Author's Note: Sorry for the delay in updating. It's been a long few weeks. But a break is going to help me figure out the end of this fic, and I've been toying with an idea for another! Oh the Casketty goodness! Review if you would like!
Then she gets an idea and calls in the nurse, says bring up the Chaplain,
When she gets back to his room, Martha and Alexis had left again.
"Where did your mom and Alexis go?"
"I told them to go take a walk or something for a while. I wanted you to myself for a little while." He says, smiling as she walks to his bedside.
"Castle, I want to do something, and I don't know what you are going to say, but I want you to know that I've thought about it, and I want…" she starts, nervously holding his hand and fidgeting at the same time.
"Kate, what is it?"
"I want to get married." She says simply.
His eyes show confusion as he fingers the ring on her left hand, "Isn't that what this means?"
"No… I want to do it now. Like here, right now. We can have a big party later, but I want to marry you right now Richard Castle."
"You're sure about this?"
"I already asked the nurse if it was possible, and I called my dad, and I called Lanie, and Esposito and Ryan were already here."
"Why were they already here?"
"Apparently Jenny's in labor."
Castle's eyes go a bit wide at that, "Really!? That's so exciting!"
"So, what do you say?"
"I say push the call button." He says, placing his hand over hers.
"What do you want, Kate?"
"What do you mean?" she asks, tracing patterns on his chest.
"I mean for a wedding. That's one thing that I don't think I could predict for you… what you would like for your wedding. Big, small, princess, plain… what do you want?"
If she was being totally honest with herself, she had certainly thought about a wedding in her future. She never had the man in her head, but she had thought about the wedding. Always a private person, she didn't want a huge affair, but didn't want it at the courthouse either.
"I want it to be everyone that really matters to me and no one else. No random relatives that I don't really know or people that are invited just because it's polite. I just want the people who understand me to be there, because those are the only ones who have the right to be there."
"So Ryan, Esposito, Lanie, the Captain, and your dad?"
"Yes."
"And Alexis and my mother for me."
"Castle, I know that you have obligations because of who you are. I haven't been very open to the whole 'my boyfriend' is a millionaire thing… I know that, but I know that there are going to be things that we have to do for you."
"Nope. When I told Paula about the engagement, I told here to keep it a secret until we are ready to let it be known publicly, and I told her that the wedding wouldn't be a publicity stunt and at most she would get a picture from the altar and one from the reception to publish for the magazines."
Kate's eyes go wide at this, "Castle, there's got to be more than that…"
"No. Kate, this is it for me and I want nothing to do with the bullshit. You know me well enough to know that I've changed… I may have looked the part of the rich and successful man who flaunts his money with girls on his arm, but that is not me. I write because I love it, and I write what I write because I love you. It isn't for the money or the fame. I don't care if five or five million people pick up my book as long as I've got you with me through all of this."
It's within minutes that people start coming to the room. First Lanie enters with a skeptical glare between the two in the room.
"What's going on? She says you're okay, but I don't know why I'm being called down here then." Lanie asks Castle with a raised eyebrow.
"Don't worry about it Lanie, you'll find out in due time." Castle says easily.
"Can you go upstairs and get Esposito down here for a moment? I need him to do something for me… or rather see if something is possible. He's up in the maternity ward with Jenny and Kevin." Kate says, smiling at her friend.
Not even a minute after Lanie leaves Jim Beckett, Martha, and Alexis walk through the door.
"Look at the handsome devil we found roaming the hallway." Martha says with a smile.
"Dad!" Kate says, getting up from the bedside to hug her father.
"Katie, are you guys okay?"
"We are, but I just… um… I wanted… we wanted to have you all here for something, and you're going to think that we're crazy, but—"
"Miss Beckett and Mr. Castle?" an unfamiliar voice says, gracing the doorway with his presence.
The group turns to look at the man, taking in the familiar garb before Martha is the one to break the confused silence.
"You're getting married." She says simply.
"Don't be mad." Kate says, worried that the older woman was already thinking that this was a bad idea.
"Oh! Darling, I'm not mad at all. I'm surprised, in fact, that the two of you didn't ditch out and get married before now anyways. I know how private Katherine is and you've been so madly in love with her for years… I didn't think you'd be able to wait."
"Dad?"
Jim turns to his daughter with a smile on his face, "Katie, since your mother died, you have calculated every moment and step that you've taken in life. If you want to get married in this hospital right now, I know it's because you know it is right. Who am I to stand in the way of that?"
"Okay, what's with this guy?" Esposito says, stepping into the room.
"We're getting married." Castle says from the bed, which causes Esposito's mouth to drop open in surprise and the woman following quickly behind him to squeal at the thought.
"Oh my God… ooh, I mean Oh my gosh!" Lanie says, glancing quickly at the Chaplain.
