Close Encounters 25

King kept her away.

Castle had said, I don't love him like I should. And Kate had leapt to her feet and tried to reach him, but King had stopped her. No. Stopped her cold. Sit down. Castle didn't deserve it anyway, and he knew that.

"When did it become a choice?" the therapist said. He had risen to sit in the chair before him and now he leaned forward, mimicking Castle's elbows on his knees. Kate sank back in her seat; Castle let out a breath as James came to him.

"Rick."

"What?" Castle said, distracted again by the rubber block James passed up to him.

"Why is it a choice between them?"

Castle opened his mouth and then closed it. He frowned and took the red block, swallowed hard and tried again. "I keep trying but I - I'm not gonna be able to do what I'm supposed to."

"What are you supposed to be doing?"

Castle now had three blocks on his knee, all red, and James was handing him a green one. But then he paused and took it back, a shy little grin, and went away with it again.

"I'm broken," he said finally. "My father is - you know my father. That's the role model I have for this, my only example, and I've been kidding myself for a long time, thinking I could do this right. But I'm just - not enough."

"You're not enough," King echoed. Fuck, it sounded so stale and boring coming out of the man's mouth. But this was her husband.

Castle had to take another block, this time red, and he added it to the three others on his knee. "I'm a broken machine, but I have - Kate - and I - it's the only thing I can hang on to."

"You have us both," Kate said heatedly.

He couldn't look at her. But he saw James turn his head and look, eyebrows going up, and then James lifted a red block to her.

Kate reached for it, but James took it back, turned and handed it to Castle, and went back for more.

"Rick, you're playing with your son," King said. "Would a bad father play with his son?"

"I'm not - it's not - fuck, anyone can go through the damn motions. My father went through the motions. He fucking fed me, clothed me. It's not hard. But I'm - I learned from him, and it's damn difficult to shake, and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, because it just - it means all I got in me is for Kate."

He couldn't - couldn't look at her. And still the boy kept coming back to him, red block by red block, and now he had a little pile balanced precariously on his knee and it was going to fall. It was going to collapse.

"Your father doesn't determine who you are. You have choices, Rick. You've already chosen a different life."

"You know he had - one thing. That thing was me. And it wasn't healthy, it wasn't good for either of us; he - he got obsessive about it. Wasn't love, really. It was just - one thing. And I - that's what I have too. Everything in me is just - obsessive. For Kate. So that I - I didn't even want - I wished he hadn't been born."

"Oh, yeah, I did that too," King said.

Castle froze.

"When my son was two months old, he was really colicky, cried all the time. Oh, wow, he cried like you've never heard before. Well, maybe you have, but I doubt it. There's this place a baby can go that you just - it shouldn't be possible. They can't be soothed. They actually scream. Has James ever done that?"

Castle lifted his head, bewildered.

"No," Kate croaked. "No. What?"

"Screaming. It's not even crying. Just this awful, gut-wrenching scream. You want to shake him. Some people have - some will. Just to make it stop. You don't know how many times, in the dead of night with no sleep for weeks, my wife and I looked at each other with the same feeling. What have we done? We made this, it's our fault, and we want to give him back."

"What?" Castle rasped.

"He didn't stop for three months. And then it was like a magic switch had been thrown. At almost six months, he was fine. Perfectly fine. And we felt a little guilty and then we talked to other parents and realized that was normal."

"Normal."

"Normal human feeling. Not a machine."

Castle scraped a hand down his face. "But my father - it's - I don't think I can be what James needs. I'm going to be gone and away from him and I'm not - I'm not enough to - I can't do this."

"Kate." King said, and immediately she was straightening up, glancing back and forth between them. Castle averted his eyes and saw his son at his feet, felt the little fists he made as he pulled himself up by Castle's pant legs.

"Da?" He reached for one of the red blocks and the whole thing tumbled down. But instead of being sad, James let go and clapped, standing upright completely on his own.

"Yeah," he breathed. "Good job, kid."

