Author's Note: Now for the much-needed actual conversation between Beckett and Castle. I hope this satisfies.
Then Came Love
Chapter 3
~Present Day~
What was she doing here? Kate stood outside of Castle's building, hesitating, as she glanced up to where his loft was.
Stupid question, she knew what she was doing here. She just wasn't sure how she was going to get through this next necessary conversation.
She hadn't even seen Castle in almost two months, had fully intended never to see him again, and now, here she was. Not only planning to see him and talk to him but knowing they were going to be inextricably linked for the rest of their lives. Her stomach lurched a little at the thought and she grimaced. Not a helpful thought. She'd limited herself to a light lunch of soup and a piece of toast but now, she was starting to think even that might have been too much if she wanted to get through this conversation without vomiting. Shit.
She should have waited, should have given herself more time to figure out what she was going to say, at the very least. As it was, she had only known for a meager few hours herself, had not even begun to really consider the ramifications of how her life was about to change, let alone mentally and emotionally prepare herself for talking to Castle. But here she was anyway.
She had thought about waiting, calling him and asking him to meet her somewhere but she wasn't entirely comfortable with having her first communication with Castle in almost two months, and after their awkward parting, happen over the phone. Plus, she didn't want to meet him in a public place, wanted privacy. She could have asked him to come over to her place but that was out of the question too because it had been the scene of the crime, as it were, and she wasn't ready to face him in the very room where they'd, um, last talked. So going to the loft was the only option. And then she'd remembered—belatedly—that he lived with his family so the only real way to be reasonably sure he would be alone would be to go over to see him in the middle of a weekday except she was almost always at work. Except today. So today it was. Anyway, there wasn't much point in procrastinating. She might as well just go ahead and bite the bullet. This conversation wasn't going to miraculously become easier, less fraught, through putting it off.
She took a deep breath and let it out again, inwardly steeling herself, before she strode into the building.
The doorman on duty, who she recognized, clearly remembered her too and greeted her with a nod and a smile. "Detective Beckett, nice to see you again."
Kate managed a smile for the doorman, in spite of her spiking nerves, and greeted him in kind, although she couldn't think of his name. She hesitated again outside of Castle's door before setting her jaw and knocking on his door.
The door swung open a minute later and she saw Castle and her breath abruptly stalled in her lungs.
Something sparked in his eyes before shock blanked his expression. "Beckett!"
She felt a tug of entirely unwilling attraction low in her belly. He was wearing a cobalt blue shirt and it really should be illegal for him to wear blue, she thought wildly, it just wasn't fair the way the shirt emphasized and deepened the blue of his eyes. (And was it possible that she had simply missed the sight of him?) Shit, no, oh no, this was not supposed to happen! She was supposed to have gotten him out of her system entirely seven weeks ago; if that moment of insanity had to happen, at the very least, it should have cured her of her unwanted attraction to him. But if anything, it seemed to have had the opposite effect.
She suppressed the urge to squirm, or worse, turn tail and run. She wasn't a coward. "Hi, Castle. Sorry to drop by unannounced," she managed with some semblance of calm, although to her own ears, she sounded preternaturally deadpan.
"It's fine. I'm not busy. Come in." He stepped back from the door with a vague gesture, both the movement and his tone shaded with enough awkwardness that she knew he was about as ill at ease as she was.
She forced herself to take the necessary steps forward into the loft, although she was careful to preserve a much-needed distance between them.
He closed the door behind her and then turned back to her. "I—uh—this is a surprise."
His words overlapped with her "Where are Alexis and Martha?" and she felt herself flushing and it was her turn to make an awkward motion with her hand, indicating he could go ahead.
"Alexis is at school and my mother is out, I'm not sure where." He hesitated and then added cautiously, "Can I get you something, coffee, soda, water?"
A very tiny bit of nervousness flaked away at the confirmation that he was alone even as the offer of coffee gave her a moment's pause. Oh god, she was going to need to avoid coffee for the foreseeable future too, wasn't she? Just another repercussion that she hadn't yet had a chance to process. "Water's fine," she answered hastily.
