Misconception

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There's a moment of musical chairs around the dining room table, unsure where their places are now in this new dynamic. Or at least that's how it feels to Kate. Finally Castle sits at the foot - farthest from the kitchen - and gestures to his right, and Kate sinks into the chair in relief even though it's not her usual spot.

Does she have a usual spot? Dinner after the bank was robbed - she was where Martha is, at his left, and now she's afraid that sitting at Castle's right hand is supposed to mean something.

Martha is now across from Kate, and Alexis's place - wherever it might be - is empty, though Martha doesn't seem to mind the turnover of their arrangements. Kate glances to her left to gauge Castle's mood, but instead her mind is snagged on the corner of the table, this corner precisely, where the windows at her back and the wall behind Castle meet. A large corner. A currently-empty corner.

But the perfect spot for a high chair. Just reach back and pull the baby up to the corner of the table between them, and they can tag-team feeding just as they do everything else. It all fits.

"Kate?"

She swallows hard and shifts her gaze to him.

He's trying to offer her the serving bowl of stir fry, nudging it towards her plate. Kate takes it automatically, dishing out chicken and vegetables, wondering why it's so easy to imagine all of that. Here. When it was impossible to even think about it at her apartment, her head in her hands on the bathroom floor.

And like the woman has ESP or something, Martha says, "So, Katherine, when did you find out?"

Kate passes the bowl across the table to his mother. "Today." The woman takes it, giving her a delighted kind of smile, but she goes on.

"No, I mean, when did you first start to think-"

"Today?" she answers. "I haven't thought about anything other than-" She cuts herself off, glancing quickly to Castle, but he looks mildly interested and maybe these are the things they're supposed to be saying. "Than why you were acting so different."

His face sours for a moment, but she sneaks her hand under the table and lays it on his thigh, wriggling her fingers in silent plea. He takes her hand, squeezing, and leaves them their clasped hands there.

She picks up her fork with her right hand and goes for the green stuff. Folic acid, right? Or has stir frying it cooked out all the good stuff? She needs a book, she realizes belatedly. She should have googled all this on her phone the moment-

"Well, yes, but-" Martha laughs and waves her hand - with the wine sloshing in her glass. "To get an ultrasound appointment that fast?"

"Oh," she says stupidly. "Oh, you mean, did I guess?" And then she realizes how terrible it appears, knowing for so long - she's three months - and never saying a word, even before Castle got weird and angry and everything was different.

"How long have you known?" he says, and his eyes don't meet hers.

"I didn't know until today," she promises. And it's true. If he's willing to- "You have met me, right? I'm very good at denial."

He laughs, an explosive breath that brings his head up and his eyes to hers. "You - are. Yes."

She lets herself think it might be okay. "And I'm something of an expert at ignoring my feelings-"

"That is most definitely true."

She huffs at him, but it is true. "And I've never been very on top of - it."

"It?" he says, glancing to his mother when Martha tuts.

"Menstrually speaking, you mean."

Kate freezes.

Castle frowns. "I don't think that's an actual word, Mother."

"The joy of the English language is such that it is now a word," Martha says, sipping her wine and savoring it a moment. "I just used it."

Right. "Yes, well," Kate lets out a breath. Castle turns back to her and his eyes are sparkling, twinkling, little blue stars in the narrow crinkle of his face. He's messing with her, and his mother too, and he thinks it's funny.

He has a daughter, his mother lives with him - seriously, she can talk about her period.

"I usually skip one sometime during the year, one or two," she says finally, ignoring the laughter on his lips. "Stress, poor eating habits, sleeplessness, physical exertion. It's a kind of precarious thing, it feels like, so I didn't notice. And I don't keep track exactly."

She wonders then if he does because he's nosy and observant, and no. No, not right now; she can't think about just how very grossly domestic and intimate this is going to get - from the very start - with every single doctor's appointment.

