FOUR
Annoyed and frankly a little angry, Rick stalked towards his police cruiser, pulling at the Velcro tabs securing his bullet proof vest as he went. Once at the car, he popped the trunk, pulled the vest off, and threw it down. He piled his other safety gear on top of it and then gazed back at the building he'd just exited, his lips flattened together to form a single line. He waited impatiently for several minutes for his partner to emerge and hardly waited until she was within earshot until he laid into her.
"What the hell was that in there? You didn't have my back."
"I know; I'm sorry," she said meekly as she removed her own bulletproof vest and placed it in the trunk beside him.
Still annoyed, Rick continued. "Well sorry isn't quite good enough, Beckett. That situation could have gotten really bad, really quickly—for both of us!"
For several months Rick and Kate, along with a team stretching across several precincts, had been tracking a smuggling ring bringing illegal goods into the city. Despite lots of man hours, they'd struggled to find any leads or clues directing them to the members of the group. Ten days earlier, one of the crew members had been found dead by the East River, giving them their first tangible leads. After diligent research and despite many dead ends, they had finally come up with a name for their dead man and that name led them to a residence which, after some observation, they learned was occupied by another man suspected to be in the smuggling ring.
As lead detectives in their precinct, Rick and Kate had been tasked with bringing the man into custody. Considering the crime this ring had committed, they had to assume the man would not come willingly, thus they'd been geared up and ready for a fight. Fortunately, that fight did not take place, because when they breached the door, the apartment was found to be empty. They did not, however, know that before opening the door, which was why Rick had been horror-struck to find that his partner was not immediately behind him as they approached. Instead, she'd been back in the stairwell, leaving Rick exposed and without backup.
"I know, I know." She sighed heavily and shut the car trunk before gazing up at him, remorseful.
Only when his eyes met her did Rick's anger fade into concern. He could see anguish and a little bit of fear hidden behind her tear-filled gaze and it made his chest ache. "What is it? What's going on?"
She shook her head and said just above a whisper. "I can't."
"Can't? Can't what?"
Her bottom lip began to tremble, and she rotated away from him, but he stepped forward and curled his fingers around her eyebrow asking again, "Can't what?"
"I don't know how to tell you," She confessed.
"You can tell me anything," he assured her. They had been almost that close even before becoming intimate, but in the half year since crossing that barrier, he felt there was nothing they couldn't share with each other. The waters they navigated were precarious, but he felt they were coasting along rather seamlessly. Yes, now and then he'd slip up and accidentally almost refer to her as "Kate" in front of some of his colleagues, and they had to be quite careful about keeping any physical contact between them in check, but nothing had exposed them to date.
As tears began to drip down Kate's face, Castle knew something serious had to be going on with her, so he led her carefully by the elbow a few hundred feet away where they could step into an alley between two residential buildings. With no one around, and them far away from any radios or microphones in their squad car, they could talk freely. "Hey, c'mon," he encouraged, his voice soft. "Tell me, please?"
Her voice squeaked as she confessed, "I'm pregnant."
Rick immediately felt all the blood rush away from his head and his knees felt a bit wobbly. "What—you're what?" he asked, sure he hadn't heard her right, but when she began to cry harder, he knew that he had. He tentatively reached out and placed his hand atop her shoulder, not wanting to do any more than that since they could still potentially be seen by someone walking by on the sidewalk, and gasped, "Oh my god!"
"Shh!" she scolded despite her tears.
Realizing he'd gasped a little louder than he meant to, he lowered his tone. "Sorry. Just—oh my god. I didn't—I didn't think that was possible!"
"Neither did I," she admitted.
Rick took in a few deep breaths through his nose in a futile attempt to calm his heartrate. If she was indeed pregnant, the news was not only unexpected but also, quite literally, nearly impossible. Thanks to the vast reduction in the female population that led to the highly controlled government procreation programs, it would be impossible to say for sure how many of the existing women could become pregnant without any medical intervention; however, history told them that birth rates in general had been dropping along with the drop in females, which meant one could only assume that natural pregnancies were a true rarity indeed, which made it all the more important that they confirm she was actually pregnant. "Are you sure?"
She gave a confused little shrug. "There aren't any over-the-counter tests I can take, but I haven't had my period, I'm mildly nauseous in the mornings, and this binder is making my breasts hurt really bad," she said as she placed her hands gently on her chest. "Plus, I feel like I'm going to cry all the time. That might also be the stress…"
Rick felt his heart clench, hating that she felt stressed to the point of wanting to cry. "Don't be stressed, Beckett."
