We're into 2019 now, and I did another time jump (from Christmas 2018 to late January 2019 to mid-to-late April 2019). Things will slow down in the next chapter, though, and we'll be in 2019 for a few chapters at least.
Also, even though neither of them is part of the Castle fandom or watches the show, my brother, and my best friend, are partially responsible for the direction Martha's future takes beginning in this chapter, because my brother is a Dark Shadows fanatic, and my best friend was a Falcon Crest fan, and although I never watched either of those shows, it is because of them that I am familiar at all with the actor David Selby, who played Quentin Collins on Dark Shadows, and Richard Channing on Falcon Crest. I knew that Susan Sullivan, our Martha Rodgers, was one of the lead actresses on Falcon Crest. My best friend informed me that she was, in fact, the best, most likable, and not insane romantic heroine of the show, and that her FC character Maggie's best pairing was with the aforementioned Richard. So although I haven't done any wishful casting for characters I've created, the character of Earl Clifton is, in my mind's eye, played by David Selby. If you're not familiar with Falcon Crest, like I wasn't, or even if you are and you just want to see what he looks like, I recommend entering 'Susan Sullivan and David Selby' into Google; the third picture that comes up in the image search (at least on my computer) is the one that I kept pulled up in a tab on my screen and kept looking at for inspiration, and I even went so far as to describe the pose in said picture in this chapter. So to A, and to N, thanks for opening up a new avenue of inspiration for me, and a story for Martha.
Thank you all for your continued enthusiasm and support for this story. And now, the chapter.
The whole family, except for Lily, had seen Earl Clifton as Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady at least once each, but it wasn't until the end of January that everyone's schedules cleared enough for Martha to bring Earl to the loft for dinner to meet her family.
Rick, long accustomed to meeting his mother's actor friends, was expecting Earl Clifton to be a first-class flake, and not much different from his onstage portrayal of Alfred P. Doolittle. Sure, Martha had talked about him quite a bit, and even said, on more than one occasion over the past several months, that they were "seeing one another," but this was the first time in, literally, decades that Rick had met anyone his mother was dating, which in itself proved how serious Martha was about this man. Deep down, Rick feared that this Earl Clifton wasn't as serious about Martha, or that he was out to rip her off, like that ex-husband of hers that stole all her money, leading to Martha moving in with him and Alexis years ago, when Alexis was still in high school. So Rick was not inclined to think kindly of Mr. Clifton, and was concerned about his mother. Kate and Alexis had both told him, "You have to give the guy a chance," but Rick had been down this road with Martha before, and wasn't in agreement that he had to give the guy a chance at all.
The night finally came (a Monday, when Martha and Earl had the night off), and when Martha arrived at the loft with Earl, Rick was greatly surprised to see the man was clean shaven, his mussed white hair properly combed, and that he was dressed in a black sport jacket over a royal blue sweater, with the collar of his white button-down Oxford shirt peeking out above the collar of the sweater, and black slacks. And unlike Alfred P. Doolittle, Earl Clifton did not speak with a crisp British accent. "I've studied dialects for decades, though," he said after Martha had made the formal introductions. "I'm best at British and Irish, or at least that seems to be the consensus among directors, colleagues, and dialect coaches I've worked with through the years." He was carrying a file folder. "I believe you'll want to take a look at this, Mr. Castle," he said, handing over the folder.
Rick opened the folder, confused when he found a private investigator's report. "This is...uh..." he said. Alexis and Kate each peered over one of Rick's shoulders to see the papers inside the folder.
"Martha has told me all about all of you," Earl continued, "and I figured the best way to show you that my intentions toward her are honorable are with this report. One previous marriage, in the early 1970s, divorced, no children. I met her in summer stock, and a little over a year after the wedding, she ran off with her make-up artist, who believed he was the second coming of Max Factor. Neither of them were ever heard from again. At least, not by me. You'll see that I don't smoke, I don't drink to excess, I have never taken drugs of any kind, unless you count Lipitor. You'll find my net worth, a list of charities I support, the fact that I own my own apartment-"
"You did all this?" Alexis asked, surprised. Rick and Kate were too shocked to speak. Kate made quick work of perusing the report. Ryan and Esposito couldn't have done a more thorough job if they had been the ones who had pulled together all of this information on Earl Albert Clifton. Rick was just staring at this man, and at his mother standing next to this man and looking happier than he had ever seen her look in all his life.
