Sorry, this chapter took a little longer. I had a lot of stuff to do for uni and right now I'm visiting my mother and struggeld to find time to rework this chapter. But here it is! Thank you for the feedback on the previous chapter and I hope you enjoy this one!
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When Monday arrived and they both headed back to the precinct both of them were relieved to be facing an overall quiet week. Castle, for his part, was glad because it meant it would keep Kate and their baby out of danger. And even though Kate considered that a plus, too, what made her happy the most was that she could go home on time every night and collapse onto the couch or head straight to bed.
She still felt like the pregnancy was draining every last bit of energy from her body, and the nausea didn't seem to get any better either. To her, the days felt long, and she often struggled to concentrate. She was grateful when Castle covered for her more than once when she lost track in an interrogation.
That wasn't something she was used to at all, and it bothered her immensely that her brain didn't seem to work as it used to. She really hoped that would get better again as soon as the first bumpy weeks had passed and she could think about something other than sleep and avoiding eating again.
But on the other hand, it showed her what a good team Castle and she made. She had known that before, but seeing once more that she could always rely on him, no matter the situation, eased her anxiety about how she would make it through the upcoming months and the time after.
Still, she wished she had someone to talk about her concerns apart from Castle. But she still refused to tell anyone else and often found herself longing for her mom. She did her best to try to not let it drag her down, but once in while she couldn't hold back a couple of tears. Convincing herself that it was partly her hormones going crazy that made her feel so emotional, she let them flow and somehow, it helped.
Another great support was Martha, and Kate was glad that at least their family knew what was going on, so she didn't have to pretend anything around them because doing it at work was hard enough. Martha's assurances that Kate would soon feel a lot better and more stable again were a silver lining of hope she clung to.
Unfortunately, it seemed like it had to get worse before it got better.
They had made it to Friday, and all Kate wished for was for the day to pass fast so they could head home for the weekend. The exhaustion and nausea were easier to handle when she didn't have the responsibilities of work hovering over her for most of the day.
So, when it came close to 4 pm, and she was already counting down the minutes, she was highly irritated when Captain Gates popped her head out of her office and ordered her to go to an interrogation of an old lady who couldn't make it to the precinct and lived over an hour out of town.
With a deep frown, she gathered her things and the file and grumbled something under her breath as she started for the elevator. At least they wouldn't have to fear any harm from an 86-year-old lady.
Castle followed her to the car park and felt sincerely sorry for her. He knew how desperately she needed a break. Having eyed her cautiously for the whole week, he considered bringing up the option of telling Captain Gates again. But he was sure Kate wouldn't want it, so he kept the idea to himself for now and decided to keep an eye on her so he could see when it became too much for her.
They got into the car, Kate was quiet and seemed focused, which was probably a strategy to distract herself from the way she was feeling. They drove out of the thick traffic of the city, and soon, the streets started to clear and become broader, leading them through the suburban neighborhoods that looked so calm and peaceful in comparison to the chaos of the city they were used to.
While Kate steered the car, her eyes firmly on the road, Castle looked out of the window and let his gaze wander over the houses and gardens they passed by. For a moment he caught a glance of a little boy, maybe four years old, sitting on a swing in his front yard while his slightly older brother stood behind him, pushing him on the swing while they both laughed. The view made Castle smile.
"You know," he said cutting through the silence of the car while he kept looking out of the window. "Maybe we could move to a little more quiet neighborhood. Have a nice, big garden with a jungle gym and all that stuff." He turned to Kate with a wide smirk. "Maybe we could get a dog!"
When he looked at her, her jaw was clenched, and her forehead shimmered with a thin layer of sweat.
"Kate, are you..." He started but before he got a chance to finish his question she abruptly pulled the car to side of the road and stopped it, causing him to fall forward in his seat and into the seatbelt. Before he could even realize what was happening, she shoved open her car door, jumped out, and hurried around the car to the side of the road.
For a moment, he stared at her, his jaw slightly dropped in surprise, but then he started moving and got out of the car to quickly walk to her side. He gathered up her hair and placed a gentle hand on her back while she emptied her stomach to the side of the road, one of her hands tightly holding on to the white picket fence beside her. Cautiously, he eyed around, hoping no one would come storming out of their house to see what was going on at the edge of their property.
When Kate's gagging slowly eased off, he drew small circles to her back with his palm and mumbled, "You could have just said that you rather want to stay in the city."
She replied with an incoherent grumble that sounded quite irritated, and a little smile cracked on his lips.
"Alright, not the right time for jokes, I see. But hey, a couple of times, you said you could just throw up to feel a little better. Did it work?"
