Close Encounters 25
When he heads for the subway stairs, the wind catches his leather portfolio, snatches it up like a sail.
The artist's sketches are protected inside, of course, but he can't help feeling that gut-clench of panic: don't let them escape, don't take them from me.
Kate closed the journal and curled up on her side around it, closing her eyes.
She hadn't known how much she'd needed that today. Wasn't even a full scene; he had stopped somewhere in the middle of the Artist heading for his job interview, but she'd needed it.
She was tired, and she hated being tired - she was tired of being tired. Everything was out of her control and every time she thought she was being so good, doing the right thing, there was something that got dropped.
Just like the man in his story. She was trying to do the right thing here, trying to sacrifice her own need to push on through in order to give Castle what he needed - her safe. Her alive.
But the wind kept snatching her portfolio.
She just wanted everything to be right again. She just wanted to be - to be his partner again.
That was really all she had ever wanted, even in the days before she had known Agent Castle, when he wasn't on her radar and she was a girl fighting her way through the Police Academy - being his partner was what, without words for it, she had been made for.
All she was now... were sketches in a notebook, caught by the wind, threatening to scatter.
"Dad. What are you doing here?"
Her father chuckled and reached out for James, took him straight from her arms in the foyer. "You're not supposed to be carrying him. And hello to you too."
"Not supposed - how did you know?" she muttered, frowning at her father as he came in through the door. He shut it after him, hugging James close as the baby babbled in his face.
"Rick called me, of course."
Of course.
"Logan said you failed a stress test," her dad went on.
"I didn't fail it," she muttered. "I just... couldn't complete it. According to the heart monitor, but I swear I felt fine."
"You always are," Castle interrupted. He was coming through the living room with Sasha at his heels, and the dog slunk forward to greet Jim. Castle gave her a look; he knew she'd been carrying James. He turned to her father. "Logan said no heavy lifting. Until her heart muscle... until we're sure there hasn't been any permanent damage. Kate."
"Whatever," she muttered. "It was just to the door."
"Well, I'm here for a couple hours so you can sleep and Castle can head to his meeting."
She shot Castle a scathing look. "I don't need to sleep. I can take-"
"No. You can't," he snapped back. "Don't make me fucking order you to go upstairs. Just do it."
For a second, all three of them - four, even James - were poised breathlessly in the foyer. Kate stared at Castle as he glared at her, but all of his anger dissolved in seconds and he was wiping a hand down his face and turning away from her.
She watched leave wordlessly, his shoulders hunched, and then she heard the back door open again and slam shut. Sasha twined between Kate's legs and she reached automatically for the dog's head, scratching behind her ears.
"Well," her father said carefully. "Let's - uh - at least sit down."
Kate leaned back against the wall, her legs suddenly shaky, felt herself sink right down to the floor. Her dad let out a startled noise and moved to grab her, but she waved him off with a hand, bowing her head to her knees.
"I'm okay. I'm okay."
"Katie." She heard the frustrated note to his voice but she didn't look up at him. James was apparently trying to get down, and her father bent over; she saw her son in the sliver between her raised knees and then he was pulling up on her.
He clutched her jeans and grunted at her, wriggled his warm little body between her torso and drawn up thighs. She stayed there, dropping her arms to loop around him, leaning in to brush a kiss at his forehead.
"Mum-muh," he babbled. "Daddy. Daddy. Daddy."
"Yeah, you got it," she whispered. "Daddy is mad at me." And his worry over her was like a weight pressing her down.
She hadn't failed the stress test. She just hadn't had the energy to complete it; it wasn't that her heart was weak, it was that her damn muscles were.
The heart is a muscle, Logan had said. It's not because I drew blood this morning.
Yes, it was. Yes, it was.
She was fine; she wasn't - it was a relatively minor setback compared to being starved to death in Russia for thirteen days, compared to having a sickly predator attack her and take a chunk of her arm, compared to lying in filth and black darkness with every last reserve just gone.
Gone.
This was a fucking walk in the park.
"You want to get up now, Katie, or are you just going to sit there until Castle gets back inside and sees-"
"Shit," she muttered. "Help me up."
"I'll take him, first. James, come on. Get off your mama."
James was playing peek-a-boo in her shirt with the dog and wasn't at all interested in being dislodged. She had to peel his fingers from the straps of her bra where he'd clung, and then her father reached down and lifted him away. James kicked, whined at them both, but when her father set the kid down next to Sasha, he went for the dog, hanging on to her collar and standing.
"So pleased, aren't you?" she told him. "Okay, Dad. Help me up." She lifted her hands and her dad grabbed them and pulled.
She came up easily and James tilted his head back to look, grinning. Sasha was staying perfectly still, a good dog, her ears cocked back in attention towards James.