"Kate," King said. "You want to tell Rick if you've ever-"

"Oh, God, all the time," Kate rushed out. "Castle. Shit. All the time. When I couldn't even feed him? Fuck, I felt like the worst mother. You're not alone in that."

"That wasn't your fault," he hissed. "What I - feel is just missing. It's missing, Kate. There's nothing there."

"There's not nothing there," she whispered. Her jaw set, her eyes mutinous. "If there was nothing there, James wouldn't have anything to do with you. But look at him, he's always going for you. He wants you to comfort him. He-"

"He's a baby. He doesn't-"

"That's not true," King said fiercely. It was one of the most intense statements Castle had ever heard from the man. "He does know. You think you didn't know that your father had something broken, that he was missing that vital piece? You knew. You knew even at five and you did what you could to survive it. James would know. Kate would know. We would know."

He sucked in a long breath, watched as James scattered red blocks across the floor. "Then why did I - I didn't even want him. It was just Kate. I couldn't see past - and God, that's the worst thing a man can do, not want his own son? Fuck, does he have to be in here for this? I don't want him hearing this."

Kate gave a little noise and he glanced involuntarily to her. She was laughing?

"Baby, do you hear yourself? Because I want my son hearing that, I definitely do. You care what happens to him, you care what he's exposed to, even if it's you. You're trying to protect him from you, and I want him to know just how deeply his father's love for him-"

"Kate," he growled.

"No, don't shut me up. Because you're wrong. Having doubts, wishing it had happened differently, that's not bad. That's just life. You think I don't feel like that? My mother was murdered, my father became an alcoholic, and the worst of it is that - fuck, it gave me you. Would you love me at all if I wasn't just the kind of obsessive and broken person I am? Castle, I wouldn't have been a cop. We would never have even met. But I still - God, I still wish so badly my mother had never been murdered."

Castle stared at her, not processing for the longest time, nothing making sense - of course she wished it hadn't happened - and then the moment was broken.

James fell into his leg and Castle caught him by instinct, grabbed under his arms and hoisted him up before his cheek could hit Castle's knee.

James ducked his head and tucked down, leaning into him, and Castle put the boy against his chest, right over his heart. His son huddled there, maybe scared by his fall, wriggling down tighter and deeper into his father's arms.

"Regret doesn't negate your love for him," King said into the silence. "And Rick, you're a very good father. Surprising, actually, based on how little you had to work with. You have good instincts, just like that. Instincts for rescuing, for teaching, for guiding. You know when to comfort, when to instruct, when to laugh. Some people never figure that out."

Castle turned his lips to the boy's temple and breathed him in.

"But, Rick. You knew that. You're hiding behind that old mantra, I'm a broken machine, because it's easier than saying, I'm doubting everything I thought I wanted."

Fuck.

"What. The. Hell-"

"Wait, Kate, please. Wait."

She bit back the furious defense of her husband and sank back against the leg of the chair. King had stopped her twice now, twice, from going to her husband, and she was beginning to get pissed.

James's little head was swiveling around, staring at them from his perch in Castle's lap. From the floor, Kate held out her hand to him. "Jay, baby, can I have a block?"

He smiled and hid the block behind his back, ducked his head back to Castle's shoulder, completely confident in his father.

Nothing missing there, not at all.

"Rick. Would you tell me what happened in Paris?"

What did that have to do with the baby?

"I poisoned her," he rasped. "I got her pregnant because I wanted it, I wanted a kid, it was my damn dream, and I'm a fucking bully and I just - I got her pregnant and then my - my fucked up DNA, God, I poisoned her just so I could be a dad? And now it's not - even - it's not even-"

"What the hell?" she rasped. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Uck!" James lifted up.

"Shit," she hissed.

"It!"

Their gazes clashed and the tension shattered, and then Kate rolled her eyes and shut her damn mouth.

King better not be laughing. "Well. That was interesting. James is impressed. Are you impressed, James?"