"Coming right up." He turned and headed towards the kitchen and she trailed after him, trying to decide if showing up at his loft had been a mistake or not. The loft was so much his space; if she tried, she could detect lingering underlying traces of his scent just in the air, making her momentarily tense but apparently, his scent didn't disagree with her even now. (Was that a good thing?) Maybe it would have been better for them to meet in neutral territory, somewhere that wasn't so redolent of him, but after all, it might have been a good thing to return here, be reminded of how comfortable the loft was, in a way that had nothing to do with its obvious luxury. It was just the whole atmosphere, the warmth and welcome of it, the pictures scattered around the space, mostly of Castle and Alexis. It was such a home, a happy family home, and a reminder that whatever else, Castle had created this happy, if unconventional, home for himself and Alexis and Martha.
It abruptly occurred to her that this baby would also be Alexis's half-sibling, would have an older sister. Oh lord. A living grandmother in Martha.
She perched cautiously on one of the stools at the kitchen island as Castle placed a glass of water in front of her. Her eyes strayed of their own volition to the refrigerator door, more specifically to one of the pictures affixed to the door, a picture of a somewhat-younger, laughing Alexis standing in front of Castle, his arms wrapped around her with his head resting on top of hers and grinning so widely his eyes were almost scrunched closed. Emotion tugged sharply at Kate's heart and for the first time since she'd seen the test results, she was aware of a rush of something like gratitude. This whole thing could have been so much worse. No matter how unplanned all this was, no matter that this was going to turn her whole life upside down and inside out in ways she couldn't begin to think about yet, no matter how far from ideal this was, she was… lucky, wasn't she? Lucky because if all this had to happen, it had happened with Castle. Because she already knew that Castle wouldn't be a deadbeat dad. More, she knew he was a good dad, liked kids.
For that matter, he would probably leap to create a trust fund or something for the baby, regardless of Kate's own opinion, with the way he seemed to like to throw money or his connections to solve problems. No—she stopped the thought as soon as it crossed her mind—that wasn't being fair to Castle. She felt a prick of remorse. Whatever Castle's faults, his parenting ability was not one of them and if he did act to create a trust for the baby, it wouldn't be out of some misguided thought to solve anything but would be out of his own sense of fatherly duty and caring.
Alexis was proof of that, especially considering Castle had raised Alexis mostly alone, and look how Alexis had turned out.
The thought helped to quell her burgeoning nerves and, although she wasn't fully conscious of it, softened her feelings towards Castle more than at any time in the last three months.
"So… um, not that it's not nice to see you but is something wrong? Is anything up at the precinct or with the boys?" he ventured cautiously.
"Nothing's wrong. The boys are at the precinct now," she answered rather jerkily. She supposed it was true, to a point, that nothing was definitively wrong, per se. "How have you been? And Alexis and Martha?" she blurted out abruptly, realizing belatedly that she was pretty obviously just stalling now and could have kicked herself.
"I'm fine, as are my mother and Alexis. The school year just started a week ago and Alexis might be the only teenager in the history of the world who doesn't mind school starting again." His tone was oddly measured, belying the casual words, but his tone and his expression both warmed and eased a little in speaking about Alexis.
The reminder of how good a dad he was fractionally eased the rising nervousness and she let out a breath. Time to just spit it out. She tried but couldn't think of any sort of smooth segue so she settled for simplicity, not to say bluntness. "We need to talk." She paused and then just dove in. There really was no subtle way of saying this anyway. "I'm pregnant."
It was the first time she'd said the words aloud and just hearing her own voice say them made the impact of the words seem to boomerang back and momentarily hit her in the chest, robbing her of breath, as the words echoed in her mind. Pregnant. She was pregnant. Oh god.