"Well, the way I see it, when the woman you love has a son best known for writing murder mysteries, a daughter-in-law who is a retired, decorated NYPD homicide detective and captain and current City Councilwoman, and a granddaughter in law school, just telling them this is not a showmance isn't enough," Earl replied. He looked at Martha tenderly before returning his attention to Rick, Kate, and Alexis and continuing, "The moment I saw Martha's face for the first time at our first rehearsals a year ago, everything I thought I knew about life changed, and everything that I had thought I wanted disappeared, because from the moment I met Martha, I knew that going forward, the only thing I really wanted in life was to be by her side until I take my last bow, or for as long as she will let me."
Martha's response to that was to put one arm around Earl's neck, letting her hand rest on his opposite shoulder. Her other palm, she rested flat on the shoulder closest to her. Then she touched her forehead to his temple, her eyes closed, a smile wreathing her face, while Earl's blue eyes shone with love and joy, and a smile bloomed on his face that matched hers.
Rick and Kate exchanged a look. Kate reached over and squeezed Rick's hand, knowing this wasn't easy for him...and it wasn't. But Rick saw how much this man loved Martha, that his words weren't just words, and he saw how much his mother loved this man, and he could not, would not, do anything to interfere or stand in their way.
"Well, Mr. Clifton," Rick said, closing the folder..
"Earl," Earl corrected.
"And I'm Rick," Rick replied. "I guess the only thing I can say is, welcome to the family, and as long as you keep that light in my mother's eyes, we won't have a problem."
Earl held out his hand to shake hands with Rick, and Rick shook his hand. Kate then followed suit, liking Earl's strong grip and the way he maintained eye contact. Finally, Alexis shook hands with Earl. Lily shouted from upstairs then, where she had been playing her room, and insisting to her parents and big sister that she would be fine until Gram came, and Kate excused herself to tend to Lily. When Kate and Lily came slowly walking downstairs hand in hand a few minutes later, Rick, Alexis, Martha, and Earl were sitting in the living room, talking and having drinks.
"Drink please, Mama!" Lily exclaimed when she saw everyone else had drinks in their hands.
"Water, milk, or juice?" Kate asked as they headed into the kitchen.
"Juice," Lily replied.
They joined the others after Kate had a bottle of water and Lily had her favorite sippy cup filled with apple juice. "Earl, this is my youngest granddaughter, Lily," Martha said as Lily charged over to the chair where Martha was seated, with Earl's hip perched on the edge of the chair's arm, and climbed up into her beloved grandmother's lap.
"Hi, Gram!" Lily exclaimed before taking a drink of her apple juice.
"Hello, my sweet Lily," Martha said, accepting the baby's hug before Lily settled herself on Martha's lap and looked at Earl curiously.
"Who he?" she asked, pointing at Earl.
"I'm a friend of your grandma's, Lily. I'm Earl," Earl said. "And you are even prettier in person than all the pictures of you your grandma has shown me."
Lily tilted her head, taking Earl's measure, then looked at Martha. "You like him?" she asked her grandmother. Rick bit his lip to keep from laughing out loud, and Alexis and Kate looked amused. Lily was every bit as precocious as her father and grandmother had ever been, although Jim swore that while the majority of Lily's precociousness may have come from her Rodgers-Castle genes, a generous portion of her precociousness had been inherited from Kate.
"I like him very much, Lily," Martha replied. "In fact, I love him."
"You love him?" Lily repeated. She turned and focused her most ferocious 20-month-old glare on Earl, instantly reminding Rick of Kate in the box with an uncooperative suspect at that moment. "You love my Gram?" she asked Earl.