She gazed at him incredulously. "How can I not be stressed?"
He said nothing as there was nothing he could say. Though he could not fathom her level of fear at that moment, he understood it stemmed from the idea that it would now be impossible for her to masquerade as a man. Even if they ignored the fact that she would need a very unique type of medical care, her belly would still grow exponentially, and it would be impossible to hide. Plus, on top of all that, there was the concern for her safety. Surely, with her pregnancy being such a tenuous situation, she should not put herself into any harm's way during while doing her job.
"Right, right…okay, but we're going to figure this out together. I promise."
For the first time since their conversation began, her anguish appeared to be overtaken by a bit of hope. "Yeah?"
His brow furrowed and he asked, "You didn't we would?"
She shrugged one shoulder. "Well, I … I don't know. I wasn't sure if you'd want kids."
A grin exploded onto his face as he confessed, "Oh, yeah! Absolutely! I was actually hoping my writing career had taken off a bit more so I could afford to have one, but this is so much better!"
Those days, the most common way to have a child was to do one through the government fertility facilities; however, due to the limited number of females in existence, there were also a limited number of men who could apply to have a child, as such the application process was quite rigorous—and expensive. Any man interested needed to have an extensive physical and genetic health evaluation, attend twenty hours' worth of parenting and fertility seminars, and be psychologically evaluated on their ability to care for a child. That was, of course, in addition to proving their financial ability to do so—and paying the high fees to go through the entire process. Once they were approved through all those layers of red tape, they entered a lottery system, and if chosen they would have their sperm harvested and be allowed to father one and only one child.
Ever since he was a teen, Rick had longed to have a large family. He wasn't sure exactly what drew him to the idea, particularly since no one he knew had large families, but the desire remained. He knew that his wishes would never be anything more than that as he had not grown up in a wealthy family. When he sold his first novel and held that very first check in his hand, he felt a small glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, if he was successful enough, he could afford to be one of the elite few men able to have a family, but that dream soon died. In the years since he'd tried not to think about his situation too much as he found it too sad, but now, with one little sentence from his partner, his entire worldview had changed.
Even if he'd been wealthy enough to afford a child, he would have received only that: a child. He wouldn't have complained about it, of course, but he also would not have known the identity of the child's mother. He would never have been able to meet her, and they certainly couldn't have formed a family together, as she would have had to continue her government-mandated task of producing more children. Now, with Kate, not only would he get to be by her side through all the stages of her pregnancy, but he would also have the joy of knowing that their child was made through love. Their son or daughter would know that their parents loved each other dearly, something that happened so rarely those days it was nearly unheard of, and that was certainly something to celebrate.
Though he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her, he knew that he could not, so he merely gave her shoulder a squeeze and promised, "It's going to be okay, Beckett; we're in this together."
She gave him a tentative smile, then nodded and led the way back to their cruiser so that they could return their focus to their case—at least, for a little while.
Later that day, Kate entered Castle's apartment and walked directly into the bedroom, unbuttoning her white collared shirt as she went, her sole focus on removing the binder that was agonizingly compressing her sore breasts. She shrugged out of the shirt, dropped it to the floor, and then tugged the binder up and over her head, wincing when her breasts were finally free. She gave the binder a toss onto the end of the bed and then moved both hands to her belt, figuring as long as she was going to be comfortable on top, she was going to be comfortable everywhere.
Stripped down to just her panties, Kate then walked towards the closet, but caught her reflection in the mirror above the dresser. She stared at the space between her belly button and the top of her panties for several moment to see if she could notice a swell or bump beginning, but she could not. She decided to turn sideways to see her profile to see if that produced any signs of a pregnancy but thankfully it didn't—not yet, anyway. She knew it was only a matter of time before she was visibly pregnant, though she didn't know quite how long as the information wasn't readily available. That week was the one of her second missed period, so she probably had a least one more month, but did she have two? Three seemed unlikely, but maybe…maybe…
With a heavy sigh, she pulled open the closet door and began to reach for one of the shirts she had hanging there, but then thought better of it. She shut the door again and returned to the dresser where, from the top drawer, she pulled out one of her boyfriend's black t-shirts. After pulling that over her head she began to pick up the clothing she'd tossed uncaringly to the floor several minutes earlier.
Technically, she and Rick didn't live together, but those days she rarely spent more than one or two nights a week at the apartment she shared with her father. It just made more sense for her to stay with Rick as it afforded them the privacy they couldn't have where she lived. Plus, even though they spent the majority of their days together, spending their evenings apart didn't make sense; she wanted to spend all the time she could with him, especially now that it seemed their time together was likely coming to an end.
