As always, I am so very grateful to you all for your support. Thank you for reading.
Out of the Blue - Chapter 11
Having been sleeping with Kate Beckett for almost two years, he's grown accustomed to the sound of her alarm. Most mornings it goes off just after the crack of dawn (when her phone's not ringing even earlier with a crisis), and he does his best to entice her into resetting it for just a little bit later. She always gets up earlier than she needs to, anyway.
This morning, there's no alarm. No phone ringing. In fact, he's not sure she's even stirred since the 4 o'clock trip to the bathroom. The baby must've found a spot away from her bladder to rest, which is good because she's been wiped out for the last few days thanks to having to move every couple of hours.
But as a result of her lack of alarm, he's pretty sure he needs to haul her out of bed and rush her off to work right now.
"Beckett," he whispers, splaying his hand along the curve of her waist. "Beckett, I just woke up. S'late. You're late for work."
Beckett groans, pressing her face into her pillow. "Took the day off. Sleeping in."
She took the day off? Why hadn't she mentioned that last night?
Her fingers slide through his, tugging his arm to wrap around her belly. It knocks him off-balance, but he manages to catch himself against the pillow squished underneath her side before he crushes her.
"Sorry," his apology is muffled against her shoulder.
"Mhmm, go back to sleep, babe."
With her fingers curled around his, he manages to let the confusion go and drift off again. He knows he'll figure out what prompted her to take the day off once he's had coffee in a couple hours.
Of course, once his phone emerges from Do Not Disturb mode, chirping and chiming with each email and tweet, he's awake enough to remember what day it is without seeing it on his screen.
January 9th. The anniversary of Johanna Beckett's death fifteen years ago.
He knows Kate's awake by the way her hand twitches and her thumb caresses his, but she doesn't speak. He doesn't either, but he brushes his lips against her shoulder instead.
"What can I do, Kate?" he asks finally, when his need to know gets the better of the desire to give her quiet.
A soft rustle of her head and a shaky breath is all he gets in response. Her acknowledgement is enough for now; he'll stay like this as long as she needs.
"Hey, Castle?" she whispers some time later, her voice rough.
His mouth lands in the crook of her neck, pressing lightly in a non-kiss. "Yeah?"
"Make some coffee? Enough for both of us?"
Lately, she's been going without the small amount of coffee her doctor still allows thanks to heartburn and an easily excitable baby, but he can understand the need for the comforting warmth today.
With a nod and a soft kiss to her jawline, he slides from bed. "Coming right up."
Curling his toes in the plush carpet, he takes a moment to stretch, to force the kinks of sleep out of his limbs and refresh him for the day. One particularly unforgiving pop of his spine leaves him groaning. He isn't getting old, he isn't.
"You okay?"
His eyes spring open to find Kate facing him on her side, belly supported by his pillow this time. Concern mars her forehead, but he's pleased to see her eyes are a little bit clearer than he's sure they were a few minutes ago.
"Yeah, oh yeah. I'm okay. Didn't hurt, it just surprised me."
She accepts that answer with a nod and a tiny upturn of her lips. "Kay. Thanks for sacrificing your back for me."
Pitching forward, his mouth lands against hers softly. The kiss is brief, but the mist in her eyes tells him she understood his message anyway; there isn't much he wouldn't sacrifice for her, especially on a day like today.
Of course that doesn't mean he doesn't spend five minutes in front of the cabinet overthinking things. If it were any other day he would go all out with hearts in the foam and her usual mug, but maybe she needs something different today.
In the end, he makes the heart anyway, but puts her coffee in a mug she's told him was one of her mom's favorites. It feels like the right thing to do, and if the look on her face when he walks into their bedroom is any indication, he made a good choice.
When she doesn't reach for her coffee immediately, he doesn't mind. He's too busy staring.
God, she's beautiful. While he was downstairs, she'd slid out of bed and moved to stand in front of the full-length mirror they've propped against one of the blank walls in their bedroom. Her nightshirt has been pulled up to just below her breasts and her hand works lotion into her skin in slow, delicate circles, moving over the swell of her belly.
"Thanks," she breathes. "I'll be done in a second."
"Take your time." He sips his coffee, watching the easy slide of her fingers over her navel. "I'm not going anywhere."
He should stop trailing his eyes over her body, but he just can't quite force himself to look away.
Her fingers still finally and she turns to meet his eyes. "Found another stretch mark," she explains, lifting a shoulder. "Figured it was time for more lotion."
"Where?" he asks, holding out her coffee. She takes the mug, eyes radiating her thanks. "Left side, it's not big."
Placing his coffee on the dresser, he kneels in front of her, cupping her belly in both hands. Beckett shivers at his touch, dropping her shirt to comb her fingers through his hair.