To his credit, Earl took Lily's question seriously. "Yes, I do, Lily, very much," he said. "And she will always be your Gram."
"You be nice to her?" Lily asked next.
"Yes, I am," Earl replied.
Lily then pointed at Earl. "Be nice to my Gram, and I like you," she told him. Left unspoken, but obvious from the look on Lily's face, was that Lily would not like Earl if he was not nice to her Gram.
Martha looked over Lily's head at Richard and Katherine. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear you coached her," she said.
"Me?" Rick asked, the picture of innocence, one hand splayed over his heart.
"Both of you," she said, looking from Richard to Katherine and back again. "All of you."
"If there was any coaching, I had nothing to do with it, Gram," Alexis said, amused at her baby sister but at the same time agreeing with Lily's assessment.
"I swear we didn't, Martha," Kate said.
Earl held out his hand then. Lily looked from Earl's face to his hand. "I promise I will be nice to your Gram, Lily," Earl said.
Lily's scowl disappeared, and she smiled. "Okay," she said. She couldn't shake hands yet, but she gripped Earl's index and middle fingers and squeezed them in her approximation of a handshake.
"I had no idea the almost-two-year-old would be the toughest sell," Earl mused to Martha.
"Actually, neither did I," Martha replied.
"We take family very seriously," Rick said.
"Having never had one myself, believe me, so do I," Earl replied earnestly.
After dinner, Rick got Martha alone for a moment. "Mother, I've never seen you look happier than you look with Earl," he said.
"I didn't know it was possible for me to feel this way, Richard," she said. "I'm not sure how to explain it."
"You don't have to, Mother," he replied. "It's the way I feel every time I look at Kate." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Are you two thinking marriage?"
"Honestly, no," Martha said. "It may have been over forty years ago, but Earl was very badly scarred when his wife ran off with that make-up man, and I've never felt a need to be married. No, marriage isn't something we feel is absolutely necessary. But we do take it as fact that we'll be together for the rest of our lives."
"He had himself investigated," Rick said. "That's a new one even on me, and I've seen almost everything over the years."
"I didn't know he was going to do that until he gave me the report to read last night," Martha replied. "Of course, I already knew everything that was in it, but still...Earl knows how important you and Katherine and Alexis and Lily are to me. And he knows about our extended family as well. If Javier and Kevin didn't get the idea to run a background check on Earl themselves, you and Katherine would have asked them to do it when they had the time...if Victoria didn't get there first."
"Earl meeting 'Iron' Gates. Can I be there when that happens?" Rick asked.
"I'm sure you will be," Martha said. "In all seriousness, though, Richard...Do you like him? Do you approve of our relationship?"
"Mother, I think the only relationship I've ever had in my life that you approved of is Kate," Rick replied. "It isn't really my place to approve or disapprove. But I will say this: you never even introduced Alexis and me to Chet Palaburn, and he's the only man I've ever seen you really serious about...until now. For you to bring Earl here to meet all of us, and to tell me that you and Earl are taking it as fact that you're together for the rest of your lives, he's got to be the real thing for you. So yes, I approve. We all approve." Then he gave Martha a big hug, which she returned. "Be happy, Mother. You deserve it," he said softly into her ear.
"Thank you, Richard," Martha replied softly into his ear.
And that is how Earl Clifton became a member of the extended Castle family.
Lanie was relieved when April 1 came and went and she hadn't given birth yet. It wasn't that she didn't want her child to have the same birthday as Castle, but April 1 was April Fool's Day, and she didn't want her child to be teased about having that as his or her birthday.
But that relief was short-lived as the first two weeks of April went by without even very much in the way of Braxton Hicks contractions, because Lanie was totally over the whole being pregnant thing. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen her feet. She couldn't remember the last time she had slept through the night. The baby's favorite position was anything that involved putting pressure on her bladder, resulting in her making more bathroom pit stops than people twice her age with overactive bladder issues. Her back ached constantly, and she was irritable whenever she was awake, and bored on top of that since her maternity leave had already begun.