He blinked and stared, shock flattening his expression, and for the first time since they'd met, he looked entirely at a loss for words. His eyes darted down as if he could somehow x-ray through the kitchen island to see her stomach and then back up to her face, his mouth opening, then closing, and then opening again.
He didn't appear to be about to speak and partly as a result of her own skyrocketing tension, she found herself blurting out, "I've taken two tests and I'm late, by a lot. I have a doctor's appointment next week to confirm it but… I'm pretty sure." She made an awkward, meaningless motion with her hands, not quite fidgeting but not quite not either.
"I… um… are you—"
"And yes, I'm sure it's yours," she interrupted him, an edge entering her tone.
He blinked again but after a moment, he managed, "I was going to ask if you've been feeling okay." He paused and then went on, his lips twisting, "Believe me, Beckett, I'm well aware of the fact that you never wanted to see me again so you wouldn't be here now, telling me this, unless you were absolutely 110% sure it's mine."
There was a shade of something like… regret, even a tinge of hurt, in his tone and she was abruptly ashamed of herself. At her own prickly assumption that he would doubt her word. "I am feeling okay," she offered. She thought but decided it wasn't necessary to mention this morning's incident. It was just the one time and really, the old coffee machine sludge could probably nauseate just about anyone with taste buds.
He nodded slowly. "That's good," he said slowly, uncertainly, as if he had little idea what he was really saying.
Then before she'd consciously realized she was going to, she heard her own voice saying, "I don't hate you, you know," before stopping abruptly. Shit, she hadn't meant to say that. It might be true—okay, yes, it was true. And not just now either. Now that she was calmer, further removed from the mess of emotions she'd felt after first hearing his admission about her mom's case, she didn't think she had ever really hated him. She may have wanted to hate him—she could admit that—but if she hadn't, well, liked him more than she would have admitted to herself, she wouldn't have been so hurt by his actions either. And his words about her never wanting to see him again, more, his tone, the look that had flickered across his face, had pricked at her. Even aside from the situation in which they now found themselves, she recognized it wasn't fair to let him continue thinking she hated him. And she—well, she didn't want him thinking she was the kind of person who would have sex with a man she actually hated. (Apparently she cared about his opinion of her, although she didn't know why she should.)
His shoulders dropped slightly and she recognized it as him relaxing. So her opinion mattered to him too. "I'm glad," he responded simply.
There was a pause that stretched, dragged on, until she found herself blurting out, more to break the silence than anything else, "I realize now that I missed a few doses of the pill with everything going on and how upset I was and—" She broke off, realizing belatedly that she was trying to justify or explain herself. She was acting as if she expected him to accuse her of trying to trap him or something, if not into a proverbial shotgun wedding then just generally trying to get money from him since they both knew how wealthy he was. Shit, she hadn't even thought of that possible view of things. She might have been careless, stupid even, but this wasn't her fault either.
Although… she belatedly remembered that he'd paused at the last moment, gritting out something about protection, and she'd been the one to urge him on with the breathless assurance that she was safe and clean. The thought was accompanied by a vivid sensory memory of what it had felt like—what he had felt like—the searing heat and frantic urgency, and she felt her thighs tense automatically and sternly suppressed the urge to squirm or otherwise noticeably react. Shit. She reached for her glass and took an over-large gulp of water, thankful for how cold it was.
"You don't have to explain. I seem to remember having been an active participant too so this isn't only on you."
For possibly the first time since they'd met, she knew he wasn't intending any kind of innuendo, was simply stating a fact, but it didn't seem to matter to her body, because all she could think was that he had been active, active and strong and passionate and so good, the way he'd kissed her and touched her and— Shit, no, no, she couldn't think about this. She tried to forcibly banish any and all prurient memories from her mind, desperately trying to focus on something else, on all she had to do now. She would have to tell Captain Montgomery at some point—shit, wait, she would have to tell her dad even before that.