There will be no honeymoon period where she can't pee in front of him and he still sneaks out of bed to hide his farts. They just won't get that time, because it'll be about her body's changes and swollen things and dilation and - God, this is freaking her out. She's freaked out. All the way. She wouldn't be surprised if a panic attack is hiding around the corner.

Castle's hand squeezes hers. "You didn't think about it, and you didn't want it to be true, but you scheduled an ultrasound?"

"No, my doctor did," she sighs, trying to release her panic out with her breath, with her hand squeezing his back. "I made a regular appointment and saw the doc on my insurance - first guy available in the group, because this morning was the only time I had free - and that was the first thing he said. He didn't even look at me."

"Were you sick?" Martha asks. "Richard gave me terrible morning sickness. It was such a trial. I thought I'd contracted the worse 24-hour bug, but you just hung around, darling." She smiles and pats his hand, and Rick gives a mocking grimace.

"Well, thanks. The stomach flu that won't quit." He glances back at her with some amusement, but concern as well. "Do you - have that? I mean, is it bad-"

"No," she answers. Answers before she can think at all.

"Oh, that's good. You're lucky," Martha trills out, raising her glass in salute. Her eyes drift to Rick, and Kate realizes the woman has figured it out already.

And Castle is studying her. "Not sick. So... why did you go at all?"

Because I knew.

She just stares at him helplessly.

"Oh," he breathes out slowly. His head bobs. "Right."

And I didn't tell you.

"It's always good to get the facts first," Martha says, gesturing to her. "I completely understand. Arm yourself with knowledge."

"Yes," she rushes out. "And by then, Castle, you weren't talking to me so much as snapping my head off, and I cared more about that than-"

"A baby."

"The thought of one," she says, rather hollowly. Dinner was such a terrible idea. She should have jumped him in his closet, tugged off his pants, proved herself then and there. Words will never work.

But 'proving' herself that night of the Ryans' wedding hadn't worked, had it? It had spectacularly backfired on her. Now we know what we're waiting for? Ha. She achieved worse than nothing that night, she-

Got pregnant. Like an idiot. What did she expect? That first time with a condom and then the wild thought, oh hell, fuck it, I'm on the pill, and she was in love with him, and he with her, and maybe a dark terrible part of her wanted to be ruined-

Ruined?

Ruined.

"I'm sorry," Castle says suddenly. His grip on her hand returns, fiercely, and she lifts her gaze to him. "I'm sorry, Kate. I wasn't there for you when - of course you were - and I was being an ass-"

"I hurt you," she cuts in.

"An ass," he frowns. "And conveniently forgetting four years of-"

"Four years?" she scoffs.

His head tilts. "Of trust." His lips quirk. "And you were crazy about me. Everyone could see it."

Her mouth drops open. "I hated-"

"You adored me."

"You were annoying, Castle. You were an ass."

"And yet you couldn't keep your hands off me-"

"You're crazy." But he's riled her up again, and in doing so, the self-doubt burns away, the guilt and soulsickness. Just like that, his 'crazy' has pulled her out of her own head.

Out of her own death spiral.

Nothing's ruined at all. He's still looking at her with that deep grin, and even if she was hiding, and even if she will be in the future, he has hope. She has, at least, given him hope for them. Now he knows what they're waiting for, building towards.

And he, in turn, buoys her with it.

"I didn't want to know, but I was afraid I was," she tells him. "I was - afraid. Because I didn't have you any more and a baby was - should be for love. I'd have to - I didn't even let myself get that far down the road. I made the appointment, he told me I was, and I went straight to the ultrasound tech two floors up. It happened in moments, but it was a long morning. And then I came here. To you."

Castle leans in and lightly kisses her lips, and it's light only because he's still smiling so broadly. "Thank you." His fingers caress her jaw.

She lets out a long breath, wishes she felt more relieved, but she's grateful for the flush of arousal that washes her clean of everything else.

"Straight here?" Martha puts her glass down with a heavy clink. "You haven't told your father?"

Castle jerks back, his face dissolving into panic.

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