Author's Note:
Hey loves! So this is really my first real attempt at a fanfic. There were two Castle fics I wrote as a teenager but we're not counting those because they were horrendous haha! So I don't really know what I'm doing with uploading to FanFiction, if there are any mistakes I apologize in advance. I also kinda think the ending of this one could've been better if I worked on it more, but it's what we're going with. Thank you to anyone that reads, I truly appreciate it. The usual disclaimer: I am not affiliated with or own "Castle" or any of the character used in this story. All credit for their creation goes to Andrew W. Marlowe & Terri Edda Miller.
He startles awake at a pillow hitting him square in the face.
"What?! What happened? Where's the fire?!" He yells, bolting upright and looking around for imminent danger.
"Dad!"
Castle frantically scans the room for a few seconds more before his focus finally lands on Alexis, who is standing at the side of his bed, looking at him with hands on her hips and an expression she could have only inherited from her grandmother. It scares him sometimes how much they differ, yet how scarily alike they are in so many ways.
"Dad, why the hell is Beckett sleeping on the couch?"
Castle's expression quickly changes from fear at the way his daughter is staring him down, to confusion when he comprehends what Alexis had asked him. He turns to look at his wife's side of the bed, finding it empty; and finally, his expression lands on sympathy. He closes his eyes & sighs to himself before looking back to Alexis.
"I'll come get her."
Castle emerges from his office moments later, a robe tied around his frame. He stops just outside of the office door when he gets a glimpse of his pregnant wife asleep on their couch with a blanket around her waist. She looks so peaceful that for a moment he debates waking her, especially since it appears to be the first real bout of sleep she's gotten in the last 48 hours.
She's early still. Barely three months, but it's felt like a lifetime to her already. She's spent quite a bit of time when they're at home transitioning from the floor of the bathroom to the couch, or their bed, and before long being right back to kneeling on the floor by the toilet.
Sighing again, Castle approaches after a few beats and kneels in front of where she's laying on the couch. Gently, he brushes a few strands of hair out of her face and waits for her as she stirs awake.
"Hey." He says, tilting his head, looking at her with all the love and affection one could possibly muster. Castle plays with her hair while her eyes meet his and she greets him with one of her famous Kate Beckett smiles that made it oh so easy for him to fall in love with her, a smile that she reserves only for him.
"Mmm, morning." She closes her eyes again, still a little too heavy with sleep to keep them open very long.
"Why aren't you in bed?"
Kate pulls up the arm that's not under the pillow she's laying on and uses it to prop her head up a little more, making eye contact a bit more comfortable. "I had to puke two more times in the night. Didn't want to keep waking you."
Castle gives her a questioning look that also contains a slight bit of amusement.
"So you decided to sleep on the couch when we have a perfectly good bed in the guest room upstairs?"
"S'comfy" Kate answers with a shrug of her shoulders.
Castle shifts from where he's still kneeling in front of the couch, into a more comfortable sitting position.
His expression turns serious again. He gives his wife a tentative smile then looks down to where he's absentmindedly brushing his fingertips in a small pattern up her arm, then back down. After about a minute, he looks back to Kate, who's been watching him the whole time.
"I was serious before. When we talked. I meant what I said about wanting to do my part in this, Kate. You're the one having to do the grunt work; the physical changes to your body, being so sick & exhausted all the time. The least I can do is get up with you at night & hold your hair back. I really don't mind. Besides…" A signature Castle goofy look creeps onto his face & he shrugs. "I like to think about it as practice for when baby's actually here and we're really up all hours of the night."
A smile makes its way to her face but she remains quiet. Taking in his response and wondering how in the world she was so lucky to end up with this man. This selfless, loving man who has an absolute knack for one minute being so sappy it almost melts her heart and then the very next he's making a comical remark that she can only try (but always fails miserably) to hide her amusement from with a smirk and a shake of her head.
She doesn't realize at first, only catches herself a minute later, that she's gotten lost in picturing memories of the last several weeks. Memories of telling him about the baby; how excited he was, how emotional he was, and how attentive he's been ever since. How he's constantly asking her if she's okay or if she needs anything. And she found it endearing & sweet at first, she really did, but when he started asking her by the hour, in true Castle fashion he started to get on her nerves a little. She's had to resort a couple times to threatening to shoot him if he asks her again one more time for the day. And somehow he doesn't doubt lately that she may actually go through with it.