With a groan, Kate slowly straightened up, and Castle released her hair to pull a tissue out of his pocket and handed it to her. The moment she lifted it to wipe her mouth, she bent over once more, and Castle quickly pulled her hair out of the way again.
"Apparently not." He said, his voice full of compassion. He waited for her to take a couple of deep breaths before she finally managed to lift her head, wipe her mouth, and slowly make her way back to the car.
He stayed close behind her, ready to catch her in case she might lose her balance, but Kate made it to the car on wobbly legs and held on to the frame of the open door of the passenger side.
"It's the car drive." She stated, her voice flat and hoarse. "All the bumps in the road and theā¦" She stopped as she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, the thought alone sending new waves of nausea crashing down on her.
Castle nodded understandingly. "Do you think you can drive?" He asked carefully, knowing that even after six years, an engagement ring on her finger, and a baby in her belly, that still was a delicate question for him to ask.
Kate shook her head and wordlessly got into the passenger seat. Trying to hide the surprise on his face, Castle walked around the car to the driver's side and got in.
"Okay." He mumbled and started to adjust the seat while Kate sat beside him, her head resting against the seat, and her eyes closed. She looked miserable.
Slowly, he reached out and placed his hand on hers, but she hardly moved, just whispered, "I thought it was supposed to get better."
Castle smirked and was glad she couldn't see it. He gently squeezed her hand and softly said, "I guess that will take a couple more weeks."
Kate grunted, and with another smile, Castle pulled his hand away and started the car. For the last twenty minutes of the ride, Kate remained in her position in the passenger seat, doing her best to keep it together and concentrating on not thinking about the fact that they would have to drive the whole way back, too.
When they arrived, she needed a few more minutes with an open window, breathing in the cold air, to feel stable enough to make it through the interrogation. Her frustration only deepened when the information the lady had to offer turned out to be not of any use at all. So they had made the complete trip for nothing.
Reluctantly, Kate got back into the car, heading directly for the passenger seat. The only good news was that since they hadn't learned anything important, she could put off her paperwork until Monday so that they could head home straight away.
Before Castle started the car, Kate pulled an empty evidence bag from the glove compartment. She preferred to be prepared for the way back.
It cost her a lot of effort, but somehow, she managed to make it back home without having to throw up again. Still, she felt terrible when Castle held the door of the loft open for her to walk through. Carelessly, she let her bag drop to the floor and wordlessly accepted Castle's help in taking off her coat.
He hung it in the closet for her while she walked over to the couch, collapsing onto it. Lying down, she drew her arm over her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. God, she was glad this week was over. To think she would have to face more like this one, or even worse ones, let a little groan escape her lips.
She heard Castle's footsteps coming closer but didn't move one muscle, feeling too exhausted and fearing every small movement could destroy the manageable state she had gotten the nausea into.
His hand came to lay on her knee as he sat down at her feet and quietly said, "Is there anything I can do for you?"
It took her a second to force herself to answer. "No." She whispered. "Thank you."
Castle remained still, sitting by her side and looking at her pale face, mostly covered by her arm. He felt a little helpless and wished he could make it easier for her in some way. It seemed like they both had underestimated the effects of a pregnancy a little.
The thought crossed his mind how good it would work to combine her job with the way she was feeling, supposed it would stay like this or get even worse. At some point they would have to talk about how they wanted to deal with her stepping out of work for a while anyway.
But looking at her, he was sure that right now wasn't a good time to bring that matter up. He just sincerely hoped it would get a little easier soon.
Over the weekend Castle did his best to make sure she could recover as much as possible. To his relief her throwing up had actually seemed to be caused by the car ride, because in the two following days she was back to feeling nauseous but at least she didn't have to throw up and could even get some of the food he offered her down.
Now that she knew that throwing up didn't make her feel better at all and didn't mean any kind of relief, Kate was glad about that, too. Still she hoped the nauseous phase would come to an end soon. Especially since it was so hard to hide when she was at the precinct.
She figured it probably worked in her favor that she worked surrounded by men who didn't pay too much attention to the slight shifts in her behavior that most women would have probably long noticed. Whenever she had to visit Lanie at the morgue, Kate carefully put her mask in place before entering the room, as if the smell didn't bother her at all.
It seemed to work, and Lanie hadn't noticed by now, but afterward, she always needed a couple of minutes out in the fresh air to settle her stomach again. What was more difficult to deal with were Lanie's repeated attempts to plan a girl's night that Kate tried to avoid.
For one reason Kate couldn't imagine how she should possibly make it past 8:30 pm without passing out on the dinner table, and the other reason was that she was sure Lanie would understand what was going on the second she would deny a drink.
But since she still didn't feel comfortable telling people, at least for a little while longer, Kate had to find new excuses every time Lanie asked. But after another week - it hadn't been worse than the one before, but it also hadn't been much better - she was running out of ways to explain why she wouldn't meet Lanie after work.
