Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you so much for your follows and reviews and all! It made me smile and inspired me to write chapter 2. I have a quick note:I was actually planning on it being a girl but I might do a boy or maybe make her have twins, a girl and a boy or something like that. I honestly don't know because I feel like that's several chapters away. I'm not planning on spending the entire fanfic on her pregnancy; I really wanted to show what it might be like for her to have a kid/ kids in some of the important times in her life. Thank you again! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Do you really think things have changed? Well just in case, I don't own Castle or the characters.

Kate was happy to see that Anna wasn't in their dorm when she got back from her appointment. She didn't really feel like talking to her. She dropped her bag on her bed, since she wasn't going to be there long, and went into the bathroom. In her haste that morning she hadn't done much to her hair and she definitely hadn't put on any makeup. Since her mother's death she really only wore makeup for those parties she went to but today she felt an urge to wear it for class too. Besides, she was going to go out with Lanie, the nurse, later and this would save her some time this evening.

After brushing on light foundation, some mascara, and eyeliner she took her hair out of the ponytail she had done earlier and began to brush it out. She kept her hair short but it could still get out of hand. She tried to brush it for a good five minutes before giving up and redoing her ponytail. She walked out of the bathroom and went to grab her bag again. She checked the time: 10:45, not enough time to grab lunch. Well that would have to wait until after class at 11. She left her dorm, locking the door behind her.

Kate had changed her major from pre-law to Criminal Justice that semester. Her classes were interesting and a lot more fun than they had been in pre-law but still, it was school. Plus she was preoccupied with the millions of questions she had. Other than the fact that you got fat and everything ached and you ate weird food she didn't know much about pregnancy. She was also worried about how people would react to her telling them about it. Needless to say she didn't really get much out of class that day. She asked the person next to her, who was in several of her classes and was pretty nice, if she could borrow her notes. The girl, Cassidy, was happy to oblige.

After class she decided she needed food. She realized that she hadn't eaten all day and was starved. Kate went to her default, Chick-fil-A. That and Chinese was what she automatically went to when trying to find somewhere to eat out, there were just so many microwaveable meals you could stand.

She barely knew where she was going, good thing she knew her way around this area by heart. Her head swam with all of the questions and concerns she had. The doctor had given her an overview of what was to happen but not the details. She needed details. How long is it going to be before I get the proverbial baby bump? When am I going to start eating weird stuff? How long can I keep this from everyone? These questions went on repeat in her head while she ordered her chicken sandwich and ate.

After eating she went to the library, in search of answers. She knew she could probably find some books on pregnancy and check them out to study. She didn't know what to expect, and she hated no knowing things. When she got to the right section she rolled her eyes at the first title she saw: What to expect when you're expecting. No way, she was going to look for something else. She found a book titled The First 3 Months. She picked it up and took it to the counter. Luckily the librarian had learned not to pay close attention to the titles. The old woman, who had checked out In Hail of Bullets the previous night, quickly scanned the book and gave it back to Kate. Kate gave the librarian her student ID and let her scan it as well. Kate quickly shoved the book in her bag and left.

Her day job was at a local boutique as a cashier. The small shop didn't get a ton of business, which left plenty of time for Kate to read. She purposefully put the book on her lap and made sure the cover was hidden. If she didn't want her roommate to know she definitely didn't want a random customer to know.

She read the first section about conception and the first few weeks, up until morning sickness at week six or seven or so. She figured she was about 4 weeks along. It was about that long ago she had done it with the douche college guy. So she had 3 weeks before she started throwing up, fabulous. After reading about all the things that were bound to happen to her body just in the next couple of weeks she was starting to despise the guy that knocked her up.

It's not like she had hated the guy she slept with, she had liked him a little. She just didn't like him enough to sleep with him, but she had been drunk and not thinking straight. She met him that night and let him get to second base. In all honesty it was probably mostly her fault. She was the one that had gotten drunk and let him get to second base, his body had done what was natural and she hadn't been thinking well enough to use protection.

