Hello faithful readers! Well, here we are, the final chapter of our New Year's Mystery! Who's it going to be? Let's find out!

By the time the essential party people had gathered, Castle had managed to get the condo back to its mostly rightful state. There was still all the dirty dishes in the bins waiting to be picked up by the caterers, who would do so when they were done sleeping off the thirty-first like most of the city was. He'd noticed Alexis had been all giddy when she'd finished talking to her boyfriend and could actually feel his skin crawl when she'd gotten that doe-eyed look to her face. Thankfully, she'd tucked it away as she'd dragged everyone into the office to see pictures from the night before, and Castle couldn't blame her for the privacy, as the majority of the people in those photos were three sheets to the wind and their counterparts in real life were now slightly more subdued. It was moments like that that made Castle feel more than a little guilty that he'd said 'no' to her going to Sloan's college party. Now all the so-called adults would be forever beholden to the teenager because she had what some would wonderfully refer to as 'blackmail bait' in photo form.

He wandered over when Ryan and Honey-Milk had come out of the office, shaking their heads in amusement.

'Your daughter's could make a fortune as a paparazzo, I think,' Honey-Milk told him as she zeroed in on the bar for a cold one. 'Those are some lethal shots and that's only with a little hand-held digital.'

Castle stuck his head in the office, saw Alexis powering down her laptop and trying desperately to hold back a grin. 'What are you so chipper about?'

'Nothing.'

'Nothing named Patrick?' Castle watched his daughter's colour rise, raised his hands in defeat. 'I kid, sweetheart, though not about making a pretzel out of his spine if he ever hurts you.'

'It's not Patrick, but if it's alright with you, I'd like to do a little toast when we sit down for dinner, okay?'

'Sure.'

Alexis waited until she was certain her father had gone before she pulled the notebook with her condensed notes out of one of his drawers. The mystery lady had confirmed it and even gave her permission to announce her findings like she was Sherlock Holmes in a Victorian drawing room, which made Alexis want to tap dance. Not only had her suspicion been right, but finally, finally she had some wonderful glorious dirt before pretty much everyone else did.

The key was the delivery. How would she do it without being over the top yet still have everyone's attention? Should she just come out and ask her when she was due to have the baby, like it was an already known fact? Or let her counter-simply do the talking? No, no she'd said they'd be in on it together, so that meant a little theatricality was in order. Pull a Ten Little Indians, a voice in her brain told her; of course, she thought, pick them off one by one until it was a face-off. Yes, that seemed the most logical reason to go.

Settling her nerves with a few yoga breathing exercises, Alexis walked out and saw that everyone had crowded by the buffet tables, eying up the delivered feast with the avarice of those hungover or still partly drunk. When she caught her father's eye, he called everyone's attention to her, and Alexis suddenly found herself with far too many sets of eyes focused on her for comfort.

'Something happened last night,' she began, 'that I found out about this morning, and have been desperately trying to solve the case all day, and I think I've finally done it.'

'What was it?' Meredeth asked, her arms around Esposito's waist with his hand on her shoulder.

Alexis cleared her throat, knowing there was only one way to do it. 'I found a pregnancy test in the trash. And it was positive. It belongs to someone in this room, and I think I figured out who it was.'

'Wasn't you, was it Lex?' Esposito asked earning a scathing glare from Castle.

'Watch it, pal. We're on the twelfth floor and my windows open all the way.'

'Let's just say biology tells a different story. So I know it's not mine, which leaves three other people here - Meredeth, Honey-Milk and Beckett.' Getting into things a little more now, Alexis paced back and forth in front of them like a drill sergeant inspecting his troops. 'I ruled out Meredeth because even though I know you two are really happy in love, it just doesn't feel like the right fit, you know?'

'You gotta go with your hunches,' Esposito agreed.

'So that leaves us with two. My dad's girlfriend and Mrs. Ryan, first lady of the 12th precinct. Now on the one hand, there's much photographic evidence weighing heavily in Honey-Milk's favour, but Beckett...' Alexis trailed off as she fixed her eyes on the woman who made her dad's head spin like Linda Blair's. 'Beckett you said yourself that you and my dad were working through something big in your relationship you didn't want to share with me just yet.'

Beckett swallowed deeply. 'Lex, it's not what you think-'

'Oh I know. Like I said, the photographic evidence was overwhelmingly in someone else's favour.' Alexis turned to Honey-Milk, whose smile was almost as wide as the redhead's now. 'So when is your due date?'

'August fifth. It'll be a summer-time baby,' she said with a luminously joyful grin, as she squeezed Ryan's hand and looked at everyone else. 'She cracked the case. It was mine. Ryan and I are having a baby.'

The room errupted in noise then, like a delayed bomb finally exploding. Castle and Esposito pulled Ryan in for tight, manly bear-hugs while the women - including Alexis - squealed in the way women do when women put their heads together as they bombarded the new mother-to-be with questions.

'Were you guys trying?'

'Is it for sure?

'Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?'

'Yeah it's for sure. I took the test last night after the party died down a little and when it popped positive, Ryan took me into the emergency room to get a blood panel done so we could tell you for sure tonight,' Honey-Milk explained, unconsciously rubbing a hand over her still-flat stomach. 'And here's the kicker. We crunched the numbers and it turns out the baby was conceived in the same room I took the test in.'

'In the...' Lanie trailed off as her eyes went wide, a laugh escaping her lips before she could help herself. 'Oh, no. No, you cannot be serious, girl!'

'Yep. That Hallowe'en party was magical in more ways than one, it seems.'

Alexis elbowed her way into the conversation by sheer brute force. 'So is this a good thing?'

'Yeah, I mean, we weren't trying or anything but I guess the universe has other plans for us. And I have to say,' she added, pulling Alexis in for a hug, 'I'm very impressed you put it together the way you did.'

'Well I just remembered what you said about the sushi, and when my boyfriend called and told me about his cousin, it just kinda fell into place.'

'Kinda like this.'

'Alright, alright, enough jawing, let's get this mama-to-be some eats.' Ryan came over, put his arms around Honey-Milk in a tight squeeze, who held him in place for a moment.

'There's something I'm mixed up on. If it's not a baby you've got under your hat, then what other big news do you have, Beckett?'

Beckett gave a small, almost guilty, smile as she turned to Alexis. 'Your father suggested I move in with you guys, and I told him I wanted to wait until we'd had a chance to talk about it, the three of us.'

'Oh.' Alexis didn't really know what to think about that so she chose nothing and let it slide for the moment. 'Okay then.'

'We can talk about it-'

'No it's fine, I just think we should let Ryan and Honey-Milk have their night.'

Castle reappeared then, having found yet another unopened bottle of champagne and some somewhat cleaner glasses. When he raised his glass, he grinned at his daughter.

'Well, Beckett Junior, anything you'd like to say to the parents to be?'

'Umm.' Alexis searched her thoughts but could think of only one thing. 'There's a saying that goes the more things change the more they stay the same, and I chose to believe that whoever said that meant things like babies and weddings and moving-in together happens but as long as the love is there, then nothing's changed at all. So to the stuff that never changes.'

They all clinked glasses, sipping wine and ginger-ale alike, before Alexis got a little payback on her father for the phone incident and added, 'Oh, by the way Dad, the blessed child was conceived in our bathroom. Guess that really was a happy Hallowe'en.'

The shock on his face, combined with the rose-red blush on Ryan's and the giddy amusement on Esposito's, as she drank her second glass of champagne in two days told her this next seven months of baby-watch was going to be a hell of a trip.

FIN

R&R&Enjoy!