The Great Story
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
WB Yeats, 'Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven'
VII. Tread Softly
x
He wakes from a nightmare of blood and suffocation, flinging himself out of bed and lurching for the bathroom. He dry heaves in the sink, his knees hitting the pedestal, clutching the edges to keep from going down.
He turns on the faucet and cups water in his hand, letting it spill over his fingers to cool his blood. And then he sips, trying to take it slowly.
"Rick?"
He clears his throat, twists off the water, head bowed. "Yeah."
"Dream?"
"Yeah." He closes his eyes, but he can't stay that way, the darkness bright with red-eyed demons.
He flinches when her hand comes to his back. She lays her cheek to the curve of his spine, her hands cold under the waist of his pajama pants. "Sneak up on you?"
"Yeah," he gets out. Tries again. "Didn't think you could move that fast."
"Tried not to think about it. Go faster if I don't psych myself out."
"Yeah." He sounds like an imbecile.
"Dog's worried about you."
He turns his head, sees Chaplin on the floor at the foot of the bed. It's a miracle Castle didn't step on him. "Good dog," he husks. Chaplin bounces up as if released from a spell, and he comes bounding into the bathroom, running into the back of Castle's legs.
Kate nudges, Chaplin nudges too, and Castle is guided to sit on the toilet seat. He's still shaking. His scars, the bullet site and the surgical sites, they burn.
She goes down on her knees - God, down on the tile, Kate, no, he murmurs - but she leans her cheek against his inside thigh. Her arm wraps around his calf and the dog wriggles in between his legs, and she pets Chaplin's nose and neck, scratching his ruff.
The rhythm of it begins to soothe even him, and Castle drops a hand to the top of her head, still sweating out his terror, still shaking.
She lifts her chin and kisses his wrist. "Your pulse is fast."
"Yeah."
"You'll feel better if you can talk to me."
"Yeah," he says automatically, shakes himself. "Sorry. I..."
"Give it a minute."
He nods, his throat squeezing.
"What if I talk?" she murmurs. She's petting Chaplin, nose to nose with the dog, and there's something about her focus being on the dog and not him that helps. He doesn't have to bear the brunt of her attention; he doesn't have to be responsible for keeping up both their spirits.
"You can talk," he says finally. A question in it.
"You always talk me through a panic attack," she answers. "It helps me, hearing your voice. It doesn't stop it, doesn't make it go away. But it's easier to hear you right there with me."
"Yeah," he croaks. He might cry.
"You know I don't dream," she says. She's half-cooing in Chaplin's face. "I've never remembered my dreams. I guess I don't sleep well enough for that. But you say I toss and turn so-"
"You do," he gets out, something releasing in his throat. He swallows.
"So I must have them. I just can't - find them again. I feel like when I met you, you showed me how."
"What?" His breath whistles through his teeth. "Showed you-"
"Dreams again. How to have a dream, and want it. Instead of walling myself off and being so rigid."
He studies her. Something about the lilt in her voice makes him pay attention. She's sober, but she's watching the dog.
"You gave me back my mother's-"
"God, no," he croaks. He can't have started this, it can't be his fault-
"Yes," she insists, softly. "Not like you're thinking. You're not responsible for my choices, or for the terrible things that have been done to us. But you made me open my eyes again, take my head out of the sand. And then you stuck by me through it, even when I did my best to kick free of you. After I made detective, I hit a wall, Rick, and I hit it so hard that I broke. So I just - disappeared inside anything that would hide me. The job first, and then the rules, the pointless relationships, my tight-fisted hold on control."
He struggles for a breath. "Kate."
"You rocked my world, Rick Castle."
He cracks up, leaning in hard on his knees, roughly pressing a kiss to her temple. She's smiling, all Mona Lisa, and yet she lifts her hand from the dog and caresses his ear. Like she's petting him.
"I'm sorry your dreams are so bad," she whispers. "I wish I could give you half what you've given me, numb you to them just as you've made me alive."