The first touch of his lips to her skin earns him a tap in the mouth from his son.
"Well good morning to you, too, mister attitude. Don't beat me up when I'm just saying hello."
Above him, his fiancée murmurs an agreement. "Daddy's just saying hi."
He slides his mouth over the pale marks on her stomach, the tiny lightning bolts that illustrate the amazing things her body is doing, whispering nonsensical words into her skin.
"Thank you for this." Her thumb brushes his forehead, and though he isn't really sure what she's thanking him for, he smiles anyway.
"What else can I do?"
"Just be you." She tugs him to his feet, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "What were you going to do if I'd gone to work today?"
Steadying himself, he brushes his thumbs over the sharp jut of her hipbones. This pregnancy really is mostly belly.
"Write, probably. So procrastinate by decorating the office. But I don't have to do that. We can do whatever you want. Or nothing, if that's what you want. I can leave you alone."
"No, no. I want you to write, just… stay on the couch with me?"
Kissing her softly, he nods. "Done. I'll get my computer."
"I'll take your coffee down with me."
"Thanks."
A few minutes later, he joins her downstairs. She's already wrapped her favorite plush throw around her shoulders and settled into her spot.
"I got some food." She nods to a plate on the coffee table, squirming closer as soon as he's settled. "Hope it's okay, I just kind of grabbed stuff."
"It's perfect." He kisses her temple.
Beckett pulls the plate over before he can grab it, resting it on the shelf her belly makes.
"Now you can open your laptop and work, too."
Subtle, Beckett. Subtle.
But he does, because it's what she wants.
They don't speak, beyond an occasional murmured offer for water or a request to move a hand to allow her to get up and use the bathroom. The rest of the time, her head stays on his shoulder as he works. How it's comfortable for her, given the way his arm fidgets as he types, he has no idea, but hours pass and she doesn't complain. She's quiet, contemplative, and he can't help but wonder if she's thinking about the baby or about her mom, or maybe some combination of both.
He also thinks she actually dozes off at one point, because she starts some time later, resting her palm against her stomach.
"The coffee kicked in for him?"
"Mhmm, think so. Sorry, I broke your concentration."
"S'okay. I need a break."
Kate hums. "Yeah, I've seen you erasing and rewriting."
Gasping playfully, he saves his work and closes the laptop. "Beckett, were you reading along? Spoiler alert."
"Shut up. I don't even know which book you were working on. And besides, if I'd been reading along, you'd know."
Well she has a point there. Beckett's passionate about what she reads; there's no way she'd let him get away with some of the more out there things he puts down when he's still trying to find the right words.
"Fair point." Her answering smile is enough encouragement to keep talking. "Can I ask you something?"
Beckett exhales, dragging the blanket away from her shoulders to lean into him instead. "Sure. Ask away."
"Why'd you take the day off? Is it… is there something you usually do on the anniversary? I know it's different this year, since we're not in New York, but I wasn't sure." His fingers comb through the messy strands of hair escaping her bun.
"Oh," she murmurs, looking away quickly. "You're usually with me on the anniversary of her death, Castle. I work. I… get justice for people who deserve it. And I…" she sighs, rubbing her face. "I don't know if I'm always doing that here. Some days I feel like I am. I feel like people's lives are better for the work I'm doing – I know people's lives are better because of it – but some days I feel like I'm just a cog in someone else's machine. So whatever issues I have with the work, I didn't want that to be how I remembered her today."
They're going to have to talk about her feelings for her job soon, but for now he's going to focus on today. "How do you usually remember her? We haven't been together all day in the past. I've left the precinct and you've gone home. And last year you'd just gone home after your apartment was fumigated and you were still a little annoyed with me about…"
"Meredith staying," she supplies wryly.
"Yeah. Which will never happen again, especially not here. That goes without saying. But my point is, I laid low, so I really don't know."
Kate snorts. "I… It changes, I guess. The first couple of years after, I would visit her grave. I'd check on the grass and the flowers, and make sure her headstone was installed properly. A lot of that stuff fell to me while my dad was having problems."
His lips brush her forehead, silently lending her strength. If she doesn't want to continue, she won't, so he doesn't try to interrupt to give her an out.
"After a while it was too hard to do that. To go and look at a slab of stone and partially dormant grass. So, I… worked, or I stayed home. I tried to have her case reopened officially and when the request was denied, I would work it from my living room floor. I was working it the night my dad came and said he was getting sober for good. That was the fifth anniversary. I put the case away after that – for him and for me – did the therapy, made detective, all of that."
Beckett's fingertips flutter across his cheek and over his chin, distracting him before his thoughts can turn to his culpability in unearthing the case she'd fought so hard to put behind her.