That thought had all the effect of a bucketful of ice water being dumped over her head. Oh god, she would have to tell her dad. Tell him that she'd had a one night stand with Castle and now—oh god. She supposed, although she and her dad had certainly never talked about it, her dad understood intellectually and in the abstract that she was, um, not a virgin but anything approaching her sex life was something she and her dad carefully skirted around but now, well, that was about to be blown up with a vengeance.
There was another silence, one which Castle was the one to break this time. "Beckett, I… I know we have a lot to talk about, a lot more to talk about," he amended. "But, well, before we get into more, can I say something?"
She nodded, trying not to tense. "Sure."
He squared his shoulders and met her eyes. "I should have told you sooner but by the time I realized it, well, I'd promised to leave you alone and I didn't want to break that promise. That night, before we—" he broke off and she fought a blush, as he paused and then went on, "what I should have said if I hadn't been too busy being an idiot was that I'm sorry. What I did, looking into your mom's case, was wrong and I shouldn't have tried to make excuses. I violated your trust, I opened old wounds, and I did not respect your wishes. I shouldn't have done it, I get that now. And regardless of anything else, you deserve to know that I'm very, very sorry."
If she'd had any expectation of what he might have been about to say, they would have all been proven wrong. She became belatedly aware that she'd momentarily forgotten to breathe during this little (amazing) speech and reminded herself to do so, sucking in a breath. She just… hadn't expected this, wasn't prepared for it, and even if she had been, didn't think she could have any defenses against this man, this new surprising (perhaps not so surprising) version of Castle.
She'd tried so hard to convince herself that he really was just a jackass, another entitled celebrity, who didn't care about anyone aside from himself and his daughter. Had tried so hard to forget or otherwise convince herself that the glimpses she'd had of the serious and yes, caring, side of him—the side of him who was so good with Alexis—the glimpses that had impelled her to tell him about her mom and her dad's troubles in the first place—were just some illusion, an act, not the real man at all.
She'd raged at herself for having been so stupid to tell him about her parents at all; she didn't talk about what had happened to her mom with any ease or frequency with anyone and certainly not with anyone she didn't know well. And she almost never spoke about her dad's struggles with anyone; she hadn't even told the boys about her dad. Montgomery knew because he'd been around for her dad's struggles and had seen some of it; Lanie knew because Lanie was her best friend and Kate had told Lanie one night a few years ago when they'd gone to a bar and witnessed some drunk patron being forcibly escorted out, bringing back sharp, painful memories of her own dad. Kate hadn't even told Will about her dad's struggles until just before they'd broken up, when she'd been telling him part of the reason why she could never consider leaving the City and her dad. But she'd told Castle after knowing him for only a couple months and when he'd gone behind her back to look into her mom's case, she'd blamed herself too for having been wrong about him, wrong for even starting to trust him.
But now, seeing the sincerity and the remorse in his eyes, hearing it in his voice, she felt the last, lingering knot of anger and hurt in her chest loosen and dissolve. This was the side of him that had made her start to trust him, made her start to like him. She had no defenses against this kind of sincerity, this kind of apology.
She could see now that Castle was not just another jackass celebrity; someone who really was just an entitled jackass would not apologize like this, would not admit to having been wrong like this, no justifications or excuses, just an apology. How had he put it once, that he was a wiseass, not a jackass? After all, he had been right about that.
And knowing that, she could forgive him. And perhaps more, she could forgive herself, accept that she had not been as wrong, as bad a judge of character, as she had feared. It might have at least partly been her own anger at herself that had fueled some of her anger at him. She'd felt like he'd tricked her, made a fool out of her. And in some ways, that had been worse. She was a cop, after all, a good part of her job relied on being a judge of character to figure out if someone was lying and why. And thinking that Castle who, regardless of anything else, was not some hardened sociopath, might have been able to deceive her so thoroughly into thinking he could be trusted when he couldn't be, had made the hurt and anger all the more visceral because it had also struck at the core of her belief in herself, in her ability to do her job.
