Chapter 11

"You know Castle." Kate grunted when she stepped up on the sidewalk once they crossed over Broome Street. Castle reached out a hand to help her, but she waved him off. Instead, she used both hands to support her back. "I'm really not sure how much longer I'll be able to follow your whims of going on a walk all around this city. I'm just too pregnant."

He skimmed his hand across her shoulders and smiled. "First of all, it was around the neighborhood only. And second, it's just such a lovely day out. And you know you feel better when you move around a bit."

Kate sighed and rubbed her hands against her sore back. Castle was completely correct in that moving around did make her feel better in some ways, but the Catch-22 was that it made her feel worse in others. She knew that she shouldn't complain because overall she felt she had a very easy pregnancy. She really had only begun to feel awful in the prior two weeks, as her son's size grew to the point where it seemed there was no more room for her organs. As a result, she'd suffered horrible heartburn to the point where consuming every meal became a chore and she needed to use the bathroom approximately every thirty-five minutes. Compared to some of the symptoms she read about on pregnancy blogs, she knew she was still one of the more fortunate ones, but she also knew she would soon reach the tipping point where she no longer had a desire to be pregnant and just wanted her baby to be out of her body, where he could no longer bump against her ribs.

When it came to the walk that Castle had suggested, he was correct that she did not feel good if she sat or lay around all day, but at the same time walking was challenging due to the fact that her feet always seemed to be sore and more often than not would begin to swell if she was up and about for too long. Considering the swelling problem was getting progressively worse, she feared there might soon come a point where the only moving she could do was in between places to sit.

"God," she groaned when she felt a pinch of discomfort in the arch of her left food. Castle hurried ahead of her and opened the door to their apartment building so she could waddle past as she groaned, "Soon I just wont' be able to walk at all."

He laughed as they made their way towards the elevator. "You know that's not true. Little Henry is just going to make it challenging for you."

Kate gave him a curious look. "Oh he's 'Henry' now?"

Castle gave a jovial shrug. "Trying out different names…you like?"

Inside of her mind, Kate repeated the name Henry Castle several times, but wasn't sure she liked the flow. "I don't completely dislike it. I'm just not sure yet…"

"Still thinking about James?"

"Only as a middle name," she said. She felt that every time she paged through the baby names book Castle gave her, she picked more names she liked and found more she disliked—even if those had previously been on the "liked" list. For a while she continued to come back to James, since she both liked the name and it also happened to be that of her father's. She did kind of like the idea of naming her son after his grandfather, but it wasn't mandatory to her. Then, as her mood shifted, she thought maybe it would be best to have that as his middle name and let his first name be unique. "I was thinking maybe Brandon. Or Howard."

"Howard?" Castle asked with notable surprise.

She shrugged and scratched her fingers up and down her belly. "Yeah… I saw a mommy blogger talking about her son Howie and it sounded cute."

"I…don't think that's a good idea." Though his tone was gentle, she could see on his face that he was unhappy with the name, which told her it really must have been a bad idea, because he was usually okay with most of her suggestions. She shrugged and chalked it up to her having another one of those "pregnancy brain" moments—like when she put the box of Raisin Bran back into the refrigerator along with the milk.

"Well, I wasn't totally in love with it; just had it on the maybe list." Just then the elevator stopped at their floor, so she moved to get out, but felt another sharp pain in her foot—this time along the tops of her toes. "Oh god Castle…I don't know if I can keep wearing these sneakers."

"Too tight?"

"Yeah." She grumbled, annoyed with herself. She knew it was all in the process of growing a life, but did she really have to stop wearing everything she owned? Pants, clothes, bras, panties—all of them had been temporarily replaced. Her shoes were the only thing she had left! And she'd already had to stop wearing heels around her thirtieth week due to the fact that the pain in the balls of her feet would become unbearable after just a few hours (thanks to the extra twenty-some pounds she was carrying around, she imagined).

