CH17
It is now one month later: (November)
It was the day before Thanksgiving and Rick pulled the frozen 25 pound turkey out of the freezer and set it in the sink to let water run over it to help thaw it out. "So that's why you brought a frozen turkey!" Kate had her hands on Rick's shoulders when he had his back to her. And kisses the back of his head.
Only to find Rick spin in place and really kiss her while one of his hands ran down her back until he cupped one of her cheeks in his palm getting a reaction from Kate, however she never left his lips.
Rick broke from the kiss and rested his forehead against hers by bending down. "I'm thankful that I met you at that coffee shop. My life wouldn't be anywhere near as full as it is with you in it." Rick tells her.
"I'm thankful that we were both in the same hotel. You saved my life in more ways than one. I wasn't really enjoying life till I met you. And I'm sorry it took me so long to come around." Kate answered back and lifted up to give Rick a quick kiss.
"And I suppose the frozen ham is for Christmas dinner?" Kate asks.
"Can't get anything past you can I?" Rick smiled down at her.
"That's why I'm the detective of this family." Kate smiled back.
"Speaking of family, this will end one time Kate, and when it does we're going to have that baby. And he or she is going to be perfect." Rick tells her.
Kate instantly buried herself into his chest and wrapped her arms around him. "I want that so badly baby, so damn badly." Kate started blinking back tears.
"It'll happen Kate, It'll happen." Rick kissed the top of her head. It had to happen, their life wasn't going to be this over and over again until time itself came to a stop. That would be hell and he didn't think any of them had done anything to warrant being sent to hell. "Maybe we'll even have a big family." Rick teased and started counting but never made it past the starting number 3.
"JUST HOW BIG ARE WE TALKING HERE?" Kate looked up at him.
"Oh I don't know, 4, 5 maybe 6." Rick waited for it.
Kate stepped back far enough to punch Rick in the chest. "SIX? I'm not a baby factory Mr. Castle." Six my ass. My big FAT ass!
Rick worked at pulling Kate back into him. "One or two will be fine and you know it." Rick finally got Kate pulled back into him even if her arms weren't wrapped around him anymore but curled up between the two of them against his chest.
"It better be, or I'll never lose the baby weight." Kate liked being slim and fit.
"Just more of you to love." Rick countered and kissed her head.
"More of me to divorce you mean." Kate teased since she would never divorce him. Meredith and Gina may not understand what they had, but she did and she was keeping him.
"We divorce over my dead body." Rick counters knowing divorce was never going to enter the picture.
"Don't even think that babe, not ever." Kate freed her arms and wrapped them around him and buried her head into his chest. She wasn't losing him or Alexis, ever!
"Help me with some of the side dishes? We can store them in the refrigerator until tomorrow and put them in the oven." Rick asks her.
"What about the turkey? It needs an oven too." Kate questions.
Rick started shaking his head. "I'm going to inject a Cajun mix into and place it in the grill and let it cook slowly." Rick explains.
"Oooo, sounds different. Have you done this before?" Kate asks still holding onto Rick.
"You ask Alexis that and find out for yourself. I'm the master of it." Rick stood up straight.
"Master huh?" Kate was sure there was a story in there somewhere.
Jim was outside helping Rick grill his turkey not sure this was such a good idea, still he did notice that the turkey was oozing juices that Rick kept injecting right back into it, so this turkey was definitely not going to dry out.
Still the entire process looked just a little dangerous to him. The ladies were inside getting all of the sides ready. They had fresh fruit picked only that morning, all the vegetables had to come from a can since the greenhouse had been used up. They did however have canned fruit also, like oranges.
It wasn't going to be a conventional Thanksgiving dinner that the Beckett's were used to however they did have a lot of food with fresh bread that the bread machine had only finished making an hour ago.
Jim and Kate's eyes opened wide at the first bite of the turkey. "This is amazing!" Jim was talking with his mouth full, knowing full well what his wife would say about that.
"This is really, really good babe." Kate filled her fork again and filled her mouth.
"You should have seen the first time dad cooked a turkey this way." Alexis offers.
"Alexis, you're not too old for me to ground you." Rick cautions.
"And I'll instantly un-ground you honey and ground Rick instead, so give." Alexis had her undivided attention now.
"We were out in the Hamptons and dad tried cooking the turkey on the grill while injecting it on the grill." Alexis starts with, and Jim recognized it since he had watched Rick do just that.
"Dad was injecting his solution when it went through the turkey or out the other side and hit the coals. … POOF!" Alexis raised her hands to demonstrate a flash of fire.
"It started dad's shirt on fire and blackened his face and burned his eyebrows off." Alexis was smiling while arching her eyebrows a few times.
It caused Kate to start laughing while Jim just chuckled.
"They grew back." Rick pouted.