Castle had made a mistake, yes, but as Captain Montgomery had told her once, people are more than their mistakes. What defined someone's character was not that they made mistakes since everyone made mistakes but the way they reacted to them.
And she remembered what Castle had told her that night in her apartment-that he had already asked his guy to look into her mom's case before she had told him not to. It didn't make what he'd done right but it made it… less wrong, if that made any sense, that he hadn't deliberately gone against her express wishes. It did seem like him, to follow the philosophy that it was better to ask forgiveness than permission.
She met his eyes. "You made a mistake, Castle," she finally responded, her voice quiet, rueful. "And as the original subject of this conversation has made clear, I'm not immune from making mistakes either."
His eyes brightened, the set of his lips easing, not smiling yet but getting there. "So I guess you're human too." He affected a little sigh. "That's news to me. I always thought you might be a superhero."
Yeah, this was the Castle she remembered. She rolled her eyes but knew her lips twitched, betraying the faint start of a smile she couldn't seem to help. "Superheroes aren't real, Castle."
He widened his eyes at her in mock dismay. "Beckett, how can you say such a thing? Besides," he sobered with an abruptness that was startling, "You might be being too literal. Being a superhero doesn't have to be about being able to fly or shoot laser beams out of your eyes, as awesome as that is. Super-heroism is in the eye of the beholder. Some people might say that, oh, for example, someone who has suffered a devastating loss but has managed to overcome that loss and still spends all her time trying to help others in a way that she was not, is a superhero because the point is that superheroes do what ordinary people don't do."
He paused and she swallowed the sudden, silly lump in her throat, aware of butterflies suddenly rioting inside her. Oh damn. It was so… unfair of him to do this to her, to say such things to her even after she seemed to have spent all her time here being suspicious, overly prickly, and ill-tempered.
"But of course," he continued airily, "that's just what some people might say. I, of course, think all superheroes wear capes and if they can't exactly fly or shoot lasers or shape-shift, have super-awesome gadgets and secret lairs like Batman. But then, as I think we both know, I'm just that shallow." He gave her an insouciant smirk, for the first time looking like his old self.
A small laugh escaped her because the alternative might have been something approaching a sob and that was ridiculous but oh, damn, this was so like Castle too, she was slowly starting to realize. Brief glimpses of his serious side, the sort of man he might actually be, followed up by an obvious show of ridiculousness to deflect attention, a form of misdirection and distraction. He pretended to be shallow just as he put on a (perhaps too) convincing show of being a jackass but in reality, she was beginning to recognize, he wasn't actually a shallow jackass. As if he, in his own way, wore as much of a disguise as the Batman costume was for Bruce Wayne (and wasn't that a comparison worthy of Castle himself. He was contagious.)
Castle had his faults certainly; he could be reckless, immature, and overly cocky, but at base, she suspected, he might really be a nice guy, possibly even a good man. Although she did wonder why he pretended otherwise. Most people pretended to be better than they really were and hid their faults. Castle seemed to do the opposite and hid his virtues, at least, she supposed, to everyone outside of his own family. (What was he like when it was just him and Alexis or just him, Alexis, and Martha? She was starting to wonder if maybe Alexis and Martha might be the only people who saw the real Castle.)
And yes, she thought, if this whole unplanned pregnancy thing had to happen, she had been very lucky. She supposed it helped that she hadn't just picked a random guy in a bar to have a one night stand with (not that she would ever have let down her guard with some random stranger enough to have sex without a condom—and it occurred to her that in a sense, she had trusted Castle even That Night, in spite of everything) but still, an hour ago, she had been mostly convinced that he was a jerk and would react accordingly. Instead—well, she had to admit he had probably reacted to her shock announcement better than she had.
"I see you're still just as silly as ever," she observed dryly but her lips curved as she said it, making it a tease.
He returned her smile with one of his real, sincere smiles, which she hadn't often seen.