James titled his head, as if puzzling out those words, and then patted his father's chest and squirmed down to the floor. When he got there, he pulled himself to stand using Castle's jeans again, grabbed the couch, started slowly working his way towards the blocks in their basket.

"I'm not impressed," Kate said. "I think this is - what are you even talking about? You didn't poison me. I chose this."

"I got you pregnant. And then I watched you die from it."

"I didn't die."

"Barely."

"And what? You chose me so that makes you-"

"Kate," their therapist interrupted softly. "How about we try something else, please?"

She gritted her teeth and sank back, gesturing for him to go on. She expected him to ask Castle another question, but instead he looked at her.

"Kate, can you tell me what happened in Paris?"

She opened her mouth and realized she didn't - exactly - know. She knew but she didn't have words for it. There was... "I felt bad. I should've figured it out sooner, because it was the same kind of feeling I had with the pills before. But I thought, since Black was in the offing, that I was just having a damn panic attack."

"A panic attack? Those were your symptoms?"

"Yeah."

"Interesting. I hadn't realized. Well, makes sense you thought it was a panic attack. John Black has tried to kill you again and again. And he's working to destroy the life you've built - not just your own life, but your husband's. He's a threat."

She nodded.

"And?" he prompted.

"And I... felt bad so I pushed through it, like I always do. Stupid not to say something. But I sat down on that park bench - and then fell over. It just - everything went dark and far away and... it was raining."

"It was raining," Castle echoed. He looked like he was right back there.

She chewed on her bottom lip but suddenly she felt a little body smack into hers, draping over her back. She turned with a laugh and found her boy cuddling up to her, a green block in his hand. He gave it over and she took it, kissed his nose and gave it back.

"Go get daddy," she whispered, pulling him off of her back and setting him on his feet in front of her.

James took a step and fell to his knees, but kept scooting forward, went right for Castle. At his daddy's feet, he pulled himself up again and handed over the block.

Castle took it.

"And then?" King nudged.

She blinked and looked at him, finally figuring out what King was doing here, why he'd left James in the room. Without the baby, this would be - bad. This would be really bad.

"And then I woke... woke with John Black's face above me and I thought I - I was going to die. But I didn't die. I just... seesawed back and forth on that edge."

"I thought you were going to die," Castle said gruffly. He had his hand buried in James's hair, rubbed his thumb over the boy's forehead. "You did die. Off and on. But he - saved you. I didn't do a damn thing."

She opened her mouth but she didn't know what came next. It was true, but it wasn't true at all.

"Kate? Do you feel that Rick is right about that?"

"No. No, I - wouldn't have survived without you. You kept me there. Kept me. I was - scared, Rick. I was so afraid, but you would be there, you would be right over me and I could look at you and I could breathe again."

He lifted his head to her and his eyebrows knitted together, but he couldn't seem to come out with it.

She had to find the words. She had to. "It was just us and him. But I knew I'd be okay if you were there. And I know that's too much to put on you, that's not your responsibility, keeping me sane, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't do anything to protect myself from him but have you."

She faltered, and couldn't find it any more, and stopped.

It didn't feel like enough. She didn't know what else she was supposed to say.

She watched Castle as he made coffee, her hip against the counter, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Stop looking at me like that," he rasped, his face away from her. "It kills me."

"Sorry." She dropped her eyes and fiddled with the plastic bag of filters, stopped when she realized what she was doing. She put the filters in the cabinet and took a breath, closed the cabinet door.

King had given them a break, asked if there might be coffee, and Castle had escaped quickly. And then King had nodded his head towards the kitchen with a not at all subtle look pointedly in her direction.

So. She was supposed to say something. She just didn't know what.

"I'm trying, Kate," he rasped suddenly. "I'm trying to love him. I keep trying to get it back, that feeling I had when we left. But it's just gone. It's gone, but I love you, I love you and I swear I'll do everything I can to-"

"Stop," she whispered. God, it killed her. He couldn't keep thinking like this. "Stop, Castle. Don't. That feeling isn't gone. It's just that it's tangled up with so much guilt. Believe me, it's really hard to know what's real when you feel responsible for the worst of things."

