Close Encounters 28

"Wow, it's gorgeous out here," her father said. Jim had come back out of the water, dripping as he grabbed a towel and dried off, and Castle glanced back to where Kate was still in the ocean, floating.

"It is," he said absently, eyes tracing his wife's profile. James dumped sand in his lap suddenly and Castle grunted, looking down at the boy. "Thanks, wolf. Just what I needed."

Jim chuckled and spread the towel over the edge of the blanket they used every night for this, and then he sat down, rubbing a hand over his face. "The heat is remarkable."

"Yeah," Castle murmured, eyes back on Kate, studying. He felt James playing in the sand he'd dumped in Castle's lap, and he had to drag his eyes away from Kate and back to his son. "Hey, kid, want to go cool off? Swim with Mommy?"

James seemed entirely unconcerned, rubbed his hand back and forth in the sand on Castle's thigh.

"All right, let's go," Castle said, dragging James to stand on his feet. The boy rocked forward, catching his balance, and then ran forward, stopping only when Castle didn't immediately follow.

Instead, Castle glanced back to Jim, wondered how to ask this.

"What is it?" her father said, eyes still closed in the sun.

"When did Kate first start walking? As a baby, I mean."

Jim cleared his throat and finally opened his eyes, but he watched James. "She was ten months old. Early."

He nodded, letting out a breath. James had been walking earlier than that, but it wasn't unheard of; it was still okay. Precocious, right?

He got to his feet, dusting the sand off his knees, shaking it from his swim trunks, and then he move towards his son. James lifted both arms to be picked up but Castle only took a hand, one finger for James to wrap his whole hand around.

"No," he said to his son, "you can walk."

James tugged away from Castle, fingers letting go, and he ran forward, rushing for the waves, kicking up wet sand in his joy.

Castle followed, close enough for a rescue, far enough for independence.

When James got to the water, he reached both arms out to the ocean, a bright laugh in the sun that still wouldn't give up the day. His chuckling must have reached Kate, because she began swimming in to them, clean and clear strokes until her feet must have been able to touch.

She walked in the rest of the way, slowly, her eyes on them. Castle reached down and caught James by the arm as a wave tried to take him, and he waited there until Kate joined them.

"Hey there," she said, squatting down to cup James's face in her hands. James pulled his head back and kicked a foot up in the water, splashing them, chuckling, his shy and sly smile peeking out. Kate rubbed her fingers through her his hair, tugging to push his head back a little. "My big bad wolf."

She stood, smiling at him, and Castle took hold of her hips, tugged her close enough to feel the wet slide of her bathing suit, her skin cool from the ocean. They had plans to make, now that Colin Hunt would be going back, but they could wait another sunset.

"He's the big bad wolf?" Castle murmured, narrowing one eye at her.

She laughed a little and tilted in, but then suddenly she had disappeared from his arms, jerking out of his grip and down. For one heartbeat, he thought she had fallen, knocked off her feet by a wave, and then the terrible revelation came - not her, not her, James.

Castle dived after them, but Kate was already there; she had him. She scooped their son out of the water, standing as the waves crested at her stomach, and Castle got to them a second later, a half-second, his arms coming around them both as if he could at all help.

Too late. But not her, not Kate. She had him.

James was choking on water, huddling down close to Kate, gripping the straps of her swimsuit in white fists. "You're okay, you're okay," she was saying, firmly, certainly, cupping the back of his head as he shuddered.

"Is he okay? God, he just - gone. I blinked and - James, Jay, breathe, kiddo, breathe."

"He is," Kate said quickly, nodding her head towards the shore. "He's breathing; he's fine. Show Daddy that you're okay, huh, wolf? Little drowned pup. You're okay."

Castle's heart was still tripping over itself, but Kate was totally calm, guiding them back up to the beach, soothing them both. She wrapped her fingers above his elbow and guided him to the blanket where her father was standing, concerned, but James coughed pathetically and huddled against his mother.

"Thank God for you," Castle croaked, staring at his wife.

