Close Encounters 20

Kate leaned back against the thin trunk of the tree in their back yard, a five-week-old James propped on her thighs. The baby was dappled by the leaves above them, his face in shadows and green light, and he kept reaching up for the shapes of things, as if he could see them clearly and wanted more.

She thought maybe he could. Whatever the baby milestones said, she thought he could see the color, the light. Maybe just the outlines, maybe it was the sun shifting through as the breeze picked up, but she thought he was studying the world.

"What do you see, James Beckett?"

She leaned over him and softly kissed his forehead; he got his fingers in her hair and gripped, little feet kicking with happiness. Kate had to unwind his fist from each strand, kissing his tiny fingers as she released them, kissing the soft palm barely bigger than her own thumb.

"Yeah, you see me, don't you? And the tree above you. Those are leaves." She lifted her head at the sound of paws on the grass and smiled. "And there's your dog. Hey, Sasha, come on, puppy. You can come see."

While the dog had been nosing around the yard, Kate and James had been hanging out, but now that Sasha was in sight, the baby's eyes followed the wolf, intent and focused. They had their own understanding, the dog and James, and Sasha mothered him, barking anxiously when he cried, coming to get them if James rolled off the blanket on the living room floor, even laying her muzzle on the bed to watch when he needed to be changed.

Sasha nosed into Kate's lap, snuffled against James's knee. The baby wriggled, arms waving, making Kate laugh at his excitement. He made noises back at her, or maybe just noises alongside her own laughter, and he got a big fistful of Sasha's fur. The dog lifted her eyes to Kate, patient and gentle.

"Oh, sorry, puppy." She reached out to work the baby's hands free, but Sasha moved her head in and laid her head against James's belly. Kate paused, watching the dog and the baby interact, Sasha's eyes rolling up to look at James as the boy stared down at her.

Kate rubbed the dog between the ears, pushing her fingers back over the wolf's skull. Wolf and wolf. James's fistful of fur was released, and the baby wriggled against Kate's thighs as if appreciative of Sasha's attention.

"Hey, baby, this is your best friend, huh?" Sasha rolled her eyes to Kate now, let out a little whine. Kate rubbed her ears and smoothed down the silky fur, patted the top of her head. "Good girl. Sweet girl. You love your new packmate, don't you?"

The breeze ruffled Sasha's fur and caused James to startle, a little noise coming out of his mouth. His attention broke from the dog to look back towards the tree above them, and Kate trailed her finger down his nose, watching him blink past her hand.

He really was focusing on the tree, not on the sight immediately before him.

Suddenly a leaf drifted down into her vision and dropped beside them; she thought James had been looking at it fall. Kate leaned over and snagged it by the stem, then sat up again to dust the leaf over James's face.

The boy gurgled and kicked his feet, dislodging Sasha as he did. But the dog only lifted her head and leaned in against Kate, curling up at her side. Kate laid her hand on the dog's flank, petted her fur down to her belly.

James made a noise at her and Kate glanced to him again, saw him trying to get at the leaf, though not anywhere close. Just kicking his feet and flailing his arms, his eyes wide and piercingly grey.

"Hey, baby, you want this?" She dipped the leaf to his nose and he wriggled even more, arms waving, making Kate chuckle. "Yeah, pretty exciting stuff, huh?"

James was practically breathless with it, blinking up at the leaf whenever it came close, and Kate trailed it over his forehead and down his nose, her grin stretching wide as the boy gasped.

"Oh, you're adorable, you know. Okay. Here it comes." She tapped the leaf against his chin and James made a gurgling noise and did that happy little bounce, legs and arms kicking. Same reaction, each time, and yet he looked like the leaf's descent to his nose was entirely surprising.

Kate laughed and let him have the leaf, curling his little fingers around the stem so he had a hold of it. That seemed to make James giddy with happiness, gurgling and gasping and making noises as his flailing arm made the leaf jerk around in front of his face.

Sasha whuffled against Kate's side; she glanced down at the dog and laughed at the way the wolf seemed to be eyeing James's leaf with disdain.

"Yeah, I know, but what can you do? He likes it. And he's really cute. Hard to tell a Castle male that something's not a toy."

