A/N: Again (cause I don't grow tired of saying this & I hope you don't mind reading it 50 million times), thank you so much for any favorite/follow/review; especially to guest reviewers I couldn't thank in person. Your encouragement in any form of feedback amazes me and always brings a smile to my face.
Month 6
She watches as his fingers fly over the keyboard. He hasn't left his office all day, spent all hours he could in front of his computer and hasn't even noticed his wife watching him from the door frame.
Kate gladly left him there earlier this morning, only called him around lunch time to make sure that he hadn't forgotten to eat.
He had taken care of her so often when she was at work, even before they started dating, long before they got married. She seized every opportunity she could to return the favor.
It took a while, but Kate managed to convince him that he didn't need to work cases every single day, that the boys could handle things by themselves every once in a while. The extra amount of effort he made really took its toll on him, the exhaustion visible in his every move, and she finally put her foot down when she caught him almost falling over while making dinner.
"I'm fine," he attempted to defend himself.
"You're not fine!" she exclaimed. "This," she gestured at him, "is not fine. Look at you. You're exhausted. Your hardly sleep these days trying to be everywhere and do everything at once."
"I'm only trying to help!"
Kate made her way over to him, gently took his face into her hands, their eyes interlocking.
"Babe, I know you are. You are helping. But isn't it enough if one of us is tired all the time? I don't need you to work so hard until you cannot physically stand anymore. You can't take care of everything all the time. Working at the precinct can wait."
Castle dropped his gaze. "But I like working at the precinct," he sulked.
"I know. If it makes you feel any better, I can talk to Ryan and Espo and let them know to call you if there's a weird one. Deal?"
He caved in, knowing by the way Kate looked at him that discussing this any further would lead nowhere. And, if he was being honest, he had to admit that she was right. "Deal," he murmured.
From that day on, he hadn't accompanied her to the precinct every day. Instead, he only dropped by some days to bring her lunch, check up on her, and spend some time with his wife and daughter, who are currently a package deal.
Castle used the rest of his time to work on his next novel, and Kate was thrilled to see that he no longer squeezed his writing in between interrogating subjects and other meetings. And despite his initial protest, she could tell that he missed dedicating his time to his writing.
He loved working cases too, of course, but this gave him a chance to unwind and process events in his own way.
Rick hasn't heard her return, too absorbed in the little world he entered whenever he was writing.
She already stood at the office door for a while, never growing tired of the sight of him so concentrated and focused on his work. But her pregnant body has other ideas, and so instead of prolonging her standing, she moves back towards the living room to sit down.
"We'll give him some more time alone, huh," she whispers towards her growing bump.
Part of her freaked out when she first thought of the change her body would go through during pregnancy. Part of her couldn't help but wonder if she'd become self-conscious once any evidence of her pregnancy marked her skin and pushed her stomach outwards. But now, she loves the sight of her belly slowly expanding. It means their baby, their daughter, is there and growing.
Kate gently traces a finger across the skin at her stomach, smiling when she feels a now all too familiar kick. It's almost like she is responding, Kate thinks.
She busies herself preparing dinner soon after, carefully cutting everything up and beginning the cooking process.
Roused from the noise and smell, Castle eventually emerges from his office. He stops when he is behind her, and carefully wraps his arms around her without hindering the movement of her arms as she continues making their meal.
"Hey," he says and places a kiss on her cheek. "You're back."
She hums in response. "Finished early. Couldn't wait to be home, too much paperwork," she explains.
Castle nods in understanding. He still likes to rub it in her face that he, as a cop helper, is freed from the irritating responsibility of filling out annoying forms and providing detailed reports after all the action was over.
"How are you?" he asks.
It's a genuine question, his concern for her and her well-being always present, even if she has hardly left her desk that day.
"I'm fine, Rick," she smiles. "I'm getting kicked a lot though. I don't think I've been kicked this much outside of my usual training sessions," she jokes. "She's quiet now, though."
Rick's hand which has been moving towards her bump dropped, disappointment visible in his features. "Not fair," he grumbles. "I've never felt her kick before."
"You will. She'll be around for a few more months," Kate assures him as she fills their plates, twists out of his embrace and pushes him towards the table.
Alexis quickly drops by but leaves quickly to catch up with a friend that night, so they spend their quiet evening home alone doing nothing but cuddling on the couch and enjoying each other's company.
Rick swoops her up and carries her to bed once her eyelids fall closed without her control, and she manages to murmur a quiet 'thank you' before drifting to sleep.
He is unable to quiet his mind, his thoughts still racing. He wrote so much today, hardly stopping at all unless absolutely necessary. A call from Kate came through around 1 p.m., his personal reminder not to forget to eat as he so often did when he was full immersed in his work. He promised her he would take a brief break, but he hung up, and another idea struck him… Castle just had to write it down before it escaped him again, and, well, lunchtime had come and gone with him still glued to his office chair, her phone call long forgotten about.
He is done writing for the day, but his head is still brimming with other ideas. They would be there tomorrow too, and so Rick decides that he should find something else to focus on. Someone else.