She gave him a strange smile, and then she stroked the soaking wet hair out of James's face, rubbing his back. Castle ducked his head to kiss his son's cheek and realized he was gripping James by the neck, as if he couldn't let go. He released the boy to find his hands were shaking.

"Everyone okay?" Jim said, holding up a towel.

"Just fine." Kate took it easily, one arm cradling their son, and Castle helped wrap the boy in the towel, not sure his heart rate was ever going to come back down.

"James," he sighed, watching the boy still sputtering, little coughs that caught at Castle's guts. "James just - I thought I had a hand on him."

"It's okay," Kate said quietly. "It's okay now."

But it might not have been. Fuck, he had-

Kate squeezed his wrist in warning and Castle swallowed hard, fingers lifting to skate down the back of James's head.

She nudged her mouth into the boy. "Hey, hey, no more of that, wolf. It scared you, I know, but this is all fake coughing now. Huh? A little melodramatic." She stroked her fingers over James's wet hair. "Come on, lift up. Show Daddy that you're all fine. Just a little wet, a little scared."

James didn't want to budge, but Kate was shrugging her shoulder under him and he pitifully moved his head, glanced back at Castle.

Oh, cold. Cold. Recrimination in the little boy's eyes, but yeah. It was a little for show, some melodrama swimming in his eyes. Pouting. Tired; it had been a long day.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. Castle ducked in close and kissed the warm but wet neck, and then he blew his lips against the boy's skin until James gasped and giggled. "Poor wolf. But Mommy saved you, didn't she? Our hero."

Kate laughed, and Castle raised his head, smiling at her, his chest easing, unknotting just like that.

She patted his cheek and adjusted the towel over James. "I know we'll miss sunset, but how about we take this tired boy back to the house, get a bath and go to bed?"

"Yeah," he answered. He'd had enough for one day too. "You're right. Night time, James."

Jim Beckett gestured to the blanket and towels scattered at their feet. "I'll collect the rest of this."

"Thanks," Castle said, always willing to give Jim a chance to help. He put a hand to his wife's back and nudged her towards the path. "We'll make dinner as soon as he's had a bath."

"No hurry, really. I'm going to stay out here for a while."

"The bay is calm," Castle said, frowning. "But-"

Jim chuckled. James sounded just like that, Castle realized. But her father was shaking his head. "Ocean safety, I know. You guys go on."

Castle nodded, spared a last look for Jim, and then he followed his wife and son up the winding path to the house.

Kate hummed as she swirled her fingers in the bath. James was so tired he could barely sit up in the inch of water in the tub, but she didn't try to hold on to him. She'd wear herself out if she did, and he recovered fast anyway, if he happened to get a faceful of water.

"James," she called softly, flicking drops into his face. He cackled, his laughter this side of hysterical because he was so tired. "James, ready to get out?"

Instead of whining to stay in the bath longer, instead of scooting away from her questing fingers, James came straight to her, hanging on her shirt as she carefully lifted him over the tub. She'd forgotten to snag the towel before she'd picked him up, and he soaked her shirt as he sank down against her chest.

She didn't care. She already had wet spots from her swimsuit.

Kate grabbed the baby's towel, the one with the wolf head that she pulled down over his eyes, and then she rubbed the ends against his skin, drying him off. Castle came into the master bathroom at that moment, his hands shoved down into a clean pair of khaki shorts, that frown permanently etched between his eyebrows.

Kate jiggled James a little and then stepped into Castle and released the boy against his chest, not bothering to wait and be sure that her husband had him.

He did though, a rush of air as he grabbed James and held him close, but Kate had noticed that Castle had avoided caring for him since the dunk in the ocean.

Swept out with the current. A cold knot in her guts when she remembered feeling the boy dragged past her knees. Damn. Swept out so fast.

She'd dived after him, grabbed him by a foot, pulled him back into her chest and stood even as Castle had reached them. A matter of moments. But then Castle hadn't touched James since. Punishing himself. She wasn't about to let that happen again, all that work of therapy after they'd gotten back from Paris. Hell, no.

