Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

The expectant parents are lolling on the sofa. "You're at thirteen weeks," Castle says, massaging Beckett's left foot. "Second trimester is underway, so why don't we start talking about names?"

"Uhrngah," Beckett answers, and sighs wearily. "You have me under your spell and you just want to get me to agree to some insane name that I won't be allowed to change. You probably have a contract all ready for me to sign while I'm delirious over what you're doing to my feet."

"Really, Beckett. I can't believe that you'd say such a thing. Although I like your idea of a contract. Very devious." He tugs on her foot. "A pre-pop contract."

"Pre-pop? What the hell is that?" She shifts a little, and raises her head.

"An agreement on a name before the baby pops out. Pre-pop."

"I don't think this baby is just going to pop out, Castle. That's not the way it works."

"I'm not just going to pop out? How am I getting out of here, anyway? What do I have to do? Do I have to dig? I can. I have fingers. And you know what? A little while ago when I was hanging around I saw that I've got fingerprints now. That's so cool. Unless I become a criminal. Just kidding!"

"No contract then. I just thought it would be nice to refer to our offspring by something more specific than 'the baby'."

"But we don't know the gender," Beckett says, poking his thigh with her big toe, "so how can we refer to the baby by name?"

"We can hyphenate it for now, girl-boy, boy-girl—call it Katherine-Richard, Richard-Katherine, like that—or alternate. One week we use a girl's name, next week a boy's."

"That's too complicated, Castle."

"You're the one who loves complicated."

She gives him a soft kick, and chuckles. "Okay, okay. I get your point. Let's look at some girls' names."

Castle fishes his phone from his pocket. "I'm glad you mentioned that. I just happen to have a list of the ten most popular names for baby girls born in New York City last year."*

Beckett props herself up on her elbows. "Really? You have that?"

"Be prepared, Beckett."

"Right, your motto. I know. I'm going to sit up because this requires complete concentration and I don't want you hypnotizing me with your massage techniques." She pushes herself up and rests her feet against the coffee table. "You haven't already chosen one, have you?"

"Of course not. I was waiting for you. I haven't even looked at this list yet. So, number one—um." He rushes ahead, panic in his eyes. "Number two, Isabella. Number three, Emma—"

"Hey, go back. What about number one?"

"Never mind."

"What? How bad is it?"

"You have no idea."

She grabs his phone. "Let me see that. Sophia? Sophia is at the top? Are you kidding me? No child of mine is having the same name as your, your previous muse. And traitor. And murderer."

Castle reaches over and takes his phone back before she can hurl it to its doom against the wall. "Do you want to hear the rest of the list?"

"Wait, I want to hear about Sophia, not the rest of the dumb list. Was she Dad's girlfriend? Dad had a girlfriend before Mom and she killed people?"

Beckett crosses her arms and slouches grumpily against the back of the sofa. "Sure, go ahead."

"Number four, Olivia. Number five, Mia. Six, Emily. Seven, Leah. Eight." Castle is suddenly overcome by a coughing fit. "Gotta get water," he croaks, and runs to the kitchen.

When he hasn't returned after a couple of minutes, Beckett is puzzled. She's about to go after him when he emerges with two bottles of water. "Are you all right?"

"Fine, just had a tickle." He sits down again and says, "Here, have some water. Okay, finishing up: number nine, Madison, and ten, Chloe."

"Uh-uh."

"You don't like any of them? I'm kind of partial to Olivia."

"Uh-uh as in you left one out. What's eight, Castle?"

"You won't believe it," he says, looking vaguely guilty, as if he were complicit in selecting the names.

"Yeah?" She narrows her eyes. "Try me."

"Yeah, Dad, try her. This could be fun."

"You know how you don't believe in coincidence? Fate? Lightning striking twice?"

She's staring at him in words of one syllable. "Yes."

He'd rather not, but he knows he has no choice. He swallows. "Sofia."

"What?" And she's off the sofa. "The same name twice? How is that possible?"

"It's the F, Beckett. Sofia with an F instead of a PH. The first one was S-O-P-H-I-A. This one's S-O-F-I-A."

"Give me that phone, Castle."

He passes it to her. She depresses the off button far harder than necessary and returns the phone to him.

"You know that that didn't delete the list, right?"

"Yes, but at least I don't have to see it now. Why are we looking at it, anyway? We don't want to give our baby a name that thousands of other people in the city gave theirs."

"Yeah. I don't want to share my name with a bunch of other kids in my kindergarten class."

Castle pulls her down to him and wraps his arm around her shoulder. "I thought it was a good starting point. And a good elimination one, too, so we could be sure we weren't unintentionally following a name trend. Do you have some ideas?"

"I dunno. Something soft, like Susannah or Charlotte."

"How about Serendipity?"

"Attaboy, Castle," she says, laughing at last and squeezing his knee. "We'll name her after your favorite ice-cream parlor."

"Not that! Someone will start calling me Dip. I'm the one who's getting stuck with this name for the next hundred years. Don't I get a vote?"

TBC

A/N *I didn't make this up: it's the real list, for the year ending 12/31/13. Next: boys' names. Thank you for listening in to the baby talk.