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Lily had heard them talking since the day she was first able to hear, but the two most familiar, and most welcome, voices were the ones belonging to Mommy and Daddy—who were also known as Mom and Dad; Kate and Rick; and occasionally, when it was really dark outside and Lily was shrieking her displeasure at being hungry, wet, dirty, or all of the above, Beckett and Castle.
Of course, she herself was Lily, Sweetpea (but only to Daddy), Lily Jo (but only to the one called Grandpa Jim), Sweetie (usually to Mommy), kiddo (but only to the one called Gram), and there were various aunts and uncles, and some of those aunts and uncles were also something called godparents, and she was still figuring out who everyone was. Alexis was something called "Big Sister," and Uncle Javi, who Lily thought she heard a couple of people mention was also one of her godfathers, whatever godfathers were, was with Alexis a lot. Not every time Alexis was home—which is what the big place with all the different rooms where they lived and ate and slept and took baths was called, "home," which was a nice-sounding word—but a lot. Grandpa Jim came by every day, and Gram did too, but Grandpa Jim usually came by in the afternoons, and Gram had come by in the mornings for a few days, until an unfortunate incident involving what Daddy referred to as a diaper blowout. After that, Gram started coming by in the evenings.
The two main people in Lily's world were Mommy and Daddy. And they were wonderful. They made her feel safe and loved and happy, and she loved them very much. She recognized their voices, and now she could see them instead of just hear them.
There was also a lot more room at home for Lily to move around. Her previous home had been really cramped and kind of dark, and there wasn't much to see in there. She liked it at this home much better.
Lily was surrounded by love, and she was a very happy baby. She loved her swing, bath time, and being with Mommy and Daddy. Of course, she had quite the set of lungs on her too, and was always quick to let Mommy and Daddy know when she needed something. Her only means of communication was crying, so she would cry as loudly as she could. Her crying brought Mommy and Daddy both rushing, usually, unless only one of them was home. Sometimes Daddy went out for more diapers and wipes, so Mommy was the one who came running to Lily's side; other times Daddy came rushing, telling Lily as he tended to her that Mommy was so exhausted she was sound asleep and he didn't want to wake her up. But Lily knew, from the moment she arrived in the world, that she was loved very much, and that someone would always be there for her when she needed them.
Mommy would rock Lily in the rocking chair in the space called "the nursery," which they said would be all Lily's someday, but for now, she slept in the same room with Mommy and Daddy. Daddy wondered if they should move the rocking chair into their bedroom, but Mommy told him it was fine where it was. And as Mommy rocked Lily, whether she was feeding Lily at the time, or Lily just wasn't tired enough to sleep, Mommy would talk to her. Lily liked their talks. "It's only been five days, and I wonder how we waited so long for you, Lily," Mommy said as she rocked Lily while Lily ate. "I love you so much, sweet girl."
Lily knew Mommy loved her; she loved Mommy too. "This is what I lived for," Mommy said. "Through all the lonely years...the hard times...the pain...I lived for your wonderful daddy and for you. And with every breath in my body, and everything in my power, I promise you that I will make sure you never know the exact kind of pain that I did." She stroked Lily's downy soft hair, as Lily looked up at her drowsily but adoringly. "I wish that I could shield you from all pain, but I know that's not possible. And I know the day will come when I drive you crazy, because the day came when your Grandma Johanna drove me crazy, but if you're anything like me...oh boy, if you're anything like me, you'll give it right back to me, won't you? Just like I did to my mom. But we'll get through it, Lily. We're doing okay so far, aren't we? Better than okay. It turns out my insomniac tendencies and ability to get by on very little sleep are good skills when you have a newborn." Kate chuckled then, not because she was punchy or overtired, just because she was brimming over with so much happiness, she just had to laugh at that moment.
Rick stood in the doorway of the nursery, leaning against the door frame, watching Kate rock and talk to Lily. When Lily unlatched, Kate carefully lifted Lily to her shoulder and began rubbing and patting her back to get her to burp. He had known that Kate would be an amazing mother, but actually seeing her and Lily together showed him that he had had no idea just how amazing a mother Kate would be until Lily was born. She had taken to motherhood like a duck takes to water, diving into the deep end without hesitation, and with minimal fear.
