Thank you to all who are reading, reviewing, and enjoying this story. You continue to inspire me as much as the Castle characters do.


In the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve, Kate finally went shopping for maternity clothes. Ever mindful of Page Six, and not wanting the baby news revealed there, she bought just enough to be sure of her sizes, and then did the rest of her shopping online and had the clothes delivered right to the loft.

She and Rick didn't have any big plans for New Year's Eve. They felt like staying in this year. Alexis and Javier were going to Times Square. Since they missed Thanksgiving and Christmas with him, Alan's parents were coming to New York City to visit over New Year's Eve, and so Lanie and Alan were spending the evening with Mr. and Mrs. Masters. Jim was up at his cabin; Martha was celebrating with several friends; and Kevin and Jenny were also staying in and praying that their kids would be asleep and they would be awake at midnight.

8 PM on New Year's Eve found Rick and Kate sitting in the living room, getting ready to watch Young Frankenstein, which, amazingly, to Rick and Alexis, Kate had never seen. Alexis, wearing a fanny pack and dressed in jeans, one of the new sweaters she had gotten for Christmas, and her favorite pair of broken-in tennis shoes, was waiting for Javier. "Tonight we rectify a grievous error in your movie-watching life," Rick intoned solemnly.

Colbie Caillat's "You Got Me" started playing then. "Oh, excuse me!" Alexis exclaimed, jumping up. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, answered it, and said, as she walked away from the couch, "Hi. I'm ready. How soon will you be here?"

Rick sighed. "He has his own ringtone," he said.

Kate took Rick's hand and squeezed it. "You have a ringtone in my phone," Kate said.

"I do?" Rick asked. "How did I not know that?"

"I guess it just never came up," Kate replied. She pulled her phone out of her own pocket. "Call me," she said.

Rick reached for his own phone, which was sitting on the coffee table, and pushed '1' on the speed dial. Kate's phone began playing Andrew Belle's "In My Veins" a second later.

"Our song," Rick said softly.

"Of course," Kate replied with a smile.

The doorbell rang then, and Alexis, who was standing at the front door, answered it. Javier stood there in his parka, scarf tied around his neck, shoving his gloves in one of his parka pockets and beaming at Alexis as she let him in. "Hello," he greeted her.

"Hi," she replied. They kissed quickly, chastely, and Javier stepped into the foyer while Alexis went to get her own parka, beret and gloves.

Kate waved from her spot on the couch. "Happy New Year, Javi," she said.

"Happy New Year, Beckett, Castle," Javier said, nodding at them.

"So, Times Square," Rick said.

"Yeah," Javier replied. "I've actually never been down there on New Year's Eve."

Alexis returned then, bundled up. "Okay, we're off," she said. She went over to the couch and bent down to hug Kate. "Happy New Year, Kate," she said.

"Happy New Year, Alexis," Kate said, hugging her back. Alexis kissed Kate's cheek, then lowered her head to address her unborn sister. "Happy New Year to you too, little sister." Then she gave Rick a big hug. "Happy New Year, Dad."

"Happy New Year, pumpkin," he said softly. "Have a good time. Be careful."

"We will," Alexis replied. "You guys have a good time and be careful too."

"We will," Rick said. "Esposito." He dipped his chin in a nod.

"See ya next year, Castle, Beckett," Javier replied. "I'll have her home as soon after midnight as we can get here." Then he looked at Alexis. "You ready, Lex?"

"Ready," she replied. "Good night, Dad, Kate!"

Kate and Rick said good night to Alexis, and then, after she and Javier had left, Rick said, "Oh, how could I almost forget?" and jumped up, dashing to the kitchen. He began pulling things out of cupboards and the refrigerator.

Kate sat up on the couch and watched him, a whirling dervish as he poured, squeezed, and mixed, before he proudly carried a tray bearing two tall glasses back to the living room and setting it on the coffee table, then gesturing to the tray with a flourish.

"Chocolate milk?" Kate asked. That did sound good, now that she was looking at it.

"Not just any chocolate milk, Kate," Rick said excitedly. "Ovaltine!" She gave him a look that said she was awaiting further explanation. "It has to do with the movie."

"I thought that was A Christmas Story," Kate said. They had just watched that last week.

"That one too," Rick said with a nod, sitting down and grabbing a glass before starting the movie.

Since she had never seen Young Frankenstein before, Kate did what Rick called her Mystery Science Theater 3000 routine, except the movie was of much better quality than the movies on that show.

