"I know baby girl, you're hungry. Hold on just a minute and I'll get your bottle heated up." Castle pleads with the screaming girl in his arms, juggling to keep her body safely contained as she writhes. Her back arches as if she's in agony and Rick grits his teeth, decides to just abandon the stroller where it is.
Someone can steal it for all he cares; he'll buy a new one. Anything to have Brooke stop crying.
He battles his way over to the counter; thankfully there's no queue to contend with. The girl serving offers him a sympathetic smile and takes the bottle of formula before he even gets a chance to open his mouth.
"Thanks." Rick says, can't spare even a moment to smile back at the poor server with his niece bawling as if she's on the brink of death. The baby arches her back again so violently she almost flips right out of his arms and he grabs at her, sinks into an armchair near the counter and tries to breathe through his heart's thundering arrhythmia.
"It's coming, sweetheart. Shh, come on. Don't cry." Castle manoeuvres her to lie against his shoulder and the upright position does seem to momentarily console her, her fist coming up to smack against his jaw.
It hurts; he hisses and shifts her into a more comfortable position. Brooke's knees come up to search for purchase against his ribcage, her head tipping backward on her neck precariously. Castle cups a palm at her nape to keep her close against him, panic thick at the back of his throat.
He knows she must feel it rolling off of him in waves, his stupid heart thrashing in his chest and sending waves of seismic activity clattering through his niece, but there's nothing he can do. No possible way to calm himself down until she stops crying.
The barista comes back with the bottle and Castle has to viciously clamp down on his nerve endings so as not to snatch it from her, forcing himself to move slowly. "Thank you so much."
"Not a problem. If you want I could move the stroller over and you can sit here instead. It's probably more comfortable."
She's right, the armchair that has somehow, miraculously made itself available to him offers far more support for both him and Brooke than the table he had been sitting at. "That would be great, thank you."
Castle cradles the baby in the crook of his elbow, letting the arm of the chair take most of her weight as he nudges at her mouth with the bottle. Jenny told him that Brooke is usually fine with the formula, and true to her word the girl latches on without a moment's hesitation.
Smiling down at his niece like a total idiot, Castle relaxes back into the chair and lets the tightly wound chords of tension unlace themselves from around his bones, pooling at his feet. "There, see. All better now."
The barista parks up the stroller next to him and grins down at Brooke a moment before meeting his eyes. "I'll get you another cup of coffee."
"Thank you."
It feels unnatural to have everyone so willing to help him. When he's with Beckett people are often more lenient, offering up their services for the beautiful detective, but by himself he's just another body in a sea of faceless New Yorkers.
Well, he's not by himself. And Brooke is completely adorable, even if he is biased. So perhaps it's little wonder that he's been met with such kindness this morning.
He can't help but wish that Kate were here to see it, see how having a baby can open up a whole new world of possibilities, rearrange your entire life to include so much joy at the smallest things. It's pathetic, how much he misses her.
Castle drinks his second coffee; Brooke drinks her bottle and sinks down in his arms, heavy with the weight of content. Lashes dusting over her cheeks like shadows, delicate and pale as she falls asleep against his chest.
Taking a moment to enjoy her warmth, the tiny fist that opens and closes in sleep, catching the material of his shirt and leaving little creases right over his heart, Castle almost gives in and calls Kate again. She's busy, and he really shouldn't, but he wants to so badly.
Wants to hear her voice, the soft breath of her laughter and the quiet truths he finds it so easy to draw out of her now. Well, okay, not easy. Just comparatively simple when measured against how every unravelling of another layer used to be a battle.
When he told her he's had to scratch and claw for every inch, he really was not joking. Worth every moment, though, to now be able to text her a picture of the sleeping girl pillowed against him and say whatever the hell he wants. No more censoring.
See how adorable they are when they stop crying. I could let ours sleep on my chest while I write.
Castle hits send before he gets a chance to second guess himself, pictures Kate opening up his message and being entirely unprepared for the sudden barrage of his true heart. Maybe she'll move away from her desk, head to the break room or the bathroom to clear her head before she replies.
He settles his niece into the stroller, tucking the crocheted blanket around her to keep her safe from the chill. It's warmer today, but the cold still lurks low in the cracks between paving stones, just waiting to curl around his ankles like smoke.
On his way out of the door, his pockets considerably lighter after he emptied his loose change into the tip jar at the counter, Rick's phone vibrates with a message alert. He moves a little way down the sidewalk, finds a place to tuck both himself and the stroller in against the wall so he can read the message without the flow of foot traffic jostling into him.
I don't know that that would be good for your concentration, Daddy.
