Christmas Future (part two of three)

They found a bench between an ornate silver and blue tinsel tree and a food vendor, which was good, because they both needed a double espresso to wake themselves up again. She sat with her shoulder wedged against his, her skull resting on the back of the bench, not caring about what grime she was inevitably touching.

"What would we do without coffee," she mumbled. Her own cup, the largest they offered, was cradled against her chest much like she did the baby. It was that precious.

"Die? Kill the kid? I'm punchy, I don't know." He yawned, a sharp sound against all the marble. "It's pretty here."

"Mm, hm," she faintly agreed with her eyes closed.

"It looks like we're inside a whale."

Kate giggled and opened her eyes, sobered a bit with the expanse of white and the myriad cool colors shifting on the soaring architecture. "Or a dinosaur."

"A dinosaur," he sighed. She felt him jostle her, but she couldn't be bothered to sit up straight, just took a more careful sip of her coffee. He made a little noise and she saw him on his phone. "Wow, there's a scathing review in the New York Times."

"Elitist snobs."

"Hey."

"We are too," she reassured him, inhaling the rich aroma of an espresso with enough caffeine to set her on her feet in about seven minutes. Promise, seven more minutes. "What does it say?"

"They call it a stegosaurus, actually. You weren't far off. Oh, the architect envisioned it as a bird lifting from the hand."

She opened her eyes again, watched the light shift and play. "I think I remember seeing pictures of the outside, these are the wings unfolding."

Castle held his phone in front of her face and it was a sad struggle to focus for a moment. Then the image of the Oculus resolved, a white two-petaled flower in concrete bloom. "Oh, I like it." She looked to the interior as it was before them, crowded with holiday shoppers and commuters, a Santa's Workshop where Mrs Claus had disappeared, the food and drink sellers, the icy blue and white theme, snowflakes and stars. "It's kind of nice, in a city like this, to have something that's more appealing than it is functional."

"That is exactly a criticism of the place—they're saying form replaces function."

"They can stuff it," she muttered.

He laughed and fell into a blissful silence. They had a few more hours before Alexis would allow them back home, but so far, maybe she could survive without the kid for a while.

"Hey, the memorial is just over there. And there's an observation deck at the top of One World Trade Center. Tallest in the city, looks like."

She turned her face to him, saw the pretty blue cast to his features as the wall glowed. She realized she might technically be nuzzling his neck like this but she couldn't sit up straight. "No," she sighed. "I don't want to go up there and see the same view those people had on their way back down."

"Jeez, Beckett." He stared at her.

She stirred at that, the caffeine finally beginning to bloom in her bloodstream. "Yeah."

He wound his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. "I wasn't even in the city that day. Sheer fluke I was out. Couldn't get back in for weeks."

"Where were you?"

"I'd taken Alexis Upstate, ostensibly to write. More to get away from Meredith."

"How old was she? Alexis, I mean."

"Seven." He touched his cheek to the top of her head. "I thought you knew this. We've never swapped stories? Don't all New Yorkers wind up talking about that day?"

She fiddled with her coffee lid. "My mom should've been in the North Tower."

"You're kidding."

"It would have been likely, as her law firm had offices in the North Tower. Who didn't have offices somewhere down here?"

"That's horrific to think about."

"I thought about it too much," she admitted, finally sitting up straight. She took a long gulp of hot coffee to chase away that chill. "I tortured myself with it, all that year, but it's pointless, serves no purpose. And my personal tragedy remained... personal. Which also felt terrible at the time."

"Because her name isn't on that memorial outside, not one of the faceless thousands." He got that remote look in his eyes that always came on when he was imagining, working through all sides of a thing, honing it to a story in his mind. That look both thrilled her and alternately infuriated her, because it took him away from her and the realness of whatever thing she was sharing. It made her into fodder.

But it also meant... she was still his muse.

She chose the scowl this time, poked his ribs. "This is a depressing Christmas subject. Move along."

He took a sip of coffee, bobbing his head as if compliant with her wishes. She knew he'd be turning that one over and over in his mind for weeks, but she didn't want to sit in silence and contemplate her mother's inevitable murder. So she poked him a little more viciously this time.

He squeezed her shoulders, twitching away from her jab. "Right, subject change. Here's one: I thought you hated babies."

"Hate is a very strong word."

He smirked. "And yet this might be the first time I haven't seen you with a baby in your arms in four months."

"The first—" She cut herself off, pulled back. "You mean I'm carrying him all the time? No."