Sasha sighed and laid her muzzle back on her paws, lifting her eyes to Kate with a long-suffering look.

Kate petted her, making sure to scratch behind her ears, and then she turned back and snagged the leaf out of James's mouth, tapping his nose and shaking her head even as she laughed.

"No, no, James. That's not good to eat."

She could swear he was looking right at her and grinning.

But newborns weren't supposed to be able to smile.

She grinned back at him, leaned in and kissed his cheek. "But I think you're so much more advanced than the average baby. Aren't you? I guess most mothers say that, though. Shh, we'll keep that between you and me, James. Okay?"

James just gurgled, fingers opening and closing as if he wanted the leaf back.

Castle could see them in the backyard, so he dumped the groceries on the kitchen counter and went to join them. When he stepped outside, the dog only lifted her head from her paws, didn't jump up for him like she usually did.

Ah, she was watching over the baby.

Kate had James on a blanket under the tree, and Sasha was watch dog, apparently.

"Kate?"

"Here." Her voice came from the side and he swiveled his head to see her in the garden, in just jeans and a thin shirt - not a maternity shirt - dirt on her knees and hands.

"What are you doing?" he laughed.

"I found some weeds. He's on a blanket watching the leaves."

Yeah, he'd heard about the kid's fascination with the tree. "Hey, come here," he murmured, watching the length of her thigh as she kneeled in the garden. It wasn't like they'd planted carrots and shit; it was just the herbs from their place in Rome, the scent and fragrance of a home away from home.

A home that was gone now. They had the place in Florence instead, but it didn't have the herb garden. Maybe they should do that there. Maybe they could all go one day soon, christen the place properly, plant oregano and thyme and cumin and dill so that it smelled like it should when they stepped out into the center courtyard.

"Hey," he said again. "Kate."

She glanced up at him, used her pinky finger to push a hair off her face. She must have seen something in his eyes because she dropped the clumps of weeds to the ground and stood, rising up like Venus from the waters, her hair curling around her shoulders.

She dusted her hands off on her jeans and came for him, slid into his space easily, barefoot in the grass so that her body fit against his in a way that made his hands ache for her. A strangely warm November afternoon, a breeze along the slowly-browning grass, his wife against him.

Castle cupped her shoulders and then slid his palm up to the back of her head, ran his fingers through her hair, cradling the side of her face. He leaned in and sipped from her mouth, softly touching his tongue to her lips as she opened for him.

Kate hummed and lifted on her toes, drew her arm around his neck, pressing herself to him. It was warm and earthy, tasted of salt-sweat and rose, and he found himself curling his fist in her hair and winding his arm around her waist and dragging her higher and tighter against him.

She moaned and broke from his mouth, breathing hard, her cheek pressed to his as she gulped down her arousal and he tried to do the same.

"Three more weeks," he rasped, closing his eyes.

She laughed brokenly and nodded, but he felt the hesitation. "We could-"

"No," he rumbled. "No. I saw him being born, Kate. That's traumatic shit."

She laughed then, lighter and happier, her arm squeezing around his neck. "Not so traumatic. I promise. I'm just tired."

Still? He'd thought it'd gotten better. James slept for about three hours before he needed to be fed, and they were working towards four. "If you expressed milk, then I could feed him at night instead."

"Maybe later," she murmured. "Not right now. I want to hold him."

"Okay," he sighed. But he tried to keep it light. "Be that way. Keep him all to yourself."

Kate laughed, choking with surprise, and she pulled her head back to look at him. He smiled, lifting an eyebrow, and she cupped his face in her hands, kissed him hard on the mouth.

"I will. He's only five weeks old. I have twelve weeks of maternity leave, so I'll have to at some point. Just give me time." Twelve weeks of maternity leave was up from the eight she'd planned on.

"I'm mostly kidding. It's just an easy solution to the lack of sleep."

She nodded, but a flicker of a shadow slid behind her eyes. "I'm not - part of my sleeplessness is just me. You know that, right?"

"What do you mean, just you?"

"How I'm built, Castle. I guess I've hit some insomnia. We put him back down at night and I just lie there, thinking about all the things... ever. Everything. My mind races."

"Huh."