"Oh, God, woman, you're going to make me cry."
She laughs then, but it's so soft, like a breath, and she kisses him. "Come back to bed?"
"Yeah," he finds himself saying. "Come on, Charlie. Back to bed."
x
After physical therapy, he finds her father in the sunroom reading a book by DH Lawrence. Jim glances up and sees him coming, smiles, lays the book in his lap.
"Racy," Castle says, still breathing hard as he reads the title.
"I suppose at the time of publication, they thought so," Jim answers. His eyes are kind. Castle has never been able to get over the difference between Jim Beckett and his own father. Jim is invested. Jackson Hunt is just...
Never around. "Is she out there?" he says, gesturing towards the back lawn.
"In the hot tub. You look like you should join her. PT rough?"
"Today it was," he admits. "Had to leave my car in the parking lot. Thought I might pass out."
"Oh, Rick. I could have picked you up."
"No, it's okay." He can't sit down. If he sits down, he's not sure he'll be able to get back up. "The clinic called me a cab. She goes later this afternoon, so-"
"Ah. I'll drive you both, then. And you can drive her home?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine by then." He hopes. He's wrecked. "I'm gonna - sack out, actually. Do you need anything before I go?"
"You've got that the wrong way around, Rick. Do you need anything? Have you had any water after physical therapy?"
"I finished off a bottle," he admits, waving off his father-in-law. "I appreciate it, but I'm good. Tell Kate, when you see her, that I'm napping?"
"Will do. Definitely. I was only going to give her another twenty minutes."
He nods, feels heavy all over. He doesn't move, even though he knows he should.
Jim stands up, puts the book aside, comes to him in the doorway. Like he wants to help. Like he thinks Castle might pass out.
He might.
He's swaying on his feet when Jim lays a hand on his good shoulder. "You look exhausted, but I have to say, Rick, you look a lot better than you did even at Christmas."
"Yeah?" he says roughly. He doesn't know why it gets to him.
"You've gained some weight back - muscle."
"That's the PT," he gets out. "Killing me with the weight training."
"That's good. Muscle is good. Kate..."
"She'll get there," he promises. He doesn't know why he's promising. But he knows the steel strength in his wife. The determination.
Burke told him to talk to her about it. He should. He really should.
"She'll get there. I have no doubt," Jim says, shaking his head a little. "I've seen that will of hers at work."
Castle gives a wan smile, but he doesn't move for the bedroom. "I think I'll go down there instead. Find her."
Something lights up in Jim's face. As if he's been angling for that all along. "You do that."
"What were you going to say?" Castle asks, shifting forward on his feet. He can go out through the door in the sunroom, circle back along the lawn. But Jim's hesitance stays him. "Before, when you said muscle is good but Kate-?"
Jim doesn't smile. His eyes fall from Castle's.
He thinks he knows. Burke warned him last night in their weekly phone therapy session. He has to start talking to her. "She looks hollowed out," he says.
Jim flinches. "I - wasn't going to say that. Just."
"It's eating her up," Castle sighs, blowing out a breath. "I know. I'm going down there. I'll find her." He shifts past her father and shuffles for the door, his heart rate kicking up hard with the exertion of walking. PT really sand-bagged him. The hot tub is alluring, but he'd probably drown.
With his hand on the door knob, he hears Jim clear his throat behind him.
"Bring her back with you," Jim says quietly. "Bring her back."
x
He changes in the poolhouse, board shorts and one of the heavier robes, but it's an effort to stay standing. His whole body aches, he hasn't been sleeping well, he wants to lie down.
But instead he walks the circumference of the pool and heads for the hot tub at the far end. The jets are on low, bubbling and frothing the water, and the January winter light is bleak enough that she's turned on the pool's lamps.
