Author's Note: Talk about taking forever! I rewrote this something like 10 different times, using all sorts of scenarios. At first it focused specifically on Kate's recovery, which felt too heavy handed, and then dipped into something a little to saccharine. Hopefully this is a good balance. Considering the ease with which the final chapter flowed, I think I went in the right direction. :)
It's a quiet Christmas as Kate focuses on recovery.
Her three weeks of disability pay stretch out into two months, and the combined pain of physical therapy and the emotional fallout of resurgent PTSD leave her too exhausted to embark on a big celebration.
But it isn't all bad, they spend Christmas Eve watching movies and cuddling on the couch in her apartment and take a walk through the snowy streets from her SoHo neighborhood and into his in TriBeCa. They even stop at the coffee shop where Castle picks up their order each morning before he goes to the precinct, and its standing in front of the cafe where Castle finally asks Kate to move in with him.
He gapes openly when she politely tells him no, threading her fingers through his to pull him down the sidewalk towards his building.
She explains her answer as they sit in his living room, the lights from Castle's enormous tree flashing color across the walls as he works on stuffing an iPad for Alexis down into her stocking - never mind that it absolutely isn't going to fit. It's where he wants to put it and Kate wouldn't be surprised if he ran out to buy a bigger stocking so that his master plan can continue.
(She has long since given up trying to understand just what that plan is.)
"I just want you to understand that its not anything to do with you," Kate says from the couch, ignoring the knot in her stomach at his continued silence, "I'm just…." she takes a deep breath, her brows knitting together while she forces out the admission, "I'm not ready to be here full time, not after everything."
It's said so softly that, if he hadn't been listening he would have missed it. Still, the realization hits him hard and guilt immediately floods his body when he stands to wrap his arms around her, "I didn't think of it," he finally says, brushing a kiss into her hair with a long sigh.
But it makes sense when he pushes aside his nostalgia for Christmas and the excitement of building their life together. They have spent more time in Kate's apartment since the kidnapping, she rarely spends the night with him and, in the handful of times she has, sleep has either not come at all or been a fleeting friend. And while he didn't miss the long amounts of time where she is locked in his bathroom, he finds himself wondering just how much of that was spent trying to control her emotions at being in a place where she was attacked.
Still, he accepts her quiet explanation without any other discussion, only telling her that the offer is a standing one whenever she decides she is ready. Then they sit in silence for a while, Kate curled in his lap as the tree continues to flash and it isn't until she finally falls asleep that he goes back to arranging presents.
Once he finishes, he doesn't bother to wake her, instead scooping her up and tucking her into bed.
They get married in May, just three days after the one year mark of their engagement.
The venue is the same one that hosted the party for Storm Fall, and the wedding is all hard lines and soft textures with deep purple and pink flowers, leather hardback books and a dash of silk. Kate picks a dress that manages to make it hard for Castle to keep his hands off her during the reception, but is somehow tastefully and demure, and he doesn't even try to stop crying when she walks towards him on her dads arm or during the vows when he finally learns that she fell in love with his words long before she ever met him.
She stands next to him with a steadiness that keeps him anchored to the moment, full of sparkling eyes, open laughter and soft smiles while he talks of how she is worth every frustrating and wonderful moment, of how he still enjoys discovering all of her mysteries and secrets. It's when Castle whispers to her that she has filled a part of his soul that he didn't know he was missing that Kate finally cries, and its when they seal the ceremony with a kiss that she manages to stop.
Its the reception that really makes their wedding, full of food that he spent days of tasting and considering. There is both a DJ and a full band that keep them all on the dance floor until Kate finally begins to protest that she can't possibly dance anymore.
He loses track of how many times he whisks her away to some dark corner for a kiss or, occasionally, a little more, but its around 2 a.m. that he presses his mouth against hers beside the bar and she declares that its time for them to leave.
They exit quietly, having discarded the garter and the bouquet hours before. And its a full two weeks before any of their family or friends see them again as he and his wife hole up on a yacht in the Mediterranean and visit some of the coastal towns of Greece and Turkey.
Kate even takes him to Keiv before they return to New York, showing him all the spots where she studied in her semester abroad.
She takes the test on Halloween.
It's only at Lanie's urging that she even considers it, completely convinced that her aching bones and nausea are merely the residuals of the flu that both Alexis and Castle caught. She pointedly ignores the idea that it was three weeks ago, and that both of them have fully recovered.
In fact, she's gone a week without even seeing Castle, as he's off doing publicity and signings for his latest Derrick Storm graphic novel. The last time she talked to him, he'd been sitting on a beach in Miami and telling her they should move so she could become a beach cop and patrol in a bikini. And though she'd rolled her eyes, given him that exasperated tone of voice that he loved pulling out of her, it did sound like a great idea as New York hangs on the edge of a cold and wet winter with single digit temperatures and blizzard warnings.
Lanie corners her in the morgue, tossing the suggestion out in the middle of a line about how the victim on her slab had his throat slashed after he was killed and its alternately so absurd and so entirely possible that Kate gets caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
She spends all day thinking about it, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth and powering through without her much beloved caffeine fix to interrogate their primary suspect and interview the victims girlfriend. Just before they break for the day, Ryan produces a photo of Isla, his month old baby girl, resting on Jenny's chest as she naps and Kate finds herself openly wishing for something that she had been so certain would be at least a year or two away.
She goes directly from the precinct to the drug store on the corner, and then immediately to the loft, her body a bundle of nerves and anxiety while she paces her living room and waits for the results.
When Castle calls her later that night, it takes every ounce of her self-control not to blurt it out over the phone, but she falls asleep to the sound of his voice and wakes up with a dream of a little boy with dark hair and bright blue eyes fresh in her mind.
It's four days later when she tells Castle.
He's been back in the city for two of them, long enough for Kate and the boys to have pulled a confession from the victims landlord and close the case. Short enough that she's been too busy to do much but say hello and thank you for the coffee that she only pretends to drink all the while feeling like this intense secret she is carrying is going to pull her apart.
It's completely miserable, as well, knowing that she's got such a huge life altering thing to tell him but being unwilling to share it at work around a bunch of other people.
So, Kate holds her tongue until they finally have time alone.
When she passes on the offer of a glass of wine with her food at dinner, she sees the wheels beginning to spin in Castle's head while they eat. She can imagine the things which he is running through in his head, probably just registering that her entire day was worked through with no additional coffee and her occasional mention of not feeling well when he had been on his trip. Still, she remains quiet when he lightly dips a toe into the pool of their future though Kate has to hide her smile behind a curtain of curls, biting down on her lip to stifle the laugh that so desperately wants to break free as he talks about how Alexis would love a sibling and the lone uninhabited room in the loft.
Once he starts tossing out ideas for paint colors she decides to take pity on him.
"Castle, stop," she says as he continues speaking, her smile bright and easy when he immediately goes silent, "You don't have to keep giving me heavy handed hints, you know. I get it."
He then tries to backtrack, stammering out an apology about pushing too much too soon and his imagination getting the better of him as she carries both of their empty plates to the dishwasher. He never sees her roll her eyes in exasperation, or notices when she slides a package wrapped in plain brown paper out of her bag.
But he does go silent again when she presents it to him, her bottom lip caught firmly between her teeth as he carefully pulls the paper away to reveal the book - The Completely Guide to Baby Names.
It takes milliseconds, just long enough for Castle to read and process the title, before he is up on his feet and sweeping her into his arms, a laugh booming through the loft while he hugs her against his chest. It's a beat before his lips cover her own, and then there is nothing but a reenactment of how she ended up carrying his child in the first place.