Richard Castle felt numb. He felt numb, confused, angry and scared. When the social worker called he had been laying in the park with Beckett leaning against him. They were enjoying the afternoon and the calmness of a quiet weekend together. Then his phone rang.
"Hello?" He answered.
"Hello, I'm trying to get in touch with Richard Castle. I called his home and was given this number." Rick was confused. Afterall, his mother never gave his number out to strangers unless there was an emergency.
"May I ask who is calling?" He questioned. The confusion was evident in his voice.
"Yes, sorry. My name is Kelly and I work with the Arizona department of child protective services. Is this Richard Castle?"
"Yes, this is." He answered, still unsure of why she would be calling him.
"Mr. Castle, did you know a woman by the name of Jacinda Collins?" She waited for him to answer.
"Um, yes I did." He answered, not liking the use of the past tense in the woman's phrasing.
"I'm sorry to report to you that she was killed in the commercial airliner that crashed several days ago."
"I'm so sorry to hear that." He replied.
"Mr. Castle, were you aware that Ms. Collins had a child?"
"No. I wasn't. She never mentioned it, but we only knew eachother briefly." Castle clarified.
"Yes." Kelly spoke, "The thing is, Mr. Castle, she had a living will drawn up before she died and she named you as the child's biological father."
"She did WHAT?" Rick sat up suddenly, his yell alerting the family that was playing with their twins nearby. Beckett sat up and turned to him, she was wearing an alarmed expression her face, hoping for some indicator of what he was talking about.
"Mr. Castle, if you can come out here, I'm sure we can figure all of this out. The sooner you can make it, the better, there is a little boy with nowhere to go and the sooner we can find him stable placement the better off he will be." Castle allowed her words to sink in and spoke again, still unable to think clearly.
"Stable? But I'm not, I mean, I can't be…" He wasn't sure how to finish the sentence. Castle felt so completely lost.
"Mr. Castle, I'm not saying that you have to take the boy. I'm simply stating that if you could come out here we could run some tests, determine whether you are the boy's father. If you are then we can go from there, you're not listed on the boy's birth certificate so you would have the choice to take him on."
Castle took a deep breath. "This isn't happening." He spoke, more to himself than to the woman on the phone. Beckett became increasingly concerned by Castle's behavior, desperate to know what was going on.
"Mr. Castle, if you truly don't want anything to do with this you are not legally obligated. We can make the boy a ward of the state and try to find placement for him. I was instructed to call you and let you know that you had been indicated as the boy's father." Castle sighed heavily and spoke.
"No, don't do that. I'll be on the next flight. Can I reach you at this number?"
"Yes sir, you can. Fly into Phoenix and give me a call tomorrow. We'll take it from there." Castle nodded and hung up the phone after promising to call her.
He looked up to Kate's confused expression, unable to tell her this news.
"Rick what happened?" He took a deep breath, terrified of how she might react.
Castle simply stood and packed up their things. Beckett remained quiet as she stood next to him, picking up their blanket and folding it in her arms.
"Is it Alexis? Martha?"
"No." He said somberly, "they're both fine."
She walked with him then, heading in the direction of the loft and waiting for him to speak. Whatever he needed to tell her wasn't going to be easy, that she knew. Thoughts raced through her head, but nothing made sense. Any doctors, any information about the baby, any news along those lines would have come directly to her. Was he called for a book tour? She thought to herself.
The timing would be bad, but she certainly could handle things without him for a few weeks. The pregnancy was going smoothly and things were status quo at work. The more she thought about it she realized that the timing wasn't bad at all. She just felt like it would be bad because any time away from him would be unpleasant. She reached for his hand and squeezed it, wanting to show her support.
He looked at her, tears in his eyes. "Kate." He spoke softly. "We need to talk."
They entered the loft, Kate walking silently behind her husband as he made his way inside and placed the picnic basket on the kitchen counter. Kate put the blanket down and grabbed a bottle of water.
"So, do you want to tell me what's going on?" He looked at her and nodded.
"Kate." He paused to take a deep breath and then continued, "Do you remember the April before you got sick?" She nodded at him, figuring he was talking about their silent standoff after her secret came out. She was completely confused as to why something that occurred so long ago would have any impact on them now.
"Do you mean when we were fighting? Yes I remember." She stated with confusion evident in her voice.
"Yeah." He spoke. "Do you remember Jacinda, the flight attendant?" Kate nodded. She didn't like where this was going at all. Her face fell, a mixture of fear and anger setting in, although she didn't know what she had to fear or to be angry about. She shook the emotions off as residual feelings.
"What about her Castle?" She questioned.