"No worries, Beckett," Castle said, skimming his hand over her back, "I'll buy you new ones in the next size up."

"You don't have to buy me everything I even imply I might need," she pointed out, but he shook his head.

His expression remained determined. "Of course I do; that's my job as the supportive father to be."

"Uh huh. Well, right now I just need to sit and prop my feet up. Well…no, first I have to pee. Then I have to prop my feet up."

"Um…" Castle turned his head towards her and she noticed he wore a cautious expression. "You might want to hold on to that thought."

"Why?" she asked, but he didn't respond. He just unlocked the apartment door as if he'd said nothing at all. She waddled after him, about to repeat her question, when she was startled by a shriek of, "SURPRISE."

"Wha—oh, oh god! Oh shit!" She cursed as she felt a trickle of wetness between her legs. The shout from the unexpected crowd of people in her apartment had surprised her to the point where a little bit of urine had leaked out. Sadly, this was not the first time that happened to her, but it generally only occurred when she sneezed. Apparently, this was a new development.

She could hardly take in the scene of blue streamers, blue balloons, and the smiling faces of many of her friends and family while thinking about the fact that she had just peed herself in front of them. "I, um…I…I need a minute" She muttered before hurrying as quickly as she could into the bedroom, which fortunately had a doorway off the foyer.

"Kate? What's going on?" Castle hissed as he chased after her.

Once in the sanctity of their bedroom, she turned around and hissed, "I peed myself!"

"Oh."

"Don't you dare laugh!" she snapped at his tone, which was dangerously on the edge of amusement.

He struggled to flatten his lips. "I'm not laughing. I'm not! Because this might be my fault. Partially. Sorry—I thought the surprise baby shower would be a fun idea! Please don't be mad."

Too embarrassed to be mad, she simply gestured towards the main room of the apartment and said quietly, "Just go distract while I change my underwear!"

He gave her two thumbs up and said, "You got it!" before dashing back out the door.

Kate huffed out a breath as she made her way to the dresser where her undergarments were kept. She knew that accidentally leaking some urine at an inopportune time was common in pregnancy, but that didn't make it any less embarrassing. Or annoying.

As she cleaned herself up, she realized that while baby showers were quite common for women having their first child, she had not once even thought about it with regards to herself. Recently, every waking moment she wasn't working had been spent on trying to find Jerry Tyson. She and Castle had both dedicated their evenings and days off to searching, hitting dead ends, and then turning around to find new angles. They knew it was the only way to keep their son safe, so it had to be done, but she was grateful to Castle for once again being kind and considerate and thinking about throwing her a baby shower. It was just another example of why she loved him and why he was the man she never expected to find, yet was somehow the one she'd been waiting her whole life for.


"Hey."

Castle glanced up from his computer when he heard the sleepy greeting from his partner. He immediately shut the lid of his laptop and walked around the desk to greet her. "Hey. Feeling better now?" As the baby shower was winding down, she began to complain of a headache, so he told her to go and lay down while he said goodbye to their guests and began the post-party clean up. Despite the rough ending for Kate, the shower seemed to have been a rousing success.

For quite some time Castle had wanted to throw his love a baby shower but remained hesitant because he wasn't sure how Kate would react. Even after she insisted that she wanted to keep the baby for them to raise, he was on the fence about how much the event should be celebrated given how the child was conceived. It was actually his mother who came to him asking about whether or not he was planning a shower. He confessed his hesitation, but in true Martha Rodgers fashion, she insisted that it would all be fine, and Kate would appreciate the gesture. Really, she had done a lot of the legwork for him insofar as gathering decorations and hiring caterers (all using his credit card, of course). He came up with the guest list, making sure to invite as many of her friends as he could, plus some coworkers from the Twelfth, nearly all of whom accepted the invite—even Gates.

