AN: OK, so this chapter is not what it should be. But I've labored over it long enough. After this experiment, I think I can say humor probably isn't my strong suit. But I have to move along or I'll never get to post the last couple of chapters. Apologies, dear reader.
It's no longer dark outside the next time a visitor disrupts the sanctity of the fourth floor. It's a hair past the start of approved visiting hours, and Lanie's promise to give the Castle clan a lazy, uninterrupted morning is proven to be rubbish. Times three. Ryan and Esposito are close on Lanie's heels with a tray full of lattes and a greasy wax paper sack.
When Lanie breaches the door of room 413, she is met with a mishmash chorus of gentle snoring. Kate is drooling into her pillow. A pleasant surprise, Jim Beckett is dozing in a Naugahyde recliner up next to his daughter, apparently arrived direct from the cabin in a rumpled flannel shirt. Castle and Alexis are lumped together in an oblivious knot on the sofa.
The latest Castle baby is, unlike the adults, completely awake, his little face turned toward the far window where a faint shaft of light pierces the room. His tiny fingers, uncoordinated though they are, strain toward the beam where it cuts across his bassinet like a physical object.
It's wrong. She knows it's wrong. But Lanie Parish, MD, woman of action, cannot bring herself to withdraw and let them snooze. And besides, if Ethan is awake, it will be only minutes before he's wet enough or hungry enough to rouse them all anyway. Actually, she's doing the little guy a favor, waking up the grownups for him. Score one for Aunt Lanie.
She casts a commanding look at her taggers on, who are lined up along the wall by Beckett's bed, still holding their wares. Esposito is a little mortified that they're here, this early, en mass, and in the company of Ryan, who has been jabbering like a tree monkey for the last 35 minutes and looks right now like he might burst at the seams with the force off too much restrained joy. Lanie rolls her eyes and nods at Ryan as she squeezes out a generous portion of the hospital-quality hand sanitizer from the wall-mounted dispenser by the door. Let Ryan wake up the woman who carries a gun for a living. If Beckett kills anybody, it might as well be him.
Ryan unwinds his scarf in the warmth of the room, and the wax paper bag he's holding crinkles at a decibel level roughly on par with a canon shot. "Dude!" Esposito mouths the word, soundlessly laying the tray of coffees on the table at the foot of Kate's bed. Ryan rolls his eyes. Ridiculous man.
"Beckett," Ryan begins on a whisper, ignoring the dirty look Esposito is still giving him.
Nothing.
"Beeeeeckeeeeeeet," he sings.
"Go. Away." The power of Beckett's order falls flat, being as it's spoken almost face first into her pillow.
"Hey there, boss!" Ryan crows.
Beckett grunts and pushes away from the pillow. "I'm gonna kick-"
"Cute kid, Beckett," Ryan declares after flicking on the light over Kate's bed. "He has your ears."
His boss squints in the light and mutters something that sounds a lot like good luck solving your own murder. Ryan smiles broadly, an insubordinate twinkle in his too-blue eyes.
Beckett squints back at him in the glare from the florescent light. Jerk. She stretches out and kicks Ryan in the gut, albeit anemically, with a sock-clad foot. "There better be at least two bear claws in that bag."
"Six," Esposito whispers, tipping Ryan's paper bag his own direction to open it and take inventory of the selection. "And two Bismarks and a sour cream doughnut and a some glazed and chocolate frosted, and couple of walnut maple coffee bars and-" he wrinkles his nose, "- something with strawberry frosting and pink sugar sprinkles."
Lanie, who has been studying the nurses' scrawl on the little white board by the door, spins on a kitten heel and pokes Esposito in the chest, hard. "Javier Esposito, I don't care what my best good girlfriend pushed out of you know where. You give away my pink doughnut and we're going to have words."
Espo scowls. His wife of one year volleys back a military-grade raised eyebrow. A retort shrivels and dies on the tip of his tongue.
Across the room, Castle stirs and buries a single word in a yawn behind his hand. "Haaaaaaawwwhipped."
Espo refocuses his dirty look on Castle. "Laugh it up Writer Boy," he warns in his normal speaking voice. His, snotty, affronted, normal speaking voice. "There's nada in this bag for you."
Alexis, not entirely awake, rolls of her father's shoulder and face-plants unceremoniously on the opposite arm of the sofa. "If you didn't bring me coffee, you are not my friends."
"She's right, hand over the bean," Castle agrees, waving Kevin over. "We didn't sleep until after three. Why are you here?"
Kevin inspects the coffee carrier, plucking our a caramel macchiato and a mint mocha, and slips past Lanie to hand them off to the occupants of the sofa. "Because you love us and can't imagine not sharing this incredible, life-changing, life-affirming moment with us," Ryan insists, making no effort to bite back his smile. "And because we carpool and the good doctor has three stiffs on the slab and this was the only time she thought she'd get by here today."
"Oh, don't blame this all on me, Irish," Lanie counters "You were on my doorstep at ten 'til six, bouncing like Christmas morning."
Ryan shrugs and turns to get a better look at little Ethan in his crib. "I deny nothing." Then turning to the occupants of the sofa," "Dude, you're all..." Ryan waves a hand over the back of his head. "Like a Chia pet."
"I have morning breath, too, sunshine." Castle blows an exaggerated kiss, and Ryan waves it away, giggling like a little girl. Like a hyper, seven-year old little girl.
Alexis groans, scraping her hair back. "Both of you. Shut up."
"I want my baby," Lanie declares, stepping around the foot of the bed to where little Ethan is swaddled in the bassinet. Jim, playing possum thus far, squints up at his daughter's best friend. Lanie smiles too sweetly at him. "Jim, get your skinny butt outta that chair, I have business to attend to."