Kate glanced at her father, then the little boy grinning at her, then to the windows looking out over the back yard. She knew that Castle wanted her upstairs and in bed, but that just wasn't her.
She was going to be smart; of course she was. But she'd made these choices and they had at least led her back here, if a little damaged, a little battered. She'd known full well, probably had known better than Castle, and if this was the price for her son's beaming face and his cuddles and even his whining temper, then she'd pay the price again.
"I need to talk to Castle," she sighed. "Dad, will you-?"
"I've got the little wolf," he said quickly. "But are you sure?"
"No," she muttered. "But he's not getting away with it either."
She headed for the back door and her husband's foul mood.
Castle stiffened when he heard the door, but he didn't run. He felt like it, damn it all, but he wouldn't run.
Whatever she said, he deserved, and whatever he said, well. She might deserve that too.
Instead of words, he got two arms sliding around him from behind and the press of her body against his back. His shoulders went down immediately, an instinctive response, and he gathered her hands in his, squeezing her fingers.
"Please don't yell at me about this," she said quietly. "I'm not completely irresponsible with my health."
He begged to differ. "You failed the stress test. Your blood pressure is too low-"
"My ECG was fine," she interrupted. "Castle, I spent the last week flat on my back, barely eating. I didn't have the strength to complete the damn test."
He gritted his teeth.
"Getting mad at me won't make me take it easy. Getting mad at me only pisses me off and then I try to prove myself by-"
"You're trying to kill me," he groaned.
"Don't say that." She hugged him a little harder, still talking into his shoulder blade.
"You have low blood pressure and your ECG wasn't fine - not the whole time."
"It ended up with normal rhythm and-"
"Please don't argue with me about this. Logan is a medical professional and he's the one who gave you the restrictions."
She was silent at his back and he let out a breath, drawing her arms tighter around him, tugging.
"No lifting anything over ten pounds. Limited physical therapy. Back on the prenatal vitamins-"
"I know," she said darkly. "I heard."
Then fucking listen. But he didn't say that; he swallowed it back. She had nearly died, and part of him was just still so damn grateful she was here to be stubborn and stupid about it that he had to resist the urge to fall at her feet and bury his face in her thighs.
No. She wasn't getting her way on this.
"Three months, huh?"
"For a gunshot wound - it's standard recovery time in the CIA."
"And it just happens to be how long Logan said I should be on restrictions," she murmured.
He tensed.
"You do realize," she kept going, "how that sounds to me?"
"Like punishment?"
She grunted and he heard the amusement in it. "Punishment, yes. And also conspiracy. Why did Logan come back to our house after doing the bloodwork and give me a damn stress test? Because you knew I couldn't finish it, and technically I'd fail. You knew that, Castle."
He didn't say anything, and she withdrew her arms, untangling from his fingers. He sighed and dropped his hands but she was coming around his front.
"You set me up to fail. Just so you could put me in bed for the next three months."
He tried a smile, knew it was crooked and lame. "I always want you in bed," he said half-heartedly.
"And I want to punch you," she snapped. Her eyes closed and she shook her head. "No. I just - want you to talk to me. Stop making decisions for me."
"I'm a damn bully; I already know. But you-"
"No," she said, holding up a hand. "I understand that you were scared out of your mind. I've been there, Castle; I've watched you die and me helpless to do anything. Okay? I know that bleak - bleak... I know. But that doesn't mean you get to order my life, order our life around fear."
"It's not-"
"Don't," she husked. "Don't pretend."
He swallowed.
"You've been dreaming," she told him.
Damn it. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"You didn't. It was a guess. You just confirmed it."
Fucking hell, sometimes it was so not cool to have a detective as a wife.
"Have you slept at all?" she said. "Because this morning I found you in the baby's room with James asleep on your chest and Sasha asleep on top of your feet, and you wide awake."
"I've slept enough."
She nodded and her fists loosened. "I'm going to choose to believe you, Rick, because I know you're not stupid. Because the regimen does stuff, and that's probably true. But please come back to bed."
He sighed. He just - couldn't do that. Not yet. "I will," he offered. Soon. Soon. He just needed to not be lying down, awake, his mind spinning.
She sighed back. "I need you to stop yelling at me. And start talking to me. We'll make these decisions together, okay?"
"You won't pick him up."
Kate shot him a look. "It's completely bogus-"
"It's not completely bogus. I watched your heart stop, Kate. I watched my father jab a needle into your ribs - watched damn Colin Hunt shock you with the paddles in the back of that ambulance. It's not bogus. You can't strain your heart."
Her jaw worked, a flash of anger that he knew she was trying not to let loose. So what. He'd withstand it; he could withstand anything.
