'Yo, Mere, where's my tie?'

'Which one?'

'The one that goes with my blue suit.' Esposito wandered into the kitchen where Meredeth was arranging food onto plates, holding a shirt on the hanger in one hand. The kitchen table had already been set for the card game with neon coloured poker chips and playing cards - instead of the four suits, there were different families of animals in varying quantities - while on the kitchen island there were plates of fresh fruit and veggies, cold-cuts for sandwiches and bowls of tortillas and baked potato chips with various dips and spreads.

'Should be on the hanger with the matching shirt, babe.'

'Well it's not.'

'Check again.'

He looked under the collar of the shirt in his hand, saw the blue tie dotted with slate-grey pinpoints was indeed tucked neatly in there. 'So it is.'

Meredeth only shook her head as he left the kitchen. He was such a diva about his work-clothes, a fact which according to Lanie had only come about once the well-tailored Castle had shown up. She didn't even want to remember the hell he'd rained on her head when she'd accidentally shrank one; in her defense, he shouldn't have colour-sorted his dress shirts into the same pile as the bed linens.

The doorbell rang, making Arturo race to the living room window to see who was trying to invade his fortress. His barks subsided but his tail was wagging ferociously when Meredeth opened the door to Lanie.

'Hey buddy,' Lanie cooed, shifting her bags to one hand so she could scratch him behind the ears. 'How are ya, boy? You miss me?'

'Don't be fooled, he's an attention whore.'

Lanie smiled, toed off her shoes. 'Let's go find a spot for this stuff, huh? Come on, Artie.'

The two women and the dog went into the kitchen; Lanie began pulling bottles of pineapple and orange juice from her grocery bags and Meredeth was pulling warmed kaiser rolls from the oven when Esposito wandered, dressed with his tie in one hand as he set his black duffel bag on an island bar chair. 'Hey Lanie. Mere, can you-'

'Gimme.' Meredeth tossed aside her oven mitts aside, held out her hand for the strip of silk. 'Snacks are in the fridge.'

'Sweet.' He opened the fridge, grinning foolishly when he saw his surveillance duty fuel neatly stacked on the top shelf. He took the containers out of the fridge, put them in his bag he would stash in the back seat of Ryan's car. 'Explain to me again why you're having a baby shower for Honey-Milk on a Saturday night?' he asked, swigging from a leftover personal bottle of Coke.

'Because not every baby shower is about discussing stretch marks and placentas, you know,' she told him as she folded the tie into a smart Windsor knot. When she'd finished, Meredeth passed it to him. 'Honey-Milk doesn't want all that stuff; she just wants a girl's night of cards and food and baby gifts.'

'Don't say placenta, it gives me the creeps.' As he snagged a crunchy green pepper on his way out of the kitchen, Meredeth sighed shook her head, then turned to look at Lanie who was trying without much success to keep a grin off her face.

'What?'

'You two, you're just so freaking adorable together.' She didn't add that it was like watching an already-married couple ready themselves for the night; instead she followed Meredeth out to the living room where both women saw Honey-Milk and Ryan had just arrived and he was helping her with her coat. At four months, her belly was in full bloom and her face had rounded out with the little bit of added baby weight. She smiled warmly playfully rolling her eyes. 'I'm pregnant, not incapacitated, you know.'

'Yeah and you're also not going to overdo it, not after yoga for preggos and swimming today.' Ryan passed his wife's bag to Meredeth. 'She better not lift anything heavier than her dinner plate.'

'Got it covered.'

'Alright, partner, let's roll.' Ryan paused to give his wife a quick kiss, ran his hand over her belly and was pleased when he felt a little bump against his hand. 'He or she says bye-bye too.'

Esposito shook his head, turned to give Meredeth a kiss as well before shouldering his bag. 'I'll talk to you soon, babe. Love you.'