"Wait, you want Ryan here, don't you? Lanie said that you needed me to do something… it was try to get him down here for a minute."
"If he can, then yes… however, I completely understand if he can't step away from Jenny." She says quickly, and then glances over to Castle, "You leave my side in the delivery room, and I'll kill you. Unless it's some kind of Alexis emergency… that's the only reason."
"Oh I'm going to be right there waiting with you guys, so don't worry."
Kate looks up and smiles at the younger girl, not noticing the others catching the exchange.
"You're talking in the future, right?" Lanie asks.
"Yeah… future… like six or seven months from now." Kate says nonchalantly.
Lanie shrugs it off before letting it actually sink in, and it is Jim Beckett that realizes what the dates imply.
"You're pregnant?" he asks her with a bit of awe and a smile on his face.
"Pregnant!" Lanie exclaims.
"Wait, what?" Esposito says, more confused at the exclamation of the medical examiner.
"While that isn't how I wanted you to find out… yeah. Castle and I are going to have a baby!"
"Well, no wonder you didn't want to wait to get hitched!" Lanie says with a smile on her face, letting Kate know that she understands there is a lot more than that behind the reason.
"Did you call the Captain?" Castle asks from the bed as Lanie envelops Kate in a crushing hug.
"Got voicemail… I left her a message with my intentions, so if she wakes up and realizes someone called, then maybe she'll be here."
After a few more minutes, Esposito walks back in after going upstairs, and he has Ryan in tow.
"How's Jenny?"
"Well, from what I'm hearing, you'll find out yourself in a few months." He says with a smile on his face and a fist bump to Castle.
"Miss Beckett, Mr. Castle, are you guys ready?" the Chaplain says.
"Oh not until I'm here, thank you very much. This man has caused me plenty of grief the past few years, so I'm going to be here for this." Gates says, entering the room and taking her place next to Ryan and Esposito as the Chaplain stands at the foot of Castle's bed.
"I'm glad that you could make it sir."
"Detective… we'll have to talk about Plausible Deniability now, but we'll save that for after the honeymoon." She replies with a smile and nods to the Chaplain.
And he says a couple verses
She borrows some rings, from the couple next door,
She and Castle ask him to just go through traditional verses and wedding vows but they come up short when he asks for the rings they would use.
"I've actually got that covered." Ryan says, slipping the ring off his finger and handing it to Kate and then holding a smaller one out to Castle. "Jenny hasn't been able to wear it for months, and she insisted that she let you borrow it for the ceremony. When you get your own, we can get ours back."
Her eyes tear up at the gesture, realizing that everyone that means anything to her in this world is standing right here… except her mom.
"So… when do we start?" Martha says early one Saturday morning when she and Kate are sitting in the kitchen drinking their coffee.
"When do we start what?"
"Now that you're back, don't you want to start wedding planning? We can go dress shopping today or tomorrow since you have the days off!" she says, and Kate's heart skips a few beats.
"I um… I haven't really thought about it much." She says. It's an absolute lie though. It's the only thing that she can think about. The short time she spent in D.C. was enough to make her realize how much she wanted to settle down with Castle. Yes, being a cop meant a lot to her, but in D.C. that was all she had and she realized that she wanted family too.
"You know what I've learned about you Katherine?" she asks, not really expecting an actual answer because she already had one, "When you lie, you get this little crinkle in between your eyes, almost like it is paining you to say something untrue. Now, I don't know why you're lying, but… I'm here darling… if you need me."
Then she dropped it, moving around the island to fix herself something to eat and talking about the latest group of students she had. That was the definition of what Kate needed… and she now understood Rick's patience with her all those years… he got it from his mother. She gave her the space to think while also providing a distraction if necessary.
"I never thought I'd be planning a wedding without a mom… the dress shopping and everything… when I think about it, it just puts this cloud over the whole thing."
"Katherine…" Martha says, coming to sit next to Kate and placing a hand over hers on the counter. "I know that this must be hard. I am not going to assume that I could take your mother's place in any way, but you do have a mother in me. I'm sure Richard has told you plenty of my mothering tales that make you question my abilities, but I assure you the biggest thing that a mother needs is love. I do love you Katherine Beckett, because you make my son happy and even if she doesn't often show it, you make my granddaughter happy as well. So it might be hard at those first few stores or looking through those first few magazines, but I will help you find whatever you want and gladly do it as if you were my own flesh and blood."
Kate chooses to look up then, noting the tears gathering in the older woman's eyes while trying to control the ones gathering in her own.
"Martha… I don't know what to…" she starts before getting arms wrapped around her in the most wonderful embrace she's felt in a long time. A mother's embrace…
In that moment of remembrance, she catches Martha's eye. The older woman was reading her mind and gave her a nod and wink in response. Her mother wasn't here physically, but she was there in spirit.