"Okay, let's see..."
Kate sits on the edge of the bed in the doctor's office. Castle would be here - any minute now if he knew what was good for him.
"It looks like you're about twelve weeks now . . . everything looks good. Signs are all normal. You are probably experiencing some nausea, I'm assuming?"
Kate shakes her head yes. Her examination went well, quick, easy. Like she remembered.
"Is your husband -"
The doctor stops, interrupted by a crashing sound outside of their door.
"I'm here, here - I'm -" Castle shouts, breathing heavily, shaking off the cloth that was sticking to the end of his leg from the cart he knocked over.
"This is him," Kate answers.
He comes around, grabs her hand, and sits next to her.
"What did I miss - I'm sorry, I was in traffic trying to get across town, I had a meeting, but - "
"You're fine, Mr. Castle. I was just telling your wife that everything looks great," the doctor says, smiling.
"That's great," he says, settling his breathing.
"I asked her to postpone the ultrasound - I was waiting for you," she says, looking at his face for the first time since this morning.
"Thanks, yes. Okay."
"Well, let me get the technician - get it set up and then I'll be back."
Kate shakes her head in agreement as her doctor leaves the room.
"What happened to Dr. Hanes? I thought we were going with him because you knew him?"
"I wanted a new person, new face."
"Okay…" he says, not questioning anything, "…did you ask her about the dizziness?"
"Yeah, earlier. She said it was completely normal and should start to go away, and leave as I go into my fifth month, but if it doesn't then we have to come back."
"Okay, as long as it's normal."
He sits next to her, still and silent. A nurse comes in asking them to walk to the room next door. Kate stands, ignoring his hand for support, and walks.
"They should only be a moment," the nurse says, leaving them alone.
Silence consumes them, nothing else in the room but a silent humming from the air unit somewhere behind them.
"How are you – "
"Don't even," she says, bringing up a hand, "do not ask me how I'm feeling today. I am not in the mood."
He ignores her. Moodiness had set in, but other things were adding to her change of pace.
"Are we ready?" the doctor interrupts, only giving slight warning of her entrance by knocking.
"When can we know the gender?" Castle blurts out before she can even sit down.
"Castle, I thought we were waiting," Kate replies with the most enthusiasm she's shown all day.
"We are. I just want to know when he or she is becoming a he or she," he says.
Kate rolls her eyes, lets him do his thing as the doctor answers.
"Well, now they are developing, and sometimes we can tell, but usually not until a few more months."
The doctor pauses as she sets up her chart. She goes through her steps, hits the 'this might be cold' one, and then it's there.
The little bump in the gray screen, fluttering. The screen flickers on the edges, but the slight mark in the middle lies curved and centered.
Castle lets his eyes light up, hands grabbing hers as he slightly inches forward. Kate hasn't been as excited this time. Her fatigue was greatly increasing over the weeks and her nausea has worsened. And, on top of the stress of having a second pregnancy, with her history, her mind was occupied.
"There it is," he says, nudging her.
Her head turns, giving in to the desire to see the body inside her. Just a line – a speck – that has consumed her mind within seconds. The image is the size of half a finger, barely even an image. She's seen this before. But this one is different. She lets a hand rise to the screen and a finger brush against the glass. She knows it's a different person - it feels different. The love, the same that she felt before, is here again. There was no prerequisite danger that came with it. She feels connected.
"Yeah, there it is," she responds.
"Do you want to hear the heartbeat?" the doctor interrupts.
Kate's head tilts down to her, breaking her trance.
"We'd love to," Castle answers.
The doctor pulls out a different instrument from the one delivering the image and places it on the lower part of her stomach.
And then she hears it.
Somehow completing the emotion she's felt, the quickened noise that overcomes the room brings tears to her eyes. She wants to fight it. It's strong and it's hurt her in the past: this overcoming emotion that plunged her into a depression - it was too much. But it was here. And it was bright.
"Today was a good day," he says, rubbing her knee, looking at their child's first picture.
Kate shakes her head, leaning further into the pillow.
"I think you did well."
She hates it. He's been treating her like a child again ever since the night she told him. She didn't snap out of it. The guilt reappeared and her depression resurfaced. She didn't want to let him know, but he knew it immediately.
"I think we should frame this, put it next to Aiden's?"
Kate lets her head sink, fights the lump in her throat. She moves her knee, and her other, until she is sitting upright and her feet on the edge of the couch. She waits a minute, ignores his glare, and stands.