She felt the first sparks of hope kindle in her chest, hope that she and Castle could cobble together some sort of working (parenting) relationship, something like a friendship, at least enough to allow them to get through this whole unexpected situation, to essentially work together as they would have to do if they were going to ensure that this baby—oh god, a baby— never felt any lack or suffered in any way from the less-than-ideal circumstances of its conception.
There was another silence but this time, it was a more comfortable one with only some lingering awkwardness and she belatedly realized that she had relaxed, most of her tension and nervousness having dissolved.
"I know we have a lot more to talk about but Alexis will probably be home soon," he started after a moment. "I don't know if you want to…"
"No," she hurriedly denied, shaking her head automatically. "It's too soon to tell anyone else yet. I haven't even seen my doctor to get official confirmation and anyway, it's early and they say not to start telling people until after the first trimester."
"Because that's the most uncertain time when things could go wrong," he supplied easily.
"Yeah," she agreed, managing a small twitch of her lips, reminded all over again that he had been through a pregnancy before, albeit second-hand, with Alexis. Actually, from what she knew of Castle, she guessed he might know more about pregnancy than she did at this point. She made a mental note to stop off at a bookstore on her way home.
He nodded. "I'll follow your lead in this and whatever you need or want from me, I'll do it, I promise."
The sincerity, the breadth, of the promise he was making made something flutter inside her. "I should go, before Alexis gets home," was what she said, sliding off the stool. "I don't want to get into explanations now. But um…"
"I won't mention anything," he hurriedly interjected.
She gave him a small smile at that. It occurred to her it was probably not easy for Castle to promise to keep a secret like this from Alexis even for a short time but he was keeping his promise to follow her lead. "I was going to say, I'll call you or something, after my doctor's appointment, and we could talk more then, once we have confirmation."
"That sounds good."
She picked up her purse. "Thanks for the water and for, well, listening," she said rather lamely but she wasn't sure what else to say, how to thank him for not reacting badly, for not blaming her or doubting her or something.
"It was no trouble." He waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, wait, Beckett?"
She turned to look at him. "Hmm?"
He looked a little ill at ease again, shifting his weight, and she felt a renewed prick of apprehension. Oh god, what now?
"I, um, there's something else. It had sort of slipped my mind with, well, everything but since you're here, I should mention it…"
He was hedging, which increased her nervousness. "What is it?"
"Well, the Nikki Heat book is coming out in a month, I don't know if you remember, and Paula, my agent, just contacted me about some publicity she arranged leading up to the release and… I don't know how you're going to react to this. I was going to call Captain Montgomery, talk it over with him, since I promised to leave you alone but since you're here now…" He trailed off, more obviously nervous than he'd been today before he finished in a rush, "Paula arranged for a publicity piece in Cosmopolitan and they want to do a photo shoot to accompany the piece, in the precinct, and an interview with me and you too."
She blinked and stared. "Cosmo wants to interview me?" she repeated blankly. That was definitely a sentence she had never in her life imagined she would hear. "Why me?" And realized only after she'd asked how inane the question was.
"Because you're the inspiration for Nikki Heat," he explained anyway—and to his credit, did not sound as if he were answering a silly question. "And I got the impression they want to hear more about our working together, play up the angle of the real-world experience that went into my research." He paused and then went on hurriedly, "I know you can't like the idea of it and if you really hate it that much, I can try to call it off—"
"When?" she blurted out, interrupting him. A faint frown of confusion crossed his face and she hurriedly clarified, "When do they want to do this interview?"
"So, you're okay with it?" he asked. "You're agreeing?"
