Trauma Spy

This was Christmas... in New York. This was a city bathed in Christmas peace, breathing carols into the night. This was City Magnificent.
– Meyer Berger's New York, Meyer Berger

"Are we going to New York?"

"We're in New York, dummy."

Castle thumped James's ear for the insult to his brother and corralled Wyatt away from the ice rink. "We're not going to stay in the city for Christmas, no."

"But we get to be in the city right now," Wyatt said, his almost-six year old face too open and happy to be suspicious. "Just not Kate."

"Not Kate. This is a treat for you, because it's something Kate did when she was your age and she wanted it for you." Castle grabbed the back of Wyatt's hood and kept him from stepping out into a crush of people. "Look alive, Wy. James, how's it coming?"

He got a sharp tug on his peacoat in response and Castle spared the boy a glance before steering Wyatt by the coat towards the popcorn vendor. When they were out of the throngs and in line for hot chocolate, James leaned against Castle's hip and peered past him at the people congregating at Bryant Park.

Castle nudged James's head. "Be glad it's not Rockefeller."

"School is so small compared to this."

No shit. "You went to school at St Joseph here, did you like it? A bit bigger than public school where we are now."

"I liked it!" Wyatt jumped forward in line and spun around. "But at—" He paused, shot a dark look at the people close in line. "At home in our woods, our school? I know everybody."

"That's the difference between city and woods life, boys." Proud of the kid for not naming the school in public, Castle roped him into a quick squeeze. "Which do you like better?"

"Kate likes woods life better," Wyatt said.

"Yes, but what about you?" He wasn't sure she liked it better, she just could handle it better.

"I like both," Wyatt shrugged. "But I like Mom best of all."

A woman turned around, gave Wyatt a beaming, tender smile. "What a sweet young man you are."

Wyatt, ever the charmer, beamed back. "Thank you very much! Do you think that puts me on Santa's good side?"

The woman, in her fifties, likely longing for grandchildren, gave Castle a nominal look asking permission before answering. "I think most definitely."

"Excellent," Wyatt crowed. "Hear that, Santa?" He tilted his face to the sky, this child who knew the truth of Santa's existence. "I want that chicken coop!"

The woman gave Castle a stricken look, an apology on her lips for encouraging the kid.

"Hey, we talked about that. Our wolf might eat the chickens."

"Which is why Santa can create a super deluxe coop with security doors and stuff."

The woman was pale.

Castle was having too much fun to let her off the hook, but the popcorn vendor called out next! and she turned around, more than willing to discontinue the hole she'd dug for herself. He chuckled, bumped Wyatt under the chin for the way he'd been enjoying that, and they waited for their turn.

When they had hot chocolates and pretzels and a bag of popcorn to share, Castle led the boys around the massive decorated tree, and into one of the igloos that dotted the broad deck. Inside their own little igloo made of white PVC and thin plastic sheeting, sitting at a bench with a faux wood stool as a table, the boys were clearly enchanted by the whole scene.

"What's this called again, Dad?"

"Winter Village. They do it every holiday season, free ice skating, hot chocolate, and the shopping."

"Is that all the greenhouses? I guess most people are cold." Wyatt twisted on the plastic bench and peered through the plastic. "This is cool. Hey, they have tons of shopping things."

"We should get Kate something here," James said, sipping at his hot chocolate.

Castle leaned over, rubbed his thumb over the kid's top lip, smudging away the marshmallow mustache. "We should. Very good idea."

"No finger nail polish," Wyatt said, wincing. "She kinda hates it."

"She loves that you thought of her, Wy." Castle leaned back to prevent the kid from over balancing and pitching right through the sheeting-as-winter wonderland igloo ice. "She loves that you saw something purple and you wanted to get it for her."

"Okay, sure, but no finger nail polish."

"Maybe not," he chuckled.

The boys stared through the windows out at the world, and he was glad Kate had hassled him into taking them into the city. The sheer volume of people was exposure these kids didn't get, and while the transition from St Joseph's private school in Manhattan to Jefferson County Elementary had been an adjustment, it wasn't this: the world.

Every ethnicity, every language, all different kinds of families and gender expressions and types of people walked these sidewalks of New York City on any given day. Wyatt was likely riding the wave of all this emotion, and if James had shielded himself to it, he was still observing like a hawk.

Castle had been right to want to give these kids wider opportunities and a greater depth to their experiences. He'd even been right to want more for Kate.

But he'd made a stubborn-headed choice, dragging his family into New York and then leaving them here to chase terrorists and have his covert missions, thinking that Kate needed this place more than she needed his support and presence and stability.

Didn't have to live here to put the world at her feet.