Despite the initial SNAFU with Kate's unexpected bladder leakage, he was quite pleased with how well the shower went. His mother seemed to keep herself reasonably in check insofar as not playing too many silly baby shower games. Kate even teared up during the part of the afternoon when other moms read out advice cards to her, which further reaffirmed to Castle that the party had been a good idea.

"How long was I out?" Kate asked groggily.

"About forty-five minutes."

She nodded, rubbed her left eye, and then landed both hands on her belly. "I feel…very pregnant."

Castle couldn't help but laugh aloud. "Yeah, that was kind of today's theme."

She walked over, kissed him sweetly, and placed her fingers gently along his neck. "Thank you for all of this. It was really, really nice."

"I'm glad you had a good day," he said before kissing her cheek.

She hummed as she yawned and then patted her stomach again. "Is there any of that spinach dip left? That was really good."

"Um…I think so? Let's go check the fridge."

He led the way towards the kitchen but was stopped halfway there when he heard her half-laugh and half-gasp. "Oh my god…how did I not notice how much stuff this was. Where are we going to put it all?"

Castle turned to find her in the middle of the living area surrounded by piles of gifts. The haul really was borderline excessive, but now that the news of their child-to-be had been made public on his official website gifts were being sent in from all over the place, and he had saved some of the more recent ones to be opened at the shower. Of course, they hadn't solicited gifts from any of Castle's fellow famous writer colleagues or notable celebrities he'd worked with in the past, but he appreciated their kind gestures.

For the duration of her pregnancy, Castle had been very secretive about who he told about Kate's pregnancy. At that time, they weren't sure what the future held for them and given how things started, he felt it was for the best. Gina ended up finding out around Kate's twenty-fourth week of pregnancy simply because she had stopped by the apartment with some documents for him, Kate had been there, and, well, it was extremely obvious by that point. He had kindly requested she keep it secret, and she agreed, but he also knew it was only a matter of time before someone snapped a photo of them out together and Kate's belly would be on display on Page Six.

Two weeks earlier, Esposito had proposed to them the idea of announcing Kate's pregnancy on Castle's official blog. Kate's initial response had been something along the lines of, "Why in the hell would I do that when that psychopath is still on the loose," and that's when Esposito explained his reasoning. He believed that the more public the knowledge of Castle's baby was, the less chance Tyson would be able to take it, so the announcement would almost be like an insurance policy.

"Think of the headlines, 'Castle baby kidnapped from Manhattan home.' Everyone would be looking for him especially because we could plaster his face over every news outlet in the country," the detective had said.

"And look how that worked out for the Lindbergh baby," Kate had cruelty snapped as an initial reaction, but as time progressed, she came around to the idea as more and more it was looking like the best one they would have. Ultimately, she agreed, and a congratulatory message was posted. Castle had no idea whether or not it would help them or hurt them, but on the off chance it helped, he didn't want to risk not taking a shot.

"Well…the nursey will be done by the middle of next week and we can start loading stuff in. We'll wash and put away all the clothes, too."

Kate spun around in the spot, looking at the piles of things both large and small and said, "Babies are so tiny…but they have so much stuff."

Castle laughed. "Yes, that is very, very true."

"But…do we really need multiple strollers? And baby swings?"

"Well…we might want a swing for upstairs and downstairs…but strollers, no. We'll find a good place to donate all the duplicate stuff to." Castle rationalized.

"Yeah…" she said distantly. Remembering their main purpose for coming out into the main room, he walked into the kitchen and went to the refrigerator to see if there was any more of the dip Kate asked for. He thoroughly searched through the refrigerator, but he couldn't find any, but there were plenty of other leftovers she could pick from.

"Sorry, Kate, but I don't see any—hey, what's wrong?" he asked upon seeing that she remained in the center of the living area, but now had tears streaming down her face.

"Oh, no its… hormones," she promised, waving her right hand dismissively. "I just thought about these cute clothes and what it will be like to put them on him and then hold him."