Alan took everything in stride, which was another thing that sometimes made Lanie angry. She didn't understand how he could be so calm and Zen about the impending birth of their child when she was so uncomfortable and impatient and worried about what kind of mother she would be. "I'm a schmuck," Alan said. "You have to go through all the physical discomfort and the pain of labor and childbirth, and I know you're miserable, but I don't really know what to do that isn't going to make you mad right now. And I deserve it. I absolutely deserve it, because I'm half responsible for all of this." He gestured to Lanie's extremely pregnant form. "And I'm your husband, so I'm the easiest target. I'm already prepared for you to call me every nasty name you can think of in the delivery room, and break my hand, and throw ice chips at me. I've earned that." Lanie was also over people touching her belly, but Alan gently laid his palm on the mound of their child. "I know it sucks right now, but this little guy or girl is so lucky to have you as a mom. Yeah, it's scary, because we've never done this before, and we haven't spent much time around babies, except Lily, and we've never dealt with her having a meltdown or a diaper explosion or colic or teething or any of the really tough stuff, but you're gonna be great, and we'll both learn as we go. And whenever this kid is ready to come out, I'll be ready to take you both to the hospital."
"Now I can't even get mad at you because you're being so damned sweet!" Lanie complained.
It was the week before Easter. Columbia was on spring break, so Alexis and Jim were both spending a lot of time with Lily. Lanie had been commiserating with Kate and Jenny over the extreme discomfort of the end of her pregnancy, and since Jenny had the day off from work, Sarah Grace was at preschool, and her parents had Nick, and Jim had Lily, Kate and Jenny headed over to Lanie and Alan's to keep Lanie company.
Alan had left for work on time on this Wednesday morning, April 17, 2019, and Lanie was dozing on the couch after making her way out to the living room, having not gotten much sleep the night before because she had had horrible back pains all night, worse than usual.
She shuffled to the door to let Kate and Jenny in when the doorbell rang, and she was bent double, one hand white-knuckling the doorknob, her other hand on the small of her back, as Kate and Jenny entered the apartment. "Lanie, are you okay?" Kate asked.
"No, I'm not okay!" Lanie snapped. "I'm nine months' pregnant, I've been having horrible back pains all night, and-" Lanie abruptly trailed off as she slid to her knees, still clutching the doorknob. "Oh, lord!" she exclaimed. She looked up at Kate and Jenny, her eyes wide, her face pale. "Either I just wet myself, or my water just broke."
Kate and Jenny exchanged a look and instantly sprang into action, helping Lanie to her feet. When they saw the puddle on the floor, Jenny and Kate exchanged another look and then Jenny said, "Definitely your water breaking."
Before Lanie could formulate a response to that, another contraction ripped through her, this time causing her large belly to tighten and ripple. "Son of a bitch!" she roared.
"Yeah, that's labor," Kate said. She pulled out her phone, pulled up her contact list, and touched Alan's name on the screen before putting the phone to her ear. He answered on the second ring. "Alan, it's Kate. Get home NOW. Lanie's water just broke and she is definitely in labor!"
"Really? This is it?" Alan asked eagerly, sounding like Rick on Christmas morning.
"This is it!" Kate said. "Alan, focus. Home! Now! Lanie needs you!"
"I'm on my way!" Alan exclaimed. "Oh, her bag is packed, it's in the front hall closet, and the doctor's number is on the fridge. Dr. Matthews. You'd better call her and let her know to meet us at the hospital. Tell Lanie I love her and I'm on my way home right now!" Then he hung up.
Jenny was literally holding Lanie up. "Something's wrong," Lanie was insisting. "I'm not getting any breaks from the pain. It's one wave on top of another. That's not normal, is it? You're supposed to have at least a minute or two in between contractions, right?"
Kate, still holding her phone, took the three steps required to take hold of Lanie and keep her on her feet. "Jenny, Alan said the doctor's number, Dr. Matthews, is posted on the fridge. Would you call her, please?"
