Fertile Ground for Murder

Season 9, Episode 5

Written by Colie MacKenzie

This is a work of fiction by writers with no professional connection to ABC network's Castle. Recognizable characters are the property of Andrew Marlowe and ABC. Names, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Content Warning: This episode deals with the murder of a pregnant woman and her unborn child.

Rick startled awake, ripped from the haze of a confusing dream by the alarm shrieking next to his head. He opened his eyes, fumbled for his iPhone on the night stand to shut off the offensive noise.

Six a.m. The late October morning still lay doused in darkness, with only the street lights bathing the world in muted orange hues; the rush of the early morning traffic as the city awakened muffled by the thick panes of the soundproof windows in the loft. He stretched out his calves under the comforter, his toes, rubbed the grit from his eyes.

His wife lay curled on her side beside him, knees drawn up and her butt nestled against his hip. Warmth exuded from her body, kissing his skin through the fabric of his boxers. She slept on, her breathing deep and calm, unperturbed by the earlier racket of the alarm. He'd counted at least three times that she'd been up throughout the night to go to the bathroom, maybe four, but when she slept, she slept hard, sunk into deep, almost motionless rest. He'd forgotten about some of these first-trimester pregnancy effects until they'd set in: the constant fatigue that weighed on Kate, the frequent bathroom visits. Yet his wife soldiered through it all with her customary, unerring strength. She amazed him, every day, made his heart skip and race, and if he wasn't so in love with her already, he'd fall for her all over again.

Castle turned on his side, bracketing his body to the curve of hers, sliding an arm over her waist. His hand came to rest atop the curve of her stomach where their baby was nestled, growing by the day. The size of a lime now, so the pregnancy app proclaimed, developing reflexes and ear lobes; tiny mouth making sucking motions, little heart beating its fast rhythm. He couldn't wait to hear the sound again, that rapid, life-affirming whoosh-whoosh on the ultrasound, felt impatient to feel the signs of growing life himself, the kicks of tiny limbs against the walls of Kate's stomach.

He nuzzled his nose to her neck, inhaled her sleep-warm scent, his mouth whispering across her skin, murmuring words to bring her awake. Kate snuffled into the pillow, mumbled something unintelligible as he felt her slowly awaken. At last, she turned to her back, her eyes slowly opening and her hand sliding to join his atop her stomach. Their fingers intertwined. He leaned over to kiss her, to feel the silky softness of her lips.

"Hi sweetheart."

"Hey," she hummed, voice a little raw from disuse, and then she yawned, her body stretching, arching in the sheets. She was adorable and arousing both, the warmth in her smile when she looked up at him, her sleepy scent and the rosy hue tinted to her cheeks, the simple joys of the everyday that he tried never to take for granted. Not after everything, not after how close they had come to losing it all; so startlingly aware now of the fragility of life.

"I sleep through the alarm again?" she asked, and he nodded.

"Ugh. I could probably sleep another twelve hours and still feel tired."

He smoothed his palm along the curve of her stomach. "Just about twelve weeks now. The books say this might even out fairly soon."

"Can't wait," she smiled, eyes sinking closed at the rhythm of his caresses, a long exhale sliding from her lungs. Her midsection was so responsive to the touch, not even an arousal thing, just sensitized to every tender caress.

"Am I showing yet?" Her eyes fluttered open, her pupils dark, infinite pools in the sparse early light of dawn. Her words were wistful, and he wondered, as he so often did, what it felt like to Kate, the many emotions and changes for which she had a hard time finding the right words that could encompass the strangeness and the wonder of it all. The surreality of growing a child within her, those early weeks of constant vigilance, hyper-alert to every change, feeling symptoms and yet living with its fragility every day. The persistent worry whether everything was still okay. A baby you knew existed, in this cloudy awareness where you couldn't yet feel it even though it nestled within your own body. It was real and yet startlingly abstract at times, this process of developing new life. He was a writer, adept at imagining and empathizing with most experiences of the human condition, yet this was one he could hardly grasp.

"I can tell." With his fingertip, Castle drew a line along the barely-there roundness. "I know your body; I see the changes." Like the altered curvature of her belly, the darkened nipples and the thickening of her waistline, the healthy pink glow to her cheeks. She was so beautiful, it took his breath away.

"No one else will be able to tell yet, though," he assured her.

It was a frequent question lately, usually asked in front of the bathroom mirror as Kate scrutinized her appearance from each angle, eagerly awaiting the signs of this growing life and yet wary of a protruding curve they didn't yet wish to have to explain. With her history of trauma, they'd chosen to wait to share the news until Kate was past the twelve-week mark, too frighteningly aware of the statistics on first-time pregnancies.

"Won't have to worry about it much longer." Kate brushed her thumb across the back of his hand in an almost hypnotic rhythm that made him want to close his eyes and stay nestled in bed with her all day. "But first we have to get through tonight. Everything work out the way you wanted it?"

"Mm hm," he assured her, his thoughts still sluggish with sleep. "All set." He tucked her just a little more tightly against him, felt her shift to check her phone before she dropped it back on the nightstand. Kate turned within the bracket of his embrace, pressed her face into the crook of his neck.

"No calls yet," she murmured against his skin. "We have a few minutes."

He tightened his arms around her as she stretched out her body against the length of his, her curves soft and warm, her thigh coming up to hook over his hip. He held her while she breathed evenly against him, in and out, his thoughts drifting to visions of tiny toes and wispy infant hair and cherub cheeks nestled to Kate's milk-rounded breast.

They were accosted by Ryan and Esposito the moment they stepped off the elevator at the 12th.

"Was just about to call you, boss," Espo said, stopping before them on their way to the elevator. "Got a fresh one. You might want in on that. Press is gonna be all over it."

"Why?"

"Vic is Victoria Van Houten," Ryan said.

"Of the Park Avenue Van Houtens?" Castle exclaimed. The Van Houten family was one of the richest and well-known families of New York; old money and lineage that could, or so the legend went, be traced back as far as when New York was first settled as New Amsterdam.

"The very same," Espo confirmed.

"Shit." This was not going to be good. Kate rubbed her forehead, tried to dispel the pounding headache that lurked just behind her temples. Some days it seemed as if her body still hadn't adapted to the lack of caffeine. Her morning vanilla latte was the only caffeine she allowed herself each day, and it did little to fight off the draining fatigue that weighed on her limbs, made her feel lethargic and inattentive.

"Okay, let's go, guys." Without even setting foot in her office, she and Castle turned around, following Ryan and Espo into the elevator.