Close Encounters 28

Castle could see her in the sunlight, white skirt twined in her legs as she stood at the end of the dock. The sound of the ocean lapping against the pilings covered his approach, but she turned anyway, turned to look at him, and she was smiling. Her hair snaked around her face, and she lifted both hands to push it back, knotting it behind her ears.

He walked down the dock to her and she grinned, lifted her hands out for the baby he carried.

Deja vu rolled through him, fast and fierce, but she was taking James out of his arms and cuddling the boy. "No, JP, you can't swim in that." She laughed and looked at Castle. "He keeps trying to-"

"-reach for the water," Castle finished, mouth dropping open.

"What? Why are you-"

"I just - didn't we tell this story? I told you this story once, about us." He reached out and snagged James's belt loop, kept him from leaning down for the water under the dock. "In Rome."

"After Russia," she murmured, cupping the back of James's skull. Her eyes roved to the island behind him; he could see her tracing the lines of the rolling hill and the birch trees bending to the weight of the wind. "You did. I had thought the dock at the lake, but this is it. You're right." Her lips turned up into a smile that was a little goofy. "Making my dreams come true, super spy."

He grinned, watching her shine in the summer sunlight bouncing across the water. Beautiful, relaxed, the wind snaking her hair and driving it into her eyes so that she kept lifting a hand up from James to curl it behind her ears.

"You are my dream," he answered, got that replete smile for his trouble.

But the sound of the engine cut into their reverie, and Castle stepped past her to the end of the dock, watched their boat coming in. He saw the hailing wave from the prow and waved back, felt Kate at his side and the boy.

He took James again to free her arms, and they both stepped to the edge of the dock and leaned against the smooth, wooden railing. Kate moved to the ropes and dropped her hands there, practically up on her toes in anticipation.

The boat came in under the slow guide of an expert hand, a soft thump of the prow against the bumpers lining the dock. James startled at the nudge and lifted up in Castle's arms, his fists gripping his father's shirt as he looked towards the boat now before them.

The boy made his surprised face and let out a gasp, turned back to Castle as if to share his wonder.

"I know," he whispered to his son. "Amazing, isn't it? Papa came back."

"Dad!" Kate grunted when the rope dropped into her arms but she wound it around the piling, securing it with an expert knot. Castle and James were silent, waiting on the dock while the trawler secured its mooring.

Two men came out on the docking bridge, leaned against the railing, and James perked up, apparently recognizing them. They both waved back, and the man who'd been throwing Kate the ropes came forward to put across the docking plank.

It was actually her father. Reese was the one who'd been piloting, of course, from the pilothouse, and he was heading back inside to come down to them. But Jim Beckett was already moving across the gangway and enveloping Kate in his arms.

"Katie," he said with relish. She hugged him back, a kiss on his cheek before they released at the same time. Jim came now to them, hugging Castle too, taking James into his arms immediately. "James, you've been good for your poor parents, haven't you?"

"Uck!"

Castle blanched but Kate laughed, sliding her arm around his waist as she reached out and tapped James's nose. Their son was burrowing into his grandfather's side with a happy wriggle, but he suddenly stiffened and jerked away, wrinkling his nose.

Jim laughed, clapping the boy's back. "Sorry, son, I smell like fish. I reek of fish, and I know it."

"Fish?" Castle said, sniffing a little. "Yes, whew, yes, you do."

"I wasn't going to say anything," Kate grinned. "But come on. Up to the house. Get you a shower and some lunch? Tell us all about the great wide world."

"She's got cabin fever," Castle explained, leading the way up the dock. "Can you tell?"

"Cabin fever?" Jim gasped. "Kate? Never."

"All right, all right. Joke at my expense. I was going to make you lunch, but not now."

"No, thank you," Jim chuckled. "Let Rick make it instead. Safer that way."

Her father laughed hard when he saw the kitchen table set up in the living room. He unwound his arm from James and rapped his knuckles on the wood. "Not quite where I was expecting it to go."

"Just got it," Castle admitted. "I was excited, so I set it up while Kate was asleep. The interlocking wood - it's just amazing."

"I'm glad you like it," Jim said, lifting his gaze to beam at them. "Fits in with the feel of the place."

"Dad, you've done a really wonderful job. All the furniture - it has character."

"Is that your way of saying it's cheap?" Jim laughed. "I found myself haunting the Goodwill store. But that's because this table. I found it first, and I really wanted it. Stupid, I know. But I had to make sure I had the budget for it."

"You got the beds at Goodwill?" Kate moaned, lifting a hand to her forehead. "Dad. That's so gross."

"No, no," he chuckled. "Not at Goodwill, not that. Mattresses are new. I promise."

"Oh, thank goodness," she muttered.