When she does finally catch herself in the memories she realizes Castle is still staring at her with "love eyeballs", a term she only recently learned of from none other than the writer himself.
He always looks so enamored with her when he's studying her and the man never misses a single detail; like the glimmer in her eyes when she's thinking of something that makes her happy, the way her nose slightly crinkles and the creases that frame her mouth become more prominent when she smiles — Her smile. Oh her smile. He's never been able to control the one of his own that absentmindedly takes over his face every time he sees even the slightest uptick of the corners of her mouth.
"Whatcha thinking about?"
A gentle smile comes over her face when she gathers her thoughts enough to respond. "The baby. Us. That I couldn't be more thankful, or lucky to be doing this with you."She reaches toward him, brushing some fallen curls away from his forehead. "Thank you." She continues with her thought when she meets his eyes again, she'd been tracking the movement her hand made when fixing his hair. "Thank you for being so doting and attentive and willing to help…Even though it really does make me want to shoot you sometimes."
He can't help but show his amusement with a smile and a silent laugh.
"It's my job." His comment is followed by a shrug.
"I know. But thank you."
He gives her that look again, the look he's given her about three times already today, and this third time definitely won't be the last. He's been looking at her like that so often lately — like she hung the stars in his sky.
And if he didn't think he could possibly fall any more in love with her after they got married, then he was sorely mistaken. Seeing how much she already loves their baby and is so quickly becoming the kind of mother he always knew she would be just takes his breath away.
She's found so much joy lately in talking to the baby — which Kate is absolutely convinced is a girl. He catches her frequently telling their baby all kinds of stories of everyone they know and love. Everyone that will be special in the baby's life.
And he loves more than anything how protective she already is. The night she told him the news he quickly realized why she had been keeping her hand on her belly when they slept recently. He should have put two and two together earlier, but didn't. He smiles to himself every night when he sees her still doing it.
Sometimes he truly just has to sit and stare at her and digest everything because it still blows him away that his life —their life —actually turned out the way he'd longed for for so long. And thankfully she has become more tolerant of his staring over the years (and she'd never admit it, not out loud. She wouldn't let him have the satisfaction that easily, but they both know that she doesn't just tolerate it, she enjoys it) but he's glad because he finds himself doing it more and more these days.
"C'mon." Castle lays a hand on Kate's forearm, rubbing a small area of her skin there, in a line, side to side with his thumb. "Come to bed. You need to sleep somewhere comfortable, with room to move and spread out, and personally I'd prefer that somewhere be next to me."
He stands from his place on the floor and presses a kiss to her head on the way up. He offers Kate a hand to help her sit up which she gladly takes.
"Ya know, I almost died this morning. I was almost smothered. Alexis almost smothered me with a pillow."
From where she's been sitting silently at the kitchen bar the whole time, Alexis looks over her shoulder, throwing Castle the same glare she woke him up with not even a hour ago. "I didn't smother you. I threw a pillow at your face because you wouldn't wake up."
Kate rolls her eyes at Castle's unsurprising exaggeration but when she looks up at him and makes eye contact she has to bite the inside of her lip to try to suppress her laughter and shakes her head. "Thanks for having my back bud." Kate says with intent for Alexis, but never looking away from her husband.
Kate's the one to hold her hand out this time, signaling for Castle to help her up, and he does so without missing a beat.
Once she's standing he removes his hand from hers and moves to rest it on her bicep. He leans into her space and kisses her on the forehead. She lets her eyes fall closed and gathers a small portion of his t-shirt at his chest in her hand. When he pulls out of the kiss she glances up at him with an adoring smile and that glimmer in her eyes & she speaks so softly it's almost a whisper. "I love you."
She waits until he responds, not even needing to guess what he'll say. She just knows. But she waits. Then she's taking one of his hands, interlocking their fingers and starts to lead him back to their room.
There's a few moments of silence as they walk through the office before Kate speaks up.
"Babe? You know how you keep asking me if there's anything you can do for me?"
"Mhmm."
"When you said it, did you really mean anything?"
"Of course." Castle responds with pep in his voice, but his voice contains a hint of skepticism about what she's about to ask of him.
"Well…you know, I've been thinking and there is one thing that I really wouldn't mind."
"Oh?" Castle raises his eyebrows and pulls back the comforter to climb into bed, waiting for Kate to do the same. She makes her way next to him, pulling the covers over her lap. Once she's settled she turns to him with a sort of mischievous smile."
"A foot rub."
And he happy obliges.