"Yeah," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I called Dr King about it. He can't prescribe me anything, of course, and we went through a few self-calming techniques-"

"Does it work?"

She shrugged. "Sometimes."

Castle unwound his fingers from her hair and pushed her head down to his shoulder, embracing her tightly. He kissed the top of her head, brushed his lips down her temple. "And our usual methods to - uh - make you wiped out enough to sleep are off the table."

She hummed, a little laugh behind it, and he smiled.

"Only for three more weeks," she said softly. Her fingers teased around the waistband of his dress pants and he grunted. "I'll survive. Or maybe convince you early."

Castle chuckled and rubbed her back through the silky slide of her shirt, still a little turned on, like it was at the edge of his mind all the time.

Well, it was. And Kate wearing this flimsy shirt where he could see the shape of her and feel the warmth of her skin from the sun and smell the herbs and the clean soap and the fresh-from-the-shower blossom of her hair under his nose was devastating.

Castle pushed his mouth to her jaw and nipped at her skin, pleased when she sighed, a little shaky and forlorn. "We could make out a little under the tree. Sasha's a good baby-sitter," he murmured in her ear.

Kate laughed and nudged her hips into his. "Deal."

They had tried to get him to go into work - it was a conspiracy, he was certain, since four regions' networks simultaneously collapsed - but he wouldn't go. He was on leave. He wanted to be here with his wife and his son.

Kate had even pushed him towards the door, but in the end, Castle had worked from home, holed up in the upstairs office. Conference calls and video chat, emails and situation reports. He was glad Mason was in town to put out fires, but it required Castle's rank and charm to ensure cooperation with other governments. Still, he was missing the best part of the day doing this, contacting overseas agents and putting missions into play.

He took a break at midnight, forced himself away from the insistent buzz of alerts. He stretched in the doorway of the office, heard the bones popping in his back as his spine lengthened. He hunted down his wife, found her in the kitchen, sitting in the moonlight spilling in through the windows.

Kate, so beautiful, holding their son.

"You're up," he breathed, dropping down to squat at her side. She stroked her fingers through his hair and he stared at the boy on her lap, wide awake. "You're both up," he corrected. It was nearly midnight.

"His schedule isn't quite right," she murmured. Her thumb came up and pressed into Castle's eyebrow. "And I'm tired. Thought maybe it'd be better not to try and move just yet."

"That tired?" Castle reached out and skated his finger over the boy's nose and down, his palm as large and wide as the baby's torso and fitting him exactly. "You should sleep. I'll take him."

"It's been weeks," she sighed.

He didn't know what that meant - the boy was six weeks old, was that it? - but his attention was absorbed by the baby. James. For her father, for his dream. James Beckett.

It fit the boy well, with his quiet nature and his constant watching. He had eyes that searched, roamed until they caught a face, and he paid attention to people, as if he was listening. Castle leaned over and kissed the baby's forehead, breathed in the scent of clean skin and diaper lotion and milk. A fist came to bat at his jaw and little fingers splayed, made his breath catch.

"He's been waiting up for you," she said, one hand curling in his hair, her other hand on the baby's belly to hold him at her lap. He stroked his thumb over and around the little watching face, and then he finally looked up at Kate.

"Thank you," he whispered, and he leaned in to touch his lips to hers.

She kept him there, but her grip on his neck was weak. He broke from her mouth and breathed against her cheek, waiting on her.

Finally, she swallowed and said, "I'm tired. Can you-"

"Of course," he said immediately.

He slid his hand under the baby's neck and cradled James in the crook of his arm, stood up again. Warm skin to skin, his little head fit snug at Castle's neck, the small body squirming, getting comfortable, getting used to his father's shape.

He sensed Kate still in the chair, not moving. "Kate, you okay?"

Rick glanced down from the baby to meet his wife's gaze, found her amused and adoring, shaking her head at him. "Just really tired. More tired than I expected. Help me up?"

He stood with his son in his arms and studied her a moment; she was wearing leggings and one of her maternity shirts, the fabric loose now around her and slouching down one shoulder. She looked more than ready for bed, her hair a mess around her face from air drying earlier today, and she had even been wearing eyeliner and mascara, making her eyes luminous and smudged in the late hour.

"No woman has the right to be so beautiful," he breathed out.