She's submerged up to her neck, her head propped up on a towel on the curved edge of the tub. Her lashes are heavy, but he thinks her eyes are open anyway. She's wearing a one-piece swim suit, brown with glints of gold, her robe in a puddle nearby.
When he's within speaking distance, she lifts a hand from the water in greeting. No words.
He sinks down to the edge of the tub, right beside her head, putting his feet in, hissing at the temperature difference. It burns.
"I was cold," she defends. "Couldn't get warm." Her arm wraps around his ankle. "Almost not worth it, having to get out."
"Mm." And when he realizes that sounds condemning, he tugs her ear. "Hot as you like it, Kate."
"How was PT?" She rubs her fingers up and down his calf. Trickles of heat where the water bubbles, ticklish. "Rick. You look exhausted. Come on in, it's warm-"
"I'm afraid I'll fall asleep," he admits. "Drown."
She shivers, leans her cheek against his knee. "I wouldn't let you drown, you know."
"Hurt yourself trying to get me out," he says, attempting to chuckle. "I'm okay. I've spent the last two hours pouring sweat. The cold feels good."
"It's barely forty degrees," she protests, but falls into silence. She angles her head back against the towel, her eyes open and looking up at him. "Suit yourself."
He smiles, touches a strand of her hair where it snakes at her eyebrow. Her hair is curly with the humidity of the hot tub. "Did you swim?"
"Did my exercises," she confirms. "What's that look for."
"Just thinking," he says, like a promise. "Not taking you for granted. Appreciating all I have right here before me."
A pink heat blooms at her throat, her lashes dip in response to him. Under the water, her knee comes up slowly and bumps his shin. Her fingers at his ankle. The shadow of her body beneath the water is like an arrow in his guts.
She's been drinking those kale protein shakes in the morning, plus their grand dinners, and the energy bars that marathon runners swear by. She still looks hollow.
"You know when I was... still in the hospital, I felt like I'd been run over by a truck," he starts, falters. How does he explain? How can he possibly explain the difference between wildest dreams and-
"What's going on," she says, not a question but a demand.
"No, nothing's going on," he says. He stops touching her hair because he knows it annoys her after a while. Instead he shrugs off the robe, the cold biting his bare skin, and he pushes off against the tiled edge, sinks down into the hot tub.
She smiles, an eyebrow lifting as he groans. "Told you."
He laughs, air caught in his lungs as the heat wraps around him. "Yeah, you were right. Much better in here."
"Don't pass out on me."
"Gonna try not to." He sinks down to the bench across from her, props his feet up right beside her hip. She lays a hand on his feet and plays, scratching her nails lightly at his shin.
Silence resumes between them. The hot tub bubbles, the joy of water along his shoulders. He doesn't let himself lean back, keeping carefully upright so he won't fall asleep, but the heat is working in his aching chest.
"Good, huh?" She leans forward in some kind of thoughtless gesture, but draws up short with a gasp, teeth catching her bottom lip. "Ouch."
"Slow movements," he cautions her. "The hot tub loosens you up but it also means you can pull something-"
"I know," she grits out, shakes her head. "I know. I just - got excited."
He chuckles, watching her. "Excited. Did you now."
She shoots him a glare. Shifts back slowly to the edge of the hot tub. Beautiful when she's angry. Beautiful when she's determined and wants something. A force. A wilted force, these days, her beauty whitewashed by exhaustion and PT and stiffness and insomnia and pain meds.
"I don't need you to try so hard," he blurts out. Her eyes jerk over to his and he winces, tries to smooth that out. "We're both alive, we're here - you know how amazing that is? You've been shot four times-"
"Four?" she murmurs, her hand pressing against her sternum. Breathing slowly.
"Four. You stitched your own wound. How do you not remember-"
"Oh, that was-" She stops, stops shaking her head like it's nothing. Her eyes scan his body in the tub. "You've been shot twice, you know." She looks suddenly as weary as he feels. "It's not like I'm-"
"That's not what I meant," he interrupts. "Not keeping score here. I only want you to know that I'm not taking this for granted. Having a life with you."