Rick heard the burp Lily emitted. For such a tiny girl, she could belch like a teenage boy. "That's better, isn't it?" Kate said rhetorically. She brought Lily down from her shoulder and, overcome with love, rubbed her nose gently against their baby daughter's nose. Lily squirmed slightly in Kate's arms, yawning hugely before popping her thumb into her mouth. In the last five days, Kate and Rick had discovered that Lily was not a fan of pacifiers, but did like to suck her thumb when she was especially tired. Once Lily was soundly asleep, though, her thumb always fell out of her mouth.
Rick quietly entered the nursery and crossed the room to the rocking chair, hunkering down beside it, he and Kate both ignoring the popping of the knee he had broken skiing a few years back, the lasting souvenir from that particular accident. (Someday Lily would find Daddy's popping knee endlessly amusing, and ask him to make his knee pop over and over again.) "We knew you were back there," Kate said softly as Lily drifted to sleep in her arms. "You could have come in."
"I didn't want to interrupt mother/daughter time," Rick said just as softly. Lily was clad in a lightweight white sleeper printed with little castles and crowns that had been a gift from Victoria Gates, who had brought it with her in a gift bag when she dropped by on her way home from One PP shortly after Rick and Kate brought Lily home from the hospital the day after she was born. The castles were pink and white, the crowns gold, and the little feet were styled to look like pink ballet slippers. Victoria's explanation was that she had seen it and couldn't resist it, given that Lily was a Castle.
Rick gently brushed his fingertips over Lily's left foot. She didn't stir, letting out a soft sigh. Kate was looking down at the sleeping Lily, totally besotted, and with a level of concentration that had once been reserved for murder boards.
"Considering her gene pool, I'm a little surprised she's such an easy baby. Alexis wasn't this easy. Of course, she had colic. Lily, knock wood, doesn't seem to be exhibiting any symptoms of that, thank God," Rick said. He addressed Lily now. "But if you did, I would gladly do 75 laps around the coffee table at three in the morning, just like I did for your big sister. Yes, I would, because that's what dads do."
"It's what the best dads do," Kate said softly. "Your dad side has always been one of the most attractive things about you to me, but seeing you with Lily… Whenever I watch you two together, I feel like my heart is growing."
"I get the same feeling when I watch you with Lily," Rick replied. The new parents smiled at each other.
The moment was broken when Kate's phone, which was on the floor by the rocking chair, binged with an incoming text message. "Could you hand me my phone, please, babe?" she asked Rick.
He dutifully picked up the phone and handed it to Kate, who cradled the sleeping Lily in one arm and opened the text with the other. "It's from Lanie," she said a moment later. "She wants to know if she and Alan can come over right away."
"It's okay with me if it's okay with you," Rick replied.
Kate tapped out a quick reply, then looked back at Lily. "She's asleep," she whispered. "Let's try putting her to bed." Lily was a pretty good sleeper, all things considered, only waking up when she was hungry or needed a clean diaper. (Thunder and lightning would startle her for the first few months of her life, but eventually she would be able to sleep through the heaviest of thunderstorms, something her father would chalk up to some cosmic connection with her date of birth.) Kate had already said more than once that Lily must have inherited her good sleeping habits from Rick.
Kate rose from the rocking chair, cradling Lily in her arms, close to her heart. Rick stuck Kate's phone in her hip pocket, then followed her out of the nursery and down the stairs, across the living room to their bedroom.
In their bedroom, Kate gently laid Lily in the bassinet. Her thumb dropped out of her mouth, and Kate and Rick just stood there for a long moment, watching Lily sleep. "Sweet dreams, sweetpea," Rick whispered, leaning down to brush a kiss across her forehead.
"We love you so much, Lily," Kate whispered before she bent and kissed Lily's cheek.
Rick grabbed the nursery monitor from his bedside table, and followed Kate out of their bedroom to the living room. A moment later, there was a knock at the front door, and Kate went to answer it.
Lanie, not one to stand on ceremony, pushed past Kate into the loft, with Alan trailing after her, both of them looking harried, but Lanie much more so than Alan. As she entered, Lanie exclaimed, "I know you're not drinking right now, Kate, but please tell me you have wine, and a lot of it!"
Kate closed the front door, and looked at Alan. "We just came from dinner with the parents. The first one with all four parents, at which we announced our engagement to them," he said.
