I intended this to be an oneshot but since you guys wanted to write more, here it is.
o-o-o-o-o
He woke alone. The sheets beside him were empty and cold. Was it a dream? Kate being here, telling him she was pregnant and them going to bed together?
But that would be strange. Of course he dreamt often of her. He dreamed of her telling him she loved him. He dreamed of them getting married. He dreamed of her moving in with him. He dreamed of her being pregnant with his child. He dreamt of them having sex.
He never dreamed of her telling him that she was pregnant while he still thought that she didn't love him. So it must have been real, right?
But if it was, were was she? Had she gone home? Had she changed her mind? About him? About them getting together? About raising the child together?
He needed coffee. Maybe his overactive imagination was just a little too overactive this morning. There probably was a logical explanation to why she wasn't beside him right now. One that hopefully didn't involve her running away from him.
When he walked into his office, he saw her sitting on the couch. Reading one of his books and looking totally at home. He took a relieved breath. She was still here.
"Thank god. There you are" he said when she looked up.
"I thought for a moment you changed your mind and were gone"
She looked at him. His words made her kind of sad. But she deserved this. It was only logical that he would think she ran away again. After lying to him for a year.
It still hurt a little. She needed to reassure him. Reassure him that she wasn't going anywhere. That they were in this together.
"Sorry Castle", she said, putting the book on the couch and walking over to him. Hugging him, she said "I'm an early riser and I got bored lying in bed, so I went out here to read."
"One of mine, I've noticed" he teased but pulled her closer to his chest. She grumbled something into his shirt but didn't pull away.
"What was that?" he asked.
"I said, I like the books. Doesn't mean I like the author" she tried to sound serious but her lips quirked up in a teasing smile.
"Ouch. You wound me. Just for that you are not getting ice cream for breakfast." He said with mock hurt in his voice. "Only pancakes and waffles and eggs and bacon and fruit. Yeah, no ice cream for you this morning."
He started to walk towards the kitchen but stopped when he noticed she didn't follow him. Oh no! She was pregnant. Maybe she craved ice cream right now. She would be angry at him. For telling her what she could eat and what she couldn't. He slowly turned around, preparing himself to be killed with looks.
But she just looked at him with so much love in her eyes that he thought his heart would jump out of his chest out of happiness.
"You coming?" he asked.
"Hey! That's my line." She protested but followed him into the kitchen.
Twenty minutes later, Castle placed a plate in front of her.
"I can't eat all of this, Castle"
Kate thought she hadn't eaten so much for breakfast in the entire last year.
"Sure, you can" he said, while he started to put some eggs on his fork. "You are eating for two. And I don't want Cosmo to starve."
"Cosmo?" Kate asked, amusement glistering in her eyes. "That's not a name."
"Of course it is" he protested. "A beautiful name for a boy"
"You think we are going to have a boy?" she asked, ignoring the ridiculous name for now. She found it kind of cute anyway… It was so…Castle.
"Yeah. I can feel it. It's a boy. I'm absolutely one hundred percent certain that we are going to have a little boy." He grinned.
"One hundred percent certain?" she laughed "I think it's a girl" she said, just because she enjoyed the back and forth between them. She didn't care if they were going to have a boy or a girl and she knew Castle didn't either.
"Well, why don't you call your doctor while I do the dishes? And then we will see who is right."
"You know as well as I do that we can't find out the gender today. We have to wait for that a few months"
"Yeah, I know. But just wait. You'll see that I'm right" he grinned. "It's a boy" he singsonged.
o-o-o-o-o
They were sitting in the waiting area of her doctor's office. Kate was worrying her hands. She was nervous.
Castle couldn't sit still as well but for an entire different reason. He was bouncing with excitement.
"Castle?" she asked, fiddling her hands in her lap. The worry and the insecurity in her voice brought him a little down from his cloud of excitement. He looked at her.
"Yeah?"
"What if I'm not good at this?"
"Not good at what?" he asked, confused.
"Raising a child. Being a mother" she said while she looked at her restless hands.
Castle took her hands in his and kept them still.
"Hey, Kate, look at me" he said, voice gentle. She looked at him, her eyes open and vulnerable, shining with insecurity.
When he was sure he had her attention, he said "You are going to be an amazing mother, Kate. I promise. Do you want to know how I know that?"
She nodded and he continued.
"Because you are amazing at everything you do. And this is no exception. You are extraordinary in every way, extraordinary from head to toe." It was a cute thing of him to say and if she weren't so worried she probably would have melted away because of his words. But she was worried.
"But I know nothing about being a mother. I never babysitted, I don't have siblings. I know nothing about caring for a child. I don't even know how to change a diaper" she protested, nowhere near reassured. She looked down at her hands again, intertwined with his.
"Kate" he said while he caressed her knuckles with his thumbs. "Look at me."