"All new. I got the room suites a value furniture place, on sale too. I was pretty proud of those." Jim looked so much more animated than the last time Kate had seen him, nearly three weeks ago. Stronger. The sea wind, the expedition to furnish their island home, that had done it.

"Dad, your room is ready, as you know," she said, leaning in to kiss his cheek. He really did smell like fish. "Get a shower, clean clothes, and Rick will make us lunch."

"Ah, good. Looking forward to it." He shifted James from his side, set the boy on the table, standing, his hands holding the boy's. James gave his shy smile, seemingly surprised by the change in venue, glancing between his parents.

Kate wriggled her fingers at him. "You can stand there. No running. But Papa has to go shower."

Her father leaned in and kissed the boy's forehead, rubbing his dark hair so that the kid rocked backwards. James sank down to his haunches, apparently cautious with his balance this high up, and Jim let him go.

"All right, showering now. Be right back, my boy. I have gifts for you when Reese brings everything in off the boat."

"Oh, gifts-" Kate started, but her father had already waved her off and was heading for the back hallway and the separate suite just off the kitchen. She sighed and put her hands on her hips, glanced to Castle. He was no help; he was actually nudging James to stand and prodding him towards the edge of the table.

"Come on. We'll jump."

"Jump," she echoed. "Castle. Maybe that's-" James jumped, and Castle caught him, both of them with delighted grins, exactly the same. "Not safe," she finished lamely. Not safe? Seemed rather too late now after everything.

And look at the way they schemed together, two heads, James's dark hair against Castle's lighter brown, blue eyes to grey. James gripped Castle's chin in one baby hand, fingers flicking over the short beard, squirming when Castle rubbed his face against James's cheek to make him laugh.

A short grunt, a more desperate giggle, and then outright laughing, his old man chuckle, so deeply happy.

Just at that moment, a knock on the door brought Kate out of her upwelling joy, made her turn towards the noise. She went through the short entry and found Reese at the screen door, holding up two massive bags in his hands.

"Oh, Reese, thank you," she sighed, opening up the screen door for him. She took a bag from his hand, surprised at how heavy it was, but then even more so by how easily her muscles locked and took it.

The conditioning program Castle had her on was working then. More than she'd thought.

"Yes, ma'am, Agent Beckett. He's got two more."

"Not just for bringing up the bags," she said swiftly. "For taking care of him, protecting him. Thank you."

"Any time," he said, a nod of his chin. He put the bag carefully down in the entry. "And not just because it's my job. Any time."

She grinned back at him and he seemed to flush, averting his eyes and turning back around for the door. "Let me just - I have two more bags down at the dock."

Kate sat with James in her lap at the kitchen table - Castle had moved it carefully into the dining room that connected the open living room with the open kitchen. Her father was still taking a shower, getting dressed and settled again, and her husband was making them lunch, as he usually did.

Hunt would walk up from the caretaker's cottage any minute now.

James was pushing together a lion puzzle - shapes for eyes and muzzle and mane, not too complicated for a baby only ten months, maybe a little too easy for him though. He kept taking it apart and doing it over again, as if he thought there ought to be more.

Kate smoothed her hand over his hair and put her nose to his head, inhaled softly. He smelled faintly of the lavender scent from the bath the night before, and laid over that was the daily stuff: salt of the ocean, sunlight, the faint impression of playing hard and sweaty. A boy, a baby, her son.

Her restlessness faded in these moments, like someone had pulled the plug on her anxiety and let it drain out of her, slowly, until there was nothing but the warm solid boy in her lap and the love that was as natural and automatic as breathing.

It had never been a choice, falling in love with him. She thought, maybe, it had been a choice with Castle, somewhere back there; she had chosen him. She wasn't sure how, but there'd been plenty of moments since where she'd looked over at him and decided, again, yes, I love you even though-

None of that with her son, and he had none of that with her. He loved her, adored her; he was thrilled to see her when she'd been gone, and he cuddled with her unconditionally when she embraced him. All that love that welled up and overwhelmed her was mirrored in his every movement, as if he couldn't help it either.

She kissed his round little ear and smelled the baby of him and closed her eyes.

Castle was there, nudging her cheek with two fingers as he set a plate before her. She roused and looked up at him, and had no trouble loving him. None. Not today. There were times, there were fights, there were events that pushed and pulled at them, but not today.

"Hunt's coming up the path," he said then, sighing. He looked back at her and she wondered suddenly if it was for him, today. If every day when Hunt came up the path for lunch, Castle had to decide again, yes, I love you even though-

"I love you, Rick," she said quickly, catching his hand before he could move back to the kitchen for the rest of their lunch. She slowed down her words so that he would feel it. "I'm in love with you."

His fingers turned in hers, brought their clasped hands up to skim her jaw. He leaned over and kissed her. "Thank you for that."

He took James out of her lap and stood up again, moving for the high chair even as the side door opened, the alarm chiming to let them know.