Lanie was in the kitchen by now, holding a wineglass and rummaging through a drawer looking for something to open a bottle of wine with. "Remember the first time we had dinner with your dad and my mother?" Rick asked Kate.
"Oh yes," Kate said. "And we didn't know the evening was going to get worse from there. But everything ended up okay, and I'm sure it will for you guys, Lanie, Alan."
Lanie, holding a full wineglass in one hand and the bottle of wine in the other, plopped down on the couch. "You can say that. You weren't there," she said bitterly because drinking heartily from her wineglass.
Alan, seeing that it would fall to him to explain things, declined Rick's offer of a drink and sat down next to Lanie. "The progression of our relationship does seem fast to our parents, because we've only known each other a little over a year," he said. "But it's not like they're against our getting married."
"My mother actually asked if we had to get married!" Lanie exclaimed.
"Um, Lily's asleep in our bedroom, so could you..." Kate began, looking and sounding apologetic for asking.
Lanie mentally cursed himself. "I'm sorry," she said more quietly. Then her temper got going again, albeit sotto voce. "She thought the only reason Alan and I would get married quote 'so soon' unquote is because I'm pregnant!" she hissed indignantly.
Kate winced in sympathy. "You told her that's not the case," she said.
"Of course we did," Lanie said. "But then that launched her into Mother of the Bridezilla mode! She wants this to be...I don't know...some weird combination of Prince William's wedding and this big fancy wedding Marian Brightfield's daughter had."
"Who is Marian Brightfield?" Rick asked.
"From what I gathered, she is a frenemy of Mrs. Parish from her church," Alan supplied. "Mrs. Parish doesn't want Lydia Brightfield's wedding outdoing ours. She didn't listen to a word Lanie tried to say after making that pronouncement."
"She picked a fight with Alan's mother about place cards, for crying out loud! Place cards, Kate!" Lanie quietly exclaimed. "We don't even want a big wedding!"
"At least you're not arguing with each other. And you're not going to get separated by people connected to the Mob and one of you won't be thinking for even a few seconds that the other is dead," Rick offered.
"And see, we survived that, and a lot more," Kate said. "So you'll get through this, Lanie. You will." Lanie drained her wineglass and poured herself another.
"I've been through this wedding insanity before with my mother, when my sister got married. She can hold her own. And she'll accept any decisions we make. My dad is on our side," Alan said, running a hand through his disheveled hair.
"You can talk to your mother, make her understand what you want," Kate said to Lanie.
But Lanie swallowed her wine and vehemently shook her head. "All she heard was 'I'm getting married,' and she instantly started trying to one-up Marian Brightfield as a mother of the bride."
"But it's your wedding," Kate said. "Yours and Alan's. The final decisions are up to the two of you. It's about you, it's not about your mother."
"Maybe my mother would listen to you," Lanie mused. "Especially if you went into Detective Beckett mode." She paused for a moment, considering, then said, "Oh, who am I kidding? My mother is going to steamroll right over us and make our wedding about her!"
Alan leaned forward then. "I have an idea," he said. He looked to Rick and Kate. "I know that you guys are insanely busy with Lily, and Kate's campaign is going to start revving up here pretty soon, but we really don't want anyone else but you two for our best man and matron of honor."
"And we already accepted," Kate reminded him.
Lanie looked at Alan. "What's your idea?" she asked him. "And why is this the first I'm hearing about it?"
"I was giving you time to calm down," he replied. He looked back at Rick and Kate. "Lanie's right: a big wedding really isn't our style. My brother-in-law's college roommate is one of the people who runs The Glasshouses. I put out some feelers to him last week, and they actually had a cancellation in August. They can do a big wedding, but they can also do a small wedding." He looked at Lanie. "If I make an appointment for us to go and look at it next week, would you go?"
"You mean we put together our own wedding before my mother can book something for us?" Lanie asked.
"Yeah. Are you game?" Alan asked.
"Absolutely!" Lanie exclaimed. She set her wineglass down and threw her arms around Alan.
"And if you don't like The Glasshouses," Alan said as he wrapped his arms around her, "then we'll find a place you do like."
"You really wanna get married in three months?" Lanie asked, pulling back to look into his eyes.