"Yes," Jenny said, dashing into the kitchen.
"Kate, something's happening!" Lanie said. She dug her hands into Kate's shoulders and screamed in pain.
"Try to breathe through it, Lanie," Kate said. "I know it's almost impossible, but try." Kate demonstrated Lamaze breathing, and Lanie gamely tried to breathe through the pain, but the breathing didn't do much for her.
Jenny came racing back into the living room then, carrying a glass of ice cubes. "I called Dr. Matthews. She said she'll meet you and Alan at the hospital. And I got you some ice."
"Lanie, your horrible back pain...How long have you had it, would you say?" Kate asked then.
"Since last night," Lanie replied. "I barely got any sleep. Oh god!" Lanie's knees buckled.
Kate clicked into cop mode then. "Jenny, call 911," she said. "I don't think we're going to make it to the hospital in time for Dr. Matthews to deliver this baby."
"What?" Lanie said. "No, Kate! No, no, no! That's not how this is supposed to go AT ALL! I'm supposed to be in the hospital, with the good drugs to make this godawful damn pain go away!"
Jenny was on the phone with 911 when Alan dashed through the still-open front door, exclaiming, "I'm triple parked downstairs! Is your bag still in the closet?"
"Alan, I don't think we have time for that," Kate said gravely. "I need you to help me get Lanie to bed. I don't think this kid is gonna wait for the hospital, and I doubt Lanie wants to give birth in the car."
"I most certainly do not!" Lanie said. Her knees buckled again, and Alan was there, holding her up and trying to get her to breathe with him, not having much better luck than Kate and Jenny had just a moment ago.
Jenny hung up from 911. "Ambulance is on the way," she said. "But they couldn't give me an ETA."
Lanie straightened up as much as she could, and she was crying now. "It isn't supposed to happen like this!" she insisted.
"Babies come when they're ready," Jenny said. "You brought Sarah Grace safely into the world, and got her and me both safely through the delivery. None of us are going to let anything happen to you and your baby, Lanie."
"Jenny is right," Kate said. "Now, while we seem to have a few seconds between contractions, I suggest that we get you into bed, Lanie."
"I've got her," Alan said, lifting Lanie into his arms and carrying her to their bedroom, with Kate and Jenny trailing behind.
"Have you ever delivered a baby before?" Jenny asked Kate.
"No," Kate replied, knowing Jenny's answer was the same. "But if we're really lucky, the paramedics will get here in time to handle the actual delivery, and we can just help Alan coach Lanie through what's left of her labor."
Lanie and Alan both screamed then, and Kate and Jenny dashed into their bedroom.
"I—I see the top of the baby's head," Alan said, and he was now even paler than Lanie. "I don't think the paramedics are gonna get here in time."
Kate and Jenny both took a look, and sure enough, the baby was crowning.
"Lanie, the baby's coming right now," Kate said.
"Kate," Lanie said. Her fear and anxiety were condensed in that single syllable.
"We've got this," Kate assured Lanie. She grabbed the bottle of hand sanitizer she spied on Lanie's nightstand, squirted a generous dollop in one palm, tossed the bottle to Jenny, and then made quick work of rubbing the sanitizer into her hands. Jenny followed suit, and then rushed into the bathroom, returning a moment later with a large bath towel.
"Alan, help her prop up," Kate instructed. "Jenny, get that towel ready." Jenny knelt at the foot of Lanie and Alan's bed, towel at the ready, a look of intense concentration on her face. "All right, Lanie, on the next contraction, I want you to push," Kate continued.
Lanie did not need to be told twice. She bore down and pushed, with Alan holding her up and counting to ten, one of the few things he remembered from Lamaze class.
Lanie fell back against Alan, feeling like her body was being torn apart from the inside by excruciating pain. The baby's head was out, but Jenny and Kate both saw that the cord was wrapped around the baby's neck. "Your fingers are smaller than mine, I think," Kate murmured. "Don't push again yet, Lanie!"