"She was killed in that plane crash, the commercial airliner that went down." He began to explain.
"Oh my gosh that's terrible." Kate spoke. News of the crash had been all over the media since it happened.
"Yes. It is." Castle agreed, before continuing. "That call I received in the park today. It was from a social worker." Kate's brow furrowed.
"Why would a social worker contact you?"Kate asked him. She still couldn't figure out where he was going with all of this.
"Because Jacinda had a baby," he answered, continuing before she had time to respond to him, "and she claimed that the baby was mine." With a deep breath he finally looked up at her.
She stared at him, mouth open and a look of shock on her face. "She said WHAT?" There was disbelief and anger in her voice.
"Castle did you two even sleep together? You only saw her for like a week." Castle just looked at her, the answer all over his ashamed face.
She threw her hands into the air, "Of course you did."
"It only happened once Kate, I thought you rejected me and I was hurting. The weekend I flew to Vegas she was the flight attendant."
"I thought you said you met her on the flight home?" Kate questioned him, irritation clearly in her voice.
"I didn't want you to think that I picked up a girl in Vegas and just brought her home."
"But you DID Castle." He lowered his head in shame. Afterall, he did.
"So what happened?" She asked, a little less anger and a little more resignation in her voice.
"I met her on the way to Vegas, she was off for the weekend so she spent it there. I got incredibly drunk, wanting to forget….everything." Kate grimaced, knowing full well that his decisions were made because of the broken heart she'd caused. Still, she never forced him to sleep with another woman.
"I don't actually remember what happened, but I know that when I woke up the next morning she was there." He looked at Kate then, fear in his expression. She simply nodded at him and lowered her head. In a somewhat defeated voice she spoke,
"Castle you didn't cheat on me. We weren't together. If I had been honest about my feelings you wouldn't have been there in the first place."
"Kate it only happened that one night and I was too drunk to remember. I didn't drink again and I didn't sleep with her again. She only stuck around a few days before she made an excuse and had to go back home." Castle continued,
"I figured that she got sick of being around me after I'd been around you. So, I wasn't surprised when she simply left. Turns out she had to leave to get back to her husband."
"What, she was married?" Beckett exclaimed, "unbelievable."
"She certainly didn't tell me she was, and evidently she didn't tell her husband about her 'extra curricular activities'." Castle spoke.
"So, she had a baby?"
"Yeah. That's what the social worker said. She said that she had a legal document drawn up naming me as the biological father."
Kate sunk to the couch, as the news washed over her she simply cradled herself. What if it is true? Kate questioned to herself. What if he has another baby? What will that mean for us? What about our baby? She struggled to not let the panic she was feeling in, to not start to cry at the thought of him loving somebody else's baby more than theirs.
"Hey," He spoke to her. "It's going to be ok." She shifted her eyes away from him and stood, "Castle, you should book a flight and go. We need to figure things out." She left him on the couch and went into their bedroom alone.
As he packed a bag she lay on her side, pretending to be asleep. She wasn't angry at him at all. She couldn't be. He had sex with the women once, in a drunken state, and she'd never told him about her pregnancy. Now she was gone and there was a little boy with no parents.
How old is he? She wondered to herself. She was diagnosed with cancer shortly after the baby would have been conceived, so that would mean the baby had to be young, 40ish weeks would put him born January I think. Her eyes remained closed as she did the math, so around 6 or 7 months maybe? She did her best to think clearly and calmly, but the uncertainty still threatened to overwhelm her.
She felt a dip on the bed, followed by his arms wrapping around her. He placed a kiss on her cheek and spoke.
"Kate, I've got to go to the airport." She could not answer. She was afraid if she tried to speak she would cry.
"Kate, please." He waited but got no response. Finally he sighed, squeezing her arm.
"I love you and I'll call you in the morning." She raised her hand to his, gave it a light squeeze and nodded, placing a kiss on the back of his hand, but did not speak. He leaned over and kissed her cheek, taking her body language as a sign that she was still in this all with him. He left the room that night with a sense of fear and uncertainty.
After updating his mother on the situation, and promising to call her (as well as making her promise to look after Kate), he grabbed a cab and headed for the airport. He hated leaving Kate like that, but there was a child involved and the sooner he got it sorted out the better.
In just a few hours his life had been turned upside down. When he woke up that morning life was good, he and Kate were solid and their baby was doing fine. Now he was on his way across the country to learn whether or not he had another child, and he was terrified that he was leaving Kate, wondering if the news had reduced their marriage to shambles.
Big news, high emotions and crazy pregnant hormones make Kate a little overwhelmed...and we all know an overwhelmed Kate is a somewhat closed-off Kate. Sad, but true...