"After that, Dad and I agreed to something. We take the morning or the evening to be sad, to think about missing her, to do what we need to do, and the rest of the time we do something to embrace what she loved in life."
"Like what?" he asks, voice hushed.
"Like… some years when I get off work, I'll go for a walk around the city because she used to love that. Or if I have the morning off, I go antiquing and I pick out something that she either would've loved or she would've rolled her eyes at me for wanting. Sometimes it's something as small as buying fresh flowers and opening all the windows to let the breeze in. She used to do that all the time, even when it was freezing, just to feel how crisp and fresh it was. Dad likes to find a spot to watch the sunset. Sometimes mine is grabbing a book and trying to read it all in one sitting. And since usually I'm doing that after work, I come in the next morning looking like a zombie."
"Ah, but a hot zombie," he supplies, cupping her shoulder to keep her still while his head drops to kiss her slowly.
"Mhmm, and sometimes this hot zombie would have a delicious coffee waiting for her, courtesy of you. So no complaints there."
"Good."
She smiles against his lips. "Yeah."
"Do you… I mean obviously it's different this year. Do you want to do anything like you usually do? We could throw the windows open and let the air in, or get our shoes and our pants," he adds, looking down at his boxers and her bare legs, "and go explore? I would say we could go back to New York, but that'd be a pretty long trip just to come back before work in the morning."
To his surprise, her head shakes. "Maybe in a little bit for the windows, but we don't need to go exploring or go back to New York. I'm doing what I want to do to remember her right now."
"What's that?"
She sweeps an arm outward.
"This. Sitting with someone I love. She loved just existing with us. When I was a teenager, I thought it was weird and strange that she'd want all three of us to be in the same room just to sit in silence, but now I get it," her voice breaks on the last couple of words.
His mouth lands against her forehead. "Kate."
She sniffs, curling her arm around his neck. "M'okay. I promise, I'm okay. It um," she clears her throat. "It might actually be easier being here and not in New York. More like a fresh start. More like the day's about celebrating her life, instead of mourning her death or defining myself by my work."
Nodding, he presses his cheek against her hair. "What else can I do? To make it easier? Any of it, all of it. Today, tomorrow, the next month –"
"The next 18 years?" she laughs softly, swiping at her eyes.
"The next four hundred years."
She laughs again, kissing his jaw. "We're vampires now, huh? Zombies earlier, now vampires." She nips lightly for emphasis. Well, if she wants to play like that…
"Whatever it takes, Beckett."
She exhales. "You're doing it already."
"Am I?"
"Mhmm."
"Good." There's so much more he wishes he could do. So much more. But if she says he helps, then he'll keep doing what he's doing. Hell, he'll sit here with her just like this for ten more hours if it's what she needs.
"You know she would've loved you, right?" she murmurs eventually, lifting her eyes to his.
"Really?"
Kate laughs softly, turning her face into his neck again. "Yeah, yeah she would've. And she would've adored him, too," she adds, smoothing her hand over her stomach. He does the same, grinning when his son bats at his hand.
"It's hard to do anything but adore him."
"Well yeah, but if she were here… we wouldn't see him for days. She would probably take him and tell us to go get married and have our honeymoon already."
Licking his lips, he tilts head. "Would she… be upset about this? The timing, I mean."
"No, no. She's, she was… well, she was traditional, but she'd be happy for us. The order wouldn't matter that much to her. It doesn't matter to my dad, does it?"
No, it doesn't seem to matter to Jim. His future father-in-law is simply eager to greet his grandchild.
"No, not that he's said."
His fiancée smiles. "Believe me, if it mattered, he'd say so."
Brushing his knuckles over her cheek, he nods. "Okay, good. Because I don't want him to hate me for failing to marry you first."
"He doesn't hate you, Castle." She kisses his fingertips.
Even so, he has a suggestion to make, "Let's set a date. To honor her. Let's set a date."
The baby kicks under his palm, a move he takes as an agreement. Kate exhales, shutting her eyes quickly.
"Yeah, let's do it. Let's set a date. After he's born. I want to walk down the aisle, not waddle."
Nodding, he agrees easily. "Deal. Summer?"
"Summer's good. Early summer, when it's not too hot in the city. And just in case Alexis does another summer program." Her lips bump his. "Pi or no Pi. We'll put him in the corner of the pictures if we have to."
"Good point. May? June?"
"May," she breathes. "Our anniversary. Mom loved doing things like that."
"May it is," he agrees, cupping her cheek. "Marry me in May, Beckett."
A grin splits her face, larger than she's smiled all day, and he knows bringing it up was the right decision.
"Only if you take me to bed right now. I want to spend more time with someone I love."
He pops off the couch, gleefully pulling her to her feet to do just that.