He waited until she did what he had asked before he spoke again.
"I know how you feel, okay?" he said gently. "I felt the same – or worse – when Meredith was pregnant with Alexis. I was absolutely terrified. That's one of the reasons why I asked her to marry me. I wanted to tie her to me and our baby. Because I was scared that I would be alone with this tiny little person, whose life depended on my abilities to care for her.
Meredith wanted an abortion. I begged her on my knees to keep the baby. I pleaded and begged and even cried until she was so annoyed that she gave in. She loves her now. I know she does. But she was never around. She gave birth to her but Alexis was always my responsibility.
And I knew it. I knew from the start that I would have to do it alone. Marrying her was a desperate try to give my baby girl a whole family. It just didn't work out this way.
The one time I left Alexis alone with Meredith, she was crying when I got home while Meredith was sleeping with some movie director in our bedroom. I knew she was cheating on me. I didn't get a divorce before because of Alexis. But when she couldn't even look after her for two hours while I was at a meeting with my publisher I was done.
I accepted for a while that I was all alone with Alexis. But marrying Gina was another attempt to give Alexis a whole family and a mother figure. A female role model. That didn't work out as well."
He made a pause. Looking deep into her eyes, making sure she was listening. It wasn't necessary. She was following his every word.
"All I want to say, Kate, is that I didn't have a clue when I got Alexis and she turned out well. I don't know how but she did. Even with a man-child as her only parent. And you are not going to do this alone. I'm with you for every step. And I've done this before. Everybody who is becoming a parent needs to figure out how to be one but we are going to figure it out together, okay?" He looked at her, willing her to see that he meant every word.
He put one hand on her cheek and started to lightly caress her soft skin.
"I love you, Kate. And I just know that you are going to be amazing"
Other people in the waiting room started to clap. Rick looked up. He had been so focused on Kate that he hadn't even noticed that other people were listening in on his little speech. Kate looked like she wanted to hide.
Feeling a little calmer about the baby, grateful for Castle's words but uncomfortable about people staring at them Kate decided to hide her face in his shoulder.
"Thank you" she whispered.
He wanted to say something in response but the woman sitting across from them started to talk to him.
"That was beautiful. I think I feel a lot calmer now myself."
"Me too. You should do this for a living. Calming scared pregnant women down. You could make a lot of money. I mean who is not terrified about getting a baby?" said someone else.
"Yeah. You can be really happy to have a man like him in your life. I wish my husband were this good with words." Another woman added, turning towards Kate who was still hiding.
Kate would swear she could feel his grin in the muscles on his shoulder. How could he grin so widely that it affected every muscle in his body? And where did all the people come from? There weren't this much people when they started to talk, were there?
Kate hated to be the center of attention. Seeing her at work nobody would guess but she liked to stay to herself when she wasn't in detective mode.
"Thanks. Maybe I could write a guidebook for men how to support the mother of their child when she is pregnant, what do you think, Kate?"
"Kathrine Beckett" called the secretary before she could answer him.
"Thank god." Kate said and got up from her chair, hurrying to get away from all the people.
"You coming, Castle?"
While he hurried to go after her, Kate could hear some of the women starting to whisper, including the words famous, Richard Castle, Author, hot, writer, Nikki Heat, pregnant. She rolled her eyes and dragged him into her doctor's office behind her. Maybe she should start calling him Rick when they were in public, minimizing the chance of someone recognizing him (and her) from his last name.
o-o-o-o-o
Castle watched Kate sleeping on his couch. After the doctor had told them that everything was fine with the baby they had grabbed a bite to eat before going back to the loft to enjoy Kate's day off together.
He watched her for a little while longer before pulling out his own personal copy of the ultrasound. Kate had insisted that they got two so he could keep it for himself, knowing how much it would mean to him.
As much as Castle wanted to just watch her sleep he knew he needed to get some writing done if he wanted to meet his deadline. And for once he intended to do so. He wanted to be free to focus on the baby once it entered this world. From past experience he knew that it would be difficult to write in the first months of a baby's life. The constant lack of sleep wasn't very inspiring.
He pulled a blanket over Kate, run his hand over her belly and walked into his office. He sat down in his chair and turned on his laptop. But before he opened the document that contained his latest work on Nikki Heat something else caught his attention.
The smart board to his right seemed to glare at him. He looked over at it.
You have to tell her. It seemed to whisper accusingly.
She is going to hate you another voice argued.
Castle sighed. He knew he had to tell her eventually. But they were in such a good place right now. Finally moving forward. He didn't want to destroy what they had now. But he knew that it would only get worse the longer he remained silent. The longer he kept this from her.
He just hoped she wouldn't go down the rabbit hole because of this. But he had a bad feeling about it.
He decided to tell her when she woke up. He started to pace around in his office. Alone the thought of telling her this made him nervous.
No way could he write like this. He sighed.