Standing by the stairs, she felt a little hitch when she watched him take his police issue from the drawer in the table by the couch, check the clip and safety, and holster it. Most of the time she thought it was hot he was armed but every so often it reared up and grabbed her - like tonight, when he had to go on a surveillance watch in Alphabet City with Ryan - that his job would lead him to some of the city's more dangerous places. Still, she knew the risks of being involved with a cop, and he always checked in with her, discreetly of course. No need to let Ryan know his homeboy was just a big of a marshmellow when it came to his woman.

'Love you too.' She gave him a second little kiss and watched the cops head out before turning to Honey-Milk. 'May I-?' she asked, pointing at her baby bump.

'Of course.'

Meredeth smiled as she put her palms to the side of Honey-Milk's growing stomach and felt the little nudge under the skin. 'Oh my god, that's amazing.'

'I know, right? Ryan can't get enough of it.'

'How's he handling everything?'

'He's so excited. He thinks because I'm incubating the next generation of the Ryan clan, I should be sitting on a lilypad being worshipped by pilgrims to the holy land,' she joked as they went into the kitchen, saw the minimalist decorations and clapped her hands together. 'Oh, Mere, this is perfect. This is exactly what I wanted.'

'Good, because...oh, hey now, what's this?' Meredeth felt a swoop of panic when Honey-Milk started to sniffle.

'It's okay, it's just hormones. Last night, Ryan wouldn't stop clicking his pen while he was working, so I sorta reached over and yanked the pen out of his hand and threw it at the TV, then burst into tears when he apologized because he didn't know it was annoying me. Then when we went to bed, I used him like a trampoline.'

'That's my girl,' was all Lanie said, as she added ice to the punch she was making. 'Do you know what you're having?'

Honey-Milk shook her head as she began to nibble on a carrot she took from the plate. 'No, we want to be surprised, but we've started getting some names picked out. We like Michelle or Katrina for a girl, and if it's a boy, Mallory or Delaney.'

'Good names,' Meredeth began, but was cut-off when Arturo began barking at the window again. 'Doorbell's going off.'

She went to the front door, saw it was Lili on the other side this time. 'Hey you, come on in!'

'I'm always up for a poker game, especially when there's no men around so we can gossip about them.' Lili passed Meredeth a wrapped box so she could remove her coat, let out a low whistle as she looked around. 'Looks a lot better than it did at Christmas.'

'I've got more of my own furniture here now, and Javi's started keeping a few things here too, so it fills up the space.'

'Really?'

'Well, yeah, I mean if we spend a night together most of the time we're here because of Artie; it's easier on him if he has some things here instead of getting up super early to go to his own place to get ready for work, or having to pack an overnight bag for a day or two.'

'Makes sense.' Lili stopped only half a step when she saw her brother's ancient blue and yellow afghan folded and resting on the back of the comfortable-looking couch. Their grandmother had knitted for him in his rookie year and he refused to part with it no matter how nattered it was. She also knew that him keeping it at Meredeth's house instead of his apartment was a very big flashing sign - this place was becoming his home too.

'Hey, Lili!' Lanie came around the counter to give Esposito's sister a hug when they reached the kitchen. 'Good to see you!'

'You too! Oh, Jenny, look at you!' Lili immediately pulled up a chair so she could lay hands on the belly while across the table Lanie was beginning to shuffle the cards. Lili was giggling like a schoolgirl as she moved her hands around to get the best feel of the moving fetus.

'Hey, cunada futura, you see this action? I think she's got a flamenco dancer in her belly.'

Meredeth grinned; Lili never failed to entertain. 'Yes I did. Pretty awesome stuff.'

'Lanie, come on.' Lili waved her over. 'Take a taste of that. She's gonna give birth to the next Diego Maradona, says I.'

Meredeth started to point out that Honey-Milk wasn't a side-show attraction but was cut off when she heard Arturo give a sharp yip from by the front door, letting her know Beckett had arrived. Once she was gone from the room, Lanie pounced.

'Lili, does she know what cunada futura means?'

