My Grandmother was a Witch
Chapter 17
"Why are we sleeping on this thing?" Rick had watched her pull out the sofa bed, put sheets on it, and two pillows. And that was after starting a fire in the fireplace.
Kate finished making up the bed. "This is my bed. Mom, Dad, and Grams slept upstairs," she explained.
"And the fire?" Rick asked.
"The fireplaces produces all the heat for this house. Keeps your toes toasty. You'll see." Kate smiled at him since she liked it here. It was hers now.
"Seriously? That's so inefficient." Rick thought this place needed help. Lots of help.
"Just take off your clothes and get in bed, Castle." Kate took off hers, got into bed, and waited for Castle to join her.
Rick got in bed and pulled up the blanket. "How long are we staying here?" he inquired.
"I have to go home tomorrow. So you can drop me off at home and then go back to the Hamptons. I won't need to use your service. Maybe you drove Gina home after coming out unexpectedly to help explain why we don't know where she is," Kate suggested.
"Well I certainly wasn't expecting her." Rick pulled her into him and felt her melt into his body. Oh how he loved holding a naked Kate Beckett. So her idea might work.
"Castle?" Kate reached down to take him into her hand. She grinned at him. "We're going to need a condom."
_/\_
Come morning Rick woke up alone so he was up and found her in the kitchen putting wood into the stove. "A real wood burning stove? I officially like this place. Save for how this place is heated and the old windows with wooden frames."
"I still like him, Katie. And you two are still naked!" Her grandmother vanished since she didn't need to see those two naked.
Kate just grinned since she liked being naked around Castle. Maybe later she would switch to wearing something that would tease him but for now, naked would work.
"It's a little tricky to work with. It gets hotter in some places than others. So I have to be careful but it works. It's cute, isn't it?" Kate liked it.
"So where did the sausage come from?" Rick saw a single door refrigerator and no freezer.
"In the freezer down there." Kate pointed to the trap door in the floor.
"NO WAY!" Rick stepped over, opened the floor, and looked down. "This is amazing!" He closed it again. "So where's this horse barn?"
"Out back. You want to go see if there are eggs? Most of them will have either gone bad or hatched into chicks but there should be some." Kate pointed at the door and watched his naked but very cute butt go out.
"Maybe some more sex this morning." Kate was willing.
"Um, Katie." There was one thing she knew and was wondering why Katie hadn't noticed yet since she was a Witch and should feel it.
"Yes, I'm still naked, Grams. You can close your eyes. I like it when we're both naked," Kate explained.
"Do you love him, sweetheart?" Anna asked her granddaughter.
"I like him. I like him a lot, actually," Kate told her as she began frying the sausage. Eggs would take less time so Castle could take his time.
She pressed her. "Katie?"
"Grams, he's nice and I like him. I..." Kate saw the look she was giving her. "Maybe. But if I let myself love him and he leaves me it will break me, Grams."
"Katie?" She just kept pressing her.
"All right. Yes, I love him but I'm still scared, Grams," Kate finally admitted.
"Well you two are about to be tested. You're pregnant, Katie, and if you would search yourself you would know it. Even I can feel it, see it. You're glowing," Anna told her gently.
"WHAT!"Kate gaped at her. "No, no, I can't be pregnant." She knew they'd had enough sex for her to be pregnant but she wasn't pregnant. She couldn't be!
"You're a Witch, Katie. You can feel your baby. You're very early in your pregnancy but you are pregnant. His, I presume?" Surely her granddaughter wasn't sleeping around with numbers of men.
"I'm, I'm…" Kate put her hand on her belly and felt it. "Is that what that is?" She had never been pregnant before. How was she supposed to know what being pregnant felt like?
Rick had found a small bag and put five eggs in it and toured the barn for horses a little. He was back but Kate wasn't paying attention to what she was cooking. She was standing there with her hand on her belly.
"There were lots of eggs and lots of chickens. I don't think the chicken coop is big enough for them...all. Kate?" She wasn't paying any attention to him. She was also burning the sausage so he put the eggs down, turned the sausage, and took over cooking.
"Are you okay? Are you sick?" She had burned Gina into ash after all.
"You need to tell him, Katie. It's his baby and I need to be somewhere else till you two put some clothes on." Anna vanished.
_/\_
Rick was concerned. Kate was silent and barely eating but she was very slowly. "Kate?" Rick reached across to take one of her hands. "You started talking to me. Don't stop now. I'm trying to talk to you, too." Rick had been walking on eggshells with her for a long time. If he pushed too hard she would push back or run away. He was thinking that was why she had dated Demming. He had pushed something too hard and had made her run.
Kate looked at him. Her grandmother had gotten her to admit that she was either falling in love with him or was in love with him. But this changed everything. What if he ran after she told him? Her heart couldn't take that. Though eventually she wasn't going to be able to hide it from him or anyone. It was going to be obvious at some point that she was indeed pregnant.