Well there was no changing it now, she had made a decision and now she had to deal with the consequences. Unfortunately, the consequences apparently included bloating, cramps and nausea in the coming weeks. And that was just the first trimester.

Kate put the book back in her bag and checked her watch. Her shift was finally over and she could leave. She notified her boss and left. When she got outside she hailed a cab. Her dorm was just a little too far to walk to. She gave the address and sat back to enjoy the ride, that was difficult though because like many taxis in New York City this one was filled with the smell of cigarettes and air fresheners, to cover up the smell of cigarettes.

She got to her dorm and immediately grabbed the phone to call Lanie, referring to the number written on her hand. The aspiring ME picked up on the second ring. "Lanie Parish," she answered, it came out like a question.

"Hey Lanie, its Kate," Kate said.

"Kate Beckett?" Lanie asked.

"Yes, is now a bad time?" Kate said nervously, she really had her heart set on talking tonight.

"No of course not, so you want to go out tonight?" Lanie asked.

"Sure, you mind some place casual, like Remy's?" Kate asked, resorting to the burger place she had eaten at a couple of times.

"Sounds great, see you in half an hour?" Lanie said.

"Yeah see you then," Kate said and hung up. She quickly touched up her makeup and her hair and got ready to go. Remy's was a good way from her dorm.

Kate got to the diner a little early and ordered some coffee, decaf. She had heard something about caffeine being bad during pregnancy so she made sure to order decaf. She sipped it and checked her watch, Lanie still had 5 minutes. She didn't want to seem too eager but she really needed to talk to someone about the worry and uncertain she felt.

She didn't have to wait long before the familiar ding of the entry alarm sounded and she saw Lanie walked through the door. Lanie immediately spotted Kate in the mostly empty diner and walked over to her booth and sat down, signaling to the waitress to bring coffee. "Decaf or regular?" the waitress asked.

"Regular," she said then looked at Kate with a friendly smile "Already switching to decaf huh?"

"Better be safe than sorry," Kate said smiling sheepishly "So thank you so much for meeting me to talk. I just have one question. Why? Why are you so willing to help me? You barely know me."

"To be honest I don't know. I guess it's because I can't imagine what I would do in your situation, I mean we're about the same age. I'm going through med school now and if this were to happen to me I don't know if I would be able to do it. I would definitely want someone there to help me. Don't you have someone you could talk to?"

Kate looked down at this. She tried to decide how much to say and how much to leave out. She had just met this woman and didn't really want to give her whole life story.

The waitress came and gave Lanie her coffee. "What would you like to eat you two?" The waitress asked and got out her pad of paper to write on.

"Hamburger and fries please," Lanie said.

"Same thank you," Kate said looking up briefly before turning her head back down to study her cup of coffee. The waitress wrote down their orders and left throwing them a smile. Lanie looked at Kate expectantly once the waitress had gone.

"Not really, my roommate isn't really there for me. She wouldn't be able to help me in this situation. My mom and dad aren't really there either and the guy that knocked me up would probably just say 'you're on your own,'" She said.

"What about the guy who knocked you up, why are you so sure he would automatically say you're on your own? Maybe he could surprise you."

"I don't think so. I just want to save myself from getting my hopes up and then getting disappointed. What I'm really worried about is how I'm going to support this kid. Because there's no way in hell I'm getting an abortion or giving the kid up for adoption." Kate said sipping her coffee.

"You have a job right?" Lanie asked.

"Yeah, but it doesn't really pay enough to support a kid. I can pay rent and buy some food and go out every now and then but I don't think it would be enough to be able to pay for all the stuff a kid needs. Just starting to think about it is making my head spin," she said putting her head in her hands.

"Hey, don't think about everything you have to do all at once, it'll over whelm you," Lanie said putting her hand on Kate's arm "Just take it one step at a time. You'll be able to do it."

"How do you know that? How can you know if I'll be able to take care of a kid and go to school and work?" Kate asked, these were just some of the many questions she had swimming around in her head.