Wyatt turned back to him, beaming. "Yeah, Dad! Let's find Mom the world. That's a better present than finger nail polish."

Kate bounced on her toes to keep warm, regretting the choice of fleece instead of winter coat, her arms pressed against her sides and her hands in her pockets. She could see her breath when it came, a cloud from her numb lips, but she hadn't expected to be waiting so long.

And since she wasn't patient, she crossed over to Fortitude, leaning against the statue of the stately lion that flanked the grand steps of the New York Public Library.

The concrete base was frigid, and she expected the marble of the statue wouldn't be much better, but she could be determined today, if not patient. The Beaux-Arts building behind her would be warm inside, but she didn't want to miss them.

They didn't know she was here.

When she'd nagged Castle about giving the boys an authentic Christmas experience this year, it had come from guilt. He didn't want her to try, he didn't need her to try, and the boys had a name for the part of her that was fraught and damaged and broken: they called her Kate.

So, yeah, okay, maybe she had wanted to be Mom for them at Christmas time.

And for Rick… keeping as far away from the scene of her crime as possible had seemed like the best idea.

But the moment they had walked out the door of their castle in the woods, she had regretted not going with them. Regretted missing out on the long drive in the truck, listening to James's carefully curated playlist of Christmas songs he expected to be such a revelation (and often were, to Castle, whose childhood had almost been her sons' fate). Regretted not checking into the hotel with them and seeing Wyatt see the Rockefeller tree for the first time from his hotel window, how his eyes would light up. Regretted not being the one to lace up Wyatt's rented skates while Castle handled James's faint distress over getting out there on the ice. Regretted not handing James his first city hot dog fresh from the cart or giving Wyatt a push on the swings while he howled like the wolf with excitement.

So she'd begged Colin for a ride to the Syracuse Amtrak and taken the train down to Penn Station. By herself. Not panicking, just excited.

She'd missed them by minutes at the hotel. The concierge had been lovely (and Kate knew how to get what she wanted), and she'd been directed to Winter Village in Bryant Park. And because she knew Castle intended to recreate for the boys some of her unspoiled childhood memories, she waited here, reminding herself to stay calm, and catch them before they went inside the library.

She knew they were close. They'd played enough hide and seek in the woods for Kate to be confident in their proximity, by feeling alone. But she didn't relish tracking them down through a city as big as a world.

Please let Castle take them inside the library. It wasn't really a great place for kids, as it was a research library—Kate herself had gotten a library card in her teens to do work for her mother on cases, but most didn't have one for the special collections—but the walking tour and the architecture and history were impressive. She knew James would love it.

And the lions drew—

She saw them. Her family.

Kate straightened up, hugging her torso as the wind whipped around the statue, no longer protected. She didn't have to call out, didn't have to say a word; her connection to them was so strong.

It was Castle, actually, who lasered in on her first, his eyes as blue as snow, sharp and silent. In the next heartbeat, James and Wyatt were pivoting on their heels and then bolting for her, running up the stairs in those impossibly graceful strides and colliding with her not a foot from Fortitude.

"Mom!" Mom. "You made it. I knew you'd make it."

She cupped the back of each twin's head against her, arms nearly circling their necks in an effort to pull them close. "Hey. Yeah. I… missed you guys." She lifted her eyes to Castle, who stood before her, the distance greater than her reach. "Missed you." It came out a whisper.

Castle strode forward and enveloped all three of them in his arms.

She oofed when she got smacked in the back with more than a few solid objects, realized Castle was laden with shopping bags. "Oh God, no."

"Shut up, Kate," he gruffed. He sounded roughened, doing a poor job of holding it in. "We will always want to get you things."

"Mom, Mom," Wyatt said, squirming between their bodies, accidentally elbowing his brother. "Mom, we should stay here for Christmas."

"What about Colin? And your animals? Don't you want to be with them for Christmas?"

"Yeah, but I can see them the next day."

She opened her mouth to protest, not really sure why—logistics, timing, her instinctive resistance, Colin (who didn't actually want them around for his epic seduction of Sloane this year)—but James reached up and gripped her fleece jacket, pushed himself into her attention.

Which he never did.

"Mom."

She was arrested by the faint hope in his voice. James almost never called her Mom. Not lately.

"James?"

"We want to do Christmas in the city with you. All your places, the good places. Kate's good places. Can we?"

She stared down at him.

Castle cupped her jaw in a hand and rubbed his thumb at the side of her nose. "Don't cry," he murmured. "They love you."

She nodded into the silence, the quiet they'd carved out from the world. She had lost that, somehow, when Castle had moved them into the rented brownstone in Manhattan. She had lost the ability to be still.

But they created it for her, these three.

Peace.

"Yes, okay. We'll spend Christmas in New York."

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