Colin was here.

Kate kept her eyes on her husband for as long as she could, and then she stood to greet his brother.

It seemed somehow worse with Jim here to bear witness.

Castle set the places around the new table, and Colin Hunt remarked about its sudden appearance, shook Jim's hand in appreciation for the steady accumulation of furnishings in the caretaker's cottage, and they all sat down.

The fragile look in Kate's eyes remained, grew impossibly more brittle as conversation was laid awkwardly, painstakingly over the course of a simple meal. Croque monsieur and tomato soup, thickened by a few cuts of vegetables they'd had imported from Nantucket, a lunch designed to be easy but to require work, effort, so that the participants didn't have to speak to one another.

Still they tried. They were always trying. It was an uneasy island truce, and Castle could see it all in her eyes, how every nuance and ripple of emotion speared her, every word a rough edge, every meaning dissected and splayed out in her mind's eye, looking for deformities.

Deformities abounded. The tension crippled. She was part of the problem, of course, and Castle knew that too, but it was impossible to have a conversation with her about Colin Hunt without it leading to her misguided attempts to soothe him, reassure him, when he had never needed reassuring.

"How are you, Colin?" her father asked. Which Castle found bitterly hilarious because the question had been asked at every careful lunch, like two members of a reluctant peace accord sizing each other up and probing for weaknesses.

"As can be expected," Hunt released, as he always had. But the casual earnestness of Jim's face must have finally translated to Hunt, because he cleared his throat and shrugged, a faint tinge of pink at his neck. "I'm healed, thank you, Jim. Heading out, now that you're here."

"Heading out?" Kate queried, her voice pitched in that too-flat register that made even James's head come up, staring at her. She saw the boy in the corner of her eyes and turned to him, appeasement washing through her, some of the tension unwinding her, one spiral only, but she moved to shred James's toast for him.

Castle let her, even though James no longer needed his toast cut into small pieces. He just gnawed on it, usually, and it was fine. But Kate was desperate, and it cut him, and he stayed in his seat, trying not to watch her.

"You're leaving," Jim said into the silence. His eyes took in Kate though, took in Castle's measure as well, and he came back to Colin. "I guess you're ready to go."

"I guess," Colin said, shaking his head. He fiddled with his spoon against the bowl and Castle's shoulder came up, though he kept a firm fist around his roiling anger. "I'm sure I've worn out my welcome."

"You haven't," Kate said immediately.

You have, before you even arrived. Castle took a sip of his soup and let the heat of the broth burn his throat. Like napalming a village, wipe it out.

"Now that the trawler is back," Colin said, a fast glance of his eyes at Kate, like a drive-by, leaving her perforated. "I can go. I'll take it to Nantucket and then on to the mainland. Time for me to be useful."

Now even Kate was silent, her hands going still at the baby's highchair tray, her fingers slowly dusting off crumbs. Castle watched them fall, shifted his gaze to James and saw the moment the boy reached out a hand for her and arched his back, longing all over his face.

It made him hurt.

James opened his fingers, pleading wordlessly, and finally Kate came back to herself and saw him too, and she snagged that hand and kissed those sticky fingers, smiling her mommy is fine smile that never fooled anyone.

She was restless and worried, she was exhausted midway through her day, she was refusing another infusion because it took from James, and she needed - she needed to just - not be Kate Beckett for one damn week.

One fucking week. Just sit down and take it and stop going.

But his wife, oh, she was his wife, and if she ever did actually comply, he would know something was truly, deeply wrong. He would know he had lost her, vitally, and it would be the end of his world.

So he went back to his lunch and forced another spoonful of scalding soup down his throat and made smalltalk with a man who had fallen in love with her as well, deeper and deeper the longer he was here, an occurrence Castle had purposefully and intentionally created for that very reason.

If Colin loved her too, he'd never betray her.

And she would be safe.

She knew what he was doing, had done. She knew what her husband had done.

He had set it up so that Colin Hunt had fallen in love with her. Not just attraction, not just a strange spark, but all out.

Kate pressed her hand over her eyes and tried to wash the feeling out of her, the awkward and ill-fitting feeling that this man was being recast in a role he would only suffer for.

For her.

But she didn't stop it. She hadn't stopped it.

She hadn't said a word to Castle to stop it.

If Colin Hunt could slide into the Collective like nothing had happened, if he could become their man on the inside, then she could survive it. This protracted, impossible, deflating feeling that made her unclean, impure, that clung to her skin and made her seem unworthy of the joy she stole out of thin air.

At least lunch was over.

The back door chimed as it opened, and the room took a collective breath; the screen door slammed as Colin Hunt left and it released them all as well.

James fell into her knees and gripped, climbing. She straightened up in the kitchen chair and turned her face to him, eased her hands under his arms to help him into her lap. He cuddled, squirming and wriggling, his corduroy elephant clutched in one hand.