"I feel - so - so damn guilty."

"You wouldn't feel like that if you didn't love him," she whispered. "God, Castle. Don't you see that? If you didn't love him, you wouldn't care that it's all mixed up, that it hurts so much. But you do love him, and you've somehow got it in your head that it's become a choice, loving me or loving him. It's not a choice, sweetheart. There's no choice."

Castle hung his head over the sink, his hands braced on the counter, leaning hard. "But he - I just - you were going to die, it was - inevitable - there was no way to stop it, nothing we did, and I knew - I knew I'd pick you. Not him."

"But that's not how life works, Castle, sweetheart. Oh, Rick, look at me." She went to him, pressed her body to his, wrapping herself at his back. "Castle, please. This is all just - theoretical at this point because he's already here and I'm here and it's done. All of it is done. And yeah, if we had been told this would be how difficult, that I'd nearly die, well we'd definitely have done things differently. As it is, I'm guessing that's a no on a little sister?"

"Oh, God."

She couldn't help laughing but he wasn't - at all - and she pressed her lips to his shoulder. "Sorry, sorry. He's the only baby we need. Probably all we can handle, wouldn't you say?"

"Yeah," he scraped out.

"It's not a choice, Castle. Love doesn't drain from one just because you give to another. It's a renewable resource. It's - it's more the more you give out. Loving me, intensely as you do, whole-heartedly as you do, doesn't meant there's nothing left for James. And it - in a really twisted and sick way, Castle, it makes me feel special."

"God."

"Yeah. I'm a fucked up person, we already knew that. Which is why it's so special, that you love me like you do. And babe, you are a - the best - you're the best father. You're good for him. You know when he needs us, you're teaching him sounds and respect and joy. He-"

She stopped, bit her lip as she felt the little body leaning into her.

Kate glanced down and saw James peeking up at her. He had Sasha by the collar and was using the dog as a kind of walker. "Um, James, honey. What do you think you're doing?"

"Da-da-da."

"Yeah, Daddy's right here. Aren't you, Daddy?"

Castle let out a long breath and turned around, squatting only long enough to scoop the baby into his arms. He buried his face in James's neck and the boy twisted, glanced at her with something that looked like surprise or maybe even concern.

She nodded at him and mimed patting Castle on the back, and then James - exceptional boy - clued in and began comforting his father, slow pats with those little fingers, and such a serious face.

"We love you, Castle." She slipped in between him and the counter, her back to the coffee maker, forcing Castle a little more upright. "We love you and you love us. And what happened in Paris was - was awful. It was awful, and yes, I'm still so tired, and you're still in such a dark place, sweetheart, but we don't have to stay there. I'll get better and you'll get better, and we'll be better for each other."

He nodded, his face still against his son, but he untwined an arm and curled it around her shoulders, pulling her close.

"I'm sorry," he rasped.

"You don't need to apologize," she whispered.

"Wasn't for you," he husked. "That was for James."

They both sat on the couch now, though they were separated by James between them. Kate had coffee in a mug against her chest and her head on the arm, scooted down into the cushions; she was tired but she wasn't leaving.

James was watching a video on Castle's phone, entirely rapt. He rarely got the chance to watch television since they kept it off when he was around, and she knew her father, when he kept James, set up things for the kid to play with. He was such an independent child, entertaining himself, that they had never needed the distraction of video.

They used it now to keep him in one place, and Castle sat with him, a little stiff and upright, but apparently choosing... choosing love. Rather than separating himself from her in punishment, he was close enough to drape his hand over her ankle and rub the skin over her bone.

Dr King had the notepad out now, and it looked like he had used the coffee break to make an outline of where he wanted this to go. Kate shared a glance with Castle, a kind of oh well, let's dive in, and they turned to face the therapist.