She strode out of the master bath, shucking her shirt and searching for clean clothes. Behind her, Castle was talking softly to James as he left the room, murmuring something about dinner. Kate hung her swim suit over the knobs of the French doors that overlooked the cliffside, pulled on underwear and a bra, watching the sunset as she dressed.

Going forward, they would need a fence at the cliff or else a severely strict policy about James running around the island without them. She could easily imagine that when James was older, he'd sneak away for midnight swims with his dog, he'd roam the whole island in the summer, climb down the cliff no matter what they said, exploring.

So make him strong, she thought to herself. Make him smart and strong and they wouldn't have to worry.

Kate walked through the hall, half of which was windows overlooking that gorgeous cliffside view, and she came out into the living room, watched her husband with James. Their son was already strong, walking and running early, surviving some of the worst events of their life together - surviving and thriving.

Laughing in his seat during a car chase.

Thriving. Beautiful smart boy.

"Hey, here's Mommy, look. Mommy will feed you." Castle was smiling at her, James in his arms and a bottle propped between them. James gave her that shy smile and reached down for his bottle, snuggling into his father.

"He wants you," Kate told him, smiling back. "I'll finish dinner - just tell me what to do."

Castle looked like he might protest, but then he glanced at his tired son. "All right. Yes. I'll feed you, Jay. Give me a sec." His eyes came back to her, hesitating, like he didn't know.

They should all be thriving.

All of them.

It hinged on her. She made the difference, and she knew it. She was the one who set their emotional barometer.

"When does Logan arrive?" she asked him, crossing her arms.

Castle looked up from the chair where he was cradling James against his chest, such hope in his eyes. Such hope. "In the morning."

"Good," she said quickly, nodding. "What've I got to do?"

Castle blinked. "Nothing, Kate. Nothing at all. Infusion is just-"

She laughed, soft, a little breathless. "No, love. For dinner. What've I got to do to finish it?"

"Oh, Rick," Kate sighed softly. "Look."

He glanced beside him and saw James had fallen asleep in his highchair. His little cheek was plastered to the tray, already drooling, a fistful of scrambled eggs in one hand. Gone. Kate laughed softly, but she sounded about as tired as the boy tonight.

Castle leaned over and unbuckled the highchair, brushing egg and toast crumbs from the front of his pajamas. They had both agreed that bath would come first tonight, in case James couldn't make it through dinner, but the boy had rallied long enough for eggs and toast, and now Castle was going to put him out of his misery.

"Kate, come help me," he whispered.

She stood and came around the table, and Castle eased his hands under James's head, lifting him from the tray. Kate bent over and got the tray loose from its moorings, pulled it slowly away from James so that he was free. Castle maneuvered a hand under James's thigh and carefully lifted him from the highchair.

Kate brushed eggs from the creases of his pajama pants, sneaking it in before Castle got James against his chest. She kissed the back of the boy's head, smiling in that tired way, her hand hanging on to Castle's arm a moment.

"Night, little pup," she murmured.

"He says good night," Castle answered, carrying James towards the doorway. "Night, Papa."

"Good night, James," her father said, smiling fondly as they left.

Castle headed down the hallway and through the bleeding red light that came in the windows, the sun finally dying out over the water. James's face was bathed in that deep gold, his body heavy and slack and warm against Castle.

He brushed his lips to the top of his son's head and stepped inside his room, carried him to the crib, lowered him down. James didn't even roll over, so heavily asleep was he, and Castle stepped back, hesitating. He spotted elephant on the floor and picked it up, came back to tuck the stuffed animal into the corner of the crib.

"Night is for sleeping," he told the boy, knowing it was in vain, saying it anyway. He stroked his hand down the soft dark hair, and then he stepped away from the crib and left the room.

When he got back to the kitchen, Jim was cleaning up the dishes and Kate was standing uncertainly at the table. Castle touched her hip and she turned, clutched his shirt as she swayed.

"Just hit me," she apologized, the tight smile of exhaustion in the purse of her mouth. "I'm going to bed."

"Yeah. I'll help your dad clean up and then I'll be in."

"You're not tired," she said, something like an accusation in it.