She had been nursing her Ovaltine, keeping her comments to a minimum for a while, when, right in the middle of Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle's softshoe to "Puttin' on the Ritz," Kate sat up and gasped.

Rick lunged for the DVD remote and paused the movie. "What is it? What's the matter, Kate?" he asked anxiously, dropping to his knees at her feet.

Wordlessly she set her glass of Ovaltine aside, grabbed his hand, and placed his palm on her baby bump, putting her own palm next to his, her fingertips gently touching his fingertips.

A scant few seconds later, Rick felt the baby moving for the first time. He locked eyes with Kate and exclaimed, "I felt her! She's moving! I felt her kick!"

"You sure did," Kate replied, beaming.

"Wow," Rick breathed. Then he looked at Kate in concern. "Does it hurt when she moves and kicks like that?"

"No," Kate assured him. "At least, not so far. That may change in the last few weeks, though, when she's running out of room in there. But even if that's the case, she's worth it."

"Hey, Sweetpea, it's Daddy," Rick said, addressing Kate's belly. "I can't wait to meet you. Well, no, wait, I can wait! You have to stay where you are until May." He looked up at Kate and said with a smirk, "I would love it if I could be inside your mom until May." Kate lightly smacked Rick's shoulder at this, rolling her eyes. "Okay, seriously, you stay in there until May and keep growing and stretching and moving, and your mom and I will come up with a first name for you, and get your room ready, and we'll be waiting for you. We love you so much already." He looked up at Kate. "So what do you think it means that she moved at that precise moment? She likes Mel Brooks movies? She likes Irving Berlin songs?"

"I think she was just making her presence known, and saying her first hello to her daddy," Kate replied.

Rick got back up and sat down beside Kate. "Will you be really annoyed if I keep my hand on your belly for a while?" he asked earnestly.

"No," Kate said. "I've been feeling her move and kick for a few weeks. You haven't." She bit her lip. "But would you mind if we skipped the rest of the movie? It's not really my taste."

"You wanna break out the Nebula 9 DVDs?" he asked.

"You would watch Nebula 9 with me, without a protest?" Kate asked, surprised.

"If you want," Rick replied.

"That's very sweet of you," Kate said. "But actually, I'd rather break out our tablets and start looking for baby names."

"Then that's what we'll do," Rick said. And so that's what they did.


"I'm beginning to think this wasn't such a great idea!" Alexis exclaimed. Times Square was a teeming mass of rowdy humanity, and at least half of the people surrounding her and Javier were not behaving very well at the moment.

"I'm beginning to think I should call for hats and bats!" Javier exclaimed right back, his voice close to her ear.

They were getting jostled by the crowd and had to keep moving because everyone around them was moving. "I thought this would be more fun!" Alexis shouted. "It always looks fun on TV!"

"Do you wanna get out of here?" Javier asked.

"Is that even possible?" Alexis asked.

"It has to be!" Javier said.

Clutching each other's hands tightly, they made their way through the hordes of New Year's revelers.

Then without warning, an obviously drunk young man, Alexis's age or younger, listed heavily to one side, then the other, and since he was facing Alexis at the time, he threw up all over her shoes.

Alexis shouted in dismay. This was the first time someone had ever thrown up on her, and it was a drunk stranger in Times Square. "Okay, that's it!" Javier said. "We're getting out of here."

They plowed their way through the crowd and finally found a deserted stretch of sidewalk. "Some New Year's Eve," Alexis said.

"The night's not over yet," Javier said. "Unless you want it to be over. Do you want me to just take you home?"

"I want to ring in the new year with you," Alexis said. She looked down at her shoes. "And I really want to get out of these barfy shoes."

Javier looked around. "Got it," he said. He pulled his phone out and sent a quick text to Ryan.

"Who are you texting?" Alexis asked.

"Ryan," Javier replied. "Odds are we won't be able to get a cab with this being New Year's Eve, so walking, we're closer to Ryan and Jenny's place than to your place. We can at least go there long enough to clean up your shoes."

Javier got a text back from Ryan letting him know it was okay with him and Jenny if Javi and Alexis came to their place, but asking that they be quiet because both kids were asleep.

When they arrived at the Ryans', Ryan let them in. "I really hope we're not intruding," Alexis said. She was now carrying her shoes, having taken them off in the lobby of the Ryans' building.

"Having a drunk stranger puke on you is very disconcerting," Kevin said sympathetically. "The bathroom is right back there." He pointed.

Alexis excused herself to clean up her shoes, and Javier flopped down on the couch with a sigh. Jenny returned from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn then. "Rough night?" she asked sympathetically.