Holy shit. Okay. So she's not panicking then. But – the gnarled fingers twist around his ribcage and threaten to make canyons of his bones – it seems that he is.
It's not supposed to be this easy.
Kate drops her phone back to the desk and heaves in a breath that tastes like drowning, her lungs blue-black and gasping for oxygen. What is she doing?
They haven't even set a date for the wedding yet, and now she's encouraging a conversation about their hypothetical children. The strange part is that it doesn't even terrify her. Not like she always assumed this sort of suggestion would. It just feels. . .inevitable.
Of course this is where they'll end up, has always been where they're headed. There's no viable alternative in her mind but a life with Castle, full to bursting with so much happiness that a part of her can't help but wait for the other shoe to drop, it all to come crashing down around her.
Against the desk, her phone vibrates with a message and she rests her forehead in her palm a moment, scrubbing her fingers across her eyes and down to prop her chin in her hand. Staring at the phone, Kate gives herself in infinitesimal moment to panic, and then she swipes her thumb across to unlock it.
Well okay, I guess not. They could sleep on their Mommy, then. While Daddy works.
Okay. Okay, breathe, Kate. It's fine. It's not as if he's outright asking her to let him get her pregnant. No, he's just filling her brain with all sorts of images. The soft warmth of a tiny body pillowed against her, huge blue eyes slowly opening to meet her own.
God, she wants it. So much it hurts, her chest on fire.
Tapping out a reply, Kate hits send and then shoves her phone into the desk drawer. She's supposed to be concentrating on her paperwork, finishing up so she can make it home at a reasonable time. Only now she can't help but imagine his face when he reads her message, comes crashing to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk.
Or we could have one each.
Castle holds his breath as he lifts Brooke up from the stroller, settling her in the bassinet that the Ryans left with him. Thinking of them that way, as a unit, makes him yearn to sit Kate down and settle on a date for the wedding. He wants them to be the Castles, a family, a team.
Not that he knows for sure that she'll take his name. He's willing to bet that she won't at the precinct, having already firmly established herself as Detective Beckett. But Kate Castle has a nice ring to it, he thinks, and he can't help the silly wish for her to share his name at least in some aspects of their life.
It's not about trying to possess her, God help any man that attempts to own Kate Beckett. He just really wants her to be Mrs Castle. Stupid of him, archaic even, but the desire is there all the same.
The baby settles into the bassinet without complaint, wriggling a little as he tucks the blanket up around her. Her little mouth smacks open and closed a few times but she doesn't stir, apparently out for the count.
Castle gathers his laptop from the desk and settles in bed with it, resting it against his thighs and arranging the pillows to cushion his spine against the headboard. He usually tries not to write in bed, finds it is mostly not conducive to making any sort of progress. But for right now, he wants to keep watch over his niece.
Sometimes he writes in bed with Kate. She curls up to read next to him, her eyelids drooping within moments as the steady tap of his fingertips against the keys soothes her, lulls her to sleep. And then he gets to write about Nikki with Kate's open mouth pressed against his thigh, an arm hooked over his knee.
Opening his document, Rick scans through to pick up his train of thought and then the scene forms in his mind and flows downwards; out through his fingers so fast he can hardly manage to keep up. Nikki's pissed at Rook because he's pressing for more, some form of solid commitment from her, and she's not ready.
It does feel like a breath of relief to know that his own relationship with Kate is no longer behind their fictional counterparts. In fact, they're way out in front. He already put a ring on her finger, didn't he? Even if they haven't yet set a date.
He wants to. He also wants to explore these ideas about their future that Kate apparently has. Her earlier text about having two kids had him choking on the hotdog he had grabbed from a vendor, several passers-by shooting him concerned looks as heat spread up his cheeks.
Eventually, once he managed to suck in enough air to regain his usual bodily functions, he let himself get drawn in to imagining it. A family with Kate. A part of him is tempted to call and probe her about these long-hidden desires, see if there's also a white picket fence and a dog in their future.
If that's what she wants, she can have it. All of it, anything, as long as he's the one who gets to do it with her.
Castle rattles out two chapters, goes through the edits his publisher sent him on the previous three and shuts off his laptop, returning it to its rightful place at his desk. On his way past the bassinet he glances in to see Brooke gazing up at him, blue eyes wide and alert.
Scooping the girl up, Rick cradles her against his chest and scatters kisses across her cheeks, delighting in the laughter that spills out of her. "Hi sweet girl. Shall we go see which toys Mommy and Daddy left for you?"
One arm around the baby to keep her secure, Castle rummages through the pile of stuff the Ryans left in his study until he finds the play mat. The thing has bars that cross over the top, making a dome shape from which toys hang down.