From the time she was conscious enough to fully understand a woman's place in the world in which she existed, Kate had known she was only biding her time with the identity her parents had allowed her to overtake. While she was grateful for the foresight her mother had, she also knew how unlikely it was that she would be able to maintain her identity as James Beckett for the rest of her life. She was a human and was thus imperfect and she knew that no matter how hard she tried she'd slip up somehow, she just hadn't known what that slipup would be.
Any time she had been in public, Kate had always operated with extreme caution. She thought about her actions before she made them. She thought about her words before she spoke. She was always very conscious of anyone in close physical proximity to her. She was active and always ate as consciously as she could to maintain her health for that was the one thing she felt most likely to be her downfall. If, for instance, she had an urgent medical need, it would have been nearly impossible to hide her true identity.
In a way, she had been right. The life she'd carved out for herself would be brought down by a medical incident, just not the emergency appendectomy she always suspected it might be. If a pregnancy was her undoing, at least the result would be more positive than removing an unnecessary organ.
When she bent down to pick up her pants, Kate felt an unexpected wave of nausea pulse through her. Clutching her stomach, she sat on the edge of the bed, leaned over so her forearms rested on her thighs, and took in slow, deep breaths through her nose. Nausea really was the worst feeling in the world, and she was fortunate enough to rarely feel it—until the prior few weeks, that was. It wasn't terribly frequent, but when it hit her, she had to sit down, shut her eyes, and breathe deeply so it would pass, which was difficult to do if she was in public.
After a minute, the wave passed, but Kate remained seated on the bed, her hand resting loosely on her stomach.
Pregnant.
The concept was still difficult for her brain to grasp. Despite the fact that she knew pregnancy was technically possible as soon as she and Rick had begun to have sex, it truly hadn't been a concern of hers. Everyone knew that reproduction had been a very controlled process dependent on scientific intervention for decades. In her mind, falling pregnant was akin to being struck by lightning. Sure, it happened, but never more than a few times per year—and it was usually to someone you never knew. Then again, maybe she should have expected it, for her relationship with Rick did feel a little bit like a lightning strike.
Once she felt her nausea had passed for the time being, Kate stood—slowly—and made her way to the kitchen so she could get herself some water. She was still taking small sips when Rick arrived with their take-out meals. Kate grimaced to herself as the thought of garlic chicken no longer sounded very appealing. Perhaps Rick would be willing to swap with her.
"Hey." He brushed his lips against her cheek as he slid into the kitchen past her. "Feeling okay?"
"Um, kind of. Had a bit of nausea as I was getting changed. Now I just feel kind of tired."
"Want to lay down before we eat?"
She shook her head. "No, but maybe we should talk."
Rick put the take-out bag on the counter and walked over to her. He gently brushed his hand up and down her arm, saying, "Yeah, absolutely. We can talk about whatever you want whenever you want, but I'm going to dedicate all the free time I can to doing some research on this over the next week, so hopefully we can have a more informed discussion after that."
Kate blinked, confused. "You're…going to research what it's like to be pregnant?"
"No, I'm going to research our options. I don't know if there are any places in this country where you can still procreate freely, but surely there are in other countries. Maybe Mexico or somewhere in south America…"
Kate felt her face flush again, but she knew it wasn't from nausea. This time it was from shock. "Y-you want us to leave the country?"
He gave her a sad smile, "Well, I'm pretty sure what the alternative is if we stay here."
Kate suppressed a shiver as she said, "I'm actually trying not to focus on that because it's too overwhelming." If she let herself, inside her mind's eye would be the looming building off first avenue once known as Bellevue Hospital many decades prior, but now renamed the Manhattan Fertility Center. From her point of view, Fertility Prison would have been more accurate, for the women weren't exactly permitted to come and go freely. They were house inside, put through frequent testing, and impregnated using the government's methodologies that provided the most healthy and viable infants. The women who weren't born into privileged homes or had no other options went through that cycle as many times as their bodies could bear at great expense to their mental health, Kate feared, which was why she had done everything in her life up until that point trying to avoid ending up there.
"I understand that, but…eventually you will need medical care," Rick pointed out.
"I know, but I think I can go a few months without it."
His brow winkled with concern. "Are you sure?"
She shrugged. "No. But…what choice do I have."
Anguish appeared briefly on his face. Then, he pulled her into his arms and said, "I'm here for you, you know? I love you."
She hugged him back tightly. "I know. I love you, too."
A/N: there will be 2 more updates