"We spent Thanksgiving in the emergency room that year dad." Alexis countered since their Thanksgiving was ruined.
That only got Kate to laugh even harder, enough that she found it difficult to stay in her chair. Alexis was smiling and even Martha who was hearing it again was chuckling lightly, mostly because Kate's laughing was infectious.
Rick however only sat there pouting and plotting how to get back at his daughter.
Dinner was cleaned up and everything that was left over went into the refrigerator and Jim and Martha were presented with Castle's WHO AM I game.
ROUND #1
Getting on a plane, I told the ticket lady, "Send one of my bags to New York, send one to Los Angeles, and send one to Miami." She said, "We can't do that!" I told her, "You did it last week!"
I was just in London - there is a 6 hour time difference. I'm still confused. When I go to dinner, I feel sexy. When I go to bed, I feel hungry.
The food on the plane was fit for a king. "Here, King!"
A doctor gave a man six months to live. The man couldn't pay his bill, so he gave him another six months.
My doctor grabbed me by the wallet and said, "Cough!"
The doctor says to the patient, "Take your clothes off and stick your tongue out the window". "What will that do?" asks the patient. The doctor says, "I'm mad at my neighbor!"
A doctor has a stethoscope up to a man's chest. The man asks, "Doc, how do I stand?" The doctor says, "That's what puzzles me!"
The other day I broke 70. That's a lot of clubs.
Hollywood called me, asking me, "How much to do a movie with Farrah Fawcett?" "$50,000" They called back, "How about $20,000?" I said, "I'll pay it!"
I'm now making a Jewish porno film. 10% Sex, 90% guilt.
ROUND #2
Last time I got a standing ovation was in England when I played with the London Philharmonic. I played the Wieniawski Concerto, and when I finished, the whole audience stood up - and walked out!
My wife Mary and I have been married for forty-seven years and not once have we had an argument serious enough to consider divorce; murder, yes, but divorce, never.
Give me golf clubs, fresh air and a beautiful partner, and you can keep the clubs and the fresh air.
The doctors couldn't find anything wrong with me except that I have a slight stomach pain. Wait till I get my hospital bill! Then I'll really have a pain the stomach!
The only way I'll ever get hurt in the casino is if there's an earthquake and a slot machine falls on my foot.
I don't want to tell you how much insurance I carry with the Prudential, but all I can say is: when I go, they go too.
I went to a meeting for premature ejaculators. I left early.
ROUND #3
As far as gambling, just ask any of the dealers in the Las Vegas casinos and they'll tell you that woman can't play blackjack. They can't add up the cards fast enough.
I still feel 30, except when I try to run.
Jack Benny was, without a doubt, the bravest comedian I have ever seen work. He wasn't afraid of silence. He would take as long as it took to tell the story.
The giant superstars are people whose talent is so enormous that their death wish can't destroy it.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down'.
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Jim had guessed number two correctly but had no idea who the other two were while Martha didn't even try and just enjoyed the moment. Still Jim and the others all laughed at the joke.
"You've been doing this each time?" Jim asks.
"Not always, only occasionally. I'm not sure even Rick knows that many jokes." Kate answers.
"Oh ye of little faith my dear Kate. Have you learned nothing in your time here?" Rick was grinning.
"My mistake, I forgot you are the Jedi Master of jokes." Kate teases since her tone of voice said otherwise. Getting Rick to try and glare back out her, however Kate is immune to that look.
Kate was curled up that night in Rick's arms, right where she wanted to be. "You are good at it babe." Kate was doodling on Rick's chest yet again with her finger. Kate had noticed that they all were beginning to get pretty good tans by now again too.
"I have a confession to make." Rick tells Kate and listens to her silence. "I have them all on my laptop and I've been spending time while typing my books out, I was also memorizing them all." Rick got ready for Kate's yelling.
Except she just laid there and said nothing. "Kate? …. Kate?" It was now that Rick noticed Kate had stopped doodling on his chest. He was spared, Kate had fallen asleep in his arms.
Kate woke in the morning to an empty bed. It wasn't the first time and likely not the last, however she also knew that he wasn't far. Stretching out to get her muscles moving she turned to see the time. 7:43 am. She had slept in! How did that happen?
Kate was showered, dressed with just a touch of make-up since herself and Alexis had given most of it to Martha since Alexis hadn't packed that much for her. If one could call wearing a bikini with a wrap and flip flops being dressed.
Stepping out into the main room Kate found Rick in the kitchen almost done fixing breakfast. Pancakes, amazingly, bacon, toast, eggs, juice and coffee. The coffee was first as Kate breathed it in first before starting to sip it. "You've been busy." Kate comments, impressed.
"I had a good feeling about today is all." Rick shrugged his shoulders and turned his head to give Kate a quick kiss.
"I missed you this morning." Kate states.
