"Beckett, I'm starting to think my mother might be right," Castle said as he stood at the stove flipping pancakes out of the pan. He and I had been discussing the factors of a wedding for a while now and even I was sick if it. We'd gone back and forth about whether we wanted a big ceremony or a tiny one and whether we wanted to spend all that money on a venue and a dress or if we wanted to save that for our son's nursery and the medical bills and diapers and so on. At this point, I was starting to think it might just be easier to skip the wedding entirely.
I looked at him with retreating confidence and said, "I think so too. I mean, I would so much rather elope than put on a white dress with a massive pregnant belly."
Castle replied, "I'm sure you'd still look stunning in the dress, but it would be so much more simple to skip the wedding for now. I mean, we could take Alexis, my mother and your dad and just go do this tomorrow and then we could just invite everyone down to the Old Haunt to celebrate. It would be so much more simple than trying to plan around your due date."
"Yeah," I laughed, "Except Lanie would kill me for not having her there as my maid of honor and if you don't have a bachelor party, I think Espo will drive a stake through your heart."
Castle looked at me a moment and seemed insulted. "Since when did I become a vampire?"
"I don't know. Since we watched Dracula yesterday, I guess," I replied, not really paying attention and flipping the page in a magazine. "But if we're just going to city hall, I wouldn't want to bring the boys, Lanie, Alexis and our parents. I'd rather just do it alone. I mean, this is really not that big of a deal. It's just a wedding. Plus, if we hadn't done it without a condom, we'd probably still just be dating. If I weren't pregnant, we could have a big wedding. But I am, so that kind of throws everything out of wack."
Rick then continued to look at me a moment as I continued with the booklet. Finally, I moved my head off of my hand and looked at him. "You know, Kate, we don't have to get married. I mean, Cosmo won't know the difference if we get married before he's born or if he's three. It won't make that much of a difference."
I couldn't even hear him. I'd stopped listening after that name. "Cosmo? Are you serious? We are not naming our son Cosmo."
"Why not?" Rick asked, shrugging his shoulders and smiling. "It's such a cute name! He could go by Moe when he got older and in school, all of his guy friends would call him Castle anyway."
"We aren't naming our son Cosmo because we aren't naming our son after a magazine! Besides. Cosmo Castle would have been someone you know we both would have picked on in middle school and high school," I explained. He kind of seemed a little hurt by this, but I absolutely wasn't naming any child of mine after a cartoon fairy from Nickelodeon.
He then got over it and asked, "So what were you thinking?"
"Seriously, you want to get into this now. We were supposed to make decisions about the wedding tonight," I said. He was too stuck on the topic and I was far more interested in it than I was in planning anything having to do with the wedding. "Alright, well, my favorite name ever since I was a little girl has always been Alex, but I figured you already had Alexis, so- no." He nodded in agreement, so I then said, "But my second favorite name has always been Jason."
Castle just looked at me in shock and disapproval. "Like the serial killer from Halloween?"
"No," I said, slightly insulted, "But thanks for ruining the name."
"Alright, so, what about... Oh! I got it! What about Daniel!" Castle was super excited.
After this week I had to poke the whole, "No. We were just trapped in a Tiger's den. I would hate for our son to have the Lion's den story behind him."
"Well," Castle trailed, "are we looking for a unique name or a common name? Like do we want a stand up name such as John or an outside of the box name like Colby?"
"Well, John is out of the question. I have seen far too many John Does in my lifetime to want our son to have that name. But I kind of want something different, but not so different it throws people off. Like Javier is different in New York City, but no one thinks twice about it, you know?" I was trying to explain this "different name" thing to a man who named his characters Nikki Heat and Dereck Storm. Why did I have to elaborate?
He agreed and moved his head around in thought. I just sat quietly and ran through the different names I'd heard over the past few years. Most of those I'd heard in homicide, I eliminated as a choice in my mind. Everyone I put in jail was a no. I couldn't really think of a name that popped. That's when Castle asked, "What about Ryan?"
"I don't hate it," I said. "It's not bad. It's just not really unique."
Rick agreed. "Well, what about his last name. What about your last name? Were you going to change your name or keep Beckett?"
"Well, everyone's going to have to call me Beckett at the office for simplicity purposes," I said. "But I never thought about not changing my name. It seems like it would be more weird to be married and not change my name than it would be for people to use my maiden name as a nickname. Don't you think?"
He thought a moment and said, "Honestly, it's up to you. I mean, I would love to share a last name with you, but I could see why you wouldn't want to."
"Yeah, but I kind of want our mail to say 'To Detective and Mr. Castle' you know? I've always wanted to know what that feels like," I told him. It had been something I wondered about when I was a teenager getting the mail for my parents. I mean, it wasn't new or odd to me, but in my mind, that's what being married meant. You shared everything: a home, a life, a bed and, yes, a name. Whenever I was in a relationship for more than three months in high school, I would always kind of drawn my name in different handwriting styles with the boy's last name to see which looked best. I even did it on a homework assignment once and turned it in. To this day, that teacher tell every student on the first day of school, "It doesn't matter how close you and your boyfriend get. I want your legal names on your papers and that's it."
"But then you really wouldn't be able to call me Castle," he added, "Not that that's a problem. I mean, we really couldn't call each other Castle and Beckett once the baby was born anyway."
"Oh," I replied, taken off guard. I'd never thought about that. "You're right, that would be- weird."