"Okay," Jenny said. "Just a second here..." Ever so carefully, she touched the cord, relieved beyond measure when she found that it wasn't cutting off the baby's oxygen, but was loose around his or her neck. Jenny very carefully inserted her fingers between the cord and the baby's neck and slipped it up and off the baby's neck and head. Kate breathed her own sigh of relief when she saw that the cord was no longer around the baby's neck.
"What's happening? What's wrong?" Lanie asked frantically.
"What's going on?" Alan demanded.
"The cord was around the baby's neck, but it wasn't tight," Jenny said. "I slipped it up and over the head. Everything's fine now. And your baby has a full head of hair."
"Okay, you ready to go again?" Kate asked.
"Do I have a choice?" Lanie replied rhetorically. Then the next contraction hit and she pushed with all her might.
"All right, we have shoulders!" Kate exclaimed. "One more push should do it, Lanie! When that next contraction hits, push as hard as you can!"
In answer, Lanie began pushing as what she prayed was the final contraction wracked her body while Alan kept chanting in her ear over and over how great she was and how much he loved her.
Kate's hands, sure and steady, caught the baby as it slipped completely free of Lanie's womb and let out a loud, indignant series of wails. "It's a boy!" Kate exclaimed, holding him up for his parents to get their first look at him, umbilical cord still attached. She kept a good hold on him as Jenny wrapped him in a towel, and then Kate placed the baby on Lanie's chest.
Alan and Lanie were both crying now. "A boy," Alan repeated, looking at the baby in wonder.
"He's beautiful," Lanie wept. And indeed he was, even covered in the fluids and gunk of birth, his full head of dark hair plastered to his scalp, big brown eyes unfocused, tiny hands flailing as he shrieked, and his skin a gorgeous mocha color.
That was the moment that the paramedics arrived, and Jenny rushed to let them in and direct them to the bedroom, she and Kate retreating to the bathroom to wash up again while the paramedics handled the delivery of the placenta and prepared Lanie, Alan, and their son for transport to the hospital.
"I can't believe we did that," Jenny said, still stunned. "You were awesome, Kate!"
"So were you," Kate told Jenny. "I couldn't have done it without you. You got the cord off his neck, Jenny, you saved his life."
One of the paramedics approached them then. "Mom and Dad said the cord was around the little guy's neck?" he asked.
"Very loosely, thank God," Jenny said. "I was able to slip it up and over his head, and it didn't seem to have a detrimental effect on his breathing."
"You're right, it didn't," the paramedic replied. "We're getting ready to transport them to the hospital, but your friends want to talk to you two for a minute."
Kate and Jenny returned to the bedroom. Lanie was on a gurney, Alan standing beside her, both of them with proud, happy grins on their faces, and the baby was swaddled in a blanket and snoozing in Lanie's arms. "We'll never be able to thank you two enough," Lanie said.
"We just did what needed to be done," Kate said.
"He's so cute," Jenny said in a hushed voice.
"We're going to have quite the story to tell him about the day he was born," Alan said. "Very few babies get delivered by their godmothers."
"Godmothers?" Jenny asked. Everyone knew that Kate and Rick were the godparents, because Alan and Lanie had asked, and Kate and Rick had accepted, a few months earlier.
"Lily has two sets of godparents," Lanie pointed out. "I don't think Ryan will say no to being a godfather again. You helped him get here safely, Jenny, you kept the cord from strangling him. Of course we want you to be his godmother, along with Kate, and Ryan to be his godfather, along with Castle."
"We would be honored," Jenny said, wiping at her eyes.
"Then it's settled," Lanie said. "You're Will's godmothers, and Castle and Ryan are his godfathers."
"Will?" Kate asked.
"William Lucas Masters," Alan pronounced proudly. "But we're gonna call him Will."
"You can spread the word to the rest of the family," Lanie said. "Alan and I will call our parents, and Alan's sister and her husband, from the hospital. We'll see you there later?"
