He takes the still-warm bowl from her chilly fingers, glad the ginger tea helped settle her stomach and let her eat almost all of the stew he re-heated for her. It brought a little color back to her still-too-pale face, now she just needs to keep it inside and hopefully finally get warm. It worries him, that her fingers are still so cold even though she's cuddled deep into the comfy couch, the blanket over her legs, hot tea and stew later.

He busies himself with cleaning up, washing the dishes by hand, not ready to face her, not ready to talk to her. They've barely exchanged a word while he took care of her and he's glad for it, allowing him to sort his thoughts, to just think for a moment. They have both said things earlier they regret, or, well, at least he does.

How does she always manage to drive him nuts? He never snaps so easily as he does with her, never gets so quickly agitated that he says so many things he regrets later.

Never before has he felt so raw, so insecure with any other woman. How is he supposed to raise a child with her? It's not a question of if, there is no way he wouldn't. It's his child, after all. But how much pain will it cost him? How much sorrow and heartbreak? The three years, he raised Alexis with Meredith together have been hell for him, he spent so much time alone with a newborn, while she was out 'working' or rather partying, she barely wanted anything to do with a baby, let alone him apart from ravishing him and letting him carry her off to the most exotic places she demanded. And then he walked in on her with her director. He never felt more alone in his entire life.

Beckett is certainly not Meredith. But how is he supposed to do this? Especially when he just can't get the picture of her and Demming out of his head.

How is this supposed to work? Will she move in with him? Or will they live apart and share custody from the beginning? But can he live with seeing his baby only every other day? He told her to go back to Demming – but he certainly doesn't want her to raise his child with him. Definitely not.

"Castle," she starts and he can hear from the tone of her voice that she wants to talk with him, wants to discuss things about the baby, serious stuff.

"It's late," he says instead, still in the kitchen, wiping the counter clean, not able to look at her, it's too painful to look at her, reminding him of too much. "You should go to bed, you had a long day, probably jetlag." It's barely audible, but he can hear her sigh. He knows she needs to talk, but he's not ready yet. His heart is too fragile right now, the weight on his shoulders too big. He can't do this right now.

"Come on, I'll show you where you'll sleep. When do you fly back?" He rounds the kitchen counter, hovers near, not trusting her too-weak-looking body to not pass out on her like she almost did earlier in the shower. She's never been good at taking care of herself, he always knew that, but with the added strain of the pregnancy on her body, especially in the first three months with all these changes, her usually strong body might just give out on her. But she gets up stable on her feet, slowly but without swaying and he suppresses a sigh of relief.

In heavily loaded silence, he leads her to the room Alexis slept in, hoping that at least she will find some rest because he knows he won't.

"Good night," he says, a forced smile on his lips, not meeting her eyes, and quickly turns back, but her hand on his arm stops him.

"Castle, I'm … I … It's … You … Th-Thank you," she finishes lamely and frustrated, as if she had so many words on her mind, but wasn't able to bring them past her lips. He just nods without looking back and leaves.

He's already settled in the armchair by the fire, his laptop on his legs when he finally hears her door close. When he can't sleep, he can at least spend the time writing, making Gina happy by finishing the promised chapters, before she has to threaten to kill him again.

If only his mind would be able to focus on anything other than Beckett hopefully sleeping only a few meters away and the bomb she dropped on him. His mind wanders off to Bond and the 'cool' lifestyle he chose. Beautiful woman, no strings attached, even if he had pretty questionable relationships with all the women he had. Wasn't he lonely? He never asked himself that as a child, he always just admired him, always wanted to be as cool as him. Fancy cars and gadgets, fighting against the toughest cases, the most beautiful woman instantly falling for him? Hell yes, that sounded like fun.

But now? After two failed marriages, a teenage daughter, and more money than he could've ever dreamt of he doesn't admire Bond's lifestyle so much anymore, he rather pities him. Relationships are complicated, love hurts, but would he be better off without it?

Oh, wow, he's in a really brooding mood right now. But maybe he can use it for one of the Bonds he's supposed to write. Bond had so many affairs, what if one brought up a child he suddenly had to deal with? Maybe already grown up and resenting him so much that he becomes his next nemesis? Or he needs to protect his child against the bad in all the world. Maybe someone abducted it to get to him and that's how he learns that he's a father? It definitely would be an interesting twist.

Yeah, maybe that's something he can work with.