"I hope I'm not bothering you at this late hour," he says casually. "I needed someone to distract me, and one someone who could have done this is at a friend's house tonight, probably won't be back for a while, and another someone is currently asleep next to me. And I really can't wake her up for this. She already has her hands full with you."
He sticks out his tongue towards the stomach – and then stops when he realizes that his daughter isn't able to see the teasing gesture.
"I hear you've been bothering her again. She says you've started to kick her a lot recently."
Kate might have said that it startled her sometimes, that it made it hard for her to rest, since the movements were unexpected and startled her every time. And yet, Castle could tell that she didn't really mind.
He has seen her sit on the couch, or even at her desk at the precinct, gazing down at her bump lovingly and absentmindedly stroking her fingers over it whenever she felt any movement. It may be uncomfortable for her sometimes, but to her it was also a sign that their daughter was really there and doing well. And that was comfort.
"I feel like I'm being left out though," he pouts. "She says you move around so much, but then I want to feel it, and you just stop. Personally, I am offended."
Rick looks to his side, barely able to make out the outlines of Kate's face in the darkness of their bedroom.
"Apparently, you leave her alone at night though. That's good. She deserves to rest. She's actually been doing that a lot more. Actually, I think it's what both of us needed."
Kate may have convinced him not to come into the precinct as often as he used to, but not before he made sure that she wasn't overworking herself either.
"Castle, I promise you, the boys are already taking care of that," she chuckled when he brought it up. "I actually had to tell them to tone it down. After all, I'm pregnant, not injured."
Esposito and Ryan had worked way more than usual over the past weeks without complaining, making sure that they only came to their Captain with important matters that couldn't be handled by anyone else, and bringing her updates as regularly as possible before she could even ask for them, just in case she received a call from one of her bosses demanding where they stood in an investigation.
"She avoids field trips now. We could all agree that her being tackled to the ground or punched in the gut may not be in your best interest - or hers, for that matter.
"So now, your mom's working mostly from her desk. Thank goodness. I can worry a little less. Though I never really stop," he admits.
"I worry about the people I love. I worried about my mother when she was ripped off by her ex-husband and she had nowhere else to go," he murmurs.
He frowns. It isn't one of his favorite memories. His mother, his obnoxious, confident, proud mother approaching him and asking for his help. Her plea had almost broken his heart. Martha Rodgers wouldn't have come to him for help unless it was utterly necessary, and it showed him how lost she truly was, although she never admitted it to him or anyone else.
She took it with grace, of course, as she always had and always will, but the devastation of being left with essentially nothing still knocked the wind out of her sails temporarily.
It had hurt him to see his mother come to him and nonchalantly request that she'd be moved into one of his spare rooms. She hid her insecurities behind a façade of lightheartedness, almost managing to convince him that she really "just wanted more time to spend with her son," and "look out for him, since his slightly reckless behavior was cause for concern."
Over the years, he may have made a lot of snide remarks about her staying with him, but he was still glad he could repay her for everything she'd done for him. Sure, her presence and extravagant behavior had annoyed him at times, plenty of times actually, but at the same time, he was grateful for all the moments in which her carefree attitude and unsolicited advice could distract him and brighten his days.
"Your grandmother is a handful sometimes, but she loves deeply. And she definitely knows how to enjoy life," he snickers. "I get that from her. I can't tell you a lot of stories from my teenage years… and adult years, actually. I think when Alexis gets her first grey hair, it'll be because of me. She worries too much for someone her age sometimes. I can be quite carefree, but I worry about her too much as well. I guess it's a family thing."
His mind flashes back to all the times he fussed over Alexis over the smallest things.
When she got her first cold, he could hardly go to sleep because he feared he wouldn't wake up when she needed him. When he took her to kindergarten, he was scared that she'd be lost without him or that the other kids would be mean to her. She grew up in New York City, and Castle knew how dangerous that could be, so he followed her the first few times she went out by herself – until she caught him and presented him with a long speech on trust, independence, and responsibility he was sure she'd practiced more than once.
He worried about her when he saw her wrinkle her forehead as she sat hunched over homework or a special project, afraid that she was working too hard, that his little girl was putting too much pressure on herself to be good at everything.
The worry he felt when it came to his daughter never really stopped; it was still present, even now. Alexis had proven that she could handle whatever life threw her way, but he still finds himself wishing that she didn't have to.
"I hope you'll forgive me if I'm being too protective of you," Rick whispers. "Seeing my daughter grow up makes me so proud of who she's become, but it also terrifies me. I may have learned from my experience of raising her, but please be patient with me nonetheless. I might still be overly watchful."
He sighs. "And Kate. Boy, do I worry about her. In my defense, she faces murderers all the time. That's a pretty good reason to be concerned, right?" He almost laughs when he notices that he paused for a response.
"She can take care of herself, but I'd rather be right there with her. And I am, as often as I can. I protect her, she protects me. It's a pretty sweet deal."
He yawns, suddenly feeling the lack of energy after he poured all of it into his writing.
"And I promise, I'll always be there to protect you too," he manages to mumble as his eyelids become too heavy for him to hold open.