"No. But I can work on the computer. I'm fairly sure I won't wake you tonight."

She chuckled, shaking her head. "No. You won't. Feel free to have a party in our bed tonight. I won't notice."

He lifted an eyebrow and she laughed, leaning in and kissing him lightly, softly.

"A party it is, then, Kate Beckett."

"Rodgers," she corrected, automatically, a reflex now. "The secret life, Rick."

He lowered his mouth to renew the contact of their lips. "Then I'll wake you for my party."

"Please do."

She smiled against his mouth and let go of his arm, drifted away from him, so tired he could see it in every line of her body. Keeping her awake all day had been the only solution he could think of, but it was brutal on his heart.

When she had disappeared down the hallway, he finally moved to help her father clean up after dinner, knowing the man would want to retire soon himself after his trip.

Kate slept, and she didn't wake.

Castle had the tablet and the laptop both in bed with him, the lights out so that it was just the soft blue glow of the screens. She slept curled on her side and didn't even stir.

James didn't wake in the night either, and Kate was down and unmoving, so Castle got his work done. Analytics had never been his favorite, Kate had always made it more interesting, the way they bounced ideas off each other and built method and operations together, weaving as one, but he got it done alone because he had to. The Director was on his case about it.

He had points of ingress into the Collective's data network and he was doing what he could to piece together their movements. Walker wasn't an analyst, strictly speaking, so Castle was going along behind him and checking each point, proving it over again, being certain.

Diane Jolin had been the leader of a fringe group inside the Collective who had wanted to maintain peaceful - for the most part - progress. In other words, no department of defense contracts during their tenure, no blip on the world's covert radar. It was how they'd stayed submerged for so long, skimming along the surface of academia rather than war.

He'd teased out points of contact, scientists and research facilities, and he thought he could do a pretty good trace of Jolin's steps these last few years. He would send teams, or he and Kate would go themselves, wipe out all existent forms of the serum just in case whatever Jolin had been experimenting with had infiltrated other sites.

Once the map was complete, the four locations marked and posted on the roster for the teams to observe and collate data, Castle finally turned off his tablet, shut down his computer. The dying blue light left the room in that deep black of their island's night, moonless, the stars like guideposts from point to point along the water.

But not inside their room. Here it was cocooning and cradling, here the night was keeping Kate in sleep.

He was most assuredly not waking her for his party.

Castle lowered the work to the floor beside the bed, far enough away that he wouldn't forget and step on it in the morning, and then he turned back to her. Her shoulder was smooth in the darkness, faintly grey, and Castle curled his body into an impression of her own, laid his hand on that pearled shoulder.

She didn't even move back into him. He nudged himself carefully forward, held her as if an awkward thing, not wanting to disturb her sleep.

He realized, as he laid there, that he was still listening for their son to call out, listening for Kate's breathing to change - one way or another.

But it was even, and quiet, and consistent. It came, breath after long breath, a steady tempo lulling him down into a similar contentment.

She rubbed her gritty eyes, still a little drugged with sleep. "I'm supposed to call the Director."

Castle sighed and leaned forward, elbows on his knees as he sat on the edge of the mattress. She rolled over in bed and curled her body around his, absorbing his heat.

"Yeah," he said finally. "You do. I'm sorry."

"Probably before Logan gets here, don't you think?"

"Good idea," he sighed. He lifted one arm and cautiously touched the back of her head, petting at her hair. She closed her eyes to feel it, not quite able to stop the humming. All that sleep and she was still tired.

"I'll take James for a swim," Castle said. "Get his feet wet, back on the horse, that kind of thing."

She opened her eyes. "Oh. Good idea. Keep him out of here."

"I won't let him out of my sight this time-"

"He's fine. You're fine, Rick." She didn't know exactly if this was going to be an issue for them, but Castle was taking James out to swim so he must be trying to get past it.

She lifted up in bed and hooked an arm around his shoulder to keep herself there, kissed his cheek. He nudged his nose into her, kissed her back, the briefest of touches, before shaking her loose and standing up. Kate shifted to her knees, put a leg out of the bed and her foot to the floor.