"Is there really any reason to wait?" Alan countered. "We love each other, and we're committed to each other, so why should we wait any longer than we have to?" He looked to Rick and Kate. "New parents, Councilwoman Candidate Beckett, best friends, do you have any objections to helping us plan our wedding this summer? Anything you can do will be greatly appreciated."
"And Castle, listen to me very closely," Lanie said firmly. "There will be no bachelor party."
Rick put a hand over his heart and pulled a mock wounded face. "What on earth do you think I would do for Alan's bachelor party, Lanie?" he asked innocently.
"I don't even want to know," she said. "I heard all about the impromptu bachelor party you and Esposito had for Ryan in Atlantic City." She looked at Alan. "Do not, under any circumstances, go to Atlantic City with him, Alan. I mean it. I don't care if he claims Stan Lee is over there waiting to meet you one-on-one."
Kate got a gleam in her eye then. "Oh, you don't have to worry about that, Lanie," she said. "I think I can solve that problem quite nicely." Rick looked at Kate, instantly knowing where she was going with this.
"What does that mean?" Alan asked.
"Joint parties," Rick and Kate said in unison. Kate grinned at Rick when he smiled at her.
"Can we have karaoke?" Alan asked eagerly.
"And you thought he'd go to Atlantic City," Kate said in an undertone to Lanie.
"What was I thinking?" Lanie asked, then she smiled fondly at Alan before looking at Kate.
"Well, it's your party," Rick said, "so yes, I think karaoke should be on the list if that's what you want."
"Yes!" Alan cheered. He looked at Lanie. "See, this is all going to work out. I promise you, you're going to have the wedding you want."
"But I want you to have the wedding you want too, Alan. It's not all about me, any more than it's all about my mother," Lanie said.
Alan brushed Lanie's hair off her face. "You're going to be the bride and I'm going to be the groom," Alan said. "That's all I want. I'd marry you in a parking lot. As long as at the end of the night, you and I are husband and wife, that's all that matters to me."
"Awwww," Lanie said, then leaned in and kissed Alan.
"We're still cuter than they are," Rick said, leaning over to whisper in Kate's ear.
"It's not a competition," Kate whispered back, "but yeah, we are."
"Hey, canoodle on your own time," Lanie said, pulling Kate and Rick's attention to her and Alan again.
"We have a newborn. Any time we can canoodle is our own time," Kate retorted. Then she and Lanie both laughed. Kate reached out for Lanie's hands. "We'll help as much as we can. You've waited a long time for this, and you deserve your perfect wedding, whatever that is."
Lanie then hugged Kate. "I didn't think it would ever happen for me," she confessed. "But it is happening, and Kate..." She trailed off as she pulled back to look at Kate.
"I know," Kate said, nodding. "I know exactly what you mean." Rick and Alan were talking now, laughing, something about some new sci-fi show from Seth MacFarlane that would be debuting on TV in the fall that they both wanted to check out.
Lanie picked up her wineglass. "Here's to not being married to our jobs anymore," Lanie said.
"Hear, hear," Kate agreed as she caught Rick looking over at her to wink at her and grinned at him in reply.
"I know it's not the same, Lily, but it's Mother's Day, and if anyone deserves to sleep late, it's your mommy," Rick said as he tried to coax Lily into taking a bottle of breast milk Kate had expressed. It was 5:30 in the morning, and they were sitting on the couch in the living room. Although Kate bounded out of bed at the first whimper from Lily no matter what time of night or day it was, and Rick was sure she would wake up any second despite his best efforts to keep that from happening, since this was Kate's first Mother's Day, Rick wanted her to be able to sleep as long as possible.
"That's my girl," Rick quietly cheered when Lily latched on to the bottle and began drinking from it. She looked up at him with her big brown eyes, Kate's eyes, and he smiled down at her. "Hopefully we're a good twelve or thirteen years away from you rolling those beautiful eyes at me the way your mom used to do to me all the time when we first met," he said. "I know your mommy and I stare at you a lot, but it's only because we love you so much, Lily. I thought about you for a long time. I dreamed about you long before you came to be. And having you and raising you with your mom… I was meant to be your dad, yes, I was. And your mom was meant to be your mom."