"Ready for bed?" he says, looking up to her.
"Give me a second."
She walks, ignoring him again, until she's face to face with her first child. Grabbing the picture frame and rubbing the black edges with her finger, she brings it to her bed. Her legs giving into the edge of the mattress, Kate sits on the end without breaking her trance.
Is this fair to you?
She is happy – she wishes she could gather the humility to tell Castle that. She wants to let him know that she is ecstatic that they are going to expand their alternate family. But, every single time she wants to smile, laugh, feel the slight bump in her stomach and imagine what kind of person she is creating, she feels lost. Kate is brought back to the scene of blue where she felt the soft hair above her lifeless child.
A tear drips, but she wipes it away – enough of it all.
Kate stands up, glancing at the picture one more time, and puts it back to its designated spot to the left of her jewelry box.
"You know, you can be sad," Castle says, leaning in the door frame.
She smiles up at him, the first time her face has risen in happiness this week.
He comes around and fills his hands around her waist knowing that she will lean into him.
"I know, but I don't want to be."
"It will take time, just let it happen."
She breaks her hug and moves backward to sit down – him doing the same.
"I just –" she says, looking into her hands, " – I don't want to – I don't want to be that person who forgets – "
"Kate, I don't think that type of a person exists."
"I know, but – I mean – we're going to have this child and then we're busy, and we're running around and going to work and daycare and then they'll start school and we will be driving back and forth to play dates and school plays and sooner or later the time we spend looking at the small picture on the dresser will become less and less. Our living child will know him as the picture that we keep in our room or the brother that she never met."
"Or we can get another picture and put it in the family room. Or we can tell a story – the few we have – until he or she is mocking us to our faces about how many times we tell it. We can tell how we prepared, what he looked like. Most importantly, we can let him be here with us."
She sits, silent.
"Kate . . ." he begins, moving closer to face her, "and, don't take this in a bad way, but I met him too. Before you begged me to take you to him, I saw him. I watched them take his foot and press it to the paper. I saw his hair – the little that he had – and I saw them wrap him in a blanket. Standing there, looking through the window, I could ignore it all, for a second, and see a boy that we would have amazed each other with. And this one, right here, will be just as good."
He jolts awake, something unknown bringing him back to the dark room. He turns to his side, still sitting up and sees Kate asleep. He is about to roll over into her and fall asleep as well, but his hip hits something. Fallen between them is a book. Fingering the pages in the dark, he grabs the book and brings it close to his face to see it.
If it's his, he wants to mark -
But it's not. Curious about what Kate was reading, he feels the pages and feels the indent of a pen mark underneath - it's hand written.
Looking to his left to see if he has brought her to a lighter sleep, he gently waves his hands in front of her face.
Nothing.
Swinging his legs around the side of the bed, he silently exits the room praying that she will not wake - as if he was a child getting away with something.
After their talk, things became light. Their playful banter returned - as it did before - here and there.
He sits on the couch, turns on the light and sees that today - now yesterday - is written at the top.
A journal.
He shouldn't read it, he really shouldn't. This was her space, but he needed to. He's brought back to the need to protect hanging over him.
Today we saw your brother or sister -
He realizes what this is - what she's started - and he flips through the previous pages to see that it wasn't recent. She's been writing in this for almost a year. Turning it on its spine to see the sticker that his finger has brushed - it's a number three.
Three books she has gone through, writing to him.
I love them so much, seeing them on the screen, as much as I love you. But it's not fair. This baby will be healthy - and I pray that it is, with everything that I have - but you won't get to see them, play with them -
He's doing really well, my stable wall that I can lean against through this. It's been hard -
Castle stops, suddenly feeling like he has intruded on her. He stands to return to his bed when he drops the book. It slams to the hardwood floor and he freezes - he can see the silhouette of her still lying in his bed.
When he bends to pick up the book, he sees the last page.
What if we get so attached to this baby again and something happens. Something goes wrong and we have to do it all over again because I don't know if I can - I don't know if I'll make it through it again.
He shuts the book and enters. Carefully - silently - sliding back the sheets and slipping into his spot, he puts the book back where he found it - she'll wake up and realize and hide it again.
The next day, as she is walking into the kitchen after taking a shower, he's sitting on the edge of the stool eating something he threw together from the fridge. Looking at her as she walks around, he wants to shout it to her, but her smile - and the last line of the entry - assures him that she knows.
He won't let that happen.
Thoughts?