"Not so hot," Javi replied.

"It's not your fault the guy puked on her, Javi," Ryan said sympathetically. "Be grateful all he got was her shoes. I'm sure she is."

"It's our first New Year's Eve as a couple," Javi replied. "I wanted it to be special. I wanted it to be a big deal."

"Okay, so what happened was gross," Jenny said as she set the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table before sitting down next to Kevin on the couch. "But you can't let it ruin the evening."

Alexis returned then. "I left my shoes in your bathroom to dry," she said.

"That's fine," Jenny said with a smile.

"I'm not sure how long it's going to take for them to dry," Alexis said somewhat worriedly.

Kevin and Jenny exchanged a look. "The kids are asleep, we have plenty of popcorn, drinks are in the kitchen, and we were just gonna hang out and watch the ball drop on TV," Kevin said. "You're welcome to stay."

Now it was Alexis and Javier who exchanged a look. "Thanks," Javi said. "We'd like to stay and ring in the New Year with you guys."

"Okay, then," Kevin said.

They spent the next couple of hours snacking and chatting, talking about everything from Sarah Grace and Nick to Kevin's new professional status as a sergeant to Alexis's upcoming college graduation to the day-to-day of their individual lives.

Kevin got up to tend to Nick once. He just needed a diaper change. Nick didn't want to go back to sleep right away, however, so Kevin brought him out to the living room to be with the others. It was almost midnight when father and son returned to the living room, and Jenny led everyone in a quiet countdown to midnight. She and Kevin kissed each other, then kissed Nick, and then went to check on Sarah Grace, who slept soundly even as her daddy kissed her on the forehead and her mommy kissed her on the cheek and they whispered, "Happy New Year" to her.

Alone together in the Ryans' living room, Javier put his arm around Alexis's shoulders. "Happy New Year, Lex," he said.

"Happy New Year, Javier," Alexis replied before moving in closer for the midnight kiss.


After abandoning Young Frankenstein, Kate and Rick got into their pajamas and then got into bed with their tablets and started looking at baby name websites.

They each read silently, neither of them finding anything they really liked, until suddenly, Kate spoke one word into the silence thoughtfully: "Lily."

Rick instantly pulled up the name at the website he was perusing. "'Lily,'" he read aloud. "'English. Lily flower." Rick then went to another website. "'Lily of the Valley has the flower meaning of humility, chastity, sweetness, purity and is said to bring luck in love. It also means 'the return of happiness' which is the reason why it is often used as decorations in weddings.'" He looked up from his tablet to Kate. "That's definitely fitting," he mused.

"Lily," Kate said again.

"Lily Castle," Rick said.

"Lily Johanna Castle," Kate said.

Rick shut off his tablet and set it aside. Then he shifted so that he was lying on his stomach and addressed the baby. "What do you think of the name 'Lily'?" he asked as he rested his hand on Kate's baby bump.

For the rest of their lives, Kate would chalk it up to the baby responding to the sound of Rick's voice, while Rick would insist it was the baby enthusiastically agreeing with the name her parents had taken such a strong liking to for her.

Perhaps both of them were a little bit right. But the fact remained that after Rick asked the question, the baby gave a hearty kick in response.

"The Sweetpea has spoken!" Rick declared. He looked up at Kate. "It looks like she has a name."

"Yes, she does," Kate agreed. "But can we keep it just between us until she's born? I want to surprise everyone with it, especially my dad."

"We can do that," Rick replied with a nod, "can't we, Lily?" She didn't respond this time. "Okay," Rick said, still speaking to Kate's belly, "but if somebody finds out about the name before you're born, we'll know it was you who told, because our lips are sealed, aren't they, Kate?"

Kate burst out laughing. "I love you so much," she said after she recovered herself.

"Me or Lily?" he asked.

"Both of you," Kate replied, pulling him closer.

A couple of hours later, sleepy and sated, wrapped up in the sheets and comforter and each other, the honking of car horns and a general cacophony of noise on the street below roused Kate and Rick from their post-coital dozing. Kate looked at the alarm clock. "It's midnight," she said. She found Rick's gaze and he brushed her hair off her forehead as she cupped his cheek in her palm. "Happy New Year, Rick."

"Happy New Year, Kate," he said before leaning in to share a deep, tender kiss with her.

And then both parents addressed Kate's covered baby bump. "And a happy New Year to you too, Lily," Kate said.

"Happy New Year, Sweetpea," Rick added, ducking beneath the covers to kiss Kate's belly before surfacing again to kiss Kate once more.