"Sorry about that, but I just couldn't get back to sleep." Rick gave Kate another quick kiss as an apology.
"No problem, I had fun in the shower without you." Kate teases and walked out of the kitchen.
"Ooooohhh, don't say that Kate." Rick moans, as he crosses his legs a little.
"Is that bacon I smell?" Alexis enters.
"It is, we just need to wait for Jim and my mother." Rick calls out still staring daggers at Kate for teasing him.
Kate had Alexis's cell/satellite phone and called the satellite phone she left behind. "Hi Espo, just calling in this morning for our weekly call-in." Kate tells him since she recognized his voice.
"We were just thinking of calling you Beckett. …. YOU CAN COME HOME!" Ryan yells into the phone from somewhere likely behind Espo.
That got Kate, Rick and Alexis's mouths to drop open.
"Not just yet but we just got word that Mayor Wheldon was informed by someone after he got the 54th to take him to the Emergency Operations Center and went back to the hospital with the food that was stored there along with some of the communications equipment.
It's not a cure, but they are calling it invisibility. Supposedly the infected ignore you if you are already infected with something. So they are starting to make something that will infect us all, just something that can be cured.
They say give them a month or more and they'll have millions made and start distribution." Espo tells them.
Kate looked at Rick. This was what they had heard all of the other times too. "They're early." Kate whispers.
"Guess that call to Bob got results." Rick shrugs his shoulders.
"Do they have any kind of time table?" Kate asks him.
"They are working on passing on what to do to other countries as best they can. For the US it sounded like they were going to give it to places west of here first. We're guessing that they want the farms back up and working first. Along with power stations and other infrastructure locations." Espo explains most of what they were told.
"After the first month they'll move on to other places like Hawaii and other islands. Likely you will have to come to us." Espo explains.
"We can do that. We'll still call back weekly to see how things are progressing. Probably too soon to find out where we will be staying after we get there." Kate points out.
"It's going to be a whole new world Beckett. We know they are going to start killing off the infected as quickly and easily as they can. People who used to own this or that are likely going to be gone.
They may have an answer for the infection, but we have a whole new set of problems." Espo agrees.
"We'll think of something Espo, just find out what you can and let us know when we call." Kate tells him.
"See you soon Beckett." And Espo hangs up.
"They're not going to try and find a cure?" Martha asks.
"Maybe we can find out why on the next few calls. Maybe there is a medical reason. We don't even know what the infection does to you. After you are infected you may no longer exist. What you know and who you were may be gone.
Even if they kill the infection, what of you is left?" Kate speculates.
"We wait and find out. … Where do we go when we can? I presume we fly?" Jim asks.
"We have the range to go almost anywhere we want. Deep into the Midwest, northern Canada, back to New York or the airport we flew out of." Alexis offers.
"Sounds like we have a month." Kate tells them.
"Do I go pig hunting this morning like planned?" Rick asks.
"I think so. The previous times it took just over a month and we took as much food as we could with us." Kate reminds him.
"Not that that did us much good. Since we repeated the previous nine months over again before we landed." Rick points out.
"Except we never left this early before." Kate counters. "We still need at least a months' worth of food."
"Sounds like I go pig hunting. … You and your dad can go fishing." Rick brightens up.
That had Kate smiling. "Ready to go fishing dad?" Kate turned and smiled wide at her dad.
"I'll go get my spare pair of shorts." Jim dead panned, getting Rick and Alexis to start laughing, while Kate looked hurt.
Jim didn't bring his shorts, still he was sitting there, well bouncing in his seat, would be more accurate as Kate took the Flash up near 70 to get to the fishing grounds.
By the time they were back Martha was helping Alexis use the vacuum sealer system for the pig parts that Rick had brought in.
Lunch was the last of the BBQ pulled pork sandwiches with their next to last case of chips along with some fruit.
"What do we eat when we get back?" Jim wonders while they are eating.
"Likely what they can fix for us at the precinct for a while till more food can come in. Life is going to be different dad, probably very different." Kate responds not yet convinced that this event was going to re-set and repeat it all over again. After all it was all they knew.
Kate was working at adjusting her position while in Rick's arms that night. "Any guesses babe?" Kate wanted to hear something.
"Wish I knew. I always thought it would just happen. Instead of resetting we would get to land and get a shot." Rick offers.
"Not a real fan of getting a shot." Kate whispers out.
"Bad ass Kate Beckett is afraid of an itsy bitsy little needle." Rick teases. And it earns him a swat to his chest.
We'll get out of this Kate, this time, next time. But we will. … We have to. I'm not sure how much longer I can take this." Rick thought he was about to break.
"Don't crack on me now babe. I would have cracked a long time ago without you and Alexis.
I promise babe, when this is over I'm not leaving or forgetting you. I can't afford to." Kate had just as big a crack as Rick did. This had to end.