She blushed, an eyebrow raised at him, and he realized he'd said it out loud, that she was waiting for him to give her a hand and instead he was just standing there like an idiot. He shook his head at himself and shifted James to one arm so he could help Kate.

"If I weren't so tired," she murmured, gripping his forearm. "I'd do something about how sweet that was."

He laughed. "No need. Didn't actually mean to say it." He leaned in and kissed the corner of her eye. "Can you make it upstairs to bed, or should I put him down and carry you?"

"You carry me, Castle, for any reason other than mortal peril, and I will hurt you."

"Whatever, you let me carry you when I'm taking you to bed."

"Different kind of taking me to bed," she said, narrowing her eyes.

Was she sensitive about it - about the weakness, the lack of strength? She'd had a baby six weeks ago; he wasn't expecting her to not be tired. They were both getting up when James needed to be fed, but Kate was the one doing the feeding. Exhaustion was just par for the course right now.

He smiled at her, wriggling his eyebrows. "Piggy-back ride, then. Like we did in Russia, love."

"I will really hurt you. Just let me go slow and I'll make it."

He stopped teasing her, let her move past him and towards the dining room. A lot of the baby's stuff had ended up collected in there, the changing pad and diapers and wipes, pacifiers and blankets, those diaper cloths that were constantly getting ruined. It was a good halfway point between the living room and kitchen, a stopping place just coming down the stairs.

Kate was moving pretty slow, actually. She'd been waiting how long in the kitchen for him? Unwilling to get up or too tired to move. Afraid she'd drop James. He narrowed his eyes and studied her on the stairs, and thank God he did, because halfway up, her foot missed and she pitched sideways.

Castle reached out and caught her easily, drawing her into his chest, holding James in a football carry in the other arm so he wouldn't get crushed. Kate's heart was pounding and he could feel the sweat break out on her neck, her hands damp where she clutched him.

"Shit," she groaned.

"Kate."

"Missed the step. Oh, God. I-"

"Are you okay? This is more than just-"

"No, I'm just - just tired, Castle. I just need to sleep. For longer than a couple hours."

"Hey, I'm up - awake. I'll take him all night. The two of us will hang out in the office. I'll-"

"He'll need to be fed," she sighed. "It'll be fine. I'm okay." And if to prove her point, she pushed away from him and started back up the stairs.

"I'll come get you when he needs you," he answered. He didn't say how much easier this would be if she'd just express the milk and let him feed the baby a warmed-up bottle.

"He'll need me in a couple hours," she murmured. "There's no point."

"No, but if I've got him, then the alarm on the breathing sensor pad thing won't go off every few minutes. You can get at least the full two hours." Castle kept James in the crook of his arm, ready to catch her again, just in case, but she seemed to be focusing all her energy on making it up. "Two hours of sleep, at least. And probably longer - James has been sleeping three and four hours some nights."

At the top of the steps, she gave him a grim little smile. "That does sound nice. Okay. You take him into the office. But first come sit with me for a little while? Until I manage to fall asleep."

"Yeah, babe. We can do that." He followed her down the hall, and once they got to the bedroom, she didn't even pause to take off her make-up or pull up her hair. She crawled straight into bed and collapsed there.

Castle stood with James in his arms and nudged his knee into Kate's thigh.

"Scoot over, beautiful."

She did, slowly, pushing her fists into the bed to shift her body. But the ease of her movement, the loose length of her muscles along her frame made something in him relax. She was truly okay; she was just tired. The monitor kept going off all night whenever James shifted off of the pad, and it jangled them awake, and then she was awake waiting for it to go off, so of course after nineteen days she was tired.

But she was happy, and smiling at him from the nest of the bed, and the exhaustion could be fixed if she could just get some sleep.

He leaned back against the headboard with Kate at his shoulder, and he shifted the baby to his lap so they could both watch James's wide-eyed, observant face.

When Castle glanced over at her, Kate was already asleep.

She found the breast pump in the closet of the baby's room, took it out with a curl of her lip. She didn't want to express breastmilk, but after last night's near-fall down the stairs - what if she hadn't waited for Castle to come get them? what if she'd had James in her arms? - she thought it might be a good idea.

She needed more sleep.