"Castle, I..." Why did this have to be so hard? Why did her life have to be so damn complicated? "I think…I think I might be pregnant." There, she'd said it. Now he could dump her and she could stay here and cry herself to sleep night after night. Lose her job and change her life forever.
"Pregnant? Are you sure?" Rick wasn't certain what to think. Part of him was thrilled and part of him was worried. The Kate he knew or thought he knew wouldn't run and dump him.
"Well I'm a Witch and I can feel it. It's really early so maybe 3 weeks. My period should be pretty soon," Kate told him.
Rick needed to stop her. "Please don't run, Kate. I'm here for you. It's my baby, too, you know." Rick tried to keep her from running from him. He loved her.
"I'm not ready to be pregnant." Kate felt tears welling up. Her life was changing in a manner that she wasn't sure she liked. She didn't do kids, let alone her own.
"I raised Alexis all on my own. I can help. I've had lots of practice. We can raise the baby together." Rick would suggest marriage but he thought he knew her. She would certainly run once that word was used.
Suddenly Kate remembered Alexis. Alexis was quite the young woman. Would her child be just like her because of Castle? "I don't know what to do, Castle. I just don't."
"Go home, see your doctor, and verify. Then call me. You're going to need to tell Roy. We can work it out. Week after week. Kate, please?" Rick begged her. Yes, it was a surprise but they'd had a lot of unprotected sex. She had said she was on the pill but even he knew it wasn't 100%.
"You can really tell this early?" Rick didn't see how but what did he know? He was a guy. He didn't have a growing baby inside him.
Kate was scared and nodded mutely.
Rick tried to think back. "So 3 weeks would put it while we were in the Hamptons. Maybe even the very first day."
"Sex in the pool. The very first time we had sex." Kate put her hand over her mouth. It had only taken one time with Castle to get pregnant. She was ovulating then. How had she missed that? Maybe like all the other times they'd had sex. She wanted him. She still wanted him.
"Kate?" Rick questioned her again.
"I'm not running, Castle. …Rick. I just don't know what to do." It was too big of a shock.
He covered her hand with his. "I can come back to the city and take care of you. You can move into the loft," he offered.
"NO! You need to write, Castle. You need to finish your book. My morning sickness won't start for a while, I think. I can still come out each time I get a couple of days off." Kate didn't want to interfere with his writing. It was who he was. It was how he made money.
The color drained from her face. "What about Gina? She won't be there."
Rick shrugged."So they assign me to someone else when she doesn't show up for work. I still can't believe she was a witch." He looked odd. "She actually fed me potions that had control over me?"
"It's how that potion works. I used it to get my dad to stop drinking so it works. How often did she make you tea?" Kate asked him. "Not that it was tea."
"A lot. She even tried to get me to stop drinking coffee. That didn't work, though. Then suddenly she stopped. She pissed me off and I divorced her. It cost me 2 million to do that but I suddenly felt free. Except she was good at her job so Black Pawn kept her and I was forced to use her even after the divorce. If you don't believe me ask Alexis."
"A Dark Witch. I wonder what she was trying to achieve? Get you to remarry her? Gain access to your money before she ran out of ingredients again and you divorced her yet again? Could it really be that simple?" Kate wondered out loud.
"So will the baby be a witch?" Rick asked and saw her shake her head.
"Grams says it skips a generation. If it's a girl she won't be a witch but if she has a daughter then that daughter will be a witch. And I need to be here for her. I need to teach her like Grams taught me."
Her eyes filled with tears. "Please don't leave me, Castle." It would crush her if he did.
"I'm not going anywhere. Anything you need, Kate, literally anything. Whenever you're ready." He meant when she was ready to get married but felt he needed not to ask her yet. She might still run.
"When does your lease end?" Rick had a new plan. Actually he had two. One, he needed her answer and the other was going to be a surprise.
Kate had to think. "About 7 months, I think. I would have to look. Why?"
"To help you find a place to live, of course. You found that one because you were in a hurry even if you didn't have to at all." Rick raised his hand to stop her. "I've forgiven you. But you know in 7 months you're going to be seriously pregnant so you will be moving in. No isn't something I'm going to take for an answer. I will not be leaving you alone."
Kate could only smile. It was still early. She had time to work out just what to do.
_/\_
Kate had her hair way up and hunkered down in her seat as Castle drove just past Gina's place and found a place to stop. Then she was practically down on the floor while Rick drove away and took her to an alley that led to her place. She got out to go home.
"Thanks, Castle." Kate leaned in. "I promise I'll be out to see you as soon as I can."
"Go see your doctor, Kate. Just to make sure you're correct. Oh, and I'm sorry about your wand." He didn't know he was going to destroy just by holding it.