"Because if you take it one step at a time you can do anything," Lanie said reaching into the bag she was carrying and bringing out a pad of paper "Here, write down some of the things you think you need to do before you have the kid."

Kate gave her a confused look "Why?"

"If you have a written list of the things you need to do you can take it one step at a time and cross things off as you go," Lanie said shoving the pad of paper and a pen across the table to Kate.

Kate took it and tried to think of things. "Um, I think I would need separate housing since I would have a kid," she said writing it down on the pad of paper.

"Good, you don't have to worry about that until the spring, when you apply for student housing," Lanie said. Kate smiled at this, there's one thing she didn't have to worry about yet.

"I would need to get a crib and blankets and clothes and stuff," she said writing down 'get supplies.'

"Another thing you wouldn't have to worry about for a while," Lanie added.

"Get new clothing, since I'm going to get fat," Kate said with a frown. She wrote it down and gave Lanie a glare when she laughed.

"Sorry, but again something you won't have to worry about for another couple of months. See? You don't have to get much or do a ton for another couple of months. And even then you can take it as you go. Right now all you have to worry about is telling people and of course, morning sickness," Lanie said.

"Ugh," Kate groaned dramatically and put her head down on the table. Lanie laughed at her and she ended up laughing too.

The waitress arrived with their food and set it down, telling them to enjoy. They dig in and start talking to get to know each other. They talk about their favorite bands and how awkward their high school years were, Kate tells Lanie about her wild child phase and her nerd phase towards the end of high school. They also talk about which was harder, pre-med or pre-law, Lanie ended up winning saying that pre-med had you more stressed.

Kate was feeling much better after talking with Lanie. It helped her get her mind off of what was to come. She had been obsessing all day and it felt good to confide in someone and let them help you a little. She felt much better about all the stuff that came with parenthood, content to take Lanie's advice and take things one at a time and try not to let them overwhelm her.

In the next weeks she noticed all of the signs that she read about in her book: fatigue, bloating, mood swings and eventually morning sickness. Anna just thought she was on her period or something, not even noticing when she had morning sickness. She passed it off as being sick and nothing more, Sherlock Holmes she was not. This was lucky for Kate though, she was a little worried that Anna would find out on her own without Kate telling her. She really wanted to keep it a secret from everyone for as long as possible. She didn't even tell her dad.

Kate was torn when it came to telling her dad. She wanted to tell him because she felt like he had a right to know but she was also worried because he was an alcoholic and might react a little dramatically. Especially when she told him she wasn't getting married to the guy and she would raise the kid on her own. He probably would have reacted a little dramatically even if he was sober but drunk, he might get upset and start yelling. He was in no way a violent drunk; he was just a loud one. He would start yelling and lash out at Kate over the phone for things she didn't do. Things like her mother's murder, he wasn't blaming her he was just angry and had no one to vent with so he would vent with her. He would yell that it wasn't fair and that the world was out to get him.

She could only imagine what would happen if he yelled at her for something she had done. She didn't need that right now, she was still trying to forgive herself. She knew she needed to forgive herself before the kid came along or else she would blame the kid for it and lash out at him like her dad lashed out at her. And that was in no way healthy for the kid or her.

She ultimately decided that she wouldn't tell him, yet. She wasn't sure when she would, maybe when he got sober. But for now she was content to make the decision to wait, she had other things to deal with. Things like balancing morning sickness and school.

Her morning sickness subsided a little after a week and she was able to eat something without throwing up but sometimes kids brought food into class and she couldn't stand it and had to leave. Kate had always had a strong stomach and she thought that that would count for something with morning sickness but no such luck. The smell of her favorite food, Chinese, sent her reeling to the trashcan.

She called Lanie about every 3 days, usually to complain about how horrible being pregnant was. And if Kate didn't call, Lanie would. Lanie usually talked about the horrors that she saw in her work at the hospital. It was like untold horrors of the ER but in the normal hospital. She had to start keeping it as minimally graphic as possible though because of Kate's sensitive stomach.