"Let me apologize, first, because I said I wasn't here for homework. But-"

"We have homework?" Kate said, smiling at him. She was entirely too exhausted for this. Probably the point; King liked to be sneaky. Wear her out with all this emotion flying around, get her heart racing to defend her husband, and then she was left with this - her weakness - and she couldn't keep denying it.

"You have homework," he smiled back. "You're not going to like it, either of you."

"Oh, great," Castle muttered.

Impossibly, James lifted his head from the video, gave a kind of round-eyed look around, and then went back to his watching.

Kate shifted her foot to nudge the baby, watched as he was startled, glanced at her. "Hey, sweetheart. Is it fun?"

"Nuh-nuh-nuh," he echoed, smiling back at her.

Castle rubbed his thumb around and around her ankle bone and she turned her eyes back to King. "All right, don't leave us in suspense. What's our homework?"

"Kate, first, I want to ask you how you're feeling now. That was some pretty death-defying stuff."

She hummed an acknowledgement, putting out a search in her own body, trying to get an honest assessment. "I'm really tired. All the time. My joints ache. I wake up tired, which sucks, and they won't let me carry my baby, which sucks, and... and I want everything to be fine, but it's not. Which sucks."

"Do you feel tired right now?"

She snorted, lifting an eyebrow. She was practically horizontal on the couch. "Yeah. I'm tired all right."

"Castle mentioned needing to restart your heart a couple times. Do you remember that?"

"Um. Once, I think. Mostly just - falling unconscious." She shifted to sit upright a little more, but wow, it was a drag. James looked fairly sleepy too, hypnotized by the video on the screen. "What does this have to do with homework?"

"I want you both to keep a daily log. You've done journaling for me before, so you know how this goes. First, Kate, when you wake in the morning, record your health level, on a scale of 1-10. What you expect to accomplish, how good or not good you feel, the shape of things."

"All right," she said, already not trusting this. Felt like a set-up.

"And then at night, I want you rate your day 1-10, as it happened, being honest. Like today, for example, health-wise. How do you think you fared. If 10 was perfect health, like the way you felt after your anemia was straightened out, and a 1 was, well, dying in Russia, shall we say?"

"That's really not funny," Castle muttered.

But Kate was smiling; it was kind of funny. That she had a scale at all. "Mm, okay, well, tonight I'd say... um. I made dinner, standing up for that, snuggled with my baby, but I had my dad here the whole time so I was relatively sedate. But I'd say a 7." She saw the look on Castle's face. "Really. A seven."

"Very good, Kate. You basically told me out loud what I'd like for you to record in a journal. An accurate representation of your day. Do you think your father's help today, your 'relatively sedate' activity had any kind of bearing on that seven?"

"Well, of course," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Exactly. So that's what you'll be recording. Expectations in the morning versus actuality in the evening."

Uh-huh. He was going to show her how wildly disparate her expectations were for what she could actually accomplish. She already knew that.

"And then, Rick, after Kate has written her log for the night, I would like you to read it."

Oh?

"Read it?" Castle said.

"Yes, please. It will be an even exchange though. Because Rick, you'll have written a log of one day of your time in Paris."

"What does that mean?" he said. His hand around her ankle tightened. "She gives me her day now and I tell her about her day then?"

"Precisely."

"That doesn't sound helpful."

"No? I think sometimes that Kate, if you excuse my candid opinion here, often does more than she's capable. It's truly impressive, and a wonderful characteristic in a wife and partner - you know she won't give up, don't you, Rick? No matter what you say or do, she's fighting for you. Which is why you felt you could be so honest about your regrets - she's not going to stop fighting for you."

Castle let out a short breath, sucked in back in again.

"But you see the complement at work too, don't you? She pushes too far, she hurts herself, she does more than she should and all that hard work is ruined."

"Ruined-"

"So your time in agony, your pain and grief, feels like it's for nothing, dismissed out of hand, because she's just completely ignoring all your best advice and doing what she wants, blithely going about-"

"That's a little harsh," she interrupted. But she noticed that Castle had not.