He opens a new document and starts typing his thoughts out randomly, thinking about a rough outline, a timeline, a handful of enemies, and a new beautiful woman, who works together with Bond to save their child. And before he knew it, he had already written the first four chapters, making Gina really happy this time. At least for now. Hopefully, since it's not the book he's supposed to write just yet. Yeah, well, maybe she'll kill him after all for making her work more complicated when he messes around with the deadlines.

But he better get a lot of work done before the baby will be there. When will the baby come? Summer? July, probably?

Shit, he's going to be a father again, with a woman who has been on his mind every day for the past six months straight, not a single day has passed that he hasn't thought about her, dreaming about her, about them. Without realizing it, he pulled out his phone and opened the picture again, his mother sent him ten days ago. Beckett and Alexis cuddled together on the couch, his heart aching again for this reality, this future. If only he knew how to make it possible.

"Where did you get that?" An upset voice suddenly says next to him, making him flinch so hard, he almost drops his laptop and his phone at once.

"Beckett?! What the hell? You scared me. I thought you were sleeping. It's … four in the morning." He makes the mistake of looking at her, her mussed hair, the soft t-shirt that hangs from her rigid shoulders, her overly tired yet awfully awake eyes, making his heart ache with worry about her and longing to pull her into his arms and helping her sleep. "Did you sleep at all?"

She doesn't answer, instead flops on the couch, drapes her arm over her eyes, her lips pressed to a thin line. He takes that as a no.

"Nauseous again? Want me to make you some tea?" She groans irritated, shakes her head, then drops her arm and looks at him.

"I want to talk, Castle. I need to talk." Heaviness weighs on Castle's chest, pressing down on him. She might need to talk, but he doesn't. He quickly puts his laptop aside, stands up, tries to get away from her. "Castle, please. I know that I messed up. But I want to do this with you and nobody else." He pauses, presses his fingers against the bridge of his nose, sighs shakily, refusing to look at her, her overly tired face still haunting him.

"I've done this once already, Beckett. It ended badly. We already started badly. How worse will it get if you decide to do this with me only to see that it's yet another mistake?" His voice is barely a whisper, his filter switched off, he's too tired, too troubled to hold any of it back. "It's really late, we should get back to bed before one of us says something we can't take back."

"You are not a mistake," she says, her voice clear and determined, almost fierce, it brings him to finally look at her and see the same things he heard in her voice in her eyes, in her face. "I don't regret a single thing from our night. The only thing I do regret is the way I left and behaved afterwards. And there is not a single day where I wish I could go back and change it." She closes the distance between them, slowly as if she'd advance a wild, scared animal. She probably is.

"I only let Demming come so close to me because I saw how jealous it made you. It gave me hope that our night meant more to you than Paula's text made me believe. I didn't want him to kiss me, I pushed him away, but you were already gone. He kissed wrong. His coffee was wrong. That you weren't there anymore was wrong. I missed you every single day. With every new case, I wanted to call you. With every new lead, every new information, I wanted to discuss it with you. Build theory with you. I missed you so much that I showed up at your loft, I wanted to talk to you so badly that I completely forgot that you're on your book tour. But I had a lovely evening with Alexis and a beautiful morning with a family breakfast that made me yearn for more.

"That was all before I even thought I might be pregnant. I wanted to call you every day but I didn't know what to say, how to apologize, how to explain. I wanted to talk to you in person. Then I found out that I was pregnant. And yes, this is why I am here now. But it's not the reason I am here. You are."

Her words leave him trembling, averting his eyes again, not able to hold her firm gaze. They fill him with hope and fear, with warmth and cold at the same time. He desperately wants to believe her, wants to go to her, pull her in his arms, and never let her go again – with a intensity that scares him even more.

"I want to raise this baby with you, as a family. Not with shared custody, Rick." And with that, the fear outweighs the hope. The baby, of course, it's all about the baby. She wants to raise the baby as a family. And oh, how much he wants that, too. He can see them do it together. Raise the baby as a family. Have family dinners and family breakfasts. Dance around the loft together, chase tiny little feet …

"I need time," is all he says then, and leaves the room as fast as he can, almost runs away from her and her alluring words, the hope she wakes in him. Damn, what's wrong with him? Why can't he just accept her apology? He wants it so bad and yet is too scared and hurt at the same time to do something about it. Maybe he really just needs time. Maybe time will help.