Rick arranges the mat on top of the sheets on his bed and lies Brooke down, lining pillows along one side of the mat in case she rolls. To barricade the opposite side Castle uses his own body, stretching out to watch his niece as she reaches up to grab at a soft cloth elephant.
The girl keeps turning her head to glance at him, her mouth stretching wide into a smile at the ridiculous faces he pulls every time she does. Letting himself relax fully, Castle curls one hand around the tiny foot and runs his thumb along her toes.
Losing himself completely in the little girl, Rick never even hears the door. A knee pressing into the mattress at his spine has his body rolling so he ends up on his back, gazing up at Kate. She sends that gorgeously soft smile down to him, leaning in for a tender kiss before she rounds the bed and climbs in to block off Brooke's other side.
The mat is small enough that Castle can easily reach her, stretching out the arm previously trapped underneath him to graze his knuckles at her cheek and pillowing his head against his bicep. He watches her smooth her thumb under Brooke's eye, support herself on an elbow to lean in and kiss the crown of the girl's head, her cheek.
"You're early." He says eventually, hates himself for it.
Kate laughs, more soft sigh than any real volume, and cards her fingers through his hair. "I finished up all my paperwork. Wanted to come home and see my family. What did you guys do today?"
"Hit the park for a while. Saw the ducks. She liked watching them be fed. Then we came home, I wrote while she napped and we've been playing ever since."
Kate's mouth quirks up at the corners as if she wants to smile but doesn't quite remember how, and she takes a moment to chew on her bottom lip. He doesn't push her, doesn't do anything more than circle his thumb over her cheek the same way she did to their niece.
He watches the work of her throat as she swallows, her lashes tremulous and drifting as she gathers the courage to speak. "Is this what it would be like?"
"What what would be like?"
"Missing so much of it. Coming home in the evening to hear all the stories. Not even making it home early enough to help with bath time and stories some nights. Is it really fair to do that to a child? To you?"
Castle's whole body contracts hard with the desperate need to touch her and he climbs out of bed, gathering the pillows to lie in the dent his weight leaves against the mattress. He slides back in behind Kate, settling his arm in the dip of her waist to draw her in close against him.
"You'd be here. I know you would. You put so much of yourself into everything, motherhood wouldn't be any different."
"There would be times when I couldn't be here, Rick. And I don't want to miss out on our children's lives because I'm in the box or arresting someone." He hears the deep-seated anguish in her voice, rough and thick and dark like the nights she must have lain awake thinking about this, trying to figure out how she could someday make it work.
"That's just a part of life, Kate. But you'd be here for the important parts. Our kids will be so lucky to have you as their mother."
Kate rolls onto her back to look at him, hooking an arm around his neck to draw him down for a kiss. She drinks deep, taking more from him than he was anticipating until a moan comes tumbling out. Against his mouth, she murmurs as if she doesn't want Brooke to hear.
"It was always a part of the plan, until I became a cop. And then I figured I'd never do it. My mom's case was my baby. It never afforded me the chance to even meet someone I could consider starting a family with. And then there was you."
"There will always be me." Castle can't help but promise her, settling his mouth at her cheekbone.
Kate turns a smile into his cheek, tugging his shirt free from his pants to rest slender fingers against his side. "I know. I know that you're an amazing father, and our kids would always have you there. But I know what it's like to lose a parent, Rick. I don't know if I could run that risk every day."
"So don't."
It's the wrong thing to say. He knows that even before the shockwaves of tension tear through her, body stiffening in his arms. She fights her way free of his embrace and sits up, bringing her knees to her chest to rest her chin atop them.
"I love my job."
"I know you do."
"Please don't give me an ultimatum." She grits out, the trembling in her voice carefully contained but still enough to send shame pouring through him.
"That's not what this is." Castle sits up and settles his arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss to her temple as she leans against him. "I'm just saying it's an option, that's all. I'm completely willing to work with you to get the balance between your job and our family right, but there are other options too."
"I want both. And that's selfish, and I kind of hate myself for it, but it's true. I don't want to give up my job, but I don't want to lose out on having a family either."
Rick rests two fingers underneath her chin and turns her face in to him, kissing her until she goes limp and eases them both to lie back down. Kate's head pillowed against his chest, he smoothes a hand through her hair over and over.
"Okay. So you do your job, but you work the hours that everyone else works. Not your own superhuman ones. And then when the work is done, you come home to me and to our children."
"I can do that."
He grins, kisses the corner of her mouth, the paper-thin skin at her eyelid. "But do you want to? You want me to get you pregnant, Kate Beckett?"
"Yeah. I do."
TBC. Might be a small delay though, I'm out of town Sunday through Wednesday. I'll do my best.