"Yes."

"No. I mean. There are plenty of times I'm not the one carrying him. Holding him." Her whole body drew in at the thought of holding Gabriel, like she was naturally conditioned to a certain shape. "No."

"My holding time is usually carrying him from his bed or the changing table to your arms. Which is fair, because you're breastfeeding—"

"My boobs are killing me," she admitted, pressing an arm against her chest to relieve the ache. She'd expressed four bottles, surely that should have been enough. At least they weren't leaking through her shirt; it helped that it was slightly chilled in here.

"But you love this baby."

"Don't be ridiculous," she huffed. "Of course I do. But I shouldn't be carrying him all the time, he'll get spoiled. Oh God, he's already spoiled, isn't he? Castle! How could you let me do that? I've shot us in the foot. No wonder we can't get any sleep."

He chuckled, but there was a hollowness to it. "It can be undone. But. He's so relentless."

"I'm timing it. From now on. Equal time holding that kid. No, better than that, equal time in the carrier thing or the swing or whatever, just not in someone's arms." She growled at Castle as he smirked, because they both knew that would be a miracle. "He just cries so loud and what else am I supposed to do?"

"He has that angry cry down pat. He sounds absolutely enraged."

"He has anger management problems, for sure," she agreed.

Castle laughed, sat forward a bit, elbows on his knees. "You know... I'm kind of enjoying this. Freedom. And I'm the one who loves babies."

She snorted. But it was so peculiar to not have a baby in her arms and then to look over at her partner and he didn't have a baby in his arms either. "We spent a long time baby-free," she admitted. "It does feel... oddly euphoric?"

"I think it might be the nap on the subway," he winced.

She nodded.

"Do you think your mom would have been in her office? Wasn't she always more the type to be out there, investigating, on the streets, looking for—"

"Castle, I swear to God."

"No. Right."

She rubbed her forehead. "I thought of that too. But no. She'd have done it before or after office hours, investigating or interviewing. She'd have been there. It was... Fate. She was fated to die."

"That is so not okay," he muttered.

"It's not," she said. "And I don't like it. But there is just too much that has come from her death. Too many circles, cycles, connections. Intersections." She looked at him. "Too many good things."

"That's not Fate," he hissed.

"It's not? What about us?"

He sat up.

She gestured between them. "You've said, numerous times. We're fated. What we feel, how intensely we connect, you said across all the universes—"

"Fate is one thing. Contingent upon your mother's death is entirely another."

She shrugged, but that hot knot of grief was climbing her throat.

"Just because you have reaped good and beautiful things from the ashes of what were also good and beautiful things does not mean the fire had to happen. It does not mean that you only get a certain amount of good things before they have to be destroyed or else that's it."

She cast him a look that she knew was begging for a lifeline. Damn hormones.

He took her hand and squeezed. "Great suffering produces great love. And great love, as you and I both know, produces some damn great suffering sometimes."

She nodded, desperate to swallow it down.

"The Universe is not setting you up for grief, Kate. And it is not some kind of deal you make in exchange for things too precious to be taken from you except by force. It's just life. And we do our best to bring that great love out of the mess. Jeez, isn't that the whole point of Christmas?"

Her head bobbed, a wash of relief finally reaching her. "Thanks." Her voice sounded raw.

"Hey, what is Gabriel but the very epitome of a fallen angel?" His eyes twinkled as he spoke. "He's a gift from heaven, but he's also a damn terror. And we both know that."

She laughed, took her hand back to swipe at her eyes. "He is a terror. God. He's going to kill me. I'm too damn old for this, Castle."

"Put it on the Murtaugh list. Because we both are, yeah." He squeezed her knee since she was using her hand. "But I wouldn't give him back."

"No," she sighed. Now the relief spun dizzy through her body, crisis averted. "No. But we're not having another. Just telling you now. Maybe you wanted to try for a girl, but you have a girl, and she is amazing, and why wreck things? One is more than enough."

He laughed, leaned in to kiss her temple. "In two years time, when Gabe is no longer a baby and you miss having something in your arms, I'll remind you that you said this."

"Oh, please do. Because I can guarantee I will not miss this." She blinked and stared at the vista before them. "The caffeine has hit me. Let's go... do something. Play in Santa's Workshop or whatever. Stop being morose."

He rose to his feet and took her hand, hauled her up beside him. "No more morose. Come on." And he led her out into the hubbub.

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