Oh, her question had sort of sounded like a tacit agreement, which she hadn't exactly intended but… If anyone had suggested the idea of Castle returning to the precinct for a photo shoot and for her to do an interview for what was bound to be a silly fluff piece on Nikki Heat (oh, that name!) even an hour ago, she had no doubt she would have refused immediately. Publicity like that was the last thing she needed in her job and not something she was personally comfortable with anyway. And as of just this morning, she would still have recoiled at the idea of seeing Castle again. But now… well, she had already seen Castle again and in much more awkward circumstances and while she wasn't comfortable with the thought of that kind of publicity, she had sense enough to recognize that it would also be good press for the NYPD of a kind that the NYPD rarely got. For that reason alone, she doubted One PP or for that matter, even Captain Montgomery, would have allowed her to refuse, if they heard of the idea. And she was also worldly enough to recognize that publicity of this kind would be a big deal for Castle and this new book of his. But Castle had offered to try to cancel it if she asked… It was a compromise, even a sacrifice, probably even a bigger one than she had the understanding to recognize since she was hardly an expert on publicity.
"Yes, I'm agreeing," she answered, adding with a wry twist of her lips, "I can't say I'm overjoyed at the thought of it but I'll manage. I'm a detective; I refuse to be intimidated by some Cosmo reporter."
He smiled. "You face down hardened criminals every day, Beckett; I'm sure you'll have the reporter eating out of the palm of your hand in no time."
She felt herself flush at the approval and the admiration in his eyes and his tone. Oh damn, how did he do that? She wasn't some teenage girl to blush over a compliment, but here she was, aware of a distinct flutter in her chest.
"And thanks," he went on, "for agreeing." His lips quirked. "You might have just saved my life too because I'm pretty sure if I'd contacted Paula and backed out of the interview with Cosmo, she would have murdered me."
She had to smile. "Serve and protect, it's what I do," she drawled. She'd forgotten this, she thought, the way he managed to make her smile and, more than that, the little spike of enjoyment at their banter. It was what was so disarming about him, such a big part of what had made her soften towards him in the first place, part of his charm and, fine, yes, his attraction.
Shit, she should not be thinking like this. That part of their relationship, of sorts, was over, had to be over. She wasn't going to compound the mistake they had already made by building some fantasy that this could lead to more. She refused to act like a teenage girl building fantasies around a boy just because he was attractive and had smiled at her—and called her extraordinary and said she was like a superhero, a voice in her mind unhelpfully interjected. (Shut up! She wasn't going to start thinking like that!) It was enough that they could get along, start over in a sense. Platonically, of course, as they adjusted to this twist of fate.
"And you're very good at it. Oh, and to answer your question, Cosmo sent along a list of possible dates and I was going to run them past Captain Montgomery to settle on one. But it would most likely be in the next week or two, if it's going to be done in time for the book release."
She nodded. "Okay. I guess I'll hear about it from Captain Montgomery then."
"I'll call him about it first thing tomorrow," he told her.
"And like I said, I'll call you after my doctor's appointment and I guess we'll go from there."
"Sounds like a plan," he agreed.
She reached the door of the loft and he opened it for her. She turned back to face him, feeling a return of some awkwardness at this parting. This somehow seemed like the real start of this new, next phase in their relationship—friendship—connection, whatever. "Well, take care, Castle, and I'll be in touch," she said, not smoothly. She hesitated, considered holding out a hand for him to shake but decided against it, a handshake would seem silly. (And it was probably better to avoid touching him in any way, a tiny voice in her mind inserted.)
"You take care of yourself too. And, well, it really is good to see you, Beckett."
She gave him a small smile before she stepped out into the hall. "Have a good night, Castle."
"See you later, Beckett." He still couldn't just say 'night,' could he?
She walked to the elevator and stepped inside when the door opened, glancing back to meet his eyes fleetingly as he lifted a hand in farewell. And then the elevator door slid closed.
She momentarily allowed herself to sag against the wall, a rush of breath leaving her. Well, this first necessary conversation was over now and hadn't been so bad after all.
She thought—hoped—everything really might work out okay. They were both adults, both responsible (Castle had proven himself to be surprisingly so, when it came to being a parent). Surely they would be able to reach some sort of amicable agreement for how to go on, both in these next months and after the baby came along. That would be enough, was all she expected or wanted.
~To be continued…~
A/N 2: As always, thank you to all readers and reviewers, especially the guests whom I can't thank directly.