This thing looked like a torture device.

But Castle was the one genetically engineered for this kind of mission - two hours' sleep at a time, four here and there like a tease, back to three, sometimes thirty minutes if the baby needed to be changed. So why not let Castle take the lead?

He had the regimen, after all, and she no longer did. Might as well put the damn injections to good use, right?

Kate sighed and tucked the contraption under her arm, slowly turned for the stairs. If she was going to use this thing, then he was going to help her with it. Torture him a little too. He kept holding out on her, telling her five more weeks, four more weeks, three more weeks, two more weeks and four days.

It was completely unfair to keep reminding her how much she wanted him, to kiss her softly with all that sweet love, to pounce on her when she walked out of the bedroom from putting the baby down for a nap and ravage her neck - and then to stop.

But he was so happy. It was hard to stay mad at him when he went around like an eager little boy. An eager man. Touching things. Giddy and a little rough with his hands and she really liked it, oh, she really liked it, how he made her feel...

She just needed some sleep. Two more weeks? She could knock off a few weeks on the pelvic rest thing; she felt that healthy, except for the sleep. Probably some leftover effects of the supplements she'd taken in her pregnancy, giving her a little extra push in the right direction.

She still felt them, the effects. She wasn't going to mention it to Castle; he'd be furious and it would be an impotent fury - no point to it now. She still woke every morning feeling a little off, like she needed something that she couldn't quite put a name to, craving it deep somewhere.

So she had a little withdrawal going. That's what she was calling it. But she'd promised him she wouldn't - it wasn't a good idea to get started down that road, and Beckett knew she had an addictive personality. Holy fuck, did she. Her father and his drinking was only part of it. Her mother's case, for years, had been that bottle for her, and then Castle had shown up in her life.

Castle was her life. That was her addiction. She still went to therapy because of it, and she wasn't going to start on some damn pill just because she'd wanted to-

Oh, look at that.

Kate paused in the entryway, her eyes arrested on the sight before her. Castle had fallen asleep laid out on the couch, and the baby was asleep on his chest. James's little face was scrunched up against his father's t-shirt, and Castle's wide hand was on his back, holding him in place.

Beautiful.

She swallowed and carefully eased the pump to the entry table, glanced down to look for her phone. It was charging just beside the little elephant that held their keys, and she unplugged it quickly and pulled up the camera.

She took a couple photos of the two of them asleep together, and then she sank to her knees beside the couch and slowly trailed her fingers around James's small, tiny ear. He had that fist up under his chin and his eyes lightly shut, and as she dusted the shell of his ear with her thumb, she saw his face relax, the way it did when he was falling deeper and deeper asleep.

Castle did that too. He went from that surface sleep where any little movement would wake him, the kind of sleep he'd always had in the beginning, that she'd called 'high-alert' sleep. Spy sleep.

Altered DNA sleep? Probably.

Over time, Kate had seen the shift in Castle. She'd held him against her body and watched his face as he slipped down into deep, dreamless sleep. The kind that most people got, the normal kind.

The kind she couldn't find any longer.

Kate sank back on her heels and watched the two of them sleep, grateful someone at least could, grateful that James seemed to transition without problem. She leaned against the couch and put her head against the arm, close to Castle's face, and she brushed her lips over his temple.

He smelled like baby lotion and cool winter woods, a strangely erotic combination.

Sasha padded softly into the living room from the kitchen and came to nose against her shoulder. Kate smiled and turned her head, petted the dog until she laid down at Kate's side.

Whole family, taking a little nap.

Probably a good idea. Too bad she couldn't quite settle.

instead, Kate turned back to her husband and touched the ends of his hair where it flopped over his forehead, brushed it back softly. He didn't stir, already deeply asleep, and she kissed him again, so in love with him.

She'd figure this out. No one ever said having a baby was easy. If sleep was the worst of her problems, they had it pretty good.

Castle held his breath and teased the boy's lips with the bottle. James opened his eyes, giving up his mewling little noises of hunger, and he opened his mouth.

"Whew," Castle whispered. "Just that easy, huh?"

James sucked fiercely from the bottle of warmed breastmilk, and he didn't seem to care that his mother wasn't attached to the other end. He blinked up at Castle, staring into him, content with being fed and held.

