A/N: It was supposed to be a three shot, but I've written almost 5000 words for this last chapter and I'm STILL not done! So, I'll split what I already have written and try to get the rest out to you all soon... Enjoy!
"Try again? In what capacity?" His hands had frozen over the pictures of Hope, her face giving Kate the strength to push forward. "Do you want to try and adopt again? Look at IVF?" He turned to her, watching her reactions. "Kate, I'll do whatever you want to do, but I need to know how you want to try again."
She unwrapped her arms from around his neck, and made her way over to one of the armchairs, sinking down into it, her legs hanging over the arm. "This sucks. Why can't we just be normal?" In reality, they were normal. Their doctor had assured them that about twenty percent of infertility cases were unexplainable. Somehow that number did nothing to make her feel any better.
His chuckle warmed her from the inside out. "We were never normal, Kate. What gave you that impression?"
She rolled her eyes at him, her hands running through her hair, pushing it out of her face. "You know what I mean. Why can't we be like other couples, you know? Why can't we have sex, make a perfect human being that has your eyes, my nose, your imagination, my…"
"Perfect eye rolls?" He interrupted, prompting a chuckle from her.
"Yes, that's what I want my child to inherit." He raised his eyebrows at her sarcasm, amused but silent so she could continue. "Part of me blames myself. Because if I had gotten out of my own head earlier and admitted my feelings, we would have had more time to plan for this." She played with her hands over her abdomen, the emptiness heavy within her. "If I had kissed you in that bank like I wanted to, or called you after my shooting, or joined you at the Hamptons, who knows what position we'd be in now."
"Or we would have crashed and burned for forcing ourselves together before we were ready and these problems wouldn't exist." He leaned forward, resting his head in his hands. "Doubting yourself and prior actions won't solve anything now. We don't know how that situation would have played out. All we can do is figure out what we want now, and support each other through it."
"I know. You're right." Her brain was moving quickly while she mulled over the options, a thousand different thoughts shouting at her all at once. He sat silent, letting her guide the conversation. "I don't think I want to try IVF. Two years ago we thought that the odds were bad, and each year since the odds have dropped significantly. That, and each time we try our hopes are just going to go up even if we tell ourselves not to expect anything, and I don't want to crash down from that, I don't want to disappoint myself."
"You know, nothing you do could ever disappoint me." There he was again, voicing the fears that she hadn't said, proving once more that he knew her inside and out.
Her smile was soft on her lips. "I know."
"Do you really, though?"
"I get it." She crossed her arms across her chest. "But a small part of me would feel worse for letting you down, and I don't think I could make myself stop thinking that."
He let her confession sit between them, the heaviness in the room settling. "Fair enough. No IVF then. Pros and cons about adoption?"
She sighed. "Mom changes her mind again." She knew it was the first thing on his mind too, his eyes meeting hers across the room. "I can't go through that again, Castle."
"So we don't. If she signs in front of a judge, it goes into effect that day. She can't back out."
"Can we make that a stipulation of the agreement though, legally?" His solution seemed so simple. If only it had worked out for them the first time. "And then we have to think about the process, how long it took." She shot him a sympathetic look before continuing. "I mean, I love you babe, but you aren't exactly as young as you once were." He raised his eyebrows, and she appreciated that he didn't voice the speak for yourself retort that she knew was on the tip of his tongue. "And I worry that it would be strange to be the oldest parents at our child's graduation."
He studied her, his hands dropping to his lap. "So you're saying that you don't want to try? But you want to try?" His eyebrows knit together. "I'm sorry, I'm a bit lost."
"Me too." She fixated on a point behind him as her mind quieted, pros and cons whispering in the air around her. "Can we maybe just agree to table this discussion? Each of us taking some time to think and revisiting in a couple weeks?"
He nodded his head once. "Sure. But I already know what I'm going to say." His eyes softened, his smile warm. "I'll do whatever you want to do."
She sighed. "I know that. Just, keep an open mind, and we'll revisit."
He didn't get a chance to respond before the baby monitor started making noise, letting them know that Owen was awake. "I'll get him." Castle stood up from his desk, his gaze lingering on one of Hope's pictures before he made his way to the door. Stopping in the doorway, his eyes met hers. "Two weeks, and we'll go over our options again. Deal?"
"Deal." She nodded, flashing him a brilliant smile as he ducked out to tend to their grandson.
The solution came to her in an unorthodox way, while solving a murder. The victim's name was Amy Felton, a nurse in her early forties found stabbed in her apartment. Her tox screen had come back positive for heroin and other narcotics. And an extensive look into her background showed that she had a teenage daughter somewhere in foster care.
She took her husband with her to do the notification. It was harder to do when the family members were young, and this situation hit somewhat close to home.
The girl's name was Sophia, and she sat with them at her kitchen table, her laptop closed in front of her. "How can I help?" Her hair was pulled out of her face, and she wore a loose t-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts, like she planned on going for a run after all of this.