"According to Grams you might have saved me. I can make another one. Somehow. Remember, you drove Gina home. Where she went after that you have no idea," Kate told him.
Rick understood the plan. "Got it" He repeated the rest of the plan. "And make sure I clean up my kitchen and get rid of everything Gina brought with her in a far away trash bin with no cameras to see my car or me doing it."
"Just try and be careful, Castle." She couldn't afford to lose him now. She was in too deep.
Kate watched him drive away. She was pregnant and probably in love with Castle. She needed to tell Roy to put her on desk duty that was going to kill her. No, that wasn't right. Once Lanie found out she was pregnant Lanie would kill her.
"Yeah, what have I got to worry about? I'm a Witch with no wand, I just killed a Dark Witch, and I'm pregnant with Castle's baby. What else could go wrong?" Kate started walking in a direction that didn't have cameras so she could get home with no one noticing.
_/\_
Kate couldn't put this off for too long. Any second now they would get a call that there was a body somewhere. She was going to hate this but she needed to do it.
She knocked quickly and stayed right where she was. "Got a minute, sir?" She almost wanted him to say no.
"If it stops me from doing more paperwork you can have two. What have you got, Beckett?" Roy gave her his undivided attention.
Kate stepped into his office. "I request to be placed on desk duty, sir." She watched as both of his eyebrows went up as high as they could go.
"Desk duty? I presume there's a reason for this that makes sense. My best detective wants to be placed on desk duty?" Roy questioned her.
The comment best detective hadn't been lost on Kate but her answer was the hard part. "I'm pregnant, sir."
"Oh!" He hadn't seen that one coming, though maybe he had. "Let me guess. Castle's the father."
"Sir!" How had he reached that conclusion?
"It may say Captain but I used to be a detective, Beckett and I'm not blind. Neither is everyone else on this floor. Hell, the entire precinct for that matter. You took a week off and Rick's ex-wife didn't go with him to the Hamptons to help him write his book. So it's not that hard to say Rick.
"Just that was only about three weeks ago. And before you ask Rick doesn't technically work here. He collects no pay and has no medical coverage. This is still my precinct so that regulation about you not dating who you work with doesn't apply. Dating Demming was stretching that limit a bit but I let it pass," Roy explained.
"Sir?" She was too shocked to process this fast enough.
"No PDA in the precinct when Rick comes back, Beckett," Roy instructed.
"Yes, sir. I mean no, sir. That won't be a problem, sir." She hoped it wouldn't be a problem anyway. "Thank you, sir." Kate began to leave.
Roy stopped her. "Beckett."
"Sir?" Kate questioned since he had answered everything, she thought.
"Congratulations, Kate. Rick's a good man deep down. I'm happy you can ignore what the papers write about him."
"Yes, sir, thank you, sir." This time Kate made it to her desk and sat down, still in shock. She pulled out her phone.
"I'm on desk duty and Montgomery says we can date each other." Kate texted and watched her phone. Maybe he was writing and lost to the world.
Kate read his return text. "Good! Told you Roy would come through."
She read his next text. "Doctor appointment?"
"Two days." Kate typed back.
Kate read and scowled at the last part. Though sadly he was right. "Wish you were here, Kate. Just take good care of yourself and eat something. I know you."
"I promise to try. Now go type something before I hurt you." Kate typed, thinking that should get him to shut up.
Kate read it and smiled a little. She was such a mess. "Just for you."
_/\_
"We got a fresh one, Beckett." Ryan waved his Post-it Note with the address for another dead body.
"You two are on your own. I'm on desk duty," Kate told them. "Just take really good notes and lots of pictures."
"Desk duty?" Espo had never heard of such a thing. Certainly not Beckett. "You okay, Beckett? Do I need to get Lanie up here?"
"NO!" DAMN IT! She had said that too loud and far too fast. She was in trouble already. "I'm fine. Captain Montgomery has me on desk duty. Just do your job." It was only a white lie. Kate knew Espo was going to text Lanie anyway and she could expect to either find her up here soon as possible or waiting for her when she got home.
"Just get going. I'll be right here."
"Okay." Espo knew something was up but getting anything out of Beckett was going to take an entire regiment or worse.
"What are you doing?" Ryan asked his partner as they went down in the elevator to get their car.
Espo stared at him. "Telling Lanie, of course. What else would I be doing? You want to tell Lanie after the fact?" Espo questioned his partner's sanity.
"No." Ryan wasn't suicidal and Lanie would definitely kill both of them if she was the last to learn about whatever this was. "So what's wrong?" He knew Montgomery wouldn't just put Beckett on desk duty.
Espo could only shake his head. Being sick came to mind. Beckett would never admit that she was sick. So desk duty might be the best Montgomery could expect from her.