So, she made the decision to exclude Lanie from her rule of not telling people until after the twelfth week. But to calm herself, she still wanted to wait for her appointment on Monday. She would be almost ten weeks along then and had convinced herself, looking up statistics of miscarriages, that ten weeks would be safe enough to tell her best friend.
When Castle had caught her reading those statistics he had grabbed the phone from her hand and had made her swear she wouldn't drive herself crazy with online research. But when Kate had explained to him that that wasn't what she was intending to do and instead opened up to him that she wanted to tell Lanie after her appointment, he was relieved.
Still, he made sure that she stuck to her word by glancing over her shoulder once in a while when she stared at her phone and was happy to see she really kept her promise. What made him smile was when he saw her looking through a website that sold nursery furniture. It felt so good to see her relax a little more with every passing day, even when her symptoms were still torturing her most of the time.
But when they sat at her doctor's office again on late Monday afternoon, Kate was already wearing the not-very-flattering hospital gown; she wasn't relaxed anymore. And even though he wasn't as half as anxious as he had been the last time they had been here, he wasn't relaxed either. He couldn't remember that he had ever felt that way when Meredith had been pregnant with Alexis.
But then, he had also joined her in only two of her appointments far towards the end of the pregnancy. He had been so busy with himself at that time that he had hardly given a thought to the baby they had been expecting. He had simply assumed everything would be fine and the only thing he had to figure out was how to be a father.
But this time, it was so very different. He knew what it was like to be a father, even though he expected this experience to be completely different from the one he had with Alexis. But he looked forward to it, especially to the part where he wouldn't be a single parent and would actually experience what it would be like to live as a family. The thought made his heart race with joyful anticipation.
But since this pregnancy and this baby had started out in a completely different situation than Alexis had, his feelings were also very different. His thoughts circled around this little person in Kate's belly almost all of the time. And when he wasn't thinking about it, he was thinking about her and how he wanted her to feel better and be happy.
Though there was no doubt that she was happy, she let him know that all the time, even when she was feeling miserable. And he had no doubt she loved this baby just as much as he did or thought about it any less. Her concern and how her hand often came to lay on her stomach, even though it was still as flat as it had always been, were proof enough for him.
So it wasn't surprising that she seemed to be just as relieved as him when the appointment turned out just as good as the first one. The baby had grown perfectly on track and was even two days ahead of its time. And instead of a little peanut, they got to see something that looked like a gummy bear, and when the doctor held the ultrasound wand still for a while, they were even able to see the tiny dots that would become arms and legs wiggle a little.
It was a mesmerizing view. Castle was thrilled that he was allowed to film a bit of the ultrasound. He couldn't wait to get home and show it to the rest of the family, and soon, he was sure he would proudly present it to everyone he knew, no matter if they wanted to see it or not. He could recall very few occasions when he had ever felt this proud.
Kate happily took the pictures the doctor printed for them and was glad it were a couple more so she would have something to show Lanie. When they made it home and showed Martha the video and the new pictures, she was barely able to hold back her tears of joy. Kate crawled into bed before it was even 8 pm. The day had been emotional and exhausting, and she knew the next one would probably be too.
Before she went to sleep, she texted Lanie to ask if she wanted to meet the next day. Lanie replied in a matter of seconds, stating that it was about time and that she had already started to get worried. She suggested going out for dinner and maybe a few drinks, but Kate asked her if she would be okay with a cozy evening at Lanie's place, cooking and maybe watching a movie.
By the way, Lanie's reply took her a moment longer, she could tell that her friend was surprised or even a little bit suspicious at her request, but it didn't matter anymore, so Kate didn't care. Lanie agreed and they decided Kate would come over around 7 p.m., bringing something to cook.
As she placed her phone on her nightstand and turned off the light, Kate thought that she would have to find something to cook she would actually be able to eat. The last couple of weeks, she had survived on crackers, dry noodles, and toast. That didn't seem like something Lanie would be happy with.
With a smile, she thought that it probably wouldn't matter; she wouldn't be able to keep her mouth shut until she got to the cooking. Thinking about finally getting to share her secret with someone else, especially someone who meant that much to her, made her feel happy and made it all feel much more real.
Her hand found its way to her abdomen like it did so often now. There wasn't really something there to feel yet, but that didn't change the feeling it caused when her fingers grazed over the spot where she knew her baby was growing.
With another smile, she thought about how she couldn't wait for the day when she could start to feel the little bump underneath her palm. And as she slowly drifted off to sleep, images of Castle's hand running over a clearly visible baby bump formed in her mind and let her fall asleep with smile on her face.