Rick was making sure Lily didn't swallow too much air when the front door opened and Alexis walked in, fully dressed, carrying her purse, and looking somewhat chagrined. "Dad, Lily," she said. "I wasn't expecting you to be up so early."
Rick was slightly sleep-deprived (he got up with Kate whenever she got up with Lily, and now that Lily was a week old, Kate realized that Rick was going to keep on getting up with her and Lily no matter how many times she told him it wasn't absolutely necessary every time), but not so sleep-deprived that he couldn't figure out what was going on: Alexis had obviously spent the night at Esposito's and had come home before dawn because it was Mother's Day.
Alexis set her purse on the coffee table and sat down on the couch next to her father and sister. "I'm trying to let Kate sleep as long as possible, since it's Mother's Day," Rick replied quietly.
Alexis looked down at Lily. "You're very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, Lily," she greeted her baby sister. Lily was hungrily sucking down her bottle.
"I think we have a morning person on our hands," Rick said. "Of course, you were the same way."
"I still am," Alexis said wryly, remembering how she had had to wake Javier up to tell him she was heading home and kiss him goodbye, and that he had then immediately fallen back to sleep before she was even out of the bedroom. "Look, Dad, I know that we haven't really talked about it, but I also know that you know that there are some nights that I'm not here."
"I know where you are when you're not here," Rick said. "And you're an adult."
"I've never had Javier spend the night here. It would be too awkward for everyone, I think, but especially for him," Alexis said.
"Yeah, I agree with that," Rick said. He set the bottle aside and put Lily up over his shoulder, spit-up rag at the ready, as he began to burp her.
"We're not in any rush," Alexis assured her father.
"That's good to know," Rick replied. "One wedding on the horizon is more than enough for right now, with everything else we've got going on." Things were moving full steam ahead for Lanie and Alan's August wedding; Lanie had loved The Glasshouses the second she and Alan had set foot in the place, and the date had been set for August 12.
Lily let out a hearty burp, and Rick brought her down from his shoulder and wiped some milk from one corner of her mouth.
"You look tired, Dad," Alexis said.
Rick just smiled. "Occupational hazard of parenthood," he replied.
"Our brunch reservations aren't until 11, and Gram and Jim are meeting us at the restaurant," Alexis said. "I can take care of Lily so you can get some sleep too."
Rick looked at Alexis, and then at Lily. "I swear, you were this size just a few years ago," he said. He looked at Alexis again. "And now you're all grown up...off to law school this fall...you have a serious boyfriend that you're probably gonna marry someday."
"A long, long time from now," Alexis said, even as she mentally amended her dad's 'probably' to her own 'definitely.' Her dad was really trying with Javier, in a way he had never tried with any of her other boyfriends. Some of that, she was certain, was because of Kate's influence, and Gram being on board with their relationship from the start. But Rick's acceptance of Alexis and Javier's relationship meant the world to Alexis, since Alexis knew she would be with Javier for the rest of their lives.
"Just promise me you won't elbow anyone to catch the bouquet at Lanie and Alan's wedding," Rick said seriously.
"I promise," Alexis said earnestly. Then she reached out and laid her hand on her dad's shoulder. "In a way, this is your day too, because you were really my dad and my mom, until Kate came into our lives. Besides, I haven't had much one-on-one time with my baby sister yet."
"What do you say, Lily? You wanna spend some time with Alexis?" Rick asked the baby. She regarded her father solemnly and then cooed. "I'll take that as a yes," he said. "Oh, wait, I should change her."
"Dad, relax, I've got it," Alexis assured him. "Go cuddle up with Kate and get some more sleep."
"Okay," Rick agreed. He kissed Lily's forehead before carefully handing her off to Alexis. "Have fun, sweetpea, pumpkin," he said, and then he grinned at the sight of his two daughters together before he turned and walked back to the bedroom.
When he slid into bed next to Kate, she moved closer to him, laying her cheek on his chest, right over his heart. "Lily okay?" she asked sleepily.
"I fed her, and Alexis is going to change her and take care of her so we can get some more sleep," Rick replied quietly. He kissed the top of Kate's head. "Happy Mother's Day, Kate."
"Tell me again when I'm really awake, okay?" she asked before she drifted back to sleep.
"I will," Rick said, wrapping his arms around to hold her before he too went back to sleep.