Javi snorts, pleased beyond all measure to see his wife bossing around any man other than him.
"I, uh, I'll just..." Jim waves toward the bathroom door and excuses himself.
Lanie scoops the baby up and settles in the chair. Ethan, delighted to be freed from the bassinet, coos as Lanie rubs noses with him.
Kate groans and scoots up in bed until she can rest mostly upright against her pillows. "You wake us all up at an unholy hour," she starts, ticking off on her fingers. "You insult my husband's hair. You boss around my aging father-"
"I heard that!" Jim interjects from behind the bathroom door.
Kate rolls her eyes. "-and all I have to say about that is Where. Is. MY. Coffee."
"Oh!" Ryan exclaims, charging over to take another cup from the carrier and presenting it with a flourish.
"Now that's how you treat a new mother," Beckett grunts out, tipping back the venti cup.
Javi shoots his partner approximately the fiftieth dirty look of the morning. "Suck up."
Ryan cannot stop smiling. He's intimately acquainted with the snuggles and tears and sleeplessness and spit-up of a newborn, thanks to one Ms. Erin Marie Ryan,. Nothing short of geothermal nuclear war will dampen the thrill of seeing other people he loves losing as much sleep as he has. He carries around the bakery bag, expertly doling out the breakfast goods, even making a good guess when he hands the just emerged Jim an Americano and a coffee bar. Jim hums happily in approval.
Castle and daughter wearily slurp down their coffees, waiting for Ryan to turn their way with the pastries.
"This. Is. Decaf."
Every man in the room freezes, including Ethan, whose wrinkly little fingers pause in the air, inches from the bright slash of Lanie's chunky silver necklace. Alexis rolls her eyes and crams another petal off her sour cream doughnut into her mouth. Only Lanie has the guts to reply, and very frankly, at that, tossing a nod in the direction of the yellow, breast pump contraption in the corner behind Kate's bed.
"You're baby's on the boob, girl. If you want this kid to sleep at all, it's decaf and chamomile tea for the duration. When you want real coffee, think about your sleep, and your boobs, and say no."
"Boobs," Ryan echoes earnestly.
Jim starts to laa-laaa-laaa around a mouthful of his pastry, trying to plug his ears, and hold a coffee cup and his breakfast at the same time. Kate mutters death threats from behind the hand covering her face.
"You should be grateful fancy pants over there was so thoughtful," Lanie adds.
Espo clears his throat in disgust as his partner preens, grins impossibly wider and tugs on the bottom of his very stylish vest.
"I have a baby, you know. I know stuff. Baby stuff," Ryan insists, looking around to make sure everyone is listening. "Jenny drank a cup of leaded the day after we got home from the hospital and we didn't sleep for two days. Two daaaaayyyyysssss." Ryan nods at Beckett, an air of solemnity about him as the thumps the lid of her cup, nodding. "Decaf."
Be it the new-found evils of coffee, or Ryan's almost manic state, she's not entirely sure, but either way, Kate's coffee cup lands on the bedside table with a thud and a splash.
Lanie balances the newborn in one arm and a pink sprinkle special in the other. "Baby boy, your momma is going to be so grumpy without her coffee. Really grumpy. A total harpy, in fact. But it won't last forever."
"Lanie!" Kate threatens.
"Really, Lanie?" Castle joins her.
Lanie's head rotates like something out of a Blatty film and pins Castle with the glare she's reserved so far for her husband. "Shut up, coffee pimp. Remember, that the baby and the caffeine DTs are both your doing."
Castle gapes, fish-mouthed, no reply forthcoming. Alexis, Esposito and Jim snort in stereo, and Ryan's smile threatens to split his face wide open.
Kate has lost all control of the room. It is too early for this. She loves them. Really. But they need to go.
All of them.
Right now.
She looks around, desperate for some excuse. And finds one right in front of her.
"Wow, I really need to change these nursing pads," Kate declares, pulling out the neckline so she can look down the front of her gown. She's not even sorry when Esposito gags and spits a stream of vanilla latte across her blanket.
"Oh! Jenny found this place online where you can order organically-grown cotton ones that are washable. She was having this chafinmmmf-"
Rick shoots his wife an alarmed look as Javi, with the precision of a man trained to kill, divests his partner of the bakery bag, throws it on the counter, and shoves Ryan to the door with a hand clamped over the man's mouth. The phrase "baby-related verbal diarrhea" echoes out in the hall, where Ryan is being marched away under threat of bodily harm. In Spanish.
Jim wheels on Lanie. "He shouldn't be carrying a gun in that condition."
"He's usually OK by his third cup of coffee," Lanie assures Kate's father. "And if it gets really out of hand, Javi has a buddy in the K-9 unit with a tranquilizer gun."
Lanie kisses her new little acquaintance on the forehead and lays him gently in Kate's lap "Still, since I'd rather not have to autopsy somebody I know, I'd better get moving." And to her best friend, "Kate, that boy is a treasure, and I'm going to spoil him stone cold rotten. Just you wait and see!"
Slinging her purse and coat over her arm, Lanie plucks her chai latte from the cardboard carrier with a flourish and breezes out the door. Her heels click away down the hall, and as abruptly as they arrived, they are gone.
Blissfully, blessedly gone.
Kate takes a deep, cleansing breath. It's quiet but for Ethan's smacking and gurgling, the other adults too shell-shocked to speak. She gives them all a minute to recover, reveling in the quiet, but eventually nature intervenes.
"I really need to pee. And I need to try to feed him. And I need bear claw. In that order."