"With armloads of gifts," Kate promised. She looked at Will, sleeping in his mother's arms. "Welcome to the world, Will Masters."
"We'll see you later, Will," Jenny said, smiling down at the sleeping baby boy.
After the paramedics departed with Lanie, Alan, and Will, Kate and Jenny made all of the necessary phone calls, and soon almost the entire family—minus Jim and Lily, and Martha and Earl, who still hadn't met most of the extended family—was en route to the hospital to meet Will and congratulate Lanie and Alan in person and give them gifts and flowers.
Rick, carrying a bouquet of blue forget-me-nots and a giant Mylar balloon proclaiming "IT'S A BOY!", found Kate at the hospital nursery window. "You delivered Lanie and Alan's baby!" he exclaimed.
"Jenny helped," Kate replied. "We both did it."
"He's not in there, is he?" Rick asked, looking over Kate's shoulder at the babies in the nursery. "Since he wasn't born in the hospital, I didn't think he could be in there."
"He's not," Kate said. "I was just looking at all those other babies, and waiting for you." She bit her lip. "Lily's going to be two next month," she said.
"Not even a month away now," Rick pointed out. Plans for Lily's second birthday party were in full swing.
"It's April 17," Kate said. "And I doubt it will happen right away. But even if it did, if I got pregnant before this month is over, assuming the baby wasn't born early, I'd give birth in January of next year, and Lily would be three in May, so we'd still have the three-year age difference."
"Kate," Rick said, awed. "You want to start trying?"
"Yeah, I want to start trying. I want a mini-Castle. Although another girl would be fine too," Kate said.
"You want to start trying," Rick repeated, awed.
"You don't?" Kate asked anxiously.
Rick carefully shifted the flowers and balloon he was holding and pulled Kate into his arms. "I do," he said. "I'm ready whenever you are."
"Well, not right this second," Kate said, pulling back slightly but remaining in the circle of Rick's arms. "But tonight sounds good to me, how about you?"
"Tonight's just fine," Rick replied.
"Good," Kate said, stretching up to tease him with a kiss, a promise of things to come later. "Now, it's time for you to properly meet your godson. Oh, and we're sharing godparent duty with Jenny and Ryan."
They entered Lanie's hospital room to find Kevin, Jenny, Javier, Alexis, and Victoria already there. "And here are Aunt Kate and Uncle Rick, Will," Lanie said to the baby in her arms.
"Will," Rick repeated. "Good, strong name. And since he didn't want to wait until you were here to make his debut, he's already exhibiting the April-born trait of impatience."
Lanie rolled her eyes. "I don't believe in zodiac signs, Castle. I'm a woman of science. That's astrology mumbo-jumbo."
"April babies have good traits, too," Rick asserted as he set the flowers and balloon in the corner with the rest of the flowers, balloons, and stuffed animals the others had brought and gave first Alan, who was perched on the edge of the hospital bed next to Lanie and Will, and then Lanie, hugs. "We're cheerful, charismatic, resilient, focused, genuine, passionate..."
"Those all sound like good qualities to have," Alan said.
"And where on that list does teaching our son to speak Klingon fall?" Lanie asked knowingly, with a raised eyebrow. At Alan's surprised look, she said, "I found the Klingon Dictionary underneath a stack of diapers under the changing table, Alan, so don't even try to deny it."
"Just think how much easier it'll be for Will to pick up Spanish or French when he's in school if he starts learning Klingon from birth," Alan said.
As Alan and Lanie good-naturedly bantered back and forth about the merits of teaching Will Klingon from birth, and Kevin and Javier bickered over which of them would wind up with more godchildren ("Your sisters' kids shouldn't count!" Javi insisted.), and Alexis and Jenny and Victoria tried in vain to restore order and shift the focus back to Lanie and Alan and baby Will, Kate and Rick looked at each other and smiled, thinking about their yet-to-be-conceived child, and already daydreaming about when they would be the ones in the hospital on the day that child was born.