Castle eased back in the rocking chair, feeling too big and thick for the little cherry-wood rocker, but James liked the sensation. He glanced up at the bed and saw Kate was still asleep, thank God, her face in the shadows of the room, one of her knees drawn up.

It had been worth the absolute torture of her making him help pump breastmilk to have this moment.

He'd been worried about her, the lack of sleep, but now that he was here with his son in the dead of night, he realized he'd been wanting this too.

The chance to take care of things for both of them. He could feed his son and settle him down again and let his wife sleep. He could do that; it was a simple thing. Except he hadn't been able to - he didn't have the right equipment.

New sensation for him, not having what it took to get the mission accomplished. He hadn't liked that feeling, the helplessness of having to wake her up so James could be fed, or even worse, waking in the middle of the night to silence and realizing he'd missed it entirely and she hadn't even woken him.

At least Kate could sleep now. He was perversely grateful for that almost-fall down the stairs the other night. She'd seen how bad her exhaustion had gotten. And it was mostly at night - during the day she seemed fine. They laughed and played with the baby, they were both entranced with him.

James flicked a finger agains the bottle and it scratched in the silence. Castle looked down at him and smiled, saw those grey eyes looking back at him. He leaned in over the baby and kissed his forehead.

"Hey, there," he murmured. "Dad's not doing such a bad job, is he? With Mommy's help, of course."

James seemed to grin at him from around the bottle. He knew it wasn't really a smile - just gas, that's what all the books and the online stuff said, but it looked like a smile. It felt like a smile.

Kate hadn't talked about it, but Castle had eyes. James was a little more advanced. He'd been born nearly four weeks before his original due date, two weeks before Dennison's revised date, and yet he was healthy and active and blazing through milestones.

But if Kate didn't want to talk about it, then he wouldn't bring it up. What did it matter anyway? "So you can see better than all the other babies. So what?" he whispered. Castle rubbed his thumb over James's skull, feeling the dark hair under his touch. "Not a bad thing. You're already going to have an interesting life with us, kid. Might as well have an edge."

His throat closed up at the innocence of his son in his arms, the open eyes and sucking mouth, the little fist against the bottle. He was wearing a white onesie for pajamas because Kate said he got hot - she'd find him damp with sweat when she got him from the cradle for a feeding. But babies were warm, and Castle himself was hot-natured; it didn't have to mean anything.

It didn't have to mean anything at all.

James's fingers flicked open on the bottle, that smile around the nipple again. Castle smiled back, his chest easing. "You're a good boy, James Beckett. You make it easy on us. You watch the leaves and Sasha and you don't ask for much. You don't cry that much, just those cute little noises. Mommy makes those noises too sometimes. Certain times. Never mind, that's probably not appropriate conversation. Forget I said anything."

But James was grinning at him from around the bottle, and Castle couldn't help grinning back, stroking his fingers over the boy's hair to try and lay it down flat. Little mohawk baby. His fringe of wolf fur, Kate sometimes said.

"Yeah, you're pretty cute," he whispered. "Finish your bottle, Jay."

James kicked his feet and waved that little fist, and Castle grinned wider.

"You like that? Jay? Just kinda came out. James is a good name, but I think a guy needs a nickname like that. One for the people who love him best. Mommy calls me Rick. She was the one to give me that name. It feels special because of that. You mind if we call you Jay sometimes?"

The baby was sucking furiously on the bottle again, so it didn't seem like he had any objections.

Castle felt only a little stupid, talking to his baby in the middle of the night, three in the morning now, actually. Only a little stupid.

Mostly he just felt honored. And proud. And he wanted to put James back to bed and crawl in behind Kate and hold her for a long time. Feel her body against his and protect her sleep. The bottle was nearly done - James had been hungry - and the little fingers were cool at Castle's forearm.

"You done?" he murmured. The baby popped off the bottle with a smacking of his lips, blinking fast in the dim light, looking like he was fighting sleep. So Castle shifted him to his shoulder and softly patted his back, rocking slowly in the chair.

He felt the moment the boy fell asleep, his whole body slumping against his father's shoulder.

Castle had done it. Without help. And Kate had been able to sleep.