
"No, huh?" she asks when they part and he goes back to watching their eggs, resting her chin on his shoulder. "Researching the next hint you're going to drop about what you want for your birthday?"
"Oh, hah hah," he says, squirming away from the gentle dig of her chin. "No, not this time."
"Mhmm, what then?" Her arms slide under his, wrapping around his chest. His heart thumps under her palm, steady and calm. "My birthday? Oh, maybe our anniversary? The first one, I mean. That's coming up soon."
His hand covers hers, brushing his thumb over her wedding ring and squeezing her knuckles gently. "Not any of those, either. But I love that you still consider that the first anniversary we have, Beckett."
She drops a kiss to his neck, pressing her smile to his skin. "Like you don't."
Rick scoffs. "The day you crashed my book party and turned my life into something wonderful? Would I consider any other day an anniversary?"
Nuzzling him, she hums. "You might. After all, there is our actual wedding day. And then there's the day I showed up at your door and threw myself at you. That might count. Then there's the day we went to the Hamptons for the first time, the day you proposed the first time, the day we decided to move up the wedding," she trails off when he laughs and concedes the point.
His head drops back to bump hers. "I cannot dispute any of that. But no, I wasn't researching spectacular anniversary surprises – this time, anyway. I was reading an article about one of the lesser thought-about issues with going to Mars."
"Oh?" she asks. "Not the cabin fever? Or the peeing into a tube? Or the tiny living space with almost half a dozen other people?"
Rick laughs, dropping his hand from hers to pick up his phone. "Here, you can read it for yourself while I finish up breakfast."
Kate hums, taking the phone from him and backing up to give him room to work. She swipes her thumb over the screen, deftly unlocking the phone and scrolling to the top of the article he'd been reading.
Her eyebrow jumps. "Really, Castle?"
"I thought the headline was interesting."
"Populating a Mars Base Will Be Dangerously Unsexy?You making plans I need to know about?" she asks after she reads a paragraph or two, dragging her teeth over her lip. They've been talking about the subject more lately – if they want to have kids (more kids, in Rick's case), if they should given everything that's happening in their lives right now, if there's a timeframe they should settle on to make a decision one way or another – but this certainly takes it to a new level.
Castle laughs, shaking his head. "No plans of any kind that don't involve you."
She smirks, reeling him in and tugging him down to steal a kiss. "Well, that's good. Though, if getting pregnant on Mars will be as dangerously unsexy as this article suggests, maybe it's not the worst thing in the world that neither of us got picked for the first missions."
His lips lift against hers. "Yeah? You think so?"
"Mhmm. I just figure if we're going to go to all that trouble to have a baby, we should at least enjoy the process, don't you think? And if we have to do it here on Earth, I guess that's okay, too."
"Absolutely," he agrees, slipping a hand into her hair and cradling the back of her head. "There'll be ambiance, romance, the works. It'll be beyond sexy. Dangerously sexy, even."
Kate grins, lifting her chin half in challenge, half in anticipation. "It better be."
"It will be. It'll be far sexier than sex in zero g – although that could be fun, too. We really should look into doing that at some point; space tourism will be taking off any day, I can feel it."
She laughs, tilting her head. "Uh huh."
"Just say the word, Beckett," he says, his voice light but not flippant. In fact, she knows he's completely serious. "Whenever you want to go to all that trouble, just say the word."
"Okay." She brushes her fingertips down his cheek, pecking his lips. She looks up at him from under her lashes, hoping he understands what she's saying and what she's not. "In the meantime, though, how 'bout some breakfast?"
Her husband grins and drops a few slices of bread into the toaster, pressing the lever with a dramatic, Martha Rodgers-style flourish. "On it. And it's not even freeze-dried or in a bag."
She slips out of his embrace, ducking around him to grab plates from the cabinet and hand them over to him. They move in sync, the dance easy and well-choreographed by now, and she's able to put the butter, silverware, and napkins on the table and take the plates back just after the toast pops up and their omelets (regular omelets, thankfully) come off the stove. She finishes setting their places, grinning over her shoulder. "Lucky us."
Castle wiggles his eyebrows, moving to the coffeemaker and refilling his mug, making quick work of preparing hers as well. He brings them over to the table, making sure to place hers directly into her hands. "I say that every day, Kate. Every single day."
Prompted by thefifthsister: This came up on my FB feed and immediately thought Castle would have an opinion on this. (See the cover picture for the inspiration, or visit the story on my tumblr: bunysliper post/614685906040930304/prompted-by-thefifthsister-this-came-up-on-my-fb
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the story.