"I know," she says, softly. "I know you're not. You've been so good to me, Rick. Patient with me." She shifts, frowns with frustration in her eyes. She grips the hair on his knee and tugs. "Get back over here, I can't move."
He chuckles, but he removes his feet from the bench and carefully slides back across the hot tub to sit beside her. She leans against him, and he feels how slight she is, how narrow her frame. "You don't have to try so hard, Kate." He presses a kiss to the top of her head. Her hair smells like chlorine and winter woods. Cold. "It's not all on you to make our dreams come true."
She stiffens.
Dr Burke was right. Of course he was.
"I'm not - pregnant yet," she gets out. Like it's a failure.
"I know, and it's okay," he promises. He wraps a hand around her knee, smoothing his thumb over her skin, water and heat and the resistance of her body. "It's okay if we can't get pregnant. It doesn't change anything, how much I love you. How grateful I am to have this life with you."
"I really - I wanted to-"
"It's not over," he stresses, his head ducked down to speak right at her temple. "You have to cut yourself some slack. It hasn't even been a year, and we're both still doing the best we can to stay upright. We're nowhere near ready for a baby."
She gives a hitching noise, and he really hopes she's not crying. He's been such an ass, filling her head with his dreams but not giving her any kind of grounding in reality. Like he's the architect but she's the builder - and he's put it all on her to do the work.
"But. I want us to have babies," she whispers.
"I know." He kisses the crinkled corner of her eye. "I know. I do too. But it will happen in its own time."
"But our timing sucks. We never-"
"Not our timing. Life, just life. Whatever happens will happen. And we'll make it work."
She pulls away from him, presses a hand to her eyes. "I'm so tired of making it work. I just want it to be now already."
Castle shifts off the seat, water bubbling around him as he eases to his knees in the bottom of the hot tub. He feels old, and break-able, and he thinks that's just his heart. He faces her, on his knees, his hands bracketing her hips, and their heads are about even with the way she's slumped back.
"Kate. Look at me."
She does, with a lot of mulish reluctance, and he gives her a smile, feeling hopeful despite how much he dreaded this conversation earlier.
"It's not about work, not this. That's what I'm trying to say. We have enough to work on right now that we don't need this to be one more thing. I want us to make love when we feel like it, and if we don't feel like it - no pressure."
"Was I pressuring you?" she murmurs, lips twisting.
"Not quite." A little bit. "When do I ever say no?"
"Plenty," she says, with enough heat that he laughs. Surprised by her.
"Alright, I deserved that. The video games are an addiction. I'll go to AA, get my priorities straight. But in the meantime, I just want us to take it as it comes. Can we do that? Slow down. Stop trying so hard, working so hard at something that will come soon enough."
Kate draws her hand down her face, drops of water in her hair, down her cheek. She gives him a frustrated look. "How do you know?" she says finally. "How do you know it will come at all?"
"What I know is that it's not all on you. Let's heal, feel strong again, gain some weight-"
She slaps his pinching fingers, but something like a smile flits across her face. And then she scowls at him. "I'm just... tired of not having what I want. What we want. Always putting it off because some case interferes, something is always more important-"
"What's most important here is us," he says firmly. Her. She is what's most important but he knows better than to say that. She needs to be healing, not running herself ragged trying to chase his dreams. Their dreams. They'll get there.
Kate slumps forward, her chin against his shoulder, her arms sliding around his waist. He pulls her into his hips, holding her with the helpful buoy of the water.
"It's okay," he whispers, kissing her ear. Her cheek. "It's okay to press pause on the trying, the work, and just live for a while."
"Not too long," she says. Tears in her throat. "Please. Just-"
"Okay. I know. Promise." He cups the back of her head, pressing her against him, and he feels her whole body release, falling apart. "Oh, Kate. It's not supposed to be this hard, honey."
And then she cries.
x
