A/N: I know the facts in this shot might not be true but I don't live in the US so I'm not exactly sure how the rules are etc. Anyway, hope you enjoy! Stay safe! Until next time, xxx

"Kaate?" he hisses and Kate slowly drags herself out of sleep.

She hums, not caring to open her eyes but snuggles closer to his body, feeling his arm tighten around her.

"What if this pandemic never ends? What if the virus will only mutate and continue to mutate so that we never get rid of it? What if we'll have to raise our kids to always wear masks or raise them in a bubble? What if we get sick? What do we do then? What if…" she puts her hand on his mouth as she hushes.

"It's not going to…" he cuts her off through her hand.

"You don't know that," he mumbles and she takes off her hand to give him room for breathing and speaking.

"No," she agrees, coming out of her sleep even more. "But I can hope. We don't know that it will last, just like we don't know if we'll manage to win over it. We'll have to wait and see." She hugs him closer, thinking about the scare they had when Lily got sick a couple weeks ago, thankfully it had only been a cold.

"Do you have to work tomorrow?" he silently asks and she lifts her head enough to meet his eyes. Worried blues.

"Yeah, it's been a week since last time now, my turn to take the shift. Since Sofia is in the country, isolating with my aunt, I'm thinking about staying at my old place this week," she tells him her plan and sees his eyes widen. "That way you nor the kids will get sick if I catch it at work."

He shakes his head and she narrows her eyebrows.

"No, it's better if you're here with us, we need you." Castle's arm tightened even more and she bit her lip sadly. "Besides, if you do get sick you need someone to take care of you."

This is her time to widen her eyes and shake her head violently. "No, no. Then you might get sick and I don't want that, can't have that."

He grunts and curses under his breath. "It's not fair, you shouldn't work, you don't need to work, we have enough money to go by."

She raises to kiss his jaw sweetly. "It's not fair to force someone else to take over and do double work."

"But we have the twins! There should be something about next to new-born parents not needing to work during this pandemic."

He has a point. The twins aren't that old, only a couple months, and yet she's already back to work since she didn't think she could leave in all this chaos. She lies her face down in his chest, groaning with frustration.

"How about," she starts as she lifts her head again, "I make some calls and some preparations tomorrow and then take time off to be with family. Does that sound better?"

He nods quickly and if it had been any other silly discussion she would've laughed, now she only smiled and raised to kiss his lips.

"Thank you," he whispers once their lips part.

She shakes her head, strokes his cheek and then lie down with her head on his chests again. She snuggles closer in and hopes he can relax now.

They'll find a way. Hopefully they'll make it through like with every other close-encounter they've had before.

"Love you," she whispers into the darkness of the room and he immediately says it back before dreams take over her mind and there's not much place for conversation any longer.

THE END