He smiled, "Just wait. One day you'll be in the office, completely worn out and half asleep at your desk and you'll ask the boys where daddy is. Just wait."
"Sounds like heaven," I told him, running my hand over my stomach.
He went on, "And then, pretty soon we'll be picking him up from kindergarten and he'll come to the precinct to visit the boys and say hi to everyone. And, who knows, maybe by then he'll have a little brother or sister running around with him."
"I know," I stopped him. "I don't want two kids, I've only ever just wanted one."
Rick looked at me a moment and simply said, "You'll keep saying that until you change your mind. I mean- I only ever wanted one kids, but when Alexis was four, I kind of thought about adopting another little one for her to have a sibling. I never did, but I've always kind of thought it was a shame she wasn't a big sister."
"Dad," Alexis said as she descended the staircase, "It was hard enough raising you."
"Hey sweetheart! Done with your studying?" Castle said, as though he had something to hide. Both she and I looked at him strangely as he held out his arms and hugged her.
She cautiously replied, "For now. I thought I might make myself something to eat..."
"Well, why don't you pull up a chair? We've got pancakes," Rick said looking insistent, like he wasn't asking. She looked to me for an answer as to what was going on, but I simply shrugged.
"Alright," she replied, warily pulling up a seat next to me. "What were you guys talking about?"
I replied, "We're eloping."
All she could say was, "Cool. When?"
"Probably tomorrow. Maybe sometime this week," Castle replied.
Alexis nodded, "Awesome! Yeah, I thought you might do that. I figured you wouldn't want to juggle and wedding and a pregnancy. Planning all of that would be madness. Besides, you could always have a big vow renewal ceremony at your ten year anniversary. Or at your five year, if you wanted," Alexis suggest.
"True," I said, looking at Rick. "By then I wouldn't have to worry about a dress fitting over my stomach."
"Exactly," Alexis smiled.
I then turned to her and asked, "Any brilliant ideas on a baby name?" She tossed her head back and forth, thinking in the same manner her father did, and finally something clicked.
"I've always loved the name Brayden." My eyes widened and I looked at Castle. "What?" Alexis asked, feeling out of the loop.
My smile grew as his did. "I love that name," I told him, beaming in shock. My hands slid against my stomach as my thumbs and fingers rolled into my skin.
Rick looked at me with the same enthusiasm, "I do too. It's creative but not bizarre, fun but not playboy fun, boyish but masculine enough to grow up with. Plus, it wouldn't sound weird with his last name. Brayden Castle would be absolutely perfect."
Alexis then asked in the same amount of shock we were in, "Did I just name my baby brother?"
"I- think so," I replied, smiling at her.
Martha then walked through the front door. "What's all the smiling about?"
"We think we just found the baby's name," I answered, looking at her and then Alexis.
The teenager went ahead and told her, "Brayden," after I nodded for her to speak.
"Oh, how marvelous," Martha said, letting down a few bags and coming closer toward us. "That name is adorable. And thank God it's not Cosmo."
"Hey!" Castle let out in insult from behind us. We all ignored him.
The baby then moved around a bit and I could feel him in me. Looking up at the group, I said, "I think he likes it too. He just kind of spun around." Martha smiled and kind of gestured to ask if she could feel the baby. Obviously nothing was going on, but I let her.
While her hands were still on the side of my stomach, Castle told her, "By the way, we're eloping."
"Good for you!" his mother said, moving her hands away from the baby and put one around Alexis and one on her hip. "What's your father going to say about that, though?"
I scoffed a bit. Sarcastically, I said, "Well, considering he took the pregnancy announcement so well, I'm sure he'll be understanding about this." It then thought back to what he'd said when I was in the hospital and looked down at my swollen stomach a moment, I remembered him saying that and instantly didn't care what he thought about the wedding. It was my life. As long as I was happy, it should matter to him where I got married or which came first, the proposal or the pregnancy. "I honestly don't care what he thinks of it. I mean, I'd love it if he'd come, just as I'm sure Castle would agree, we'd love it if you both came, but it he doesn't approve or he simply doesn't show up, I won't really care."
"Well, you might not care, but you're his daughter. He has to forgive you," Castle told me. "Besides, I think you'd come to regret not having your father at your wedding. Even if it's just something we do down at city hall."
I looked at him with a disapproving, somewhat irritated grimace. "He called Brayden that Castle. I honestly don't think I'll care if he comes to the wedding or not. I mean, I'll invite him, but it will be up to him whether he wants to come or not."
"He'll come," Martha replied.
Castle agreed, "Absolutely."
I rolled my eyes and shook my head, "Like I said, I don't know it he will and I don't care if her does. He called my son that and hasn't talked to me since then. I honestly don't care if he's there or not." When I said this, the baby kicked me in the side. It didn't really hurt, but my hand had to rest there and kind of massage the skin to relax him. It didn't really have to, actually, it was more of something I did instinctively. While I did, Rick served up the pancakes to us all and we moved to the table. This had become something Castle insisted on us doing every night. I still hadn't moved in because my lease had another month on it, but more often than not I was at his house. He never came over anymore to eat. Instead he'd drive me home and on the two or three days a week I wasn't over there, he stayed at my place for a while. It was nice, but I was kind of sick of moving around. I couldn't wait until my lease ran out and I could officially move in. I could officially be his wife.