He spoke so little. Names, quiet insistence in the middle of the night. He was as exhausted now as she was, since Castle had woken them at eight. Kate lifted her head to Rick as cleared the table. "A nap?"

"No," he said, shaking his head grimly. "You're up. He's up."

She grit her teeth and touched her forehead to James's, kissed cheeks and nose as he tried to fall closer to her, tried to snuggle in to sleep. "Sorry, Daddy has laid down the law."

"Laid down the law?" her father asked, a little surprised laugh.

Jim would be surprised. How much Castle dictated these days and how she let him, uncertain how not to, unsure where the line was when Colin Hunt prowled the edges of their every interaction.

Or maybe it just seemed that way after lunch. By nightfall, when Colin was a bad taste in the back of her mouth, when the sunset had dazzled them all and they'd stripped in the bay and gone swimming and floated the baby between them, laughing a little breathlessly just because it felt so good to finally be weightless, all this was easier.

And then the day began again.

She'd been mute too long; Castle took over explanation. "She and James have gotten their sleep cycles flipped. They wake at night, sleep all day. We're breaking it."

"We?" she muttered, scowling down into James's face. "What we, huh, Jay? Just you and me suffering over here."

"Believe me, Katie, we're all suffering," her father chuckled.

Castle froze. Kate lifted her eyes and tried to beg with him, wordlessly, tried not to make it worse, but he looked at her and the flinch went violently through him. Like he couldn't stand it.

She swallowed and gathered James against her, working at loose limbs and flopping head and falling feet, trying to get it all together. "We'll head to the bay. Play in the sand. Keep us awake."

"All right," Castle said, turning his back to her.

Kate cast a far-too-disconsolate look after him but then headed for the boy's bedroom to find sunblock, to get started, to be someplace other than here.

Her father caught her before she could make it. His eyes were careful, his hand on her shoulder was light enough she could slip away. "Kate?"

"It's okay," she said tightly. It wasn't okay; she was done. She felt done.

"I can take him to the bay," he said softly. "I've missed him." Her father's eyes cut to Castle and back to her again, but he didn't say it. He had long ago stopped outright telling her what she should do next, and despite the years of alcoholic abandonment that welled between them at moments like this, she desperately wished he would anyway.

Tell me what to do; tell me how to fix it.

Her father's hand lifted from her shoulder and she despaired ever getting back to a place where any of this was easy. Had it been, ever, easy? Had she and her father always turned a blind eye to the hurt and pretended they were amiable relatives forced to be nice to one another?

"Daddy, take him." She shoved James in his direction before ennui strangled her. "Take him down for - a couple hours at least. At least." She felt herself tumbling on a trajectory she didn't understand completely, but she was desperate to get there, to the end of things.

"We'll go up to the trawler," her father said decisively. As if he could see the path she was heading on. "I can show you all over the boat, little wolf. How's that sound?"

James made a mewling noise and canted towards her, but Kate caught his hands and kissed them, pressing his little baby fingers to her lips, realized strangely that she was smiling. "It's okay, James. Go with Papa. I need to - talk to Daddy."

"Don't talk so much," her father blurted out.

She stared at him and he stared back, his cheeks rising pink and her own rising with that old who are you to tell me-

But she cut it off, clean, crushed it to nothing. "Don't talk?"

"Go with your gut, of course," he amended, shrugging and holding James against him, stepping back in the hallway. "But you know - fixes are simple when you're a guy."

She took a breath, eyes sliding past her father to glance at Castle still cleaning up the kitchen. "You'll stay... at the boat for a while?"

"Hell, Katie."

She let out a little laugh and glanced back at her father. "Mom would have-"

"Yes, yes, fine." He shook his head violently, and James giggled and copied him, both of them like dogs shaking off water. Kate bit her bottom lip and came in close to wrap an arm around them, breathing easier for the first time in... weeks.

"He's a guy, yes, but I'm the one who-" Kate grunted and closed her mouth, eyed her father. Oh, to hell with it. "That's how I solve my problems, Dad. Not him."

"You'd be surprised," he got out, not looking at her directly. "Just. All I'm saying. I get the feeling you've been talking too much."

"My therapist would hate you," Kate laughed. God, it felt good to laugh. To release. She had the urge to run to Castle and share it with him, watch me.

"King loves me," her father defended.

King did love him. Well, then, that told her something, too. "Yes, he does. Now clear out, would you? Leave us the house for at least a few hours."

Her father closed a hand around James's ear and pressed the baby's head to his chest. "The things your mother says. Let's get you out of here."

"Oh, Daddy, you're hilarious. He's heard so much worse."

"Stop it, stop it; I'm not listening," her father growled over his shoulder, already heading for the door.