"So, Rick," King went on, ignoring her entirely. "You're going to write it down for her. You're going to tell her exactly what it was like, what you went through, what happened to her. Because she doesn't know. You heard her - she was unconscious. She was afraid, but you were there, and you made it okay for her, and she could kind of whitewash over the horror of it all. That's a coping mechanism that works really well for you, Kate, wouldn't you say?"

"Denial?" she muttered. "Yeah. I'd say that's my best feature."

"Kate," her husband sighed, a glance of his eyes.

Wow. King was just hitting home runs here, wasn't he? He knew them, he was digging into things Kate thought were trivial and sifting them into the light, and it turned out they were pivotal - vital - make or break for them.

"Each night, you exchange your written logs. Read them. Kate will find out what happened in Paris, what happened to both of you, and you, Rick, will find out how Kate's actually doing now - and not still in Paris, not back there, but here. We're doing this because you both need to re-frame your stories. Neither of you are accurate right now, Castle because he's stuck in the past and Kate because she's warping her present. And just because you share the same future story, future vision, doesn't mean you'll get there together, not if you're deluding yourselves about everything else."

Way, way harsh. Wow.

Kate kept quiet, and Castle had a fierce grip on her ankle, and King didn't even try to soften any of that. He was looking at them straight on, and nodding to himself as he stood.

"Very good. Daily logs. For a week at least. That will cover the time frame of Paris, correct?"

"Mostly," Castle gruffed.

"Was it nine days?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Then nine days. Starting tomorrow. And Rick?"

"Yes."

"When your heart eases about Kate, when you're convinced she's on the mend, you'll find it easier to untangle the grief and guilt from your love. But in the meantime, give yourself a moment of joy with your son every day. One moment. And then write it down that night, on the same entry with your recollection of Paris. In the same breath, Rick, good and bad. Because that is life, that is fatherhood."

Castle looked hopelessly up at King, but he nodded. And then he rose from the couch and showed King to the door.

When he came back into the living room, Kate was curled up around James, her head on his little thigh as he watched his Sesame Street video on the phone. Castle took a breath and steeled himself for whatever happened next, headed into the room.

He stood there a moment and Kate closed her eyes, shutting him out.

He slumped to coffee table and put his elbows on his knees, wondered how he was supposed to fix this, what he said, his honesty. He shouldn't have with her in the room. He-

Her fingers on his knees had his eyes opening and she smiled at him. He was confused but he tried smiling back.

"It hurts me that you hurt so much," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. I wish I could do something - anything - to make it right. What can I do, Rick?"

He shook his head in an involuntary negative, but her fingers tensed around his knee and he knew what he really wanted. He actually knew.

"Can I just - take care of you?" he whispered. "Just let me... whatever you need, let me - I don't know. That sounds so stupid-"

"No, no, I get it." She scratched her fingers at his knee. "I understand. Take care of me. Okay, okay, we can do that."

He nodded, his throat thick with it, and he lifted a hand to the baby, brushed the back of his fingers against his son's cheek.

"So, um, you could - if you wanted - carry me upstairs? I want to take a hot bath."

"Yeah," he said, his heart tripping a little. Overeager. "James, be good. Watch your video. I'm taking mommy upstairs."

"So not a good idea," she muttered, rolling her eyes at him.

"Sasha," he called. The dog came bounding in from the front entry; she had probably been in the dining room. He scrubbed the wolf behind her ears, loved on her. "Stay, Sasha. Make James stay too." He lifted up and looked at Kate. "Your chariot awaits."

She sighed, a little small smile flirting with her lips. "Okay, fine. But while I take a bath, you're down here with him, making that moment of joy happen."

"That's the most ridiculous-"

"You're gonna do it. If I'm going to have to read about Paris, then I want that moment of joy to read after it, Agent Castle."

"Yes, ma'am," he whispered, pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

He stood up and she came up with him, easily; he turned for the stairs and she wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled in close.

"You're a good man, Rick Castle. Please remember that. You're a very good man."