"It's going to be wonderful." Castle promised her, believing it whole heartedly. True, he was eighteen years older than was when Alexis was born so there was bound to be some more challenges with all the sleepless nights, but he was absolutely looking forward to each and every one of them. On top of his existing excitement to be a father again, he knew he would have the added joy of watching Kate be a mother. He understood that she was still nervous about her skills and that made sense, but he knew she was going to be phenomenal.

"Are you still hungry? We don't have dip left, but there's plenty of other food."

"Mmm no I think I'll just wait for dinner now; thanks though." She smiled at him and then sat down on the couch to sort through the baby clothes piled there.

"Okay well…actually I do have just one more gift for you—this one's from me, though."

She laughed. "Oh my gosh, Castle what else could we possibly need? We have more than enough of everything."

"Mm well I promise this is something you don't have yet."

Brow arched she challenged, "Yeah? What is it?"

His heart thrumming beneath his rib cage, Castle pulled the ring box out of the pocket of his jeans and took a knee in front of her. Before he could even open his mouth, she had already gasped, "Oh my god, Castle!"

"I was thinking," he began the speech he had been practicing for days, "about us. About the baby. About everything, really, and…well, when it comes down to it, there's only one natural step here. You've moved in here; we're going to raise our son here and that's wonderful. We're going to be a family, but I want it to be official. I want you to be my wife. I've wanted that for a while, actually. Probably even longer than I even realized, but now I honestly can't think of anything else.

"I love you so much and I cannot wait to spend the rest of my life with you so, Katherine Beckett, will you marry me?"

She nodded tearfully for several seconds before whispering out, "Yes."

All the tension in his body instantly releasing, he let out a happy laugh and flipped open the ring box to show her. "Oh my god," she half sobbed, half gasped. "Castle, it's huge!"

Unable to resist the setup he said, "You know I love when you say that to me."

"Stop!" she groaned, giving him a shove.

Still chuckling, he took her left hand in his and began to slide the diamond ring onto her fourth finger but found it wouldn't go past her second knuckle. Frustrated, he sighed, "Oh no…I used your other rings to size this…"

"No, it's okay, my fingers have just swollen up like sausages. It'll fit after the baby comes and my body goes back to normal size…at least, I hope that happens." She added with a pitiful laugh.

"I'm sure it will." He sat on the couch beside her and gave her a long, sweet kiss. "Would you like to wear it on your chain for now?"

"Oh, yes, definitely." She agreed happily. He reached behind her neck and undid the clasp on the chain that held her mother's ring. He pulled the necklace from her body and held it in his lap while he strung the engagement ring on. Then, he replaced the necklace and gave the side of her neck a kiss once he had finished fastening it. Once it was on, she cradled the ring in her hand and admired it. "It's beautiful Castle. Thank you."

"You are entirely welcome. We don't have to talk about it until you're ready, but I thought I'd ask just in case: do you want to get married before the baby comes?" When it came to their nuptials, Castle didn't care much whether they married in the city courthouse in forty-eight hours' time or waited over a year and had a huge, lavish affair. All that Castle cared about was being able to call Kate Beckett his wife; when it came to their actual wedding, he wanted to let her guide the direction, though he would of course provide input if she asked.

"Oh." Her voice indicated surprise and her brow knit for a few moments as she considered, but ultimately, she shook her head. "No, I don't think we have to do that. Do you want to do that?"

"For the sake of the baby? No. I don't feel we have to be married before we have him. That is: I don't think it makes him any less ours if we aren't married."

"I think I'd prefer to wait so I can actually enjoy walking down the aisle as opposed to lumbering down it like a gorilla."

Castle barked out a laugh at her unexpected descriptor. "Well, I don't think anyone would call you a gorilla, but I totally understand. But also, for the record?" He paused to slide his hand beneath her jaw and tilt her head towards his. "I can't wait to marry you."

"I can't wait to marry you either, Castle." She agreed before sealing their lips in a kiss.