She was alive. She was alive to be pissed at him, and he'd take it.
"I won't - I'll do my best not to pick him up. If there's - an emergency, if he - you know what I mean."
Yeah, he did. And he knew it was the best he'd get out of her. "Okay."
"And I'll keep to the couch, let you fetch for me," she added.
He grunted.
She wasn't smiling, but he could tell that she was trying. "But physical therapy? How about we say training instead?"
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Training?"
"Limited training," she promised. "Get me back in fighting shape."
Fighting shape. He didn't like that.
"If the Collective knows, then I have to-"
"Okay," he cracked. Shit. "Okay. Fighting shape. I - I get it."
She nodded. She didn't even look triumphant, just wary. Weary. She looked tired and she was outside in the cold April trying to soothe him.
"Let's get you inside," he muttered, turning for the door, trying to herd her. Kate sidestepped him with a look, a hand held up to stop him.
"No. Let's finish this."
He scowled at her.
"What are we telling the Director?" she said. "You're meeting with him in two hours. I know you used that sleeplessness to think of something."
He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, realized too late that he was feeling defensive. "I - I'm going to tell him that we went after Black on our own, with asset intel that proved to be true. And that in the resulting... melee, Black got away. And you were shot."
Kate closed her eyes, then opened them again. "We're going to face censure for that."
He hoped so. Three months suspension, most likely, which would keep her at home. The Director tended to do that, fit the punishment around the naturally occurring events - like her 'recovery' from a gunshot wound.
"We will," he admitted.
"I feel like you're setting me up again."
"I might be."
Kate gritted her teeth and then lifted her hand to his, waiting. He took it, squeezing, and then she led him out of the cold backyard and into the house again.
He took it for unspoken agreement.
"Damn it, Agent Castle."
Castle kept quiet, hands clasped behind his back, his eyes forward. The Director stood and slammed his chair into his desk, came around to where Castle stood at attention.
"Walk with me, Richard."
Castle turned on his heel and followed the Director out of his office and down the hallway. The DC complex was rolling and vast, attached to the Smithsonian and deep underground for the most part. Castle thought he could still detect the faint trace of dirt in the recycled and purified air, this far below the surface.
"What am I going to do with you two, Richard?"
"What you deem necessary, sir," he responded.
The Director snorted and turned to look at him, but gestured for Castle to follow. They moved into a operations room, one of many on this floor no doubt, and Castle was suddenly privileged to a variety of open black ops that he most likely shouldn't know at all.
He kept his eyes on the Director.
The older man rubbed a hand down his chin and nodded towards the monitors. "We have 649 active sites. Did you know that, son? We have over three thousand assets - people being run by people just like you. And you're telling me that Mason had some unnamed source - that Mason in turn called you with that code - and you and Beckett chased a lead across the ocean with a six month old at home?"
"Yes, sir. Exactly that."
"You don't think I'm stupid, do you?"
Castle narrowed his eyes, refused to be cowed. "No, sir. But maybe I haven't made it clear to you what my father is capable of-"
"I have been apprised," the Director said shortly. His eyes glittered when he looked at Castle. "Programs within programs, black ops funding diverted for his own uses, attempted assassination of your wife. I know what he's done, but damn it, Richard, you can't go off on some damn wild goose chase."
Castle stayed silent. There was nothing to say to that.
"I know you, Richard. You want to handle it yourself, your own kind of justice. But I can't let you do that. Ordinarily, I'd look the other way - and don't you fucking dare quote me on that. But this man has CIA secrets he's spread all around the damn globe. Plugging the leak is only half the mission."
"Yes, sir," he said at the pause. It was required of him.
"No more jaunts across Europe. You see now, don't you?"
"I see," he offered.
"As a man with two boys, a father myself, I'm also going to offer you this - don't leave your son without a parent."
Castle froze.
"Don't be unapproachable, Richard. Don't turn him into you."
Fucking hell. "No, sir. Not happening. Beckett wouldn't let me."
"Good for her." The Director sighed and rubbed his hands together. "Well, you know I have to do this. You're suspended, effective immediately. Agent Beckett is suspended, effective immediately. We'll have a hearing in a week - she can send you as her proxy. Three-month suspension, Richard, and don't expect the hearing to clear you of it. It's a damn mark in your files, and fucking hell, Richard, the oversight panel could strip you of your command. You want that?"
"No, sir. I do not. Three months, sir."
The Director narrowed his eyes at him, but he waved a hand in dismissal. Castle nodded and moved away, heading back out to the hallway. He made fast work of the exit security and then he was back inside the Smithsonian, another tourist in a suit, before he found himself on the sidewalk.
He had a plane to New York in two hours and he had a fresh three-month suspension, a mark on his record and Beckett's too, and the threat of losing his post.