"It's about your mother." Kate started, leaning toward the teen.
But Sophie sat back in her seat, arms crossed over her chest. "I have nothing to do with her, or her drug dealing boyfriend anymore."
Kate's heart sunk as she watched this child's pain flash across her face. She reached out a hand, offering support. "That's not it, that's not why we're here." She took a deep breath, her features softening. "Sophie, your mother was found dead earlier this morning."
But instead of pain, or anger, or anything, Sophie kept her face blank and apathetic. "Oh."
"You don't seem too affected by the news." Castle continued, his face just as confused as Kate imagined hers was.
"What, do you want me to be sad?" The venom in her voice surprised Kate, making her sit back in her seat, withdrawing her hand. Sophie's face turned angry. "You know, we moved to Tennessee with this guy, my Mom determined to start over. And at first it was good, she was happy." Her face fell, her arms dropping into her lap. "But when they fought it was vicious. They would scream, throw things. It made me feel unsafe for the first time in my life. I never saw him hit her though, that would have been it. He didn't get along with me at all. I came home one day and found him rooting through my stuff." She started wringing her hands and picking at her nails. "I thought he was stealing from me, probably to buy drugs. We got into this huge fight. He threatened me, and it wasn't the first time. I told my Mom I wanted to come back here." She looked up, brown eyes meeting Kate's, sadness evident in her features for the first time since they sat down. "She sent me back without a plan. I couch surfed between my friend's houses, and sometimes my Grandmother took me in. But she couldn't afford to keep me full time, and my friend's parents were getting suspicious. When my Grandmother called my Mom and told her I would be put into foster care, my Mom let her do it. She told her she was 'done with me and my attitude.'" Kate's heart fell, and Castle drew in breath sharply, both of them shocked by this. But Sophie's face returned to its stony demeanor. "She chose the druggie boyfriend over me, her only child. And when he was arrested, she moved back to the city, claiming to try and rekindle our relationship. Except all she did was cry about how much she missed him all the time. I stopped going to see her, and I haven't seen her in a year."
"I'm sorry." Kate choked out, her eyes trained on Sophie's.
The teen shrugged. "Don't be. Melanie, my foster Mom, she's the Mom I always needed. I'm better off now."
"Good." Kate pulled out one of her business cards, leaving it on the table. "Just call me if you think of something that might help us solve it, okay? Even bad people need justice sometimes." Sophie took it, barely glancing at it, and led them out of her house.
They both said goodbye with aching hearts and spinning heads. Kate sat in the car, her hands on the wheel, just trying to wrap her head around the story she'd heard. His hand found its way to her knee, his thumb rubbing soothing circles that brought her back to the present. "I just don't get it. We tried for years to have a child. We would love that child unconditionally. But this woman has one and just decides she's done?" She turned her head, meeting her husband's gaze. "Teenagers aren't easy, I know because I terrorized my parents. But you're supposed to guide them and support them, not give up on them!" Her voice was getting louder, and speeding up, making her stop so her thoughts could catch up. "It's just not fair."
He shook his head. "It's not."
She took a breath, reorienting herself. "I think I want to continue that conversation with you a bit ahead of schedule."
"I'd be open to that." She felt her stomach flutter with anticipation.
"First, we have to get some work done on this case." As his head nodded, she put the car in drive, and pulled away from Sophie's house, new ideas forming in her head.
"It's not like this is the first brush with the foster care system I've had. We've had to call before when a victim has children, and we've dealt with them when a suspect has children. I know that there are children out there that have had it bad." She was sitting on the couch, a glass of wine in her hand as she leaned up against him. "I think it just hit me harder, hearing her story and knowing that I would have gladly taken her in."
She felt him inhale as she rose up on his chest, and found herself wishing she could know what he was thinking. "I'm not against it. But sometimes I worry that we won't have the full story. What if the kid needs a lot of care, or has a lot of issues?"
"Castle, there's no guarantee that our own kid wouldn't have psychological issues. You don't need to go through something terrible to have them."
"I know that. But I was thinking PTSD or attachment disorders."
Her hand found his, and she laced her fingers through his. "I hate to say it, but we could do everything right and they might still witness or go through something traumatic." Her mother hadn't planned on being killed when she planned on having a kid. Martha hadn't planned on Castle happening across a dead body in the woods. "So we do what we would do for our own children. We take them to counseling, and we're there for them, whatever they need."
His hand tightened around hers, and he bounced them a few times over her stomach. "I told you I was up for whatever you wanted to do. Is this what you want to do, adopt a kid in foster care?"
She felt a smile stretch across her face as she answered. "Yes."
He tapped her shoulder as he sat up, making her move so he could run to his office. He returned with his laptop, sitting next to her and placing the computer on his lap between them. "Let's get started."