He snagged her by the wrist and pulled her to stand. But he didn't say anything more, simply squeezed her fingers as he let go, heading for the baby's room. He trusted her to know the cover story, trusted her to get this right.

She took up her phone and dialed the CIA.

She was put through to the Director's secretary in seconds, but once there, she was on hold for five minutes. Put in her place, no doubt.

When the muzak clicked off, his voice was stentorious. "Agent Beckett. Finally."

She pulled her ear away from the phone and winced. "Yes, sir. You wished an After Action report from me?"

"I most definitely do, though 'after-action' seems a little generous, considering how long it's been."

She didn't know what to say to that. "Yes, sir."

"And how are your injuries? No stitches pulled, no muscles sprained?"

She did a fast calculation of where she ought to have been after getting 'shot' in Paris. "Stitches are out, of course. Just muscle fatigue and rebuilding my endurance. It's been difficult because of the - chase."

"Yes, let's get right to that. Cut to the chase, so to speak. Diane Jolin, a French operative for years, was in fact an agent for the Collective?"

"I'm not sure agent is the correct term, sir." She rubbed the back of her neck and squeezed, the pressure point clearing the stuffy feeling in her head. "I'd say researcher, for sure. She was primarily medical, biological weapons, had Department of Defense contracts out-"

"Our own Department of Defense?" the Director said. "Why wasn't I made aware of that?"

"We've only just discovered it, sir. We had no prior knowledge. We were able to install a trojan horse on her network right before she came after us. My team is still analyzing that data."

"Your team at the Office in New York."

"Yes, sir," she replied, rubbing two fingers at the bridge of her nose. "They're on top of this, and I'm getting daily updates."

"Jolin. Tell me more."

"We don't have all the pieces yet, but one of our assets inside the Collective came to us with information that Jolin was planning an action on US soil." Roughly. Sort of. At least the Director knew of the Collective, had been given that update after Collective forces had moved on the Congo installation and driven Black underground. There was history here that she could cash in on. "We have very few reliable sources in the Collective, so we took it at face value, grabbed our asset, and ran."

"But she followed."

"Yes, sir. She did. She wanted him - dead or alive."

"And thus the car chase in New York City, the gunfire on Broome Street at your father's residence-"

"Yes, sir. All that."

"And then a massive explosion and fatal car crash in upstate New York that I also had to clean up."

"Yes, sir," she responded. "Jolin had hired a mercenary team at some point in her - we're not entirely sure when. But she'd been looking out for herself. Possible that we'll recover that timeline in the data we're sifting."

She very carefully left out the fact that Jolin - not Beckett - had been shot in Paris, that Jolin had been undergoing experimental treatment (serum injections, most likely), and that Jolin had - in effect - gone crazy. And then had chased after her own son - Colin Hunt - for his betrayal to Black's side.

"It sounds like she went off the fucking reservation, Agent Beckett. Chasing down your asset because he had actionable intelligence is one thing, but these are extreme measures."

"Yes, sir. We're uncertain as to what her motives were. It's possible she thought our asset knew more than he did, but regardless, she was evidently a mole. A plant. She'd been funneling John Black information for years."

"Agent Castle said as much. And you both think that Jolin assumed her cover at the Collective was blown - by your asset?"

"Yes, sir," she answered. "Working theory." It was so messy. But messy felt and sounded like truth, and she had to stay the course.

The Director was silent for a long time, and Beckett knew it was intended to work on her conscience, to make her talk, which meant that the Director didn't entirely buy their cover story. But it was all she had, all she'd give him.

She wouldn't talk.

"All right, Agent Beckett," the Director said finally. "File your report ASAP. I'll email you if I have more questions."

"Yes, sir," she said, trying to sound firm but finished. There was nothing else to say.

"And you make sure Agent Castle calls me with weekly updates. A phone call, you understand? None of that 'asking forgiveness' shit. He better get fucking permission next time."

"Yes, sir," she said, but the Director had already hung up on her.

Well. Shit. That could have been worse.