He was damn relieved.
On the plane, he fell asleep.
He hadn't meant to. He should never have let down his guard like that. But the relief of that suspension and the altitude, the feeling of gravity dragging at his guts during take off had done something to him.
He woke when Hunt shocked her heart for the third time; he woke on a hoarse plea; he woke when the rain ran down his face and blurred his view of his unresponsive wife, dead in the mud.
A flight attendant was at his side. "Sir, are you okay?"
"Fine. Dream. Sorry," he muttered, appalled. He rubbed a hand down his face and tried to manufacture some false cheer. "I could use a drink, actually. Any red wine?"
She smiled, nodding at him, patting his shoulder. "Let me get that for you." He knew her type, had pegged it the moment he'd gotten on board. She liked to help, liked to offer something to make it better. Something to 'ease his nerves' - and she'd be certain it would work and be happy at providing such a smooth solution - and never again think of him. Right out of her mind.
He'd learned his tricks early, elementary school really, figuring out who needed what and how to provide it, how to arrange for his way to hold sway, how to manipulate the response he wanted. He'd done it to the Director just now and he'd been doing it with Kate too.
He was a bully when he ignored her wishes to do as he liked; but he also had responsibility for her as an agent under his leadership, as a partner and a husband to her too.
He used it as an excuse. He knew it. He used his responsibility to bully her into doing it his way when it didn't have to be like that. A conversation - she'd asked him to talk to her and that had been her big issue before as well, the thing that had driven her to Tunisia. He had made up his mind and he'd shut down on her attempt to talk, and instead of being willing to see it from her perspective, he'd just said no.
No. No regimen, no John Black, no. Just no.
She'd been right, though. She had been right to look at the regimen, right in assuming it would be vital one day. If he had never - then maybe she'd never - and then James wouldn't be their jungle parasite.
He might not even exist. None of this might ever have happened. None of it-
"Here you are, sir. Anything else?"
Castle blinked, saw the tiny black bottle with the red label inside a plastic cup. He took it from her, gave a choked thanks, and sat with it in his lap.
He had these dreams some nights... he had dreams where Kate told him they'd lost the baby, there was no James, they'd lost him...
And he didn't always know, when he woke up, if they were nightmares. There was such relief mixed in with all the grief. We won't have to do that, I don't have to choose.
Those were the dreams that sent him out of bed and down the hall to stand in his son's room, watch the moonlight bathe the dog and run up to the crib, finally put his eyes on James and reassure himself the boy still breathed.
Not lost.
Castle pressed his hand over his heart where the tattoo lay under two layers of clothes, felt his chest thud in time to the scared scatter of his thoughts.
James. The boy made from dreams, the boy made in furious helpless angry grief one night in a tent in the jungle, desperation so thick it had been all Castle could taste for weeks.
Desperate love. Trying to chase her down before she did something terrible.
Castle sat staring at the bottle in his hand, the little plastic cup, still felt the beating heart of the wolf under his other palm.
The red wine wouldn't put a dent in him, but he wished it would.
He needed a dent put in him.
He was going to call King.
Kate watched Castle come in the front door from her spot on the couch. James was asleep on top of her chest, sweaty little cheek against her collarbones, a fist in her shirt, a foot in her ribs. Nap time. He'd conked out only a few minutes ago.
Castle talked softly to her father. Her husband looked tired, worn at the edges, and she hoped he would sleep tonight. There had to be something she could do to help. Despite being on restricted activity.
When he turned to the living room and stepped inside, his hands were loose at his sides and his eyes were clear, but there was tension on his face.
She lifted her eyebrows, her palm cupping the back of James's head. She couldn't sit up to move the kid off, wasn't allowed, but she twisted her neck on the pillow and kept her eyes on Castle.
He sank down at her hip, patted her thigh almost awkwardly.
"Castle?" she whispered.
"We're suspended," he croaked. His head bowed and he ran a hand through his hair, but he didn't look at her.
"What's wrong? Castle, tell me what's wrong, because you knew that would happen. We knew it would come to that," she insisted. She felt sick suddenly; she didn't understand that look on his face, the grief.
"Can I - take him?" he said suddenly, turning to her. His hands hovered over the baby and Kate lifted hers, silently giving in. The weight off her chest gave her a deeper breath and she pulled at her shirt, fanning a little air against her sweaty skin.
Castle stood.
She had expected him to hand off James to her father, but no.
He didn't do that.
He cradled James against his chest and walked with him, away from her, heading for the stairs and the boy's room. She could see Castle taking deep breaths, hands dwarfing the boy, mouth at James's ear as he moved.
Kate sat up slowly, blinking.
Castle disappeared.
Something was wrong with him.