The two became pretty close. In the three weeks since their first dinner together they went for coffee twice and lunch once. They pretty much met on a weekly basis. At their lunch/ coffee meetings they would talk about her pregnancy in more of a planning capacity than a complaining one. They talked about names a lot as well as what gender she wanted it to be. Lanie thought it would be cute if she had a little boy but Kate had her heart set on a girl.

"Well you'll find out the gender in about 8 weeks," Lanie said at their lunch that week.

"Do I really have to wait that long? Don't they do ultrasounds earlier?" Kate asked.

"They do one to determine your due date and check the heartbeat and check for abnormalities at about 11 weeks but you can't tell the gender until about 16 weeks," Lanie said smiling at Kate's impatience.

"Ugh, I wish there was some way to hurry this along."

"Are you excited to be a mom or something?"

"More like I don't want to get fat and have everything ache, oh and there's the horrible pain I'll have to go through to get the kid out of me," Kate said playing with the food on her plate.

"Trust me it will all be worth it," Lanie said reassuringly, putting her hand on Kate's arm to stop her nervous movement.

"How can you know? What if I'm horrible, what if I can't handle having a kid and screw everything up?" Kate says getting a little worked up; expressing some of the fears she's been carrying for a few weeks.

"You'll be fine, you'll have me to help you and trust me, if you could handle pre-law, you can handle a kid," Lanie joked.

Kate smiled and quipped back "I thought you said pre-med was worse than pre-law."

Lanie smiled as well. "You'll be able to do this, you'll be great, if you're stressing this much just thinking about it I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to do anything without thinking about whether it was good for the baby or not."

Kate sighed in submission "Okay, hey Lanie?"

"Yeah," Lanie asked.

"Thanks for being there for me," Kate said smiling warmly.

"Of course, what are friends for?" The girls smiled and continued their meal.

Kate left and went back to her dorm. Anna was there studying and eating. She looked up when Kate walked in.

"Hey, how was your lunch?" she asked genuinely wondering. Since Kate had 'fallen ill' a week ago she had begun to show genuine concern for Kate, which was odd.

"It was good. Studying in the middle of the day?" Kate asked a little surprised at both her question and that she was in fact studying.

"Yeah, my parents are cracking down on my grades so not as many wild parties. Are you feeling alright today? You haven't gotten sick today have you?" Anna said keeping the attention on Kate.

"Yeah, I'm feeling pretty good, I think the stomach bug is subsiding some," Kate said brushing it off.

"That's good, I wouldn't want to get it," Anna said returning to the massive textbook on her lap.

And there's the old Anna Kate thought as she grabbed her shoulder bag and went back out for class.

Unfortunately morning sickness didn't go away but just got worse. In the three weeks before her first ultrasound Kate found herself being sick all day, never really getting rid of nausea. She threw up at least twice a day and even had to take a couple days off because she felt so bad. She tried looking for answers as to how long it would last but the answer always seemed to be 'it varies,' which pissed Kate off more than anything. Her mood swings got pretty bad too; one minute she was joking with Anna about school and the next she was giving her the silent treatment for not getting more shampoo for the bathroom. Anna, again, didn't see much to it and passed it off as PMS.

Kate was getting sick and tired of being sick and tired. She decided that at her next visit with the gynecologist she would ask the doctor if it would get any better any time soon. She did have school and work she had to attend.

Four weeks is plenty for morning sickness and she just wanted life to return to normal. She knew, though, that life was never going to be 'normal' again. She wasn't really frightened by that anymore, thanks to Lanie, but it did make her think about all the things that would be different after the next 7 months.

A/N: So it took me a while to write this because of the conversation with Lanie. I did want to address the fact that Lanie was so willing to meet with her and talk to her about her problems. I also didn't want it to seem like they became best friends all of a sudden but I think I kind of failed. Oh well, this works. You'll notice I summarized 3 weeks of the pregnancy. I didn't want to describe everything in extreme detail because that would be kind of boring. I'll hit the highlights and all because the pregnancy really isn't the main thing in the story, it'll be her life with kid/kids. I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with this chapter. I hope you liked it. Review?