'Nope. She doesn't speak a lick of Spanish, so I can get away with it. Except around Javi, of course. He'd tell me where I could stick my tongue, even though it's completely obvious that's what she is.'

Honey-Milk poured herself a glass of the fruity punch. 'I'm confused. What does it mean?'

'It means future sister-in-law.'

'Anything yet?'

'No, just like the last time you asked, bro.'

Ryan sat up from his spot on the back seat of his Crown Vic. It was a trick they'd learned doing surveillance watches like this - they'd trade the hours of who watched, so neither burned out and risked losing their man on the course of the eight hour shift. He ran the heel of his hand over his eyes, yawned hugely. 'Sorry, man, Jenny had me up late last night. Girl's hormones are driving me crazy.'

'Dude-'

'Not like that. Well, not completely that.' He thumped his head against the back support. 'Along with the fun stuff she bounces between depression to snarly to happy-fun Jenny at the drop of a hat.'

'And she's got you wrapped around her little finger, doesn't she?' Esposito grinned, watched the building and made a note of a couple coming out of the front door for his files. 'Talk about whipped.'

'Well, truth be told she's got reason to be a little down. She had a fight with her mother.'

'Isn't that what girls do? I know if Lili doesn't get in a weekly round with our mother, she-'

'Jenny's mother thinks we used her illness back at the start of September as an excuse to get married and cover up Jenny already being pregnant.'

'Oh damn. That sucks bro.' Now he twisted fully around in his seat to look at Ryan, something akin to sympathy in his gut. 'Did you tell her when the baby's due?'

'Yeah, but she thinks we blurred that too and we'll just say she's over-due when the baby's born at the end of July.'

'But...' Esposito trailed off as he did the math. 'You guys got married September third, and if she was already six weeks pregnant let's say, that would mean she'd carry the baby over a year, right?'

Ryan nodded wearily, clearly having had this conversation already and didn't have any desire to revisit it. 'Guess you get to wait a little before you get to go through this huh?'

'Yeah, but I know I'll be just as whipped when it's my turn.'

Because Esposito had turned his head back to stare out the windshield, he missed Ryan's eyebrows lifting nearly to the ceiling at his easy answer to Ryan's partly-teasing, partly serious question. The moment passed when Ryan's stomach gave a huge rumble; he rubbed his hand over his midsection.

'Damn. Guess I should have had that second slice of lasagne before leaving.'

Esposito only shook his head. 'Unzip my bag there, bro. Middle pouch.'

Following instructions, Ryan sighed in unadulterated pleasure when he saw the reusable plastic-ware immediately recognizable as containing Meredeth's home-cooking. 'Your girlfriend made you food?'

'Us, bro, both of us. Blue ones are yours.'

With the finesse of a lion tearing into a gazelle, Ryan yanked the blue-lidded containers from the bag, and nearly wept as he pulled off the lids. Inside was Kahlua-pulled pork, Swiss cheese and arugula on cracked wheat toast with a lidded Dixie cup of peppercorn ranch dressing nestled beside it; the other container had a mixed green salad with black olives, shredded mozzarella, and home-made croutons the size of Yahtzee dice with its own lidded Dixie cup of olive oil and herbs as dressing. The third one was like heaven in a plastic box - Meredeth's candy-coated beer-nut cookies, his favourites.

'If I wasn't a happily married man with a baby on the way, I just might have to try and steal her from you. The girl can cook,' he said, digging into the sandwich with gusto. He knew it would make them sound like they were in primary school but Ryan couldn't resist. 'What did she pack for you?'

'Same thing as you, only I got chocolate banana empenadas for something sweet.'

'Lucky bastard. Of course, you sleep with her so that's logical why you get the better desserts.'

'You think that's good, she also made lemon iced tea. The home-brewed kind with scratch made lemon syrup, not that powdered shit, two bottles each.'

Ryan could only stare. 'Dude, marry her.'

R&R&Enjoy.